Interstellar Tour Log: April 3, 2014
On the surface of Dwarf Planet 2012 VP.
Still out here in Ort Cloud land, taking a bit of a break before heading back home to see what condition the Cheney Hammer Mill is in since our departure some ten weeks ago. (Lawn probably needs cutting.) While I’m reclining in a hammock, waiting for Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to deliver my next High Ball on a silver tray, this seems like a good time to tick through some of the highlights on our brand new March …. I mean, April THIS IS BIG GREEN podcast. Or is it March? Well … no matter.
Anywho, here it is:
Ned Trek XVII – The Romney Syndrome
Who would have guessed that we would have made it to the 17th episode of this monthly audio mash-up of classic Star Trek, Mr. Edd, and the 2012 Republican National Convention? Not I. Even so, this episode (introduced as always by Lee Majors) is a riff on the classic series episode, the Paradise Syndrome – Captain Romney bumps his head in a stone outhouse on an alien world, loses his memory, and goes all native CEO on the cigar-store Native American stereotypes who inhabit this television paradise. Oh, and the Nixon android has a zero-gravity tryst with an automated mining vessel. (You … kind of have to listen to it. )
This month’s Ned Trek features no less than six new Big Green songs, written to move the ponderous plot along. They include:
My Masterpiece
Richard Pearle’s neocon ode to the merits of his greatest work, the Iraq war.
Space is the Devil
Chief Engineer Welsh sings this sea chanty to caution Mr. Ned against engaging the warp drive engines. A stunning performance. (I’m still stunned. Bring me another high ball!)
I Place You First
This is the sick little song a love-struck Nixon android sings to the Halliburton mining vessel before he, well … docks with it. Androids will be androids.
This Horse’s Sense
Mr. Ned laments the stupidity of his human comrades in his signature style.
Happy and Peaceful Here
Romney’s song about finding his way through his idyllic life on the surface of Nobodelcarus, where he has become Chief Financial Officer in his amnesiac state.
Lies from the Pit of Hell
Doc Coburn’s rocker about his personal hero, Congressman Paul Broun of Georgia (and of the Middle Ages).
That’s the show. Hope you enjoy it as much as I’m enjoying this hammock.
Rocky landing. We weren’t here five minutes before someone got the idea of sending Marvin out there to plant the Big Green flag – the one friend of the band Leif Zurmuhlen made for us back in the day. Hey, well … it’s a little icy out there, so Marvin took a couple of tumbles before finding a spot flat enough to accommodate a flag on a stick. There’s no atmosphere to speak of, so we asked him to hold the free end of the flag while we snapped a picture or two. When we get those back from the pharmacy on Neptune, we’ll share them with you? (Yes, another episode of Luddites in space.)
The fact that most of these strange worlds have been featured in American movies and television shows from the 1950s and 60s is little help when you’re trying to determine the precise composition (and toxicity level) of a greenish atmosphere. Sure, you can have that kind of trouble back home, in South Carolina or West Virginia … but at least down there you have your pick of mad scientists. Up here, we’ve got Marvin (my personal robot assistant) and his converted wall barometer.
not an astrophysicist, but I do have some experience with market research, so I’m guessing that this was a phone survey, and that our old friend Waleed Abdulati, NASA’s head scientist, simply hired a phone bank and had them dial distant star systems at random and ask, “How many in your solar system?” “Do you have a companion star or dark matter object?” “Is s/he working?”)
Right, if you’re just joining us, Big Green is furiously working its way through the list of 715 new planets NASA recently put out, looking for halfway decent venues. We’re not picky, you know. It’s not like we need a proper dressing room with a row of lightbulbs arrayed above a long mirror and chilled Champagne in a bucket. Hell, we’ll settle for an unlocked fire door on one side of the stage. (I can just about hear some indie musician out there saying, “Big Green needs stages to perform on? What a bunch of prima donnas!”)
Well, the good news for our Interstellar Tour is that we’ve got a whole boatload of possibilities for new venues. NASA just discovered 715 new planets, and scientists say that the law of averages dictates at least 3% of them must have indie music venues. Even better, our sit-in guitarist from Zenon, sFshzenKlyrn, has been to at least half of these newbie planetoids, and has established relationships with the relevant booking agents. He’s out ahead of us now, greasing the wheels a bit. I was hoping he’d take Marvin (my personal robot assistant) with him, but alas … sFshzenKlyrn flies without a spaceship and Marvin gets vertigo easily. Useless bag of bolts.
Well, after several days of drifting aimlessly, we appear to have settled into orbit around Jupiter, the bull moose of the outer solar system. Our sit-in guitarist from the planet Zenon, sFhzenKlyrn, has volunteered to visit the surface of the gas giant to see if there are any performance opportunities, since we’re in the neighborhood. I’d go myself, but alas, I require oxygen and Earthlike temperatures, to say nothing of solid ground. Sure, we’ve played the Great Red Spot before, but that was back in the day. (It’s probably a gas station now, like most of the clubs we played back then.)
“all of the above” approach to energy production and development … so I guess that means everything above the Earth’s surface is up for grabs.) They’re apparently fracking the place. I know, because Anti-Lincoln got a job working the bilge pumps. (They also let him handle burning off the gas leaks. He has a lot of practice with that.)
Song: Paradise
Yes, you read that right. We got a bull’s eye on Ceres, the big brass buckle of the asteroid belt. I’m beginning to understand what’s happening here. Our rented space vehicle has a very primitive voice-activated computer guidance system, a bit like the blue tooth set in my car. When I tell my blue tooth, “call Oscar,” it starts dialing the number of someone in Madagascar. Well, we told our guidance system to take us to Sirius, and it took us to freaking Ceres. Christ on a bike!