NOTES FROM SRI LANKA.
(January '05)
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01/02/05
Wagons Ho!
My aching ass. What time is it? Night time? How can you tell? Here in the trackless void, where darkness is ubiquitous, omnipresent, unyielding. Night, indeed. Has anybody seen my allen wrenches? Thought not. Guess I'll have to use Marvin (my personal robot assistant) as a keyboard stand again tonight.
It's
just a good goddamn thing this is a short tour -- I haven't gotten two
minutes of sleep since my last posting, and with good reason. Interstellar
turbulence, for one. This little ship gets thrown about like the Edmund
Fitzgerald when the winds of November come early, and I don't know about anybody
else on board, but that works like puppy-uppers on me. I've 
even taken to
sneaking a few box-mix flapjacks before lights out, just to calm the nerves a
bit. Now, I know what you're going to say -- that I've taken the first step
towards a serious flapjack dependency, right? Well, lookit....I've been there
before, as some of my readers know, and I don't plan on making the same mistake
again. (Two months in a waffle clinic is enough to cure any flapjack abuser for
life -- trust me on this.) Nothing wrong with taking a little flapjack now and
again...at least until the turbulence is over and we're back on the relatively
firm ground of home. (Just one... just... one....)
Ahem.
How did Titan go? Pretty well, pretty well. As I mentioned earlier, we've had
one or two technical problems, and some tools have gone missing, forcing us to
improvise somewhat on the stage set-up. My A-frame stand is totally useless
without allen wrenches, and you'd think you'd be able to find a hardware store
that's open during the holidays way out here. Not a chance. Even Mitch Macaphee
couldn't come up with a suitable replacement, so Marvin was pressed into
service. He actually works out pretty well as a keyboard stand -- he even has
his own internally generated power supply (though I have to throw an adapter on
my power cord because all of Marvin's outlets are the old-fashioned two-pronged
kind, Mitch having built him out of "vintage" gear from his shop).
Marvin's main shortcoming in this application is that he tends to follow me
wherever I 
go... so when I hit the can between sets, my entire keyboard rig
comes with me. It would be great for dramatic spotlight keyboard solos... if I
ever took any. (Matt has a similar problem with the man-sized tuber, who's been
helping out as an amplifier stand.) It's kind of like having a wireless system.
Only stupider.
Anyway, Titan was about what you'd expect (just think back to the last time you were there -- it hasn't changed one iota, honest). Gorgon's, the club we played last Sunday, was a little hole in the wall joint, trashed nearly as bad as some of those hardcore venues in the northeast, only instead of smelling like beer and piss, it reeked of methane (chief component in Titan's atmosphere). The next place we played -- Medusa's -- was a bit more upscale and cosmopolitan. In fact, there was a party of Zenites there goading sFshzenKlyrn into playing a Hendrix medley. He relented, then felt compelled to incinerate his axe, Monterey Pop Festival-style. Only difference was that he was still framming on the thing while it burned (fire, of course, has no effect on Zenites). It was one of the more, well, illuminating moments of our visit to this great moon of Saturn. (Though I don't think the owner will have us back -- the fire codes on Titan are quite explicit about open flames on a wooden stage, especially when the audience is squirting lighter fluid into the fire to keep it going...)
As
I write this, we are preparing for our New Year's Eve bash, where we will ring
in the new with a bunch of transients on the planet Pluto. That is, if we can
remember how to get there. (I have a little trouble telling Pluto apart from its
moon, Charon....) Perhaps Mitch Macaphee will be kind enough to improvise some
extra space heaters to ward off the brutal Plutonian winter. After New Year's,
we'll take a roundabout journey home, dropping in on some old cronies and
generally making a nuisance out of ourselves. So if you hear a knock in the wee
hours of the morning, stoke up the fire and set out a half-dozen snifters of
your finest brandy.... it could well be those peculiar denizens of Big
Green land darkening your door this holiday. Don't wait up -- we
could be rather late.
(Note to readers: for those of you only interested in my political ravings, start here. For those who only wish to inspect my band-related ravings,...well...you get the drift.)
Anyone
who knows us knows that, for the past five years, we've been using Sri Lanka as
a metaphor for the remoteness of our actual home in upstate New York and for our
general obscurity as a band in the universe of pop music. In as much as that
island nation is so very much in the news this week, I want to express our
sympathy for the victims of that devastating tsunami, in Sri Lanka and elsewhere
around the rim of the Indian Ocean. As of this writing, the death toll is up
around 150,000 and likely to rise, with perhaps 5 million homeless. Parts of
Aceh province in Indonesia have simply been wiped away -- a cruel fate for a
people who have been through so much in recent years. Though it's not something
I do very often on this blog, I want to encourage people to contribute to relief
efforts by supporting one of the international organizations (click
here for links) or 
some locally organized efforts in your community.
Last I looked, Dubya had belatedly upped the U.S. contribution to $350 million,
after the embarrassingly paltry $25 million that had been promised initially.
Considering it took him three days to tear himself away from his Crawford
barbecue to say something about this major catastrophe, I guess that's better
than one might expect. (He's also sending Jeb. As if South Asia hasn't suffered
enough. Now that they're hungry and homeless, maybe he can help disenfranchise
them, as well.)
Of course, over in Mesopotamia, Operation Righteous Tsunami continues to claim lives without respite, a bludgeoning assault on that wounded society to which we devote about $1 billion a week. Our government is like an abusive parent who spends like a sailor on drink and gambling then skimps on the kids and beats them when they complain. Still, even if the dollar spending between Iraq and South Asia were on par, what madness it is to help alleviate one disaster while we are creating another. Even worse, we divert so much of our resources to destruction around the world -- both through military might, as in Iraq and Colombia, and through our economic and political power, at the head of a global trade and finance agenda that victimizes the poor and working class everywhere. In Iraq, the assault is on both fronts; an armed conflict fed by one of the most radical structural adjustment programs ever attempted, though press coverage of this economic war has been almost non-existent (with the notable exception of Naomi Klein and a handful of other journalists). Klein reported recently on a fateful decision by the "Paris Club" of wealthy nations that Iraq must pay back 80% of its foreign debt through an IMF administered "reform" program that will gut the minimal social supports so many Iraqis depend upon for survival and throw another 145,000 workers at state-owned enterprises out on the street. This, my friend, is war at its most vicious.
Economic
strangulation by the wealthy nations is nothing new to the Iraqis. Neither is it
new to the millions affected by last week's tsunami. That wave struck some of
the most impoverished and exploited regions of the world, and as such, briefly
shines a light on how these people live, how little they own, how desperately
vulnerable they are to the elements. The cameras are on them right now -- though
I wonder what would happen if the cameras just stayed on them for more
than the week or two this disaster may be worth to the corporate media machine.
Perhaps Americans and others in the prosperous North might get a glimpse at who
makes their clothes, assembles their DVD players, harvests their coffee, and
laces their athletic shoes. Consumers might actually see the end result of the
seldom-discussed global economic order that places such a low value on the lives
of so many. Perhaps the sympathy generated by this "act of God" may in
some small measure be extended to the various "acts of men" that put
the people of the South on edge.
Happy new year.
luv u,
jp
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01/09/05
Yep-yep.
January. Not too soon to see the fires of home. What's that you say? Fire? No, no... the Cheney Hammer Mill isn't on fire. Whatever gave you that idea. Hell, if it were, you could see it from space...at least in your mind's eye. I meant the fires of home in a metaphorical sense. You know, like... like... hmmm... maybe the place is on fire....
Be
that as it may, we rolled in the New Year on casters last weekend, thrashing
through our songbook in front of an audience of gape-mouthed Plutonians. Aghast
at our mastery (or lack of same)? Not a bit of it. They were frozen solid. In
fact, everything's frozen solid out there at this time of year, the sun a mere
yellow dot in the dark vault of the heavens. The audience we played to on New
Year's Eve might well have been standing there since early November (whoever
they were listening to at the time must have been amazingly good or amazingly
bad, judging by their expressions). My guess is that they won't be released from
their cryogenic slumber until mid-year (our time), when 
Pluto
inches closer to the sun for its brief spring thaw. We were grateful for the
extra space heaters Mitch Macaphee (our mad science advisor) brought along from
Earth, this I can tell you. (Without those, we ourselves would have been frozen
in mid-strum, with the exception of sFshzenKlyrn,
our extraterrestrial guitarist, whose gaseous body can withstand any extreme of
heat or cold.) Two sets, a midnight toast, and it was farewell, Clyde Tombaugh-land... their check will presumably follow us home on the
interplanetary express mail circuit. (Let's hope their assets aren't all frozen,
as well.)
It had occurred to us that we should take the next week or so to drop in on some of our better-liked extraterrestrial cohorts. Of course, that would require some interstellar travel, since most of our friends are on Kaztropharius 137b, Zenon, and other distant worlds yet to be discerned by the Hubble Space Telescope. Mitch Macaphee had some concerns about our main propulsion unit being able to make such journeys, ramshackle collection of spare parts and improvised fixes that it is. Of course, any work on the engine would require a death-defying mid-flight extra-vehicular activity (or "space walk" in the vernacular) of the kind that none of us -- not even the irrepressible John White, Big Green's "first in flight" -- would be willing to undertake without a bellyful of flapjacks and a poke or two of Zenite snuff under our septums. And since both such commodities are in painfully short supply on this cheapseat tour of the satellites, that left only one alternative to the faint of heart: sFshzenKlyrn...or, in the language of our people, "he who needs no air."
Bribing
sFshzenKlyrn
has never been overly difficult. Usually, just a nudge in the direction of a
well-stocked deli refrigerator is all it takes to motivate the "man"
from Zenon. Matt produced one of his overstuffed vegan deli sandwiches and
before it was even halfway down his extraterrestrial gullet, sFshzenKlyrn
was out in the interplanetary ethers burning that sucker off. No,
no.... the problem with our guitar slinging friend has always been focus,
focus. He'd gotten about mid-way through the modification procedure Mitch
Macaphee had assigned to him when the glint of a distant supernova caught his
attention. Now, sFshzenKlyrn is a big fan of
supernovas -- back on Zenon, they're a major attraction, drawing larger and more
enthusiastic audiences than colliding planets and Yanni combined. Before we
could divert him with additional incentives from the ship's galley, he was off
and gone, traveling at inconceivable speed to the far edge of our galaxy where a
particularly engrossing light show was taking place. We were, how you say? Fucked?
With
the job half done and our partially dismantled craft set adrift, what choice was
there but to take a chance on a so-called "space walk?" So I boldly
grabbed another toolkit, bravely clamped it on to Marvin (my personal robot
assistant)'s utility belt, and selflessly wheeled him out into the airlock with
a somewhat lengthy list of handwritten instructions supplied by Mitch. Matt
powered up the two-way radio and handed me the mic. "Marvin..." I
barked, "do you read me?" A whirring sound 
emitted
from the metallic speaker grill, punctuated by a series of meaningless clicks.
"He's ready to go," I declared, and hit the hatch-open button. WILL
Marvin finish the job sFshzenKlyrn
started? WILL we darken the doors of our intergalactic cronies
once again? WILL Robinson, where are you? Check
back next week, when... (yawn)... all will be revealed.
Old Wine. New Bottles. Hey, Big Green fans... (all six of you)... you can now find our 2000 Years To Christmas songs on the new MSN Music download service, courtesy of our distributor The Orchard. We're also on iTunes, eMusic, and a bunch of other mp3 file sharing sites. Hey....now you know. Tell your neighbors. On both sides. Yes, them, too...the ones with the dog.
(Note to readers: for those of you only interested in my political ravings, start here. For those who only wish to inspect my band-related ravings,...well...you get the drift.)
Help
On The Way. I'm not sure, but I believe I've seen more Colin Powell since he
resigned than I did in the previous four years. Every time I open the paper,
look at the TV, or go to the web, it's Powell looking grim; Powell making a
statement; Powell descending from a plane; Powell in a helicopter; Powell
ubiquitous. Enough! NBC News anchor Brian Williams interviewed the soon-to-be-ex
Secretary of State one night this week, using a medical aid tent as a convenient
backdrop. (Beats a gray seamless board with the phrase "We're Helping"
printed a thousand times in camera-ready type.) As nameless sick and injured
visibly received life-giving medical attention courtesy of the US of A, Powell
talked about how the tsunami's destruction of Aceh compared with our
destruction of South Vietnam -- as if that had been some kind of natural
disaster, as well. A couple of days later, I heard a talking head on PBS say how
the tsunami death toll had topped 160,000 -- just a little more than the number
killed by the Hiroshima bomb. So both he and Powell agree that the tsunami is
maybe about as deadly and 
destructive
as our military. I think the Bush administration is missing a real opportunity
here. Why don't they outsource Operation Iraqi Chaos to the tsunami? Get
Rumsfeld on the phone!
Perhaps they think they're being subtle, but the administration is working hard to "make points" with Muslims through their high-profile relief efforts, latching on to the still growing disaster in Indonesia with dreams of counteracting much of the (understandably) negative feeling their policies have generated worldwide. Luckily, Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country, so this presents them with an obvious opportunity to "win hearts and minds," as it were (funny how that always involves some kind of annihilation). There are a few problems with the ploy. For one thing, the rolling disaster in Iraq just keeps getting worse -- that, along with the ongoing dispossession of the Palestinians, is front and center for most Muslims, I'll wager, and is likely to remain so long after the tsunami has receded from the front page.
Another
problem may be our government's desire to cozy up to the maniacal Indonesian
military, which is using this disaster as a cover for continuing their attacks
on Aceh's separatist movement. It is illegal for 
Acehnese
to even speak of independence from Jakarta, let alone agitate for it, and
the Indonesian military is applying the usual iron fist -- the same they've used
in East Timor, Irian Jaya, and elsewhere within their sphere of influence. Our
contribution to this joyful little project? While direct military deliveries to
Jakarta have been restricted due to their horrible human rights record, the U.S.
can now provide helicopters and other very useful items to the Indonesian
military, which will use these gifts of mercy to flatten more Acehnese villages.
And hey -- it just so happens that this is exactly what the administration has
wanted. (It's an ill wind -- or wave -- indeed that blows no one any good.)
Only, I don't know how popular it's going to make us when Aceh's survivors see
those brand new American helicopters bearing down on them.
At least Dubya will be able to point to yet another patch of terra incognita on his Oval Office globe and proudly say, "I wrecked that one, too!"
Take care out there.
luv u,
jp
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01/16/05
Yo, child.
Hmmm... How do you put the batteries in this thing? Whoops, there we go. Thanks, tubey. You're pretty clever for a vegetable...particularly the cruciferous kind. Now I can listen the rest of The American Song Poem Anthology while I wait for the jailer to come round with our gruel. Or maybe I should just keep typing my column into Marvin (my personal robot assistant)'s handy QWERTY keyboard. Maybe...both.
Welcome
back to Notes. I trust you had a safe and fulfilling week of Earthly
activities -- you know, family outings, hiking, picnics, all that stuff that
positive gravity makes possible. We of Big Green spent
a good part of our week in a place where gravity does not venture, starting with
a dramatic space walk by none other than Marvin in an attempt to set our main
propulsion unit to rights. Marvin was a little disoriented by weightlessness; he
seemed to be having trouble finding 
where
the trouble was. I took a shot at giving him verbal directions, but before long
I handed the mic to Mitch Macaphee, who is far more adept at robot management
than I am. Mitch actually got Marvin to do something other than bob like an
idiot in space (which, come to think of it, was what all of us were doing
at that particular juncture) by using a little telemetric control box he carries
around in his hip pocket -- a thing about the size of a TV remote, with a little
steering wheel and a couple of toggles. Pretty soon, Mitch was driving our
automatonic cohort like a radio controlled dune buggy, working his hands through
the entire repair procedure. It was an amazing feet of skill and, how you say,
"techy-neeky".
Now,
I'll be among the first to admit that, while Mitch is a very serious man of mad
science, he also has a goofy streak in him (just follow him to an academic
conference of some kind and you'll see what I mean -- one bonehead laugh after
another). It was this peculiar faculty that prompted him to make Marvin walk
like an (ancient hieroglyphic) Egyptian across the bow of the ship... in plain
view of all of us gathered at the viewing port. Well, I like a joke as well as
the next guy, but seventeen passes was going a bit too far, so I told Mitch to
bring his poor, humiliated invention back inside the ship. Marvin seemed
strangely unaware of what he'd been doing -- a by-product of the telemetric
control system, no doubt. Unfortunately, John had thought to 
capture
Marvin's space dance on his mini DV camera and later amused himself with the
playback, which Marvin regarded most curiously. (I had no idea he was equipped
with so many different sound effects -- that factory whistle was amazing!)
Our
main engine restored to its normal state of disrepair, we then turned our
attention to navigating our mini grand tour of the galaxy, hooking up with some
of the folks that keep Big Green a player on
the interstellar music circuit. It seemed only right to drop in on that frosty
tribe of listeners we've cultivated on the little snowball known as comet Tempel
1, slated to be making its close swing by Earth this coming summer. Mitch chased
the comet for a few thousand miles before bringing the ship in for a flawless
landing just outside the main entrance to the elaborate system of tunnels the
Tempelians had carved into this frozen deep space object they call home. Okay,
now here's the weird part: instead of welcoming us with their usual open arms
(each Tempelian has six of them), they held us at gunpoint and marched us into
the Tempel County Jail, where we spent three nights on hard tack and water
before one of their officers informed us that we had been designated "enemy
combatants" and would be held without trial, counsel, or commissary
privileges until the "state of war" between our two worlds was
settled. (I don't know for sure, but I think maybe these 
Tempelians
have contracted Giuliani Associates to bump up their security apparatus. I found
some bitter mints with Rudy's logo on them under my concrete pillow.)
Talk about misunderstandings! I mean, you're going to laugh when you hear this. THEY think that NASA is sending some kind of KILLER SPACECRAFT up here to blow a hole in Tempel 1 the size of the COLISEUM! Have you ever heard anything so ludicrous? Near as I can figure, their radio telescopes must have picked up some old broadcast of that cheesy sci-fi thriller Deep Impact, in which the Oit tries to blow up a killer comet and hijinx ensue. Anyway, I'm sure we'll get this straightened out by next week... 'cause that NASA thing... that's just, well, silly....right?
(Note to readers: for those of you only interested in my political ravings, start here. For those who only wish to inspect my band-related ravings,...well...you get the drift.)
Fools
Pay. I know you'll agree that America is a much better place to raise your
kids up in now that four high-level people at CBS have been sacked over that
bigger-than-all-outdoors scandal about George W. Bush having not entirely
fulfilled his responsibilities as a safe-as-houses stateside pilot in the
Vietnam era Texas Air National Guard. The 60 Minutes team's sloppy
reporting on what seems, quite frankly, a tiny nuance in Bush's long resume of
preferential treatment somehow merited scrutiny by a blue ribbon panel headed by
former Attorney General Richard Thornburg. Meanwhile, their sloppy reporting on
the run-up to the invasion of Iraq prompted only a few half-hearted mea
culpas and lame rationalizations about Rather's pre-disposition to believing
the president when he says something unbelievable. I mean, what the hell... it's
just a war, right? What's that next to some 
infinitesimal
component of Dubya's reputation? (It took The Daily Show to point out the
irony here. Don't hold your breath waiting for the national news shows to follow
suit -- elementary moral principles are now solely the stuff of comedy.)
I can recall quite clearly the endless succession of ex military commanders trooping across my TV screen in the months before the Iraq invasion (none of whom, incidentally, questioned the wisdom of the action); the 60 Minutes story following the purported exile Iraqi weapons scientist through his bogus tale about a vast underground complex where Saddam Hussein hid his weapons of mass destruction; Dan Rather's amateur orientalist interview of Hussein during which the translation of the Iraqi leader's comments were read by a hired actor copping a nefarious cartoon-like accent straight out of Captain Sinbad; the airing of Pentagon-produced high-tech animation illustrating with bloodless precision the operation of our deadliest weapons systems as they were deployed.... It's a crushing body of evidence that speaks unambiguously of CBS's total lack of skepticism about this critically important foreign policy decision -- a failure they share with other major news organizations. The consequences are plain to see. In fact, the administration announced just this week that the search for WMD's in Iraq has been discontinued so that they can devote more soldiers to fighting the insurgency that began when we invaded to rid...the country...of weapons of ... mass destruction. So it's official: this is now the Catch-22 war, a self-perpetuating fiasco, and our stalwart watchdog media deserves a healthy share of the credit.
Sure,
I know -- they're only doing what comes naturally, being divisions of mega
corporations, ever sensitive to the slightest criticism that might impact
negatively on shareholder value -- very risk averse, as they say. And in spite
of the Right's prophylactic hysteria about liberal bias in all the major news
organizations (Krauthammer chimed in about it this week), the media
conglomerates constitute one more substantially uncritical audience for George
Bush. Think of it -- he's got a cabinet packed with political loyalists. When he
holds a "town meeting" on some major issue like Social Security,
everyone at the event agrees with the policy he's already decided on -- it is,
in fact, the price of admission to these "public" events. And the
major organs of the American press are so intimidated that they'll turn
themselves inside-out to get to the bottom of a story so trivial it should never
have made the news to begin with. No wonder the little bastard thinks he's never
wrong.
Short Leash. Well, it took less than a week for Sharon to put "president" Abbas in the box he made for him -- "Control" your people (i.e. start a Palestinian civil war) or be branded a terrorist, like Arafat. Either way, Sharon will continue to build up the area between the apartheid wall and the Green Line, annexing vast areas of the West Bank with full support from the U.S. This is working.
luv u,
jp
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01/23/05
Dear Geet...
Hope things are going well back home [send help]. We are fine [need blowtorch] and have kept current [call embassy] with all of our accounts. You should [being held prisoner] be receiving a large check [can't talk] from the Plutonians any day now [any day now] I shall [be released]. Keep in touch...
Oh,
it's you. Forgive me -- I was writing a coded message to our financial advisor
back on Earth, Ms. Geet O'Reilly of Montauk, Gaston, Mabinga & O'Reilly
Financial Partners. We only get to send 
one
email a week from our mean little cell deep in the frozen crust of the comet
Tempel 1, where we are being held prisoner, and I was trying to make the most of
that slim opportunity to keep our friends apprised of our predicament. (Think I
was being subtle enough? Tempelians don't tend to read anything in brackets
unless it's written upside-down.) You friends in Big
Green have been declared "enemy combatants" by a world now
apparently under the threat of virtual annihilation at the hands of some crazy
people at NASA, who think the best way to get to know about a comet is to blow a
hole in it a dozen stories deep. (Sounds like they're letting Rumsfeld,
Wolfowitz, and Feith call the shots at the space agency, as well. Wise.) Earth's
calling card, the "Deep Impact" probe, is now well on its way to a
July 4, 2005 rendezvous with this shrimpy little space object...and, well,
unless I can find one of my old "Get Out Of Jail FREE" cards, we may
have a front row seat for the fireworks this year.
It's
a little crowded in here, as you might well imagine -- Matt, John, Mitch
Macaphee and myself, plus Marvin (my personal robot assistant) and the man-sized
tuber, all in one cell. You'd think space was seriously at a premium on Tempel
1, but as far as any of us can tell, we're the only creatures behind bars on the
entire comet. There are plenty of empty cells all around us. I think
they're hoping we'll 
murdelize
each other before they get a chance to finish us off themselves... and they may
be on to something. Jeezus, you think you know people pretty well after spending
weeks cooped up in a relatively small spacecraft with them, but trust me --
share a jail cell with them and the truth comes out by the gallon. Take Mitch
Macaphee, our mad science advisor, and a man of singular habits. I mean, snoring
is one thing, but this guy practically does jumping jacks in his sleep. One
night, he was going through the motions of some complex experiment, somnambulantly
pouring imaginary fluids from vessel to vessel, turning invisible knobs on
generators, all the time muttering to himself. Weird! Maybe he does all his best
theorizing in his sleep, I don't know. What I do know is that it's
annoying as hell... and if he keeps it up, I'm going to KILL, KILL, KILL.....
Sorry.
It's the strain, the pressure of being incarcerated on a condemned world --
makes you kind of hypersensitive. Normally it wouldn't bother me that the
man-sized tuber exudes a musty miasma of decaying plant matter at about two in
the morning every night without fail.. or that Marvin spends half of his evening
on self maintenance tasks, like working machine grease into his joints or
wrenching faulty relays out of his abdominal service cavity.... or that Matt
starts working on the wooden airplane model he's been building in the dark for
the past fifteen years the minute the lights go out.... or that John plays the
bars like a xylophone and scratches grooves in the 
tile
grout with his pen knife. Here's why it wouldn't bother me: Because I
wouldn't know it was happening. Long-time Notes readers will recall,
I've spent time with this crew in bomb shelters, re-education camps, cargo
ships, rent-a-rockets, Winnebagos... you name it. But all of us in one dank jail
cell? That's a first. (And a last, if I can help it.)
Some information officer from the Tempelian central command came by yesterday. While he was handing out dried cassava root (a delicacy) with all six hands, he let it slip that the Tempelians plan to keep us here until "Deep Impact" justifies its name. They also plan to transmit a photo of us back to NASA so as to instigate some kind of hostage negotiation they feel can turn their way. (Obviously these Tempelians have an inflated sense of Big Green's importance, owing perhaps to our well-oiled PR machine). So, listen -- get those guys in Houston on the phone and tell them to call off that killer satellite... then get a message to Geet O'Reilly and tell her to sell all those Tempel 1 Municipal Bonds NOW! And one more thing: GET ME OUTA HERE!
EMusic Review. Our album 2000 Years To Christmas figured prominently in an article by music columnist Ann Powers on the Emusic.com file-sharing site. Check it out!
(Note to readers: for those of you only interested in my political ravings, start here. For those who only wish to inspect my band-related ravings,...well...you get the drift.)
Muttered
Oaths. Not a week for tender stomachs, to be sure. What an amazing cavalcade
of bullshit! First, Condi "Supertanker" Rice's testimony before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, her performance aptly described by Juan Cole
as that of someone who has been in limbo for the last 3 years. She's still
reciting the same lines about how Saddam Hussein was a dire threat to his
neighbors, to Israel, to the U.S., to the world. Earth to Rice: he couldn't even
invade Iraq...and he never would have invaded any other country without
the presumption that we were behind him all the way (which, in fact, we were
with respect to his war against Iran). This is the smoking gun that 
might
have been a mushroom cloud, but that turned out to be a water pistol. And yet still
she clings to the same rationale like a slug to the bottom of a rock. Liar! So,
naturally, she'll be confirmed quite easily, because State is the ideal place
for obedient liars who can safely be ignored when it comes time to actually
formulate policy. That's a task better left to (white) "men" like
Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz (Chris Hitchens' new comic book hero).
Next came -- wait for it! -- Wolfowitz on PBS, who (like Rice) is still trying to breathe life into the dead horse of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. His tack is that the Duelfer report contains evidence of human testing of biological warfare agents by Saddam's evil scientists. Shocking, eh? So what the hell does he call what we're doing in Iraq right now? What is that if not a massive biological experiment on an entire society, in which a broad range of munitions (including depleted uranium shells), forced economic shock therapy, and lack of basic medical and sanitation services have left about 100,000 dead and many more wounded, sick, and desperate? The utter indifference to human suffering of "idealistic" commissars like Wolfowitz is amply demonstrated by their unwillingness even to estimate the number of civilian casualties their great crusade for liberty has produced over the past 22 months (not so long ago, Wolfowitz -- second in command at the Pentagon -- couldn't even get the number of U.S. military deaths straight!) Listening to our own little Doctor Mengele wax sanctimonious about human rights abuses is enough to make me spew. He is one of the chief architects of this disastrous policy. Why the hell does he still have his job?
Of
course, the ultimate nauseum was produced by Junior himself, whose
hallucinogenic second inaugural was so replete with inane platitudes about
"liberty" that corporate news commentators could barely contain
themselves long enough to describe its sheer plastic 
wonderfulness
(man, are they drinking the Kool-Aid...big time). As far as I can determine,
the principal "liberty" Bush values is liberty from responsibility...
not only for himself and his administration (he feels the election was his
"accountability moment" -- unlike most of us, he only faces one such
moment) but for nearly everyone in his new "ownership society."
Clothed in the ornate rhetoric of most inaugurals, Bush's speech was his usual
appeal to people's innate selfishness, calling on Americans to support wars they
needn't fight and won't have to pay for until he's long out of office; to
support a plan to dismantle Social Security in favor of ethereal "private
investment accounts" that will drain the system of money even faster... in
other words, he's asking us to accept the promise of gain without sacrifice. To
their credit, about half of the American people recognize this as the crock that
it truly is, despite the chorus of praise that stretches from one end of the
mass media to the other.
One can only hope that this foundation of dissent -- unprecedented at the start of a second presidential term -- will support a renewed spirit of resistance in the face of the bitter battles that lie ahead. Let's make it so.
luv u,
jp
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01/30/05
Carrumba...
This looks like egg salad. Except I know they don't have eggs up here. Must be tofu and turmeric, or couscous or something. Nothing is as it seems. Even the mock apple pie isn't made from real mock apples... they found a way to fake that, too. If sFshzenKlyrn were here, he could have spotted it in a nanosecond. Then he would have asked for nano-seconds, anyway. (Careful... the carrot sticks may be wired. Oldest trick in the book.)
Well,
friends, after two weeks of what will have to pass for Tempelian hospitality,
I'd say we know our way around the Comet Tempel 1 and its inhabitants' justice
system just a little bit better than before. As you know, we're being held as
enemy combatants in anticipation of the somewhat violent arrival of NASA's
"Deep Impact" probe - a spacecraft designed to blast a hole in Tempel
1 big enough to fit the Coliseum (yes, that Coliseum, the old one... as
if anybody would bother carrying it all the way up here). The Tempelians are
clinging to the dubious hope that our fellow Earthlings will call off the
mission to see us released. (They also hope to make a few bucks off internet
sales of some T-shirts they made -- I think they may have us confused with
Nelson Mandela, quite frankly... but to be fair, from a distance of 300 million
miles, it is a bit hard to tell us apart). In the meantime, they are
applying what they perceive to be the new standard for incarceration set by our
planet's dominant military culture, that of the old U. S. of A., including a
number of recently disclosed interrogation techniques. Only I think they may
have their photographs mixed up...either that or they've got a lot to learn
about abusing people.
For
one thing, I think they've got "water boarding" confused with surfing.
No, they don't have anything like ocean frontage up here... but they have been
making us watch beach bum movies from the 1960s (they somehow got their hands on
an old Magnavox console TV and what looks like a schoolroom VCR with the words
"AV DEPARTMENT" stenciled in white on its side, and a bunch of
scratchy Frankie Avalon VHS tapes). I suppose if we're here for very much
longer, I might crack under the pressure of bad acting and worse singing,
but it will take a while. They also seem to think they can force confessions out
of us by feeding us copious amounts of nourishing food. I mentioned the faux egg
salad -- that's just part of the "awesome" spread they place before us
every day around noon. Again -- 
perhaps
they've got photos of food deprivation mixed up with somebody's holiday dinner
shots; one way or the other, they've got the wrong end of the stick. Matt's been
trying to keep it coming, giving them little nuggets of meaningless information
so they won't turn to a different tack. (Fact is, I think the man-sized tuber is
beginning to crack. Luckily, we saw the wisdom in keeping certain things from
him...)
Okay,
I know what you're thinking. Good food, entertainment, no responsibilities...
sounds like a fucking vacation, right? I suppose you figure that's why we
haven't attempted some kind of dramatic escape, am I correct? Oh, you are SO
wrong. Why, we've had our mad scientist working on the problem practically since
our first day of vaca... I mean, incarceration. Actually, Mitch Macaphee has
needed little prodding to get him to devise some way out of this jail cell --
he's missing one of the hottest scientific conferences on Earth right about now,
and he hopes to be able to catch the last few days of it. To that end, he has
been re-routing a few wires in Marvin (my personal robot assistant) so that the
automaton will, on voice command, start emitting powerful M-Rays... powerful
enough to jimmy the magnetic lock on our cell door. Well, that's the theory, at
any rate. But old Mitch is bound and determined to get to Stockholm before all
the smoked salmon is gone, so I'm confident he'll keep trying. I just hope he
doesn't let his haste overcome his better judgment. The last time he messed
around with M-Rays, he got a bit overexposed and, well, the experience left him
ugly so. So ugly that his lab assistant didn't even 
recognize
him. (Mitch goes through a lot of assistants, as you might well imagine.) And
since his health insurance provider has dropped reconstructive surgery from his
policy, it would be unwise for him to make a similar error today.
Whoops -- time for our recreation period. Basically, they just put us in a big squirrel cage and let us walk for half an hour (the man-sized tuber just kind of tumbles). The Tempelians all gather around and gawk at us -- they may even charge admission, I don't know for sure. It's kind of creepy, truth be known, but so far they haven't thrown anything at us, so I guess I shouldn't complain too loudly. I just hope Mitch can get that door open before my cholesterol goes through the freaking roof. (Maybe THAT'S the plan!) Jail break next week. Be there. Aloha.
(Note to readers: for those of you only interested in my political ravings, start here. For those who only wish to inspect my band-related ravings,...well...you get the drift.)
God's
Swill. Welcome to the Rice era of global diplomatic imperialism. Be careful
where you sit -- underneath any of these deck chairs may be the makings of an
atom bomb... one big enough to blow the Titanic sky high before we even smell
the inevitable ice berg. It was an easy confirmation for Condi, much as
predicted -- as Mark Weisbrot observed recently, we live in a
"post-factual" world now, so Secretary Rice's somewhat economical use
of the truth could hardly weigh against her, what with a global war on terrorism
on and all. Her husb... I mean, the president has the utmost faith in
her, and that's all that should matter to any red-blooded, God-lovin', pistol-totin',
baccy-chewin', FoxNews-watchin', fag-baitin', pro-life-rallyin', Aaaay-merican. What's a little lie or two next to the will of Jeebus as spoken
by his most powerful self-appointed spokesmoron, the Presi-dunce? 
Dubya
needs a loyal soldier to carry forward the diplomatic (i.e. public relations)
front in his glorious crusade for freedom (i.e. global domination).
Think that's a metaphor? Think again. Having run like a thief on less than a plurality from the 2000 election, this crew considers their bare majority in 2004 a virtual blank check for one of the most activist and arrogant foreign policies in recent history. All this God and "freedom" blarney is just the rhetorical foundation for the next series of military adventures, starting most likely with Iran perhaps as early as this summer -- perhaps sooner, if events permit. Don't think for a moment that these true believers will be deterred by their catastrophic failure in Iraq -- performance and accountability mean nothing to them. That's why they hang their rationales on all this bone-headed religious blather, like Dubya's beloved line about freedom being not America's gift to the world, but the Almighty's gift to humanity. Balls! God doesn't "give" anyone freedom any more than s/he gives us three rooms and a bath or 1,500 calories a day -- these are things we must acquire ourselves. You can, if you please, construe that process of acquisition as somehow obliquely reflecting the will of your God, but that is a wholly abstract philosophical consideration, akin to pondering how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. If humankind were to rely solely on God's gifts, life would be short and miserable indeed.
This
is why the world looks at us in horror; why Bush's second inaugural has raised
hackles in every corner of the globe. They all see a mad bomber, now armed with
the narrow approval of his people. (I can almost hear the sound of munitions
plants kicking into overdrive all over the world.) This is the face we present
to the world -- one that provokes terror, distrust, hatred. Like Cheney in his
parka at the Auschwitz commemoration, we're the loudmouth pillock of the family,
the dim-witted brother-in-law who doesn't know when to leave, always putting his
three cents in, always making a scene. There's a strain of American society that
values arrogance and harbors contempt for the world beyond our borders -- very
few of us have any experience of the world, any knowledge of its peoples or
history (let alone our own history). The Bushites play to that tendency at home,
while pursuing an aggressive program abroad that is anything but isolationist.
It's a lethal combination.
So look out, world. Just remember, when you see those attack helicopters coming in low, it's God's will.
luv u,
jp