None so far, anyway. Fear? I laugh in its face. Danger? Mere amusement. Calamity? She and I are old friends. (I call her Jane.) Certain doom? I spit in your face, you flimsy cardboard sideshow attraction…. What was that? Did you hear a noise?
Welcome back to the traveling sideshow that is Big Green‘s GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE SUMMER TOUR 2006 – a welcome departure from the trials of a tiresome planet Earth, to say the least. I can only speak for our tiny corner of that accursed globe, but even so, there are troubles-a-plenty down there. If you are reading from some extraterrestrial locale, heed this piece of advice – stay away from the one called Earth! Stay AWAY!!! Misfortune awaits you there – just ask Big Zamboola, who was once a planet himself and found it necessary to abandon his own personal gravitational field in order to accommodate the demands of the demonic planet Earth. Christ, you can’t even get a decent egg salad on rye down there without someone shorting you on the half-sour pickle. (Last time, I got a freaking dill spear… out of a jar! Barbarians!)
Okay… enough of my tirade. You’ve come to hear happy news, and I shall not disappoint you. For those of you who were wondering (and I’m sure there are at least one or two), I did ultimately relent and allow Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to take the helm of our J2 space RV and guide us to the mysterious planet Kaztropharius 137b where the vast majority of our records are sold. Good thing, too. It turned out that our witless wandering was being remotely guided by nefarious critters from a nearby dead star (the one known as “Dead Star 14”), who were attempting to steer us into a black hole (or what sFshzenKlyrn would call, “a fun, fun carnival ride!”) I guess until you’ve been crushed to a wafer-thin singularity, you can never know how purely FUN it is. (Try this at home, kids.) Luckily, trusty (or is it “rusty”?) Marvin took the reins and pulled us away from the icy grip of fate just in time. Man-o-man, what a ride.
We were greeted on Kaztropharius 137b with the usual enthusiasm. All the denizens of that mysterious, murky world were flashing their little blue lights at us. This is what passes for applause here, and it can be a bit disconcerting from the prospect of a climate-controlled stage. In fact, the flashing became so furious at one point that Matt nearly dropped his bass guitar and the man-sized tuber (who was doubling as a conga stand) started breaking out in strange blisters. There may 
be radiological factor involved here, I’m not certain. (Note to self: schedule visit to health clinic upon return home…. assuming they’re still accepting no-pays.) The only one who was unaffected was — of course – sFshzenKlyrn, to whom the laws of physics do not in any serious way apply. (Some of you may remember the time, a few years back, when he grew to be ten stories tall. Now there’s a guy who refuses to obey the laws of physics.)
Things went pretty well, though, I must confess. Only headache is the lack of confirmation on our upcoming jobs in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Kind of want to have a signed contract before we cross the void, know what I mean? Poor old Lincoln has been sitting by that FAX machine for the last two weeks, waiting, waiting, waiting for word to come buzzing through. A man of great patience, our man Abe. (My guess is that anti-Lincoln pulled the plug on the FAX machine, but don’t quote me on that.
