Be the king of the clones you can, you can have a mother ship up in space. Drop me off at Atlantis, man. Look there – red Mars has a face!

Oh, hi, folks. Just reciting a few of Matt’s lyrics in advance of the next performance. Perhaps you recognize the song – a little number called “Volcano Man” from our last album, International House. (You don’t? Well… perhaps you haven’t gotten round to picking up a copy. If so, you are proudly walking with the majority.) Actually, it’s quite apropos of our current circumstances. We have, in effect, lifted off from the bizarro planet Earth (that home of many time zones) thanks to Ben Franklin’s electrical advice, and we have made our way back through the equally strange time wormhole to present-day Neptune, which offers volcanoes very similar to those found in Matt’s strange, strange song. Seems to me this would be the ideal place to film the video for “Volcano Man” (about time we got started on that little project). Not sure I packed the 16mm film camera this time out, but I understand Mitch Macaphee’s cell phone has decent optics. And there’s that little Web cam built in to Marvin (my personal robot assistant), though that’s in kind of a compromising location, frankly. But I digress.

Well, it seems we arrived on Neptune none too soon. In fact, you could say we got here three weeks late. And if you did say such a thing, you would be absolutely right… from the point of view of the promoters who arranged our performances here. I can tell you, when we finally walked through the door, those fuckers were red as a beet and spitting blue fireballs.  Of course, being Neptunians, this is natural for them. But don’t think they weren’t annoyed. I couldn’t help but notice how often they were tapping little text messages into their Neptunian PDA’s. For all I know they’ve been tweeting to the entire outer solar system what a  flaming bunch assholes that Big Green is, and of course they would be well within their rights to do so. I think part of their ire is due to the fact that our sit-in guitarist sFshzenKlyrn has been here entertaining them for the past three weeks. That reportedly consisted of a three-week guitar solo. Yes… one solo.   

Now, I won’t say it was a bad solo. But three weeks, man! What could have possessed the man from Zenon to do such an extended shred? Well, my friends, it’s really quite simple. sFshzenKlyrn is an etheric creature whose existence transcends time and space, already. He has total control over where and when he is doing anything, and how long that anything might take. It’s like shifting an automatic transmission car into overdrive – he just starts to fram and whoosh – for him it’s seconds later when he’s packing up his axe; for you, it’s two weeks from Thursday. Mitch Macaphee, our mad science adviser, tells me that on sFshzenKlyrn’s home planet (Zenon), every day is everybody’s birthday… because, well… it just is. That’s why sFshzenKlyrn is always celebrating like a swabby on his first night back from sea. (Not that I know what that’s like. And anyone who can tell you what it’s like has probably never experienced it.)

Still, it’s kind of an odd way of warming up an audience. And I have to admit, they don’t look all that happy. Maybe we should come in with “Quality Lincoln”.  Hmmmmm….

No, no, Lincoln. You need to pull harder on the string. Hold it up, like this… see? That’s right. That’s… wrong! The storm cloud is to the east, man, to the east!

Hoo, man… You got me at a bad time. Just here with the Big Green posse on this bizarro version of the planet Earth – one on which different historical periods co-exist like folks at a multicultural retreat. Our traveling companion, Abe Lincoln (or is it anti-Lincoln? They both tagged along and I’m having trouble telling them apart), is trying to work out how to fly a kite. He got the idea from fellow prominent historical figure Benjamin Franklin, who arrived on board the Lusitania to participate in a little recreational kite-play here on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. I’m encouraging Lincoln to take in a little slack on that kite line, and he’s just not getting it. Ben Franklin has offered a few helpful tips, but he keeps getting distracted by his Blackberry. (Guy just can’t put it down, for chrissake. Hope he doesn’t drive.) What the hell… you’d think Lincoln would trust me after all we’ve been through together. Sheesh.

I don’t want you to go away thinking we’re just blowing time down here. Actually, it’s probably been about as productive from a musical standpoint as any tour we’ve been on since we began our interstellar barnstorming some ten long years ago. For one thing, it’s easy enough to find a town on this time-challenged planet that hasn’t heard any of our songs, let alone those of Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, and so on. There’s this one village up the road that is stuck in 1957. We can go there, set up, and play a bunch of Elvis Costello numbers, pretend they’re our own, and people eat it up like free pizza. Amazing! And when we introduce Marvin (my personal robot assistant), the crowd goes wild. It’s almost as though they’ve never seen a brass, electrode-encrusted robot before. Seriously, it’s tempting to just stay here and bask in something that at least looks like success, but…. that’s not what we’re about. No, sir… Big Green never takes the easy way out. If we stand for anything, it’s for doing things the hard way. Praise, money, critical acclaim, the love of millions – that’s not for us, man.  Am I right, boys? I SAID, AM I RIGHT??

W.t.f. – they must be over in the next town, soaking up the praise, money and critical acclaim. No matter. I’ve got Lincoln, anti-Lincoln, and the man-sized tuber to help me get our crate back in the air and off this too-congenial-by-half globe. In fact, it’s quite fortunate that Ben Franklin ambled along at this juncture – he with his kite flying, static electricity generating trick. Mitch Macaphee tells me our solar batteries are dead and we need a jump from somebody. However, the automobile is nowhere in evidence here. (I’ve seen oxcarts, chariots, skateboards… no cars).  So here we are, kite in the air, key on the string, hoping for a lightning strike. Futile, you suppose? Perhaps you’re right. Times like these I always turn to the wisdom of brother Matt:

You can if you believe you can, you can
You can surely believe
That you can fly
Over the ocean in blue sky
And you can land
Onto the atoll, on the black sand

Must be true, damnit. It’s on the freaking album.

No WPIX? That’s odd. Okay, then. Try WRVO in upstate New York. Nothing? Well…. that may not mean anything. Still…. you’d think there’d at least be static.

Hello, friends of Big Green. Now, I’d like to be able to tell you that we managed to break out of the strange inter-temporal space warp we zagged our way into a couple of weeks ago. (Has it been a couple of weeks? Bobbing through a time warp, I tend to lose track of time.) And I’d like to be able to tell you that we flew our way over to Neptune for a string of highly successful and lucrative – yes, LUCRATIVE – performances to adoring crowds of seven-legged leviathans from the nether reaches of our solar system. I mean, what band wouldn’t like to be able to tell you that? (Can’t think of a single one.) Alas, it was not the case. Yes, we did emerge from the time warp… but apparently not in the right place at all. (I just hope sFszhenKlyrn is having a good time in our absence, playing those cushy gigs and collecting all that cool, cool, money.  Sonuvabitch.)  

Okay, so we come out of this weird-o space void, right, and we’re someplace that looks kind of familiar: general vicinity of planet Earth. You know, the ‘hood for us Earthlings, right? Only something’s funny…. very funny. No satellites. No space junk. No television signals. This was strange. Another thing, too – we could clearly see the city of Los Angeles from an orbit of 150 miles. That’s totally not right. (Aside from the fact that it was little more than a Spanish mission church with some stables and a well.) Even Marvin (my personal robot assistant) communicated through his aldis lamp light-flashing code something that roughly translates to:  “This is totally freaking me out, man.”

Hey, look… we’ve been in tight spots before, we of Big Green. (And no, I’m not talking about some spandex-wearing 80’s hair-band permutation of the group). We’ve gone back in time, forward in time, even sideways in time. But this is different. I mean, okay… if we saw, say, Genghis Khan signing the Magna Carta (think back to your elementary school history, boys and girls), that would be unnerving enough. However, Genghis Khan riding a moped across the newly-completed intercontinental railroad as he signs the Magna Carta – that’s just wrong in so many ways. (Take that, Hammermill Days graphic arts department, a.k.a. man-sized tuber!) And yet there he is, before our very eyes. How can it be? Well… the nearest we can determine, Mitch Macaphee’s reckless driving has thrown us into the equivalent of a “time blender” – as if the monumental forces of time and space are rendering history itself into a multi-temporal smoothie. Drink deep, friends.

So, we’ll be putting down on this bizarr-o planet Earth to get our bearings. My guess is that we’ll see, oh I don’t know, dinosaurs wrestling with ocean liners as volcanoes spout renaissance paintings. (Take that, Tubey! HA-HA!)

My watch is running …. backwards. Mitch, how about yours? Forward, double speed? Wait a minute. Somebody check the man-sized tuber’s watch. No watch? How does he breathe?

Oh, yeah… hi out there in normal-land. It is I, Joe of Big Green, speaking for the entire enterprise when I say, w.t.f., we are more lost than ever, if such a thing is imaginable. Bad enough our renegade man-sized tuber went on a rampage, reducing our navigational console to a somewhat less than functional state. After that, our mad science advisor Mitch Macaphee decided to take the reins, using a little technological prestidigitation to make the ship go this way and that. Unfortunately, one of his most dramatic “zigs” (or was it a “zag”?) sent us through what can only be described as a hole in the time-space fabric. (Hey, the universe is getting a little long in the tooth, okay? It’s bound to fray around the edges. Just wait until you’re 13.5 billion years old and see how you feel.)

So anyway, we hurtled through a rift of some sort, entering a netherworld where the ordinary laws of time simply do not apply. I’ll give you an example. Five minute eggs? They take 7 minutes. And I mean, even then, the yolk is just barely beginning to set up. Even stranger, I got on the phone to Dell tech support, and was talking to someone in about three minutes. So clearly, time is like an accordion in this place, and it’s not exactly clear how to get from here to planet Neptune. And as you might imagine, any time-space continuum that resembles an accordion is bound to be annoying as hell. The only thing worse would be the banjo dimension, or perhaps … I shudder to suggest it (for in some sphere of hell it will then be real) … a … a bagpipe dimension. OOOHHHHHHHH….. Not a nice place! Well, that’s not where we are, anyway. Narrows it down a little, at least.

Okay, so anyway… how to get to where we’re going? One of the Lincolns (in this netherworld it is unclear which is which) has a somewhat useful suggestion: employ the sextant, and raise the mizzenmast. Of course, Lincoln (or anti-Lincoln) is speaking in the lexicon of a 19th Century railroad lawyer, so some translation is required. When the suggestion was made, Matt dropped his acoustic guitar and motioned to our interpreter, Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who is programmed with an understanding of no less than 73 languages, including 19th Century television-show English.  Well, Marvin chewed on the Lincolnian advice for all of seven minutes, then spit out a little slip of paper that read, “contact sFshzenKlyrn“. That seemed like a capital suggestion (if a somewhat liberal translation), and we asked Mitch to twiddle whatever knobs necessary to get in contact with our perennial extraterrestrial sit-in guitar player from the planet Zenon.

Hey – damned if old sFshzenKlyrn wasn’t on Neptune already, doing a solo gig in our absence. Mother of pearl! You just can’t trust anyone these days.

Well, I guess we should have taken the symptoms a little more seriously. It seems the man-sized tuber has run amok. And there’s nothing more dangerous than a crazed root vegetable.

It’s a little hard to describe the feeling of waking up in the middle of the night (mind you, in space… it’s ALWAYS night) to find your spacecraft rolling end over end. My first thought was that Marvin (my personal robot assistant) had fallen asleep over his pulp novel and slumped over onto the navigational console. No, my friends… it was far worse than this. The man-sized tuber, who we thought was safely tucked away in his recuperative terrarium, had broken free of his restraints and taken his little cart on a joy ride through the control room, smashing delicate instruments with his big, knotty root-fists, and setting Mitch Macaphee’s lab shoes on fire. I dragged myself upstairs to see the unlikely sight of Matt, John, and Mitch wrestling the tuber into a corner and pouring cranberry juice down his gullet. (We’ve been using cranberry juice on the tuber as a natural calming agent. Not scientifically derived, you understand – just randomly chosen.)  

What do you do about a tuber run amok? John had an idea: lock him up with anti-Lincoln and let them fight it out over a game of Battleship. Now, I don’t want to discount this idea… it might just work. The question is, work at what? Hey, look… we’re headed (we hope) towards a string of relatively lucrative gigs on the planet Neptune, and the man-sized tuber has been drafted (in the absence of anyone with the relevant skill sets) into service as our sound man. How the hell are we going to sound without our cruciferous companion twiddling the knobs? I mean, this is desperation time, friends. We may or may not ever find our way out of this interplanetary field of stones, but man god damn, we have to bring that tuber back to his somewhat limited senses! Yes, that is how important our sound is. Oh yes – we are dedicated, people. Hear me say it. LET ME HEAR YOU SAY, “YEAH!!”

Whoops… okay, I wandered a bit. Slipping into the old stage jargon, too. My bad. Anyway, we thought John’s idea was worth a try. So into the aft cabin they went. Matt obligingly set up the Battleship board, and we locked the door behind them. A few hours passed. Not a noise emanated from within the chamber. I thought it prudent to, at least, peek inside and see how they were faring. Well, what I saw was not encouraging. Apparently, Anti-Lincoln had nearly sunk the man-sized tuber’s battleship. Still, he was not getting a rise out of tubey. Tubey was just sitting there like a potted plant (which, of course, he is kind of…. only without the pot). I tried to pull Anti-Lincoln’s attention away from the game, but it was no use. He was deep in the pon far – the “blood fever”. It happens every seven years. (Oh no, wait… that’s the Vulcan mating thing. My apologies. ) I’ll tell you what – for a guy straight out of the antimatter 19th century, he sure does love board games.

All right, maybe I’m making a mountain out of a mole hill. We can get Marvin to mix us. So what if it sounds like ass, right? Actually…. best not answer that. Wait ’til we get to Neptune, then speak.

What the hell, man. Are you sure this is the way to Neptune? I mean, I don’t remember all of these asteroids. For chrissake, I feel like I’m flying through an eighties-vintage arcade video game.

Oh, hi. Glad you decided to check in at this moment. Maybe you could help us with a little navigational problem we seem to be having. Our usually capable mad science advisor Mitch Macaphee seems to have gotten us a little off the beaten path between Saturn and Neptune. I think the explanation is relatively simple – Zenite snuff, helpfully provided by our perpetual sit-in guitarist sFshzenKlyrn. As mentioned previously, Mitch is – while brilliant – not the best space craft pilot even when sober. With a nostril full of that hot stuff from the Small Magellanic Cloud, I doubt he could find his way to the zero-gravity can. Anyway, he appears to have followed the wrong lode star or something on that order, and we are now dodging some of the biggest, lumpiest, nastiest looking asteroids I’ve seen in a couple of weeks, bar none. (We’re using all kinds of exotic evasive maneuvers, like the reverse double-back figure seven and the inverted stroke-six with change back from your twenty. Hey, look ’em up – I can’t explain how they work!)

Okay, so here we are – threading our way between hunks of jagged stone en route to a planet that is probably in another direction entirely. This in the wake of a string of thrashing performances on the big planet, Jupiter, from which we were unceremoniously ejected when it became known that Mitch Macaphee had caused the big impact from a few weeks back. (Some kind of avionics test, I believe – Matt’s talked to him about this kind of thing.) What went down? Well, our rented P.A. system, for one thing. The man-sized tuber had to abandon the mixing console when our Jovian patrons started tossing burning wads of methane gas at him. (Tubey simply isn’t used to the plain-clothes club scene.) Marvin (my personal robot assistant) helped wheel the tuber out of harm’s way, but that didn’t keep the main speaker array from tumbling over into the orchestra pit. As a scholar once said, it blowed up real good. Oh, the horror… the horror.

In any case, the Jupiteranians (or Jovians or whatever the hell) drove us out at the point of a flaming pitchfork, as it were. Mitch’s little avionics experiment produced a titanic ‘splosion, we gather, and that has a tendency to piss folks off. There was screaming and gnashing of teeth, and that’s just amongst the band members. Those extraterrestrials have a whole sockful of different ways to express their anger, many having to do with the emission of high-intensity radiation. We all got out alive, thank whomsoever, though I think the man-sized tuber may have sustained some minor psychological injuries. We may even be talking post traumatic stress disorder. He’s been sitting in front of the only Web-enabled computer in our spacecraft, staring at the e-Bay listing for an enormous zucchini. (He has a kind of longing look in his “eyes” – it worries me, frankly.)

Hey, tubey – forget the zucchini of your dreams for a few minutes and man the navigation console. Tubey! Jesus H. Frankenberry… Is there a vegetable psychiatrist in the house?

Did you call room service? Well, I sure as hell didn’t. And what is this glorp, anyway? It looks like it’s… it’s…. IT’S ALIVE!

Greetings from Titan, a dry alien moon orbiting the planet Saturn. We’re taking a little break out here on what’s described as “The Riviera of the Gas Giants” in all the travel brochures (my ass!) as we wait for the start of a second string of performances on Jupiter. I have to say, the accommodations are less than what we were encouraged to believe. For one thing, the hotel has no oxygen – it’s bring your own here on Titan. That’s probably because of the methane atmosphere – indeed, on this godforsaken rock they use bottled oxygen for blow torches. Freaky turnaround, dude. And the waterskiing! Not at all like the promotional DVD! They were showing black sand beaches and azure blue waters, and what do we find on the actual, non-promotional Titan? Liquid methane pools. Aromatic, to say the least. I am depressed.

Still, a break is a break. And with the grueling schedule mapped out by our corporate overlords at Loathsome Prick records, any break is welcome… even if not as advertised. After our somewhat troubled passage through the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter – Marvin (my personal robot assistant) took the helm for that leg of the trip, god help us – we pulled into the newly energized atmosphere of the solar system’s largest planet, still roiling from the impact of what was supposed to be a comet (but may, in fact, have been a test rocket launched by our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee). Whatever the cause, that fearsome impact has really lit a fire under practically everyone on this airless void of a planet. In fact, I was getting a bit nervous as we waited for our perennial sit-in guitarist from the planet Zenon, sFshzenKlyrn, to arrive – he was running late, and the natives were getting restless. These are hardcore fans we’re talking about on Saturn. Down there, either you get them banging their heads or they start banging yours. Just a little tip from Uncle Joe – no charge.

Anyhow, when sFshzenKlyrn finally got there, we launched right into our heaviest numbers. Nutcracker Suite, Primitive, Why Not Call It George?, and others. Thrashing away, we actually got those shapeless globs of protoplasm bouncing all over the joint. (Indeed, what gig can truly be called successful absent the sight of bouncing globs of protoplasm?) I should say here that the man-sized tuber does deserve some credit for running the sound console during our first set. I should also say that, well, it’s an automated console, pre-programmed by someone more competent than a root vegetable, so his was not a particularly remarkable accomplishment. (He also had some kibitzing from Marvin, who may have thought he was still driving the spacecraft.) What other stand-out memories from that first performance? Well…. John throwing one of his sticks into low orbit. (Gravitational anomaly – happens all the time out here.) And then there was the fruit cup. Very delicious.

Well, got to get back to fighting my breakfast for dear life. Just want to leave you with this brief advisory: If you play Jupiter’s second spot anytime soon, be sure to bring some shin guards. I won’t elaborate… just do it.

One and a half G’s. Holding steady. Watch that panel, Mitch. Watch it… watch it…. Two G’s. Two and a half. Fuel consumption ratio rising. Damn it, Mitch – the panel, man… keep watching!

Oh, hi, reader(s). What’s up? Not so much, what’s up with you? Yep, just another one of those days. You’ve had ’em. Piling all your gear into a space ship, strapping the man-sized tuber into his humidity controlled terrarium, pumping the tank full of highly-explosive fuel, and then hurtling headlong into space… all this before it dawns on you that you need a qualified pilot. Oh, sure… I know we have our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee. Big Green relies on him for just about everything these days… even things that he can’t, well…. do very well… like piloting a spacecraft. What the fuck – we’ve used him before. But I swear to you, five minutes after we clear the gantry, Mitch turns to me and says, “Okay, so you’re taking it from here, right?” And I’m like, WHAT? And he’s like, “OH, YEAH!” And I’m like….

Oh, hell… I’m like nothing. And when it comes to flying spacecraft, I got nothing. So don’t even ask how the rest of our ascent went… don’t even ask. It was shaky, it was blistering, it was loud, mega-loud. Couldn’t even hear myself sweat. We topped out at eleven G’s…. that’s a lot of gravity, kids. That’s like having all of your Facebook friends stand on your sternum at the same time (and I mean all your friends, not all mine… who, while they may have greater average mass, number far less than yours).  After moments of being paper-thin (a new experience for most of us), that’s when the turbulence began. My trajectory was a bit shallow, I’m told, and even worse, there were asteroids all around us. Big, mean looking asteroids, like an interplanetary motorcycle gang, gunning their engines as if to tell us, if you steer that ship…. that achy breaky ship… it might blow up and kill this band.

Now, it’s one thing to have your life threatened in low Earth orbit. It’s quite another to be taunted with Billy Ray Cyrus lyrics. We all have our limit, and I reached it at that moment.  I grabbed the controls and yanked them wildly from side to side, determined to sell our lives dearly in the face of this menace. Nothing happened. I yanked them wildly another time. Still nothing. Dumbfounded, I turned to Marvin (my personal robot assistant), whose metallic features are, well, permanently indicative of dumbfoundedness…. so I turned to my other companions. Apparently they had rigged up some phony controls for my amusement; a “Captain Peachfuzz” bridge, as it were, with pilot controls connected to nothing. (Well, actually, I think they ran the blender and the microwave down in the galley, because dinner was waiting for us when we went below.)

There’s a vote of confidence for you. And a decidedly reality based one, as well. What’s next? A keyboard that’s midi’d into a toaster? We’ll see on Jupiter.

Oxygen supply? Go! Inert substances containers? Check! Highly explosive fuel cells? Gotcha – right over there, on top of that stack of souvenir cigarette lighters.  

Well, I shudder to say it… because it usually ends up not being true… but I really think we’re ready to lift off this time. We’ve got the ship all loaded up. We’ve got anti-Lincoln bailed out of jail and sober as a cowbird. We’ve got our maps unfolded and our compasses oriented true north. We’ve got our tent-pitchin’ gear, our bottles of sterno, our pots and pans, our paper plates. Then there are a stack of pic-a-nic baskets, just in case Yogi drops by. Actually, Mitch Macaphee had ordered Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to load up a couple of cases of Spaghetti and meatballs, but my illustrious brother – no big fan of Chef Boyardee objected. And around here, what Matt says goes. (Unless he complains about my Rice A Roni. Then, fuck ‘im. )

Hey, you know what it’s like any time you go on a long trip. What to take, what to leave behind, right? Well, it’s no different here in Big Green land. I swear, if we had room in our rented, randomly-ventilated spacecraft, we’d take the whole freaking Cheney Hammer Mill with us, lock, stock, and hammer. That would just be indulging our worst impulses, though, and lawd knows, we never, ever, EVER do that. (If I could get anti-Lincoln away from his Jack Daniels long enough, he’d tell you himself.) So we take essentials and as many hangers-on as we can squeeze into the somewhat limited cabin space our interstellar ride affords. This time around, we’ve got a fairly lean passenger list, given the state of the economy and such. (No one can afford to leave their hovel for six weeks… it’s just an economic reality.) But I’d say we have a quorum.

Who’s going? Well, the three Big Green band members, of course. John, Matt, and… and… who’s the other guy? Then there’s our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, and his invention, Marvin. (We need Mitch to keep us on course to perdition.) I sent out invitations to Trevor James Constable and several other tag-alongs from previous tours, but most of those returned unopened, postage due. (Are stamps still 34 cents or did they go up?) Big Zamboola will be staying behind to keep an eye on the mill…. that’s just a practical consideration (he takes up a bit of space). The man-sized tuber has agreed to come along as well, not that he has a whole lot to say about it. We just load him into the terrarium and he’s ready to fly. (I think that’s what they used to call getting “crimped” back in the day.) Of course, we made the mistake of having everyone sign ship’s articles this time out, so now John has taken to calling himself admiral and the rest of us midshipmen. I think we need to talk.

Hey, but all in all, we’re ready to launch. Countdown has begun. Look out Jupiter – we’re going to turn that great red spot green. Just watch us!

I don’t care what the sucker weighs in an alternate universe! I want to know what it weighs right here. Cheese and crackers, do I have to do EVERYTHING myself? (Where’s everybody going? I wasn’t serious…)

Oh, hiya. Didn’t hear you log on. (Usually, I’m pretty good at that.) I was just engaging in a little scientific debate with our mad, mad science adviser, Dr. Mitch Macaphee, Ph.D., D.M.S.A. (that last one stands for “Diplomate of the Mad Science Academy”, and august body located in Madagascar), who claims that our weight ratios are all askew for lift off. You see, this is the problem with mad geniuses… they get this crazy idea, and it may be a really, really good idea in crazy town, but here in NORMAL-ville, it’s bug fuck nuts, okay?  I mean, I happen to know (from watching repeats of Lost in Space over and over again) that the Jupiter 2 space vehicle is very weight sensitive. If our cargo is off by even just a few ounces, we could go spiraling off into deep space, rudderless and alone, waiting for bored television writers to scribble us back to civilization. This was the fate of the Robinsons, as many of you know, on more than one occasion. This will NOT be the fate of Big Green … yet again.

I mean, good God damn it! We’ve gotten lost on at least three (maybe four) of our interstellar tours since 1999. It’s reached the point where Dr. Hump (our previous mad science advisor) won’t even ship out with us anymore… unless we play covers by the Wallflowers. (I’m not doing it, Hump!) And though no one else seems to give a shit, I am trying my damnedest to keep it from happening again. And yet here I have Mitch trying to convince me that weight doesn’t matter, because in an alternate universe that he’s visited recently, there exists an equal and opposite counterbalance to every object in our universe. Ergo, according to Mitch, nothing weighs anything, if you think of the two universes as part of a single, infinitely massive (or not) thing. And I’m like, w.t.f., Mitch… you can go ahead and kiss the equal and opposite doppelganger of my ass in that other universe.

Oh, yeah… I feel a lot better, now. Sure, I know. It’s wrong for me to diss the creator of Marvin (my personal robot assistant), especially when he’s doubling as our spacecraft engineer/mechanic. (In point of fact, Marvin does most of the wrench work, with an assist from Posi-Lincoln.) Downright dangerous, in fact. After all, our nefarious corporate label, Loathsome Prick Records, has chosen to send us on a swing through the terrifying Kuiper comet belt just beyond the orbit of Neptune. I think Matt spoke for all of us when he said, “WHAT THE FUCK? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?” He may have understated the matter slightly. The Kuiper belt is not known for particularly good indie-rock venues, though there are one or two annual events that are relatively well-attended, I’m told. (Not sure who… or what… typically attends them, but no matter.) A whole lot of frozen ammonia out there…. which piques Anti-Lincoln’s interest.

Why, you ask? He’s thinking profit. Even in the crowbar hotel, he plots and schemes. There is no end to his ambitions for self-enrichment. SHUN HIM! SHUN HIM WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT!