Bit more to the left, Zamby. Bit more. Bit more. Nope, nope, that’s it. I said that’s it. Whoa, damn it! Whoa, you mother fucker, whoa!

Oh, hello. Didn’t see you there. Big Zamboola (or “Zamby”, as I’ve been calling him lately) was just helping me with at little household chore, to wit, moving the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill a few paces to the left. Yes, I did say household chore — Zamboola holds the house and I tell him where to plunk it. (Insert derisive laughter here.) Why move the august mill from one place to another very similar place? Well, it’s complicated, as you might expect. It’s a topic that twists and snakes around back on itself, ties itself in knots, squealing all the way, like most everything in the life of Big Green. Not sure you want to get into it on such a lovely day as this. Weather sucks where you are? Well, then — let’s have at it… or as my illustrious brother used to say, pass the fucking potatoes.

You know how most musical recordings employ a range of sound effects, some of which, say, mimic an echo or the reverberation of a primitive cave? Haven’t noticed? Oh, yes — it’s a fact. You may be surprised to learn that most of that stuff is done by sophisticated machines, powered by — are you sitting down? — a little thing called “computer technology”. Don’t think it will catch on, frankly, though Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is all over that shit like a cheap robot. I digress… one major drawback of this amazing aural effects technology is that it costs money, and as you know, money does not grow on trees around here. No, they don’t call us “Big Green” for the contents of our wallets, my friends. Anyway, we have long since resigned ourselves to using the old ways of recording — time-honored techniques for adding verve and dimension to our records. (For definitions of “verve” and “dimension”, check your local library or record shop.)

It may interest you to know, for instance, that the cavernous reverb on Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer” was achieved by planting a speaker at one end of a Manhattan elevator shaft and a microphone at the other, so the story goes. And nearly every recording fanatic has seen photos of the big reverb chambers at Abbey Road studios. Well, okay… so what do you suppose we use to get the same effect, eh? Got a great big brick building here. Got one next door. What the fuck — Johnny White said, “Why the hell don’t we just bounce the sound around between ’em?” and I had no good answer for him. So we set it up, but I’ll be god-damned, the echo was just too damn short. What to do? “Well, that’s easy,” said Mitch Macaphee, “make the space between the buildings bigger… only not too much bigger.” Then what we needed was a sky hook with a whole lot of heft — that’s Big Zamboola all over. Only trouble is, his sense of direction is not all that it should be.

Yeah, well — nothing’s as easy as it seems. We may just have a little extra reverb on this record. Listen for it, friends. Maybe we’ll just call it “Generation Reverb”. I’m open to suggestions. Whoops… excuse me. Drop it, Zamby! Drop it now!

Hasta la vista, whatever that means. Let’s see you daaaaance, sucka! No? Okay, how about, put your hands together! All the girls. Now all the guys. Now just the left side of the room. Now the right! Okay, now just the one-armed Methodists with gingivitis. Great, great….

Oh, hello. Didn’t expect visitors on such a stormy day. I’m just running through the list of stuff we should try to do at our CD release party, whenever that may come about. Gotta’ get the crowd going, don’t you? Don’t you? Perhaps I’m wrong. Well, it seemed like a good idea. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is lending a prehensile claw. Yes, that’s right — I said Marvin. He is back, and so is Big Zamboola. That bloody ludicrous experiment in atmospheric science is well and truly finished, so they were able to make a soft landing in the courtyard of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill (our home bitter home). Great to have that strong right arm back again, I can tell you. (Though Marvin’s left arm was always the stronger one, so I may have misspoken.)

What was the outcome of Mitch’s grand experiment, you ask? The experiment that deprived us of essential personnel during one of the most critical points in the production of our new album? The experiment that necessitated gross extensions of our own menial responsibilities in and around the mill? That experiment??? Well, let me tell you. It was a success… a screaming success… if the intention was to make it rain incessantly for the past week and a half. I’m not at all sure that was the mission when the Zamboola-powered balloon left the ground, but it morphed into that somewhere just above the troposphere. And Marvin, good soldier that he is, refused to leave until the mission was accomplished. No cutting and running for him, my friend. (Also, he had no idea how to land that sucker, so that contributed to his stick-to-it-iveness. )

So now the rain is pouring in, filling up every crack and cranny in this creaky old mill, turning the streets into rivers and the rivers into moving lakes. Yesterday our replica J-2 spacecraft just floated away, its makeshift mast still crammed through the glass globe on the top of its hull. The basement is flooded, and the man-sized tuber has begun to resemble something recently yanked out of a mangrove swamp. (He’s growing knees, like a cypress tree. Very odd.) Trevor James Constable has secured some sort of floatation device for his patented orgone generating machine — god forbid that should ever get waterlogged. Why, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. Time itself might become unglued. We could find ourselves running backwards through days, months, years, even decades before that contraption dries out. Want to shed years off your face, figure, physique, etc.? Pray for rain. Beat the drum like war. ‘Nuff said.

Hoo-boy, well I’ve wandered a bit. (Looks like I’ve wandered into the outskirts of Pittsburgh – who knew?) Best get back to the work at hand before Matt gets pissed off and tries to shoot me with some clueless hunter’s gun. Aw, Matt…. put away the goddamn gun. There’s a good lad.

Hey, Trevor James! Help me get this thing out of my ear, will you? Goddamn, they make these ear buds tiny these days. What the fuck, are insects buying i-Pods now? Wouldn’t surprise me. Trevor James? Hel-looooo?

Greetings, web crawlers of all descriptions. I’m afraid you’ve caught me once again in the midst of a work-related crisis — trying to adapt to new, cheap equipment here in the bowels of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill where we maintain our makeshift production studio. This time it’s headphones (I keep breaking the bloody things — damnable nuisance!); before that it was mic stands. We had those old, chrome piping jobs and the twisty friction-grip thingy wore out on them (and I apologize for using technical jargon on you). Ever try to sing into a moving microphone? Not recommended. In any case, we found it necessary to visit our local music recycling yard to see if we could find some adequate replacements. Never been to one? Beats the hell out of internet shopping, I can tell you.

Now that Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is in the midst of some ill-defined atmospheric experiment thought up by his creator, local mad scientist Mitch Macaphee, I’m forced to carry out many of these mundane tasks myself. First it’s doing my own mixing. Oh, it may not sound like much to you, but trust me — the incessant running back and forth between the “live” room and the control room can get pretty maddening. Then there are all of the Marvin-esque chores I’ve had to commandeer, like sweeping the beds and making the floors (not sure I’ve got that quite right yet), manning the night watch, bribing the local tax collector (for the privilege of paying our taxes — another story entirely), pretzel-bending, and the like. And now this… this is the final indignity. Marvin has always been our runner, our go-fer, our step-and-fetch-it, our get-it-the-fuck-over-here-or-die, etc. And frankly, I’m not the right person to take over that job. I’ve never been any good at telling myself what to do. (Where to go, yeah, but not what to do.)

So until the Big Zamboola-balloon comes down, we’ll all be picking up Marvin’s slack. Lots to do, too. Album to finish. Dinner to start. Tube radios to warm up (a little charity work we do for the old folks up the block). Every man’s hand will be needed in the days ahead, so Matt and I have canceled all leaves and put padlocks on the exits. Fortunately, we will be able to press gang a reluctant Mitch Macaphee into some of the heavy work. He has successfully completed his experiment in turning waffles to platinum. That’s right, friends — solid platinum, the metal that used to send Dr. Smith into great greed-soaked reveries. Mitch is truly the master of alchemy. Funny thing is, the device he created that does this miraculous transformation looks like, well, a toaster. You just put the waffles down, wait about a minute, and up pops the precious metal. Fact is, I mistook it for a real toaster a couple of days ago and nearly put my teeth out on a solid bar of platinum. (Platinum’s actually pretty good with a helping of blueberry syrup and a couple of strips of fried cadmium on the side. Mmmmmmm-boy!)

Well, anyway — all this talk of precious metals is making me a bit peckish. Mitch, old boy! You can take over Marvin’s cooking duties for the time being. What’s that you say? No, I can’t, Mitch. That would be a physical impossibility… and tantamount to incest, I might add. Eat shit, you say? Do-able, at least… though not the grade of victuals I had in mind, actually. Stop hitting me!

That’s it. That’s it. Keep your eyes on the horizon. Don’t look down, for pity sake. Never look down… or up, for that matter. Good man. Or should I say, good robot? Good robot.

Oh, hello. Didn’t know you were standing there behind the lintel. You caught me in the middle of talking Marvin (my personal robot assistant) out of his mechanical version of sea-sickness. He’s been up in that bloody Zamboola-powered observation balloon for the better part of two weeks now, and the constant rocking is more than even a rock band hanger-on can easily stand. Sure, I know what you’re thinking — He’s a mechanical man, isn’t he? Surely Mitch Macaphee installed some gimbals in that bloody thing! Well, Marvin was one of Mitch’s most ambitious experiments up to that point in time. He hadn’t yet gotten all the bugs out of his theories on automaton equilibrium. Long story short…. Marvin’s turning green up there, and now we’ve got to do something.

Good christ in himmel. Remember when being in this band meant playing music in some fashion? (Though some might take issue with the fashion part.) Interruptions and more bloody interruptions! I can tell you, Matt and I had a good long talk with Mitch Macaphee about commandeering our help (i.e. Marvin) in the middle of a session (i.e. waste of time), and Mitch gave us a relatively firm scientific reply (i.e. fuck off), so that was that. Next thing we know, he is working with Trevor James Constable on some kind of alchemy experiment, seemingly having lost interest in the atmospheric probe on which he had sent not only Marvin but Big Zamboola (who may be needed to assist in the remix process, like adding a little gravity here and there to the “lighter” songs). Back only a few weeks and this lousy abandoned mill is… well…. virtually abandoned again. And that’s just plain unnatural. (And you can quote me on that.)

Still, even with the loss of Marvin and the man-sized tuber (still in numismatic heaven), we’ve plodded on with our mastering sessions, doggedly putting the bits of these songs together like Mitch trying to knit toaster waffles into blocks of solid platinum. (I told him it’s never going to work. He isn’t even using the ones with Hanson on the box.) How’s it going? Well…. sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn’t. But we’re getting there. Sure, I know — you’ve heard me say that so many times before, what the hell does it mean, right? Well, let me just say this to you. Ask not what your Big Green can do for you… ask what you can do for your Big Green. Moral support — that’s what we need. Think good thoughts. Put our names in your little book of wishes. (Not your little book of fishes, thank you very much.) And hope someone… someone comes along to twiddle these bloody dials in the right direction.

If that’s going to be Marvin, I’d better get back on the line. My apologies. Marvin? Is that you hanging over the side of the gondola? Eyes on the horizon, boy!

First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is. Got all that? Okay, now let’s do the river. First there is a river, then there is no river… etc. Right. Let’s try Shirley! First there is a Shirley, then there is no Shirley….

Hello again. Just working through my daily mediation exercises. Are you with me? Breathe in… deeply… deeply…. Now let it out, you wind bag! Great — I feel much better now. Trust me, I need something to take the edge off. My fellow denizens of the Cheney Hammer Mill are beginning to make me crazy with a “k”. (Or “krazy”.) We’re trying to finish an album here, damnit, and what does Mitch Macaphee do but send my principal engineer — Marvin (my personal robot assistant) — into the exosphere on some kind of harebrained experiment… using Big Zamboola as the hot air balloon. Now, I know that sounds totally fucked up on sooooo many different levels, so let me deal with them one at a time so that you may better understand.

First — why are we using Marvin as an engineer? That’s simple. He’s got one hell of a set of ears. That was one thing Mitch really did right in building our mechanical friend, let me tell you. That robot can hear a pin drop on the other side of the world, or a child sighing for her mother in Madagascar, or bricks being fashioned by contract laborers in a distant galaxy (oh yes, they do exist — don’t tell me they don’t). When properly calibrated, he can spot the precise frequency that is giving Matt a headache at any point in a given song, whether it’s being generated by an acoustic guitar, a sousaphone, or one of those twangy banjo-like things they play in China. Oh, such a sensitive instrument is that Marvin. In fact, I believe that’s why Mitch sent him aloft in the Zamboola-balloon (or “Zamballoon”, as we’ve taken to calling it). Some kind of research into meteorological acoustics. (I think he’s preparing for a conference. What the fuck, just ask him.)

Well, all right, so the experiment is going to last a few days, that’s what Macaphee tells me. And we’re left to twiddle our own dials, as always — no help from nobody. No Marvin, of course. No producer. We can’t even get the man-sized tuber to sit in, mainly because he’s still wrapped up in that numismatic scam that anti-Lincoln has gotten him started on. Oh, fuck… excuse me. Tubey, put that change jar down! Rare coins, my ass! All coins are rare when you’re broke! Just put it down! Jeezus, he’s gullible. And then there’s Trevor James Constable, who’s been obsessing over his orgone generating device — apparently the works have become severely gummed up… to the point where it doesn’t even attract invisible flying predators anymore. I ask you… what the hell use is an orgone generating device if it doesn’t even attract invisible flying predators? (Trevor James is only now trying to find an explanation. I’ll keep you posted.)

So there you have it — Big Green left to its own devices, our entourage having abandoned us for greener pastures and more promising avenues of cultural and intellectual inquiry. And coin collecting, let us not forget. My change jar is empty, damn it. Tubey!!!

What is that… a bell tower of some kind? Can’t tell. My eyes are too clouded. Must be the Zenite snuff sFshzenKlyrn left for me in my jacket pocket. Next frame. A deer… in a field. Hmmmmm…

Oh, forgive me. Just clicking through a few Viewmaster wheels from long ago. I’m freaking lost on those things without the phonograph record to tell me when to change the slide. In any case, welcome back to the house of joy — a.k.a. the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill in what we euphemistically (and with great license) refer to as Sri Lanka, but which is, in fact, an undisclosed location (though not the same one where you’ll find the other Cheney in all of our lives). Anyway, me (myself) and the fellows are just settling in here, getting used to our surroundings once again, breaking the same windows that our financial manager Geet O’Reilly had repaired while we were away. (She keeps doing that. So irritating.) Got to get a little air, you know, after being cooped up in a dusty space craft for nigh on to two months. Just breathe it in, friends!

Hi-de-ho, we’ve been turning our meager attention back to the second Big Green album, now in the mixing stage and nearing completion. While everyone has his/her part to play in this process, probably the most all-around useful member of our entourage has been the indefatigable Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who has obligingly offered up his services as tape operator. Sure, sure — we had the man-sized tuber twisting the dials earlier in the process, but that was before, damn it. Tubey has got other interests. Music will never come first for him… not so long as he has coin collecting and pretzel-bending to keep him occupied. (Just the other day he found a “Peace” dollar in the bottom of my shirt cupboard — which, quite coincidentally, is just where I left the fucking thing.) Someone should ‘splain to Tubey that collecting other people’s coins is just plain stealing.

Trouble is, I think the person that got him into this hobby is none other that anti-Lincoln, the nefarious doppelganger of our late Great Emancipator. Anti-Lincoln is obviously running some kind of scam here, and apparently feels that the man-sized tuber is clueless enough to play an unwitting part in it. Don’t know where he would get such an outlandish idea — why, Tubey is the sharpest root vegetable I’ve ever traversed interstellar space with. Though… apparently not sharp enough to avoid handing over his ill-gotten gains to anti-Lincoln like so much lunch money. Can’t trust anybody anymore. Next thing you know, Mitch Macaphee will be enlisting Big Zamboola as some kind of hot-air balloon for his next atmospheric experiment. Hey…. so that isn’t a strangely 3-D depiction of a rising sun in my Viewmaster! And isn’t that Marvin in the gondola?

Okay, so what the fuck — we’re not going to make a lot of progress on our album this way. For chrissake, I wish Mitch would wait until after our remix session before he sends our tape operator into the exosphere. Bloody scientific mentality!

Where did my paring knife go? Anyone seen it? It was here just a minute ago. Hey, anti-Lincoln — have you seen my knife? You were just in here a minute ago… uh-oh…..

Oh the butt-aches of living in a communal residence! Yes, yes, it is good to be back at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill — our adopted home — after so long an absence, especially given that this may have been the most irritating Big Green tour ever. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Yeah, sure, he says that every time, right? Okay, well maybe I did say it after our Journey to the Center of the Earth tour a couple of years ago. And maybe I did say it after our last tour, when we were kidnapped and held against our will on a hostile alien planet. And I grant you — I may well say it again after our next tour, whatever kind of disaster that may turn out to be. But I’m sure I’ll be just as convinced of its suck-acity then as I have been all the previous times. (Now you’re thinking, God, what a pain in the ass this fucker is! Why do I read this blog? WHY?)

Okay, so I’m not a very good mind reader. No matter — here we are, back at the mill, having extracted ourselves from the dreaded Doo-Dah parade (where Big Zamboola was a massive hit, I should tell you). The condemned sign has been torn from our front door. Reprieve from the city? Not quite. I asked Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to pull it down. It amounts to the same thing in this city. (They won’t get around to knocking this place down for another couple of years, at the very soonest. Other fish to fry.) He will be tacking up a “do not disturb” sign in its place, in hopes that this will discourage the curious (and the creditors) from trying to gain access to the mill as we turn our attention to what has become the most monumental labor of our careers — making an Irish stew without meat or potatoes. (Oh, yeah… and then there’s that album thing we’re working on. Where the hell did we leave that, anyway?)

Great day in the morning, I know it seems like Big Green has spent way too long in production. It’s nearly possible to calculate the trajectory of our latest CD project in terms of geological time. What the fuck, we started planning the sucker shortly after the release of our first album, 2000 Years To Christmas, back in 1999. Of course, there was some slap-dash songwriting after that, then we started recording the bastard in early 2003. Here it is three years later, and we’re finally to the point of mixing / mastering. Can hardly believe it. My guess is that, in a few more of your earth time units known as months, we will actually have something to show for all of this seemingly pointless activity. (No, Mitch. Not money. That’s your day job, okay?)

So, back to the console. But first the stew. Or perhaps just a sandwich. Where the devil is that knife? No, Anti-Lincoln, I can’t use a gun. Just put it away, now. Slowly…. slowly…. (Hey, out there… somebody call the cops… I’ll have Marvin take down the “do not disturb” sign again…)

Rubble. Dust rising. The dark silhouette of an ancient structure looms in the background. I can just barely make out its profile… something strangely familiar about it. Deep and foreboding. A frightening presence — home!

Greetings from what might euphemistically be described as “home”. Big Green here, more or less. We have arrived back at the Cheney Hammer Mill after a long, long, loooooonnnggg sojourn in the outer reaches of the galaxy, living the dream (or nightmare, perhaps) of performing for adoring fans (albeit five-legged ones with green antennae and ion-charged grappling hooks for claws). Always falls a bit short for this group, quite frankly… the excitement factor, that is. Sure, everyone thinks it’s “exciting” to be a rock performer and to travel to different planets, make them explode, and all that. Well, when you’ve seen one exploding planet, you’ve seen them all, right? But I digress. (Got to keep talk like that to a minimum — where Big Zamboola comes from, exploding planets are no laughing matter.)

Last you looked, we had somehow talked Marvin (my personal robot assistant) into dragging us over land back to our beloved homestead. It doesn’t pride me greatly to say that, yes, he did complete that task — one worthy of John Henry himself. In fact, I’ve been calling him Marvin “John Henry” (my personal robot assistant) for a couple of days now. (Probably won’t stick.) Actually, it wasn’t that bad for our atomic powered automatonic assistant. He just threw it into low gear and tugged us onto the nearest highway (about 40 miles inland, as it happens). We just scraped the rest of the way, sparks a-flying. (Marvin had to stop and take a leak at one point, but otherwise…) Probably made a curious spectacle for our fellow travelers. Reminded me of going “skitching” when we were kids — the renowned winter pass-time of hanging on to the back bumper of a car and dragging along the icy pavement with your boots. Great fun (’til you fell off in front of a logging truck). Don’t try this at home!

Yes, it took a few days, but before any of us were ready, the looming hulk of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill came into view. It was, contrary to our expectations, still standing, but the neighborhood had definitely gone downhill in the past eight weeks or so. Street fires, excavations, random acts of mayhem, some kind of carnival people were referring to as “The Doo-Dah Parade”…. shall I go on? There was so much dust rising it was kind of hard to tell what this strange ritual entailed, but it appeared as if there were three… perhaps four men on stilts. Jugglers, too. So strange was this spectacle, neither the man-sized tuber nor Big Zamboola drew any significant attention when they piled out of our space RV into the middle of the street. If anything, they looked… well… almost normal. So did Lincoln. (Not anti-Lincoln. He just doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere.)

There goes the neighborhood. For chrissake — leave town for five minutes and they choke the fucking place with doo-dah parades! And us with an album to finish… and I mean finish … in the next few months. Where’s my blindfold?

Hear that scraping sound? Dragging my ass this morning. Literally. Don’t lo0k at me like that — you know what I’m talking about, that blog look you always give me. I can see you in the back there… don’t try to hide behind the fat guy!

Sorry if I came across a bit touchy just then. This has been a long hard slog, but I have no right to take it out on you — you who have stood with me every league of the way. Damn it, I’m ungrateful! But isn’t that the way it goes with pop band denizens. Anyways…. our wayward breeze did come along eventually, and pushed us on our way-ward. (Or forward, as it were.) Once we were clear of the strange psycho-miasma surrounding the dreaded Sea of the Weekly World News, we were able to navigate using something other than Trevor James’ Orgone Generator (which, with the polarity reversed, acts as a crude bio-plasmic compass. It’s a little hard to explain, actually. Okay… just drop it, all right?)

Right, right — back to my tale of woe and intrigue. We were on the high seas for several days, making fairly good time (as pops used to say), when Marvin (my personal robot assistant) spotted the silhouette of a substantial coast line to our port side. Land! But what land was it? Iceland? Greenland? Long Island? It was hard to be sure. We thought it best to send a scouting party in the long boat to check it out before attempting to land. Trouble was… no long boat. (We didn’t even have a short boat.) Matt, John and I began to roll our eyes around the ship’s cabin, searching for a gullible… I mean, workable solution. Which one of our party had the greatest natural buoyancy? The answer came quite quickly…. BIG ZAMBOOLA — a true living, breathing floatation device.

Well, friends… Zamboola went ashore and did the recon, as they say (looking more than a bit like that “Rover” critter from the sixties TV show The Prisoner), quickly determining that we had, indeed, sighted land and that — yes — it was indeed the land of our homestead, the besieged, much maligned Cheney Hammer Mill, which we call home. (Did I say that it is our home? The mill? Okay, then.) Next step: get the ship on dry land. But how to accomplish this? Though it was capable (until recently) of interstellar travel, and has of late been modified to serve as a sea-faring vessel, the imitation J-2 space cruiser has zero capability as an over-land vehicle. We needed some means of locomotion — not wind power, not ion power… something that would give us traction for the long road ahead.

When it came to a vote over who would be elected to drag the ship back to Colombo, Marvin won by three votes. (My vote was on posi-Lincoln, but that was out of bitterness… sheer bitterness.) So forward we went, propelled by the power of Marvin’s ion reactor. Hammer Mill, here we come! Giddyap!

What’s this I spy with my little eye? ‘Tis a man in a wee lifeboat. Soggy, nautical-looking gent with a captain’s hat on. Smoke rising lazily from the bowl of his pipe. Looks to have been out here a while…

Oh, yes… hello out there in cyberspace. It’s your old pal Bozo… I mean, Joe-zo. (Been at sea a little too long, me thinkst.) As you may have surmised from my previous utterance, we did manage to shove off last week, as the saying goes. Our dear friend Trevor James Constable cooked up a little nor’easter with that orgone generating device of his, and we were carried off to open water by a most congenial ocean breeze (12 knots, I believe — knot that that means anything to me). Around 1300 hours GMT, we crossed the tropic of Capricorn and headed into uncharted waters. Take it from someone who’s spent the better part of the last month on a desert island — if you’re going to be in uncharted waters, you’re better off keeping in motion rather than standing still. Word to the wise.

Now I don’t know how many of you have actually been to the Sargasso Sea or any of those other forgotten corners of the world that only seem to show up in naval lore, but let me tell you, friend — they exist. Oh, yes. Our nor’easter blew us into a fog-bound stretch of ocean. Aye, grim and foreboding it was, with the smell of decaying hulks hanging heavy in the air around us. Our pilot Marvin (my personal robot assistant) spotted an albatross — t’was then we knew we were in for a rough passage. Shiver me timbers, I’ll be a peg-legged polevaulter if we didn’t spy a small craft off the starboard side, its master a lone ship’s captain, his haggard features bearing a tale of many months at sea… or perhaps years. Aye, an eternity in the doldrums, perhaps. His pipe still lit, he gave a jaunty little dance… and I knew. T’was the captain of the Titanic. We had entered the dreaded Sea of the Weekly World News.

What lay ahead for us? Bat boy? Bigfoot? The space alien who plays presidential kingmaker? We had to get out of here fast. But nay, there was a strange dampening field at work, a peculiar miasma that kept the orgone generating machine from functioning as our weather-maker. If we wanted to avoid being trapped in supermarket checkout lines for all eternity, we needed to find an alternative source of power — one strong enough to push us clear through to the subcontinent. There was only one option: Big Zamboola. But would he do it? We formed an ad hoc delegation and brought the proposal to our beachball-sized planetoid companion. (He’s been hovering in the power core for the last week or two, pining for the Pleiades).

Well, it was more complicated than you might have imagined. Zamboola wasn’t hot on the idea. And as they say, you can lead a planet to water, but you can’t make him blow. (That didn’t come out the way I meant it to, but let it pass… let it pass….) See you in the checkout!