Ship ahoy, ship ahoy… who wants to marry a sailor boy? Washed ashore, washed ashore… How’s the rest of that cheesy Hollywood shanty go? Mitch? Trevor James? Marvin (my personal robot assistant)?

Okay, okay… so anti-Lincoln had a good idea — I admit it. Even a stopped clock, know what I mean? Besides, in my book, anybody who is anti the guy who booked this last tour has got to be something close to a freaking genius. So… I guess my book must be all wrong, because anti-Lincoln is no genius, but he is — and this is important — smarter than his opposite number. So, okay, we stuck the mast into the bubblegum machine on the roof of our spacecraft, and we threw together a makeshift sail from bits of discarded bedclothes. And like many a castaway before us, we attempted to set sail from this veil of tears know to us as Ben-Lostawhile island. Ship ahoy!

Reader’s note — “attempted” is the operative word in that last line. Sure, we made the sail unfurl and we climbed aboard, expectant of a rapid deliverance from the tropical tedium we had endured over the past weeks. And, well, nothing happened. Nothing. No wind. No freaking wind, here in typhoon alley. We beckoned to our resident quasi-meteorologist (Mitch Macaphee) and asked him what was what. He consulted his pocket weather satellite device and shook his head mournfully. We were in the midst of a kind of tropical doldrums — not even a lazy breeze to push us out to sea. This was the limit. As if it wasn’t bad enough that we should have to resort to wind propulsion to get us out of here… now wind turns out to be at a premium. (Perhaps Mitch was right about that coconut fuel idea. Or perhaps not.)

After a bit of head scratching, it was Trevor James who came up with an idea worth considering. How about training his patented orgone generating device directly on the main mast and turning up the volume to eleven? How’d that be? But was it practical? “Sure,” said Trevor James. “We just lash the O.G.D. to the hull and crank her up.” Mitch had some quibbles about leverage and the principles of thrust, but who the hell cares what he thinks, eh? The idea had more merit than chucking coconuts in a reactor chamber and tossing matches at them in hopes they would cause a mighty fire — one mighty enough to destroy Tabunga. (Tabunga? I’ve been on this island way too long…) So, okay, Mitch. Next time we want to stop the Tabunga, we’ll give you a call.

Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us this week. And now the man-sized tuber isn’t talking to me because of the Tabunga reference. A relative of his, apparently — who knew?

What’s this? Parchment? Could just be old vellum, you never know. Look for the watermark, that’s what Mitch always says. Kind of crisp and, well, fragrant, quite frankly. Good lord, throw that thing away.

Digging around for buried pirate maps of the greater Indian Ocean. What can I tell you? That’s what desperation will do to a man. Let me be the first to report that I am so sick and tired of this bloody island I could lay my head on an anvil and order the blacksmith to give me twenty of his best… that is, if there were a blacksmith in this deity-forsaken place. Yes, it’s that bad. Oh sure, I know what you’re thinking. Tropical paradise, isolated from the insanity of the civilized world. Peace and quiet, or as Elmer Fudd would say, “West and wewaxation at wast.” Yeah, well… that’s a lot of aloha hooey. I like civilization, damn it. I like indoor plumbing. I like having more than one dry cleaner to choose from. And just for the record, I hate fucking plantains! (And no, I haven’t been fucking them, so settle down… settle down….)

Another thing you have to remember about being stranded on a desert island — there’s nobody there but you. Oh, sure… we’ve got each other to keep us company, but frankly, I’ve been cooped up with these assholes for the last month and a half, bobbing around in a cramped spacecraft, and while I like everybody okay (except for Lincoln), enough is freaking enough, already. We’re all getting on one another’s nerves. Matt’s not talking to Mitch. Mitch is pissed off at Trevor James Constable. Trevor James has a mad on against John. John and anti-Lincoln have been exchanging ugly looks. Even Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has been copping an attitude lately. (He’s spending most of his time with the stabilization control unit on the command deck of the spacecraft. Only intelligent conversation he can muster.) And even tubey has had a falling out with the Mango tree.

Wow. Listen to me, dissing Marvin. I have been here too long. So what’s holding us back? Well, a spacecraft with no engine, for one. Not likely to fly again soon, even taking into consideration the scientific “brain trust” we have on hand here on Ben-Lostawhile island. Just try making an ion-magnetic interstellar drive run on coconut shells. Just try. (Mitch did, and the result wasn’t pretty.) Believe it or not, the most practical suggestion came from anti-matter Lincoln — throw a mast and a mainsail on the top of the mock-jupiter 2 and push it into the water, then use some worm-eaten piece of driftwood (posi-Lincoln) as a rudder. Lash a rope to the rudder handle and call it “mother hubbard.” (Okay, that last suggestion wasn’t so constructive. But it was better than what Mitch came up with. Coconut reactor vessel, indeed!)

Right, then — our task is clear. Build us a mast and sew together some scraps for a broadsheet sail. And, if luck smiles down upon us, dig up a pirate map that’s useful as well as being rancid… i.e. one that shows us the way to the subcontinent. Dig, men, dig!

Day six. Lifted my head, shook the sand out of my hair, and looked around. Picked up notebook and pencil. Started scratching out some notes. Starfish attacked me from behind — not good. Dropped off to sleep. Day seven…

Hi, kids. Thought I’d treat you to an excerpt from my journal as a castaway on this remote tropical island we’ve been calling Ben-Lostawhile. Kind of has a biblical ring to it, no? (No? Guess not.) I’ve just gotten started on this narrative, and hope to parlay it into some kind of publication — a novel, perhaps. Use a little creative license, what the hell. Just me instead of bunch of re-entry-burned bandmates. Nothing for sustenance but coconuts and coconut milk and… and coconut sorbet. A humble but loveable native islander assistant named Marvin (my personal robot assistant). Sounds about right. But I need a more literary sounding name. Like … DeFoe, perhaps. Or Pope. How about DePope? How’s that sound, Marvin?

Aside from the journal, things have been pretty quiet here on Ben-Lostawhile — quiet as a grave since we made landfall last week. Once the fires in and around the ship went out and Matt, John, Mitch Macaphee, Trevor James, the two Lincolns, and I were finished hopping up and down on the sand, clasping our smoking feet recently pan-seared on the super-hot hull of our space vehicle, we took a few moments to inspect the damage, looking for tell-tale signs of irreparability, like… well, like major navigational components missing or large breaches in the hull. We found nothing like that, but as you may remember, our engine was blown to atoms by Posi-Lincoln (whose master’s license was revoked more than a century ago, after he got tanked up and drove the monitor into a giant starfish — a lost chapter of history, to be sure), so we weren’t going anywhere fast. Or slow, for that matter.

Okay, so what did we do next? Ask yourself, “Self? What would you do next?” I think the answer might be… search the island for an affordable dry cleaner — the kind that doesn’t use that deadly chemical stuff. Surprising as this may be to you ultra-urban types, our search turned up nothing. Plantains. We found lots of plantains. But no two-hour shirt services to speak of, at least not within walking distance. Dejected, I sat on an overflowing chest of pirate treasure and tried to work out how we were going to survive on such an un-cosmopolitan outpost in the middle of the … well… I’m not even sure which ocean it is. The only one who seems relatively happy with this miserable exile is the man-sized tuber, who has planted himself a few hundred yards from the beach so that he can hit on this mango tree. (He’s been in space far too long, that boy.)

No, we haven’t given up. (Except for sFshzenKlyrn, who drifted off just moments after our arrival — as only he can do.) Who knows… maybe I can write my way off of this island. Worth a shot. Day seven. Sun burning hot through the palm leaves. A mast appears on the horizon. Nah. Too easy.

Sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip; that started in Colombo, aboard this fucking ship. This is (A) 110 pounds of mashed potatoes; (B) George Washington, our first president; (C) the ballad of Big Green; (D) Gilligan.

Well, friends, in the titanic battle between Big Green and gravity, gravity won and won big. Let’s face it, we were fighting over our weight. That mighty magnetism of old mother earth is more than a match for the likes of us. So, as I indicated last week, it was down, down, down, through ever-thickening (and ever-sickening) layers of atmosphere, our skin temperature reaching somewhere around 7,600 degrees Kelvin (no, no, not our skin — the skin of the space ship, damnit!). That was a wee bit exciting, especially when Marvin (my personal robot assistant) started popping diodes left and right. (I was reminded of his “renegade robot from Mars” routine on a previous tour. Those were the days… not!)

Okay, so where was I? Ah, yes. We managed to survive re-entry thanks to the timely intervention of our bandmate John White, who has done enough virtual flying in his time to actually… well… know how to fly a second-hand spacecraft. (Multi-talented fellow.) On the advice of our resident science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, John kept us at the proper attitude for re-entry, then brought us down through the troposphere, dodging obvious atmospheric disturbances (i.e. tropical storms), and pointing us toward what appeared to be open water. (Actually, it was more than mere appearances. It was, in fact, open water… and lots of it.) As the waves got closer and closer, we broke out the floatation devices and prepared for the worst. Didn’t look good at that point, quite honestly. Even the man-sized tuber was breaking out into a cold sweat… and he doesn’t even have pores.

I expect it’s not easy for you to imagine how we worked around this particular crisis. Well, it wasn’t easy for us either. In fact, seconds before impact, we blacked out, all of us, cold as whitefish on a bialy. (Mmmmmmmm. Whitefish.) Where was I? Oh yes — when we came to, we were on the beach of this picturesque made-for-television desert island somewhere in the South Pacific… or North Atlantic… or Western Indian… actually, I’m not entirely sure where we are. We could be on a Hollywood back lot for all I know. Wherever we are, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, so long as you have your north and south straightened out and your eyeglasses aren’t on upside-down. (Or perhaps you’re built upside-down. Does your nose run? Do your feet smell?)

Closing a tour with a forty-year-old joke — that’s just sad. But this is what we’ve been reduced to, my friends. At least the fucking phone isn’t ringing every five seconds. (Though, in fact, it very well may be…. I haven’t dug it out of the beach sand yet.)

I spy with my little eye… a planet. See it? Just outside the viewport there? Right — very good. Yes, that’s right… the one that’s getting bigger and bigger with each passing moment. That’s the one. You’re good at this game.

Ah, the distractions we devise to keep our minds off of unpleasant things. Things like uncontrolled descents, fiery crashes, and all that. Yes, friends — that bit of engine trouble I told you about last week was a bit more serious than we’d thought. Now it appears we’ve been issued a one-way ticket to Kerplackistan, if you catch my meaning. And let me tell you something, blog-o-file… it’s downhill all the way. It’s that irresistible force of gravity that’s the problem — no matter where you go in the universe, you’re never quite free of it. Too technical? To simplify matters, I will convey the problem in song, while Marvin (my personal robot assistant) renders its emotional import in a brief interpretive dance:

What goes up
must come down.
Spinning wheels
got to go round
Talk about your troubles
it’s a cryin’ sin
Ride a painted pony
let the spinning wheel spin

Then there’s the bit about having no money and no home, but you already know that part.

How did we arrive at such a revolting predicament? Well, after drifting aimlessly through the asteroid belt, past the object briefly known as the “planet” Ceres, one of our number stumbled upon a novel idea for interplanetary propulsion. No, it wasn’t a member of our scientific contingent — both Mitch Macaphee and Trevor James Constable had long since retired to their cabins with a case of Beefeater’s (each) and a sizeable poke of Zenite snuff (courtesy of sFshzenKlyrn). It was, in fact, the man-sized tuber who first “suggested” (i.e. made his idea known through the art of bad cooking) placing our main PA speakers inside the aft airlock and turning them up to eleven, with sFshzenKlyrn obligingly supplying a mega power chord from his trademark trashed-out telecaster. We just cracked the hatch open, let that bad noise out, and forward we lurched.

When I say “lurch”, I mean just that — an aimless forward motion. (Not a large, Frankenstinian butler working for the Addams family). We were propelled by the sustained power chord out of the asteroid belt and into the gravitational pull of our home planet, known to you terrestrial types as “de oit”. (That’s like “Detroit” without the “tr”.) Well, as many of you already know, the “oit” has a much stronger gravitational field than the asteroid formerly known as “planet” Ceres. And resisting said gravitational pull will take more than a mere power chord or two.

So, let me close with the refrain from another highly apropos little number:

Down and down and down I go!
Round and round and round I go
like a something, something, something….

P. S. — YAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!

Mmmmm, burnt toast. The smell of over-heated coffee. That cool splash of orange juice in your lap, while strips of fakin’ bacon belch greasy black smoke from an unattended frying pan. Yes, breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. (Is that the fire alarm I hear? Seems like the wrong pitch….)

Greetings from the lower deck (galley area) of the reconstituted J-2 space RV, our home-away-from-home planet during this GET ME THE HELL OUTA HERE Big Green Tour 2006. We’re just in the middle of a particularly toxic breakfast, so bear with me. No budget for an on-board chef, unfortunately. We’ve press-ganged the man-sized tuber into doing the job. Probably not the best pick, but we figured that, since this is an all-vegetarian voyage (much to the chagrin on Mitch Macaphee), it might be appropriate to have a certified organic vegetable doing all the cooking for us. Besides, old tubey has to carry his own weight somehow. Can’t spend the whole trip sitting in his specially designed space terrarium, keeping himself humid and well-mulched. (Or can he?) So we got him a second-hand chef’s hat and made him watch the Food network in his little glass room for a few hours… and voila. Instant chef.

Still, it’s actually kind of relaxing to just sit here and let an overgrown yam burn our breakfast snausages, especially after the frantic week we’ve had, framming away uselessly on celestial objects no longer considered to be planets. (Mmmmmmm. Burned snausages….) Beats the hell out of me how these hellacious hunks of interplanetary rock and ice ever got themselves in the running to be considered planets in the first place. What the fuck were those rocket scientists thinking? Anyhow, that nightmare is over, and we are drifting lazily through the asteroid belt, meandering our way home, lonely as a cloud of dark matter. Why so nonchalant? Lots of reasons. We’re close to the end of our tour. We’re almost finished with our sophomore album (now in the mixing phase). And … ah yes… we’ve blown our ion-drive engine to kingdom come. Nearly forgot that one. (Details, details!)

How, you ask, could such a thing happen? Well, ahm gon’ tell yuh. As you know, our friend Quality Lincoln was dispatched from his position as official booking agent for this tour, owing to some rather unforgivable oversights on his part (I won’t go into all the ugly details… he knows what he’s done). He has been replaced by the inestimable Big Zamboola (a former planet himself, you know), who was serving as our navigator. That post was taken over by Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who had been putting in his duty as our helmsman these past couple of weeks. Since posi-Lincoln was semi-familiar with concepts related to aviation and had personally commanded several observation balloons in his day, we though he might sit in at the helm for the last dog leg of the tour. Big mistake. BIIIGGGG mistake! My guess is that he’s more of a steam locomotive guy than an ion-drive spacecraft guy. He apparently thought he had to get up a good head of steam to pull over the top of Saturn. Then there was a bang. Then a boom. Then another bang, but not the same as the first one. Finally… the sound of a dog barking. (I’m still working on that one.)

And so, here we are. Adrift. Total rupture in the reactor vessel. No forward thrust whatsoever. Auxiliary power only. Bottled oxygen. And a vegetable cooking our meals. Is this any way to end a tour? What sayest thou? I can’t hear you. (Oh, sure…. the transmitter’s out and all. )

First there is a planet, then there is no planet, then there is. Or was that mountain? No, no… that’s planet, sayeth the booking agent. And we feasted on crow, and feces, and fillet of sole (the kind that’s glued to the bottom of your sneaker). And there was much rejoicing… not!

Well, friends… it’s only when you start thinking you’ve been fucked every way from Tuesday that they come up with three or four other days of the week you’ve never even heard of. What the hell am I talking about? Well, I’m gonna’ tell yuh. (Whoops… I’m reverting to my Warren Oates impersonation…. give me a minute. Mmmmph. Okay, that’s got it. Ahem. ) Now you may recall my account of how Quality Lincoln, our de-facto (or as we now call him, “de-FUCK-to”) booking agent, signed us up for a package tour of every planet in the solar system. And in his infinite wisdom, he accepted one flat fee for all performances on (and this is important) EVERY planet in said solar system. Then of course, moments after the toner was dry on the faxed contract, those mother-fucking snakes (i.e. space scientists) on the mother-fucking plane (i.e. planet Earth) went and added not one, not two, but THREE new planets to the solar system, obligating us to play twelve worlds for the price of nine. Remember? (Sure you do – it’s one or two entries down… have a look.)

Okay, now I will revert to 1970s-80s teenspeak to relate the subsequent developments. So we’re like, “What the fuck, Lincoln, we’re getting totally ripped off, here!” And he’s like, “No way, dude. This is great exposure.” And I’m like, “Way, Lincoln! How are we gonna’ make money here?” And he gets all, “I got it worked out, dudes… honest.” (All right…. you’ve suffered enough. ) So Lincoln suggested that we start with the outer most planets in the solar system – Charon, Pluto, and that other one… Sedna, or whatever. He said that those planets were so cold and sparsely populated that there was no way in hell we would spend more than one or two nights on any of them. Well, I should have thought better of this when I saw Marvin (my personal robot assistant) emit a strange green glow and start klanging like a steam engine. But did I listen? Did I? Now ask yourself… do I ever? (You’ve got your answer.)

Okay, so we lit out for Charon first and played three of the most bone chilling sets I can remember. We were set up on this glacier of frozen nitrogen, playing for a gaggle of stalagmite-looking shards of ice that looked… well… indistinguishable from the rest of this desolate landscape. Marvin froze in position like the tin man on the Wizard of Oz. Even sFshzenKlyrn — a denizen of deep, deep space with no body heat to speak of — was moving slower than what was common for his guitar-slinging, bound-about stage routine. Still, we turned up the thermostats on our rented spaceman suits and ground our way through the tunes, jumping up and down to keep the blood in our toes, wrestling with hypothermia while our audience stood in rapt silence. (Okay… just silence. Frankly, I think they’re really only icicles sticking out of the glacier.) Bad gig, man. And then Pluto…. you think Charon is bad, book yourself into a club called “The Cooler” on Pluto. (My shoes are still frozen to that stage, actually.)

Okay, so here’s the kicker… the thing that makes this GET ME THE HELL OUTA HERE Big Green Tour 2006 such a total bust. Now those fucking scientists are thinking about lopping Pluto and Charon off the end of the solar system again. So all that frozen-ass performing was for nothing! And that’s why we’re eating crow, sole, feces, etc. “Play the outer planets first,” he says! Blast you, Lincoln! There are going to be some changes around here, mark my words!

Let’s see… five from twenty-seven is twenty-two. Carry the nine. Multiply by the square root of Chicago. Now check your work. Wait for it, wait for it… okay. Pencils down!

Jeezuz. Just try to get a straight answer around here! I even get prevarication with math questions, for chrissake. Let me tell you, friends – this is one disgruntled shipload of bandmates, and it isn’t just because we spent the better part of the last week clearing unexploded ordinance from the minefields of Borax 19, a grisly little world locked in mortal combat with its near-space neighbor, the planet Calgon (not to be confused with the laundry detergent). No, sir… we’ve just come to a very disturbing realization, thanks to the Univac-like brain of Marvin (my personal robot assistant). It’s just a good goddamn thing we insisted on taking him along with us on this tour. (Actually, he insisted, but what the hell… the effect is the same).

Anyway, here’s what we’ve worked out in mid-voyage. It seems our agent-of-the-week, former president Lincoln, signed us up for one of these package promotional tours where we agree to play every planet in the solar system for a single, flat fee. Old “honest” Abe was real proud of himself on this one – we actually stood to make some money on the deal (unlike every other venue he’s booked so far). Of course, while we were away, slogging through insufferable engagements in some of the galaxy’s most undesirable backwaters, the Earthbound science community decided to reclassify several asteroid-like bodies as planets.So now, instead of playing nine planets for X level of remuneration, we’re going to have to perform on twelve planets for the same bloody money. That’s like getting docked 25% before you even show up. (We haven’t even had the chance to suck yet!)

Okay, so ask me if we’ve groused at Lincoln yet today? Now ask me again. Answer? Stand back from the monitor for a moment, this may be a little loud. FUCKER!!!!! Ahem… I feel much better, now. Yes, we’ve had a few words with the ex-president. Suffice to say we have provided his tour management career ambitions with complimentary tickets to Ford’s Theatre. (Can you say “useless?” Very good.) As a consequence of this monumental blunder, I have asked all hands to work out a formula by which we might actually come out of this 12-planet marathon with more than a few cents in our pockets.

So far, Mitch Macaphee’s formula is way out in front — we create holographic images of ourselves and project same onto several stages at one time. Same Big Green, same boss tunes, same ludicrous side-kicks… only a whole lot thinner. Like maybe one zillionth of a micron thick. (Hey, you know what they say… you can never be too thin.)

Anyway, this is how our vaunted GET ME THE HELL OUTA HERE Tour 2006 will conclude — with a relentless march to the sea, a la Sherman. Who was, of course, the commanding general of Lincoln’s army. Whose wife was Mary Todd Lincoln. Whose middle name is also the first name of Todd Rundgren. Who must surely have something in common with Kevin Bacon. Blast you, Lincoln!

luv u,

jp

There once was a planet named Borax, a land of all head and no thorax…. That’s all I’ve got so far. What do you think, stuffed chef? Is it lacking a certain, well, goodness? How about you, plastic ficus tree?

Man oh Manischewitz, I have never seen a place as uptight as this hideous little orb! A big cowboy howdee of thanks to honest Abe Lincoln for booking us into this hell hole. Not for nothing, as they say in the vernacular, but from the moment we crash-landed into their luxurious nightclub, the people who hired us have been… well… more than a little hostile, if you want to know the truth. As I mentioned in my previous entry, we were held at scrootch-gun point as we descended from the wreckage of our space vehicle. A fine how do you do! We were then marched off to a reception area that look suspiciously like the local drunk tank. Ever spent a night in an 11 by 14 foot cell with several disgruntled band members and a drunken Boraxian? Well… just don’t.

The next morning, we were brought before the local magistrate and ordered to explain ourselves. Unfortunately for us, the Boraxians look uncannily like our companion, the man-sized tuber, (except that they have two antenae on their heads with a little purple spark that shoots between them). This meant, of course, that they insisted on addressing all of their comments to tubey, who (as you know) is not fully checked out on the lingua franca of the galaxy. Even sFshzenKlyrn couldn’t get a decent hearing in that courtroom (and he’s such a cosmopolitan fellow of infinite jest and undeniable charm… cretins!). So there we were, standing like statues as the Boraxians babbled incoherently at our mute vegetable companion. This was not going well.

As luck would have it, Marvin (my personal robot assistant) as able to act as the man-sized tuber’s “translator,” so we could feed Marvin lines and attempt to steer the proceedings to our favor. How did it turn out? Man, I’ll tell you – magistrates get very touchy during war time. We were stuck not only with damages on the luxury night club, but also a stint of community service… which in this war-torn world meant mostly digging trenches and removing unexploded ordinance dropped the night before. Hey, what can I tell you? They treated us like immigrant labor, giving us the jobs they least wanted to do. None of those tuber-like Boraxians were lining up to yank 500 pounders out of the ground, believe you me. (When I told Mitch Macaphee about the verdict, he turned green as a Martian.) Worse luck, our performance was cancelled, so we were forced to work off the damages with pick and shovel.

So what the fuck. Do any of you know what the code number 76-OX9-NL stands for on a laser guided missile? I know it means turn the cylinder either one click to the left or three click to the right, but I don’t remember which. Mitch! Come on and take a look at this thing, will you? I’ll just finish this trench. Pharaoh… Let my people gooooooo!!!

This is it – truly it. No, I don’t mean just any “it” – I mean the real thing. You don’t know what “it” is? What the hell! Where are you going? I’m talking to you, bwah!

Whoops. Did it again, didn’t I? Sorry… I didn’t mean for anyone outside the confines of our little space RV. How bloody humiliating. I was just reading posi-Lincoln the riot act for his various failings. Oh sure, he may have saved the Union back in the 1860s, freed the slaves, etc., but what has he done for us lately? I’ll tell you what – he’s made a flaming wreck of this tour, my friend, and I mean that quite literally. Never get an ex-president to do a booking agent’s job, that’s what I always say. (Should have stuck to my principles on that one. I wouldn’t be wasting my time right now trying to explain the meaning of “it” whilest stranded on a hostile planet.)

So yeah – we’re stranded on a hostile planet. Reason for this pickle? Simple. Our genius “great emancipator” booked us into the middle of an interstellar conflict, a la Ameniar and Vendicar from the original Star Trek series. Only difference is, these fuckers use real bombs, missiles, lasers, and other assorted anti-personnel devices. Anyway, that FAX Lincoln was waiting for was being sent by one of the antagonists in an interplanetary dust-up that’s been going on for the better part of a decade. The planet BORAX 19 and its near neighbor CALGON were exchanging missiles as we arrived, in fact. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) was the first to notice when one skimmed by our break lounge window. The second one, well…. that landed in the galley. Not good.

Now, as you folks out in TV land know, any breach in a spaceship’s hull may present a problem, particularly to those sentient life forms (sFhszenKlyrn excluded) who may be lurking within. You know the drill – air excaping, alarms going off, the ship pitching back and forth (or, at least, the camera does and the people fall left and right in an accordingly dramatic fashion). Well, we got into a bit of that. Luckily at that particular juncture, those of us on the lower deck were trying on our newly acquired astronaut get-ups, which make for jolly good stage gear out yonder. What happened next? Well, as I was cursing Lincoln to high heaven, we followed the trajectory of a popular song from way back when:

Down and down and down we go
Round and round and round we go

From there, we experienced one of those “crash-bang” landings we’ve become famous for over the past few years. The good news is that we were able to find the venue that Lincoln booked us into. The bad news is that… that’s the building we crashed into. Once the fire was out, all we had to deal with was a very angry club owner with an oversized scrootch gun. Vendicarians speak through sign language (just like we do when we’re angry). Kind of hard to tell them you’re sorry when your hands are up.