Off World Blues
Barnard’s Star
Flushugger’s Place

by Jason Nunes

Man am I sick of these fuckin’ Methane breathers … mostly causea the fact that I got the Kmart, bargain bin, bottom of the bucket, one time only, blue light special gill job back on … well CRAP, I can’t pronounce the places name … that rust bucket, wanna be Miir space station thing somewhere out in Slug Space … (JeSUS, how long ago was that?!? … Hey, at least I got that goin’ for me … at least I’m not in Slug space any longer …) and I’m in constant fear of the damn things gummin’ up on me, and me … well, diein’ I guess (though, honestly, I can think of lots of worse stuff than diein’ … too bad I got that whole protestant work ethic, "you gonna go to HAIL ifn’ you don’t walk the path GAWD’s laid out fer ya boy!", down home, good ol’ Baptist, cowardice thing goin’ for me …) BUT also the dang things (or maybe it’s the Methane … I’m not tech enough to tell you dig?) make my sets all sound thin, high pitched, n’ tinny … I feel like Alvin and the Fuckin’ Chipmunks coverin’ Sun House … which just isn’t right on so many levels. Bad enough I’m a citified white boy (Shoot! Not even trash like Elvis.) but now I gotta sound like I’m inhalin’ helium every time I open my trap?!? I tell ya, somewhere Robert Johnson’s spinnin’ in his grave. (Yeah, or maybe I’m part of hell’s plans for Robert, right? … part of his own little damnation for that whole cross road debacle … "Look what they’ve done to your music Robert! … BWAA HAA HAA HAHAHAHA!!!!" … that gives me comfort … suuuure.) … ANYWAY, the BEM’s don’t seem to care … well, or even notice really … HECK! I’m sure to some of ‘em it even sounds better right? … or triggers some sound induced, pornographic, autoerotic reaction which has ‘em spugein’ all over the freekin’ joint like a money shot from some horrible John Holmes/Alien cross over epic … all in slow motion …*shudder* … yeah, I’m glad I’m out of Slug space … let me tell you!

So, I’ve started opening my sets with "Motherless Child" lately. Not much of a Blues standard I realize, but it’s seeming more and more appropriate these days you know? I mean, I’m such a "long way from home" I couldn’t even point to it in the night sky. Heck! The last time I saw another earther (there ain’t many of us out here you dig? Not much we can offer a geriatric galaxy really … not much but novelty and entertainment …) it wasn’t even a human being. (or in my case, a human doing …) it was onea them whales … a Sperm I think. I mean, how much reminiscing can you do with the closest thing to an ET your own planet has ever produced? All that talk about "dancing in the openless emptyfull space volume" crap … or fish … man them whales can sure talk a blue freekin’ streak about fish! … how all those little suckers taste … what they sound like … the way the light glints offa there fins … the swoosh swoosh sounds they make sliding through the water … Me, I hate fish. Whatchagonnado? Yeah, whales … ugliest poets the universe’s ever produced, but MAN! they have angel’s voices. Oh sure, they may be singin’ about chasing’ a school of mackerel to fill there stomachs … but all the time it’s "Mormon tabernacle choir" you dig? And they get all the best gigs too. Whales make good cash. Me, not so much. I stay "piss in the sink" the whole way, and havta buy my gills at Kmart.

Whatchagonnado? That’s just the way it is when you’re a cultural envoy.

I’m onea Earth’s ambassadors, right? A living treasure … or so they told me … with the balloons … the fanfare … all those women striped down to their gold lame underwear … mmmm … I miss women … human women … (you’d be surprised at how incompatible the rest of the universe’s genitals are. It’s like I’m English and they’re metric … or, well, like I’m a spoon and they’re … some hideous sea slug with 12 different gender types that change from second to second based on a complex dance of pigment change, sub audible sounds, synchronized gland secretions, and … well, "if they’re in the mood or not" … that don’t change much let me tell you … at least there’s some universal constants … gravity, weak nuclear force … ya gotta wine n’ dine the "ladies" … keeps ya anchored you know? ANYWAY, but I digress) so, "I’m a living history" they say … "earth’s loud shout in a sea of black" (that was for the whales I think) … "our own living Voyagers" … PHEW … it felt so noble at the time … so important … so … ahhh, whoamIkidding? It was a gig. And ya gotta take ‘em when they come along right? Specially if your playin’ blues in the land of technorapn’rollabilly trancelectronica bubblegum hardcore pop. SiiiIIIIiiiiiigh … yeah, RJ’s definitely spinnin’ in his grave. Only thing is, he started a long time before little ol’ me decided to suck down some methane filled birthday balloons to belt out "crossroad blues" for a room fulla non-bilaterally symmetrical, quinta pedal, hydrogen based colony pods … let me tell you … long before …

© Jason Nunes 2001