Well, looks like the federal government’s going to bail out the Gordon Geckos of Wall Street. The good news is that the global financial industry isn’t going to implode today (tomorrow, probably, but not today). The bad news is that I’m in hock to Uncle Sam for the rest of my natural life and most of my zombified Night of the Living Dead unnatural life as well.
This is what I get for getting $3,000 in the hole with Visa. Granted, I dug my way up out of the hole I’d made with them, eventually. But still…
It’s scary and it’s getting scarier all the time, and it’s made even scarier by the fact that I don’t know if I have what it takes to fix things, or if they can be fixed, or even if they should be fixed. I don’t know if anyone does. People love beating up the Baby Boomers, but at least they made an attempt – some would say naïve, others no – to save the world. At least they had the confidence, or the chutzpah, to make the attempt. I don’t know if I have even that.
Sometimes I just wish that the eschaton would be immanentized or, better yet, that the Space Brothers would show up in their Age-Of-Aquarius-Or-At-Least-Horus Expresses and Save the World. Let someone else deal with this shit.
I prefer the Space Brothers, because you don’t have to deal with all that end-of-the-world and Christians-giving-the-world-the-finger-as-they’re-lifted-up-during-the-Rapture stuff, plus the fact that aliens are cool. But, getting serious for a moment, meeting the Space Brothers would also be proof that someone’s watching out for us, someone higher or at least better than us, and that there’s more to the universe than just this sickened little life support unit we call Earth. (Dave Emory has some interesting things to say on that sentiment here, but I digress) This spiritual and religious longing is nicely summed up in Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft.
We’re all familiar with the Carpenters’ version of Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft. So I’ve decided instead to feature the guys who originated the song: the appropriately-named Toronto outfit Klaatu. (Not to knock Klaatu, but I prefer The Langley Schools Music Project version of Calling Occupants. More wistful. I still like Klaatu’s take on their own song, though)
Oh, and what’s World Contact Day? Well, for one thing, Klaatu’s not making it up. There really was a World Contact Day… sort of. It was an attempt in 1953, and again in 2001, to contact the aliens via telepathy. The participants were all to concentrate on a pre-arranged message worldwide at a ceratin time, in order to boost the power of the message. Much of Calling Occupant’s lyrics, and the title, come from that message, via the Second World Contact Day Project here:
THE MESSAGE
(To Be Memorized)
Calling occupants of interplanetary craft! Calling occupants of interplanetary craft that have been observing our planet Earth. We of IFSB wish to make contact with you. We are your friends, and would like you to make an appearance here on Earth. Your presence before us will be welcomed with the utmost friendship. We will do all in our power to promote mutual understanding between your people and the people of Earth. Please come in peace and help us in our Earthly problems. Give us some sign that you have received our message. Be responsible for creating a miracle here on our planet to wake up the ignorant ones to reality. Let us hear from you. We are your friends. (End of Message.)
And things are a lot more complicated than they were in 1953. Maybe they weren’t as scary – remember, this was in the middle of the Cold War, after all, with the United States and the USSR at nuclear high noon on the streets of Laredo – but they sure seem a lot more intractable and unsolvable.
This is off Klaatu’s 1976 debut album 3:47 PM EST.
Courtesy of BRUCEHONGOU.
And please come in peace we beseech you
Only a landing will teach them
Our Earth may never survive
So do come, we beg you
Please interstellar policeman
Won’t you give us a sign
Give us a sign that we’ve reached you
One Neat Thing a Day 