Tuesday, April 14, 2015

More cultural enlightenment

Please Note:-
The songs are slowed down for copyright reasons. To speed it up, click the settings(gear icon) on the bottom right of the screen. You can choose "speed" or "quality". Click "speed" and click 1.25 so the songs are the correct speed....

Musings -
Listening to this, I'm taken back to my 'Midnight Astronaut' nights, and I can relate to a lot of what's being expressed here. I've seen more small foreign planets with strange constructions on them, and flown more sophisticated little spacecraft than most people should ever, and I'm lucky I came back alright.

The last time, I was returning from a far away set of planets where we had been having a space war for generations, and I was about half bionic as a result of technological implants installed in me or on me long before anyone ever heard of The Borg. My craft was ball-shaped, and my control center occupied the upper half of it, with the propulsion in the lower section. The control panels were duplicated behind my seat, so that to reverse direction, I swivelled around to the other set of controls, fired an alternate set of thrusters, and was suddenly going the other way. Neat. And it could move up and down like a helicopter, as well as maneuver like an aircraft, so it could hover in space, or go like hell if desired.

One of my arms was artificial, yet I had all the normal sensations in it. The control stick was a small handgrip, like a video game controller, effortless to use, and all I had to do was think of where I wanted to go, and this craft was taking me there. It could almost read my mind.

I was tired, from all that travelling, and all that battling, and as I approached my home destination, flying above domed cities over a planet whose atmosphere was no longer pure enough for unprotected breathing of it, I looked down into one of those big transparent domes and as I slowly circled above it, I could recognize inside it everyone I ever knew - kids in public school whom I hadn't thought of in many decades were suddenly there, waving at me. It was like some kind of hero's welcome had been organized, and I was the guest of honor. 

I noticed an airlock with a landing pad before it at one side of that dome, and  landed my craft on the pad, then went inside. People were crowding around offering their congratulations, and someone pressed a drink into my hand - the artificial one. And someone else gave me a hug, and I took a sip of the drink, thinking "Well, at least they haven't forgotten how to make a decent Vodka Collins with extra sugar and a dash of Grenadine...."

And then my lady friend yelled at me, and I snapped out of it. As I woke up, I remember thinking "Aw, Shit! This is the wrong planet, and where the hell is my craft, so I can get out of here?" And my lady friend looked at me, asking "Are you OK? You look disoriented...." And I said, "I think I'm on the wrong planet... I'm not supposed to be here.....this looks like the distant past to me!" And she said, "Wow! You really did have a trip, didn't you?" And I replied, "Wait until I do you a couple of oil pastels of it, and you'll see some of it for yourself, and you probably won't believe it. I'm not even sure I do...."

When I showed her the oil pastels, she said, "You're right - I don't believe it!" 

2 comments:

  1. Sir Ray!!

    I think that maybe you should cut down on those fumes from the Oil Pastel Paint. They seem to be causing some sort of hallucinogenic episode in your head.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It wasn't the oil pastels... it was her freshly baked brownies, the special ones, and a couple of joints of "Columbian Gold" from the hall closet.
    That stuff could really get you "out there", even away back when.... I've flown further in three-quarters of an hour than airline pilots do in a year! And saw things that won't be invented for another two hundred years...

    But I do appreciate your concern, and I hasten to add that you don't need to worry about any of that these days.

    ReplyDelete