GalacticMu

Sometimes, in the midst of the terror of bureaucracy and Los Angeles parking permit fiascos, a minuscule glimmer of hope shoots by, nearly undetected.  You have to be alert.  A Hope Neutrino, if you will.

You see, I’m afraid you either get it or you don’t.  Some of us are chosen, and we know we are chosen.  If you are reading this, you’re probably one of us.

It usually happens with youth.  We all have the story.  Just, one night, you heard your name being whispered.  Mine was in the Mojave desert, next to Edwards Air Force Base where my grandparents lived.  Late one night, far away from light pollution and close to the actual breathing spirit of jetflight itself, Old Muroc, I looked up one night and saw the Milky Way and - I think I must have been about 6 years old - suddenly realized that the sky wasn’t a solid ceiling, but a falling away of infinity.  I remember physically losing my balance.  It was no longer “up,” it was out.  New neurological links fused into permanent brain patterns.  The stars did not move across the Earth, the Earth was moving amongst the stars. Each new piece of information was like punching my brain in the stomach: each star was a sun, each sun could have planets circling it, the universe had no known boundary, and suddenly, amongst the static download of data, the understanding of what it meant that we had been out there.  We had been out there!

… Sunday ... it said.  … Sunday …

Yes?

… Come home …

I want to.  I’m trying.

It’s hard for me to admit, but I understand faith.  I know what it feels like to have that one thing you don’t need to question, that one thing that doesn’t waver in front of being tired, being sick, being bored and frustrated.  It’s just that, instead of believing in a magical, bearded cloud-man, I believe that mankind isn’t as terrestrial as we think we are.  Oh, I don’t know that the specific species came from space or anything, but I do know that each atom of our DNA is literally stardust.  That everything we are, everything we touch and eat and breathe is stardust, particles travelling billions of lightyears from where they started, particles that saw the beginning of time itself.  We are each space.  Some of us know we should go back.  Earth is a fun diversion, but you can only stay at Disneyland so long.

Yesterday it was brought to my attention that SpaceX, the privately held company that put the first civilian-designed and launched rocket into orbit on September 28th (without a damn hitch, I should add), is headquartered in Hawthorne, California.  Which is literally within walking distance of where I am typing this right now.   As I excitedly perused their site to see if they offered tours of the facility, I absentmindedly clicked on the “careers” page, where I happened to notice they were hiring for a position I am qualified for.

The SpaceX Merlin rocket engine (no relation, I assume, to the other famous Merlin engine).  Photo ©Space Exploration Technologies.

It feels dramatic, but it is true: it was like being back in the desert again, the gossamer rip of the Milky Way forever obliterating my view of the universe.  I could work for a company that puts rockets into space?  Oh.  Oh my.  All this moving horror, the complex series of phone calls it takes to get one’s gas service turned on (it’s a long story, but suffice to say that even customer service was confused), all that flotsam was slammed back into place.

All of these companies, and there are more every day it seems, are staffed by people, private, educated, passionate people - regular people - who want nothing more than to get us home.  It is their job.  SpaceX has no government coffer (hell, our government doesn’t have a government coffer), no politcal agenda.  It’s pure science, every day.  It is a moon landing, every day.  And I intend to participate.

I just hope they’re okay with me having a tattoo of SpaceShipOne in my left armpit.

50 years old, and not looking so fresh.  Remember when they unveiled this “updated” logo?  It’s like New Coke.  Looking at the old one is a lesson in jumping the shark.

See, look at that.  Simple.  Unique.  Timeless, if you don’t count times where human beings ruin everything.  Here’s sincerely hoping that you’ll somehow pull it all back together again, from all of us here at GalacticMu.

UPDATE*** Because it might not be immediately apparent, I’d like to point out that this post is a direct mockery of the link below.  The source article, I feel, is counter-intuitively sexist by promoting a few severely dated common “misconceptions” about women; instead of being informative, it feels sensational and foolish.  I know from experience that ad agencies are not pits of misogynistic testosterone, they are, in fact, often uniquely tolerant.  My rage comes from a belief that sexism in the workplace is a hell of a lot more complex and subtle than snarkily telling a man he can’t tickle you.  

We’re going to take a diversion.

Halcyon sent me a link to the sassy, hand-on-hip declaration of “The DON’Ts Of Advertising: The Women’s Edition” complete with photo of attractive women with a selection of hair-hues, hot on the heels of their equally informative “dealing with black folk” edition - rawr!  I’m kind of holding out for “Tolerating Hebrews” personally, because I don’t know how to.

Here, I made some adjustments:

1. DON’T… Ask if I’m doing okay when I look tired or tell me that I’m doing a good job - fuck that shit, maggot!  Everyone knows that women actually get off on pretending to be a dominatrix - no compliments, no terms of endearment, and no insinuation that I might be a human being with feelings!  If I’m on my period, YOU RUB YOUR FACE IN IT.  Do you fucking understand me, tube meat?  Later, we’ll cuddle.

2. DON’T… assume that because I desperately try to be in control at work, regardless of my ability or rank, that I try to reign holy terror over my manfriend at home, too.  I’m just clumsily trying to power my way into a better job title.  I don’t actually know what I’m doing.

3.When I am rigidly and inexplicably sticking with a terrible artistic decision, DON’T… assume that it’s because I’m afraid of this crazy old prejudice that makes people think that women “waffle” - well, I don’t know.  I probably am.  Wait a minute!  Shit.  Wait, yes.  I’m going to go ahead and say that this terrible Apple spot rip-off I’m trying to construct is perfect for our client, because I bragged about it over cosmos earlier and I’m afraid you’ll think I am changing my mind now.  Women of the world, raise your right hand, WHUT!

3. DON’T… and yes this is my second number 3, are you seriously trying to impress your patriarchal number system on me?  Anyway, DON’T… assume I’m a lesbian just because I’m sort of pear-shaped and tuck my polo t-shirts into my high-waisted jeans.  I know you WISH that skinny bitch with the bleached pixie cut over in traffic was a lesbian, but she’s NOT.  I’ve TRIED to hit that shit and she ain’t havin’ it.  Sober, anyway.  We both know we can put a few Long Island Iced Teas in her and she’ll be sucking face with anything with tits.  Even you, Dave.  HA!

3. DON’T… assume I’m not going to slip in another number 3, just to mess with you.  DON’T… ask me why I don’t wear more skirts - wait, what?  Do people actually do this still, like anyone under the age of 65?  I’m almost 100% certain they don’t.  And besides, if you actually had even been in an agency before you’d know that the ladies are wearing some seriously form-fitting shit on top of the banginist fuck-me knee-boots they can find.  That observation that women dress for other women?  That one is true.  DO… assume I’m going to wear something super-borderline inappropriate so that you are wrestling boners and fantasizing about leaving your girlfriend all day long, mostly just because I’m a bitch.  See #1.

4. DON’T… stare at my breasts.  Somehow you’re going to pull this off even though you’ll stare at them on women in the grocery store, at the gas station, in line for movie tickets, on TV and on your wife.  Just, try to act like you’re a homo, OK?  I do. Blech.

5. DON’T… tickle me?  Is there a big tickling problem in advertising agencies I don’t know about?  Also, I guess since we have to list stuff you specifically can’t do, don’t put your penis in me either.

6. DON’T…you dare fucking notice that there is a gender discrepancy in this line of work, or you might as well notice that there aren’t any ‘black folk’, as they like to be called, or how there are a reasonable number of Asians.  Because then your ass is  ‘downsized’.  We both know that if you try and put that birth control ad in front of a focus group, no matter how hilarious and pertinent it is, they are gonna HATE it.  Why?  Because they’re going to tell the focus group a man made it.  And we both know that no matter how overused and out-of-touch my ad is, they’re going to LOVE it.  Because a woman made it.  So stuff it.

7. And you know what, DON’T…come to me and ask me to work on every goddamn fucking tampon account that comes in here.  You know how vaginas work, you figure out the ad for yourself.  Wait, what am I saying?!  This is guaranteed work for me!  Gimme that account!  And gimme that diet drink one, too!  You couldn’t possibly know what it is like to have a fickle, embarrassing sex organ!

8. DON’T… try and be sensitive and act like there is a chance I might be a creative director or a copywriter.  Statistically speaking, I won’t be.  Go ahead and assume I’m a producer or account manager, it saves time.  Likewise, when I have to come down in talk to you in your weird little creativity cubicles I’ll try not to rub it in your face that my job is like, 5,000 times more secure than your job is.  And EASIER.  Muahahahahaa! 

 9. DON’T…tell me about how your wife is really feeling this pregnancy and you feel sorry for her or some crap like that.  I don’t want to hear about your happy marriage, it makes me depressed.  And try to laugh when I make totally awkward remarks about how completely and utterly WASTED I got out at the clubs last weekend.  I’m dangerously cutting-edge.  I mean, I think it’s nice that you invited me to your son’s 5th birthday party and everything and I’m sorry I drank too much beer and made a - okay, three - bukkake jokes in front of your parents, but jeez, loosen up.

10. DON’T…assume that I “honestly like sports”.  I don’t.  And besides, if you think about it for a while it starts to get kind of weird.  I mean, you think it’s hot that I know the score of last night’s game and want to get a pitcher with the dudes after work, but do you really want me sitting on the couch all weekend watching games and eating cold pizza?  No.  You want me washing your laundry and making you an awesome lemon layer cake.  And you don’t want to be watching games either.  Why can’t we all just admit we want to two or three Percocet each and enough sets of Rock Band for the whole office to play at the same time?

Ladies!  You’re gonna want to print this one out and tape it above the mimeograph machine!  Along with that ad for YAZ birth control because like, it has totally reduced your bloat-days, am I right or am I right, sister?

I had two epiphanies in the last two days while driving around Los Angeles, and neither of them involved methods of mass exterminating people.  If I had a therapist I’m sure they’d congratulate my progress.

The first is lame but lemme get it out: I love airports.  Kind of.

Two words:   Awe.  Some.

I was driving a major thoroughfare that runs under and around part of LAX when a jet came in to land pretty much right on top of my car.  It was that moment of visceral, brain-canceling jet engine noise that my adrenaline and happiness went through the fucking roof and I swooned in the post-coital afterglow.  Initially I felt it was due to the surprise element of a 73,000 lb rocket trying to decelerate onto my head, but the more I thought about it the more I came to terms with how pretty futuristic airports still seem to me.  I’m going to be eating this sentiment next time I’m in one, mind you, when they can’t seem to figure out how to book the plane correctly and have to bump me (DELTA, I’M LOOKING AT YOU) or can’t seem to figure out how to give me free Percocet.  But that day I couldn’t deny it: what a fantastic mindfuck!  Look at that cobbled-together cluster of literally combusting energy energy that humans manage to wrangle into more or less the right direction on a daily basis!  And hardly ever killing people in the process!

The second epiphany is also a basic one.  Sorry.  This one was driving through the 7am marine-layer fog and suddenly realizing that the reason all these scifi shows are popular now is not because viewers are into science fiction, but because they are into experiencing puzzle-solving.

It makes sense:  the world is chaos, a series of unfair, rewardless events ending only in death¹.  TV for too long has presented itself not as a series of temporary solutions, but only as stalled, unfinished interactions.  Reality TV has brought this to a huge pimple head just now ready to bust: it is one thing to wait and see which teen model is going to win a temporary contract with a megalithic cosmestics corporation, but it’s another to feel like we might be participating in real problemsolving.

Bear with me.

I was thinking about Fringe again (as an aside: what the hell is the matter with me?) and I thought, “Isn’t it convenient that they always solve the case.”   To which I thought, “Duh, no one wants to watch a show where clandestine events occur and no one ever figures out what’s going on, where Sherlock Holmes says ‘Well fuck me, I have no idea who did it.’”And then the backlash understanding: viewers are pretending to be problem solvers!  People are getting off on pretending they are clever!  Far out. I’d been reading about how it’s becoming common for owners of sheep-herding dogs to take their pets to “sheep herding camp” where they let the house pet chase sheep around for a few hours in order to treat behavioral issues; as the article states, even a 4-pound Yorkie can be made to feel ‘useful’.

Our brains!  Need to pretend to work if real work isn’t available!  We are house pets given sheep for a few hours.  Don’t deny it.  You know it’s true.

¹Hey dad, mom, I know you were worried before when I told you I’d told my doctor I was experiencing “thoughts of doom” (as a possible explanation for my high blood pressure -weee!) lately and that I didn’t mean against myself or anything, and I assure you that is still the case.  And I’m not depressed.  I think this is a normal phase that athiests go through.  Until they die.  Ha!  Oh my god, I’m stopping, I’m stopping.

Halcyon: “Hey!  You’re drinking my water!”

Sunday: “What are we, Fremen?”

The Large Hadron Collider, aka Mr. Black-Holey, made scientists cry this week by breaking.

Including the failure of a 30-ton electrical transformer and then the far more irritating mass leakage of helium from a supercooled chamber which — while hilarious for the scientists in the chamber that the helium leaked into — will have to be warmed and then supercooled again, a long and expensive process.

CERN’s Dr. James Gilles was reported to have commented that having one’s World’s Biggest Collider totally break in a fucked up way is “(…) just an unfortunate fact of life (…).”

Collider to Be Stalled for 2 Months at The New York Times.

Our own Psych Officer offers a link to Starship Dimensions, whose motto should be “Where You Think You’re Going to Just Look for a Minute But One Hour Later You’re Still Here.” Note that all ships can be clicked on and dragged to directly compare next to other ships.

Jeff Russell’s Starship Dimensions.

My intention was - and is - to never use my presence on the internet as a forum for seriousness.  No politics, that kind of thing. I have this fear that I’m going to be seen as one of those PEOPLE WHO USE ALL CAPS!!!!! or someone who uses any forum available to proclaim that heating food in plastic is making kids have Autism - I’m just a dick, I guess.  But just this once, because I like pets more consistently than I like people, I’m gonna break my own rule.

We almost killed a dog last night.

Read the rest of this entry »

A model in Giles Deacon’s Spring 2009 line.

Sorry to rape, murder and then beat a dead horse, but I can’t help it.  I have limited obsessive-compulsive tendencies.

Fringe is pretty laughable. In fact, I’m not even sure the general public is going to tolerate it for longer than a year or two.  It’s baby days, still, sure, but that baby better turn into a swan, because at this stage it looks like a goddamn troglodyte.  But hey!  It’s free on Hulu.com right now!  And what else do I have to do while I wait for employment callbacks?

Let’s make a spoilery list on Episode 2!

• Nearly three straight minutes of screaming is severely testing my patience and the episode has barely even started.
•  Hint to screenwriters: no nurse has ever yelled to a doctor “WE GOT TO CUT THIS BABY OUT NOW, DOCTOR!” and especially not while the patient was conscious.  If there ever were a nurse that had done that, I guarantee you she is now lying in parts at the bottom of a biohazard containment pit.
• Okay, okay.  I’m TRYING to remain OPEN.  But the mass of a biological entity the size of a human being simply cannot grow in a matter of minutes.  It just can’t. Or rather, there would be such in incredible consumption of raw energy (not to mention energy waste) that the room would have heated to like a 1000° or something.  Don’t check my math, just roll with me.  You know what I’m saying?  Laws of physics simply don’t allow for that kind of organic growth, not even in fringe science.
• There is no such thing as “medical grade leak-proof linen”.
• Also, if Clarice Starling taught me anything, it’s that female FBI agents who stomp off and get teary every time they encounter a serial killer’s victim are going to get EATEN ALIVE.  Maybe literally.
• Hint to screenwriters: even hookers get suspicious when some guy with a duffel bag takes them to a warehouse in the middle of nowhere.
• Okay, okay.  Everyone, screenwriters: it is very, very rare for impregnation to occur in under 30 minutes.  Which is the point the plot hinges on:  man with super-advanced aging porks hooker, hooker gets pregnant with super-advanced aging baby, etc. etc.  Why would the sperm even live long enough to impregnate her?  The lifespan of a single sperm is 2-7 days in normal people — in a super-advanced ager it would be like, a fraction of a second.  And should it have even lived long enough to impregnate her, it would probably encounter the egg in the fallopian tube, which would have led to instant death from ectopic pregancy.  That’s even assuming her uterus could contain something growing that fast without rupturing, which it couldn’t.  GODDAMN IT, IT TAKES ONLY A LITTLE EFFORT TO FAKE SCIENCE.  Take a fucking minute to make it sound plausable, you asswads!

My face is stuck like this.

• I’m sorry, none of these people feel like they have any experience with anything at all.  Would it kill someone to throw in little bits of reality, like have someone ask “Are we recording?” during a crucial visual experiment?  There’s zero humanity.  Ever.  No one eats.  No one checks someone else’s math.  Agent Sculder Dunham is clearly going to be both Mulder and Scully, both a believer and rigidly moralistic while adopting a permanent expression of slightly put-out disapproval. The kid will always be the cruelly disbelieving shit who is alternately a genius, a lothario and a dumbass.  Denethor will be Denethor.  Astrid Farnsworth should be getting a spin-off show any day now.

In conclusion:

Meh.  It was okay.  It didn’t make me immediately crave another one, like some deliciously improbable shows. (House, are you there?  It’s me, Sunday.)  The special effects were surprisingly uninspired.  I’m sure some of the medical stuff gave some viewers shivers, but it was straight-up CSI crap - did they blow the whole budget on redubbing the screaming over and over until it was sufficiently shrill?

In conclusion in conclusion:

Boo.