It’s a hard-knock marine life—Florida woman punches otter to protect her pet dogs.

This scoop, and indeed today’s song, comes from our latest field correspondent, a talented remote agent who operates under the enigmatic cover of The Great Big Mulp. Where this “Mulp” can be found is a bit of a mystery, but I am in his debt.

Specifically, I am still short on Interns. Yes, don’t ask, Greg is still around, and I remain pleased with his awkward pluckiness—his plucky nerdiness—his nerdy awkwardness— especially after the fine work he did on his debut issue—but he’s a bit useless today. I’m not entirely clear about the details, but he’s rather distraught over the fallout of a fire at his “apartment”.

To be clear, apartment in this case means his mother’s basement. And no persons—or dogs or otters—were harmed. But he blubbered something about a “mint condition 2nd Edition PHB” being burnt to a crisp, and he is currently inconsolable. His mother tells me he has been sitting in the ashen mess of his room and sniffing moistly and rolling a pair of twenty sided dice again and again for the bulk of the day.

Be strong, Greg. I need you. I need you to make fresh coffee.

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That’s a paddlin’ — California Governor to play ping pong with 80-year-old champ. Two questions remain: does Arnold possess the ping pong acumen to defeat the octogenerian kingpin, and if so will his political sensibilities override his famously competitive spirit? Regardless, I think it is safe to say that no matter the final score, we are all winners.

Several hundred miles north of Lodi, the office is still quiet, absent of both the chattering of stoned 20-somethings and the beeps and bloops of that infernal (and regrettebly expensive) NewsBot machine responsible for last Friday’s musical SNAFU.

It is too quiet, even, though it pains me to admit it. I have, in fact, been interviewing some new blood. Exhibit A: Jonny B, as seen in today’s feature photo. It is worth noting that, when asked to pose with the ping pong paddles, he insisted that he do so shirtless. It is also worth noting that this did not get him the job, a fact not wholly uninfluenced by the revelation of a “LaRouche 4 Evah” tattoo writ across his shoulder blades.

The search continues.

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What can I say? It has been a busy, busy time for us—for me—in relation to things wholly incidental to The Aural Times. I—we—have been distracted, and publishing deadlines have been missed. In the words of that great communicator, that most Ronald of Reagans: mistakes were made.

Apologies.

The reality is that The Times may revert to a less frequent (but, compared with the last two weeks, more steady) publishing schedule in the near future—perhaps once a week, at least for a while—so that we may better attend to unrelated matters while still providing a dependable dose of musical news. I will most certainly keep you, dear reader, posted.

In the mean time, good news: work has begun toward the end of compiling our published work so far in a musical album: a compendium of Aural Times tunes in compact disc format, for your off-line musical enjoyment. On this, too, we will keep you posted.

Thank you for your understanding and your patronage.

As for the Interns…well. I have let the current crop go—I do not believe they ever recovered completely from the disappearance of Dalton during our Montana sojourn—and I am currently looking for a new group. It being summer, I may be able to find a more-or-less able group of PSU students with nothing better to do than work feebly for OSPIRG or Taco Bell. I shall see; I shall see.

Happy listening.

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Laptop warriors rejoice—Portland City Council approved Wifi contracts on Wednesday to bring free internet service to Portland. Deployment is expected to take 18 months, which should be plenty of time for Qwest and Comcast to totally freak out.

As an Internet-based musical news-source—arguably the finest in the world—we are, of course, glad to hear that our native city is embracing such a progressive technology measure. The Interns in particular are pleased, though mostly because it means they can play Mario Kart DS with one another without showing up to work to leech the Internet service for which, needless to say, they are not paying.

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There was simply nothing to sing about, as of press time Tuesday evening. And so, an editorial on the subject, in song. We are breaking new ground, here at the Times.

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Put the kettle on—Fire Island, NY water supply tainted by e. coli bacteria. They’ll be boiling their water—or drinking it bottled—for a few days.

We’re starting to look human again, here at The Times. The stuporous aftermath of our Fourth of July office Drink-A-Thon has more or less worn off—except in the case of Gloria, who has been officially upgraded to comatose by the folks at the hospital. Don’t worry—she does this regularly. Plenty of rest and saline, and, like clockwork, she’ll be awake and incredibly hungover by the first week of August.

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They’re rocked out—Pacific Northwest rock trio Sleater-Kinney is breaking up after eleven years together. The official line is “indefinite hiatus”, which is, you have to admit, a very polite thing to say.

We here at The Times are big fans of the band—their brand of high-energy rock has always done well to inspire at least some movement in even the most slothlike of Interns—but eleven years is a big stretch. They’ve made some good albums, and they deserve to go out on their own terms.

Whereas, on the other hand, the Interns have made no albums and can only be taken out on leashes. Corin Tucker, how I envy thee.

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Puppy love subverted—woman assaults breeder with dog corpse. Waving the puppy’s corpse out the sunroof of her car as she left seems mild, in that context.

We’ve got a strict no pets rule here at The Times—no dogs, no cats, no goldfish even. It is not a question of allergies—I simply cannot (a) trust the Interns to remember to feed/walk/clean them nor (b) afford the bulk kleenex orders needed to comfort the nincompoops when the inevitable happens.

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You have to admit, they’ve got moxie—two teenagers arrested in attempt to extort from myspace.com. The only problem with their plan is that it was stupid, which is not something that an 18- and a 19-year-old can be expected to account for. Especially, if you will forgive me, where Myspace is an influence.

We have had a pleasant (if impromptu) Memorial Day Weekend vacation here at the Times, and so I apologize if you have been wondering where the song was Friday and Monday. I blame the military-industrial complex. For this, and many other things.

As for memorials themselves, several of the Interns (none of whom, I would like to note, have attempted, at least with any success, to blackmail a major corporation while under my employ) have been playing Call of Duty on their Playstation 2, in what they have loosely described as an homage to half-remembered uncles and grandfathers. Touching, from them.

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Bipedal and busted—a fraudster claiming to be paraplegic leapt from her wheelchair and ran from police. You can run, but you can’t hide the fact that you can run.

On the way in to the office, I was accosted by a vagrant claiming to be the reincarnation of John Lennon. The Interns, ever credulous, invited him in and began asking him various questions vis-a-vis Beatlemania and what the hell, exactly, Paul McCartney thinks he’s doing—and despite the fact that our spiritually-recycled guest answered largely in grunts, I have to thank him. He did lay down some nice Lennon-esque harmonies for today’s track, and even nailed them on the first take.

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The bigger they are, &c—cooling tower at Trojan nuclear power plant successfully imploded.

Needless to say, the Interns will simply not stop the “Trojan” jokes. If I hear one more weak jest about erect towers I may snap.

And a hello to the folks reading Making Light.

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Don’t forget your umbrella—it’s flooding in New England. When it rains, as they say, it pours.

Here in Portland, we’re seeing the complement: it has been well over 90 degress Fahrenheit for two days now, and their is no relief in sight. The Interns have been congregating in the breakroom, taking turns standing in pairs before the open refrigerator door. I would do something about it, but I am stuck to my chair.

Enjoy the song. Given the heat, we couldn’t really muster anything up-tempo, but I feel Reginald played some rather nice guitar, considering his heat-stroke and the fact that he is, when not delirious and febrile, primarily a clarinetist.

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Everything is bigger there—Texas will get the larget wind-energy farm in the US. Despite debates over the environmental impact of the technology in general—and of the planned windfarm in particular—the project is a progressive step for a state associated with crude oil.

And today’s song is a progressive step for Interns with poor time-management skills—I do not think I have ever seen them work so bloody quickly, and it shows. Still, though—catchy.

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Man vs. nature:  black bear mauls family of three, killing one.  Tennessee Rangers locate bear.  They put it down.

Which brings up another Aural Times office rule:  put it down.  How often, and how forcefully, do I find myself repeating it to an Intern?  Words cannot express it—which is why I have recently invested in a paddle.

The telephone on which you’re making a long-distance personal call, Jimbo?  Put it down.

The coffee pot in my office?  That’s my coffee, Zowie.  Put it down.

The petty cash till?  Thwack!

Put it down.

My only concern is that some of them seem to enjoy it.

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A song about a boy, a multiple-choice test, and the lawyers that brought them together—student sues over SAT errors.

And with this snappy pop tune about litigation and education, The Aural Times has—you may want to sit down for this—published our 25th issue.

25!  A glorious number.  Grant you, it may seem no great feat—after all, you might say, The New York Times has been publishing daily for years.  Decades, even.  But then, the NYT is dull, dull, dull.  Frankly, they’ve all the musical-headline sensibilities of a rock.  A tone-deaf rock.  Damn the NYT!  Damn them all to—

The Interns are staring at me again.  Did I get carried away?  Apologies.  What was my point?  Yes!  25!  25 glorious, melodious issues!  A small milestone it may be, but it is our milestone.  And with 25, we can say, yes, good!  Let us on to 50!  And 100!  1000!  And then we’ll see what those toneless creeps in New York have to say about it, with their “press badges” and their “expense accounts” and their—

Oh, stop staring, all of you!  Get back to work!

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Imagine this:  you’re twenty.  You’re in college.  Your family has money.  And you’ve just gotten arrested for setting nine churches on fire.  If I were to ask you how you could make yourself look like any more of an ass, what would you say?

“It was a joke”, would, I wager, be a good start.  So say
three students held in arsons at churches—but don’t think they’re being too whimsical, because only the first five were funny.  After that it got, apparently, “out of hand.”

Call me a fuddy-duddy.  Call me an old square.  I don’t understand your Carrot Top or your Space Ghost or your Pokemon—fine, my sense of humor is out-of-date.  But church burning?  Is that what kids do these days?  Is this something I’d need a cellphone to understand?  Do you sit around in your pre-distressed bluejeans and send each other little arson proposals?  “LOL U WNT 2 BRN A CHRCH ROFL”?

Is this what the Interns are doing when they aren’t getting work done?  Which is to say, almost constantly?

I’d better go check the batteries in the smoke detectors.

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I don’t like this a damned bit.

Abortion has always been and will always be a difficult and contentious issue.  Few ideas are so immediately and so passionately divisive among Americans as is abortion, with all of the ethical and spiritual and social nuances it encompasses.  Agreement will not be forthcoming any time soon, if ever; fundamentally conflicting beliefs inform opposing viewpoints on the subject—and such views, in their variety and in our duty to allow and preserve them though their holders may vehemently disagree with one another, are in fact one of the key virtues of our national character.  It is an issue that cannot but polarize us because we are Americans.

But still—I don’t like this one god damned bit.

What the legislative body of South Dakota have made, what Governor Rounds is poised to make law, is a cynical, regressive play to lay foundation for an attack on a 33-year-old Supreme Court decision.  This is politics, and is, essentially, par for the course, and I can accept if not necessarily respect that aspect of the situation.

What I can’t accept is the message the lawmakers of South Dakota are willing to send to their own citizens in the course of their politicking:  that rape, incest, serious medical harm, even mere stark unpreparedness to raise a child are no excuse for an abortion.  The emotional and physical well-being of every woman in South Dakota has been made collatoral damage in a war of ideology.  No matter that the law will be challenged.  No matter that in fact abortion in South Dakota will likely become no more difficult than it already is, in the short term.  The principle stands:  South Dakota prefers its ideological hardlining to the health of its women.

It is evidence of my own strong feelings on the subject that today’s issue so ill-humored—for that, I apologize on behalf of The Aural Times, and pledge to return to a lighter touch next issue.  Until then, I wish you all the best of health, or, if fate has barred that door to you, the freedom to look after yourself as best you see fit.

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We’ve got a strict ordinance here at The Aural Times, as well.  We call it the No Puppies statute.  It doesn’t address critters in general so much as images of critters incorporated into motivational posters.  Anyone who puts up a pictures of a kitten dangling from a tree limb, subtitled with a cheerful “Hang in there!”; anyone who moves about the office bearing on their chest a picture of a baby dalmation; anyone who waggles about a mug with a soaring eagle or a winking owl or, god help them, a marmot—is fired.

Now, that may seem harsh.  “Eagles”, you says, “are patriotic!”  I’m not one to dismiss out of hand the pride and dignity of our American Avian (though consider old Ben Franklin’s proposed candidate for that title—the turkey), nor what one could rightly call healthy patriotism.  But kitschy posters drawn up from the saccharine dreams of Bette Midler fans, employing wide-spanned birds in an effort to portray to me, visually and verbally in poster form, that I, or anyone else in this office, is the wind beneath some other staffer’s wings?  Fired.  Fired, fired, fired.

Insofar as inspirational posters go, here’s some folk eteymology for you:  “Patriotic” is, in this case, a foreshortened blend of “Patronizing” and “Neurotic”, the two qualities which seem to come together, like Batman and Robin, to assault office-goers with these schmaltzy, brain-melting missives.  Courage?   Endurance?  Fired.

And so I applaud the City Council of Homer, Alaska; may a scarcity of eagle snapshots, like freedom, ring.

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I’ll be frank:  I cannot go a single morning without a cup of tea.  Granted, I prefer the strong black—or perhaps, if I am feeling exotic, Mate—but as I see it, caffeine and DMT may as well be cousins.

And I suspect the US Customs agents who confiscated an inbound shipment of hoasca back in 1999 may have missed their own morning cuppa.

And am I envious of these New Mexicans?  Perhaps.  When I drink my tea, all I see are the needy, hapless faces of The Aural Times‘s junior news staff.

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