musicians needed

musicians eagerly sought to participate in live performances of

- Vladivostok Supermarket Jazz

- Deep-Sea Timpani Works

- Microminiaturized Intra-Sinus Bacterial Rumba

- the widely unappreciated Eons 'n' Eras Plate Tectonic Waltz

- the Linus Pauling Millennial Sock Drawer Hum

- the refrain from Bill Shatner's "Paunches Ho!"

- the New York to Paris Ballistic Clavichord Rondo

- the Tender Messiah Thirty-three Lashes Salute

- Ridley Scott's "In The Space Shower Everyone Can Hear You Sing"

- the Flatland Narrow Tuba Fugue

- Fanfare For The Twice-Taken Dump

- the Fat Man and Little Boy Fission Round

- Wham-O's Oratorio For Resurrected Sea Monkeys

- the Hypocrite Senator Men's Room Gargle (in 5/4)

- the allegro section of the John Merrick Busted Gland Endocrine Sonata

- the theme from NBC's canceled "Abraham and Isaac: Hilarity Ensues"

- the fascinatin' rhythms of Gweilo White-Boy Honky Drone

- Eva Braun's Toasty Bunker Hop

- the children's chorus from the John Holmes rock opera "Parabolic Gamete Arc"

- Chrysler's Skipped Tune-Up Rod Throw in D

- the Dian Fossey Rhythmic Pelt Preening Cantata

- the Sherwin-Williams Lead Pigment Duet for Nursery Wall and Nervous System

- Catherine Bach's Taut Denim Aria

- the forgotten overture from "The Hindenburg And The Zippo"

- John Philip Sousa's rousing Kimchee Kraut And Slaw Flatus March

- Woodward and Bernstein's Investigative Elevator Music

- early-form Spurned-Electron Ionic Rock

(and)

- the American Dental Association's Million Man Molar Grind

how things looked late on 10 december 2005

Ascent into the bored night sky or what passes for it, two of three spouts dry, just dim sparks from those, third doing its best, sullen gouts of fire, psoriasis flakes making doomed moth flashes as they plummet through the thrust. Damn, thinks USS Sooperman, thought I was done with the ointment. Surface looks as crap from nineteen thousand as it does down there. At least the complaints and grousing're less audible up here, as just then an arm falls off. Christ's puckered contribution, thinks USS Sooperman. Go back for it, or let's be honest still only takes one hand to spank it so maybe not. Plus the price of repair, the popularity of molybdenum. Dull clunk of the arm down below off a little Cessna bound east for Pope's Head Slick, probably. Pale tomato explosion says arm hit engine or maybe tank. One less object aloft is the good thing there. Combover flaps something awful at these speeds, nearly smarts slapping against one side then the other. Sole working spout cuts out for a second, and the new deceleration rides USS Sooperman's shorts way up. It's the heft of the prigging utility belt, unwelcome momentum, but wedgie friction looses some ooze from god knows where and wow're things free, shorts slipping down, way down. Spastic course change and USS Sooperman snags the elastic on the crook of a foot. Now there's all kinds of flapping. Aerodynamics get bad with doubling over to try to hoist the shorts back up, and a meteor hit on the ass arches USS Sooperman backward in pain so there's nothing to stop the next one square into paunch. Not enough hands to rub the stinging impacts. Ragged hole in the tummy carapace says what do you say now to the dumb claim of invulnerability, stupid loaf. Elastic's shot and that's it for the shorts, winging off behind. Chance they'll burn up on reentry, or if not end tangled on some useless public abstract sculpture art. USS Sooperman while considering takes a small research satellite in the face, sideways, so now frontal vanes are smashed, logo's dented, and nothing will look good down at Lonely Bar no matter how low the light. When after looking back up USS Sooperman sees faces pressed against the Shuttle's porthole windows looming just ahead it's not impossible that he accelerates.