Of Myans and Music

Well, it's once again the time of year (like, the end) to start thinking about where to plant ourselves where we won't fall over for a couple of hours until it's time to slur our way through another round of Should auld acquaintance be forgot? .... (BTW, if that's a real question, my real answer is, "If only!") ... Anyway, almost everybody takes some kind of accounting of the past year around now, though in my case dismal and delightful haven't been exactly fair about taking turns. ... Even my black dog Jake is being harassed by the neighborhood bully, a cat named Sue. ... Sue is probably the size of my black dog Jake's big rawhide bone, but so far he fails to see that connection. ...Perhaps 2012 will be the year.

In fact, perhaps 2012 will be the year for a lot of things. ... Maybe someone will figure out the Mayans were laughing their fannies off. ...and something that sounds like, "Happy New Year, suckers."

Kind of like us including Chuck Berry recordings amongst the likes of Mozart and all the sounds of earth on the golden records in the Voyager spacecraft back in 1977. ... In fact, the copyright owners for the images and music on the actual record signed agreements which only permitted the replay of their works outside the solar system. ... That in itself is so immensely and hilariously more illuminating of our society than the actual stuff on the records. ... Can't you see it? ... Some poor schlock from space takes a shortcut through our galaxy, finds one of the Voyagers, tries to broadcast this stuff ... and suddenly men in black are all over his six arses. ... If you don't believe me, check out http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/faq.html. ... Besides, it'll be at least 40,000 more years before Voyager whizzes by some potentially inhabited planet, so, fear not Chuck Berry fans, rock and roll is here to stay. ... Oh, wait, the records are actually gold plated copper, which means they've probably been trashed and stripped for the copper by some civilization far more advanced than ours. Probably the Mayans. I can hear laughter echoing through the wormhole ...