Chrome Wheelbarrows, et al.

Hello poppets,

Since the mailing list has gotten a bit stagnant these few weeks (aside from the Pynchon/Python roundtable..), it's about time I introduce my seven-point JBC Action Plan plan to improve 1998:

1. Stop worrying about when the Great American Music Hall live CD will be out. Bask in the memories of incredible bliss from the show, and then ask ol' Dave if it's possible to sell us a cassette copy of the show, oh say, for about five bucks. It will be a chance for those impatient bastards (like me) who are shuddering with JBC withdrawls over the last four months. He may nix this idea, but you all know that even if we buy a cassette, we will also buy a CD when (or if) it becomes available. That's a two-pronged profit source for Dave (or the JBC foundation, or whoever...), and a chance for us JBC gluttons to sate our appetite.
2. On a similar note, since Pat cleaned his closet of JBC detritus and got a nifty stack of American dollars in the process, how about resuming the spirit of sharing that we conspiracists are known for? Specifically, I would like to start a trade network for copies of the JBC auction tapes. I procured the exceedingly posh (and sentimental) live tape of the JBC at the Roxy in Los Angeles 1992, where Pat says "My name is Bruce Springsteen..." before sliding into 'Partytime'. I really couldn't afford any more, and I don't know where the other tapes ended up, but it would be quite swell if we could duplicate and exchange copies of them.
3. The traditional end-of-the-year holidays have become more of an unwanted social and economic burden than as a cause for celebration. No matter what your prescribed beliefs, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, the Solstice, etc., are a smashing bore. I would like to introduce a new holiday for that period - December 21st - the Pat Fish Birthday and JBC Drinking Holiday! Take the day off work to nurse your hangover and revel in the fantastic tunes and croons of his holiness Mr. Fish. Pre-empt the other holidays, and get your liver conditioned for the New Year. Any takers?
4. More JBC chords! I am thankful for those of you who posted the chords and lyrics of some of my favorite JBC songs, but I have been playing these half-dozen hits to my cats for the last four months and they're begining to tire of them. I'm more of an idiot than a savant over musical interpretation, and I'm not too good at figuring out even the most simple chord progressions. So, to those of you that have transcribed the chords, how about posting a few JBC more songs?
5. Spread the love, baby. Take an extra evening or weekend and drink, play guitar, whatever, with your friends. You can start by forming a JBC Speakeasy/drinking binge support group in your area. In particular, I would like to take out part of an evening for all of the Bay Area JBC fans I met last September to get together for a (or many) beer(s) at some place like Twenty Tank or the Alt Frankfurt. You folks were all so nice, but under the spell of booze and JBC, I forgot many names and phone numbers. Does anybody else (ahem, Dan Bunter...) second the motion?
6. How about updating Poison Ed's survey? With so many new JBC fans that have crawled out from under their rocks of late, we need to make those voices (and questionable social habits) count in his survey of Butcherphilia. It's about SCIENCE, man!
7. Get Pat back here. Not just as a musician, but as a tourist/friend/cultural exchange student. How many dollars and hours have you wasted on deadbeat friends and unwanted relatives who drop in on you for extended periods during their vacation? Now, you can kick those losers off the futon and sponsor Pat (and Kathie? Little Jake?) as cultural ambassadors to our continent! Give them a place to stay, breweries to visit, and a hosted bar tab as they travel the states (& provinces) from sponsor to sponsor across the USA (and Canada & Mexico)! Personally, I would like the bring them to my annual camp-out in the Nevada desert. Last year, our camp had two bars with over 130 gallons of beer, 20 gallons of hard liquor, pistols & assualt rifles, 95 pounds of ammo, a huge catapult, and a dozen propane tanks that we blew up. I served up drinks in foot-tall cocktail glasses. Anybody else got any other JBC vacation ideas? Stop spending so much money on McDonalds, pornography, and televangelists, and start saving money for the "JBC Across America!" campaign. If, for some strange reason, Pat and Co. cannot cross the Atlantic for this event, all monies raised for the JBC campaign will be turned over to him to finance a fully-functional and completely-stocked wet bay for his flat, a diesel-powered surplus Russian submarine that is armed with bottles of Stolichnaya instead of nuclear warheads, or a fully-funded election campaign to replace the current Prime Minister with Pat Fish (he could run on the Liquor Party to oust the Labour Party);

Well, that's about it for now, it's time for you kids to do a little brainstorming and push the limits of The Conspiracy. Thanks a million.

Make every hour 'happy hour'.                                                                         

Douglas (aka Bigrig Brody)
Bigrig Industries (www.bigrig.home.ml.org) rusty@sirius.com Received on Wed Apr 22 17:59:16 1998