The Air Between Space

“Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say—so turn it up and piss off an astrophysicist!”

[loud rock music plays]

“This just in folks, dateline Earth—Vienna, Austria; locals have successfully hooked up a dynamo to Johannis Keplers’ corpse and are now the second largest power producer in the European Union as he continues to spin in his grave! You’re listening to deep space’s number one station for rock and roll, SM ninety-nine point seven WPGS, the hard-core cosmic hard rock pig-ster! Celebrating one hundred and fifty years of classic rock and roll! That’s right folks! Our station manager, the celebrated Cliff Cherry, came into the staff room at our terrestrial home base way back in 1989, slapped down a stack of dot-matrix printed paper with the feeder tracks still attached and said, ‘Fellas, this is it! The new playlist…it doesn’t get any better than this’ and darn it all he was right!"

“That’s right keeping it real here folks--and keeping’ it real, real cold! This is your doctor of exo-rock-ology, the commander of deep space funk, the cosmic cosmonaut of countdowns, guiding you all night long to the event horizon of your soul, Johnny Geronamo coming at you—with a little help from my trusty side-kick Gil--Gil, I heard a rumor before the show.”

“What’s that?”

“A rumor, you know, gossip?”

“Yeah I gathered that, whats the rumor?”

“I heard you might be getting your own show?”

“Really?” he said excitedly.

“No, not really—you’re a talentless waste of oxygen.”

“Ugh”

“Coming up later on the show we’ll dig out Gil’s resume and college transcripts and exploit them for cheap laughs at his expense.” A laugh track plays. “We’ve got a great show coming up folks, Dr. Joy’s going to be joining us for some relationship advice. We’ve got the local weather for…Gil what did you do with the weather report?”

“Which one?”

“I don’t know, the one…ah forget it, we’re in space! Chances are it’s going to be dark wherever you’re at, cold with a likely chance of meteor showers. Our seven day forecast shows likely radiation bursts by Wednesday followed up by massive solar flares on Thursday and a supernova rounding out the week. So get your requests in now guys our request lines are open. Gil, looks like our rock-block weekend just got a little more exciting. Remember folks if you’re going to the beach on Mars—or, well anywhere in tise solar system for that matter, better bring your sunscreen. A good SPF one-billion and you just may ride this one out folks.”

“Gil, you have family on Mars don't you?”

“Well my mother, my sister and her husband, they have six kids…”

“Who cares? Moving on. Gil, you smell like a fish sausage. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“No, but I…”

“Coming up we’ll be getting the Led out with a cosmic two-fer from Robert Plant and the boys. Far out. But first, big story coming in hot off the presses, and for that we take you to our man-on-the-scene reporter, mister news himself, Guster Childers.” A chorus of ticker tape sound effects, Morse code beeps, electric typewriters, sirens, and sheep baying plays. A voice-over announcer, sounding very serious and professional, “From the Earth to the moon. From Venus, to Mars and beyond, bringing you all the news that’s fit to print, transmit, and encode. Here he is, four time recipient of the Comet prize for excellence in journalism, Guster Everett Childers, the third.” The music stops suddenly with three staccato duh, duh, duh.

Thanks Johnny. I’m floating here in the journalist pool next to the courthouse where just inside, only moments ago the verdict was read in the Soyuz Boys murder trial—there’s talk and speculation amongst the journalists here…well whenever we happen to float into one another’s view that the defendants have been found not guilty on all charges. We’re expecting them to exit the building any second now if we can just stop bumping into one another. ‘Hey I’m on air here buddy! Same to you pal!’ Sorry the scene here is utter chaos, people bumping off one another, a little school girl holding a sign was knocked in low orbit just moments ago as we await the Soyuz Boys to—wait, I think…I see something. Let me just ro—rotate back around. Yes. Yes, there they are folks, damn! damn I’m—I’m rotating again, let me just use…excuse me, excuse me sir? Sir? Sir can you just give me a little…” A loud thud can be heard. “Too much!” The feed abruptly cuts out followed by his outro of more Morse beeps and typewriter clicks and clacks.

“Thanks Gus. Always a professional that guy. Professional what I have no idea. Hey coming up a little later on in the show we’ve got the drummer from Bon Jovi coming on live in studio. He’s not actually alive still, but we dug him up anyway just to be on the show. That’ll be a great interview Gil, looking forward to it?”

“Can’t wait.”

“Hey, good thing right? You won’t be the only one who stinks to high heaven in the studio for once. Talk about Living on a Prayer. Speaking of which, Gil have you seen my new golf clubs?”

“No.”

“That’s right the little lady, Miss Rocktober, the bell of my ball, the mistress of late night rock laid this set on me last night. Came with a hyper-car parked in my driveway. Ah that little lady of mine, always surprising me. She never thinks of herself, you know that Gil?”

“You’re a lucky man.”

“Darn right. Can’t tell you the number of times I’ve come home early to surprise her with a gift, a trinket, a bauble as they say, if you know what I mean, and she’s already got a new suite laid out on the chair next to our bed for me. I mean it’s uncanny her intuition. She always beats me to it. Now if we can only get her to remember my size.”

“Sounds like a keeper.”

“You know she is Gil. You know she is. Hey, who’s the luckiest guy in the galaxy? This guy right here on this side of the microphone, that’s right. Hey speaking of Rock-vember, we’re giving away two tickets to the Who tribute series concert, fifth caller here on SM ninety-nine pont seven WPGS, the great space pig-ster, gets 'em. Hey you know Gil, I saw the Who once."

"The Who?"

"What?"

"The who?"

"The Who."

"Who?"

"Who."

"Who..?"

"We sound like a couple of old married owls. Speaking of which, we'd like to thank our sponsor, Atomic Septic and Sewage. Got sewage? Let Atomic clean it up for you."

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"Picking up where the Big Bang left off, Rock ninety-nine point seven!"

"Johnny Geronamo here rocking to you from love comet zebra. I tell you what Gil, if I had a nickel for every asteroid and micro-meteorite I've had to fish out of a suction toilet I'd be a rich man."

"Money's not everything."

"Right you are Gil. Hey, I've been meaning to tell you. Your mom called a few days ago. Your grandma's dead, you might want to get back to her about that. Getting back to the hits right here on the only station in space for classic rock. We're not just a station we're the station! The rock satellite of the gods. Debuting at number seven on the charts way back in nineteen eighty-six, Love Missile F1-11, by the great Sigue Sigue Sputnik from their debut album Flaunt It. It was the band's biggest hit, reaching number three on the UK Singles Chart. Which--I don't know about you Gil--I could care less about the UK singles Chart."

"I don't know, I think it speaks to the Euro-flavored coloring of the era."

"Nobody knows what you're talking about Gil. Time to check in with traffic. We're going live to our eye in the cosmos, the doctor of disaster, a Mr. Dom Hamdly. Dom how's it looking out there" he said queueing the rock-helicopter sounds.

"Not good, Johnny. Hi everyone Dom Hamdly here righ now flying over the galaxy's hot spots so you dont have to. All good on the I-10, traffics clear on interstellar 40. Traffic's backed up past Neptune on the I -70. Looks like a freighter's jackknifed on the off-ramp near Triton causing delays. Police and firefighters are on the scene trying to reroute traffic, but it looks like this one's in for the long haul. Container full of cleaning robots spilled out floating all over the lane, gonna be a while folks cleaning thatg up."

"What kind of delay are we looking at Dom?"

"Looking like a solar cycle at least. So if you were trying to check out the new botanical gardens on Halimede you can forget about that anytime soon. Back to you Johnny."

"Thanks Dom. Always good to hear from him. What was that? What Gil, what..?"

"We have caller number five on the line."

"What?"

The giveaway."

"Oh. Hello, rock ninety-nine."

"Am I on?"

"Yes sir, you're on. You're our fifth caller!" Celebratory music plays.

"I--I can't believe it! I won? Did I win?"

"Congratulations! Where are you from sir?"

"I'm on the phone."

"Yessir, where are you from though?"

"I'm in my car."

"Gil where do you find these people? Yessir, we gotcha, in your car on the phone."

"I won."

"Yessir, we've established that. Anything else you want to tell us?"

"I guess that's it." Click.

"Ok. Gil when we get off here I'm going to kill you. Just wanted you to know that. Speaking of which, right here on the ole galactic piggly wiggly SM ninety-nine WPGS.

"Ya know Johnny, I was just thinking..."

"Let me stop you right there Gil. Coming up right after the old John Geronamo Show, laser cat removal? Good idea? Centurion Talk-bot Two-thousand gives you the details and spins the late night groove-yard of forgotten classics. Gonna be a great show."