SPARKY: You Want Rockets With Your SF Babes?

Research Rocket Lights Up Sky

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — A rocket carrying a military research satellite blasted off Thursday evening, dazzling spectators from California to Arizona with a rainbow of colors as it streaked across the sky at dusk.

The Minotaur rocket carrying a DARPA payload launched into orbit at 7:24 p.m. from Vandenberg Air Force Base, said Maj. Todd Fleming.

DARPA is the research and development arm of the Pentagon. The 920-pound "Streak" payload will stay in orbit for a year, gathering information about the Earth's environment in low orbit. The mission's cost is classified.

The payload was so named because of the streaking movement it makes across the sky.

After blastoff, the rocket — made from decommissioned first and second stages of a Minuteman 2 missile — headed over the Pacific.

"I've never seen anything like that," said Ken Baker, who was driving along Pacific Coast Highway from El Segundo to Manhattan Beach when he saw the rocket.

"It almost looked like a laser, it was so bright," he said.

People throughout Central and Southern California and parts of Arizona also reported seeing the launch, with some voicing concerns that it might have been an explosion or terrorist attack.

Minotaur Launch of STP-R1

A Minotaur launched the STP-R1 STP-R1 experimental satellite into space for the Air Force Research Laboratory. Payload is DARPA's Streak technology demonstration satellite. Launch occurred at dusk and caused an impressive display visible as far away as Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico.
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Minotaur

For the U.S. Air Force's Orbital/Suborbital Program (OSP) we have developed the low-cost, four-stage Space Launch Vehicle (SLV) Minotaur rocket using a combination of U.S. government-supplied Minuteman II motors and proven Orbital space launch technologies.

The Minuteman rocket motors serve as the vehicle's first and second stages, efficiently reusing motors that have been decommissioned as a result of arms reduction treaties. Minotaur's third and fourth stages, structures and payload fairing are common with our highly reliable Pegasus XL rocket. Its capabilities have been enhanced with the addition of improved avionics systems, including our Modular Avionics Control Hardware (MACH), which is used on many of our suborbital launch vehicles.

Minotaur made its inaugural flight in January 2000, successfully delivering a number of small military and university satellites into orbit and marking the first-ever use of residual U.S. Government Minuteman boosters in a space launch vehicle. Minotaur has since extended its 100% success record with successful launches of Mightysat in July 2000, and XSS-11 in April 2005, both technology demonstration satellites for the Air Force Research Laboratory.

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Minotaur • STP-R1
Launch window: 0224-0240 GMT (10:24-10:40 p.m. EDT on Sept. 22)
Launch site: SLC-8, Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

What it looked like to me - as the exhaust was scattered by high winds ...

The Orbital/Suborbital Program Space Launch Vehicle, nicknamed Minotaur, will launch the STP-R1 experimental satellite into space for DARPA. The four-stage rocket used U.S. government-supplied Minuteman 2 motors and Pegasus rocket stages. Delayed from July. [Sept. 19]

Follow the countdown and launch of the Orbital Sciences Minotaur rocket with the U.S. military's STP-R1 "Streak" technology demonstration satellite. Reload this page for the very latest on the mission. T+plus 16 minutes. No confirmation of spacecraft deployment from the rocket has been announced. We'll be awaiting additional information from launch officials to determine if Minotaur has successfully completed its mission this evening.

GURU: STRANGE SCI FI BABE STIRRINGS BELOW THE PP GURU's BELT !!

(Part One) - Wheeeeeeeee! Finally, it's cheesecake day.

When we last left the PP Guru, he was making a mess in his polyester tunics drooling over the 101 different ways he could pan fry the panties off of Carla Gugino.

Charmed


Carla is only the first of in a overload of delicious babes making their way onto the small screen as a new crop of this fall season shows seem primarily focused on the sci-fi/horror genre - no doubt inspired by the success that the Sci-Fi channel is having with its trio of shows on Friday nights: Stargate (Claudia Black ) (although not Amanda Tapping - yuck, she's just too dykey for the PP Guru) - Stargate Atlantis ( Torri Higginson ,Rachel Luttrell ), and the revival of Battlestar Galactica (Katee Sackoff, Tricia Helfer & Grace Park- aw, heck, even Mary McDonnell looks fetching for 52. The PP Guru will write more on this show's DVD release next Tuesday ). So it's probably no small wonder that broadcast stations want to try to see how it works out for themselves. Babes on tv sci-fi shows are the best invention since the Reese's peanut butter cup. Since the glut is washing in faster than a National Guard rescue in a small buyou flooded out town, the PP Guru is going to have swear off his brevy of crime tv shows. No more starring at Marg Helenberger's ass on Thursdays until the Night Stalker gets the boot. The PP Guru predicts that none of these new series will have a long shelf life. Give them seven weeks tops, then it will be back to all the Law & Order and CSI buffet you can eat (and that includes Marg Helenberger's ass too).

Lake Bell

So let's take a peek on getting all seven day medieval on the best of which delicious looking bottoms are making their debut this week:

Sundays:

As an appetizer, the PP Guru is going to monitor the events on the eighth season of Charmed. The PP Guru tried to follow the show a few years back when it was paired up with Birds of Prey, but since Birds of Prey turned out to be a utter stillborn broken-winged embryo falling out of its' nest, he didn't want to stay and boggle down with a show that had already four seasons behind it. Even though he finds Rose McGowan,Holly Marie Combs, and Alyssa Milano very pleasant to look at- the premise of the series sounds too close to that dumbass movie of Witches of Eastwick. The PP Guru has read numberous stories and books pertaining to the subjects witches such as Anne Rice's The Witching Hour and he feels that they just lose their luster after a while, but he's willing to give it another try. Sundays @ 8 PM WB

Sarah Wayne Callies
Mondays:

NBC's new Surface (aka Fathom) made it's low budgeted 'Abyss' knockoff debut last Monday (from what the PP Guru understands - it had very impressive ratings even against ABC's Monday Night Football) and the only redeeming thing that has it bobbing in the waves is Lake Bell as a marine biologist studying the hot-vent ecosystem, which, she theorizes, is the origin of life on the planet. Until she runs into a bunch of strange undersea critters that makes Charlie Tuna look like a undocumented illegal alien. The PP Guru can't help but speculate that Lake was choosen for this role simply because of her name. 8 PM NBC.

Technically not a sci-fi or horror show, The PP Guru is enjoying the hell out of Prison Break - a very engrossing suspense serial thriller in the similar vein to '24'. Since 24 will not be starting it's fifth season until January - this show is a very nail biting substitute which fits the bill nicely until that monumental day arrives. The PP Guru makes note of this series because it co-stars Sarah Wayne Callies as Dr. Sara Tancredi of whom the PP Guru recognizes from the Jane role in WB's short-lived Tarzan series a few years back. The PP Guru wouldn't mind turning his head and coughing for her if he ever got a house call visit from her. The PP Guru once spotted her on the WB lot while he was picking up some DVDs - he tried to psychically channel her phone number back then, but the digits just appeared too fuzzy in his mind. 9 PM Fox.

Patricia Arquette

Patricia Arquette is back in her second season of Medium. Didn't NBC do a similar series a few years back called Profiler? What is the difference between this series and that one?... Oh yeah, that's right, the PP Guru remembers: she's a soccer mom who as a clairvoyant can dream into the future and communicate with dead people that makes the Phoenix Police Department look like a bunch of buffoons when they don't end up believing her. Well, the PP Guru likes it when he sees Patricia Arquette and wonders if she can ever predict the day when the PP Guru will come over and pull down her hot little wet panties and allow him to have his way with her. 10 PM NBC

Tuesdays:

Some of us may fondly remember Emily Deschanel as the receptionist who refused to take a bunch of pizzas from Peter Parker in the opening sequence of last year's Spider-Man 2 when he tried to get them to her company in under 30 minutes or less even with his Spider powers at full blast- now we can see her portrayal every week as the clue sniffing true to life anthropologist and crime novelist writer Temperance Brennan in Bones. The series also marks the return of David(Angel) Boreanaz to weekly television. Boreanaz was just a overrated bore to watch in the latest film of the Crow franchise: Wicked Prayer, so it's good to see him back where he belongs - trying to channel Angel again as her FBI supervisor, Seedy Booth. But this isn't about Boreanaz - it's about how the PP Guru can make his way to Emily by taking the Lincoln Tunnel of Love shortcut to her wide spread legs in twenty minutes or less. 8 PM Fox.

WB at 9 PM has Supernatural- but it stars two guys in it who go across country in a beat up Oldsmobile and fight demons and ghosts and other sissies as they try to gather clues to their father's disappearance. Like the PP Guru says- the show has nothing but guys in it - and we don't post pictures of hard chiseled bodied beefcakes on this site so the PP Guru invites you to check out Heidi MacDonald's blog for that kind of stuff. One of the guys had a hot looking girl friend in last week's debut episode, but she wound up spontaneously combusting into a giant ball of flame- so what good is that?

Emily

Wednesdays:

The second season of Lost. 'Nuff said, other than who wouldn't want to get lost in Evangeline Lilly's hairy hole? Michelle Rodriguez also joins the cast this year along with the other returning favorite unbathed smelly surf and turf babes Maggie Grace and Yoon-jin Kim. 9 PM ABC.

Evengeline
Shaun Cassidy is the executive producer behind the follow up to the ABC Wednesday mystery power hour, Invasion - which is described as a hybrid between Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Twister. It all begins with a hurricane in the Florida Everglades. Also stars Vice President Doctor Doom Dick Cheney as a government clean up contractor who will only pay undocumented workers 5 dollars an hour or under to rebuild all the cities in the devastation's wake. And the streets shall flow endlessly with milk, honey dew, and rice. The PP Guru has checked out some of the sets for this series on the WB lot. He's never seen one of those speed boats that they use to hunt down gators in the Everglades up close before. They look pretty neat, but he's bewildered as to why he can't fingerbang the snatches of both co-stars Lisa Sheridan and Kari Matchett . Both are no strangers to genre television either; Lisa was an alumni from the cult favorite of Freakylinks, whereas Kari has had a stint as an alien on the syndicated Earth: Final Conflict.

Lisa

Well from this point on the PP Guru's tarnished tunics of tantra control has gathered some waxy build up and his 13 inch (porportionate to the PP Guru's true size) HD- TV screen has been fogging up much of late, so he will be checking next week for part two of Thursdays', Fridays', and Saturdays' batch of new pelvic protruding new shows.

Kari

Hey, suck up that glass teat and quit 'yer yammering to:

~

Coat

SPARKY: WHEN THE GOOD NANCY PLEADS — LISTEN! THE EVIL IS ALL INTERCONNECTED AND INBRED. LOOK AT THE SCUM GOP POLITICOs DeLAY & ABRAMOFF FOR INSTANCE —

Smugly corrupt Texas GOP Congressman Tom DeLay One Time GOP Super Lobbyist and "Dirty" Money Man Jack Abramoff

Tom DeLay

Thomas Dale "Tom" DeLay (born April 8, 1947) is an American Republican politician from Sugar Land, Texas and current Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. He is well-known for his conservative stances on foreign and domestic policy issues.

Controversies and accusations

DeLay's defense of Quayle

In 1988, when questions were raised about then-Republican vice-presidential nominee Dan Quayle's apparent use of family connections to get into the Indiana National Guard and thus avoid possible combat service in the Vietnam War, DeLay reportedly defended Quayle by saying that he had tried to enlist himself at the same age, but was told ethnic minorities had already filled most of the available positions and there were none left for him.

No one close to him could say whether he made any other attempt to serve, and later The Washington Post reported that he had received student deferments while at Baylor, gotten a high lottery number in 1969 and then gotten married prior to his 1970 graduation from Houston.

However, he had been asked to withdraw from Baylor for a semester and managed to keep his student deferement during that time, which has never been explained.

Settlement in civil suit

In early 1999, as the House vote on impeaching president Bill Clinton approached (a vote DeLay had worked very hard to ensure would succeed), Anne-Louise Bardach [1] at The New Republic picked up a story first reported by Houston-area alternative weeklies ([2]) alleging that DeLay himself had committed perjury during a civil lawsuit brought against him by a former business partner in 1994.

The plaintiff in that suit, Robert Blankenship, had charged that DeLay and a third partner in Albo Pest Control had breached the partnership agreement by trying to force him out of the business without buying him out, and filed suit against DeLay, charging him and the other partner with breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, wrongful termination, loss of corporate expectancy, and injunctive relief. While being deposed in that suit, DeLay claimed that he didn't think he was an officer or director of Albo and believed he had resigned two or three years ago ([3]). Yet his own congressional disclosure forms, including one filed subsequent to the deposition state that he was either president or chairman of the company between 1985 and 1994. The plaintiff also alleged that Albo money had been spent on DeLay's congressional campaigns, in violation of federal and state law.

DeLay and Blankenship settled for an undisclosed sum, and Blankenship's attorney told Bardach that had he known about the congressional disclosure forms, he would have referred the case to the Harris County district attorney's office for a perjury prosecution. These allegations have never been investigated and DeLay has never been charged.

Accusations of misconduct in Texas fundraising

After the 1990 census, the Texas Democrats drew what some Republicans would argue was the most effective partisan gerrymander in the country. Although Congressional Texas Democrats only received an average of 40 percent of the votes of Congressional Texas Republicans, Democrats consistently had a majority in the state delegation. After the 2000 census, Republicans sought to redraw the district lines to support a GOP majority in the congressional delegation while Democrats desired to retain a plan similar to the existing lines. The two parties reached an impasse in the Texas Legislature, where Republicans controlled the Senate and Democrats controlled the House. As a result the new district lines were drawn by a federal court panel and largely retained the status quo.

In 2001 the Texas Legislative Redistricting Board (a panel composed of the state's Lieutenant Governor, Comptroller, Speaker of the House, Attorney-General, and Land Commissioner) redrew state legislative districts in accordance with the census. The new map that was adopted by the Republican-dominated board gave the GOP an edge in winning the Texas House of Representatives, still controlled at that time by the Democrats. During the 2002 elections under these new maps, DeLay aggressively fundraised for Republican candidates under his Texans for a Republican Majority PAC (TRMPAC). It has since been alleged by Democratic opponents of DeLay that TRMPAC was used to funnel illegal corporate donations into the campaigns of Republican candidates for State Representative. This allegation is currently the subject of an ongoing investigation by Travis County, Texas District Attorney Ronnie Earle.

The GOP victories in 2002 resulted in their control of the Texas House in addition to the Senate. As a result, the Texas Legislature was called into session in 2003 to redistrict the state's congressional lines in favor of the Republican Party. A number of Democrats left the state, going to Oklahoma, and later New Mexico, to deny a quorum for voting. One representative, Helen Giddings, the recognized negotiator was arrested in May of 2003, but later the arrest was called a mistake. Texas House Speaker Craddick apologized to Giddings and then ordered the Sergeant at Arms to incarcerate Giddings in the state capital buildings.

On May 26, 2005, a Texas judge ruled that a committee formed by DeLay had violated state law by not disclosing over $600,000 worth of fundraising money mostly form the credit card industry, $25,000 came from Sears, Roebuck & Co.[4] and Diversified Collections Services of San Leandrowas contribution $50,000. [5] Some of the money was spent on manning phone banks and posting wanted posters on Federal Highways calling for the arrest of Democratic legislators with an 800 number to call if seen after the Democratic caucus left to Oklahoma in order to prevent redistricting legislation from passage. The Federal Highway Administration offered to cooperate in arresting the Democrats, forcing the Democrats to travel to Oklahoma by plane instead of by automobile.

On August 11, 2005 a federal audit of a political fundraising committee founded by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay found that it failed to report more than $300,000 in debts owed to vendors and incorrectly paid for some committee activities with money from another DeLay-connected political committee.

The FEC found that “Americans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee” (ARMPAC) misreported receipts and the ending cash balance for 2001 activities and the beginning cash-on-hand, receipts, disbursements and ending cash-on-hand for 2002. ARMPAC also failed to report $322,306 owed to 25 vendors. ARMPAC disclosed the debts in amended reports, the FEC said.

ARMPAC's state, non-federal arm paid some expenses and costs for events and activities that should have been paid by ARMPAC, the report said. ARMPAC representatives are reviewing that portion of the audit and understand "a payment from the federal account to the non-federal account may be required," the FEC said.

There were no details given to indicate if the Federal Election Commission would pursue enforcement action.

On September 8, 2005 a federal grand jury indicted Texans for a Republican Majority which illegally accepted a political contribution of $100,000 from the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care and the grand jury also indicted the Texas Association of Business on four indictments which include charges of unlawful political advertising, unlawful contributions to a political committee and unlawful expenditures such as those to a graphics company and political candidates. [6]

On September 13, 2005 a federal grand jury indicted Jim Ellis, who heads Americans for a Republican Majority, and John Colyandro, former executive director of Texans for a Republican Majority who already faced charges of money laundering in the case. Colyandro also faces 13 counts of unlawful acceptance of a corporate political contribution. [7]

Accusations of misuse of federal investigative agencies

During the above Texas redistricting warrant controversy, several members of the Texas State House of Representatives who were members of the Democratic Party left the state in order to prevent the House from having a quorum of members, and therefore preventing the House from acting on any legislation. Although not a member of the Texas legislature, DeLay became involved, contacting:

• Three Federal Aviation Administration offices (in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Fort Worth, Texas and Washington, D.C)
• Four Federal Bureau of Investigation offices (in Dallas, Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas, Austin, Texas and Ardmore, Oklahoma)
• Two United States Marshal offices (in the Western and Northern Districts of Texas)
• The United States Attorney's office in San Antonio, Texas
• The Office of Legislative Affairs at the United States Department of Justice
• The Air and Marine Interdiction Coordination Center (in Riverside, California)

DeLay apparently intended to find out where the Democratic legislators were located, and to force them to return to Texas in order to create a quorum in the House of Representatives.

Senator Joseph Lieberman requested an investigation into the Congressman's involvement in the requests, and asked that any White House involvement be reported. Neither was forthcoming.

The K Street Project

DeLay's involvement with the lobbying industry also includes a pointed effort on the part of the Republican Party to parlay the Congressional majority into a dominance of K Street, the famed lobbying district of Washington, D.C.. DeLay, Senator Rick Santorum, and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform launched a campaign in 1995 encouraging lobbying firms to retain Republican officials in top positions. Firms that had Democrats in positions of authority, DeLay suggested, would not be granted the ear of Majority Party members. Firms initially responded to this campaign but it has waned since 2004, when the possibility of Senator John Kerry winning the presidency gave ample incentive for hiring Democrats.

DeLay and Terri Schiavo

DeLay also made headlines for his role in the Terri Schiavo controversy. On Palm Sunday weekend in March 2005, several days after the brain-damaged Florida woman's feeding tube was disconnected for the third time, DeLay and other House Republicans met in emergency session to pass a bill allowing Schiavo's parents to petition the removal of the feeding tube to a federal judge. DeLay called the removal of the feeding tube "an act of barbarism." He also said, in reference to the Supreme Court judges who had refused to hear the case when Schiavo's parents appealed the tube removal, that "there will come a time for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior." DeLay publicly apologized for the remark after being accused of threatening the Supreme Court. DeLay also faced charges of hypocrisy from his critics when the Los Angeles Times revealed that he had consented to ending the life support for his own father, who was in a comatose state because of a debilitating accident in 1988. [8]

DeLay and Jack Abramoff

Main article: Abramoff-Reed Indian Gambling Scandal

Tom DeLay allegedly received numerous gifts and other favors from indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, including concert tickets and the use of a private skybox.

The Associated Press reported on April 7, 2005:

DeLay's political action committee did not reimburse lobbyist Jack Abramoff for the May 2000 use of the skybox, instead treating it as a type of donation that didn't have to be disclosed to election regulators at the time.

The skybox donation, valued at thousands of dollars, came just three weeks before DeLay accepted a trip to Europe including golf with Abramoff at the world-famous St. Andrews course for himself, his wife and aides that was underwritten by some of the lobbyist's clients.

Two months after the concert and trip, DeLay voted against gambling legislation opposed by some of Abramoff's Indian tribe clients. [9]

Court violence controversy

DeLay produced controversy in the wake of a series of high-profile violent crimes and death threats against judges when he said that "the men responsible [for Terri Schiavo's death] will have to answer to their behavior." DeLay's comments came soon after the February 28, 2005 homicide of the mother and husband of Chicago Judge Joan Lefkow, and the March 11, 2005 killing of Atlanta Judge Rowland Barnes. DeLay's opponents argued that this amounted to rationalizing violence against judges if their decisions were unpopular with the public. Ralph Neas, President of the liberal People for the American Way, said that DeLay's comments were "irresponsible and could be seen by some as justifying inexcusable conduct against our courts." [10]

Law & Order TV Series

In May of 2005, the hit NBC television drama Law & Order: Criminal Intent used DeLay's name in a negative way. On the show, a police detective, investigating homicides of several judges, said, "Maybe we should put out an APB for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-Shirt." The show was apparently referring to the threatening comments DeLay made about Supreme Court justices during the Terri Schiavo controversy. DeLay responded by writing to Jeff Zucker, president of Universal Television Group: "This manipulation of my name and trivialization of the sensitive issue of judicial security represents a reckless disregard for the suffering initiated by recent tragedies and a great disservice to public discourse." The producer of the show, Dick Wolf, replied that "these shows are works of fiction". Wolf also commented, "But I do congratulate Congressman DeLay for switching the spotlight from his own problems to an episode of a television show."

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Jack Abramoff
Jack Abramoff (born February 28, 1958) is an influential Washington "super"- lobbyist and conservative activist.

Abramoff is a central figure in a series of high-profile political scandals linked to the Republican Party. In the course of the scheme, the lobbyists are accused of illegally giving gifts and making campaign donations in return for political favors to several senior Republican politicians, in particular Tom DeLay, Conrad Burns and Bob Ney. He is currently under investigation by grand juries in Washington, D.C., for his involvement in the Abramoff-Reed Indian Gambling Scandal, and by a grand jury in Guam over a separate matter. He was indicted on August 11, 2005, by a third grand jury in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for bank fraud arising out of an unrelated business deal.

The investigations and indictments of Abramoff have taken on significant national importance because of the lobbyist's close political connections with leading national Republicans, including President of the United States George W. Bush, Congressional Republicans and various influential conservatives.

Congressman Tom DeLay, Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, has called Abramoff one of his “closest and dearest friends.” Abramoff also has been a leading George W. Bush political fundraiser.

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Which leads to the good Nancy's pleas

With the crucial end-of-quarter deadline approaching, Karl Rove, Tom DeLay, and dozens of other Republicans are scheduled to attend fundraisers to preserve their Republican Congress, desperately hoping to build an insurmountable fundraising lead. America sees how out of touch the Republicans are, and their only hope is to overwhelm us with their well-funded propaganda machine.

Next week, both the DCCC and our Republican counterpart, the NRCC, will have to report our fundraising totals, which will become public. Tom DeLay and President Bush don't believe our grassroots donations can match their pay-for-play empire. I'm asking you to prove them wrong by contributing $35, $50 or more to our matching campaign today:

Contribute $35, $50, or more to the DCCC today and your contribution will be doubled!

That's right - the Democratic Members feel so strongly about the need for change in America that they've offered a challenge to donors. They will MATCH all contributions up to $250,000 that are given online through September 30th.

Every time the President wanted a new law passed, Tom DeLay and the Republicans in Congress have been there to do his bidding. Democrats can change the direction of our country and stop the divisive, harmful agenda of President Bush.

After almost five years of George W. Bush's leadership, I can honestly say that our country is not better off. While George W. Bush is not on the ballot next year, we can stop his misguided agenda by electing a Democratic majority in the House in the 2006 elections. A majority that will stand up to President Bush and his divisive vision for America. But we can't do it without your support.

Contribute $35, $50, or more to the DCCC today and it will be DOUBLED!

With your help, we will run radio, newspaper and TV ads exposing the Republicans deceit and we will expand our grassroots mobilization plan that will make all the difference come Election Day.

We must elect Democrats who are committed to actually making our country safer and a better place to live for all citizens. And we must start that effort today. Not tomorrow. Not next year.

Make a secure, online contribution to the DCCC. Your contribution will be DOUBLED and have twice the impact on the 2006 elections.

The tide has turned and the American people are calling for change. In a recent Zogby poll, 53% of Americans said they believe this country is headed in the wrong direction and 59% don't approve of the way President Bush is doing his job.

Under President Bush's leadership:

• The Administration has spent nearly $300 billion on the war in Iraq while failing to provide a strategy for success and no exit plan as the body count continues at an alarming rate.
• 45.8 million Americans lived without health insurance in 2004, and the number continues to increase.
• Republicans passed an energy bill that hands out $8 billion of American tax dollars to the oil and gas industry, as their profits are skyrocketing and Americans continue to suffer at the pump from high prices for gas and home heating oil.

Together, we can get this country headed in the right direction. We can strengthen the middle class, expand opportunity, and elect Democrats to provide the leadership this country is so desperately seeking.

Sincerely,

Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Leader
P.S. Remember all online contributions made by September 30th up to $250,000 will be matched by Democratic Members! To make change happen, we need the support of all Democrats. Please give as generously as you can.
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Lastly - Xemu does not approve of the below link!


SciTOMogy, Celebrity Scientology Morons
Xenu in a Nutshell:

“In the late 1940s, pulp writer L. Ron Hubbard declared:

"Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion"

Reader's Digest reprint, May 1980, p.1

Hubbard later created the Church of Scientology...

Based on a text by ex-Scientologist Roland Rashleigh-Berry. Roland wrote: "This is my personal opinion. I grant permission to anyone to reproduce this material. This description has been tailored to people who have never been Scientologists and seek a simple and short explanation as to what it is and why it is surrounded by controversy."

In a Nutshell - A Second Opinion!

The Church of Scientology is a vicious and dangerous cult that masquerades as a religion. Its purpose is to make money. It practices a variety of mind-control techniques on people lured into its midst to gain control over their money and their lives. Its aim is to take from them every penny that they have and can ever borrow and to also enslave them to further its wicked ends.

It was started in the 1950s by a science fiction writer named L. Ron Hubbard in fulfilment to his declared aim to start a religion to make money. It is an offshoot to a method of psychotherapy he concocted from various sources which he named "Dianetics". Dianetics is a form of regression therapy. It was then further expanded to appear more like a religion in order to enjoy tax benefits. He called it "Scientology".

Scientology is a confused concoction of crackpot, dangerously applied psychotherapy, oversimplified, idiotic and inapplicable rules and ideas and science-fiction drivel that is presented to its members (at the "advanced" levels) as profound spiritual truth.”

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Please ponder - Sparky

GURU: TURN AROUND AND REMEMBER THAT THE PP GURU IS STANDING TALL - THE PP GURU IS STANDING ON SCARED GROUND!!

There is a good September 11th and there is a bad September 11th.

This is a very bad September 11, 2001 where more than 3,000 people unwillingly kissed their asses goodbye.

And this is a good September 11, 2001: which you can listen to over and over again and think positive thoughts to help ease or block the grisliness of those terrifying moments that kept one nervously glued for hours on end on that displaced Tuesday morning.

The band's latest studio effort, Magnification had the misfortune of being released in America on September 11, 2001- although the PP Guru was lucky enough to latch onto a advance copy that was sent to him via Germany by his close transatlantic package designer friend at Inside Out Music, Matt Goodluck. Inside Out is a record label based both here in the US and in Germany that specializes in bands whose roots are planted firmly in the progressive rock life style - and the PP Guru has been a staunch supporter of almost all of their releases. Many of the PP Guru's current favorites are now recording for Inside-Out including The Flower Kings, Ayreon, Asia, Jadis, IQ, Spock's Beard and most recently, Carptree. There were days when the PP Guru used to look forward to Matt's packages of promo discs. Matt would send the PP Guru free CDs so that they could be reviewed- but the PP Guru technically never got around to writing them- but he would reciprocate by sending Matt a few Daredevil or Howard the Duck comics his way while he was pitch hitting as a manger for Rookies & Allstars. Matt, being within the crux of the record business was able to secure an advance copy of the new Yes disc - probably through Steve Howe's management dropping off some at the office (Steve's solo discs are distributed through Inside-Out) and the PP Guru had his copy at least a month in advance of both the Europe and US ship date.

And he was glad he did - because coincidentally enough, the lyrics to Anderson's songs - We Agree and The Spirit of Survival are eerie enough as it is- as if Maestro Jon A's mind was strong enough to channel clairvoyant powers through his consistent peyote panderings to predict the tragic events of the twin towers crumbling. And what's even more shocking - the band had completed a series of 3 shows in New York City the night before all pandemonium broke loose and got out the proverbial nick of time.

After the departure of the only traces of young blood in the band, Igor Khoroshev and Billy Sherwood, Yes returned to the studio, this time to record with an orchestra in lieu of a keyboardist. Instead of looking for a replacement (although the Swiss Poodle Spaceman, Patrick Moraz was even considered for a return engagement ) - the band considered the idea of returning with an orchestra, not used on a Yes album since 1970 when Time and A Word was released. Both fans old and new were dreading this idea or prospect of using an orchestra to fill the vacant keyboardist spot. Oddly enough, the idea did seem to work out ok.

The PP Guru's favorite tracks on the album is "Don't Go" and "Give Love Each Day." It's far from anywhere near an original statement, other than wearing its Beatles influence openly on its sleeve even down to the "All You Need Is Love" trumpet flourishes at the end. Also, the PP Guru can thump his tunics to Squire's "Can You Imagine." If the PP Guru remembers correctly: this marks his first full-track lead vocal on a Yes studio album. The PP Guru learned through a bootleg tape that he has lying around that the song is indeed an outtake from the era of Chris's first solo effort of Fish out of Water.

Tom Brislin

The band was not only backed by a 60-piece orchestra, but specific parts and arrangements were written by notable film composer Larry Groupe and executed by the orchestra, sounding as if the orchestra was a permanent band member. On tour, however, the band hired a session keyboardist, Tom Brislin, (who now works a manuscript transcriber for Keyboard Magazine ) as the orchestra alone could not faithfully reproduce some of the classic material. Unfortunely, the PP Guru had missed out on this tour in his local area due to finanical restraints (he was a little strapped for cash at the time) when the band made it's first appearance at the Hollywood Bowl. However on the tour's encore run in the summer of 2002- he was fortune enough to catch some of Magnification performed live when Curry eating Capeman Rick Wakeman came back in the fold and has been firmly rooted to the spot ever since.

In summer of 1998, on the PP Guru war front: the PP Guru was emanicpated from his mother side of the family due to a tremendous blow out with his stepfather: in sorely need of a Reality Check Roger, which sent the PP Guru off as a subject of a NATION WIDE PP GURUHUNT by the authorties, but when the Van Nuys police department was notified upon the PP Guru's touchdown arrival- they laughed at the in sorely need of a Reality Check Roger and told him that they only hunt down gangbangers and murderers - not PP Gurus.

The PP Guru doesn't want to go all deep on the reprecussions of the event but he will tell you that the blow out stemmed from some sour words that were exchanged between the PP Guru and the in sorely need of a Reality Check Roger about the PP Guru, even at the young mannish age of 34, refusing to cut his hair. This curt defiance so enraged the in sorely need of a Reality Check Roger, that he demanded that if in the presence of his PP Guru's mom's house or in company of his friends or neighbors, that the PP Guru would be made to wear a ponytail at all times as to not embarass his already over-inflated ego. The PP Guru basically told his stepfather, in sorely need of a Reality Check Roger to go climb his fucking thumb- and shit only escalated from there (let's just say massive destruction of property followed and leave it at that) . The PP Guru didn't really need this shit going down: after all he was in New Jersey on business of finding a publisher to take on the Deposit Man.

Someone fell for it hook, line, and sinker - but the PP Guru found out that the joke was on him when this someone by the name of Scumbag Scott Goodell took the PP Guru's property and made it look like a piece of dog turd. Scumbag Scott had first met the PP Guru at his very first San Diego Comic Book Convention way back in 1985, when Swamp Thing writer Alan Moore had made his first and only comic book convention - and boy, did Alan's armpits really stink!! Alan Moore was in sorely need of a shower - because to be around him- you must have had the tolerance to enjoy the smell of ass. It was rumored at the time of that convention that Alan would be taking over the writing duties of the Spectre- so Scumbag Scott had heard about it and started drawing sketches of the Spectre, hoping to land a gig at DC. The PP Guru remembered seeing those sketches and liked them, and so the PP Guru and Scumbag Scott hung around together just shooting the shit on the Spectre. Scumbag Scott had came out to the convention from Arizona and when he went back to Arizona, the PP Guru had lost track of him - but lo, and behold, Scumbag Scott had spotted one of the PP Guru's many manly mantras in the pages of the Comics Buyer's Guide and contacted him by sending some of his recent samples. So Scumbag Scott wanted to hook up with the PP Guru with any idea that he would to care to layway him with for a book. PP Guru had pulled out his pilot episode of the Deposit Man and asked him if he wouldn't mind tackling this far- fetched idea of a 'landlord in the afterlife'.

Cover to the first Deposit Man one-shot The Kaleidoscopic Medicine Freak Show by Larry Nadolsky January 2001

The pilot episode of the Deposit Man was originally intended as a eight page feature - much in the similar format that Will Eisner had done for his classic creation of the Spirit. They were supposed to be little mini-mysteries with a little social topical bite running through. The PP Guru had two scripts ready to go- but once Scumbag Scott had read them he asked the PP Guru to make the story longer, shorten the number of panels per page (the PP Guru got in this habit of writing each page with nine to ten panel grids peppered with an exorbitant amount of dialogue) because he wanted it as a feature story in a anthology book that he and some other shady character out in Miami were planning to publish. Scumbag Scott pushed the PP Guru in concocting some kind of origin story. The PP Guru didn't have one planned - he figured the character was just immaculately conceived or some shit- but he sat down on the toilet one day and he happen to hear this noise of coil springs being snapped over and over. The PP Guru poked his well defined proboscis out the window and discovered his next door neighbors' kids were bouncing up and down on a trampoline- and so he thought that would be a perfect way to introduce the Deposit Man was to open the scene with a trampoline lesson as adminstered by God with theological talking points taking place between each jump on each panel.

The PP Guru thought it was a novel approach in introducing the series, so he went about commencing writing it in two days flat and had sent to New York within the week. Scumbag Scott gushed over it and said it would have be rushed to the artist that he selected for the project: Ben Fogletto. Ben Fogletto had done some work on the Munsters licensed comic book with writer C.J. Henderson through TV Comics - he could have also penciled the V.I.P. series as well, but you'll have to take the PP Guru's word for it. Ben went ahead designed all of the preliminarily characters such as Betty Fusco, Esquire Row, and Spice Cakes for the PP Guru, and most importantly designed the Deposit Man in his traditional PI Philip Marlowe type of trenchcoat and fedora drenched in zip-a-tone to act as his electrical static charged epidermis as similiar as one would find if he or she were getting a bad reception on a piece of junk portable television. Ben got through three pages of the fourteen page 'pilot' story and abandoned it over a fit of conscience (the 8 page introductory story had never reached the drawing board and still lies dormant in the PP Guru's computer database to this very day. Something to save for the trade paperback, he supposes) - so in order to make the printing deadline - (the Diamond pre-order was around 500 or something copies) - Scumbag Scott had to enlist something like 12 different pencilers and inkers to complete the rest of the story while two other bookend stories (one completed by Fogletto and Henderson) sat around waiting for the Deposit Man pilot adventure to catch up. When the PP Guru first got to see the finished pencils - he thought the whole thing looked like a jumbled turd pieced together. None of the artwork was consistent and the various different styles made for a poor flow of continuity from one page to the next. The worst effrontery of all was when Scumbag Scott took a bottle of rubber cement and pasted each word balloon in the panels all by hand - not to mention that they were hand written by him too! So that left a lot of human error in terms of misspellings and some of the pasted balloons becoming more loose in it shipment to Florida.

To make matters even worse, Diamond even sent back the book and told Scott that he would have to change one of the panels in the story simply because there was brief reference to kiddie porn in it. To put it simply: it's revealed towards the end of the story, that we peek into a hope chest belonging to the wife of the antagonist to find that there was indeed a kiddie porn magazine stuck inside the chest (only the title of it was showing). This little controversial snafu on Diamond's part tied up the book for least another month. In fact, the PP Guru did not get to see the final product until he met up with Scumbag Scott at a APE convention up in San Jose in early 1999.

Other than seeing the PP Guru's all obtrusive disregard for the first book, the PP Guru was estatic upon seeing his name listed in the Diamond Previews and for the oddest reason, half the stock which was brought over to the show was nearly depleted- because everyone dug Jillian Suzanne's painted cover on Malice so much that we might have sold like twenty copies in twenty minutes, and she had a lot of signing to do.

The PP Guru was happy that there was a small sum made on the table that weekend - but the question remained of whether the PP Guru wanted to retain Scumbag Scott's services for the foreseeable future. For one thing, the PP Guru felt conned in some aspects of the book's promotion. For one thing, the PP Guru thought that this was going to be a major product- something slick in the format similiar to that of Heavy Metal - but what came back from the Death Comics publisher was a enlarged piece of garbage that look like it was shat out of a Kinko's recycle bin. And the first printing from Diamond had some pages switched around between the book end stories, but the Deposit Man portion was unaffected- but the PP Guru wrote in to CBG to say he would replace any copy free of charge that would come out of the second printing. Another thing that really irked the PP Guru is that the publisher of Death Comics would not put an ad in the trades (looking at the end result - it was easy to see why) to fanfare the book, so the PP Guru had to construct one of his own to place in CBG and pay for it out of his own pocket.

Both Scumbag Scott and the PP Guru discussed on where the character was going to go next. The PP Guru originally wanted to do shorter stories in other anthologies, since Malice was a one shot thing - but Scumbag Scott insisted on giving the character his own book. So the PP Guru had to take the other eight page story he wrote that had the Deposit Man facing off against a atheist hippy chick who was about to give birth to a child in the afterlife and expand that into a 22 or 24 page magnum opus. So while the PP Guru was off doing that, Scumbag Scott was making arrangements for a past collaborator of his from his days of doing unauthorized Metallica and AC/DC comic books for Revolutionary Press to be the new full time Deposit Man artist, a Canadian gent going by the name of Larry Nadolsky- who was also incidentally recommended to the PP Guru through Revisionary Press / Carnal Comics publisher Jay Allen Sanford when he was pitching the idea for him to maybe publish it. The PP Guru suggested to Scott that the PP Guru would keep in contact with the artist, so there would be no problem in conveying what the PP Guru wanted to see on the pages- because the last one had so much disarrayed shit going on that it hardly resembled anything that he wrote. Scumbag Scott was reluctant to give out Larry's number, because Scumbag Scott wanted to act as the mediator between us - the control freak as it were - and that's where we first started tumbling into a bad working relationship. When the PP Guru finally pryed the number out of Scumbag Scott, because he only had the first 3 pages that Larry drew for the longest period of time, he found out through calling Larry that he entire book had been completed for three months and was wondering what the hell was happening to it himself. Scumbag Scott was just sitting on the book doing nothing with it.

Scumbag Scott said that he had potential interested buyers in it, but it would take a series of 'power broker' lunches to get a serious deal running . So the PP Guru spent most of the year 2000 sitting on his fucking thumb in limbo waiting for the latest words on his quote unquote "meetings" until the ...PP Guru couldn't take it anymore and demanded to Scumbag Scott that he get to see the completed pages. Scumbag Scott kept stonewalling the PP Guru until the PP Guru announced to Scumbag Scott that he had found a interested buyer on the West Coast - a vendor from Rookies & Allstars, named Mark Capuano who supplied the store with action figures wanted in on the action and therefore calls were made on his behalf to coax Scumbag Scott in sending the artwork out to us - all for the price of a cassette copy made of a imported Peter Gabriel CD that the PP Guru had in his collection called OVO that Scumbag Scott had trouble hunting down.

'ORIGINAL ARTWORK first, Scumbag Scott!' decreed the PP Guru's battlecry. A week later, the artwork came in the mail, and out went the pirated tape.

Cover to The Deposit Man Survival Guide to the Afterlife - art by Larry Nadolsky & Mark Capuano, November 2001

The first Deposit Man one-shot, The Kaleidoscopic Medicine Freak Show (don't ask the PP Guru where he came up with that one- it just appeared to him like a fucking epiphany. No rhyme or reason- just enjoy it) was printed in a little Armenian family owned print shop in Sherman Oaks, Ca in late Janurary of 2001 under the auspices of Mark's registered imprint of Independent- Comics.com and premiered at The APE convention when it switched cities from San Jose to San Francisco. The book was another good seller and made money at the table. Although the PP Guru was good at promoting the book at shows, none of the distributors like Diamond or Cold Cut wanted any part of it- because the book was off sized and printed entirely in black and white- including the cover on sturdy cardstock that was so rigid that you can take it outside and play a few rounds of frisbee football with it and have it come boomeranging back practically unscathed. The book still sells well at shows for the PP Guru. His initial printing of 600 copies is nearly depleted.

Another stipend of Mark and the PP Guru's arrangement with Scumbag Scott was that he would still retain some creative control on the Deposit Man - and one such agreement was that Scumbag Scott help the PP Guru plot out the stories. The next solo one shot of the Deposit Man called the Survival Guide to the Afterlife (it sounded pretty catchy to the PP Guru, so why not use it?) had Scumbag Scott come up with some conceptual ideas to blend in with the PP Guru's main plot of doing a homage to Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series (using famous dead celebrities to help in a uprising of heaven to perserve gay rights ) and his favorite all time Stephen King story, The Long Walk. None of Scumbag Scott's ideas were totally original. Scumbag Scott wanted the PP Guru to take some terminology that Yes Maestro Jon A had used in his lyrics such as 'turn around glider' from Siberian Khatru and use them in the story (although his idea of a 42nd Screamdown from On the Silent Wings of Freedom to used as a name of a gay bar that the Deposit Man frequents was a nice touch) - but then Scumbag Scott came up with this dumb idea of on a Colonel Sanders rip called General Chicken to be used in the end that just made the PP Guru's generosity look too condescending. The book was printed in November of 2001 and it marked the first time that the PP Guru didn't use a story that he wrote that wasn't growing mothballs in his drawer for seven or more years. It was written just as the first one shot was going to press and help to expediate things along- the PP Guru had help from his roommate and pre-school teacher, Rebecca Robbins to feed some lines of dialogue spoken by Betty Fusco and Spice Cakes . Regardless of Scumbag Scott's unrelentless meddling, it's still one of the PP Guru's favorite Deposit Man issues....regardless of what Sequential Tart's Trisha L. Sebastian thinks.

Unfortunely, shortly after the printing of this book, (and the fear that terrorists such as Ozzy Mama Bin Laden might use it as weapon against the American people) a tragedy too unbearable for the PP Guru to comprehend occurred just downstairs from him in the house he was renting from Obi-Dan Kenobi. The PP Guru had been close friends with Rebecca's brother, Jared - who was also Obi-Dan's stepson. When the PP Guru first met Jared, Obi-Dan Kenobi brought him down to a Comic Con one year and we went on a party cruise that was sponsored by Capital City Distribution and later checked a sneak preview of Natural Born Killers at the Horton Plaza. We had a blast getting drunk and playing jokes on the crew. Jared even went so far as to grab a crewman's jacket he found lying around and went posing as a barmaid - taking everyone's drink orders. When we got back to LA, the PP Guru found out that he was going to migrate to upstate New York in order to shack up with some redneck girl and her eight or so offspring that he met online. Jared settled down, got a monster truck and a job at some warehouse. He was happy and content- until fate had intervened when a piece of shelving fell on him at work injuring his back. Since the state of New York couldn't provide him with the proper medical treatment, Jared had to claim permanent disability and was forced to come back to California to get the help that he needed. He had surgery- but it wasn't enough to piece together the severed nerve damage and had to use a wheel chair until he was able to get around with the use of a cane. To make a long story short- Jared constantly had to see therapists to get his muscles back in shape, psychiatrists for the mental anguish that he was going through, and doctors to prescribe him all sorts of candy- coated goodness.

<> Cover to the Malice one shot anthology by Jillian Suzanne - Cary
Coatney's comic book writing debut of the
Deposit Man published by Death Comics circa 1999


Too much candy coated goodness if you ask the PP Guru.

Larry Nadolsky self portrait

Bad things started to happen shortly after Jared recieved some kind of workmen's comp settlement and he went out and bought an excessive amount of material possessions. Included in the sweepstakes shopping spree were Gameboys, Sony PS, a CD player, a guitar and amp, and not to mention a new monster jeep that he needed help to be lifted in. After a while, Jared crashed the jeep over a highway after he took a combination of too much vikodin and painkillers washed down with a couple quarts of JD.

Even though the jeep had caught fire and Jared managed to escape with his life, the drug problems only escalated from there. Jared grew so despondant over a friend that had died of cancer, that he went over to his gravesite over at Forest Lawn and threatened a entire entourage of funeral mourners that he had a bomb in the trunk of his car. Once the memorial park got evacuated, police and news helicopters surrounded the vicinity and Jared gave up without incident and was carted to a nearby institution. Jared made the headline story on the six o'clock news that night.

That all took place before May of 2001. Nearly six months after on the chily evening of December 15th, not long after the PP Guru pissed off Jared after finding out that he made a few cracks pertaining to John Lennon's masculinity in the Deposit Man Survival Guide to the Afterlife. John Lennon was Jared's all time idol - and thus he was so worshipped by Jared that he had his entire back tattooed with a John Lennon self-portrait. Jared was really out of it - He had two shoeboxes filled to the rim with pharmaceutials that he could've almost opened up his own underground Osco drug store with them. He had them lying by his side on the guest couch he was spending the weekend on, cause he had a doctor's appointment on Monday in Encino. He was living with friends in Pasadena because of all the fights he was having with his surrogate mom, the Dragon Lady. The PP Guru had asked Jared if he had wanted eggs that morning, but Jared sounded weak when he could hardly open his mouth to utter the word 'no' out of his mouth. All Jared wanted was his daily requirment of a 2 Liter Pepsi bottle and a left over box of Domino's Pizza. So Jared laid back down and went back to sleep. So the PP Guru went about his usual business of chores, fucking off on writing his Deposit Man scripts or blasting his Yes albums on his Dolby surround stereo. Then the PP Guru went out to the movies and just as he was leaving, he noticed that Jared was sleeping in this strange rigid position like as if he were a cat clawing at something imaginary in the air. The PP Guru voiced his concerns to Obi-Dan, but Obi-Dan assured the PP Guru that Jared will be alright in time for Rebecca's Christmas treetrimming party that she was throwing at her new apartment she was sharing with her new fiance' Cro-Mag Albeeman and her daughter, Olivia.

When the PP Guru came back from the movies- he was dismayed to discover that Jared was still in the same position when he left for the movies. The PP Guru ran to Obi-Dan in the study where he spray painted old Aurora model kits of Spider-Man and Batman to get an update. Obi-Dan said again, it's probably the drugs that are causing it- probably put him in a trance. Jared will probably have to miss the party.

So they left the PP Guru alone in the house....with Jared. So the PP Guru went and did some laundry. He read some comics. He recorded more pirated tapes for Scumbag Scott. He fucked around on his old Roland synthesizer. He watched some TV. He went to bed. The PP Guru did everything but try to coax a blow job out of a marauding raccoon that was shifting through his garbage cans that night to keep his mind off the Jared problem to the extent that he had tiptoe around the house as to be careful as to not to wake him up.

BANG! BANG!! BANG!!!

Was that a gun shot? Jared was always telling the PP Guru that he wanted to massacre himself and the family along with him (the PP Guru included) if he didn't get better soon.

Uh, oh- maybe Jared had finally snapped.

Perhaps, it's time for the PP Guru to jump out of the upstairs bedroom window. He knows he can't outrace a bullet - but the day would be forecast when the PP Guru would one day have a blog. And he wanted to be alive in able to see that day.

However, at midnight that night- all that noise was being woken up by Obi-Dan pounding on his door to ask if Jared had woken up at all during the night.

'Not that the PP Guru knows of', the PP Guru informed Obi-Dan.

'Well come down and help me wake him up', he called from down the stairs.

We went down to the living room and flicked on the switch. The PP Guru literally freaked out. Jared's skin was all a pallor of bright yellow and he was still in that rigid cat clawing the air position. Obi-Dan said to lift him up and help put him on the floor.

The PP Guru said 'you gotta be kidding?' The PP Guru touched Jared's bare calf and immediately flinched back. Goddamn - that's fucking cold!! Maybe, the PP Guru did get a blowjob that night. If your name was Mr. Freeze - The PP Guru can be reached on his cell at --- --- -----

Huh? Oh, um ... forget the PP Guru said anything. Nonetheless, Obi-Dan started to give him mouth to mouth resuscitation, and the PP Guru nearly retched his cookies (he thinks they were Oreos that night) at the sight of it. The PP Guru had physically pull Obi-Dan off Jared. The PP Guru told the Dragon Lady to call the paramedics - because they was nothing they could do for him. Jared was long long gone- the rigor mortis had already set in.

The paramedics didn't arrive until 3 AM that night. The city of Los Angeles was short on coroners that night- only two were on duty that night and they had to pick up a gangbanger shot to death in a drive-by before making it to our house.

From that moment on, the PP Guru knew that this luxury house that he has been living in for the past six years or so was indeed tainted with death. After all, Jack Haley, the chap who had played the Tinman in the Wizard of Oz movie used to own this house and died of a heart attack in it two decades earlier before it was bought by Obi-Dan Kenobi and the Dragon Lady.

The PP Guru couldn't sleep that night and went to the Los Angeles Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention the next morning where he cried on Booth Coleman's shoulder (TV's Doctor Zalius from the Planet of the Apes series).

And that's where the story ends for now for the PP Guru.

Magnification personel: Jon Anderson / lead vocals, MIDI guitar, acoustic guitar - Steve Howe / acoustic & electric guitars, steel, mandolin, vocals - Chris Squire / bass guitars, vocals, lead vocal on "Can You Imagine" - Alan White / drums, percussion, piano, vocals. Recorded in Santa Barbara. Orchestrations by Larry Groupe featuring the San Diego Symphony Orchestra.

Favorite lyric: The gods have forgotten to switch on the light /Who's lost in the dark will crash in the night - The Spirit of Survival (Anderson/Howe/Squire/White)

Talk among the Prophets will give the PP Guru something to tell:

~ Coat