An Open Letter to the Space Brothers

Dear Space Brothers:

Please forgive the formality of a typewritten letter, and I really hope you've adjusted your Spam settings some time in the past 75 years so that this gets through to you. We have a lot of problems with that and they drive Chelsea crazy. I don't blame people for having their junk filters; boundaries and Viagra ads are big nowadays. But you guys have plenty of time on your hands, so do me a huge enormous favor and dig this out of your garbage folder and forward it around the Mother Ship. Forwarding is allowed; it gets us a lot of subscriptions and there are quite a few of you. Besides which we may need to drum up a little support for this project I’m about to propose but I'm convinced it's a fine idea.

Now, you know that I would not write to you except when confronted by the utmost necessity, but I must concede that on our little planet such a time has arrived. If you've been bothering with the news, which I don't blame you for not doing now that basic cable is $55 a month, you know exactly what I am getting at. Pardon my French, but the planet has gone off its fucking rocker. I mean, it's like a science fiction novel, but lacking in the science part.

And that's where you, the Space Brothers, come in, for you are science incarnate.

Now, there are many reading this who will think I'm kidding in sending you a letter. They are free to believe what they will. People believe all kinds of crap these days. That's the beauty of life on Earth (what you once called the Free Will Zone), and also the whole problem. A truck can drive through your living room wall and you'll sit there with the remote control in one hand eating Cheetos with the other while oil spills onto the floor and the engine steams, pushing the '+' button over and over again trying to make it go away. Everyone reacts to events their own very special way.

For example, every time I write an article or essay about 'politics', i.e., one of my pathetic missives pleading with intelligent people to pipe up about all the horrid stuff they know they're against but usually deal with by going shopping, someone -- there is always someone -- who writes back and says, basically, "Stick to astrology, would you? I would rather keep my head stuffed inside this pillow," or, "You should only write about things you really know about."

Thanks a lot for the advice.

I think this letter qualifies as stuff I know about.

My life has not been the same since I received proof of your existence in the summer of 1986. I was sitting in Aunt Josie's kitchen, on the phone with you know who, who was telling me about you know who else, who had the right security clearance and was in the Air Force you know where during the such-and-such war and was supposed to watch the file cabinet. What did they think, he was going to sit there and do his toenails all night? For God's sake, he was a lieutenant colonel and they left him alone in the building without even a secretary. I am sure you remember. It was quite a summer. The proof I received was nothing of the kind I could publish, and nothing I've felt particularly comfortable talking about, till now. Yet because of the people involved and certain other circumstances supporting the discovery, it was more than enough to reassure me that you are real. In a way it was the most reassuring thing I'd ever heard, and came as a great relief. It set aside, for me, what used to be a persistent debate on the planet and let me think about other things. It's a stupid debate anyway. You know the old joke, "Beam me up, Scottie, there's no intelligent life down here."

Ha ha.

The funniest part was hearing about the decision to tell Ronnie Reagan that you were real. I can still see the look on his face, his grin and him nodding, "Ooooooh! Really?" But he probably forgot 10 seconds later. So what good was that? Why didn't they, like for instance, tell, like um, Jimmy Carter, for example? He would have at least made a speech about it. Anyway, the thing you're aware of is that certain extremely powerful people know perfectly well that you exist, and by you, I'm sorry to lump you in with the other so-called Space Brothers who have that little agreement about reporting Social Security numbers that they refuse to honor. But honor is not in their dictionary of squawky little horrid so-called words. That whole scene is nothing more or less than a contest for whose ethics can go deeper in the foulest gutter this side of Nebadon. Trust me, no, you know this, the guys from our side who are in charge now make the ones who were in charge 20 years ago look like little kids playing admittedly deadly pranks in Central America. So we can't exactly be counting on them for much except oil pipelines and global anarchy.

But I digress. I have a reason for writing to you, which is to request that you hold a press conference on the lawn of the White House early next week.

I say the lawn and not the press room for a reason, so listen up, I know you like that plush mauve carpeting you could sprain your ankle in. I say the lawn because while you can obviously manifest anywhere you please (the Chinese stuff has been absolutely fabulous, by the way, and it only makes page 19 here if it gets printed at all; I think I've seen it once, on a Saturday). If you do it inside the White House, people are going to think it's staged, or the entire press corps will treat it like one of their dumb boy's club secrets that nobody finds out about till a decade later.

This is why I'm suggesting outside, in plain view. I suggest the East Lawn. Also there are about two zillion cops who will see the thing from every roof for 10 blocks on their $2,500 binoculars and even more impressive surveillance cameras. This will guarantee a few extra witnesses. Two good ones is all you need and I happen to know a couple of party boys who want revenge.

I have it all figured out, if you don't mind. Consider this. If a slightly-to-extremely out-of-shape, hung-over person such as a television reporter were to run at a good pace and only get lost once, with a little aborted detour near south fire exit #5 which confuses everyone, it takes exactly two minutes and 19 seconds to get from the press room out to the East Lawn, which is perfect. So if you time it with the daily noon briefing and we make a well-placed cell call to someone inside (I'll give you a number of somebody dependable), we'll start a little stampede, get our news conference going and make it in time for the 5 o'clock report in New York. And it won't be too late for the live feeds to reach Europe and Russia while everyone is still having dinner or before they get too crocked to see the television clearly. I think the timing of noon on a weekday would be really excellent.

I suggest a Monday, by the way. This way the story will have a few Google hits to it before it disappears by Thursday night when entertainment news takes over. In fact, this coming Monday -- during an Aquarius Moon, which will help, trust me. Any later in the week, they'll run it once and pretend it never happened, or worse, turn it into a Nickelodeon movie. Then the thing will have to get blogged around for six months (with two-thirds of these perfectly moronic bloggers who think they're the smartest thing since Abe Lincoln not even believing what happened) before it surfaces again as a crackpot cover-up story that has the shelf life of a guy running onto the field of Yankee Stadium naked. I hope you're taking notes; this is business that takes careful planning and I'm the closest thing you're ever going to get to a publicist.

Also, you need to wear the light blue suits. The orange ones make you look like trash collectors. The blue ones have some style, the silver helmets go great (but don't wear them, just hold them, you need to make what I will reluctantly call eye contact), and they remind me a little of the outfit Jewel was wearing the last time she appeared on Letterman three years ago, which I know is totally irrelevant. However, I have decided to make this letter as long as I need to and not hold back emotionally at all. The time has come in my writing career to express myself fully and without reservation and what better time than in a letter to the Space Brothers.

People can always scroll down to their horoscope. And all the subscribers with Gemini Moons are going to pick one random paragraph anyway and just read that, but they're the ones who will gossip the most about this letter, and they have thousands of people each in their address books, which will get a little buzz going and I will finally get credit for one of my amazing predictions once this happens Monday. As usual I probably won't get credit for actually being the one who had the guts and the foresight to invite you in the first place -- but that's okay. I'm fine with that. I don't need credit for everything. Just the important stuff.

The meaningful thing is that you show up. And, since I don't have White House press credentials yet (though we've applied via our new iguana-oriented lesbian porno site, which should at least count for originality, plus I do the chart of Scott Mcclellan's therapist every year), I request, politely, that you let me hitch a ride and show up with you so that I can actually watch and maybe even ask a question. I know what you're thinking. No worries about my objectivity, nobody is expecting that from me at this point, thanks, I always hitch rides with the people I write about. And I will dress appropriately in my bright green corduroy shirt with the ink stains and my favorite yellow bandana which usually makes it very hard for me to get a cab in Paris. It would completely suck to get this whole thing going, save the world, and then have to read about it on the Internet or watch that dork on CNN in London mangle the story beyond recognition with that smirk on his face. Where the hell did they find that guy? He looks like he should be the assistant principal for P.S. 161 in the Bronx.

You're going to let me come along because you owe me big time; you have no idea how many astrology clients I've helped come to terms with their little involuntary rides you take them on. Okay, they usually paid me, but doing the same session over and over and over again gets extremely boring. It's like, between you and that really weird guru who thinks she can patent the word "Darshan," I could have made myself wealthy, except that I squander all my capital on free Web sites and giving everyone complimentary subscriptions. And so far I have not gone out of my way to ride the Space Brother craze like my old buddy Dave and pack in 226 bazillion page views and free a trip to Egypt in one weekend promising that you, the Space Brothers, are going to help enlighten us.

Which, as you know, is exactly what I'm here asking you to do. I am not making any promises I can't keep. I am saying, get with it. I am not the wishful thinker type. I am the take action type.

However, pay careful attention to me when I say this, I am not planning to deliver your message personally. Spare me that. My life is complicated enough with six horoscope columns, two blogs and an essay every time I make tea. I already need 14 assistants. Dig it: I am NOT becoming your personal news bureau -- just doing you a favor and writing this one letter. Plus, people would think that's stupid if I got too, too involved, and besides, I have totally blown my credibility chasing a comet around the solar system for the past 10 years, and while it's been more than interesting, more than interesting for sure, and it's a rather large comet as they come, I can't even get Sierra magazine to look at any more of my awesome environmental scandal articles because they're sure I've lost a bolt, and the next thing you know, I'm going to be writing about is the Space Brothers; and sadly they are right.

So, you guys are going to speak for yourselves, and I will tell you what to say. And for God's sake don't just click. Speak English. Don't act like those French waiters who don't speak a word of our low-brow, half-slang, made for MTV language till you've mispronounced "croque madam" and they are on the verge of cracking up because you've just said, "I want to bite my wife" instead of, "I'll have grilled cheese with an egg." If you loiter around the White House lawn waiting for that guy from the Wall Street Journal who has the Nasdaq coming in on his watch to click at you before you say anything they can understand, we're going to be there for 50 years, which is a lot shorter for you than it is for us. In 50 years there's not going to be an Amazon rain forest; it will have been sold off in its entirety by Amazon.com.

So, item one on the agenda is hands off the trees. Just say it nice and clear so they understand you. Give them time to take notes. Half of these people don't own a tape recorder. Say it twice and pronounce the words.

Second, right after you mention the trees, you'll fire off those big shocking pink laser beams you've got -- the really cool ones, not the dumb ones that you used on the Zetas last year. Man that was pathetic. Okay it was funny how it peeled the paint off the wing. There are like 300 layers of white paint on the White House. Peeling the paint is not going to scare anyone except the maintenance crew, which has been under enough pressure. While I'm mentioning the Zetas, would somebody please ask them to cool it on the cattle? It's just bad PR. Everybody knows that, it's not necessary, nobody believes it's happening, and they can look at pictures of the old ones. Okay so, the plan is, you fire off the lasers and then just shut up for a minute. You need a little dramatic effect. On this planet, that's attained by standing there ominously, which people are expecting you to do anyway. And I know it may seem like a contradictory statement to demonstrate a neo-nuclear weapon for the sake of the environment, but I know these guys, and the don't listen to anything else. I mean, not the reporters, they don't care. This is a big enough story for them no matter what. The shocking pink plan is for Wolfie. If he knows that one person, one measly turd-producing specimen of a humanoid, even one such as yourselves with 188 chromosomes and three toes per foot, has anything vaguely resembling one of their toys, they will at least pause for a moment before they maul somebody again and we'll have a little leverage and save Venezuela and maybe Iran.

Next, we want them out of Iraq. Keep it short, simple, just say it, and then the Mother Ship comes through from the sixth dimension right above the lawn -- slowly, please, in low gear, nice and low, and keep the sound on -- and then just stand there and nod, like on Star Trek. These bastards know you exist but they have no idea the ship is six miles long and makes the John F. Kennedy look like the Laura Lu II out of Sheepshead Bay. They WILL be impressed by the fact that the ship takes half an hour to go by. Trust me.

Last, you have to keep it short, these people are working on EXTREMELY limited attention spans, and besides they have to file after they polish off a magnum of brut at Christine's on D Street SW. But before you go, just put down a fat, fancy crop circle (check your inbox for a link to one really like), and then leave them two of those cool hydrogen converters you've got. Put one down on the ground next to Bill from the Seattle Times. He also writes for Science and they can afford to take it apart and see how it works and they love that kind of shit in Seattle. I'll help you translate the instructions into English so you get the spelling right for once, but you have to emphasize the "water in, water out" quality of the device, and make sure they know that six gigawatts come out of that little plug, or they're going to look like a freedom fry if they touch it.

Last, I need you to drop me in Berlin, that's where I want to watch this on TV.

Oh yeah, I'm going to leak the story to Helen Thomas early. She's cool. She's seen it all, but she hasn't seen anything like this.

Yours sincerely,
Your space brother,

ERIC FRANCIS
Brussels, Belgium

PS, the press release can be short. All it needs to say is, "Both God and evolution are true. Stop worrying about volcanoes. Get naked."

PPS, speaking of which, would you please zap Bush with that orgasm ray you've got? If he doesn't have one sometime soon, we're going to have full-on nuclear war, which will NOT be nearly as thrilling as some people think. Thanks, I really appreciate it. See you Monday.



Planet Waves by Eric Francis
Friday, April 1, 2005 – weekly horoscope 552, but who's counting

Happy Birthday, Aries!

Normally, an identity crisis would be an unwelcome development, but I suggest that if you're having one, you go for it whole-heartedly. Generally what we call an identity crisis is about a loss of moorings and a sense of forgetting. My sense is that you are having an identity crisis that is about remembering. It is amazing how much we forget, and then proceed like we never knew. So many revelations about who we are, what we want, what we need and how we really feel about certain people disappear into the mists.

As we do this forgetting, we tend to enter into relationships that in an odd sense call upon us to owe the people in our lives remaining static and even stuck. Change, moving toward the core, being who we are in more daring ways, and bringing our true inner person out into the open, are qualities that people around us often find threatening. They threaten this thing that some call 'security' and present a situation where, when one person's orientations are changing, they have a compelling quality. But this can feel dangerous to those whose primary goal in life is to stay put. I'll return to this point in a moment.

For you this is a time of remembering. It's a time to return to what I will an encounter with your original instructions -- a concept that every human would be wise to remember, but which for you is now a more or less inevitable meeting. This must happen, I believe, irrespective of your relationships. I'm not suggesting you leave people behind. I am suggesting that you do nothing specifically to protect them from your growth process and that, more to the point, that you dare to grow despite how they may be influencing you.

It seems more than likely that if you do this, you will quickly sort out who is coming with you for the journey you're embarking on -- a journey to the center of yourself. It is true that we must take certain portions of this trip alone, even the most important parts. But people around us can be more or less supportive, and you need to know who is who from the outset. Relationships are closely involved with the process of growth or stasis. Emotions have a quality of reiterating from person to person, and people can trigger fear in one another as much as they can inspire a sense of daring. Therefore I suggest that you stick people who support you unconditionally and without needing to know or assess the details, and leave everyone else out of the picture, at least for now.

Every moment in life is meaningful, and there can always be a case made for this particular moment being the most important or significant ever. However, you have certain extremely rare resources available now and you have access to information that has the ability to remind you who you are on the deepest levels -- and then to take action using that information. To do this, you need to let go of certain 'ego concepts' and superficial ideas about your identity on which much of the world of personality is based. Often we think of these as somehow threatening but you, I trust, know that your time has come; the time to be real and to live like your life matters, with the perfect faith that it does.

But this is not an act or an affect. There is simply information coming to you from deep inside yourself that will inspire awareness, action, and the courage to make the right decisions in your relationships -- the right decisions for you.

In truth, the biggest potential limit is your willingness to be someone who can receive all that you're becoming. You have spent a lot of time and energy clearing out the cobwebs of the past, and overthrowing all the influences of days and times long gone by. It's time to receive the benefits and, when the time comes, to share them with those who may have doubted you or been intimidated.

For now, focus on yourself and what you're learning and a world will open up inside -- a world you always knew was there, and always knew you would find.
 
Aries (March 20-April 19)
In a major phase of self-discovery, you can stop making assumptions, and you can stop believing the old ones. Freedom of thought and respecting yourself enough to make up your mind are more than privileges; they are part of your basic right to sanity and honest self-awareness. There may perhaps be a challenge in unearthing everything about yourself that you were told that is not true. But you might want to start with questioning the credibility of every opinion expressed about you, both 'good' and 'bad'. Leave it all behind and there will be nothing to conceal the astonishing discovery you are about to make.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)
Venus does not like to play second best, and in a world of astrology dominated by the Jupiters, the Saturns and the Plutos, she rarely gets the attention she deserves. At the moment, Venus is bright in the spotlight, she's standing upright and projecting her voice. This is another way of saying you are unmistakably visible, seen and known for who you are. There are likely to be opportunities for you to put this visibility and respect to work. I suggest you play your advantages in every situation, and while you're at it, put your disadvantages to work, too. That's the mark of a true winner.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)
It is time to go public with some aspect of your work: something you've been brewing in the basement or tinkering with in the workshop for a while -- maybe quite a while. It doesn't matter that you haven't attained some level of mythologically-based perfection; nor that you may not feel entirely ready. You have an opportunity, and all the perfection in the world is not going to take you back in time to this moment again. You need to have faith in the quality of your idea or the integrity of what you have created, and put yourself and your work out where people can see them.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
There is such shocking, beautiful astrology unfolding in your house of career, profession and reputation that it's hard to live up to. That's okay because you don't need to collect the whole payoff now, you merely need to make concrete moves in the direction in which you most want to go, particularly if they represent your first time attempting to work on, develop or present a particular idea. That idea will undergo some revisions, but it is essentially the right project on the right track. You don't need the patience to complete the task now -- only to begin.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
There are those times when you feel like you've got a personal relationship to the Almighty, and by golly this is probably one of them. Even if you don't have the Lord calling you on your mobile, you can trust what you see, feel and think. Your natural skepticism and your even more advanced awareness will warn you of anything you need to know about, but in reality there is much more that can go right than can go wrong. The important quality to cultivate is asking yourself when you have a doubt, and accepting the answer you get. A good question now is, "What do I want?"

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
Power, money and sex are in the air. Which would you rather have? Or rather, in each of the situations you're now working out, which would you rather have? You probably can't have all three in each, but you can have one. Anyway, the most important thing you can do right now is know what you want and make sure you state it in clear terms when appropriate. And be clear with people what you don't want and what you will not do. You can certainly make some impressive gains right now, and some equally dreadful compromises. It will not be difficult to tell one from the other, as long as you pay attention to who you're talking to all the time.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
This is likely to be an astonishing phase of your personal history, and to be challenging all your old ideas about who you are and who you are to others. You have, to put it mildly, underestimated your value. You're also a tough customer and the standards you set for people to prove that they care about you are entirely unreasonable. Still, that being said, you may notice that people are doing exactly what you ask and what you need. The question is whether you will be open enough to receive what's being offered. Trust me: it is rare and beautiful, and one of a kind.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
You may not like everything that's going on in your life, and if that's the case, you're not paying attention. Even your problems are productive, and in the end will lead to more information than inconvenience. I suggest strongly and emphatically that you strive to find yourself someplace besides work. You know this, in theory. But you do have a home life and you have loved ones who need your attention and who will benefit from it. At the moment you appear to be on a quest for what makes you feel truly safe in the world; I suggest you give everyone, and everything, its fair chance.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22)
You may not think of yourself as a creative person, but I suggest you look again. You have actually created your life, and you're now being given a series of chances to recreate it in a rather significant way. Those Sagittarians with children have an opportunity to recreate or reestablish those relationships on excellent terms, no matter what they have become. In other aspects of your life, you are fully aware that you can only make a gain by taking a risk, and this is an exceptional time to do what even you would not normally dare.
 
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
The lives of Capricorns are often unduly limited by what their parents have gone through, or what they believed. The current stellar setup suggests that this is one of the greatest chances in your life so far to plant yourself on entirely new ground than the family tree. It's true that potent forces hold you to tradition, but the tradition you are best suited to uphold is that of being a pioneer. In truth, once you get over your petty insecurities, you are dauntless. Now is the time to take all the freedom you can get from your ability to walk through fear and beyond the past.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
Mars in your sign is likely to be providing a huge burst of mental and physical energy, and rare activity involving Chiron is offering a kind of awareness and sense of competence that may be entirely new to you. There are many extraordinarily supportive factors in your life and in your astrology right now, and I suggest you not take them for granted. You're genuinely in a moment of revelation. Your muse has arrived, and will speak to you as clearly as you speak to it, and as clearly as you listen. Many factors point the way to genuine freedom: of heart, of mind and of movement.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
With any luck at all, the current days are providing you with one discovery after the next about who you are, what you want to be doing and what you have to offer the world. Keep an inventory, but please keep track of what you know is most important. Many things that are less important will be able to take care of themselves, but those at the very top of the list require your attention and devotion. If you can do this, a truly significant breakthrough is on the way. To say the least, you are a gifted person, and this is your chance to make the most of what you have to offer the world -- and offer yourself.

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