Hey, if wanting Americans to get off their super-sized asses and move out into space is wrong, then I don't wanna be right!

Someday I'm gonna own me a plot of land on Mars, plop a doublewide on it, and drive a ratty old Mars Rover with a sticker on the back that reads MARS RULES! EARTHIES SUCK!

I'll be living large on a dry-as-a-bone, glacially-cold, sandstorm-whipped wasteland while all you losers are stuck here. Then you'll be sorry!

...but meanwhile I have to get back to my job at JPL, splitting atoms. With my mind.

 
Oh, I think he;s just taking you at your word, Ace:

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/149902.php

He is talking about 5 years...

If it's a Heinlein universe then I say - "line up the beautiful womens who have strong libidos to go with their post-doc degrees"

Harrison did across the universe.
Loose shit Ace

Mars ain't the kinda place to raise your kids.

Er, no he didn't, Bill.

What a pessimistic guy. I think there's plenty of room for optimism about life on earth.

I am all in favor of expanding into space, though. Like Monty, I wouldn't mind owning a plot of land on Mars.

Yep, "Across the Universe" was a Lennon number.

Loose shit, Bill.

On a scale of music knowledge, I'd have to place your abilities at around a 7. We only deal with people who know enough to rate as 8-10 on this site. It's an integrity kick, and we don't placate. So thanks for the attention, but get out of our face.

I'd rather the future be more like Harsh Mistress than some crap like Number of the Beast, where we can all devolve into 200 pages of pointless bickering over who's going to have inc3stuous sex with who first.

It's John. Although the freaky-mystical crap and Indian mystical-chant part of the song might lead someone to figure it's George. But John did crap like that too; he just wasn't as hardcore about it as George was.

altho it still surprises me that a large number of people -- even somewhat-fans of the beatles -- can't tell their voices apart.

Once you know who's singing what, their voices are pretty darn distinct.

The other key tip (for Beatles songs) is thatif you can identify the singer, you can identify who wrote the tune.

There are exceptions (Ringo didn't write "With a Little Help from My Friends", for example) but on the whole, whoever sings the lead, wrote the song.

But John did crap like that too; he just wasn't as hardcore about it as George was.

More to the point, he didn't suck at it the way George did. John's Indian digressions were never more than embellishments of traditional pop melodies, e.g., "Across the Universe," "Norwegian Wood." George, by contrast, went whole hog with it, which is why "Within You, Without You" is the one track on Sgt. Pepper that everyone skips.

Yep, but people often can't tell who's singing. John gets confused with both Paul and George. And Pual and George get confused too, on early tracks.

No one, of course, confuses Ringo with anybody.

There are a few exceptions to the "he who wrote it, sang it" rule that don't involve Ringo. Can't remember all of them offhand, but I have a vague memory that John wrote the bulk of "Day Tripper," which Paul ended up singing lead on.

which is why "Within You, Without You" is the one track on Sgt. Pepper that everyone skips.

Not everybody. I have a friend who insists it's the best song on the album.

Yes, he smokes pot.

There are a few exceptions to the "he who wrote it, sang it" rule that don't involve Ringo. Can't remember all of them offhand, but I have a vague memory that John wrote the bulk of "Day Tripper," which Paul ended up singing lead on.

Before they all hated each other, sure.

"Love You To," also by George, is the only unlistenable song on that album, too. By 1968, John and Paul must have been dreading him pitching them new songs.

Good thing he pulled it together in time for Abbey Road.

Damn I fell like a Dick Cheney'ed cougar.

Not everybody. I have a friend who insists it's the best song on the album.

No one would say that unless he was being a contrarian for the sake of being contrarian.

I'll bet he thinks Return of the Jedi is the best of the original Star Wars movies, too. Because only he's "really hearing what the Ewoks are saying, dude."

Stoners give pot-heads a bad name.

I think he's being sincere. Like I said, he smokes pot. He's not really a contrarian. I mean, someone whose album collection is all Led Zep, Rush, Stones, Beatles, etc., isn't a contrarian.

And RotJ is underrated by goofballs who think that just because the Ewoks are cute it hurts the movie. They're little savages, man-eaters, which isn't too cute.

And every SW movie had cuteness in it. R2-D2 for starters.

And actually RotJ is called people's favorite SW film in surveys. Not among SW fans, but general audiences.

It's Empire that's more of the cineaste favorite.

Ace and Allah...ever hear the unreleased Beatles song "The Inner Light"? It's another of Harrisons in the mold of "Within You, Without You" but is really freaking good.

This song should have been included on an official Beatles album.

It's Empire that's more of the cineaste favorite.

I would have said it was my favorite. Darker than most of the rest of the series, and Luke does some significant hurting, which is fun. But then I re-saw it for the first time in years a few months ago, and man, does that puppy not hold up.

It turns out that Lucas was actually worse at writing dialogue thirty years ago than he is today, which is really saying something. Leia: "I don't know where you get your delusions, laser-brain." That Leia. A regular Dorothy Parker. And most of Lucas' hi-tech references are just as awkward and inappropriate as that one. Also, I never realized the extent to which C3PO was the rough draft for Jar-Jar Binks. Lucas just can't resist throwing in a cutesie-dumb sidekick that any self-respecting hero would have shot after ten minutes just for being so relentlessly annoying.

I liked that movie when I was a kid. All I can figure is I must have had some sort of neurological problem.

SPUNG! (trying to re-Heinleinize this thread. He coined the term "blaster" don't you know. When you call it that, your ray guns don't have to follow the rules for lasers). Lucas had almost nothing to do with Empire Strikes Back, it was Leigh Bracket's baby, damn it. That's why it's so much better than the others, and dosen't have the EXACT SAME ENDING as every other Lucas SW movie (Celebration with singing aliens, paramilitary procession, princess handing out medals) Episode III: The Rape Of Dave's Childhood, dosen't count. He was just trying to rip off ESB in that one. Hmm, people like the one with the chopped off hand and the downer ending, so I'll just chop off 213 hands and have a downer ending, and it'll be just as good as Bracket's work that I took credit for before. Fucking Tarantino move. I can recognize the cool parts in other people's movies, so I'll just make a montage of cool parts and call it a movie.) Oh, but he had the whole trilogy outlined, she just filled in minor details. Right, just like he had the whole prequel outlined for like fourty years. She was probably working from an index card with "ice planet, goat-headed kangaroo, Vader is Danish for father" written on it.

Damnit, I wasn't going to make this a Star Wars comment. The article you linked reminded me of the time Jeremy Lott took me to this Libertarian Party event where the founder of the party made a speech that was quite a bit like that. A lot about humanity spreading itself out over interstellar distances, beyond the reach of any "empire". Dosen't make much sense to me though, there's real logic behind the galactic empire idea. When the world was larger and travel took longer, that's exactly when we had things like kings and feudalism. Things like elections are not practical on those scales. Piracy is.

"The Inner Light" was officially released, but as a B-side to, I believe, "Lady Madonna".

Paul and John BOTH sing the lead on "Day Tripper", although Paul seems more pronounced because he is singing the high harmony.

I like "Within You, Without You" and I do not smoke pot. I just think it's cool.

I wouldn't wanna live on Mars. I mean, think about it, you can never go outside.

And the first thing I wanted to say re: Pinkerton was:

Oh, they'll never ever reach the Moon.
At least, not the one that they're after.
It's still floating out on the open sea,
look out there, my friends,
and it carries no survivors.
So let's leave these two lovers wondering
why they cannot have each other...
--Leonard Cohen, 1971