It occurs to me every now and again, like right now, for instance, that compared to some of my other Pigdog associates, I'm just not all that political. I just like Spock, basically.

It's not that I'm apolitical, or dull-witted... not too much anyway, although I still have trouble figuring out the plots to most Starsky and Hutch episodes. No, I'm fairly interested in the world around me. I voted Green. OK, that's a bad example because the main reason I voted Green was I wanted to see Ralph Nader mumble on TV a lot.

I'm paranoid and depressive, see? I pretty much worry about everything that anyone anywhere does at any time. So if I actually sat down and worried about what the government was doing every second of the day, I would never sleep. In fact, I would just watch old Hanna Barbera cartoons from the 60s, like Space Ghost, or that really odd one with the caveman and his young boy concubine. I don't understand that one at all. What is that boy doing with the caveman? Who are they fighting? What are they saying? I must study their habits some more....

Whoops. See, almost got off the track again. The only cure to this sort of proscribed apathy, of course, is to go off on ebay and look at stuff like this.

Holy Jesus! Who buys that sort of thing? And why? And how come Spock looks so, er, mincing in that photo? Not to be political incorrect or what, but Spock looks damn gay in that pose if you ask me.

The point is, I think, that when times are troubled and bad news has got you down, you can always go look up Spock on the good old world wide squirrel. Forget about Ashcroft, or the secret War Tribunals, or the Suspension of the Bill of Rights, or the US government's exciting use of the word "not". Just get your Spock on, y'all.

Like this guy, at the link helpfully provided below. He takes his Spock shit super serious-like:

"He wore pointed ears and a very straight face, showed no emotion and lived by logic. That was Spock, the executive officer who was second billed and best loved in the 'Star Trek' cast. "

That's just crazy. This whole page seems to be an ultra-serious appraisal of actual Spock music. Nuts. Crazy. Brilliant.

"In this album, Spock talks in tales and pointers which were originally precognitions visualized when Apollo was itself in infancy. And delight in the stories for the retained power they show for our present."

Actually, I think these were the liner notes from one of Spock's albums. It's amazing to think that people in suits, at some point in time, actually believed the record-buying public would swallow such total bullshit. But there you have it.

Blot out unpleasant reality. Feed your inner Spock.

Check it out yourself

punchbowl@pigdog.org