The Pope And Harley World Tour: "Incognito", Part Four (And Final)

My neighbor downstairs, who by the way, apropos of nothing in particular, is a very attractive woman in her early 50's, left recently on vacation to visit her sister in Nova Scotia. When she told me she was leaving for Nova Scotia ("Hey, Pope, how you doin'? I'm going to Nova Scotia next week; do the mail and plant thing for me, would you?"), I had to stop and think if I knew anyone, not IN Nova Scotia, because as far as I know, other than my neighbor's sister, nobody actually lives in Nova Scotia, but just anyone who had ever even HEARD of Nova Scotia.

Nova Scotia, which is Latin for "...all hands on the poopdeck", err, sorry, "New Scotia", according to WikiPedia, is one of Canada's Maritime Provinces, and although Wiki has an article on the Province, according to the world map I received for free a number of years ago from some organization I had just joined, Nova Scotia doesn't exist. That's right, rodeo fans, this freebie atlas I received is like "Map Light"; they left off all but the biggest names of countries and oceans, so all you see is "America" or "Denmark" ("Did you leave the lights on in the den, Mark?") or "Water", so if you're say, Luxembourg or the Vatican or Lower Zimbabwe (home of the ebert), you just don't exist.

So I don't where my neighbor is right at the moment, but she can't be in New Scotia, 'cause it's not there anymore. (Nova does have a younger brother who manages the Los Angeles Hollywood Angels of Anaheim in Southern California, who's name is Mike.)

(I got up this morning and decided to be just as esoteric as I could be, all day.)

"...so in conclusion, just let me say how much Harley and I appreciate the Bored giving us this opportunity, once again, to go forth and spread the message of the soothing balm of Johnism to all the poor souls in our world who cry out for solace, for comfort from their afflictions, who thirst for a single drop of the cooling water of care on their lips, parched from the years of degradation...(Harley barks in the background)...yes, well, I should wrap this up and allow you ladies and gentlemen to get back to your meeting. Ahh, thank you." And I sat down.

That was how I ended my report to the Bored Of Elders of the All John All The Time World Church, of which, as you probably know by now, I am the Pope Guy.

After about a bajillion miles on the road, and a shitload of stops along the way, we finally arrived back at the headquarters of the AJATTWC yesterday, after leaving Washington, D.C. and the offices of Dr. Aaron Thetires, located at the Center For Really Important Space Stuff, the day before.

Before we left on the Pope And Harley World Tour: "Incognito" tour, the BOE had instructed us to, as quietly as possible, investigate a number of stories that they were monitoring, that they felt had grave implications for the future of the Church. So by day Harley and I were the usual media darlings we always are, and then, when our "official" duties had been seen to, off we went, into the night, to become our alter-egos, Spaceman Spiff and his sidekick, Harbacca.

(Actually, "Spaceman Spiff" was the alter-ego of Calvin, half of the funniest cartoon strip ever written, "Calvin and Hobbes", which was penned by a very erudite, hysterical human being named Bill Watterson; unfortunately, Mr. Watterson retired some years ago, and Calvin and his stuffed tiger are no more, and the world is a lesser place from the lack. Mr. Watterson, on behalf of all of us who thought C and H was essential reading, every day, please come back. We'll take up collections, we'll get you free tickets to see the Dodgers, which shouldn't be tough, since nobody wants them these days, we'll mow your lawn and trim the hedges, we'll get you passes to see Justin Beiber, whatever it takes, just please, please come back and write the strip once again.)

(Please.)

Over the course of our trip we met with four individuals, each of whom is in some way investigating the origins of life as we know it, by researching, from various different scientific approaches, the event that is now referred to as the "Big Bang", which in this case is a reference to the theory of the cataclysmic beginning of our Galaxy, and not the TV show. I hadn't known this at the outset of our trip.

(In the interest of brevity, a consideration I rarely make, I'll direct you to my posts from 8/10, 8/12 and 8/16 for explanations of whom we saw and what we discussed.)

We were barely into our meeting with Dr. Warren Peace at CERN, the European Organization For Nuclear Research, when I figured out why the Bored had such a keen interest in the people they wanted us to see and interview.

Duh, it was all scientists involved in study of the Bang.

So we gathered info and interviewed folks and studied charts and graphs and read reports and went to the 'Net and WikiPedia for more information and explanations and, in general, got REAL conversant with the theory of how our Universe got it's start.

And of course, in the process, we had to consider the subject from the one point of view that mattered above all others: how did we get here?

How did we get here? How did we come to be? Is it an accident of evolution? A Grand Design? Did the building blocks of DNA, our most basic genetic material, come from Out There? Are we alone, or are there more like us, out there somewhere in the far reaches of Space, the final frontier? "What" started it all?

Was it...God?

This was what the Bored wanted investigated, and it's not hard to understand why.

Because someday, oh fellow travelers along the road of life, someday we're going to find all these answers we seek (hey, you didn't really think I was setting you up for the big denouement, when I reveal that I, your Pope Guy, has suddenly unraveled the Great Mystery Of Life?...yeah, right), someday we'll "get it", and when that day comes, yes sir, boys and girls, I'm pretty sure that a WHOLE lot of people are going to step back for a moment, take a long, hard look at things and wonder to themselves...

"...what the hell was I thinking all those years?"

I have no idea how the Bored Of Old Guys at the AJATTWC is going to handle all the information that Harley and I brought back for them from our trip, but I do know this much...

...there were worried looks on their faces, and maybe some fear in their hearts as well.

But for me, in the final analysis, it isn't the destination, it's the journey. I intend to do all I can to enjoy the process of achieving all the answers, and I proceed on the theory that, at the end, I will finally have them all.

The ongoing debate in the interim is stupid, since it can't be proven either way.

"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." Christopher Hutchens

("Nova Scotia" is actually French for "We're too small to be on cheap maps, but 29.3% of our populace is of Scottish descent, so put that in your kilt and run it up the flagpole.")

"In the beginning, there was Light, which was supposed to be less filling but have great taste...but it wasn't and it didn't, and the Creator was displeased, and he banished Light from Eden, and cast it out unto the Earth, and TC said to Light, because you aren't and you don't, I will place upon you a Mark, or maybe a William, that will forever brand you tasteless and gruel-like, and I will cause countless, stupid TV commercials be made in your name, so that people will come to curse you, and say you ill. You douche-bag."

You know, being Pope is about as much fun as you can have with your clothes on.

Love and Genesis,

PJTT

copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc. 

The Pope And Harley World Tour: "Incognito", Part Three (And Counting)

"Off we go, into the wild blue yonder, flying high, into the sun...".

And all I want to know is, what exactly is a "wild blue yonder?" Is there such a thing as a "wild green yonder"? How does a yonder become a "wild blue" yonder? Is it genetics? Are we flying into the wild blue yonder or into the sun? (Boy, is this song ambivalent.)

Ring...ring...rin

"PJTT...hey, Mike, how are you?...yeah...yeah...okay, let's table that idea for the moment...oh, yeah, I just started to write it....it's what?...well, wouldn't it make more sense with a comma after "blue"?...I mean, it sounds like they're saying they're going off into the "wild blue yonder", not the "wild blue, yonder"...never mind, I'll talk to you later, I have to finish my post now."

Geez.

That was my consigliore, the Right Reverend Monsignor Michael Jordan, (by now you know it's not the same one that played for North Carolina, right?); apparently he had a small problem with what I wrote in the second paragraph. And later on, after I finish my essay on the soothing balm of Johnism for all my loyal followers, I'll speak with Monsignor Jordan and remind him who's Pope around here at the All John All The Time World Church. (I'll have the Bored Of Elders of the Church demote him back to deacon if he gives me any more lip.)

In our last episode (I really do like writing that phrase)...

In our last episode...

In our last episode...

Okay, I got it out of my system.

In our last episode, your Pope Dude (that would be me) and the Harley Dog, were just departing Northern China after interviewing the head of the state science agency, Dr. Bang Agong, about, and being given a first-hand "tour" of, the 7-1/2 foot long, 25-ton iron meteorite that was recently discovered by miners in the vicinity. Just after we politely declined Dr. Agong's generous offer to stay for lunch. ("Hey," he said, "you and dog like Chinese food? Big special on pork-fried rice at commissary. Well, we call "pork".")

So with no pork-fried rice in our stomachs, and no money in our clothes, wait, that was from "Angie" by the Rolling Stones, that doesn't belong here, let's try that again.

So with no "pork"-fried rice in our stomachs, we took off from China in the RU Kidding (see the first in this series of essays, posted to my blog on 8/10, to learn more about the Pope's atomic powered rocket ship, the Royal Unionship Kidding, or RU Kidding for short), headed for the next stop in the World Tour, this time to meet with Dr. Peter N. Thewolf, a space scientist at Athabasca University in Alberta, Canada; Dr. Thewolf was the one who recently discovered the "Trojan asteroid" that is currently orbiting around the Sun, directly alongside Planet Earth, using the exact same trajectory as our planet.

(Somebody please explain something to me: why would you name an asteroid after a condom?)

We arrived in Alberta in the late afternoon, and since our appointment with Dr. Thewolf wasn't until the next morning, Harley and I decided to check out some of the sights of Western Canada after we had our dinner.

We got back to the hotel about an hour later, which should tell you a lot about the night life in Alberta; beautiful country, but it sure isn't LA (pronounced LAH). Shit, Alberta isn't even Cleveland.

"Dr. Thewolf, please explain the significance of the discovery of this "Trojan" asteroid that is orbiting the Sun in the same orbit as the Earth; what can we learn from this phenomena?" I asked the doctor in his office the next morning.

"Well, Your Tallness, scientists have long suspected the existence of these asteroids, circling right along with Earth as the planet makes it's way around the Sun; we've seen them in many other instances, alongside other planetary bodies. Jupiter, Neptune and Mars all have Trojan asteroids orbiting along the same path as the planets."

"You see, Pope, there are spots along the axis of a planet's orbit around the Sun where the gravitational pull of the Earth and the Sun cancel each other out, and those points, called "Lagrangian points", are where objects, like a space station or an asteroid, can "park", so to speak, and travel along with the planet it's attached to, gravitationally; think of the Moon and it's relationship to the Earth. Same thing." He paused to relight the pipe he had been smoking while we talked.

"So how does that benefit the people of Earth?" I asked.

"Excellent question, Your Tallness, excellent; you cut right to the heart of the matter. The reason we're so excited about discovering these asteroids in Earth's orbit is that they will make ideal candidates for visits from astronauts on manned space missions. Think about being physically on the surface of a planetary object that, most likely, has existed since right after the Big Bang; the scientific data on that chunk of space rock will be incredible. We should be able to determine a lot of what happened, and when, and how, at the time of the Solar System's first few moments. Absolutely amazing."

So for the third time in as many personal visits as we've had on this Tour, the person we came to meet with has mentioned the Big Bang, and none of them were referring to the TV show. At least I don't think they were.

Dr. Thewolf, Harley and I chatted pleasantly for another half hour, and then we excused ourselves to the good doctor, and took our leave. (We took the Kidding, too; it was a long walk to our next stop in Washington, D.C. from Alberta, Canada. And didn't she play keyboards for Macwood Fleet once?)

(Alberta Canada, you know, like Sue Smith or Hermione Trotbottom? Geez.)

We had one more scheduled stop on our Tour, a meeting with another doctor, this one in Chemistry. (Actually, the doctor has his Ph.D in Chemistry, but he was really in Washington, D.C., where the Center For Really Important Space Stuff is located, and where Dr. Aaron Thetires, who was the co-author of a groundbreaking new work on DNA in space, has his office.)

Dr. Thetires and his team of researchers at the CFRISS have determined, through all kinds of really esoteric and boring as hell science experiments, that, per their report, "the components of DNA have now been confirmed to exist in extraterrestrial meteorites."

We were escorted to what was obviously a working chemistry lab in the lower part of the CFRISS building, and that's where we met with Dr. Thetires, amidst Bunsen burners, pipettes (small pipes?), miles of tubing and bubbling retorts. (You've heard of scathing remarks? Well, these were bubbling retorts.)

"So, doctor, what significance will your discovery of the basic building blocks of DNA on these "extraterrestrial" bodies have for us here on Earth?" I asked him, after we had been brought stools to sit on; well, they brought me a stool, but they didn't bring anything for the Harley Dog. (But that's okay, I let him whizz all over their shrubbery before we left.)

"Your Strangeness, there is no way I can emphasize how important this discovery is," he said. "Finding nucleobase compounds not typically found in Earth's biochemistry strongly supports an extraterrestrial origin, and that would seem to suggest life as we know it on Earth having a possible extraterrestrial origin as well."

Dr. Thetires' findings reveal that meteorites may have been molecular tool kits, providing the essential building blocks for life on Earth, as well as possibly other planets as well.

"All this has implications for the origins of life on Earth and potentially elsewhere," Thetires said. "Are these building blocks of life transferred to other places where they might be useful? Can alternative building blocks be used to build other things? The potential is staggering."

"Is this part of the whole "Big Bang" thing?"

"Absolutely. These meteorites may have been floating around space since the time of the BB, just waiting for a new planet to bump into, much like the Genesis Machine in the Star Trek movie "The Wrath Of Khan", although not quite as dramatic. But the same principle obtains; something started the chain of life on Earth, and this discovery may lead us to know what, or Who, as the case may be." (The capital in the word was implied in Dr. Thetires' voice.)

"Or Who?" I asked.

And just as he was about to answer, my cell phone went off; it was RRMMJ, telling me that we were needed back at the headquarters of the AJATTWC, which is located in the sunny and always inappropriate San Fernando Valley area of LA.

We excused ourselves to Dr. Thetires, thanked him for his time and headed out to the Kidding for the quick jump home. Dr. Thetires promised to email the rest of his thoughts to me later that day.

The next, and last, episode, and Dr. Thetires final remarks? Same Bat time, same Bat channel, boys and girls.

Love and Star Wars,

PJTT

copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc.