Who you gonna call? Ghost Writers? Who you gonna call? Nurse Monkeywrench? The League of Intergalactic Hobos... Caught this hotfoot surfing volcanoes But only when the lava tide’s low Touring Texarkana via tornado Pursuing rumors of ice-blue buffalo Hitched a northbound balloon and damn near froze Selling kilos of snow to the Eskimos Courting the worst-case scenario With a chain-gang of leprechauns in tow Oh, you have to know this ain’t my first rodeo Hopping from fiasco to fiasco By freight train or UFO Openly incognito Not your usual superheroes The League of Intergalactic Hobos From Jupiter to Juneau Those hobos stuck it to the status quo Sowing turbo-boosted embryos Row after row, seeds of indigo On the fast track to tomorrow Little exploding rainbows Tuned to the new age pirate radio The age-old show to end all shows And we’re all coming on for a cameo Hopping from fiasco to fiasco By freight train or UFO Openly incognito Not your usual superheroes The League of Intergalactic Hobos Who you gonna call? You have to know... Who you gonna call? You have to know... Grimy vagabonds of voodoo Inked with tattoos of Stygian blue On a rendezvous to the usual snafus At the basement of Twenty-Three Skidoo Where new planes of existence debut Some of you’d faint from the fumes of that brew Truth you can’t help but misconstrue Over yonder where the coo-coo flew From Sirius to Timbuktu Hopping from fiasco to fiasco By freight train or UFO Openly incognito Not your usual superheroes The League of Intergalactic Hobos

Where'd I go? Where did I go? I went to see the guru To score some destiny Just enough to tide me through ‘Til I could fix my color TV Said to me you must be new For I have seen you before And if you truly had a clue You’d back right out that door But we’ll toss darts at your chart If you’ve nothing else to do Maybe you’ll start to fall apart Maybe get hooked on the glue I come in pieces All over the place A hamster on a wheel A rat in a race Oh guru won’t you reveal The fate written on my face All wrapped up in my dharma map Looking for a new tale to chase I sat baffled in that tiny shrine It wasn’t quite what I’d had in mind No signs of any grand design Indeed no guide of any kind I tried to take it all in stride But I didn’t know what to think Was I being taken for a ride Or was the map in invisible ink? Well, we stared at the wall for a while As I struggled not to blink Finally the guru cracked a smile As I turned a brighter shade of pink I come in pieces All over the place A hamster on a wheel A rat in a race Oh guru won’t you reveal The fate written on my face All wrapped up in my dharma map Looking for a new tale to chase Said maybe this you’ll understand You venture into unknown lands That map is drawn by your own hand So don’t ask me “what’s the plan?” Right then I knew that we were through This cat didn’t have anything new So I stumbled out, mumbling and blue To see about getting a better guru I come in pieces All over the place A hamster on a wheel A rat in a race Oh guru won’t you reveal The fate written on my face All wrapped up in my dharma map Looking for a new tale to chase

I had this thought inside my head What would happen if I said: I had this thought inside my head And I wondered what would happen if I said What I am about to tell you is true But what I just said is a lie Just go ahead and think it through It’s a knot which won’t untie I found this Escher in Pandora’s Box Under piles of mind-bending paradox Time-traveling grand-father killing clocks Irresistible forces and immovable rocks It was an Escher, but not just any Escher It was a sketch of Escher as Escher does Dig, it was an intricate picture Escher drawing every Escher that ever was There seems to be no way to know If you can really know what I mean If you’ve ever spied the spiral glow Or even seen what I call green We’re a story told in alphabet soup With just enough ink to link the chain Just a group of strange strange loops That the void could not contain Yes, Escher drew a time machine Functional in every way Illustrating in reiterating scenes Whatever he drew on that day It was a nested set of images Showing Escher as a spectator Considering infinite visages Of the self-generating creator My first thought was to dive right in But the second was more clever So I grabbed my collection of Escher’s prints Without a third thought whatsoever Well, he didn’t seem surprised when I arrived A tourist on a trans-temporal hike But when he saw what I’d brought along Oh, hell, M.C. Escher dropped the mike! Vat have you done? He demanded of me This intrusion is unauthorized! You have broken the laws of causality And violated my copyrights beside! There seems to be no way to know If you can really know what I mean If you’ve ever spied the spiral glow Or even seen what I call green We’re a story told in alphabet soup With just enough ink to link the chain Just a group of strange strange loops That the void could not contain The strangest part is this living thing Hardly seems natural at all Strings of code self-replicating On this suspiciously habitable ball Which comes first: The thought or the word The seed or the tree? The egg or the bird? What sounds do they make If none are heard? What vision is seen When the blueprint is blurred? Now, what I’m about to tell you is true But what I just said is a lie Just go ahead and think it through It’s a knot which won’t untie There seems to be no way to know If you can really know what I mean If you’ve ever spied the spiral glow Or even seen what I call green We’re a story told in alphabet soup With just enough ink to link the chain Just a group of strange strange loops That the void could not contain I had this thought inside my head What would happen if I said: I had this thought inside my head And I wondered what would happen if I said… This statement is false That statement was true There seems to be no way to know If you can really know what I mean If you’ve ever spied the spiral glow Or even seen what I call green We’re a story told in alphabet soup With just enough ink to link the chain Just a group of strange strange loops That the void could not contain

Ha ha ha ha Hollywood Ha ha ha ha Hollywood Ha ha ha ha Hollywood Hollywood’s gone awful green these days If you listen to all the stars Well, they sure are busy recycling scripts While blowing up all those cars Stick that round peg in a square slot Oh, it’s a fam-iliar routine Then they break out the inkblots And ask you what they mean But they don’t know what’s true Anymore than you or I do And those shrinks, they haven’t a clue What the sky looks like to me or you Wait, which guy?!!! Entertain your visions in seclusion They’ll call it a raving mad delusion But get enough other kooks to join in And all of a sudden they call it a religion I’m a tad mad batty I must admit Why deny it if the straitjacket fits? Well, life’s a joke and we’re the butts So not being crazy would be a little bit nuts Always the offbeat oddballs On the cusp of innovation Say, maybe losing your marbles Is the real secret of salvation They say madness turns to genius After fermenting for a generation So in twenty years, more or less We’ll redeem your certification Oh, we’ve gone Gonzo Bonkers The Coo-Coo done flew over Ten miles off our rockers And running rings around our keepers Entertain your visions in seclusion They’ll call it a raving mad delusion Get enough other kooks to join in And all of a sudden they call it a religion I’m a tad mad batty I must admit Why deny it if the straitjacket fits? Oh, life’s a joke and we’re the butts So not being crazy would be a little bit nuts They say that I should abide the law Not sure I get the point Of abiding uniformed bandits Out to stick hippies in the joint We’re supposed to all feel terrorized Let them rifle through our rights But what causes me insecurity Is getting groped to catch a flight And it’s the greatest emergency If the bankers don’t get paid The sky will tumble upon us all If their bonuses are delayed Talk about conspiracies And they’ll label you confused Everyone’s got a conspiracy theory Fluoride, vaccines, the chem-trail blues Lizard people or the Illuminati Yes, the details are a little spotty When psy-ops masquerade as news The only question is whose Channel you choose Entertain your visions in seclusion They’ll call it a raving mad delusion But get enough other kooks to join in And all of a sudden they call it a religion I’m a tad mad batty I must admit Why deny it if the straitjacket fits? Yes, life’s a joke and we’re the butts So not being crazy would be a little bit nuts

Going up? Going up? And going down... Going down to the velvet valley Where syrup streams come to swell Going down to tickle my fancy And to tickle yours as well Diving deep in quivering caverns Imbibing the nexus of ecstasy Sugar-soaked flooded cisterns Overflowing with fantasies The secret of Nature It’s on the tip of my tongue It’s on the tip of my tongue It’s on the tip of my tongue Going down to the velvet valley And I’m off to ring that belle The kind that chimes luxuriously Coaxing nectar from the well Sipping milk of paradise At the mouth of the sacred river I weave a circle ‘round her thrice So she knows I come a giver The secret of Nature It’s on the tip of my tongue It’s on the tip of my tongue It’s on the tip of my tongue Well, they call it the Tropics ‘Cause it’s steamy hot and wet And as far as a topic That’s as close as it gets Going down to the velvet valley That’s where I’d rather dwell Drinking all day that lovely honey That tastes of royalty for a spell Peeling back cloaked veils The epicenter trembles and quakes I barely dare exhale As the velvet valley shakes Ninepence in the pocket Muffin up a canoe Stirring up the jampot Dripping with honeydew Scaling Venusian mountains Turning a blind eye to sight Awash in Cyprian fountains Wading through jewel-boxes of delight Well, they call it the Tropics ‘Cause it’s steamy hot and wet And as far as a topic That’s as close as it gets Climbing up the plum tree Puddings in a ring Sweeter than any candy The confectioner might bring Licking the night physic Merging converging nerves Frantic and spasmodic Along hyperbolic curves Well, they call it the Tropics ‘Cause it’s steamy hot and wet And as far as a topic That’s as close as it gets Trouble comes a-knocking With a twisted mistletoe sprig Double-backed beast bucking In a furious Paphian jig It’s a venerable monosyllable A veritable cascade A source as inexhaustible As the way we all were made Well, they call it the Tropics ‘Cause it’s steamy hot and wet And as far as a topic That’s as close as it gets Going down to the velvet valley Where syrup streams come to swell Going down to tickle my fancy And to tickle yours as well The secret of Nature It’s on the tip of my tongue It’s on the tip of my tongue It’s on the tip of my tongue

You’d never guess it from their tattered jackets Four shadows sharing the glare How they rode skyward chariots And vaulted the moon on a dare Well, I tell you, it was a sordid affair How the clown confronted the crown And both of their heads came tumbling down Oh, go ahead and laugh We’re a four-panel cartoon Carried away in a hot-air balloon Y’all be singin’ a different tune When we’re mining diamonds all over the moon You’d never know it from their signs and seals Dilated eyes and visionary zeal Spaced-out trails and quantum tangles Loose use of phrases and estimated angles Winding threads where the point evaporates You’d never know they haunted the underworld And crashed the pearly gates Oh, go ahead and laugh We’re a four-panel cartoon Carried away in a hot-air balloon Y’all be singin’ a different tune When we’re mining diamonds all over the moon So many variables to be shamboozled by You’d never know it from the grit of the nitty You’d never guess from the thick of the thin All the worn-out grandeur and grime Serving both shallow and sublime Platinum-plated platitudes adorning our ears Vying to be the ones that live on through the years Is it the glint or the glimmer you follow? Is it the voice or the silence you heed? Where do I sign up for a leader Who leads me and leaves me to lead? Yeah, you might have thought otherwise If they told you they even had a clue Of what I’m telling what I’m telling to you Never mind the teller, it’s the telling that’s true Oh, go ahead and laugh We’re a four-panel cartoon Carried away in a hot-air balloon Y’all be singin’ a different tune When we’re mining diamonds all over the moon

There's more here, there's more here There’s more here than meets the ear More than anyone understands Like an old story told fourth hand The only constant is conversion Everyone hears a different version Pass it on, pass a ton Past a one, past we won It’s the Universe at the end of the restaurant Where food for thought is easily bought And chaos ordered anew Serving misheard Mondegreen stew Topped with poached portmanteaus Battered earslips and eggcorns to dip With a side of mangled malaprops too There was an out-of-the-way cafè So I wandered right on in At once the audio buffet Triggered a sense of recognition I was offered a selection Of sweet admonitions Served with hot-cross puns And double-shots of expression There were troubadours in the rear In the midst of an open-mike session A parade of moron lessons Misbegotten ballads In rapid succession Tossed word salads Litanies of confession And sea-soaked shanties Of salty insurrection It’s the Universe at the end of the restaurant Where food for thought is easily bought And chaos ordered anew Serving misheard Mondegreen stew Topped with poached portmanteaus Battered earslips and eggcorns to dip With a side of mangled malaprops too This one sings out lull-a-byes And we all shed a tear and sigh That one slings barbed lampoons Slick and dripping with crude This one came with steam to vent Scalding with bristling rage Squeezed between broken laments Mourning the darkness of our age This one grumbles gritty blues Woe woe woe a world of bad news That one wails tales of mutinies Betrayals by bygone buccaneers Someone hails victories Trumpeted in yesterday’s lore Someone thunders the wonder Of tomorrow’s rising roar It’s the Universe at the end of the restaurant Where food for thought is easily bought And chaos ordered anew Serving misheard Mondegreen stew Topped with poached portmanteaus Battered earslips and eggcorns to dip With a side of mangled malaprops too

Betty never shirked never shirked No, Betty never shirked, never shirked No, Betty never shirked a day of work She was the picture of the perfect clerk She knew at the Bureau that mum’s the word No matter what secrets might be overheard She never typed off-key or misplaced her smile Misspelled a memo or lost a file Bosses came and bosses went She outlasted thirteen Presidents Betty played the undercover charade As half a century slipped by Mysteries mastered and history made While her unwatched eyes spied on the FBI Precious treasures collecting dust Up in Betty’s attic Alien alloys that never rust Up in Betty’s attic A month would not be nearly enough To catalogue Betty’s attic You wouldn’t believe even half the stuff Up in Betty’s attic Up in Betty’s attic Up in Betty’s attic Betty knew the name of every agent hired Baked cakes for the burnt out, fired and retired She knew what every coded message meant And all the hidden passages in the vents The closets where skeletons lay interred How the bugs were wired to catch every word She was the Bureau’s pride and joy But Betty was a mole on a deep cover mission Moonlighting covertly in the employ Of the Arcturian diplomatic delegation She also drew paychecks from the Romulans The Dogons the Vogons and the Greys If you had Sirius means, Betty had the way Precious treasures collecting dust Up in Betty’s attic Alien alloys that never rust Up in Betty’s attic A month would not be nearly enough To catalogue Betty’s attic You wouldn’t believe even half the stuff Up in Betty’s attic Up in Betty’s attic Up in Betty’s attic Betty collected her own evidence Her paranormal stash was beyond immense She had artifacts dated centuries hence Souvenirs from all sort of impossible events She had Bigfoot’s very rare little toe Road maps of Atlantis and orbs that glow Half a dozen chunks of pure Philosopher’s Stone A fortune in uncut Kryptonite alone Cursed monkey’s paws and Loch Ness jaws Wizard’s wands and vampire fangs Vintage vinyl from the final Concert Eurydice and Orpheus sang Six pickled pairs of angel wings And an array of automatic boomerangs When Betty was found without a breath Her collection passed to Goodwill and dispersed What they never knew was that it wasn’t death She’d only transferred to another Universe So if you closely encounter something strange Shimmering on your thrift store shelf It’s worth at least a pocket full of change To snag some attic stash for yourself Precious treasures collecting dust Up in Betty’s attic Alien alloys that never rust Up in Betty’s attic A month would not be nearly enough To catalogue Betty’s attic You wouldn’t believe even half the stuff Up in Betty’s attic Up in Betty’s attic Up in Betty’s attic

Codified bridge from beat to hippie A rudderless vessel of psychedelic discovery Unclean machine of perpetual perversity Transiting altered states and cities Fueled by sweaty adrenaline And wanderlusty audacity Skin blistering with palpitating authenticity Oozing sexuality and howling holy obscenities Under an umbrella of numinous luminosity Scribbling notes along the envelope’s edge Twinkling between the rock of a twisted fix And the hard place of standing still A high wire daredevil driving a tight rope Reading I Ching and levitating twenty steel tons Another wild mad dash Furthur up highway 1 Burning benzedrine, LSD, and destiny Bearing Dean Moriarty’s On The Road legacy Scraping handlebar guardrails Rambling through every rubber-burning turn Bopping to the beat of a different apocalypse Seven-pointed star with lightning lips Careening through rag-tag jazz manuscripts Reeling off an unseen screen Switching scenes between half a dozen twisted flicks Behind the wheel of the big reveal At the helm of the bus that launched ten thousand trips Well, Cowboy Neal was a curious cat A cameo character with a craning neck Jaunting through panoramic habitats Hand dealt from the underside of the deck Rolling out the film in reverse Drunkard orphan hitching the skids Toward the outskirts of the Universe They say feline lives number nine Cassady ran through them three at a time The first third flying by at high velocity The second third the reborn bon vivant of literary immortality The third third cut short by the fall of a curtain call Yeah, the third third of that cat’s tale Well, that didn’t happen at all Feline lives, they come in nines But how many railroad ties Is it to the end of the line? It’s the question that killed Neal Cassady What glitters in the corner of all I see? Past yesterday’s unfettered artistry Behind the rat-a-tat patter of the acid test barker And wry grin of the irrepressible skylarker Rapping off a scatter-shot branched narrative Dripping with hedonism and vainglory It’s the metastasized story of a reformatory refugee Chasing an insatiable curiosity Well, they say curiosity is what killed the cat But, baby, satisfaction is what brought him back Hey, get a load of this sensational sensation Groove on that wonderstruck unstuck vibration Hang up those hang-ups and grab the phone There’s a call for you from the great unknown Notions in motion on waves of maybe and let’s see The core of Aporia, the glory of all that happens to be Boundless novelty over yonder horizon A maze of labyrinthine amazement Accumulated cumulus clouds cushioning the seering Sun Under myriad piercing gazes conjuring allegorical fantastic events Crystallized visions dug up to resurrect Sights and sounds and synesthetic scents No mind left unblown No line left unbent Dig it, digits, with opposable thumbs Jutting out to beckon whatever may come Wrapped up in tarpaulin folds of undertow And tidal flows of who knows where it’s gonna go Packed in the back of Serendipity’s pick-up jalopy Following the fortunes of random roadside processions Cosmos shattered through dew-drop prismed progressions Unlocking spectral rainbows trapped inside indifferent infinity Sun-spun cycles of last chances and first impressions Melodies plucked from moaning droned tonalities Unfolding untold golden eternities Electrified steel-wrought mechanical dreams Stoked on the steam from locomotive combustion Meeting each moment beneath a scalding stream Of quantum kinetic connotative implications Multi-faceted visceral crystal-shard rings Trembling in orbit around Cassady’s question Ripping the fabric of the grace-slime continuum Sinless, schizo-maniacal saint of the strange Marking space, time, and novel conundrums Across whatever remains of the vanishing free range Psychedelic skipper sailing through the Big Dipper Seekin’ All Seeken All…. Was it ultimately the quest Or just the ultimate question That finally did unkneeling Cassady in? Oh, the question that killed Neal Cassady How far to that city he would never see? They say feline lives number nine Cassady ran through them three at a time Chasing that terminal curiosity Notions in motion on waves of “maybe” and “let’s see” The core of Aporia, the glory of all that will ever be Feline lives, they come in nines But how many railroad ties is it is it is it How many railroad ties is it to the end of the line? Well, they say curiosity is what killed the cat But, baby, satisfaction is what brought him back And so the question came and went No mind left unblown No line left unbent

High mojo in the hole Heavy spells getting sprung From the bottom of my soul To the tip of my tongue It’s been quite a blast Still ringing in my ears One last call for the past Coming through loud and clear Well, who I’ve been Is wearing thin Serpent shedding another skin Go ahead, hit the reset button And start And start And start all over again Farewell you forlorn fantasies Dreams from disappearing years Lose the you who used to be Slip into a brand new gear Shells of selves chipped away Collapsing walls within Clearing out all the yesterday So tomorrow can start to begin Cause who I’ve been Is wearing thin Serpent shedding another skin Go ahead, hit the reset button And start And start And start all over again Start and start and start over again Draw a deep breath and descend from ten Ten powder-kegs of dynamite ignite Nine novas erupt in the night Eight awakenings crackle in dawn Seven sibyls speak and then they are gone Start and start and start over again Trace time back through its origin It began, it began, oh I lost count But very long ago by all accounts Everything happens but who knows when So start and start and start over again Start and start and start again For we’re still in initiation On the wings of incantations For dreams in generation Spring-loaded cobras ready to dance With any who dare to take the chance For who I’ve been is wearing thin Serpent shedding another skin Go ahead, hit the reset button And start And start And start all over again Yes who I’ve been is wearing thin Serpent shedding another skin Go ahead, hit the reset button And start And start And start all over again

If you want to live forever, you gotta talk real slowwwww....

"Hey, let's get the band back together!" "Great idea. Uh, which band?" "The band from the future. You remember." "Oh, yeah." "The Mobius Band." "The imaginary band." "The band that hasn't been banned yet." "The incredible delusion we're about to entertain." "We'll get our imaginary friends to play in it!" "I dunno. Most of my imaginary friends don't really believe in me."