Both groups knew they'd failed miserably at their respective projects.

And now they'd come together finally, at the behest of their mutual need, to commiserate over how far up their own respective asses they all were.

They had invited the artists and philosophers to come too, but the artists and philosophers were still desperately clinging to the notion that they were NOT as way far up their own asses as the astrophysicists and Catholic priests were.

But unfortunately for the artists and philosophers, as luck would have it, right after the Catholic priests and astrophysicists had confessed to each other how badly they'd failed to understand a single fucking thing in this world, and after they'd eaten some doughnuts and played out their limited repertoires of human social moves at each other, they started getting restless and reverting back to younger and younger stages of not giving a shit.

Eventually they got to the stage where you just want to fuck things up and then quickly moved to the sub-stage where you call people on the phone at random and try to fuck with their heads. (This was also briefly considered popular music at some point in the history of man.)

So the Catholic priests and astrophysicists, pretending to be from, like, UPS or some adoption agency, started calling the artists and philosophers and saying, like, "when can we deliver your truckload of starving rabid pythons?", or "when can we bring over the illegal Cambodian babies you just ordered over the internet?".

And then, while the artists and philosophers were getting really really pissed 'cause they "didn't order no stinking pythons" or babies, the astrophysicists and Catholic priests neatly segued into how isn't it fucking about time you artists and philosophers got honest with the world and admitted what a load of shit you're all spewing?

But, unfortunately for the astrophysicists and Catholic priests, the artists and philosophers, with little hesitation, just said yeah, you know, you're right! and immediately got in their cars and drove out en masse to join the astrophysicists and Catholic priests in admitting how far up their own asses they were.

Except, by the time they got there, the astrophysicists and Catholic priests were way past the point of endlessly obsessing about what a load of shit they all were and were no longer interested in hearing how far up their asses the philosophers and artists were now willing to admit they were too. Anyway, everybody already knew how far up their asses the artists and philosophers were.

So eventually the astrophysicists and Catholic priests got the artists and philosophers to stop whining and got them, instead, to channel their vanishing energy into making prank calls to those worthless soulless ignorant piece of shit slimeball politicians and businessmen out there, just like they (the astrophysicists and Catholic priests) had made prank calls to them (the artists and philosophers).

Except the astrophysicists and Catholic priests were really pulling a fast one on the artists and philosophers because it's absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to get those worthless soulless ignorant piece of shit slimeball politicians and businessmen to admit how way way way far up their own asses they are because, frankly, politicians and businessmen don't give a flaming flying fuck how far up their own asses they are, as long as they are winning. Or even losing. In fact, as long as they think they're 'playing' the fucking game. ANY fucking game.

Across town, I was still putting on my boots.

But back at the meeting, everybody was getting bored again and the artists and philosophers, thinking it was their turn, said, OK, let's get those fucking musicians to admit how far up their asses THEY are. And they all looked pretty proud at having come up with this.

Unfortunately for the artists and philosophers, there was dead silence in response to their idea -- as the astrophysicists and Catholic priests just sat there steaming and thinking about punching the artists and philosophers fucking lights out.

Later, in the infirmary, Moses Buddha, the astrophysicist who'd spent 10 years undercover as a Catholic priest and was also the organizer of this meeting, tried to explain to the artists and philosophers how they'd unfortunately stumbled on the ONLY human endeavor that might possibly be exempt from being way up its own ass.

"Though SOME music is certainly way up its own ass along with its rationale being often way up the ass of its creators," he explained, "still, SOME music APPEARS to be NOT way way up its own ass.

"This is explained by a prominent theory which posits that music already existed on the day BEFORE everything was suddenly doomed to be way up its own ass forever.

"The next day, according to the theory, we walked away from perfection bringing only music with us, and came here, where all categories and assumptions were clearly bogus but everything proceeded as though they weren't.

"It follows from this theory, then, that, really, all our time here has just been a vacation. A very bogus, very sanctimonious, very anxious vacation, salvaged only for brief moments by McCoy Tyner or Velocity Girl.

"And, today, the young Turks of this theory believe that this sad vacation way up our own asses is now finally approaching the implosion that will mark its end -- and our triumphant return to perfection -- where we will sit peaceably in plasma jars on neutrino shelves, that much the wiser for having seen firsthand how deep stupidity can go -- or how stupid depth can be. Whichever."

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