Suddenly the ship was back in 1969. Capt! We've got life forms about a half a million strong. According to our instruments we are over a place called Woodstock, NY. There are all kinds of long haired freaks dancing and singing....There is some sound....I'm picking up some sounds capt. Patch it through;so we can hear it.....Freedom,Freedom,Freedom,Freedommmmm, sometimes I feel........

...like singing songs from the George Michael album "listen Without Prejudice!" when that happens, i know that i have overmedicated, yet the crew, much like Celine Dion's Heart, will go on...

and on. Celine! I mean Scottie beam us down there.And turn up the volume on our space comunicators and patch the concert through. .............beaming you down Captn..............sound effects etc. We 're here scottie, and I am here Capt. Never mind that Scottie...Who is this fellow on stage singing...comin into los angelesssss brinin in a couple of keys....Capt! Yes Mr. Yam,I mean Mr. Spok.My tricorder is picking up the smell of some kind of weed burning! Oh my god..Mr. Spok..look out..someone is passing you a large rolled paper;and the end is on fire!

And all the while Checkup was not getting any the worse for wear or better or whatever. Lulu, who had the com, was monitoring the away crew on the planets surface.

"Captain, what's happening now?'" queried Lulu. "Your last transmission was breaking up."

"Lulu," snapped the Captain, "Are you receiving this? It appears to be yet another musician of sorts." As Lulu listened intently he heard....

Yock be nimbo,
Yock be tick.
Yock got one big
Cando schtick.....

"Yes Captain, I'm picking it up."

"What do you make of that, Lulu?"

"Let me confer with Mr. Tuck and we'll get back to you Captiain."

"Well make it QUICK!" barked the Captain.

Mr. Tuck, who was monitoring the monitoring offered the suggestion by suggesting that Urooloo patch in the universal translator to see what, if any, effect that might have on the speech they were hearing. Urooloo, wiping a bit of bagel with strawberry cream cheese dust from the communications console, poked at the appropriate buttons and....

...asked as the UT was cranking up, "Mr. Lulu, could that be the Calgon dialect and they have somehow cross transmitted through some sort of anomaly like a black worm hole or something then??"

"It doesn't sound like Calgons to me Urooloo, but it is strikingly similar," expunged Mr. Tuck.

"Is the translator working yet?" asked Lulu becoming a bit impatient (shades of trees and the Captain and me)

"There seems to be some sort of problem Mr. Lulu. I can't seem to insolate it," responded Urooloo. "Have any ideas Mr. Tuck?"

"It would appear that a relay has perhaps acquired a fault, possibly as a result of the tractor beam from that Disco planet we escaped from. Allow me to check with the computer and run a diagnostic. This may take some time so it would be good to inform the Captain of the nature of the delay." coughed Tuck.

Meanwhile on the planet surface below....

...the captain drew his sights on some bathers bathing and without further hesitation squatted at the controls making an abrupt four point landing on the planet...and though it is said that for every action there is a re-action, one would never know it from this crowd who seemed to dismiss the occurrence as a passing hallucination, the space craft still steaming after it's squeezing through the atmosphere...at which time came an announcement from the stage suggesting to stay away from one in particular of the circulating mind altering substances, which was followed by a general chorus from the crowd, "boy howdy!"....

(I hope you don't mind if I jump in...?)

The saga continues, spiraling off into the galaxy…

`Lulu!’, shouts the Captain, `Where has all the cream cheese gone?’

`Long time passing’, Lulu replies.

`What in the hell does that mean?’ the Captain asked. Lulu doesn’t answer, knowing full well the cream cheese was gone, long time ago. The Captain’s mind races, as he tries to think of a way to calm the hoard of masses. He was hoping to placate them with cream cheese, but the plan has been thwarted and the crowd surges forward.

`How many roads must a man walk down, before you can call him a cab?’ wondered the Captain, afraid to share his thoughts with the crew. He doesn’t realize that the disco music has had a horrible affect on young Mr. Checkup, but the mass of humanity has seen Mr. Checkup’s peril, and acts quickly. As one, they hoist the young man on their shoulders, chanting, `Stage! Stage! Stage!’. Before the Captain realizes what is happening, Checkup is passed along the top of the crowd, toward the stage. The sounds coming from the gigantic speakers seem to be soothing Checkup, and he relaxes and allows his abductors to continue to move him closer to the source of the noise.

Meanwhile, the Captain has given up on finding any more cream cheese, and is trying to establish communication with the throng surrounding him.

`Groovy threads, Dude’, says the long-haired hippie freak next to the Captain. The Captain feverishly searches through his Hippie Speak Translation Manual, trying to find the phrase the young man has uttered…

i'm glad you joined in!!

...when his communicator sounds. Barely hearing it over the din of music the Captain responds..

"This is the Captain," blurts the Captain.

"Yes, Captain. We are having a bit of a problem with the UT and Mr. Tuck is running a diagnostic on the computer to track the problem. Shall we beam the away party back to the ship until the necessary repairs are made?" queried Lulu.

"That may be a bit of a problem, Lulu," cranks the Captain shortly. "Somehow you managed to beam Checkup down here and the crowd is passing him towards the stage. Can you get a lock on us?"

"Yes, Captain," replied Lulu with certain and precise aplomb. "I believe we can get a good lock."

"Then beam us up Mr. Lulu," beamed the Captain uncertainly.

In the transporter room, great with anticipation and child is father to the man, Ensign Bob was manning the controls. A new crew member, Bob had only been checked out on transporter operation 3 weeks prior and was having a bit of time getting a good lock. Always plucky, always able, always Wal Mart, always the optometrist, Bob gets a lock and beams the away party up. What materializes in the transporter room is a little more than he (or anyone else with the possible exception of Arnie) had bargained four, literally. Four other parsonages in addition to the away crew appear on the pads. Bob, always on top of the situation, always at the ready, always thinking just ever so slightly ahead of the game, always out to lunch, summons security. As the crew steps from the pads the four additions look around rather bewildered.

"Who are you people?" demands the Captain politlely-which by the way catches everyone (and I mean everyone) off guard with the possible exception of the four additional folks-those being 3 women and one man. One of the women, the taller brunette, begins to speak...

"Ummmm, I'm Fran San Cisco. I live in San Francisco. This is my brother Dan San Cisco and my sisters Nan and Jan San Cisco..."thinking it was just a dream Fran rambles on...."My parents Ann and Stan couldn't be with us as they stayed home while we travelled to attend the concert and I'm not too sure about what else I could say thank you very much. Are those guns????" she asked nervously with great candor and a bit of salt and garlic to add just the right flavor with a hint of basil hoping to solve the mystery of the cat, the coat and the long and winding road into the next room.

"Tuck, get down here right away," commanded the Captain all the time thinking that Bob was going to get his butt chewed for beaming up these folks in direct opposition to the Non Interferring Interference Dialective.....

.....meanwhile, deep in the heart of the Disco Quadrant, two of the supreme leaders of the aforementioned Disco Quadrent were hard at work planning ways to overpower the crew of the Mighty Starship Blunderer, and in fact attempt to spread disco music back to all the various quadrants of the galaxy where it had been so wonderfully regurgitated from in the past. But these two evil men had their own agenda to consider,hollow music for profit was their game. The captain and crew had no idea that thier paths were about to cross that of none other than(enter dramatic drum roll) Dick Clark and Casey Casem!!

The captain, ever quick on the downtake, shouted, "Dr. Spock, find out who these people REALLY are. Use your ever-effective mine-mould if you have to, but find out! San Cisco, indeed! Do they think we don’t know that’s the name of the Starfleet Academy baseball team?"

"That’s MISTER SPOCK to you, Bud; do I look like I even LIKE babies?"

Expendible Ensign. E.F. Hutton entered the suddenly hushed bridge.

Spock stretched out his hand and touched his long, double-jointed fingers to Dan’s forehead. After 20 seconds of frozen grimacing, Spock suddenly cried, "I DON’T WANT A PICKLE!" Sweating profusely, he broke away from San Cisco and lurched to the replicator, croaking, "chonklit fudge cake!"

While Lt. Hoo-Hoo-Hoo batted her eyes <img src="http://www.arlo.net/ubb/smilies/hearts.gif" width=15 height=15> and dabbed ineffectively at Spock’s fudge-ringed mouth, he said, "Captain, I think we’ve found the one weapon in the universe that has a chance of saving the Folk Quadrant from the evil Disco Drones <img src="http://www.arlo.net/ubb/smilies/reddevil.gif" width=16 height=16>."

Before the captain could reply to this astounding news, Checkup blurted, "If you don’t quite talking with your mouth full, I’ll have to change my name to Chuckup."

Bumper, a seasonal guest worker from Io, materializes, in the transporter room, & while surrounded by guards, whips out a musical memory stick & croons.....
"There's a great hot desert, south of Mexicali,
if you don't have water, boy, you'd better not go,
cause tequilla won't get you,
across that desert, to sweet Angelina, old Mexico...."
Hoyt

yoo-hoo-ya relays a message to the captain...

"captain, there's a party going on up in here!"

guards look on whimsically, as Bumper croons ...
",,and I met a kind man, he guarded the border, he siad, 'you don't need papers, i will let you go, I can see that you love her, by the look in your eyes, man', sweet Angelina, old Mexico..."

one guard, remembering his inter-gallatic oath to maintain order, raises his taser-laser-phaser-maser-and barked "Stop!, why are you making those noises, and, who are you?"
Bumper, smiles wryly, slowly re-sheaths his musical memory stick, in it's tie-dyed, betassled holder, holds the moment, for dramatic effect & says...
" an allegory, son, I come from Io, a vestige culture of the golden age of folkocracy. I am a living allegory, of a long gone time, when harmonic sounds, from human voices, coupled with melodious vibrations of artistic appliances, mingled, to create soothing, poiniant and and unifying feelings, among all who heard them. The song I sang, a lover's lament from the southwesten desert of mid 20th century Earth, speaks of longing & faith, just what is needed now to spare the universe from the cold, polyester rattle of the disco drone scourge. Shackle me, if you must, but, lead me to your taker, your Captain, so I might further discuss the future of the universe as we know it, or not,,,,"
(Ionians never mastered the gift of brevity, and often rambled on, forgetting their main point, leaving their listeners befuddled, yst vaguely enchanted.....)