This weekend at Magnaball, Relix is proud to present The Ball Street Journal, a daily newspaper containing all things Phish. Today, as the festival kicks off, we’re excited to offer up a special contribution from Phish bassist Mike Gordon. Read on as you step into Mike’s Corner. 

Taj Hankus thought he invented the magnet. This isn’t a story about who invented what, since we know about delusion. It’s more of a story about why Taj walked from Oregon all the way to the Eastern Seaboard to try and sell the new invention. Along the way, sitting in a café in Detroit, there was brainstorming, sketches on paper, later washed out by a torrential downpour. There were marketing campaigns like, “Where North Meets South” and “This Is Gonna Save You.”

Wait, no, gonna doesn’t work, Oh, yes, I would like another deviled pickle. What are you working on? A slogan? Can I see? No. I’m going to look. No. Why didn’t you use punctuation or indenting? It’s a slogan, not a book. You mean slogan, comma, not a book. Can I just have the deviled pickle? Yes. Sorry. No prob. Wanna get a drink after this? And so on.

We all know the stories about people walking in hotels with the same suitcases. Hankus accidentally traded with a woman carrying magnet shaped things that weren’t magnetized. That was so frustrating. Now in the Sycamore Hotel in Upper Bowling Green, Pa., the magnets are sticking to things from the lobby floor. And one was a silver penny. Now that was worth something. It was worth a train ticket to Watkins Glen is what it was worth. The first person to show up on the first day: Taj Hankus, having traveled so far. This, of course, was 1908, the first day of the World’s Fair. He showed up and claimed he invented not only magnets but also a design whereby it loops around like a horseshoe. North and South are so close and, yet, too bracketed to perform.

The first person to see Taj was Miss Willa Crankus, secretary to Doughregard Mitchell of the U.S. Inventors board, Booth 191, World’s Fair. We’ve seen so many of these, said Willa, not even bothering to say it in quotes. You didn’t invent it. I don’t think I can let you see Mrs. Mitchell. Sorry, did you come from far away. No, just from down the tracks he said, lying. Well, Miss Willa added, if you want to get a milkshake, I get off in two hours. And there sat Taj, all sad about not being an inventor anymore. He’d been un-inventored. But he started getting excited about the milkshake.

I wonder if they will put cilantro in it = out loud. Of course they will, thought Willa. What makes you think that, said Taj? Just because they make exotic milkshakes next door, and what made you able to read my mind? Oh, I also invented a mind-reading machine, which is in my chest pocket. Oh, cool, well I guess you must have a time machine by the other peck, since cilantro won’t be invented ‘til the fifties. Yes, Taj, quorped, and we both know magnetism was invented by deities, not us. Then why did you walk from Oregon? Oh, so now you ask with a question mark. What about indenting? Nah, doesn’t matter. I pedal deity stuff, magnets. I invented them. Now I really believe you. Did you know mice are magnetic when they die (not mattering who is speaking)? Yes, I did, and there’s a dead one, and here’s a magnet. So they drag it by the magnet to the mice coroner and they take out the bones, which are metal, now THAT is an invention. They cheers over milkshakes. Yay.