Forty years ago today human beings walked around on the goddamned moon and it was a wonder to behold, until the inset of Richard Nixon came up in the top right hand corner and then we threw things at the TV screen. Humans had flown all the way through space in a tin can powered by hundreds of tons of exploding explosive, and controlled by hardly more RAM than it takes to run a printer. It was a recklessly absurd dream and we, humanity, pulled it off. It was awe inspiring. By 2001, we’d be in orbit off Jupiter with HAL 9000. But along the way, we wised up. We don’t have dreams any more. We traded them for new aps on the iPhone. Now we bleat and twitter. Infinitely more sensible, and so easy when we have neither aspirations or shame. Look where dreaming and voyaging across the void really got us. For a moment we questioned the nature of our position in the cosmos, and entertained the brief concept that all things were possible. And that could not be allowed to continue. But it happened, and a few will remember.
So be warned. Don’t come round here with all that crap about how all of Apollo 11 was faked in a movie set in Arizona. Don’t bother me. Tell it to the Flat-Earthers. I don’t want to hear it. The moon landing was too big, too complex, too grand, there was too much telemetry, and too many people. It was too breathless and too complete. Don’t diminish what we did manage to achieve before we surrendered or gave up. (If you want to read the argument, click here.)
The secret word is Slave
Nice piece, Mick.
ReplyDeleteMuch as I love a good conspiracy theory, the idea that it was all faked is ludicrous.
And didn't we both watch the landing back at Chesterton Road?
It was the final days at 212 Shaftesbury Ave. A month or so before The Deviants left for Vancouver, Bolan fired Took, plus the Manson murders and Woodstock.
ReplyDeleteYour memory is much better than mine...
ReplyDeleteIt was 40 years ago today, I was visiting Los Angeles from New York and stood with friends in front of a TV store on Sunset Blvd. that had all its' sets in the display window turned on. A crowd gathered and waited for Armstrong. Then my friends and I went to the Aquarius Theater to see Hair. During the intermission, one of the actors walked onstage with a microphone: "I'd like to announce that a man has walked on the moon." The entire audience -- freak and straight alike -- leaped to its' feet and began a sustained applause. We were not terribly proud to be American in those days (nor are many of us now either), but for that moment, we were proud to be human beings. As Uncle Bill sez: WE'RE HERE TO GO.
ReplyDeleteAt that time, I wasn't alive, didn't grace this planet with my presence until 1985... So you tell me when the dreams supposedly stopped, where we are to have given up, because I call that a load of bullshit.
ReplyDeleteCertainly there are things to be upset about, but there's also much to be praised... yeah, some dumb fucks might only use the internet to get apps for an absurdly over-priced cell phone... but what about those of us accessing a wealth of knowledge & information that was previously only available to the few who afford to access the libraries at elite ivy-league institutions?
What about the searches for dark matter & anti-matter?
What about the space program talking about launching a mission to europa to go ice fishing on an alien moon in the search for life?
Sure, people aren't chanting free love, rather free health care & free education... "legalise it" has gone how far from where it once was... there's still so much to dream of & accomplish.
You're not going to get me to believe we're all a bunch of hopelessly doomed slaves. We haven't surrendered, some ground might have been lost in the good fight, but we haven't given up.
If this post looks fucked up or has too many errors, I apologise, I'm stuck posting from a PS3 while my computer is on the fritz.
I was up the dilly scoring when the moon landing happened...and u were in Shaftesbury Ave?..small world...the only thing I know about Shaftesbury Ave was Halls the chemists...and I could tell u a few things about the moon landing...one thing being it didnt happen in 69,it happened years before...NASA was founded by satanists - Parsons being a disciple of Crowely,the bastard...the whole thing reaked with satanic symbolism too..and Kubrick,which u mention,didnt do it {that films a mockumentary and BS}...anyway wot do I know?...+ if u think man not going to the moon in 69 is silly,u should hear ALEX COLLIERS a/c of the moon,it being hollow etc...that would make u crack up...and I have a question - why are the craters so wide,yet not deep in relation?...anyway - wot do I know?...Hard Times!! = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uRrYXb-b2s = blessings..ps...theyre bombing the moon on october 9...another wonderful american enterprise...sling them all in jail and we can draw lots as to who eats the key!
ReplyDeleteWow! I love this.
ReplyDeleteHow do you explain all the opposing shadows in pictures? Not that I really believe it didn't happen, but it is curious.
ReplyDeleteever heard of a flash camera or ambient lighting?
ReplyDeleteOMGODZILLA!!! CASE SOLVED!!!