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The relationship between outer space and humans has been in the news like crazy this past week. Spacewalks, a lunar eclipse, a Space Shuttle landing, the blowing up of a satellite with a missile…WTF?
Every time The IP hears about astronauts taking off, working in space, and landing back on earth, he thinks back to his childhood.
When he was just a little tyke, The IP was swept up in the sounds and images emanating from a big, b&w TV.
The latter was constantly showing moving pictures of a big rocket ship and playing the voices of commentators speaking in unusually unemotional tones about all sorts of technical stuff. July 16, one day before The IP’s birthday, the Apollo 11 rocket took off. On his birthday, he remembers watching the strange event unfold, absorbed as he was in all the precice maneuvers of the rocket, the control module, and the landing vehicle, and the strange radio talk between the guys in space and ”Houston.” Then he saw some astronaut dude actually walk on the moon! WTF? It was 1969. The IP was 7 years old.
Not too long after this Apollo 11 mission, The IP’s father -who worked at RCA- came home with an RCA ”Moon Landing Record.” The little IP declared “WTF?”
As it turned out, the final script of the astronauts was a strange-but-fascinating mix of prescriptive space-age radio talk, informal commentary by the astronauts, profound declarations of principle, and even heartfelt emotion. And any “Moon Landing” album remains a good listen, regardless of its final production.
Most “Moon Landing” albums have a strict protocol and arrangement based on the following:
1. an authoritative-sounding male narrator (often a seasoned news announcer)
2. various “beds” of music over which play selected radio transmissions between the astronauts and Houston Control; a rare variant is the Moon Landing LP that actually has individual songs between tracks of dialogue
3. lengthy audio clips of the original radio transmissions that include long pauses, static, beeps, and radio distortion, all geared to lend a feeling of authenticity to the listening experience
The IP now knows that more than a few record company execs understood the potential opportunity of a Moon Landing Record. Curiously, about the only people who might have been able to predict the kind of dialogue that would ensue in such an adventure were the astronauts and the NASA folks, and even they could never have predicted the final script; and most important, the script was copyright-free!
Below are just six of the dozens of Moon Landing Albums that came out in 1969: They represent what was an entertainment leap for mankind:
What? You want to see more? OK:
But the best Apollo 11 LP, in this pithecanthrope’s humble opinion, came out on the Buddah Records label.
Journey To The Moon with its awesome studio rock band, ”The Sound of Genesis,” is The IP’s favourite Moon Landing LP, bar none.
It successfully melds late-sixties rock music with the dialogue of buzz-cut, thin-tie-with-white-short-sleeved-shirt, Mission Control geeks (and NASA astronauts). This album proves that the Apollo 11 Mission was able to inspire ALL Americans, including those greasie suburban hippies who watched the whole thing unfold on TV in their perpetual drug-induced hazes (probably while engaging in lots of “free” sex and naive criticism of the Government). The IP could go on and on about this, and he may even write an academic paper on Moon Landing records, but for now, he only wants to point out how fantastic and inspiring was that Apollo 11 mission.
The IP will defer to this dude in regards to the Apollo Program. Read his story; it’s a good perspective of a typical American geek like The IP. And you’ll never see more awesome photography. Seriously.
And without that moon landing, what is perhaps the greatest parody ever written would never have been possible; it still cracks up The IP to this day:
See a bigger version here.
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OK. On to this week’s “WTF?” Photos!
The IP has pretty much given up that any effort would help to stave off the crazy McMasionization of the once-split-level-ranchburger neighborhood where he lives. Every day presents a new “WTF?” McMansion to despise.
A stunt plane could fly under this absurdly tall portico.
The house can’t seem to make up its mind what it wants to be.
And here’s a real “WTF?” McMansion:
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Where does one begin? With the somewhat detached dude making a fashion statement in the neoprene wet suit? The scantily clad woman with gouged-out eyes in the gold lame? How about that crazy “Computer” font of the LP title?
How about the fact that the music on this album has absolutely NO relation to the pornographic nature of its cover?
One might expect surreal stereo effects and “progressive” electro-rock, but all one gets is more of the same, White-Bread pabulum Billy Vaughn has always made. But The IP can’t help but stare at this most ludicrously fascinating cover.
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What’s wrong with our society? The IP will tell you what’s wrong. We’re heading down the unholy road of immorality! There was a time when The IP would just ignore all the references to people “hooking up,” whether declared by the media or people he knew. It was “She ‘hooked up’ with him,” “He ‘hooked up’ with her,” or “he ‘hooked up’ with him” and on and on and on. Listen, The IP has tolerated all this “hooking up” talk long enough! It’s sick, The IP tells you! Just the other day The IP heard of some fine NPS folk who came to The ATL for some training and confronted an “Intimacy Kit” in their “boutique” hotel room that included some moisty wipes, KY Jelly, and some condoms!! WTF!!! What is this country coming to? And now “hooking up” has been so mainstreamed that the Associated Press runs stories about such immorality and uses the term so casually that it’s as if nothing immoral is actually happening at all:
When The IP saw the above headline, he pretty much threw in the towel for our society. Imagine, not only does NASA allow zero-gravity sex, they let The Associated Press trumpet the fact. What have we become?? The IP did not go to the story, but he couldn’t help imagining what kind sick and twisted space sex was involved:
Uhhhh. Oh boy. The IP has to confess he jumped to a conclusion. Disregard the previous rant. He forgot to set his display to “full screen,” so the headline that upset him so was clipped off. It actually looked like this:
OOPS.
But the reference to the “Intimacy Kit” at the hotel is TRUE!!! If you want to read about the actual hook up of the new tank, read about it here.
And in constructing that visual of the space hookup above, The IP came acrost a blog that discusses the source of the original image. The IP reccomends it. Dr. K., especially, would like it.
Thanks for indulging The IP in this expression of adolescent humor!
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The IP’s Sunday got off to a super start when, after enjoying his coffee and NYT at the local coffeehouse, he returned to the adjacent Goodwill thrift store to find the below:
Not only did he find the above projector in mint condition, he found the below picture paks and associated ephemera:
From View-Master’s “Vacationland” Series is Mammoth Cave National Park, and from their “Science” series is Birds of The World. It’s as if these thrift-store finds were custom-made for The IP as Mammoth Cave is a park in his region, and he’s always loved birds! Looks like it’s gonna be a View-Master Lunch n’ Learn at work this week.
Of course, the other part of this Super Sunday will occur several hours after The IP writes this as he will watch the New England Patriots play the New York Giants. The IP makes no apologies for either watching the game or actually rooting for New England (and yes, Tom Brady).
Tom Brady’s current girlfriend, outspoken supermodel Gisele Caroline Nonnenmacher Bündchen, is considered to be “the richest supermodel in the world.” For some, that’s enough to hate her guts. Goodness knows, enough folks hate Tom Brady for similar reasons. Put them together as a couple??? WTF?
Love her or hate her, Gisele knows how to “work it” to her advantage, financial and otherwise. She did the above photo (which The IP thinks is just superb) gratis for an anti-AIDS credit card campaign started by Bono. WTF? At least she makes an effort, and The IP’s actually been to the German area of southern Brasil where she’s from (just read her name), so he’s a Gisele fan, not a Gisele hater.
The African dude above is Keseme Ole Parsapaet, a Masai “Warrior” (he’s actually a farmer). Perhaps you pithecanthropes have seen that classic one-legged stance of the Masai in your National Geographic. Of the photo shoot, Keseme told The AP:
‘To be honest all I was thinking about when I was with this woman was my cattle and goats.”
The IP just might believe him.
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The IP’s head is a little worn out from thinking about urban politics, presidential politics, pet peeves, and the like. So today The IP will briefly muse about an album he uncovered buried in the shelves of LPs he continues to catalogue.
How many of you pithecanthropes have heard of Sky Saxon? The IP thinks only 2 of you might know of him specifically. More than two of you, however, have probably heard the classic 60’s garage/psych rock song “Pushin Too Hard” by the U.S. West Coast band, The Seeds.
So last night it was a sort of revelatory moment when The IP finally made the connection between Sky Saxon and his culturally significant band:
The IP bought the above LP solely for its cover (probably from a dollar bin). It’s almost a perfect cover compositionally. It has all the trappings of authentic 60’s hippiedom. Look at that dude in the Union soldier uniform!! The dude on the left has a freakin velvet cape! Check out those shades on the guy in the back. And look at the dude in front with the Indian Peace Pipe! All floating through the blue, puffy-clouded sky on a big spoon of white-guy blues pretention. Folks try to duplicate covers like that today, but you can usually tell they’re copies. That this cover is actually “of its time” is what makes it a real gas.
The IP didn’t know it was actually The Seeds playing as the Sky Saxon Blues Band. Now he knows more about both the band and the odd Mr. Saxon.
Above is Sky with a “friend” about one year before “Pushin’ Too Hard” became a big hit. At the time, music of bands like The Seeds was called “garage.” Here’s what Sky said about the genre:
“Garage music is not bad, because Christ was born in a manger, which was probably like a garage of that time.” - Sky Saxon
Or how about a lyric from “The Gardener,” a song on “Spoonful of Seedy Blues:”
“Come here little girl, help me plant my seed…Say, I I I I ’m The Gardener!!!”
Holy cow! He was like the original Nigel Tufnel. And judging by the above photo, it was probably a good move for him to have changed his name to Sky Saxon from Dick Marsh.
As far as “Sky Saxon Blues Band a Full Spoon of Seedy Blues” is concerned, it’s really quite an amazing LP in its own way. Sure, Saxon’s role as an “authentic” bluesman is suspect simply because of his white, suburban West Coast background, but The IP guarantees the listener will hear some impressive yowling from the young Seed and cool sounds backing him up throughout. In voice and presentation, which often shifts from sounding like Jagger, to Dylan, to Don Van Vliet, and which is just as often spoken as sung, Saxon holds nothing back.
And Sky Saxon is still making music. That’s him on the header image!
And Sky was a member (may still be!) of a spiritual sect too.
It’s been said that Sky Saxon and The Seeds coined the term “Flower Power.”
It’s really sad that Dr. Kinbote has no basic knowledge of the blues and/or rock and roll. He’s probably never even heard of Luther Johnson. Poor soul. Willful ignorance is the worst kind.
