43 Years Ago Today

We landed on the moon (waving big foam #1 finger.)  See every picture taken from Apollo 11 HERE.

We still need to get all of these dudes together, along with Apollo 8, while they're all still alive.  Let it be on Inside the Actor's Studio, whatever.  Anything.

THIS is still funny:

Gaylord Perry popped up in the Uecker interview re: how much shit he took from his teammates after giving up a home run to Uecker ("Uecker can't pick up a ball, much less hit one out of the park"), so I Wikipedia'd him for no real reason, but saw this:

Like most pitchers, Perry was not renowned for his hitting ability, and in his sophomore season of 1963, his manager Alvin Dark is said to have joked, "They'll put a man on the moon before he hits a home run." There are other variants on the story, but either way, on July 20, 1969, just an hour after the Apollo 11 spacecraft carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon, Perry hit the first home run of his career. 

If it ain't true, I don't wanna know. Incredible.

ps - according to BaseballReference.com, it is true. Box score HERE.

Is there a reason HBO isn't running From the Earth to the Moon all day?  Grrrr.

10 Things you didn't know about Apollo 11 HERE.

Curiously, Rex Chapman came out of Apollo High in Kentucky, and that motherfucker had some crazy hops back in the day.

Apollo High (The High School Rex Chapman Went To!)

I'm watching The Space Age: NASA's Story, and Buzz Aldrin says that as they landed on the Moon, Neil Armstrong may or may not have shook his hand, he can't remember.

Again, as I've said before: we need to get these people in front of a camera before they die.  I know Armstrong is famously reclusive, but they're 80 now, and they're still alive; someone needs to explain to Armstrong that what he did was bigger than himself, and we're dying to hear what he has to say about landing on the Moon.

The daily echo chamber of nonsense we go round and around about today is incredible considering that over 40 years ago, we put a coupla dudes in a tin can and landed them on the moon.  Incredible.

39 Years Ago Today

The Houston Astrodome, "The 8th Wonder of the World", opened...which is pretty much just a good excuse to bring this up again:

Gaylord Perry popped up in the Uecker interview re: how much shit he took from his teammates after giving up a home run to Uecker ("Uecker can't pick up a ball, much less hit one out of the park"), so I Wikipedia'd him for no real reason, but saw this:

Like most pitchers, Perry was not renowned for his hitting ability, and in his sophomore season of 1963, his manager Alvin Dark is said to have joked, "They'll put a man on the moon before he hits a home run." There are other variants on the story, but either way, on July 20, 1969, just an hour after the Apollo 11 spacecraft carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon, Perry hit the first home run of his career. 

If it ain't true, I don't wanna know. Incredible.

ps - according to BaseballReference.com, it is true. Box score HERE.

Holy Shit du Jour

Gaylord Perry popped up in the Uecker interview re: how much shit he took from his teammates after giving up a home run to Uecker ("Uecker can't pick up a ball, much less hit one out of the park"), so I Wikipedia'd him for no real reason, but saw this:

Like most pitchers, Perry was not renowned for his hitting ability, and in his sophomore season of 1963, his manager Alvin Dark is said to have joked, "They'll put a man on the moon before he hits a home run." There are other variants on the story, but either way, on July 20, 1969, just an hour after the Apollo 11 spacecraft carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon, Perry hit the first home run of his career. 

If it ain't true, I don't wanna know. Incredible.

ps - according to BaseballReference.com, it is true. Box score HERE.

RIP Gaylord Perry

Gaylord Perry played about 170000 games in the Major Leagues and he just died. His lasting legacy may be one of my all-time favorite WTF? stories in all of baseball:

Like most pitchers, Perry was not renowned for his hitting ability, and in his sophomore season of 1963, his manager Alvin Dark is said to have joked, "They'll put a man on the moon before he hits a home run." There are other variants on the story, but either way, on July 20, 1969, just an hour after the Apollo 11 spacecraft carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon, Perry hit the first home run of his career. 

Always Great

I post this bit about Gaylord Perry on this day every year, but it still astounds me:

Like most pitchers, Perry was not renowned for his hitting ability, and in his sophomore season of 1963, his manager Alvin Dark is said to have joked, "They'll put a man on the moon before he hits a home run." There are other variants on the story, but either way, on July 20, 1969, just an hour after the Apollo 11 spacecraft carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon, Perry hit the first home run of his career.

What Is It With Knuckleball Pitchers?

A decade ago I mentioned this insane story about Gaylord Perry:

Like most pitchers, Perry was not renowned for his hitting ability, and in his sophomore season of 1963, his manager Alvin Dark is said to have joked, "They'll put a man on the moon before he hits a home run." There are other variants on the story, but either way, on July 20, 1969, just an hour after the Apollo 11 spacecraft carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon, Perry hit the first home run of his career.

And now I read that fellow knuckler (my high school nickname heh heh heh) Joe Niekro hit exactly one home one in his career and it was off...his own brother. Whack, dawg!

Apollo 11

I'm watching The Space Age: NASA's Story, and Buzz Aldrin says that as they landed on the Moon, Neil Armstrong may or may not have shook his hand, he can't remember.

Again, as I've said before: we need to get these people in front of a camera before they die.  I know Armstrong is famously reclusive, but they're 80 now, and they're still alive. - XMASTIME 

Armstrong, obviously an Xmastime fan (hi Neil!) finally starts yapping.

When Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made their descent aboard the Eagle to the moon’s surface, the on-board computer had intended to put them down on the side of a large crater with steep slopes littered with huge boulders. “Not a good place to land at all,” said Armstrong. “I took it over manually and flew it like a helicopter out to the west direction, took it to a smoother area without so many rocks and found a level area and was able to get it down there before we ran out of fuel. There was something like 20 seconds of fuel left.”

25 Years Ago Today: Midnight Run

The other day I read a celebration of the 25-year anniversary of the release of Bull Durham, and Xmastime buddy A Trifle Further reminded me that today is the day The Great Outdoors was released in 1988. I wouldn't normally think of 1988 as being a great year for movies but these two along with Midnight Run and Naked Gun means that its quite quickly in the running for a banner fucking year for movies. - XMASTIME

July 20 has a few things going on for it: the day we landed on the moon, the day of Wedding #2 and, more importantly, the day Xmastime superslice of superslices Midnight Run was released in 1988. A Trifle Further (the erstwhile Tinsel & Rot?) has a great post on this masterpiece:

“Midnight Run” was likely the second movie I saw starring Grodin (and, if I am to be honest, I didn’t pay much attention to his work in “The Great Muppet Caper”) and though I can’t say I’ve seen a ton of his other movies, I don’t see how he could be better than he was in “Midnight Run.” Never has an annoying, needling character been so endearing.

And De Niro and Grodin are perhaps at their best in the “litmus configuration” scene, which, if the Internet is to be believed (and if I find out the Internet is lying to me, I don’t know what I’ll do), was largely improvised.

PS - is this sequel happening or not?

Tea-Bagging, Let's Do It!

This patriot HERE is not only outraged that Obama has used the word "teabaggers," but has intuited that he is doing so derisivley:

"This remark is the equivalent of using the 'n' word. It shows contempt for middle America,

That's interesting. And by "interesting" I mean "how does this person have the brains to have a job that pays money that can be exchanged for goods and services on planet Earth?" For one, I didn't realize that every member of "Middle America" was a member of the Tea Party race. But mostly, I guess I was mistaken in thinking that the Tea Party freedom-loving patriots had proudly strapped the name on their backs, wrapping themselves in a big American flag of loving the tea party. I thought they reveled in calling themselves "teabaggers"; I had no idea the name was foisted upon them as a derogatory term insinuating them to be animals by people that looked forward to owning them as if chattel while whipping them or stringing them up a tree whenever the mood hits. Seriously, you don't keep an eye on Matt Drudge every minute of the day you miss shit, right? Fucking a. What's next, me finding out we landed on the goddam moon, like we're Jedi knights or some shit?

Rover Red Rover Come Over

Last year I wrote HERE:

Turns out that I was wrong; it wasn't called Voyager, it was called Viking.
Anyway, while obviously it's overshadowed by July 20 being the date that we landed on the moon in the summer of 1969, during which of course Jimmy quit and Jody got married (but seriously, they shoulda known they'd never get far, right?), it was seven years later on that same date that Viking I landed on Mars. 

How bout that.Looks like Jeno's pizza...nom nom nom!!!!!

The only time I ever wrote a letter and got one in return is in the 4th grade, when Mr. Futchko had us choose a planet and write to NASA with questions. I asked about Mars ("Hi NASA. What's Mars like? By the way, I'm not gonna be 36 and alone, right?"), and a coupla weeks later BLAM! a little packet with a bunch of pictures from I think Voyager's 1976 passing of Mars. It was unbelievable.

Viking I

Last year I wrote HERE:

The only time I ever wrote a letter and got one in return is in the 4th grade, when Mr. Futchko had us choose a planet and write to NASA with questions. I asked about Mars ("Hi NASA. What's Mars like? By the way, I'm not gonna be 36 and alone, right?"), and a coupla weeks later BLAM! a little packet with a bunch of pictures from I think Voyager's 1976 passing of Mars. It was unbelievable.

Turns out that I was wrong; it wasn't called Voyager, it was called Viking.

Anyway, while obviously it's overshadowed by July 20 being the date that we landed on the moon in the summer of 1969, during which of course Jimmy quit and Jody got married (but seriously, they shoulda known they'd never get far, right?), it was seven years later on that same date that Viking I landed on Mars. How bout that.

Looks like Jeno's pizza...nom nom nom!!!!!

Earth: Flat

I like reading about outer space. I don't mean enough to actually study it with any amount of energy or diligence that would take me away from my Cosby Show studies, but I like reading those whack facts they throw out at you when they try to describe how big the shit out there is, or how many stars or something like that; it's always "imagine if every grain of sand on Earth could fit into a tennis ball, now take that tennis ball and make it the size of a refrigerator, now imagine if that refrigerator was the size of the head of a pin, and imagine how many of those pinheads it would take to fill up the sun...now, add 18...and that's how many stars there are." Shit always blows me away. I was just reading about a nova whose energy travels over 100 billion miles. I mean, what the fuck.

But then sometimes I'm reading this stuff and I'm like you know what...I dunno. I mean, how easy is it for these fuckers to make this shit up? Intermediate polars, these have a slightly weaker magnetic field than AM Herculis stars; there is an accretion disc, but substructure in it is created by the field? Really? Well, of course THEY have the data to back all this up, but I don't. I can question them "100 billion miles? Really?" And if they get snippy and say "well, YOU fucking tell us then, asshole!" I have no choice but to say I agree with them.

Hey, I'm a big believer in science, I don't REALLY doubt any of this shit...I'm not one of those crackpots who claim we never landed on the moon, I'm not REALLY saying they've been making this shit up for years. But I AM saying how awesome would it be if they were? Hell, most of those Hubble pictures look like paintings anyway; wouldn't it be great if NASA held a press conference and were laughing there asses off, everything about outer space they've told us is just shit they made up? "We got to make up outer space shit to wow you with AND we got billions from the government!!" Gus Grissom comes walking out with a sheepish grin on his face, "Hi guys! I'm okay!" Basically, there answer to everything thereafter is "Really, we have no fucking idea. Comets? Who the fuck knows what those things are?"

Just saying. It'd be funny.

Speaking of The Foods That Built America series on Hulu.

According to the episode with TGI Fridays, we're somehow led to believe that any type of singles bar just flat out didn't exist until 1965? My eyes were rolling out of my head, but I guess it's true:

I don't think there was anything else like it at the time. Before TGI Fridays, four single twenty-five-year-old girls were not going out on Friday nights, in public and with each other, to have a good time. They went to people's apartments for cocktail parties or they might go to a real restaurant for a date or for somebody's birthday, but they weren't going out with each other to a bar for a casual dinner and drinks because there was no such place for them to go.

That's crazy. I mean I don't wanna be Mr. Captain Date Rape or nothing, but it took until 4 years before we landed on the Moon for it to occur to some horny dude "hey you know what, why don't we let the hot young horny chicks closer to the booze?"??!?!??!?!?!?

Zero Zero UFO

via Sully:

This, my friends, is an image showing several of the most notable spacecraft we plucky human beings have created (and are busily creating) to date. The past, the present, and the ones that never quite made it. All spacecraft shown are to scale (assuming my sources were accurate).

We landed on the moon in a ship 1/10 the size of the space shuttle. Also, none of these in any way resemble the shape of what we think UFOs look like, so.

Endless Cycle

Apparently, if I quit drinking I will also hafta give up any plans of dating.

Which actually won't be a problem for me, since I haven't been on a date since man landed on the moon.*

Which, ironically, is why I fucking drink!!!!

I guess my only hope is to meet a girl at the fucking grocery store.



(on tv right now: the absurdly awesome Failure is Not an Option!!!!!!)

Xmastime's Superslice TV Pick- Watch This Now!

I'm watching The Space Age: NASA's Story, and Buzz Aldrin says that as they landed on the Moon, Neil Armstrong may or may not have shook his hand, he can't remember.

Again, as I've said before: we need to get these people in front of a camera before they die.  I know Armstrong is famously reclusive, but they're 80 now, and they're still alive. - XMASTIME 

I feel the same way about old-timers from ANY field, be it truck drivers or baseball players, just get 'em on a stage talking, and it's fucking gold.  And you're not gonna do any better than Dick Cavett and Mel Brooks, who collectively have about nine million years in show business and absolutely kill it in their HBO special with endless stories.  Mel Brooks imitating Jimmy Cagney fucking still has me pissing myself.

Apollo 11

I'm watching The Space Age: NASA's Story, and Buzz Aldrin says that as they landed on the Moon, Neil Armstrong may or may not have shook his hand, he can't remember.
Again, as I've said before: we need to get these people in front of a camera before they die.  I know Armstrong is famously reclusive, but they're 80 now, and they're still alive. - XMASTIME

Neil Armstrong just had heart surgery.

I mean, for fuck's sake, can we fucking make this happen already!?!?!?!

Same thing with the flight controllers!!!

Apollo 11

A few months ago at Plan 9 in Richmond I stumbled upon a 2-lp set of the mission control feed from Apollo 11 as it landed on the moon and snatched it up. Does this make me better than Alexis Madrigal, who's very pleased to find some "best of" flexi-disc put together by NASA of the event? Well, that's for history to say  yes.

Crazy du Jour

I've loved The Beatles every minute of my life for 35+ years and not once has it occurred to me that of course while they were actually happening in real time there'd be radio advertisements for their albums and thank to the bonkers bananas that is the internet, now we can actually listen to one. Why do I feel like we just landed on the goddam moon?