Would you rather have been a Beatle, or have walked on the moon?

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1176/571477443_e575e41d10.jpg

do you mean just having something to brag about or actually having the memories of that whole life? either way I guess I would say beatle. walking on the moon obviously trumps anything the beatles ever did but it was just a tiny event in a life that was probably otherwise filled with a bunch of tedious military stuff. beatles arguably had a much wider range of interesting experiences.

i meant which life you would rather have, which includes which memories you would rather have and which thing you'd want to brag about. i chose beatle too, because i would rather have spent my life around artists and musicians than astronauts and scientists. however, in terms of "memories", it's hard to imagine exactly how powerful an experience walking on the moon would be.

why did you have to take the fun out of it by not just asking the simple question of which would be more fun?

unspeakable amounts of pussy vs. fucking around in space
no brainer

it seems to me that walking on the moon is one of those things that's only awe inspiring because nobody else has done it. like being the wright bros vs. some schmuck on a commuter flight. obviously there must be something inherently amazing about being on the moon, but how great could it really be compared to acid?

pretty sure playing the same pop songs 2389523952 times to girls who can't hear you until it's time to go inside and file lawsuits is also one of those things that's only awe inspiring because nobody else has done it, except they have

IT'S THE FUCKING MOON

luv u guys and all but i have strong opinions on tonight's topic

no, playing the same pop songs 2389523952 times is always fun

anyway i think being on the moon is awe-inspiring because you haven't done it, not because nobody has. like, sure, you could get personally bored of the moon if you were on the moon all the time. like in that movie moon.

hours and hours of practicing, sitting in a tin can flying around the world, playing your same songs over and over, and when you're done you get drugs & groupies.
vs
hours and hours of training, floating in a tin can high above the world, come back and you get to meet Nixon.

xp true

better than acid though?

I always felt bad for the dudes that didn't get to leave the capsule and walk on the moon, but I wonder if it's really so much about standing on a barren rock, or just about seeing the earth from a distance?

would have loved to meet nixon! drugs i pretty much have covered. groupies i guess i could handle a few more of.

i'm sure it's a spectrum. like if you'd asked michael collins what he really really wanted in his own personal heart, considerations of the mission aside, i can't imagine him he was totally fine with not walking on the moon. but the trip's not nothing.

*can't imagine him SAYING etc

drugs i pretty much have covered

you wouldn't if you were an astronaut!

haha, xp: as for acid, of course ideally it would have been in their little suitcases instead of that freezedried ice cream

don't all those space dudes end up being super bummed out, like life-long, at never getting to go back to space? or is that just some thing i saw in a movie or something.

ringo can never write Octopus's Garden again

The idea for the song came about when Starr was on a boat belonging to comedian Peter Sellers in Sardinia in 1968. He ordered fish and chips for lunch, but instead of fish he got squid (it was the first time he'd eaten squid, and he said, "It was OK. A bit rubbery. Tasted like chicken.")[2] Then the boat's captain told Ringo Starr about how octopuses travel along the sea bed picking up stones and shiny objects with which to build gardens.[3]

this will never happen again

I guess I'd rather talk to music dudes than space dudes..

even if you got to do it through a helmet com, while you were in space?

because you don't get to do that with music dudes.

which beatle and which member of moon crew?

^ George Harrison and Harrison Schmidt.

Schmitt.

walking on the moon obviously trumps anything the beatles ever did

Eh, even if I'd been on the moon I would think of it as something I'd experienced rather than something I'd done. A lovely ride but not a personal achievement. I would rather have written something as good as e.g. "We Can Work It Out" as my sole contribution to the world than have gone to the moon.

yeah, definitely. I didn't mean it trums anything they did as an achievement, just as a personal experience. like the writing of WCWIO is a personal accomplishment, but I'm sure the actual experience of doing it wasn't in the same league as the experience of standing on the moon.

walk on the fucking moon by a million fucking miles

The moon. Though if the option had been there to have been in Can...

funny, when i was 7 years old the astronauts and Beatles were large in my life.

voted moon

no groupies on the moon

no fucking Beatles either, bliss

moon, no contest

just to get away from the rest of you savages

I'd rather have mooned a Beatle.

walking on the moon seems like it would get boring after like 5 minutes

a rat done bit my sister Nell
And Shakey's on the moon

like okay, you're on the moon, now what, bounce around for a while, take some pictures, hit a golf ball

if emil.y goes to the moon with shakey she can have her can wish too

what if we had mass transit there which was so *efficient* that all the seats were always taken?

xp

there is no moon downtown to take that mass transit to

the moon will be cool when we have a space city

like okay, you're on the moon, now what, bounce around for a while, take some pictures, hit a golf ball

take acid and listen to the Beatles

i would hijack the moon and crash it into liverpool in 1962

you can take acid and listen to the beatles while on a vacation on earth too, and it's cheaper and you are less likely to die

like the way Nick is thinking

yes but the view is not as good and like I said, savages abound

xp

listening to the Beatles >>>>>> being one

I'm sure thinking about space stuff >>>>>>>> actually being an astronaut

not if the experience is transcendent?

the experience of writing and playing good music is pretty transcendent to me and I suck compared to the beatles.

it seems dumb to me to fantasize about going to the moon if you haven't even done something like go scuba diving. like who am I kidding, I would probably never go to the moon, even if space tourism were relatively inexpensive.

I understand that but I think shouldering the adulation and creepy fixations of the full range of the human scrum would be a bigger pain in the ass than anything astronauts had to put up with (aside from spending all that time in Texas and Florida).

there was that conspiracy dude that Buzz Aldrin punched that time

idk if it's fair to call going to the moon an experience rather than an accomplishment; i mean, i get that they didn't do it alone (all those george martins back at mission control) but, like, it's a lot of dangerous work to go to the moon! they didn't just buckle up and put in earphones and then pile out when they got there.

Yeah, I'm assuming the choice includes guarantees that 1) We survive the flight or 2) Some crazy guy doesn't shoot us in front of the Dakota.

Interesting discussion. I just want to jump in and say that dylann's point, upthread, about groupies is basically irrelevant. I'm sure Buzz Aldrin had/could have had his share of effortless sex.

u hv read or seen The Right Stuff?

It's interesting you bring up the stress and drawbacks of fame, Morbs. I was talking about this with a friend recently and he said that extremevfame and the corresponding lack of public anonymity is so fundamentally different from his experience that be couldnt say for sure how bad the drawbacks would be. In this way its like goung to the moon: i will never really know what its like, so its hard to say how great/powerful an experience it would be.

I suspect the life of a Beatle incorporated more freedom and more fun than being an astronaut. Look at Ringo. Walking on the moon would be beyond awesome.

I understand that but I think shouldering the adulation and creepy fixations of the full range of the human scrum would be a bigger pain in the ass than anything astronauts had to put up with (aside from spending all that time in Texas and Florida).

Morbs otm.

George Harrison got stabbed and John Lennon was shot and killed due to their Beatles fame, I would not want to deal with the unrelenting creepiness of obsessed fans every day. I think that would be a paranoid and sad way to live.

Thats true, the type of obsession the Beatles inspired was unique and put them in danger. It wasn't just that they were super famous.

I'd probably choose to be Ringo, since he didn't really have much to do with the legal shit towards the end. And he hung out with Keith Moon.

But if you've read Peter Doggett's You Never Give Me Your Money, you're likely to come away thinking that being a Beatle was an endlessly frustrating ordeal.

it seems to me that walking on the moon is one of those things that's only awe inspiring because nobody else has done it. like being the wright bros vs. some schmuck on a commuter flight. obviously there must be something inherently amazing about being on the moon, but how great could it really be compared to acid?

drop acid on the moon obvs

Be s beatle, buy a trampoline

michael jackson did the moonwalk & bought the beatles catalogue, I wonder which he enjoyed more

fucking little boys, presumably

ON ACID

It's amazing that just three weeks after Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the moon the Beatles successfully walked across Abbey Road. Things happened so fast in the '60s.

it's amazing that both walks were accompanied by speculation of fakery

The real Paul McCartney was on the moon while his double crossed Abbey Road iirc

Thankfully none of the later moon missions landed four men on the moon, because only that fact spared us the inevitable "funny" recreation of the Abbey Road cover.

(The photo of Jason Spaceman crossing Abbey Road seems not to exist...)

I'd rather walk on the moon than be Paul McCartney.

THE MOON THE MOON THE MOON THE MOON wtf how is this even a question jesus christ some of you people itt

i am going to FP every single one of you jerks who does not vote walking on the moon

there is nothing that the Beatles ever did in their career that is as REMOTELY as cool that compares to being able to have a photo LIKE THIS taken in your career

http://www.stvincent.edu/uploadedImages/SVC_Pulse/Blog/John_Smetanka/young_neil_armstrong.jpg

It seems so weird to me but then I remember what ILM is like. xp

survival training in the desert to make Sgt Pepper? NO I DIDN'T THINK SO

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/armstrong082712/s_a04_S6414507.jpg

Seeing the home of us all reduced to a humble tennis ball vs mccartney/lennon shit is no competition at all.

you cannot fuck with space

space always wins

always

i thought we didn't even like the beatles anymore tbh

the only way that the Beatles and the Apollo astronauts are in the same conversation is if Abbey Road could realistically explode in flames with the Beatles inside it at any given moment throughout their recording career.

zero beatles died making their first album.

this question really annoys me

A LOT

What if the choice was between the moon and being a member of Floyd while recording Astronomy Domine THEN WHAT I ASK YOU?

MOON
MOON
MOON
MOON
MOON

"if Abbey Road could realistically explode in flames with the Beatles inside it at any given moment"

travelling to the moon is the most dangerous exploration ever taken by humanity and that is including some silly shit we have done in the past on this rock.

Even Syd, bless him is mediocrity compared to the brave nutters who went to the moon.

Beatle, easily.

walking on the moon obviously trumps anything the beatles ever did

Haven't read through the thread--I'm hoping, and assuming, I'm not the first person to strongly disagree with this. I'd say the Beatles effect on the course of history was incalculably greater. If we eventually set up colonies on the moon, I'll reconsider this.

whaaaat

explain yourself

Forget the big picture here Clemenza, if you saw our planet from distant orbit it would change your life more than being a pop star.

i wonder if the first 4 astronauts on the moon will as a group outlive the first 4 beatles?

I'd say the Beatles effect on the course of history was incalculably greater

no

let's see one is the apex of scientific achievement and exploration of the species. the others made a bunch of records/money. hmm

we did something no organism from this planet has ever done before and you're like "oh b-b-but We Can Work It Out!" gtfo

The apex you say? Good news science, Shakey says you can pack it in, first round is on me!

We have working robots on the surface of Mars right now jftr

Culturally, the Beatles turned the world upside down--it was a drastically different world in 1970 than it was in 1964, and I'd say the Beatles had more to do with that than anyone. (I'll concede that MLK, Dylan, and maybe Warhol rival them.) The moon landing was a great thing--I'm not trying to diminish that--but I just don't see that it transformed the world in the same way.

I realize there's room for disagreement.

way easier to put a computer in a hostile environment than a person obvy

xp

we did something no organism from this planet has ever done before

This is true of basically everything ever btw

don't get me wrong I often marvel at the fact that we have robots on Mars too

xp

"Would you rather be a Beatle or design Fallingwater NOT SO FAST THERE GUY."

neil = john
buzz = paul
??? = george
??? = ringo

someone please google LIST OF TECHNOLOGY WE HAVE BCZ OF NASA SPACE EXPLORATION as I am stuck on my phone & cannot pwn clemenza

seriously "turned the world upside down" is not even a tangible THING that they DID

I am shortchanging the resultant technology, I'll concede that. And that I'm heavily biased. But I think you're also seriously shortchanging how much the Beatles affected the world, VG.

(This is all really separate from the actual poll question anyway...)

MOON
MOON
MOON
MOON
MOON

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, May 14, 2013 6:54 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-stXUID-TRc4/T8nLysNKWlI/AAAAAAAAFp8/aT7dYCeAASU/s640/keith+and+macca.jpg

being the first guy on the moon is cool. being the second through 12th guys on the moon is only cool because we stopped at 12. if thousands of people had been to the moon by now nobody would give a shit about those other guys. there's nothing special about it beyond "I was there first" bragging rights.

and space is deep and all, and when you're lost it's so relentless but I feel like the earth is getting short shrift here. especially since 90% of what makes being on the moon cool is getting a good view of the earth. there are so many fascinating places to explore on earth that most of use have never been to.

clemenza is right in a certain respect re: cultural history. I'll bet if I walk outside right now and ask the first 50 people I see, every one of them can sing me at least the chorus of at least two Beatles songs; but not more than 5% will be able to name two people who walked on the moon, what the name of the moon missions was, or when they took place.

the bottom line for me is easy though. same question I've based every other career decision on: which job allows me to get high every day?

kids today don't care about beatles either though.

bob marley is oddly in ascendance though.

clemenza I love the Beatles. they were creative geniuses and in the sphere of music at the time, sure they were astronauts.

but they did not risk their lives nor INVENT from whole cloth the technology they needed to *record* their albums. they did not do the impossible. the Apollo astronauts did & no amount of nostalgia & tearful love of music could convince me otherwise.

clemenza is right in a certain respect re: cultural history. I'll bet if I walk outside right now and ask the first 50 people I see, every one of them can sing me at least the chorus of at least two Beatles songs; but not more than 5% will be able to name two people who walked on the moon, what the name of the moon missions was, or when they took place.

and there are a lot of young people who dig the beatles, but I think it's kind of impossible for somebody born post moon landings to understand what it was really like to watch the first moon landing live on TV. it was a monumental event apparently but that feeling is forever lost for the rest of us isn't it? kind of a one time deal.

xp

wk: dude, space is not like going to the fucking ocean. EVERY time someone goes to the moon or mars it is a ridiculous feat of human engineering

"but they did not risk their lives nor INVENT from whole cloth the technology they needed to *record* their albums. they did not do the impossible. the Apollo astronauts did"

why no love for the nerds down at mission control??

I'm with VG here obvy

I get kinda choked up looking at my grandfather's slides of him watching the first moon landing on TV

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshuababcock/6131380150/

I'm not trying to be glib here: in the end, apparently John did risk his life pursing his chosen profession. Anyway, I'm off to see Room 237--if you're on Team Moon, that's fine. I was Apollo-crazy in 1969. What I really wonder about is what it would have been like to have walked on a Beatle. I'm thinking George may have engaged in some mystical exploration along those lines.

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6206/6131380150_09d8f2d3e5.jpg

wk: dude, space is not like going to the fucking ocean. EVERY time someone goes to the moon or mars it is a ridiculous feat of human engineering

I think you're looking at it the wrong way. the thread question isn't about which is the greater technical accomplishment or milestone for all mankind. the question is which life would be more interesting to experience. kind of a question of individual genius vs. collective effort in a way.

testify, VG

neil armstrong did not invent the technology that took him to the moon

anyway, 'greatest impact on history' is a curious way to look at this q

would you rather have written the entire collected works of shakespeare or have been one of the actors in your favorite movie?

i'm shocked at how many moonies there are here....i also think alot of the responses are really fuckin' funny. keep it going!

and space is deep and all, and when you're lost it's so relentless but I feel like the earth is getting short shrift here. especially since 90% of what makes being on the moon cool is getting a good view of the earth.

― wk, woensdag 15 mei 2013 1:20 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is beautiful, mah man

I think the space race/science of the universe/techological achievements of the moon landings kind of outweigh the drug use/musical acheivement/social and cultural commentry of the Beatles.

If we had to choose an important event of the 60's, moon landing beats Sgt Peppers right?

Also you wouldn't know that being a Beatle was cool when you are being a Beatle, hindsight and stuff, but you'd know how super cool you are if you did a fricking moon walk!!!

the moon easy, by any criteria - closer to god, endless quim, scientist/pilot vs musician/actor, whatever

comparing the fricking Beatles to Shakespeare is some moon-trip level challopery

before he dies, richard branson may very well personally desecrate both the moon and the beatles, rendering both less cool.

watch interviews with apollo astronauts now, hear them talk about going to the moon. see the look in their eyes and know that no one else has what they have in their mind's eye.

you go outside on a clear night & you can *see* your "mark on history". you can point at a tangible thing that everyone can see with their own eyes and say I was there.

that is why I would walk on the moon.

comparing the fricking Beatles to Shakespeare is some moon-trip level challopery

― Koné 2013 (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, May 14, 2013 7:34 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol otm, i don't understand music fans sometimes.

What I've seen from the people that have been on the moon, is that life after that became this perpetual bore of having to be a guest of honour at awful parties, being dragged in by politicians for their own gain etc. It might have been awesome, but your life seems reduced to being "that guy".

"Tell us about the time you walked on the moon again!"
"Sigh, fuck's sake, alright here we go..."

There is no way, as an astronaut, you can escape being made into an eternal attraction, used and abused by politicians etc.

Now, a Beatle will always be a Beatle, no doubt, but at least they have the freedom to say "fuck you" to other people, to not play along.

I think the well-respectedness and the inescapable expectations of being a sane, wise, man who walked the moon once would fucking kill me. No matter how fucking fantastic it would be to walk on the moon.

I choose Beatle.

it's easy to take this for granted but really the moon landing's probably the human race's most astonishing accomplishment, even more incredible when you realize that it was done so FAST with technology that looks (from a 2013 perspective) as dinky as a box of tinkertoys. obv the astronauts didn't build the ships themselves but the sheer courage it must have taken to blast off into the void and walk around on another fucking planet is just beyond comparison with anything in human history. like, even columbus could've just turned the boat around. i think the onion headline 'holy shit man walks on fucking moon' sums it up pretty well.

also VG otm

u ppl

it's easy to take this for granted but really the moon landing's probably the human race's most astonishing accomplishment

Have you heard the new Daft Punk album?

buzz aldrin had a weird post-moon career, including being TV producer of OUT OF THIS WORLD about a girl with gleep powers and staring troy mcclure inspiration doug mcclure.

comparing the fricking Beatles to Shakespeare is some moon-trip level challopery

no comparison intended, just the idea of being personally (or among a small group of people) responsible for a large body of work vs. being a part of essentially a singular event that was orchestrated by many people spending immense money and human effort toward a common goal. not a perfect analogy obv.

and as much as I like the space program, I can't help but feel like there's something ultimately a little shameful about it all, as addressed by gil scott-heron for example. we can't even feed everyone on earth but we put together arguably the greatest scientific effort in human history to put a man on the moon, mostly as part of a dick waving contest with our supposed enemies. and 40 years later one of the richest guys in the world is spending his vast fortune to try to get basic malaria medication to people who need it. but hey, whitey's on the moon.

we can feed everyone on earth, we choose not to

and for similar reasons to the race for the moon, i guess

right

tbf gil scot-heron might've felt differently if it was a black astronaut on the moon

xp

well he'd have had to change the song title anyway

being a beatle sounds like hell after, like, 1964. can't go anywhere without getting mobbed, end up hating your best friends, bad trips, alcoholism, slow steady artistic decline, dumb kids bugging you for autographs and then shooting you. maybe i'd want to be lennon on the day he made out with ronnie spector.

whereas i bet almost none of the moon guys ever gets recognized on the street -- maybe aldrin does.

...

i can't even

Seems rather pointless to consider looking back on the act of walking on the moon without taking into account what that would entail in terms of a life lived but w/e.

The two 'events' don't really lend themselves towards direct comparison. Guess you could characterise them in terms of vague, broadly applicable themes and choose whatever's more your speed.

Looking back on life as a Beatle at 70

• Creativity
• Culture
• Jouissance
• Adulation
• Bigger than Jesus
• Influence
• Inspiration
• Vast Wealth
• No matter how much boomers go on about it (endlessly) future generations will never grasp or care about how pervasive Beatlemania was.
• "Who the fuck is Paul McCartney? #openingceremony"

• Science/Technology
• Discipline
• Precision
• Adventure
• Nationalism
• Cold War
• Danger
• Inspiration
• Looking at accelerating rate technological advancement yet knowing that such a feat will not be repeated in your lifetime.
• "Buzz Lightyear was the first man to walk on the moon"

I'm a realistic person, cynical to some. But I would take no personal pride in having gone the moon. What did I have to do for it? Study physics (lol yeah right), train for some years, sit in a rocket that shoots me up there, put down my footsteps in moon-dust and presto. It would not make me feel profoundly proud.

If it hadn't been me on the moon, if I had chickened out or whatever, it would have been the next person in line. Writing an oeuvre like the Beatles did is irreplacable; you can't just ask someone else to do it. So if I did that, if I was that creative, then I could indeed one day look back and think "fuck, I did alright".

all I can tell from that is that you don't actually know what any of the astronauts DID to go to the moon, or don't care

which is fine

your reasoning is crazy flawed is all

It might be interesting to take the historical aspect out of the equation and just ask yourself which of these scenarios you would choose:

NASA calls you up tomorrow and wants to send you to the moon. You have to undergo all of the training, etc. and then you get to go on a moon landing once, followed by a lifetime gig working at NASA.

vs

A major label calls you up tomorrow and wants to make you a star. They have a foolproof strategy guaranteed to make you an international musical superstar that will bring vast wealth and a career lasting well into your old age.

...

i can't even

you can't even what?

I just wish all you hand wavey moon=meh people would read one fucking book, or watch a documentary about the moon missions instead of just looking at a picture of the moon in google image search and saying yeah doesn't seem like that big of a deal whatever idgi

xpost lol JD that wasn't aimed at you it was just a general overwhelmedness

all I can tell from that is that you don't actually know what any of the astronauts DID to go to the moon, or don't care

which is fine

your reasoning is crazy flawed is all

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), woensdag 15 mei 2013 1:54 (55 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My reasoning is not "flawed". It is merely different from your reasoning.

If asked which life I would have preferred, having the idea I actually did something that matters to me is important to me. Writing a body of work lilke the Beatles did would fulfil me with much more satisfaction than being on the moon.

It might not be your way of reasoning, but calling it "crazy flawed" is a stretch...

xxpost NASA

I would choose NASA

haha ok, all cool

VG otm

LBI your reasoning is flawed because you made up a bunch of stuff about what you think astronauts do

i can call it another name but that's what it is. you weren't just merely expressing an opinion but laying it out like it's some kind of rational weighing up of going to the moon vs being a beatle so as such to me it is flawed because it's imbalanced

My sister lost her Wings 8 track, cuntface McCartney is on the moon.

i'm cool with ppl liking the beatles, I have no beef with the beatles

but the anti moon arguments are just handwavey garbage to me. you can tell me I choose beatles because [why the beatles are awesome] and I can accept that

but I choose the beatles because [made up things about astronauts because I don't know and don't care and don't want to know and don't want to care] annoys the living fuck out of me

going to the moon seems like hard work

fuck that shit

i would also choose nasa easy.

LBI your reasoning is flawed because you made up a bunch of stuff about what you think astronauts do

i can call it another name but that's what it is. you weren't just merely expressing an opinion but laying it out like it's some kind of rational weighing up of going to the moon vs being a beatle so as such to me it is flawed because it's imbalanced

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), woensdag 15 mei 2013 1:59 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I didn't "make up a bunch of stuff". I also don't think being an astronaut is a doozy, or easy. I just don't think I would derive any personal pride from it.

And I wasn't being rational either! The possibility of having been a Beatle - and especially focusing on the life *after* that, or *after* having been on the moon - is a personal interpretation everyone will have when posed this question.

I see you persists in saying my reasoning is flawed or "imbalanced", but you are confusing it for how I, as an individual, take up this question, trying to project the posed theory on my life/my personality. That is not something I can be 'wrong' at, at most it can be different from yours.

The poll question isn't what is a bigger achievement, astronauts on the moon or the Beatles iirc

followup poll: who's life would you have rather lead - chuck yeager or pete best?

bonus side question:

do you think anyone has ever had sex in space?

besides like jane fonda?

besides, under, over, pretty much anything, however you want to define sex

there was a married astronaut couple in space a few years or so ago that i vaguely remember terry gross asking this to.

imagine being the first earthling to have sex...in SPACE! i could see this thought popping up during those long months on the ISS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_Packets

uggggh okay after an hour commuting it's clear that that extra cup of coffe launched me into crazypants rage town. whoa.
LBI, if it's not too late, I'd like to let you have your opinion and walk that whole thing waaaaaaaaaay back :)

We good VG, no big deal <3

yay! :)

tl;dr coming up, just need to get words out of my head in general

the way I feel about being someone who has a memory of walking on the moon, that's a thing I've wanted since I was a kid. the post-walk life of an astronaut is def exhausting, as Neil Armstrong's retreat from public life clearly showed. though it's kind of a nice thing that he was able to be so reclusive and still die as a hero to many who grew up just accepting that they would never really see him in public ever again. people seemed okay with that. but for me, man I would take a lifetime of being asked the same questions over and over again because there was a memory that I had inside of me that was a vision of something only a handful of people ever saw in their lifetime. it's not so much being the national hero and the glory of going to space but standing on that celestial body with your own two feet, looking up into space from the moon as we would look up into the sky from earth... maybe I sound like a weird weepy spacenerd but that means a lot to me, the thought of living your whole life with that experience.

and as an aside: being an astronaut back then, or even now, isn't like being a jockey on a racehorse or being a racecar driver. especially with the apollo missions, and gemini and mercury etc, those astronauts were the best in their field, working with engineers who were the best in their field, and they were all hired to work together to achieve something no one had done before. the astronauts weren't just jocks in silver suits. they tested and studied and problem-solved too. it's like, I dunno...working to build a car and then driving it further than anyone's driven before. multiply that x 1000. there's no way that someone that involved in the process from the beginning doesn't feel a sense of pride in an achievement like that. to me, anyway.

MOON all the way. SPACE, the final frontier!

I don't even like the Beatles that much. I really like space, though. Space is the place.

this is a good question

we can't even feed everyone on earth but we put together arguably the greatest scientific effort in human history to put a man on the moon, mostly as part of a dick waving contest with our supposed enemies

No disrespect to Gil Scott-Heron, but the dough would not have been used for that if there had been no space program. Trust me.

yeah but more generally if the cold war didn't happen, all the money that would have gone to that -- which includes military and space program spending -- might have gone toward building a stronger public infrastructure, which seemed to be something the public had more interest in in the immediate post-war period as compared to now. maybe this could be a thread, but alternate history speculation isn't always the most fruitful thing.

also, i want to say thank you to everyone for your contributions to this, my first poll. i think it's been an interesting discussion.

I was somewhat blunt in my portrayal of the post-walk life of an astronaut. If I came across as downplaying the achievement and technological progress, I did not intend to. But with what you just said in mind, pairing it with the poll question, I think what it boils down to for me is: I don't want to be a hero in people's eyes, and that technical progress is not something I would feel very proud of. I don't want to be that person considered unique as a consequence from a space program. I would love the experience of being on the moon, but I don't think it is something I would want to be reduced to for the rest of my life. And that is what people will do to an astronaut, definitely. Now I know McCartney is still reduced to "he was a Beatle", inevitably, but I feel it's much easier to pull yourself away from that image.

"Standing on that celestical body with your own two feet".. Sing it sister! I would definitely adore that, obviously. It's not weepy spacenerd at all to me, it is awesome and it is awesome to want this or dream about it!

Maybe it's just because astronauts are such awfully righteous and "ok" folks, always walking the line. I could not ever do that, would not want to be that way. It would be a curse, a pox, on that once in a lifetime experience of walking on the moon.

it's like, I dunno...working to build a car and then driving it further than anyone's driven before

But baby, you can drive my car! :-)

that was an xp to VG

would you rather have written the entire collected works of shakespeare or have been one of the actors in your favorite movie?

is the movie SHOT ON THE MOON

This question is unnervingly keeping me occupied tonight, Treeship. Equal parts of well done, thank you and fuck you ;-)

tbh I'm pissed at treeship for this stupid reductive question

:)

VG poll: would you rather go to the moon or fuck you

Why could that astronaut at the ISS not have played a fucking Beatles song instead of Space Oddity...

how many people could we have fed, tho, if we didn't buy any beatles records

*hadn't bought

YOLO

i think i've spent less than $50 altogether on beatles records in my life and i have ten of them or something.

there's an awful lot of you tho!

i have another nabokov telegram for this thread, weirdly, but i promise that as far as i know nabokov only sent two telegrams about the moon. it's lol cuz the last sentence is posts very much in character:

TREADING THE SOIL OF THE MOON STOP PALPATING ITS PEBBLES STOP TASTING THE PANIC AND SPLENDOR OF THE EVENT STOP FEELING IN THE PIT OF ONE'S STOMACH THE SEPARATION FROM TERRA STOP THESE FORM THE MOST ROMANTIC SENSATION AN EXPLORER HAS EVER KNOWN STOP THE UTILITARIAN RESULTS DO NOT INTEREST ME STOP

Nabokov telegrams <3

i loved the nabokov quote about being afraid of neil armstrong making a wisecrack, because you know that if they sent vladimir up there he would have said something sarcastic.

omg I love that dlh

yeah that is a great telegram.

Which conspiracy theory is better, "Paul is dead" or "Moon landing was faked"?

beatles, i'm too wimpy to go to the moon

Beatles, easy.

moon landing conspiracy's way better, paul-is-dead was always kinda lame and forced

https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/129730596/2630509441_944a6ee3e2_m.jpg

paul is dead is way more convincing if you watch the shining

Moon landing conspiracy is vastly more entertainingly batshit, not least because those that adhere to it are themselves entertainingly batshit. And the "Paul is dead" thing was conceived of as a prank from the start.

xpost Hey the Beatles wanted to do "Clockwork Orange"

neil = john
buzz = paul
??? = george
??? = ringo

I'd actually go with...

Neil = George
Buzz = Paul
Alan Shepard = John
Pete Conrad = Ringo

BBC soundtracked part of it's first moon landing coverage with an unreleased Pink Floyd instrumental.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2HHT7txFQ0

Answer: MOON MOON MOON

TS:

having to deal with all the endless bullshit from ex-band members, Abbey Road engineers saying "you can't do that!", Alan Klein, former Beatlemaniacs, John's infinite ability to be cooler and more clever than you, and Paul's endless "let's get back to basics maaan!" only to have work you did thirty years earlier be shit on by Jeff Lynne and Cirque du Soleil.

vs.

being outside on a summer night with your wife/kids/grandkids/anyone - someone says "hey, look at the moon" and you automatically start grinning.

<3

or, alternately, you could have a panic attack/ptsd flashback every time you look at the moon, as you remember how vulnerable you felt that far from your home planet...

I must confess I did grin when buzz aldrin punched out that moon hoax conspiracy nut.
But I would be sad if that nut turned out to be nardwuar

if paul mccartney punched narduwar i would not grin

or, alternately, you could have a panic attack/ptsd flashback every time you look at the moon, as you remember how vulnerable you felt that far from your home planet...

From my point of view... total bullshit.

Tempted by Beatles - though rich people generally do it wrong, the freedom of hundreds of millions of dollars to just travel constantly and indulge in whatever hobbies or interests might come along is hard to pass up. OTOH, being as rich as Paul McCartney seems like it would only be fun if you were relatively anonymous. No stalkers, divorce drama, possible shootings.

First to walk on the moon - you're not going to die penniless, you'll still have massive pull with the ladies and you got to experience something only a few other people ever have and no one had before.

Moon wins.

if paul mccartney punched narduwar i would not grin

Would love to see McCartney punch out a "Paul is dead" conspiracy theorist.

itt people get emotional about space (i believe in)

if the Beatle fame experience had been better, the answer might change - a band that was important and got to tour and play live for 20-30 years. Neil Young would be a harder call, or even a Rolling Stone

xpost Hey the Beatles wanted to do "Clockwork Orange"

did not know this and looked it up and i guess they wanted to score it and mick jagger wanted to be alex? which, still wow, but i assumed you meant that the beatles had wanted to play the droogs which would have been ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING

being a rolling stone in 2013 would be bleak, come on. they are my favorite band and i am saying this. better to be ringo than keith. xpost

paul mccartney punching nardwuar is making me lol so much

Nardwuar: hey buzz! I have a present for you!
Buzz: is ... is that the golden record from the voyager mission?
Nardwuar: va-voom!

No disrespect to Gil Scott-Heron, but the dough would not have been used for that if there had been no space program. Trust me.

no of course it wouldn't have! but that's the thing, sending a man to the moon represents the pinnacle of mankind reaching for the impossible. but then at the same time as beautiful and romantic as it is, it also kind of represents the ultimate failure of imagination. we're all resigned to the fact that making things better here on earth is impossible.

Going to start a "Would you rather have been a Vanilla Fudge, or have climbed Mount Everest?" thread tomorrow. Not optimistic it will get much response.

how many people could we have fed, tho, if we didn't buy any beatles records

"In 2009, NASA held a symposium on project costs which presented an estimate of the Apollo program costs in 2005 dollars as roughly $170 billion." pretty sure that the total gross revenue of the beatles corporation is some number lower than that.

Would you rather have been on Apollo 13 or been a member of Badfinger?

'deep space homer' is better than that b-sharps episode

I think a lot of the space vs. beatles stuff itt loses sight of the fact that the question in the OP doesn't demand an opinion that casts any kind of judgement on the two occupations. it's just a personal preference. as a musician I would pick the life that involves music every time. to be totally honest I would choose to be a member of the dave matthews band or some shit over an apollo astronaut any day, because that's the lifestyle for me and I have no interest in science, math, the military, bureaucracy, danger, adventure, etc.

this poll is not about whether you'd prefer to be a Beatle or walk on the moon

Would you rather be a member of Sonic Youth or have walked across the United States?

wk you should play the first concert...

...on the moon

on acid?

you'll never listen to surf music again

hear, fuck

a slowly gnawing six-minute doubt that one was

This was a really easy "Beatles" for me. I barely lasted a year as a science major in undergrad.

I'm biased. My college life was spent mostly as an astrophysicist... and most often I'm the one reviving the astronomy threads.

as a musician I would pick the life that involves music every time

As a musician I would pick WALKING ON THE MOTHERFUCKING MOON.

(Explicit Lyrics)

- The Police

As a musician I would pick WALKING ON THE MOTHERFUCKING MOON.

that's not one of the options though

Its true. You can't choose to walk on the moon now, but you can choose to have walked on it 40 something years ago. A subtle distinction.

Walking on the moon, cos in space, no-one can hear the Beatles

On the other hand, the question doesn't actually seem to require that you live the exact life of Buzz Aldrin - you just "have walked on the moon." Maybe they stow you away and then you get to go about your business as you like. Whereas you actually have to be a Beatle, which is a rougher trade. I could dig being Ringo at this point, but John and George both died young and all of them seem to have gone through extensive, ugly bummer periods, in large part drug-related and, I just dunno.

Its true. You can't choose to walk on the moon now, but you can choose to have walked on it 40 something years ago. A subtle distinction.

right, you get to have a 70 year old's memory of something that happened for 7 hours tops over 40 years ago.

Yeah but also you would have been an American hero throughout your life and you are part of a very elite group, bc only several people have done what you did.

nobody here is saying they would do it for the heroism though. they're just saying "WALKING ON THE MOTHERFUCKING MOON."

I don't buy that as a motivating factor -- if it was, can I interest you in being part of the elite squad that raided bin laden?

Lol i wonder if kathryn bigelow would choose that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rqm4BVFYHd8

you are part of a very elite group, bc only several people have done what you did.

People who walked on Moon - 12
Beatles - 4*

*ok 6 but who the fuck wants to be Pete Best or Stuart Sutcliffe?

Would you rather have been a 5th Beatle, or the guy who stayed in the capsule while the other guys walked on the moon?

Michael Collins is a cool dude, I'd be okay being him

Wouldn't really want to have been one of the dudes who got shot either.

Yeah there are 4 beatles but thousands of known, accomplished musicians. The Beatles are a singular entity bc of their historical importance, but what they did is similar to what a lot of other people do, even if you think theyre the greatest band ever ( i do not, but i like them.)

The average age of a moon walker was almost 40 - that's a lot of pre-moon time being a military pilot/engineer type while everyone else was getting off their faces and listening to the Beatles.

Yeah there are 4 beatles but thousands of known, accomplished musicians. The Beatles are a singular entity bc of their historical importance, but what they did is similar to what a lot of other people do, even if you think theyre the greatest band ever ( i do not, but i like them.)

yeah, but I would pick the life of almost any of those other musicians over being an astronaut.

wk speaks for many of us there

Oh i'm with you wk. just trying to clarify the "stakes" of this question.

Is being Klaus Voorman an option here? That dude is pretty cool.

there are no beatles song with "moon" in the title (I mean composed by them).
coincidence ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqBH-9yyQMU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvL5FVFVX1c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0KcgXQ2fl8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V9quPcNWZE

TS: Wang Dang Sweet Poontang vs. Tang

right, you get to have a 70 year old's memory of something that happened for 7 hours tops over 40 years ago.

Actually by the time of Apollo 17, they were camped out there for three days and spending 7 hours every day out on the surface.

that's a vacation I want to take

sounds like a drag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAC-eIuvqhg

The moon is dead
There is no life upon the moon
And it's cold even when it shines
Totally empty, no one home
The moon is dead,
The moon is dead.

^^^ catchy but not as good as the beatles IMO

I'll never get to be a Beatle, but two weeks ago I did get to walk on that volcanic plain where the astronauts trained.

wow elvis that's awesome! I love that panorama you made!

The Beatles are a singular entity bc of their historical importance, but what they did is similar to what a lot of other people do, even if you think theyre the greatest band ever ( i do not, but i like them.)

Similar yes. There are thousands who did similar thing to men walking on the moon. Lots of explorers, lots of people who hopped around on rocky surfaces, lots of people rode in really fast vessels on long journeys. Yes, no one else has walked on the fucking moon, just like no one else has been the most famous fucking band of all time.

There are thousands who did similar thing to men walking on the moon.

not really. closest thing is maybe the guys who first scaled Everest (w/out oxygen).

afaik other explorers all had access to air and gravity which are, you know, kind of a big deal

yeah. honestly i think walking on the moon is "more different" than anything else than being a Beatle is, even though being a Beatle is also a singular distinction. if being a Beatle was just like being any other rock star this wouldn't be a good question and i wouldn't have made the poll. i wasn't arguing that.

lol @ ppl getting worked up

good work treezy

thanks wins. i'm very satisfied with this thread.

Going on record here.

Walking on the moon, taken purely as experience in isolation, with no reference to what comes before or after, is radically awesome and probably ranks as near the top as one of the most amazing possible experiences for a human. If we are talking about a make-a-wish-and-snap-your-fingers-wow-it's-true scenario, then I'm there in a flash.

All but one of the moon-walking astronauts were military officers. If walking on the moon meant becoming a military officer and putting up with all that implies, then walking no the moon would have been a fleeting glory within a largely miserable existance.

Being a Beatle would not be my idea of heaven, either, tbph. At least it did not require spit and polish, regimentation, or complete subordination to a heirarchy ending in the Pentagon at a time when we were killing a couple million Vietnamese.

that's a good answer aimless. yeah, being an astronaut would mean being a military man and that would 1.) be miserable and 2.) be incompatible with my sense of "who i am" in a way that being a beatle wouldn't be.

hmm, get mountains of trim and make hundreds of millions of dollars, or walk around a closed set in culver city while teamsters shine moon lights on you. tough choice

fallen comrades c24151n & outdoorfishes never achieved this, you should feel proud xps to treefish

lol who is outdoorfishes?

you iirc

(jk!) a shortlived sock basically

well said, Aimless. though c'mon - astronauts for the most part were not just 'military men' though, that undersells it by a large margin. half of them were fucking badass PILOTS. and being a pilot flying a p-51 mustang is not the same as being 'in the military'. that's like saying dragracers are in the automobile industry.

H4A I am banning u forever

well haha let's be fair and remember what most badass pilots were doing at the time.

still moon tho.

lol do you actually believe the moon landing was faked H4A? xpost

would prefer being stanley kubrick to at least 50% of beatles.

xpost treeship: what cankles believes or doesn't believe is largely irrelevant

Being a BADASS PILOT would require me to alter my personality so far out of itself as to kill it entirely. then what would be the point?

well said, Aimless. though c'mon - astronauts for the most part were not just 'military men' though, that undersells it by a large margin. half of them were fucking badass PILOTS. and being a pilot flying a p-51 mustang is not the same as being 'in the military'. that's like saying dragracers are in the automobile industry.

huh? they had to go through military training, cut their hair, follow orders, and a couple of them served in the korean war. they were "military men" who were "in the military" by any definition of the term.

yeahhhh, i wouldn't want to be a military man at all, even if i got to be napoleon

afaik other explorers all had access to air and gravity which are, you know, kind of a big deal

― four Marxes plus four Obamas plus four Bin Ladens (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, May 15, 2013 6:12 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTOH they often starved to death or ran out of fresh water or got stranded at sea or murdered by hostile natives. It's not diminishing the accomplishments of the moon missions to note that "exploration" as a thing was hardly a walk in the fucking park.

there was a "cool" thing where the astronauts would send registered mail to their wives that they were to auction off in 60s version of ebay in case they didn't return. weird insurance policy.

I wouldn't even want to go through basic training. getting up early, following orders, the food, the physical activity. not for me. not even if I got to go to the fuckin moon for a day.

wk I'm not saying they weren't in the military.

I mean the entire 1912 Robert Scott expedition to the South Pole starvespd to death in the middle of Antarctica a mere 57 years before the first moon landing. But yeah, they had gravity and air, that's awesome.

would y'all be up for space tourism though? it's pricy and you only get to space station instead of moon, but you can skip the air force reqs.

From Elvis Telecom's link:

Of course, all questions of budget or federal jurisdiction aside, an Offworld Landscapes National Park or National Monument is an incredible thing to contemplate.

A National Park—or, why not, a UNESCO Offworld Heritage Site—that consists only and entirely of landscapes designed to simulate other planets!

Would visit.

yeah me too

except it's in phoenix = hot as fuck = maybe visit at night? idk

Also JFTR an abundance of gravity would be the last thing anyone wants when trying to shoot things into space for reasons that should be pretty obvious so

starving to death/being killed by hostile natives hardly unique to explorers throughout history tbh

experiencing a completely foreign environment - ie, one without air, moisture or gravity = totally unique

but keep comin at me bro, fulfill that deepseated desire you have to disagree with me about every single little thing I say rmde

but, you always make your arguments on Shakey's grounds.

think about how much more money+pussy the conquistadors got than the apollo astronauts

doesn't look like the most romantic feeling an explorer has ever known NOW does it

(actually, many of them died in debt in the jungle. but yknow.)

wk I'm not saying they weren't in the military.

I know you were saying they were something better than merely "in the military". but my point, (and I think where aimless was coming from as well) is that the most basic aspects of being in the military are so fundamentally unpalatable to me that it doesn't matter that they were the coolest badass dudes in the military. they were still in the military and therefore had a job I would never want to have.

but it was all worth it they got to bounce around on a desolate rock for a few hours

I would go to the moon like this though...

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aIluE3pyWJk/UElnQJUDhaI/AAAAAAAADzw/VGgZnj-U9MI/s1600/02.jpg

but keep comin at me bro, fulfill that deepseated desire you have to disagree with me about every single little thing I say rmde

― four Marxes plus four Obamas plus four Bin Ladens (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, May 15, 2013 6:47 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol stop saying categorically stupid shit and engaging in false binaries

http://www.onelowerlight.com/writing/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/out_of_the_silent_planet.jpg

not really. closest thing is maybe the guys who first scaled Everest (w/out oxygen).

my point is you can say "not really. closest thing is maybe Rolling Stones" for Beatles. "more different" is really arbitrary/subjective. if they were able to simulate a moon walk conditions on Earth how "more different" is it truly?

i voted the beatles because i want to die in 1980

by simulate moon walk do you mean training in a swimming pool or vomit comet?

presumably gd means getting some kind of brain implant so that you will be under the impression you once saw your entire home planet hanging over your head like a fragile soapy marble

lool

Holy shit the astronauts experienced zero gravity and a complete lack of oxygen and water

oh, wait

(i) no they didnt tbh
(ii) sounds shit anyway

lol

i forget which astronaut it was, but he did say that one look at earth from that perspective turned him into a pacifist.
it was like instant karma.

no need for implant, go to a planetarium

Here's a crazy secret from the space program: The solution to providing air to people in environments where there is no air had been trivially obvious since the late 19th century, when it was called "deep sea diving." And Jacques Cousteau made it super-easy nearly 30 years before we landed someone on the moon.

lol yeah right

lol jacques cousteau that's not even a real name bahaha as if the French could do anything before the US

Lol phil actually believes we put men under the water smh

wow the hippie logic on display in this thread

Kind of a stoner question to begin with tbh

Hippie logic is the type of oxymoron the astronauts experienced living without

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02358/beatles_2358325b.jpg

(is george flipping off the camera?)

Tripping off certainly

i forget which astronaut it was, but he did say that one look at earth from that perspective turned him into a pacifist.
it was like instant karma.

Self-promoting a small essay I wrote about the history of the first "Spaceship Earth photograph" and how it became a symbol of tech-hippie empowerment. Also includes Mad Men.

great stuff, Elvis!

I'm not convinced by these half-assed arguments that exploring the earth is somehow JUST LIKE exploring the moon gtfo with that shit

it's not just like, it's similar. just like being a bar band is similar to being a fucking Beatle.

would you rather be astronauts in space camp or in the beatles during germany?

I voted "Beatle" without even having to think about it but I do think there is a bigger difference between exploring another continent on the same planet and going to the moon than there is between playing in a bar band and playing in the Beatles.

I spent a month on a dutch trawler once i cant imagine the journey to the moon was any nicer an experience speaking practically, so gettin 5x the value from my bounce for a couple days meh not worth it

if they landed on some swingin planet with some alien babes, bourbon flowing in rivers, whip cream covered mountains, dr pepper falling as rain, sign me up. they left the earth's atmosphere, could not leave their tiny lil pod otherwise they'd die, then landed on a big desolate rock w/no atmosphere so they couldn't take off the cocoon-like spacesuits otherwise they'd die. sweetest part was being able to brag about it and get free grandslams at Denny's for 50 yrs afterwards.

Here's a crazy secret from the space program: The solution to providing air to people in environments where there is no air had been trivially obvious since the late 19th century, when it was called "deep sea diving." And Jacques Cousteau made it super-easy nearly 30 years before we landed someone on the moon.

Water won't penetrate if yr suit has a microscopic hole, whereas in space that's all yr air gone.

As I recall, they didn't use anything remotely resembling scuba technology for the space program. Pressurized air/oxygen would be so heavy they'd never get the capsule into orbit.

i forget which astronaut it was, but he did say that one look at earth from that perspective turned him into a pacifist.
it was like instant karma.

reading the wikis for the 12 guys who went up there, I was surprised that a couple of them are climate change deniers.

climate never changes inside that suit

wow the hippie logic on display in this thread

I feel like I've been such a hippie on this thread but on the other hand by picking beatles I'm denying the whole "space is the place" / "interstellar overdrive" / "space is deep" side of my imagination. but then it occurred to me that maybe I wasn't really that into space all of this time but maybe space was like a metaphor or for inner space man. woah, makes you think.

Many xp, I'm not saying the astronauts used scuba technology; I'm saying "How do we give people air where there's no air?" was not some previously unimaginable engineering problem that humans had never tackled before.

Water won't penetrate if yr suit has a microscopic hole, whereas in space that's all yr air gone.

Depends how deep you are and what kind of suit. You gain one atomsphere every 33 feet.

Aso at least two astronauts, including Gene Cernan, have survived having their suits torn while in vacuum. A microscopic hole in a pressure suit, depending on location, depth and your distance from the spacecraft, is far from a death sentence.

You people watch too many movies.

In other words, the problem had already been solved long before, but that solution was not useful in space, so it had to be solved all over again in an entirely new way.

I know, it's almost as if instead of arising out of whole cloth anew each time, science and engineering build on a groundwork of what came before, even if it doesn't provide a direct solution. Crazy!

frank sinatra solved the problem of getting waterfalls of pussy but it had to be solved all over again by the Beatles for a new generation.

picture yourself on a boat on a river / with tangerine trees and waterfalls of pussy

and also picture it on the moon

need a timeline of waterfalls of pussy throughout history tbh

i bet vespucci did better than columbus

http://www.oneism.org/images/INCA_TREE_OF_LIFE.jpg

"Subterranean Light of The Roots"

pretty into the sky jaguar tbh

warning! picture not to scale.

looks like that sky jaguar ate too many magical blueberries

those are souls smart guy. cosmic soul poos.

god has such a modest house. approve.

Would go to skyvillages of the tree spirits for a holiday.

Merseybeat and the Monkees are dead. Moonbahton Is The Thing!

I rarely ask my wife ILX questions but I put this to her last night and it was "the Moon" in a heartbeat then I got "That's not even a question really. People are choosing the Beatles? What? 300 Posts? That's what you people waste your time thinking about?"

That's why I rarely ask my wife ILX questions.

i hope you replied "go to the moon? well that's lucky, cos I gotta crater beer"

''One of these days, Alice! As soon as space tourism becomes affordable to the middle class due to economies of scale!''

one of my greatest fears in life is someday having a level-headed, pragmatic wife who discourages me, even gently, from thinking and talking about "nonsense."

"have some sense of proportion," she would say -- thirty-eight times a day. and so he built the Total Perspective Vortex, just to show her. and into one end he plugged the whole of reality (as extrapolated from a fairy-cake), and into the other end he plugged his wife. so that when he turned it on she saw in one instant the whole infinity of creation, and herself in relation to it.

to trin tragula's horror, the shock annihilated her brain. but, to his satisfaction, he realized he had conclusively proved that if life is to exist in a universe of this size, the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.

It completely slipped my mind that I walked on the moon earlier this year.

http://s1059.photobucket.com/user/sayhey1/media/moon_zpsaf53f59c.jpg.html

Fun, but I'm still voting Beatle.

http://s1059.photobucket.com/user/sayhey1/media/moon_zpsaf53f59c.jpg

http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t427/sayhey1/moon_zpsaf53f59c.jpg

Great another luna clusterfuck

lol difficult listening hour.

hahaha. i should have added "be dean warehem" as an option just to see if even a single person would click it.

one of my greatest fears in life is someday having a level-headed, pragmatic wife who discourages me, even gently, from thinking and talking about "nonsense."

probably the kind of women that astronauts were married to. you need a yoko.

yoko cuz yolo

Put it this way:

Which of the Beatles would rather have walked on the moon?

And which of the moonwalkers would rather have been in The Beatles?

Christ imagine being stuck in a capsule with John Lennon for four days

I mean I love him but christ.

George is probably maybe the chillest? Moody, but at least more of a listener and sort of quiet.

I can see Michael Collins as a Beatle. He'd be good in a press conference with the lads. Neil's def not a fit, and Buzz is ornery as fuck.

i think ringo would have been the easiest to get along with in a moon capsule. george would be quieter, but in a disconcerting way. pensive and mystical.

which one do you think smelled the worst (while living)?

gotta be john right?

no question

well Paul was the one always walking around barefoot

probably trailing yak shit everywhere after his afternoon on the farm or whatever

new poll question?

a brave new voyage of beatles exploration begins

john seems like he would have been pretty smelly towards the end

idk though

ringo LOVED garlic knots though and would order them whenever possible

paul was dead

having garlic breath vs. smelling like a hippie vs. smelling like a corpse

would rather walk on a beatle

the dung beatles

george seems like he would've been kind of a neat freak.

when he wasn't on heroin john was obsessive-compulsive about being clean and took multiple baths a day, at least according to the goldman book.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VD3eUBZZayA/T0eS-pz48GI/AAAAAAAABEQ/tsWLYOGWzOM/s1600/john-lennon-taking-a-bath.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DpZwRfwryg&noredirect=1

Ringo supposedly ate nothing but canned beans when they went to Rishikesh. Packed a trunkful of 'em.

so to speak

The personal transforming effects of walking on the moon seem be described in the same gushing terms as swimming with dolphins, which makes me kinda skeptical that its a universally amazing experience. There is potential that in my lifetime it will be possible to visit the moon for a couple of grand. Even then, like with swimming with dolphins, I don't think I'll bother.

Waterfalls of pussy is only one advantage of being the omnipotent god-poets that the Beatles became. Beatle all the way.

at least according to the goldman book.

Uh, right

The Moon, obviously. It is the ultimate travelling experience, amoung many other beautiful things.

^ otm

Voted for the Moon, have done the band thing (not as big as the beatles though).
Wouldn't mind the £500 million + in the bank to retire with though.

dolphins are sadistic little dickheads; they're almost as bad as us. eat em all. none of them on the moon, thank god.

(pace douglas adams)

I can't speak for anyone else but swimming w dolphins was pretty awesome tbh

I'm fairly certain it was more fun than being hassled by Paul McCartney while recording Maxwell's Silver Hammer

I would rather have started the "Paul is Dead" rumor than have started the moon-landing conspiracy theory.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

anti-climax coming in roughly 20 hours

I'm glad the choice was about being a member of the Beatles rather than a member of the Police, which might have led to some confusion.

terrible if that was to happen

2 hours. if you haven't voted yet, make sure to do so, otherwise you will regret it for the rest of your life.

no reason to go to the moon anymore guys http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/10068945/Dubai-style-island-off-coast-of-Barcelona-provokes-dismay.html

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

really?

looooooool

close and vicious

Fite

did you guys think the moonpeople were gonna win just cuz we're all ornery dicks?

Result otm but too close

Goes to show moonpeople are loudmouths. All having been to the moon and bragging about it in this thread about the final frontier and shit. Well not this Beatle!

Le Beatle Ivre

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m08ls3gScc1qb7dheo1_500.jpg

offtm

Paul pic is a shop, yeah?

BOOOOOOO

Hate those fucking eyebrows.

Paul Mc Cuntney.

"Remove Bookmark from this Thread"

fuckin lurkers amirite

So which Beatle did you guys have in mind

i think this thread was a success. we all learned a lot about each other's views on both the beatles and space travel. good job everyone.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b224/ambic/FarSideCowRocket.jpg
gary larson prescient forever

lol what is the joke there, is it just "cows can't build spaceships, they are stupider than NASA"?

well they sure as hell aren't trying to be Beatles...

how can u be so sure. it seems like the cows are trying to be lovable goofballs up to silly antics.

the joke is that the cows are smart because they want to go to the moon and are building a spaceship, ᴡʜᴇʀᴇᴀs the farmers are dumb because they want to be beatles and think the moon is stupid but it's not stupid they are

oh i see it now

The cow is saying "Yeah yeah, whatever, go toddle off to your zebra crossing, ay?"

http://youtu.be/q6OWVHlbdYk?t=35s

Guess a "Hey diddle diddle" joek is pretty far afield

happy anniversary! this had me enraptured the way certain people get enraptured by flacs of only the rhythm guitar from lady madonna or wtfever.

77!

o shit i am experiencing it

44th anniversary of the moon landing & my 22nd wedding anniversary, what an auspicious day!

2 month 6 day anniversary of the creation of this thread

Also:

Today is Saturday, July 20, 2013

Today in
Beatles History

1964 - The Beatles single "And I Love Her"/"If I Fell" was released.

1968 - Jane Asher appeared on BBC-TV's "Dee Time." She announced that her relationship with Paul McCartney was over.

1969 - The Beatles viewed a rough cut of the movie "Let it Be."

That's right, even The Beatles would rather have watched themselves than the moon landing. Suck it, moon!

Maybe I can finally get this answered Apollo 8 anniversary RFI: which astronaut brought along "Sleepwalk" on his spaceman Walkman?

Maybe a little less than the widespread acclaim would have it, but I enjoyed Apollo 11. Like CNN's Tricky Dick (CNN did Apollo 11, too), all the footage and sound is contemporaneous--for now, anyway (until this too becomes a cliche), I much prefer that approach to the standard talking-heads documentary. Nixon acquits himself very well during his ceremonial phone call with Neil Armstrong. (For all their similarities, you can bet Trump would have somehow made the moon landing about himself--Nixon seems to sincerely be humbled by the moment.) What I really liked, as much as the space-related activities themselves, was the footage of people setting up on the beach to watch the lift-off. There was something very beautifully everyday about that footage, everybody calm and happy and waiting--a nice contrast to the chaos that you always get in late-'60s footage. (Our Nixon had that too.)

(No mention of the Beatles anywhere, so walking-on-the-moon retakes the lead.)

I've a copy of Full Moon, compiled by photographer Micheal Light (most of the folio pages are reproduced in small scale in the image gallery).

I absolutely would have preferred to have been one of the 12 humans (maybe the last) to walk on another planetary body, especially the later missions Apollo 15-17, where they had multiple extended surface EVAs with the rover, and hammocks to sleep in. Neil and Buzz had to "sleep" seated on the engine in their suits. As for the promiscuous sex & drugs, those were undoubtedly difficult when they were under a NASA and public microscope in the 1960s until they did their landings at ages 36 to 47, but thereafter? There was no shortage of willing groupies.

Related news: we may spend millions of dollars to retrieve Apollo astronauts' poop.

April 9, 2019: NASA Plans Mission to Bring Apollo Astronauts’ Poop Back From the Moon

i was ecstatic watching this in the theater, but i booed nixon. come on.

i'm awfully garrulous itt. forgot about its curious operating assumption that if you've walked on the moon you're not allowed to drop acid.

I just want to jump in and say that dylann's point, upthread, about groupies is basically irrelevant. I'm sure Buzz Aldrin had/could have had his share of effortless sex.

lol PBS are running a documentary about this at the moment

I believe the relevant term is “Cape cookie.”

Also, over the weekend learned and reported on another thread that the engineer on Double Fantasy contributed to the soundtrack of the documentary For All Mankind. DO U SEE?

forgot about its curious operating assumption that if you've walked on the moon you're not allowed to drop acid.

drop acid while you're on the moon imo

Winston on the moon.

“Cookie!”

I wasn't there but it seems like after the Beatles and the moon landing, nobody wanted to be a cowboy anymore. I think that's sad and I feel bad for the hypothetical horses that would-be Beatles and spacemen would have loved and cared for. I would choose cowboy because then I would get to spend my life with the horses. I would give them kisses and brush their hair.

jon bon jovi wanted to be a cowboy, afaik he still does

Sting: the only person in the world who didn't have to choose in this poll

xp he wanted to be a Beatle, that horse is just a metaphor for a tour bus :(

was there not a massive video game / hit song / tiktok phenom recently driven by kids wanting to be cowboys?

and weren't 3/4 of US acid bands pretending to be cowboys by 1969?

anyway neither of these options sound like fun and no one involved in either seemed to be very happy

I think Phil Collins still wants to be a cowboy. Shitbird has the largest collection of Davy Crockett artefacts than possibly in any museum in the US stashed in his basement. I don't think that even works as a tax fiddle either.

See also, Bruce Springsteen.
Step 1: Learn to play Twist and Shout
Step 2: Profit
Step 3: Horses!

was there not a massive video game / hit song / tiktok phenom recently driven by kids wanting to be cowboys?

hooray!

and weren't 3/4 of US acid bands pretending to be cowboys by 1969?

i think they mostly wanted to get high and dress like the quicksilver messenger service, but idk

anyway neither of these options sound like fun and no one involved in either seemed to be very happy

Shitbird has the largest collection of Davy Crockett artefacts than possibly in any museum in the US stashed in his basement.

See also, Bruce Springsteen.
Step 1: Learn to play Twist and Shout
Step 2: Profit
Step 3: Horses!

Those 3 things are true

phil collins is a #horsegirl

yes, yes he is

i deeply admire this revive but just need to point out, cowboys never loved horses, horse girls have always been the ones who loved horses.

What?? How could anyone not love horses?

Bruce has written so many songs that are positively gasoline-scented, this would be a surprising turn if he wasn't Bruce Springsteen

In this country you often have to be rich to have the opportunity to love horses; for all Bruce's working-class solidarity, he also has that thing where people who grew up poor and then made lots of money want to spend it on things that mark them as belonging to the class they have moved up into; horses work great for this because most of the people who love them as adults also had access to them as kids. I'm sure this is all subconscious but I bet its a factor.

1. Yes
2. Yes, but that's like saying you have to be Californian to have the opportunity to love surfing. One can dream.

Gr8 post tho as usual

thank you! great revive.

If no one wanted to be a cowboy anymore, then why was this a hit?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9Jmo3yGrSg

Because it was 1982?

I think Phil Collins still wants to be a cowboy. Shitbird has the largest collection of Davy Crockett artefacts than possibly in any museum in the US stashed in his basement. I don't think that even works as a tax fiddle either.

I'm almost sure he was also boasting he had the original Bowie Knife on the BBC radio program about Davy Crockett where he talked about his collection. It sounded a bit like the sorry fables of a gullible rich sucker to me tbh

If no one wanted to be a cowboy anymore, then why was this a hit?

Such a big hit that I've never heard of it despite having spent my childhood reading rock encyclopedias, tbf

And yes, Phil Collins's collection of Alamo memorabilia is legendary.

I am relieved that nobody posted the awful Dallas Cowboys record from the 90's.

lmao at “I wanna be a cowboy” wowww

Heh, apparently "peaked at No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1986 and charted around the world." I definitely heard it in the radio as a kid around the same time stuff like Falco was on the radio, too. A little more than ten years later, Paula Cole was asking "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?", so I guess, yeah, the cowboy resurgence failed to take off. Of course, a couple of years after *that* "Dances With Wolves" won seven Oscars, but two years after *that* Unforgiven won four, and given "Unforgiven" was kind of about the death of the cowboy myth, pretty certain that it killed off cowboys for good. I remember seeing it with a bunch of goons I was working with over the summer on a day-off, and I recall all of them complaining it was not the kind of Clint Eastwood movie they wanted to see. You could say they metaphorically threw in their hats after that, because not a single one of them ever mentioned wanting to be a cowboy ever again.

Lonesome Dove had a lot to do with it

But let's not forget the role "Urban Cowboy" and of course the huge, ubiquitous, never forgotten Disney Robert Redford smash "The Electric Cowboy" played keeping cowboys a thing in the early '80s.

And of course the "You Shook Me All Night Long" music video.

how soon we forget...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOYZaiDZ7BM

Were they cowboys, or just hillbillies?

JiC, I assume you mean The Electric Horseman? not a Disney movie, but a pretty good "where have all the cowboys gone" movie, though politically suspect with its a proto-Reaganist, Marlboro-manny "what America and its Career Women need is some rugged cowboys" energy

yeah, that one, lol

xp to myself: To be fair to Bruce, his interest in cowboys/desire to be a cowboy goes all the way back to his pre-E. Street days when he wrote songs like "Cowboys of the Sea" (what it sounds like, they live underwater and herd the fishes and also rob banks, idk what he was on either.) And then there's "This Hard Land," his epic gay cowboy fantasy from the eighties, and "Black Cowboys" from the nineties, and most of Western Stars, and all in all, Bruce's cowboy dreams clearly go deep, it wasn't fair of me to imply he was some jumped-up, fly-by-night, johnny-come-lately cowboy wannabe.

wait, no, Black Cowboys was from Devils & Dust. Point still stands.

Also, the "little Texas" aspect of Freehold.

In Forest Hills, Queens, where I lived for a year in 2009-2010, there's a stable called GallopNYC where anyone may schedule 30 minutes to visit the horses regardless of ability to pay. Most of their horses are retired and tend toward a mild temperament in their old age, so they are prized as therapy animals. They have lovely names, like 'Popcorn'.
Ordinarily, the place is crowded, loud and chatoic, but during the pandemic it's been blissfully tranquil.

Since my last visit, I've imagined a colony of these gentle horses in a bucolic place where they are free and undisturbed, like a utopia, a world of only horses. That's what I try to think about when I go to bed at night.

I think my initial post made it fairly clear that I couldn't care less about actual cowboys, you know, it's the loss of all those cowboy dreams.

I Couldn’t Care Less About Actual Cowboys (It’s the Loss of All Those Cowboy Dreams)

It's the companion horses who maybe only existed in the imaginations of children, who were cruelly cast aside when they saw those spectacular images of the moon landing and changed plans.

Honestly, i think i'd be ok with them deciding to dream about going to the moon if they'd wanted to bring their horse.

I disagree with her reasoning, but cannot deny Veg's passion in this thread.