I took part with Dr. Subrata Ghoshroy, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in a discussion about the current state of international space cooperation on TRT World, a Turkish news outlet. Moderated by Ms. Ayse Surbecker, it was a pleasant experience all around.
I’ve been on television before, but not in a long time and never remotely via computer. It was an interesting and fascinating experience.
I’ve been seeing some discussion about the potential for a new launch pad to be built at Kennedy Space Center — LC-49. This has been on the site’s master plan in one form or the other dating all the way back to the 1960’s, and the potential of it actually being built has risen lately due to SpaceX’s Starship due to come online in the next 6-12 months.
“One potential new vertical launch area, Launch Pad 49, could be sited to the north of Pad 39B. This location avoids overflight issues with Pad 39B and minimizes conflict with the Canaveral National Seashore, giving potential non-NASA entities a flexible set of operational options. In addition, Pad 49 could use Beach Road as an access road, allowing for more autonomous operations and the option to operate outside of KSC’s secured area.”
Kentucky is a state that’s been on a hot streak producing ground-breaking Americana/rock artists lately: Sturgill Simpson, possibly the best musician to make popular music in the second half of the 2010’s onward, Chris Stapleton, who is making some of the best traditional blues you’ll hear, Tyler Childers, whose work may be best described as traditional country that’s set in a contemporary world, and many others. Now comes Jeremy Pinnell.
All hail from the Bluegrass State.
All are exceptional.
Pinnell has previously released two honky tonk albums that were well-received, but here, he covers Concrete Blonde’s 1989 “Joey” with a lonesome, wrenching solo rendition. 2020 being 2020, he recorded it on his phone in his home and released the results on YouTube. I’d say he did a damn fine job and his version captured the tone and tenor of its time perfectly.And as I always say: there’s a lot of great new music out there, it’s just harder to find than ever.
This song is proof of just that.
This is one of my grandfather’s (Vester Lee Pinson, Sr.), badges he wore to work in the mid-1960’s at Cape Kennedy in Florida. Sadly, he was not allowed inside the capsule, but otherwise…
A quick story for y’all: for years I had this crazy memory, but one that really seemed like it really happened. Thing is, memories from that age seem more like dreams from long ago but still remembered than they do things that actually happened. This one actually did happen. My date with Morgan Fairchild? Well, no, that was definitely a dream. The other memory? It might have been even more far-fetched.
The memory is this: I vividly remembered my Dad, an astronaut and me riding around in Dad’s car in Cocoa Beach, and then Dad drove the car into the Indian River and took us for a ride on the water — still in the car — to look at a Saturn V off in the distance at the Cape. When we were done, Dad drove us all home in that same car.
Crazy. It bugged me for a long time — it just seemed so real but the whole idea of my Dad, some astronaut and me riding around in a car is just too crazy to be true.
A few years before he passed on, my Dad and I were sharing a drink and not really watching the game on TV so I asked Dad about it, and also asked him not to laugh if it was something I’d dreamt up: was I just remembering something that I imagined, or did it possibly really happen?
Dad looked at me, grinned and launched excitedly into a story about this car he had “before I met your mother and for a while after” and how this car was also a boat, and that yes, positively that had happened, in his Sunbeam Amphicar.
The astronaut was Wally Schirra (Apollo 7), he was there to see the pad procedures that were being developed for the coming Apollo launches. He didn’t say much to other than a kind hello, because I was pretty young in 1966: I didn’t turn five until Thanksgiving week. It was pretty easy to ignore me while I was strapped down in the back seat. I was just along for the ride. No worries, I still had fun.
Dad added that later on when he got married to Mom and “had us kids” that Mom told him he had to sell it to get a station wagon for all of us. He always added immediately, and laughed, “I already knew the secret to a happy marriage: just say ‘Yes, Dear’ and get it over with.”
Unfortunately, my Dad passed away on March 18, 2010, after a sudden illness. He never emphasized his contribution to the space program—he said he was a tiny cog in a huge machine and left that to be that, except the times he said, “Mongo only pawn in game of NASA” with a roaring laugh that told you he found that as funny in 2005 as he did in the 1970s after he saw “Blazing Saddles” for the first time. He did say he enjoyed what he did and that he’d never trade the experience.
Western music is the nearly forgotten half of “country and western” and this song is one of the best examples of it. Western was (and is) the cowboy side of things; songs about gunfights, the desert, cattle calls and the like, something that is a persistent part of American self-identity.
Marty Robbins may have been western’s most well-known artist, but there were others, fellows like Eddy Arnold, Bob Nolan, Foy Willing and bands like Sons of the Pioneers and Otto Gray and his Oklahoma Cowboys were all popular and well-regarded in their time.
Sometimes, traditional country stars like Johnny Cash and Hank Williams dabbled in western as well. And I am sure you all remember Slim Whitman, who actually was more than a novelty in his day.
In the early 1970’s, western waned and “country and western” just became “country.” It was modern times, we’d been to the moon and there were other concerns to consider. Cowboy songs were gone.
Time passes and what was once old becomes new again: western music is making a bit of a return. Maybe that’s because a lot of artists that are revisiting the old styles, and updating them into something new. Western music is no exception and musicians are again tapping into its rich vein.
You’ll find no better example of “modern” western and a paean to its past than Marty Stuart’s last album “Way Out West.” The title track is something that could have been recorded in 1965, but it a 21st-century sensibility that could only be made in modern times. Also on that record is “Old Mexico” – a pure western song that will make you think Stuart is channeling the late Marty Robbins.
Another artist to check out for modern western is Gil Landry’s solo work, especially with songs like “Fennario” or “Denver Girls.” Landry will take you out under the infinite Colorado skies and tell you a story or two in the blowing winds.
It’s a great form of American music, and one that really sets a technicolor vision of a mythical place.
Or why I sort-of willingly jumped out of a perfectly good airplane
Sierra Nevada has successfully completed a test flight of its Dream Chaser. The road to this once ran through Raleigh
In an era of giants and legends, one man was the greatest of the greatest. And he wasn’t even a professional athlete.
We often view going to the moon as a political stunt. The thing is, it was actually a profitable investment made by the US Government.
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