Man on the Moon: Interview with Apollo 12 Astronaut Alan Bean

The previous episode of this podcast focused on aliens who have traveled through outer space to visit the Earth. This episode flips things around a bit to focus on a member of a very exclusive group of Earthlings who have set foot on solid ground that is not earth.

On November 14, 1969 a Saturn V rocket -- more than 360 feet long and weighing over 6 and a half million pounds, lifted off from Cape Kennedy carrying the Apollo 12 spacecraft. On board were three astronauts, mission commander Charles “Pete” Conrad, command module pilot Richard F. Gordon, and lunar module pilot Alan L. Bean.

On November 19th, after traveling nearly 240 thousand miles to orbit the moon, Pete Conrad and Alan Bean boarded the lunar excursion module, detached from the command module, and descended to the dusty gray surface below them, landing in an area known as the Ocean of Storms.

Conrad exited first, followed by Bean, to become the third and fourth human beings to walk on the lunar surface.

After two excursions to gather data and collect samples, they boarded the Lunar Module on November 20th to rejoin Gordon in the command module for the return trip to earth. On November 24,1969, Apollo 12 safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean near American Samoa.

In July 1973 Alan Bean returned to space as commander of the Skylab space station. In his lifetime, Bean spent a total of nearly 70 days in space.

In 1998 I had the incredible opportunity to conduct a live, in-studio interview with Alan Bean, who was then on a book tour promoting Apollo: An Eyewitness Account, which he co-authored with writer Andrew Chaikin. The book, which is still available, features original artwork by Commander Bean depicting his experiences in the Apollo program.

November 14, 2020 marks the 51st anniversary of the Apollo 12 mission. In celebration of that event, this edition of the Where It Goes podcast presents that interview.

In the interview Commander Bean shares his insight into his time as an astronaut, discusses the personal impact of being one of only 12 human beings to set foot on the moon, and offers his thoughts on the future of the human exploration of space.

The interview reveals Commander Bean to be a warm, affable, and humble man, everything you’d want from a hero.

Of course. all journeys come to an end. Commander Bean died in Houston, Texas on May 26, 2018, at the age of 86. He was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery, where he joins his Apollo 12 crewmates Richard Gordon, who passed away at the age of 88 in 2017, and Pete Conrad Jr., who died in 1999 from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident. Conrad was 69 years old.

For more information about Alan Bean and Apollo 12 check out these additional resources:

• Book: Apollo : An Eyewitness Account 
• Alan Bean: First Artist on Another World 
• Alan Bean, Apollo Moonwalker and Artist, Dies at 86

In Space No One Can Hear You Snore

We’ve been conditioned by books, movies, and television to have certain expectations regarding extraterrestrial visitors. Whether they’re cute and cuddly, like ET, or hideous and rude, like the critters from the Alien and Predator films, we have it in our heads that visitors from beyond Earth will be, if nothing else, interesting. But there is another possibility...

Friends of Me Episode 1: Actor / Writer Miki Yamashita

What do you really know about the entertainment industry? My friend Miki Yamashita, an actor and writer living in Los Angeles, knows it from the ground up. While Miki may not have achieved the kind of showbiz status that would make her a TMZ target -- not yet, anyway --  her tireless efforts at building her career as an actor resulted in roles in  Law and Order, One Life to Live, As the World Turns, iCarly,  Jimmy Kimmel Live, and the road company of A Chorus Line, not to mention appearances in TV commercials and Funny or Die videos.

Miki shares her real-world and frequently hilarious insight into the entertainment industry through her blog, The Smacktress and in postings on Facebook and Twitter

In this video interview, the first in a four-part series, Miki talks about why she has never been to a Kardashian party and about the enormous effort that goes into getting just one line in a movie or TV program.



Connect with Miki Yamashita

Boomer Barbie

The bit below is another from my archives. Originally published during the Christmas season sometime in the late 90s, I've hastily dusted it off and updated it to coincide with the 55th anniversary of Barbie's introduction.

For fifty-five years little girls (and little boys with open-minded parents) have elbowed their way to the foot of the family Christmas tree to frantically claw at gaily wrapped presents in anticipation of finding Barbie. Today many of Barbie's fans are adults who continue to collect Barbie stuff. But you have to wonder if some of these mature fans aren't thinking that it's about time for Barbie to act her age.

Fifty-five years after Barbie's introduction she doesn't look a day over eighteen. And if eternal youth isn't irritating enough, she's got truckloads of clothing, several homes, and a vast collection of sporty pink cars. A kid can look at all this and think that she (or he) has a chance of living a Barbie life. But if you're a middle-aged Barbie nut there must be times when you imagine that she's looking at you and saying, "I'm so glad I'm not you." Nobody likes having their nose rubbed in their own shortcomings and mortality, especially not by an eleven-inch tall polystyrene bimbo who falls over backward if she isn't wearing heels.

Let's face it, if she was a teenager when she began her career fifty-five years ago, she's over seventy now. Who is she to talk? Christmas would be a lot happier for adult Barbie fans if they could find a Barbie under their tree that more accurately reflected the lifestyles of people who have a problem identifying with a plastic figure that never has to worry about gray hair, wrinkles, or hot flashes.

The solution: Boomer Barbie, and a full line of Boomer Barbie accessories. Boomer Barbie resembles the original Barbie, but she has to really work at it with frequent visits to the Boomer Barbie Rodeo Drive Maison De Make-Over, where you can make the grey go away with her special One-Coat Miracle Rinse, and restore that youthful smoothness with All Natural Organic Face Spackle. After a tough day at Boomer Barbie's Rancho De Landfill Real Estate Office, our synthetic siren likes to return home to Boomer Barbie's Big Divorce Settlement Dream House, complete with Jacuzzi, redwood deck, and Jorge The Muscular Gardener, with patent-pending Magic Hands.

Boomer Barbie doesn't hit the gym quite as often these days, so her closet is full of all new stuff, too, featuring many flattering, loose-fitting dresses, and lots of elastic-waisted pants.

Of course, Barbie's friend Ken hasn't forgotten his adult fans either. Boomer Ken is available in your choice of models, including Comb-Over Ken, Bad Hairpiece Ken, and Never Takes Off His Baseball Cap Ken. Each model comes dressed in roomy pleated khakis, and is equipped with a life-like, battery-operated paunch. Touch the hidden button and watch it jiggle! You can help Ken keep those mid-life crisis blues at bay with Boomer Ken's Deluxe Virility Restoration Kit, which includes the Ridiculously Expensive Sports Car, and Boomer Ken's special new friend, Chippie The Twenty-Three Year Old Fitness Consultant.

The introduction of a line of Boomer Barbie products will prove to grown-up Barbie fans that their favorite fashion princess is finally admitting that she's at the age when a full day of inline skating, beach volleyball, mountain biking, and clubbing is likely to result in a ride in the Boomer Barbie Ambulance. Boomer Barbie would much rather stay home, pop a handful of antioxidants, and watch FoodTV.

A Brief History of Husbands

 

By Bob Rhubart

The human race owes exactly half the credit for its continued existence to husbands. Without husbands the race would have long ago died out, or possibly just evolved, somehow, into a female-only civilization with one of the Gabor sisters as the queen.

The important point here is that the human race, along with all other living things, relies on the natural urge for members of one gender to seek out members of the other to form bonded pairs and to propagate, which is a word derived from a Latin expression that, roughly translated, means, "Put on that Barry White album, baby, its happy hour." Husbands have always been there to do their part.

Any examination of the history of husbands must go back to the very beginnings of life on the planet. According to many scientists, the first life on earth was in the form of tiny bacteria, swimming merrily around in the pools of warm muck that formed on the surface of the planet at that time. These tiny, brainless creatures didn't have a thought in their heads, because they didn't have heads. What they had was the instinct for survival, and that meant always making more germs. There was an actual process they used to achieve this. But the only people who know anything about it are scientists who have spent long hours staring into puddles of muck with powerful microscopes, and no one has any interest in engaging one of them in a conversation. Lets just say that the puddle of germs eventually became something that could take out the garbage.

These early, primitive husbands co-existed with the wild beasts, learning to hunt with the skill of the lion, and to run with the swiftness of the deer (though later they found that two-legged running was faster and a lot more comfortable). The primitive husband was physically very much like the modern husband, except his brain was much smaller and it was protected by a very thick skull. In fact, primitive husbands skulls were so thick that one of their favorite pastimes was an early form of bungie-jumping. Of course, as husbands evolved, their skulls became thinner, and it became necessary to invent the bungie cord. There was much to learn.

The primitive husband learned that even though his primitive wife had no problem with skinning, gutting and cooking whatever creature he had hunted down, she still would wake him from a perfectly good nap by saying, "Get up! I want you to kill this spider!" The primitive husband would then have to spend the next forty-five minutes wildly bludgeoning an angry, 100-pound arachnid.

In time spiders got smaller. This freed up the husbands to build new shelter, since the wives were getting fed up with living in caves and huts. And even when the new home was completed, it seemed that there was always something to fix around the house. Eventually, husbands learned to fashion special tools to make the jobs easier, including the lever, the fulcrum, and the cordless electric screwdriver.

Many husbands became quite adept at fixing all the various broken things around the house, and this led wives to expect increasingly more complex and technical repairs: "The faucet drips, the car doesn't run right, and the dog needs a new kidney." The husband was happy to oblige, because this increased the possibility of propagation.
As you can see, civilization would be a lot different without husbands. Probably much safer, cleaner, and better organized, but different. There sure as hell would be a lot more spiders.