This astronaut is alive with soul. Taken from the front cover of the
Afghan Whigs' 1965, he is an emblem of the unbridled passion
and joy to be found on that album; moreover, he is up there in
space swinging to the collective sound of free love in the American
'60s. Many miles above the Earth, he's feeling the groove. What's he doing
up there? He's twisting the wires, fixing the cables, setting up the
interstellar transmission to send the sweet sounds of Motown all across
the stars and beyond. He'll get the job done. And what's up next for our
spaceman friend? Well, he's going to step back into his rocketship and
freak his astronaut ladyfriend until the break of dawn - which, floating
in orbit, could be an awful long time.
This, I think, is the kind of astronaut we want to have up there in case
aliens come by.
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What the hell is the matter with this astronaut? The soul is not only not
alive in him, the soul is fossilized and on display at the Museum of
Natural History next to that Tyrannosaurus Rex everyone's talking
about. Look at this guy: stiff as a board. The joints on that suit have
never followed a groove. They wouldn't know how. He'd need a guidebook to
follow People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. Where
is he going with that big orange ball? What is he going to do with
it? What creature anywhere in this entire universe is hoping to see this
jerk with his big heavy orange ball? Shit, if it was brown, I could see
that. Brown is funky. Maybe he's decorating his space station. But
orange?
Call me alarmist, but this picture comes straight from NASA's homepage,
which leads me to believe that the people in charge think this is what an
astronaut ought to look like. And that's scary. Is this the kind of
spaceman we want playing host for any aliens passing through? Just
imagine: the Martians land at his pad. They're smiling. What's going on,
Earthling? They're ready for the first interspecies party. They
brought bean dip. This fucker says hold on, let me get the place ready. He
breaks out a bag of stale Cheeze-Puffs, pours three glasses of milk and
drops the needle on some Kenny G. We're fucked! The Martians will never
come to an Earth party ever again. They'll probably bomb the shit out of
us.
Write your congressman!
(photos: Afghan Whigs/Columbia, NASA)
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