"Have you been out to Disneyland
When the moon is shinin' bright?"
E "Eddy" Edwards
It's been a busy few months, brother, and a half!
Sure, you survived all the back-stabbing in the shake-ups at Aerospace and that's good. The Mercury project turned out to be a winner for you guys and that was good, too. Of course, the last of the Mercury shots went up in May and that was bad. But that means that Gemini is right on schedule and the Titan II — your baby! — is right there in the spotlight! Unfortunately, you got you got squeezed off Titan in the shake-up and that's a big bad. But, you're new baby is the Dyna-Soar — a real space plane, junior, and not just "SPAM in the can" stuff! — and you just know that's gonna be the future, man, and you are gonna stay handcuffed to that baby for years and years and years to come! That's the New Frontier written big across the heavens, man!
What else? Those crewcut creeps at Hughes got their satellite up, and that's good, if only because it keeps the money men in Washington looking spaceward and sending bucks your way. The commies send a chick into space and that's . . . weird. You wanna think she a James Bond-y sex bomb, but you know life isn't that fair. And Jesus, some kinda monks over in Viet Nam (and when's that crap gonna be done? Taking too much dough from your real work, gawdamnit) setting themselves on fire? What's that deal, hunh?
Meanwhile, back at home, your wife is addicted to something called TaB (looks like Coke, tastes like, well . . . something else) and your daughter keeps listening to a record by that Bob Dylan guy — that's a crooner? — in her room over and over and over . . .
But . . . all you wanna to do is get the damn backyard looking good for the big Labor Day bar-b-que shindig you're planning for all the Dyno-Soar guys; gotta get that whole suburban tiki thing just right! Sure, it's been taking all of your spare time, but what are you gonna do, right? Of course, the war department, uh, that is, the wife has been busting your chops about "getting out and doing something, fer cry-eye." Yeah, but what? What can a family in 1963 Southern California do, especially in the evenings?
Friggit, Dean, you'll think of something. Just switch on your GE portable radio and see if you can find the Dodger game and try to tune out all of the commercials.
Disneyland Radio Spot, 1963
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