***Warimashi! You can also find Holst’s original classical version of The Planets, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult, by clicking here!

Does anyone want to visit outer space anymore? I doubt that anyone could find any allure in sporting a big, airtight body-diaper and leaving the comfy oxygen bubble surrounding Earth. I’m pretty sure that you wouldn’t get any 3G coverage up there. So, you couldn’t even bitch to your friends on Facebook about how totally boring the endless panaroma of our planet, viewed from a freely-floating spacesuit, can really be. Plus, your umbilical cord to the space shuttle totally wouldn’t match your moonboots. Um, so lame.

But I remember, not too long ago in the great scheme, when things were much different. Back in my day, when kids ate coal and shit diamonds, we had this little show called Double Dare. Kids would risk life and limb climbing through metric tons of fake earwax and green gooble-dee-goop to capture little red flags. It was tough work, by George, and many kids lost limbs, important limbs, wading through that synthetic muck. Also, Mark Summers was there but he wasn’t unwrapping the mystery of how Nutter-Butters are made…instead he was turning boys’ nuts into butter on the obstacle course.

So, why oh why did these kids take such sticky risks for such tiny red flags? Two words: SPACE CAMP.

This child abuse was outlawed after Congress passed the Summers Bill in ’89.

That girl at the beginning is having a BLAST in that awkward astroscope. Bad touch, bad touch!

Back in the 80′s, when it wasn’t exploding, the space shuttle was rocking back and forth from the USA to OUTER SPACE. Up and down and round and round it went. Back then we felt the whole thing was just some horribly dangerous and vulgarly expensive workout session for the real deal: Outer Outer Space. You know, past the moon, which we (the good guys) first visited in 1969. It was universally assumed that, sooner or later, Admiral Reagan would tell the boys, “That’s good enough. You’ve trained like true Americans. Now, I want you to aim that big ol’ stick right at Mars and bring back a damn Alien for the Gipper. So let it be written, so let it be done.”

But, somehow, the nation got distracted by all sorts of things…the end of the Cold War, MTV, Tony Danza, Sega Genesis, Melrose Place…beautiful beasts that seeped into our televisions and stole air time from NASA and their team of gee whizzers. And before you knew it we had even more cable channels and we didn’t have to watch the same old boring news clips of that Interatmospheric Baluga’s migration patterns anymore. Soon, no one gave a damn about what bizarre insect mating rituals NASA’s astronauts observed in zero gravity. We were all too busy letting Hollywood give us a tutorial on 21st century virtual reality bonin’.

Eventually, space was out. What’s the point of strapping yourself onto a guided bomb and risking your life when you can experience the same deal at home on your PS3? I mean, subwoofers have gotten pretty good…you can almost feel the second-stage rocket boosters right on your Gucci. And, after all, real space is pretty boring. There aren’t any aliens with plasma rifles. There aren’t any richly detailed story plots with 60+ hours of play time. There aren’t any bulbous spacelady boobs. Well, not that we know of. At least I don’t know about them. If you know of any space boobs, please, Motorola two-way page me.

We have lift off.

 Space is just a sad, broken old man on the corner of McMillan and Vine. Someone told you that he used to be the head train conductor for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad when it ran out of Union Terminal. That may be true, but all you know is that he smells like piss and Wild Irish Rose. And pistachios…is it pistachios? No, I think it’s pecans.

Let’s take a trip back for second to when this man had his suit pressed on a weekly basis. Back to when you could set your watch to the crease in his crotch. Back to when the God damn whole world was pulled behind a magnificent silver train, hell bent on reaching the world of tomorrow not a minute too late.

………And when Japanese space electronica was way in.

>>>Click here to download The Tomita Planets at 320 kbps

The videos don’t really do the sound justice but the concept is really cool. I’d like to get my hands on this VHS some day. Just because.