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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra -Peter Gunn TV show theme

An evening pause: Performed live c2016. The Peter Gunn showed aired in the late 1950s.

Hat tip Don Carrera.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

6 comments

  • Boobah

    I will forever know this as the theme from Spyhunter. Not even MIDI quality sound on the Commodore 64, but I spent hours listening to this tune.

  • David Eastman

    That’s a good performance, but I’ve always preferred the Blues Brother version. Here is a pure studio version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRkxqkObCUk&list=RDRRkxqkObCUk&start_radio=1 and here is a more improvised live performance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBYETv92fkU&list=RDUBYETv92fkU&start_radio=1

  • Boobah- back at ya’. At the arcade.

    I eventually learned not to associate ‘William Tell Overture’ with ‘The Lone Ranger’, but, as I’ve never seen the 1958 movie, ‘Spyhunter’ is my cultural reference for this tune.

  • Andi

    Unfortunately, the Lark cigarette commercial killed the William Tell Overture for me.

    “Have a Lark, have a Lark today…”

    Aaargh!

  • Dick Eagleson

    Never much of a video gamer and I never saw ‘The Blues Brothers’ movie either. But I did see the last two seasons of Peter Gunn on its original run. Missed the first season as my family got its first TV in the summer of 1959. Very memorable theme by Henry Mancini.

    The second season of Peter Gunn was paired with another Blake Edwards half-hour drama, Mr. Lucky, for which Mancini also wrote the theme. Good tune, but quieter and less memorable than the theme for Peter Gunn. Mr. Lucky only lasted one season. John Vivyan wasn’t as compelling a lead as was Craig Stevens. Mr. Lucky was notable mainly for the excellent work of Ross Martin in the role of Andamo, the main character’s segundo. Martin would later go on to considerable aclaim as Artemus Gordon on The Wild, Wild West as Robert Conrad’s segundo.

  • wayne

    “Short Skirt, Long Jacket”
    A Tribute to Emma Peel
    https://youtu.be/idtYckLIZnI?list=RDidtYckLIZnI
    3:58

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