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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
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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.


Weird Al Yankovic – Smells Like Nirvana

An evening pause: Seems to me, this expresses perfectly the level of thoughtfulness seen in many hard rock music videos, only it does it more honestly.

Hat tip Gene Shipp.

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

13 comments

  • wayne

    Gene-
    great selection!!

    Weird Al & Nirvana (2013)
    Smells Like Teen Spirit: The Side-by-Side Comparison
    https://youtu.be/tSMRuK11Dxg
    3:44

  • wayne

    “Smells Like Social Justice”
    Finntronaut
    https://archive.org/details/smells-like-social-justice
    (5:04)

  • David

    What a brief, but oh so glorious time it was to live in Seattle during the birth of what would become known as “grunge.” Brilliant musicians doing their thing, creating music. Still brings a smile to an old guy’s face.

  • mivenho

    This is brilliant.

  • I must disagree with David. “Grunge” was a bunch of spoiled brats complaining about how dreadful their upper-middle-class lives were (while foreshadowing the lumbersexual look). Thank goodness it’s dead.

    I love this video. That’s exactly how I feel about Nirvana. I’m surprised I hadn’t seen it before.

  • David Ross

    Cobain was born from an auto-mechanic and a waitress. The band’s first album “Bleach” didn’t sell and when “Nevermind” started taking off, Cobain was living in his car.
    If that’s upper middle class then I’d hate to see what you’d think lower middle class looks like.

  • David Ross: In the America of my youth, the wages of a car mechanic and a waitress was definitely middle class at the least, not lower, and often was upper. My father had a very comparable job, while my mother worked as a part time secretary, and we lived very much in the center of the middle class.

    I suspect Cobain was living in his car because he hadn’t yet succeeded as a musician, and choose that life.

  • David

    Weird Al has done some great parody gigging various music videos!

    As I remember (hazy in sections), David Ross is spot-on. At that time (late 80’s into very early 90’s) plenty of the musicians in Seattle and elsewhere in the Pac. N.W. where from decidedly not upper middle class backgrounds. That showed in their music.

    I think I’m nostalgic of late, with the recent passing of Gary Rossington taking me back to all the styles of music I was impacted by at various times in my younger years. Grunge included!

  • David Ross

    I’m sorry, Zim, but Cobain’s home life was wretched. I forgot to mention that those parents divorced.

  • David Ross: Okay, except that a wretched home life is irrelevant to upper, middle, or lower class. Different issue entirely.

  • wayne

    Nirvana –
    “All Apologies”
    MTV Unplugged 1993
    https://youtu.be/-BsB8A3Todo
    6:10

  • Jeff Wright

    Courtney Love would drive Jesus to step out.

  • Gene Shipp

    Jeff Wright – What Jesus has is better than anything Courtney Love can dream of.

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