017 Modest Moonwalker Transcript (Neil Armstrong)

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Michael: This person died in 2012 at age 82, after his death, someone close to him said he quote, carried himself with a grace and humility. That was an example to us all.

Friend: I got nothing. No, I got nothing

Michael: here. Alec Guinness,

Friend: not Alec Guinness.

Michael: He was a. Private man. And at heart, an engineer,

Friend: you didn't Leslie Nielsen die right around then james Watson,

Michael: not James Watson. His most famous achievement lasted two hours and 19 minutes.

Friend: Okay. Um, maybe I'm moving me something. It could be a S like a space flight or something. John Glenn,

Michael: not John Glenn. He was part of a mission that kept a tumultuous and consequential decades.

Friend: Okay. I know I'm nothing. I'm so sorry. Okay.

Michael: This one should help. He made history on July 20th, 1969 as the commander of the apollo 11 spacecraft.

Friend: Oh, neil Armstrong, Neil Armstrong, Neil Armstrong.

Today's dead. Celebrity is Neil Armstrong.

archival: And you ain't going to have, but

Michael: Welcome to famous and gravy. My name is Michael Osborne.

Amit: My name is Amit Kapoor .

Michael: And on this show, we go through a series of categories about multiple aspects of a famous person's life. We want to figure out the things in life that we would actually desire and ultimately answer the big question. What I want that life today, Neil Armstrong died 2012, age 82.

You said that with a big

smile on your face,

he has a smile on his face. I think that's why it's

archival: also

Michael: self satisfied that we chose Neil fucking Armstrong. I liked that category one, grading the first line of their obituary. Neil Armstrong who made the quote giant leap for mankind close quote as the first human to set foot on the moon died on Saturday.

He was 82. I think that's

Amit: what he wanted. Yeah. From all I've learned. I think that's the obituary he, uh, is kind of okay with don't pry too much further. I

Michael: think that there's something to that. It's nice and succinct. It's doesn't have any personality whatsoever to it. All it says is he made a giant leap for mankind as the first human to set foot on.

Full stop. I think I'm saying good too. There's room, obviously for a lot more here.

Amit: It's the most demonstrative. I think first-line we've come across. It actually has the cow jumped over the fence Armstrong. I said, walk on the moon. Yeah.

Michael: But yeah, it's interesting that there's like zero context,

Amit: but publicly he doesn't want to be known for anything else.

So I think it's fitting. It's almost like they knew what he wanted. I want the rest of my life to be

Michael: private. Okay. Fine. But since when is the first line of the obituary about what our dead celebrity would have wanted? I feel like this is actually the first time we're talking about that. I mean, the question of would this person have taken issue,

Amit: but perhaps the obituary writer is just in there.

It's like, oh fuck. What else do I know about Neil Armstrong?

Michael: Or what else do I need to say? I guess

Amit: that's it. End of sentence. He was two.

Michael: I mean, certainly there is a show don't tell aspects to it. Right? Like had he wanted to be known for more, there was opportunity for that. So maybe in its succinctness and its, you know, lack of description, it's actually great because not only is it what he would have wanted, but it really is.

And maybe all that should be said before we

Amit: grade, uh, let's talk about first human. Oh, interesting. Did you, did

Michael: you not think about that? I didn't. I'm glad you pointed it out that they didn't say first man, that they said first human. Yes. Yeah. That there

Amit: could have been other life forms that were on the.

Michael: I'm not seeing that. I didn't read that. I read first human as being, let's take gender out of it because his famous quote is gender. Right? Oh, I didn't do that 2012 narrow times. Yeah. That's what I thought you were drawing attention to is the fact that they, you know, the first man, I wish I was.

Amit: I wish that's what

Michael: was going through my head.

No, but what was going through your mind is, uh, other life forms. I saying they're leaving it open. This is obituary writer was leaving it open for the possibility. Yeah, yeah. Of

Amit: other life forms that proceeded Neil Armstrong in both to be inclusive of, uh, the step he took represented, um, all of humanity.

Yes. And

Michael: if it, even if it happened in the patriarchy, yes. So what are you giving? This is

Amit: in my upper echelon. I'm giving it an eight,

Michael: given her an eight. I think that's a great number that feels pretty close. So, what is it missing things? I guess we haven't

Amit: talked about, we talked about that is that like he could have made the effort to throw in some personal anecdotes.

I think I applaud the

Michael: D I think I'm going higher. I, this may be the first time I've ever given anything a 10. I think it's perfect. You're

Amit: applauding the brevity. I am. The reason we choose in your times, obituary is the way that they can take more than just the singular fact of their life, which they did not do for Shirley temple.

Michael: No, there is no simple formula. What I love about this is the way it is talking about the act. It's not saying anything about the man, but like the man's act is all that matters. And the way it's framed here, the way it's described, I like the way that it is the first human I liked the quote attributes.

And it just speaks for itself. What more do you need? Anything else would feel shoehorn a distraction from the significance of what this is, and this is going to be remembered for forever. Yeah, look, it is entirely possible. That 500 years from now, the only person from the 20th century has remembered is Neil Armstrong in terms of a first-line of an obituary.

10 out of 10 for me. Okay. Yeah. Fair enough.

Amit: Yeah. Tuck in your shirt, tighten your tie and move on words. Uh,

Michael: I think he would like that too. Yeah. All right. Category to five things. I love about you here. I'm at night work together to come up with at least five reasons why we should be talking about this person and why we might love them.

You want to go? You want me to go? I want you to go. Okay. I wrote down to go somewhere. No one has ever gone before. And I was very deliberate when I thought about that. I thought about trying to say adventure or pioneer or explore, but it is actually about setting foot somewhere nobody's ever set foot before, which is tied up in exploration.

Right. But to, to go to a place of like true, unbelievable original discovery, and I know it's what he's known for, but it's also something I want to do both inside and outside my life. I want to go places. I want to see the most incredible places, mostly on planet earth. I'm not so attracted to space travel, but I also want to arrive in completely undiscovered territory as an individual.

And this is obvious, I guess, that this is the thing to know about him. So I'm coming out of the gate. The single most obvious thing about him. Yeah. May

Amit: I, uh, this is not traditional for a five things I love about you, but I want to kind of disagree with that. Interesting that,

Michael: uh, disagree the fact of it or that it's something that is a fact

Amit: that that is what is required to, um, in order for it to be desirable, to go to a physical space that nobody has been before.

So like in a lot of philosophy, you know, they'll say everything is impermanent and nothing has actually ever happened before this exact moment with this exact intersection of people and time and weather and whatnot has never happened before.

Michael: Yes. And there is, there is no two moments in time that are.

Amit: Yeah. So I'm saying if perhaps if you did not covet going somewhere that no one had ever gone before, then you are forever living in places that no one has ever gone before and you, Michael Osborne could be a happier person.

Michael: So, and, uh, and I am a happy person. Um, look, I think that there are in some ways, major problems with the accomplishment of having gone to the moon.

And I w I want to talk about that more as we, or I don't know, maybe this is the place to talk. And that accomplishment is this sort of sense that nature and the planet earth, and then other planets are for conquest and for lore exploitation. And for, you know, what the human species was meant to do is spread around the solar system and eventually the universe.

And I'm not so sure that's true. I actually think the main lesson is that the planet we live on is an incredibly special planet and all the astronauts, whoever went to space will tell you the same thing. They have the experience of like you get out there and you don't look out, you look back, you see earth and a whole new light.

And I think that's the global lesson. That's the incredible lesson of space travel that said, I do think that the symbolism of what it means to step foot, somewhere where no person has ever stepped foot before that I want to do that. I don't necessarily want to walk on the moon, but to see somebody walk on the moon reminds me that every step we take in our waking lives in this ever-changing.

It's a

Amit: special step. So is that the symbolism you referred to?

Michael: That's right there. There's something about what this step means. I I'd love it. I don't necessarily know that it's something I want to do, but it's something I love. Yeah. Okay. That's it. All

Amit: right. You can take number two. So I'm going to go unintentionally funny.

Oh yeah. And I do think that's a great desirable thing. And I'm going to tell you the quote that I'm going to highlight that with. Cause he was, you know, for lack of a better word. Pretty much a square guy, but when he, um, and he gave, he rarely gave interviews, you know, he rarely appeared, um, in the media, he did do some public things around advertising and stuff like that, but he was very

Michael: immediate shy.

Amit: Yeah. But then when he did, uh, he gave him an interview. I think he gave a slew of interviews sometime around when he did this 60 minutes thing. Yeah.

Michael: This is when his biography has authorized, you know, signed a contract. Biography, came out to promo it. He gave an interview to 60 minutes, which was the first time in decades that he had granted a single person, the

Amit: interview.

So in that time, when he was describing the moon, he describes a curvature of it. But then he says, it's an interesting place to be. I recommend it.

Michael: What did it look like to you, to your naked

archival: eye?

Michael: It's an interesting place to be here.

archival: It's recommended.

Michael: That's

Amit: hilarious. Now. I think that's

Michael: sort of intentional.

Is it? I think so. I mean, I think

Amit: I couldn't have intended to be

Michael: that funny. I don't know. I don't think he meant it to be as funny as it actually is. And I don't think he. But it

Amit: seems like he has that he has like that substitute teacher, unintentional funniness. Yeah. It's like junior high football coach.

Like these are the types of things that I think of when I think about style of humor. That's good.

Michael: Uh, all right. Should I go on to number three? Yes. I wrote down modesty, but I also wrote it down with a question mark, because it kind of drives me crazy in him. Like the way he is so humble and so modest, three of the modesty, oh my God.

Like this man will not take credit for taking the first step and until he's forced to do so. And I don't think it's false modesty. I think it's genuine, but I wanted to talk to you about that. Whether that's something, one that has evolved, that, that, that, that was a virtual. You know, in 1969, uh, when he stepped foot on the moon in a way that it's not the same kind of virtue now, and then too, I wanted to ask you what you think about it in terms of desirable.

Cause he's, he's absolutely monitored. There's no question

Amit: is absolutely modest. And I had a version of that written down for one of my five things. So, uh, your first point was, is it unique to that time? Can it no longer

Michael: exist, but was it more virtuous? Has it faded in terms of it's, you know, how much we admire somebody who's modest modesty, no longer virtuous, the age of social media.

And everybody's a self promoter. My gut reaction is to say, you know, it's not a virtuous thing to be modest, but at the same time I hate social media and a lot of people do. And I hate a lot of, you know, I think I still admire modest.

Amit: I think it's more virtuous interest now because of that, because there's so many opportunities to take credit, so many opportunities to, um,

Michael: be a self-promoter and yeah.

Amit: To, to raise your external, uh, value of yourself. Yeah. Um, yeah, so I don't think so. I think it's actually the opposite, uh, either way it's admirable. Is it desirable? That was your second part of the question. I really struggle with that. I don't know.

Michael: Cause it's like, if you set foot on the fucking moon, right?

Like, you know, on one hand I admired it. I mean, I admire the modesty to a point, but at some point like Neil, you step foot on the front, you were the first guy. Correct. But they're in there.

Amit: There's a disservice there a little bit in my opinion, because, because we need, uh, we need heroes.

Michael: Yes. There is this quality about him that I guess I'm going to say this in a somewhat derogatory way.

There's a certain engineering personality out there. Not all engineers have this personality, but some engineers, there is a reputation these days, particularly software engineers for being a little bit antisocial. There's something about him that reminds me of that. And I think it's actually about the way.

Next level technology is deployed. I mean, and I've actually, I've really been thinking about like how far back in history does that go? The stereotype of the anti-social engineer? I don't, I don't know, like antisocial is a little bit of a strong word to describe Neil Armstrong. I'm not sure that's a hundred percent appropriate.

I think he did have friends, but he's, he's not personable. He's not warm and he's damn sure. Not emotional.

Amit: Yeah. It's a military modesty, right? He was in the Navy in the Navy and that's what it reminds me of is

Michael: a military modest. Yeah. Yeah. I, yes, I think that, that there's some, but I, I see that that's, that's a good way of putting it there.

All the nods to all the other people who've made it possible are absolutely necessary. And I'm more grateful that he's that rather than he's pumping his chest saying I did it, you motherfuckers or whatever. And so obviously if you're going to skew in one direction, he skewed in a better direction, but, but there was an overshoot.

Yeah.

Amit: Cause he was, he was so adamant about just this, you know, I was just the right, right place, right. Time type of person. It's the culmination of 100,000 people's work. And it just so happened to be this mission. And this year, and this time when

Michael: I was the commander, it could have been anybody and no it couldn't have then, and we need, and we as a society, want to understand why it couldn't have been just anybody.

And we want a little bit more from you, Neil. Yes,

Amit: I agree. So I'm gonna add one more to modesty and what I was going to say, uh, the word I was gonna use was considerate as well as the thing I was going to put it, wasn't a five things I love about him. I liked that. Uh, and that was, uh, more of the post. NASA years when he went initially into teaching, he was a professor and he said that he chose the university of Cincinnati to teach it.

And I believe he was in like the aeronautical engineering department, but he said the reason he chose that, which was not as an Alma mater was because they had a very small engineering department. And so nobody would, or so fewer people would feel like they're getting their toes stepped on because this famous astronaut is now

Michael: teaching there.

Yeah. I actually have his decision to be a professor as before the 10 years or so after, uh, the moon landing on my list. I think you can take that as a number

Amit: is the number four that's number four. It's

Michael: a separate thing. Yeah, no, I, well, I liked that and he had all these choices, right. I mean, for him, there is obviously, you know, he had some fame and notoriety because NASA was, you know, had a pretty good PR campaign throughout the sixties.

So he was kind of known, but no, Like he was known after he became the first person to step foot on the moon. Yes. Right. So there is a before and after in his life, in terms of, I sometimes talk about the rocket ship of fame in this case, it's credibly literal, right? Like obviously, like he took a rocket ship of fame to the moon.

There was a lot of things he could have done, uh, in, in the immediate years after. I mean, he was, and he did eventually go onto more sort of lucrative opportunities serving on boards of corporate boards and eventually advertisements for Chrysler among other things. I mean, he made money finally and we'll get to that later, but I liked that he was looking for a place to continue to engage in learning and share what he had learned.

And I also liked that it wasn't, you know, an Ivy league school, it was university of Cincinnati and it was because he had a friend there. Basically. I just liked that as the next career move. I, I need to go somewhere. Thought intelligence knowledge is valued. I I'd like to be a professor. That's what an immediate, by the way, he did do a little work for NASA afterwards.

Yeah, it was called back,

Amit: right? Like at Apollo 13, after that one and after the challenger explosion, he was sort of called back

Michael: for the commission. Correct. That's when it was kind of a desk job, it became very clear. He wasn't going back in this space. Let's get to number five. Okay. Got for number five. Uh,

Amit: I think this required less discussion, but it is the determination from a young age.

Uh, this is a theme we've talked about, you know, I think, uh, this was a George Michael theme that we talked about, but the specific fact with Neil Armstrong was pilots, license proceeded driver's license. Yes. He got his pilot's license before

Michael: he could drive her car. I think that some of that has to do with where he grew up on, you know, rural Ohio, where there's a lot of like prop planes that were part of, you know, growing crops.

And so it like practically made more sense to become a pilot before you got a driver's license. He was apparently his first wife said he was not a good driver, like for, for all the, uh, you know, his ability to steer a plane or a rocket ship. Yeah. You wouldn't want to be in the car with him. Yeah.

Amit: He's going to overdo the turns

Michael: probably.

And who knows where his mind's at? Yes. Uh, all right. So let's recap. That's a pretty good list of five. Uh, one I said to boldly go where no man has gone before. Not quite I didn't quote, um, captain Kirk, but, or did star Trek for that matter, but yes, to go somewhere, no one has ever gone before. And I guess I did kind of say that, uh, I went on unintentionally

Amit: funny for

Michael: two unintentionally funny, and we had a good discussion about modesty.

Yup. Uh, then there was the decision to become a professor and finally determination.

Amit: Yeah. Which was signified by pilot's license

Michael: before driver's license. Pretty good. Right. Category three Milkovich Milkovich. This category is named after the movie being John Malcovich in which people take a little portal into John Malcovich his mind, and they can have a front row seat right behind his eyes.

What have you got? Uh, I went very

Amit: different on this one, so we talked a little bit, um, we talked a lot about how he shunned fame, right. Okay. And, um, he didn't want to be a hero. So what I wondered is, so in 1969, he became an incredible hero. Right. They, you know, they came back to a ticker tape parade and a world tour and so forth and sane world tour,

Michael: insane world tour.

It's like millions of people in the streets quarter, you know, I mean, everywhere he went and all around the world. Yeah. So

Amit: fast forward, 30 years, uh, another hero named RMC. Emerge in the United States, Lance Armstrong, Lance Armstrong. Wow. So let's just choose 2004, right. And you'll still have the eight years left in his life.

That's when the yellow bracelets came out. And I want to know if he saw the rise of Lance Armstrong. I don't think he lived long enough to see the fall of land's Armstrong. So anyway, if he saw that and if he thought, Ooh, there's another Armstrong. I don't have

Michael: to worry about carrying the

Amit: mantle of being a hero.

And this is a relief to me because I am no longer the number one Armstrong.

Michael: It's your Malcovich moment. Yeah. Okay.

archival: That's it. I don't know what the hell to make of that

Amit: one. Well, I want to know what he saw when he saw that yellow bracelet that said live strong. It didn't say Armstrong would, we all knew who it was for.

And if it was like, God dammit, Lance, this was my territory. Or thank you, Lance. That's pretty good. So that's my Malcovich. All right. All right. Yours.

Michael: I got to say, I had a little bit of an experience getting ready for this episode where I probably got more excited about space travel than I think I've ever been.

I've never been a space nerd. So I read Neil Armstrong's biography, which is fairly dense and very comprehensive. And so I love star Trek, but star Trek is not good space travel and most science fiction that takes place in space. Doesn't adhere to the lack of gravity in space. There's some sort of magic of gravity, you know, simulation on, on the ship that allows all the actors and actresses to, you know, walk around in normal gravity.

So it's really only the movies where they take the reality of the lack of gravity. Very seriously, that I feel like that begins to give the emotional. You know, makes you think about what it's like in the movies that really lead back to me or are the movie gravity, which I saw in 3d, which I really enjoyed that the first time I saw it, it was a hokey movie, but like, boy, you felt the weightlessness, right?

Yeah. And then there's another, I mean, 2001 to some extent. They're not that many though. Okay. So I'm getting to Malcovich I know that was a big windup. The moment I'm most curious about is when the lunar shuttle escapes Earth's gravity, but before it gets to its lunar orbit, like before it gets to the moon on the way there.

Like on the way to a great adventure. One of the things I think Mike Collins, who is one of the astronauts on Apollo 11, the one that didn't actually get to walk, correct. The one who had to man, the ship, well buzz and Neil were out, you know, for two hours and 20 minutes on the lunar surface. One of the things, I think he's the one who said this, it's like, there's no telephone poles.

You know, there's no landscape that where you're marking the speed, you know what, you're going in space. You're traveling some incredible speed on your way to the moon, right? This is an incredibly rescue mission. You've made it past one part of that. And there was moments like days and hours where you're like approaching just the anticipation, the fear, but that's like, get that point.

There's no way you can ignore that. Like sort of bubbling giddiness. In the Joan Rivers episode, you had an interesting moment Malcovich moment where Johnny Carson hung up on her and you said, Hey, you know, the highest high and the lowest low at the same time that stuck with me because to feel two contradictory things, or maybe they're not contradictory, I don't know, anticipation and excitement and perhaps elation and fear.

The space shuttle is hurdling through empty black dark space away from earth and toward the moon. And it's not experiencing the gravity of either of those places and you on some level, know the significance of what this is going to be. And you're trying to mark time and you're trying to manage your own emotions and expectations, and it's incredibly terrifying and it's incredibly exciting.

And you're hanging out with these two other guys. Okay. That's the moment I want. Nice. That do anything for you?

Amit: No, not a space guy.

Michael: Uh, Let's move on. Okay. Category for love and marriage. How many marriages also, how many kids and is there anything public about these relationships? Okay. Uh, so as first wife, Janet, they were married in 1956.

Neil was 26 years old at the time. She's four years younger college sweetheart. Right? Kind of, I think he met her through a fraternity friend at Purdue, but I think he was actually graduated. Um, and she had just started, but kind of, they got together around college. Okay. Yes, they were separated in 1990 and officially divorced in 1994.

So when they were separated, Neil was 60, they divorced, he was 64, his second wife, Carol held nights. They met, uh, in 1992, they got married in 1994. Uh, Together until Neil's death in 2012, let's say she was 15 years younger. He was 64 when they got remarried. And yet together until he was done at 82, 3 children, two boys, uh, one daughter, Karen, uh, who dies at age two and a half, uh, and died, I think on the anniversary of his six year anniversary with Janet.

So we're at

Amit: approximately seven years before the historic mission. That's

Michael: right. That's when he lost his daughter. That's right. Okay. And yeah, two and a half. And she was a middle child. Yeah. And I never said a whole hell of a lot about it. He went right back to work after his daughter died. He did have a couple of accidents, uh, or misjudgments.

This is during this time as a test pilot and there were certainly speculation that the. Emotional pain of having lost a child was affecting his judgment. Um, and he basically literally worked, he didn't work through that with a therapist. He literally worked, you know, they threw himself into his work.

Yeah. Um, but there was never done sound like any heart to heart with Janet. Uh, again, the daughter died, you know, basically at the same time as their anniversary, like their wedding anniversary. Yeah. So every year that came up. Yeah. You know, every year that came up.

Amit: Yeah. I just, I, I, I can't help, but just wonder how much of his choice to be somewhat reclusive had something to do with that?

Michael: I don't know. I think he was like that before. Yeah. What,

Amit: what I often hear, what, what we believe is that's, that's some of the deepest pain you can ever feel is losing a small child.

Michael: I have a very close friend who. Lost a son to cancer at age four, as a guy, I talked to a lot and one of the things he told me once is I remember saying, I can't imagine.

And he said, yeah, that's right. You can't imagine. So don't even try, don't even waste your energy. Yeah. Because anything you imagine it's worse than that. Uh, and no matter how much you try to imagine it, you'll never get there. And I took that to heart. I honestly took that as a past that I didn't need to sit there and try and imagine it.

But yeah, I think it's the worst pain you can experience. Yeah. So what, what

Amit: happened at the end of that? Why did, why did that marriage end in the early.

Michael: She calls it emotional distance. So Janet, his first wife did agree to participate in the biography. So she, she sat down for interviews with the author, James Hanson and, and he had very wonderful things to say about her and the acknowledgements and her willingness to do that.

Uh, I think that there was decades of emotional distance. The marriage fails after, you know, 38 years. Yeah. You know, I don't know what the hell to make of that, man. I will say I learned that this was something that in the book of the 21. You know, men who went to the moon was they were all men of those 21 marriages, 13 ended and separation or divorce.

And the author has a comment about, you know, NASA probably should have invested in marriage counselors. You know, I

Amit: think there's also a certain selfishness and recklessness that makes you become an astronaut.

Michael: I think that's right. It was test pilots who were, you know, blind with their lives. I mean, living in and that like Neil Armstrong in his twenties and thirties is surrounded by an uncredible amount of death.

Like there are friends dying all the time. Um, test pilots and accidents go wrong at NASA. And like, it's sort of striking how many young people he knew who died. Yeah. It doesn't seem good for a marriage. I mean, he finds somebody who he falls in love with Neil Armstrong does in the mid nineties and is with that person for the rest of his life.

But I think he does follow a very, I don't know, common pattern of becoming a little bit more sentimental and old day. Yeah. He's asked about his daughter and that 60 minutes interview. And, you know, there's just not a lot to say,

Amit: but you could also see him still sort of well up

Michael: some people when they're hit with a tragedy like that, they pour themselves into the, yeah.

archival: It's, it's difficult for me to, to now. Uh, I, uh, I thought the best thing for me to do in that

Michael: situation was you, uh, continue with my

archival: work, keep things as normal as, as I

Michael: could. And, uh, try as hard as I could not

archival: to not to have it affect my ability to do useful

Michael: things. I don't think that pain ever goes away.

Yeah. I don't think that pain ever goes away. So I don't know.

Amit: Is there a

Michael: lesson in the marriage? I don't know when I got married, I sat down with the, the preacher who married us and he wanted to have a drink with me and Alison beforehand. And he said, I'm glad you're getting married. It's a beautiful thing.

Let me tell you, they said something like half of marriages fail these days. The most common reasons are infidelity. Um, God, I can't remember what else, but one of them was loss of a child. I think it's very hard for, it's kind of incredible that, that they stayed together this long. I think part of it is I obviously she felt a tremendous amount of pressure.

A lot of that the NASA astronaut wives did to sort of put on a good face. Like the NASA PR you know, machinery, I think was added pressure. Um, you know, to look like all American or whatever. I, I don't know what to make of it. I don't know what to make of it. It's it's, it's bizarre to me the timing of it.

That's the thing I can't wrap my head around mysterious.

Amit: And you, you read the autobiography

Michael: and still you can, towards the end, it sounds like she's making some gestures to try. She was like, we should take a vacation. There's one moment that sticks out to me where she asked for a vacation and he can't schedule it for a year and it doesn't go very well.

I mean, there's, they try and buy a second home and there's just not much attention to it. And at some point she says I've had enough. Um, but the timing of when she decides she's had enough, I don't understand. And I try to get a little bit more information on her and the kids. I think that he is fundamentally an emotionally distant man.

I think he may have learned that that came at some cost later in life. You sort of see a little bit of evidence of that. Yeah. This is shrouded in mystery for me, what to make of the marriage and family life. I, I, it looks mostly sad to me. That's what I see for a marriage to go this long and then end, and for there to be a death of a child early on, on your anniversary.

I have to do when I close my eyes and picture that household, I picture sadness, tension, um, and emotional distance. And that's why she ultimately divorced him. Yeah.

Amit: But it seems like he found happiness in the end.

Michael: Yeah, I think so. Tell him, move on. Yep. Next category category five net worth. I'm about 8 million.

That's what I found too.

Amit: It seemed like a perfect number. I agree. It's nice. And

Michael: like, Neil, like I agree. I was totally good with it. I saw it now. I, I, I actually smiled.

Amit: Yeah. And the sources of income, we're not, I mean, I don't the actual flat salary of an astronaut, I don't think is that great? You're like a grade 14 government

Michael: employee or something.

No, the welfare later and came somewhat reluctantly from the boards.

Amit: He was on the boards of United airlines, the TAF corporation, which very interesting owned Hanna-Barbera if we go back to the controversy, um, and, uh, he did pitch ads for Christ or he was on their board as well. And then some other companies that were less brand names, but kind of more engineering focused.

Michael: Well, certainly the speaking engagements more there when. Um, but that was where he rarely took the clothes off or they took those. Oh well, but he was, he spoke, he just didn't speak. He didn't speak to journalists that much. When he spoke, he would do press conferences. He wouldn't talk to a journalist one-on-one.

That was, that was a big part of his boundary, but he, he had some media engagements. Okay. Um, but he shied away from him, but yeah, 8 million. I'm good with it. I love it. In fact, I don't even think we should talk about that much. Yeah. It's a nice fitting shirt. All right. Category six Simpson, Saturday night live or hall of fame.

This category is a measure of how famous a person is. We include both guest appearances on SNL or the Simpsons as well as impersonation. So I've got this lined up here. Saturday night live, there is a 1999, an SNL short directed by Adam McKay, where it's called Neil Armstrong V Ohio years. They get some actor I didn't even recognize.

And you basically he's like going through a mundane day. Actually the whole skid starts off with him hitting, rewind over and over of his first step in front of the TV. And then his wife's like go to the grocery store and the whole time he's like, I could go to the real grocery store. I walked on them and it's just that uncle Rico today.

So he's on Saturday night live. He never made an appearance there Samson's similar thing. He was impersonated. There's a, uh, an episode where there's some sort of like, it's a, it's called Springfield. so it's like a Springfield's Comicon. Okay. Um, and he's sitting there. Signing autographs, and nobody's going to him because they're going to other booths and he's like, I need to know he's firing his agents, uh, saying there's one small step.

This is one small step to firing your ass, which is funny. Um, but he didn't do any voice. Didn't know any voices? No buzz. Aldrin did though. I think, I think that's right. I started to look at that. I forgot to follow up on it, but I think Bose did. Do you remember

Amit: the buzz Aldrin punky Brewster road? I don't.

I remember it clearly, it was after the challenger, um, that, uh, punky sort of loses, she loses faith. Uh, cause she had like gotten very excited about space and um, uh, somehow Mr. Warren Amani gets buzz Aldrin to come up to her and her race car bed, and like cheer up and

tell

Michael: her not to lose. That's sweet.

Yeah. So yeah, the Emmy doesn't have a Hollywood walk of fame or, I mean, but he's, he's got honorary doctorates and accolades galore. It is one it's kind of

Amit: funny, right? The Hollywood walk of fame is like the hand print on the cement. Yeah. He's

Michael: got a foot on the moon. It's got a rant on this, got a footprint on the moon.

Um, so I, I, I think we can say he's famous. All right. And our last did the easily knowable categories, category seven over, under, in this category, we look at the generalized life expectancy for the year. They were born to see if they beat the house odds. And as a measure of grace. Neil Armstrong was born 1930 life expectancy for men in 1938 for American men in 1930 was 58.

Neil was 82 when he died. He'd beat it by 24 years.

Amit: Yeah. As would be expected. I mean, he was fit. He was correct.

Michael: Yeah. Although, so this is sort of interesting. There is a. There is a doctor who has claimed that space travel may have affected the heart condition that eventually killed them. There's some mystery around how exactly died.

It was, um, complications from a heart condition. So he had it. And then he was even in contact with the biographer around the days of his death. The family has been really mom on exactly what happened, but it's a heart condition of some sort. There is some science out there that suggests that as a result of going to the moon and back, he may have acquired a unique heart condition.

I would imagine just, I mean, it's not hard for me to believe that I don't understand that, you know, physiology of it all. Um, anyway, I think, you know, he looks pretty good for most of those years, I think as a measure of grace, you know, living in,

Amit: and I think he lived a gracefully. I mean, he made his own life choices, but it didn't seem like there was grace

Michael: to it.

So that's about right. Okay. Let's pause for a word from our.

Amit: Michael, I'm thinking of a book.

Michael: Is it a biography? Uh, is not, uh, something in the humor section. Now I'm going to need more information. What do you think of you? Don't read? Of course. I read, I read all the time. I've got like three books on, but at least, so you have no guesses about what you're reading?

Amit: Yeah, no, no. What I'm thinking of?

Michael: Oh,

archival: what book you're thinking

Michael: of? Great

Amit: Gatsby. This is not a bad guess, but it's not correct. You

Michael: try me. What do you mean? I gotta think of a bucking. You need to try and guess what it is. Yeah. Okay. I've got a book. Catch

Amit: her in the ride. How did you do that? Yeah, because I shop at half price books regularly.

Michael: That was

Amit: incredible. Uh, do you know what half price books is celebrating? 50 years of buying and selling books, movies, and music, half price books has a hundred and twenty-five stores and you can find out more@hpb.com.

Michael: Was that right? Correct.

archival: But it was more fun to pretend like it was

Michael: most of what we've learned thus far has been relatively easy to obtain public information. The next areas of categories is a little bit more speculative. We want to try and get inside and figure out what it would have actually have been like to have been this person. The first of the inner life categories is man in the mirror.

Did he like his reflection or not? What do you got on it?

Amit: Yes. I think he was a, it was very buttoned up. Like he looked like an astronaut, right? Just every, every image we had of like the space program of just, you know, a broad shouldered, perfectly groomed tucked in shirt tie. Handsome and presentable. That was the early Neil Armstrong.

But even like you see the photographs and the videos and the rare parents is in the later years, I think he just still carried himself. Well, he just seemed jolly. You still kind of had that same look of just, you know, sort of tucked in and proper. And this is how, uh, this is how an American service men should look.

And I think he was proud of that.

Michael: I went, no. Okay. And I went for it because I think the man is scared to look inward. He's got a big, broad smile and you're right. When you described the physique and the proto genetic qualities, you know, I agree with all of those things,

Amit: that moment in the mirror where you make eye

Michael: contact with yourself.

Yeah. I think this guy is scared of himself inside on some level. I think that that is hard to know. I'm projecting a lot here and I'm making a lot of his intense desire to remain incredibly private and to not have the world define his life and what it meant and what it's going to be. But the emotional distance thing here, I think even plays at the superficial level of what it means, like to look at your self in the mirror.

So I wouldn't know. Shall I go on to the next gallery? Yeah. All right. Next category, outgoing message. Like man, in the mirror, we want to know how they felt about the sound or their own voice. If they heard it on an answering machine, if they actually recorded their outgoing voicemail. And

Amit: this is, I want to clarify what we kind of talked about last time.

It's both sound of their own voice and we've kind of expanded it to, are they the type of person that would put their own voice out

Michael: there? That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

Amit: Um, I wouldn't know. Yeah. And my reasoning was the sound bite. Hey, it's got this sound bite. That's just what he is known for. That's been played how many tens of millions of times.

You're sick of

Michael: it. Yeah. I

Amit: just sick of it. And especially it's like kind of inaccurate too. Uh, yeah. So I'm thinking no, I'm thinking he is in the other way though. He is the type of person that would definitely say you've reached the house of Neil Armstrong on my dairy farm in Ohio. Please leave a message.

I think he is that type of guy, but the sound of his own voice part.

Michael: No, I, I wouldn't know as well. And it basically for the reasons we said before, I think I do need to back off and give not back off as necessarily, but I do think he is. A leader. I think he's something of a charismatic leader. I don't think you get to be the commander of, you know, a lunar space shuttle, or a mission to the moon without being somebody who people look up to and admire and see for their smarts and see for their diligence and their, I dunno, careful consideration of things.

So in as much as I'm describing him as emotionally unavailable, he had other incredible attributes and incredible qualities. And I think he probably the reason I bring this up here is that I think he, I say he didn't like to talk. I don't think he'd liked media engagements, but he did have a big, broad smile.

And I think he had friends. I don't think, I don't think he was antisocial. Totally. But I think that those friendships just had very strict boundaries. That's what I see. So that's outgoing message. A next category, regrets, public or private. Let's see on the public front. What, and he went to be a professor at Cincinnati.

He made a decision early on not to ask NASA for any kind of research funding. He later regretted that. He said, well, why, why shouldn't I have used my connections there to support an engineering program here? They'll you on Neil? Totally. Uh, and he regretted that. Um, he also does say in that 60 minutes interview that he regretted just how much time he spent at work at the office.

And, uh, and this comes up in the context of a lot of things.

Amit: This is in the post Apollo years and the

Michael: professor years. That's correct. This is, it's what it sounds like he's referring to, but I think it's this whole life and man, you know, that the interviewer asks him, do you have any regrets? And he's sort of just like, yeah, I, you know, I was away a lot and I, and I, he blames a kind of travel schedule, but he's pretty clear that there was some regret about an intention to the family.

W was it a difficult balance for you to maintain

archival: both sides of your. The one thing I regret was that my, my work required an enormous amount of my time and a lot of travel

Michael: and

archival: I didn't get to spend the time I would have liked with my family

Michael: as they were growing up.

Amit: It's kind of a lot less fun when they're asked the question and we know what they said.

Yeah.

Michael: I know. Well, that's public. I mean, do you have anything more on the public front?

Amit: Um, no. No, but I've got some good private

Michael: ones. Okay. I've got, well, you go ahead. I've got a couple, but let's hear yours.

Amit: Well, I think this is what we kind of hinted at earlier is, is not being a hero, not being a space cowboy for the rest of his life.

So this moment in 1969 that, uh, United the country and then United the world. Yeah. Right. And then, uh, fragmentation. Continues on and on and entrepreneur, as it's going to happen, the country becomes more polarized. The world becomes a, you know, more separated, more at odds. All this is going to happen anyway.

Right? I fully believe all this is going to happen anyway, but you being that single uniter of that 1969 moment and going on the world parade, if you stick around more, you're just a little bit more of that glue of this sort of America won the space race. You know, we, as a world made it to the moon. And I think it's important to just kind of take that message and live it out again.

I

Michael: don't know if I'm really impressed by that argument. Yeah.

Amit: And I don't know. I mean, we, we, this was, we said this at the beginning of the episode, like, you know, we, I think we want more Neil Armstrong heroes. Um, and I think he had it, like, he was such a straight laced guy. And if he was just a little bit more in the light and I don't know what that career looks like, like I'd have no idea what that public life looks like, but I think it could have been impactful and it could have, you know, maybe just been a little bit more of that national and international glue,

Michael: a little more lighthearted, even, you know, I mean, it's such an embodiment of dreams and fantasies, you know?

Um, I really agree with that. I don't know if it's an actual regret, but maybe he was frustrated with himself for not being able to do more of that. Who knows what's going on in that inner dialogue? I, you know, yeah.

Amit: Especially with the state of the space

Michael: program now. Yeah. All right. I got a couple quick on the private regrets.

He didn't get buzzed to take a picture of him. All of the photographs that exist on the barrel actually does all Aldrin are actually Neil taking pictures of buzz Aldrin, except for a reflection picture of Buzz's face mask. They weren't down there very long and they didn't think to do it. And there are stills from the video feed, but, uh, yeah, there's no like standalone pictures and they were both like, oh shit, we shouldn't have done that.

Um, cause everyone

Amit: assumes the planning of the flag is Neil Armstrong

Michael: picture. No that's yeah,

Amit: because they show it and then they play the Neil Armstrong quote as they show it so often.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. So there's that, this isn't a huge one, but so the conspiracy theories that we never landed on, the moon basically happened.

Uh, at the exact moment, the whole thing goes down in 1969. So those theories go back a long time. He was confronted by, there is one very famous conspiracy theorist who confronted several astronauts, buzz Aldrin. Are you aware of that? Of buzz Aldrin getting confronted in 2003 at some event. And he punches the guy now because the guy saying like, will you put your hand on this Bible and swear that you landed on the moon, right?

Why don't you

archival: swear on the Bible that you walked on the moon? You're the one who said you walked on the moon when you didn't calling the kettle black, if ever thought of St. I misrepresented my way from me. You're a coward and a liar.

Amit: And a,

Michael: there are some event where Neil Armstrong is speaking and this guy barges in and creates commotion security, kind of ushers and mountain security, ushers, Neil Armstrong off the stage.

And. He regretted, not standing up and saying, this guy is not just full of shit, but like, he is also trying to say that the us government took your tax dollars. And now he's, how does he put this? Uh, had I, the opportunity to run that episode over in my life, I wouldn't have allowed my company because it's that a corporate speaking event, I wouldn't have allowed my company, people to usher me out of the room.

I would have just talked to the ground and said, this person believes that the United States government has committed fraud on all of you. And simultaneously wants to exercise his right protected by the us government to state his opinions freely to you. That's what he wished he had said. That was what, you know, one of those, you know, what I should've said is that's a regret.

That's a

Amit: pretty long should have said.

Michael: Yeah, well, this is a man who wants to get his words, right. I guess. Uh, so that's what I got on there. Regrets, uh, two more categories, good dreams, bad dreams. And this category, does this person have. Uh, haunted look in the eye, something that suggests turmoil, inner demons, unresolved trauma,

Amit: and you kind of hinted at this a little bit with your man in the mirror answer, but I I'll take it first.

Um, so yeah, I said bad dreams. Yeah. So I think the, the loss of the daughter alone, um, as, as a two-year-old that just stop that's enough, uh, lots of near-death experiences. Yes. Prior to the successful, uh, Apollo 11 mission, like really, really near fatal experiences from what I read in terms of some of the test piloting, correct.

Uh, as you said around lots of deaths in the sixties. Um, and I also just think you see. That angle of space for the first time and you see these angles and there's just too much, there's

Michael: too much in the head. Yeah, that's interesting. So I was going to say, I have nothing to add until you got to that last sentence, because I do think, I mean, he describes the sea of tranquility.

That's where they landed on the moon is beautiful. I'm sure it is. And looking back at the earth, I mean, the thing is, you know, when I'm falling asleep and I have great dreams, my imagination is drifting off into beautiful places. And he's seeing beauty in a way that almost no other human has had the opportunity to do all of the trauma and pain in his life led me to go to a pretty quick bedrooms.

But now I'm actually, you're saying

Amit: his canvas is, is so

Michael: much larger than yeah. Yeah. I'm wondering now I'm second guessing myself on that. That'd be interesting. I

Amit: think, cause it could be like 75% of his dreams are taking place in this like lunar landscape for

Michael: whatever else, you know, he experienced in life when his head hits the pillow at night, he can think of the moon.

Yeah. And what it's like to be on the moon. I'm going to change my answer. I'm going to go good dreams. It's

Amit: interesting. You know what I'm reminded of? Um, we can actually make this a personal anecdote. So we went to a widespread panic concert together when we first became friends

Michael: We did

Amit: like 11

years

ago.

Michael: That was a lot of fun. That actually is like, the moment you really won me over as a friend he's into panic. Fuck. Yeah. I Had so much fun in that concert

Amit: This brown man

Michael: Yeah

Amit: But I remember, you know, they had the song and the Porch song, right. They talk about, um, you know, the whole like refrain of that song is like having a good time on the moon.

Michael: Yeah yeah

Amit: And it's just like sitting it's. The whole idea is to paint this imagery of just like sitting back and seeing just like the beautiful, the equivalent of a beautiful ocean waves, but it's the moon.

Michael: I mean, that's the thing about achieving something of tremendous exploration, like the more you see in the world

and the, and the further you go

and the more,

I don't know, environment

you're exposed to

and, and, and

territories and landscapes,

you explore,

the more you create additional accommodation space in your imagination,

your imagination can go that much further to, you know, and I, and I think that, that, that sort of relaxing and surrendering and letting go that can happen in that sort of state between, you know, consciousness and sleep, you know, can lead to really good dreams.

So, yeah, that's my good dreams argument. All right.

Amit: Are we going into psychedelic? Is this where we go into

Michael: psychedelic? It may be well, almost. This is second to last category, cocktail, coffee or cannabis. This is where we ask, which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity? Uh, it may be a question of what be a fun hang or maybe a question of how do we get more at who they are?

What do you have? So the one

Amit: that I'm actually choosing is, um, is coffee. Uh, I want to know the opinions of the universe because he's seen it. And he saw it at, at such an early time. Yeah. I just, I want to know what he, how he thinks it's gonna play out, uh, for the next several hundred years. That's kinda what I want the coffee for.

Uh, you know, there's this, what we've talked about? So much of the theme of this show is the not being a hero type of thing. Right? I don't think I need it from his

Michael: mouth. I don't. I agree. I agree.

Amit: Yeah, that's what I kind of want to get from him. And I want it straight laced. And you can, you can make an argument for cannabis for that, but that's not it's this is an Eagle scout, you know, I just don't think, I think I'm going to get the same answer just with like swirly eyes, if I, if he does it with cannabis.

Um, so that's

Michael: why I'm going with coffee. Well, I want the swirly eyes I went with cannabis. You did.

Amit: And what do you expect to, to

Michael: access? I just want to like, tell me about the man. I just want to tell me about the man. Yeah. Tell me what it looked like. I actually want the whole journey. You're gonna make

Amit: our Eagles do drugs.

You're

Michael: goddamn. Right? You just, this once, you know, and probably, you know, on a cloud, uh, cause he's passed away, but yeah, I think I'm going to push some cannabis on Neil Armstrong. Yeah. I want to get high and hear him talk about hurdling through space. Looking back and seeing the pale blue dot that is the earth.

Seeing the earth rise. That's a literal thing. The earth rise you're on the moon and the earth rises. I mean the photographs, the movies, they'll never do it. Justice, no picture ever. Does it justice to actually stand there. One of the things that the astronauts who walked on the moon describe is that because the moon is so much smaller, it curves more and you can see that on the horizon.

That's something that can never be captured and not even in a panoramic, you know, on an iPhone. Right? Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, he did just put this all together and this is, feels like a nice recap before the VanDerBeek to have both gone where nobody has gone before to have experienced the most pain that we think can be experienced in a human lifetime.

To retreat to this sort of symbol of, you know, solitude and loneliness. Like there's some real extremes around this man's life. Yeah. Which leads me to the last question. I'm it? The VanDerBeek named after James VanDerBeek, who famously said in varsity blues. I don't want your life Neil Armstrong. Do you want his life?

Who? I don't know. Yeah. I mean either, uh, will you

Amit: walk through this with me? Yeah, of course. So, yeah. The achievement being the first person, the symbolism, as you said, of what it meant to the country and to the world, that part. Yeah, no doubt. Right? It's so attractive on the personal side. Um, it's so unattractive.

So unattractive. Yeah. And the other thing that I would also say as he's, you know, he's pretty late. Yeah. As far as all of his posts, Apollo choices, you know, of what you could have been, if you know, the, the hero's journey is handed to you. Yeah. And you, you don't take it and there's nothing wrong. Like I admire his pursuit of happiness and I think that is good.

That is desirable. However, it's, I don't know. It feels like a pilfering of

Michael: opportunity. Yeah. I, I mean, I think what I hear you saying is you don't want to be judgmental about his choices, but you're a little disappointed with given the, the scale of the accomplishment and what political capital and social and emotional and cultural capital.

Yeah. And

Amit: forget, just being a Senator. I mean, you could be a storyteller of immense proportions. Um, So I don't like that. And I think you can take away every accomplishment of mine that I pad or will have in the future or that my soul can imagine. And I think I would trade it all for connection.

Michael: And

Amit: that's not how the soul of Neil Armstrong works as best.

I see it. So my VanDerBeek is, no, I don't want your wife, Neil Armstrong.

Michael: You're charting a God. I don't know that I have anything to add to that. I don't think I could top that. So we expect too much of our heroes. You know, there are people on this show who I've said yes to, and I've been surprised. And I said yes to them.

I do think, do

Amit: we expect too much? Yes. But there's a

Michael: trade-off. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and are we judging him for not being more of a hero, I guess is also on my mind, like I think we're

Amit: not carrying the heroes message. Yeah. We are judging him. I mean, that was, that was, that was portion of my,

Michael: no, which I think he was private and reckless before he stepped foot on the moon.

So I think that this was a trait of his, that that may have been immutable in which case there's an argument to be made that I'm not sure we sent the right guy. You know, Bose was that close buzz is a fascinating character in a lot of ways. What

Amit: had made debate any difference of buzz was the first guy.

It's just, no one would have ever known who Neil was.

Michael: You put it that way. And it's incredible. The amount of importance we place on the first of anything, because those two men landed on the moon together. And if part of your very persuasive argument for saying no to the VanDerBeek is about connection weighed against, you know, extraordinary, uh, experiences, uh, unimaginable experiences and not being willing to trade it.

I'm with you. And I do see a deficit and Neil Armstrong's life and what I've seen a buzz Aldrin thus far. And I don't, so maybe we're not asking too much of our heroes. Maybe I don't need to think about it anymore. I think I'm on board with everything you said. I think I don't want your life. Neil Armstrong.

Oh, I say that, and it's sorta hard to give a

Amit: kind of hurts in the gut, but it also, it's just weird how you can be unquestionably

Michael: a great man. Brilliant. Virtuous admired, modest, you know,

Amit: uh, yeah. A model, a model global citizen. Yes.

Michael: Neither of us want that. Yeah, it hurts to say no, but I think I'm gonna, yeah.

Wow. All right. Uh, we've arrived. We're at the part of the gates. Your soul has ascended to heaven, but that didn't even feel far enough. Uh,

Amit: I just had a puffer below.

Michael: I was going to say Neptune, Pluto. I don't know. You can't say Pluto anymore.

Amit: Michael, you are Neil Armstrong. You are standing before the Unitarian St.

Peter

Michael: make your case.

I am forever going to be remembered for one step. That was the first step that humankind top on the moon, this body that has been orbiting planet earth since time and Memorial. And when I said giant leap forward for humankind, and that moment, I felt like I was representing our entire species. And that's what I've tried to do as a man.

And as a human, even though I knew how extraordinary this moment was, I don't think I, I recognize the accomplishment at the time or in the year since, and I'm not sure I can help the rest of humanity, understand its significance. I did my best to remove my ego to be as selfless as I could, even if people didn't always understand that it was never about.

Every choice I made, I tried to not make it about. If you think that I succeeded in that mission, then I hope you'll let me in

archival: thanks so much for listening to this episode

Michael: of famous.

archival: If you're enjoying our show, please go to apple podcasts to rate and review us. It really does help new listeners to find the show. We would love to see you on Twitter.

Michael: Our Twitter handle is at famous and gravy. We've got lots of fun stuff there on our

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Also, please sign up for our newsletter on our website, famous and

Michael: gravy.com. Famous and gravy was created by and me Michael Osborne. This episode was produced by Jacob Weiss, original theme music by Kevin Strang. And thanks also to our sponsor half price books. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next time.