The moon is full and round over Venice. The little stone bridges stretch out over calm water like glass reflecting candle light from a café. Beautiful. The lunar accoutrement a broach on the cloak of the night sky, the germ freak Italian catalogue people wander in their immaculate outfits and preposterous hand gestures. It’s embarrassing. I didn’t really understand what Euro-trash meant before. I totally get it now. I-zod shirts with the collar up. Everybody smokes. I look at this moon, and I feel the summer night on my face. This is the moon we closed the Odeon under 48 months ago. Wow. So much has happened. The world has changed. I’ve changed. So have you.

But the alter of the lupine lords changes not, however, is ever changing. I always do things under full moons. I organize events around them, trips and stuff. Significant things. The Winkers first night was a full moon. Twice I have successfully sat an audience down for dinner and introduced a special guest as the moon rose, obsured from their view. And once I served mussels in the Amargosa valley to a stunned and surprised bus group watched in awe a gorgeous sunset and moon rise contemporaneously. As far as showmanship, you can’t beat the moon. And it’s been like that for eons.

But did we really go to the moon? Who cares? Well. I do. I have a statement to make about it that will change the way you think of the proposed lunar hoax. If the lunar landing was, indeed, a hoax… it was a greater feat of engineering and brilliance by a factor of 100 then just sending a few guy to our own moon. Weird, isn’t it? That every other moon gets a name? Anyhow, I see the lunar hoax not as a device for the paranoid conspiracy theorists to get all excited about… bur indeed as great, great showmanship. I mean, that’s the world you wanna live in, no? A world where a guy can get away with faking going to the moon, right? That’s be amazing! Go figger? Gimme a minute… here I go: The scenario unfolds, as I imagine, as follows The Cold War. The Cuban Missle Crisis behind us, we announce that we are going to send a group of Astronauts to the moon. The rocket is built. The spacesuits are designed and made. The calculations are engineered. Everything is going well. But there is a “possibility” of error. The computing power of my friggin’ phone today is more than all computing power on Earth at that time. COMBINED. So they proceed as planned, but there is a contingency plan. The way I see it, there were 2 scenarios. Here is scenario 1. Scenario 1 They realize a few weeks out it wasn’t gonna work. For whatever reason. But they couldn’t lose face and cancel. They had to do something. So they staged it. They shot it in Hollywood. The rocket took off, but it was un-manned. Went up. Went behind the moon and hid. Then, came out and burned up in orbit. They did a swich-a-roo on the capsule that had the little parachute… dropped it out of an airplane or something. Plopped it down in the Pacific. Armstrong and company get out, smile for the cameras: Ta-da! Great reveal. Curtain. Scenario 2 There were 2 Astronaut teams. John Glenn, Armstong and whoever else were the ones that you thought were in the capsule. But it was a swap-a-roni. A few other Astronauts were on board instead. The known Astronauts go hang out on a boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for the duration of the mission and drink Mai Tai’s. A few other guys go up. Land on the moon. Play golf. Small step for mankind and all that. You can’t tell either way, for the helmets. They think they’re coming back. Maybe they do. Maybe they don’t. Maybe the thing wouldn’t start. And it’s still there. And someone is gonna find it someday. Who knows. But in either scenario, it’s the classic razz-a-matazz made famous by Otto Von Danger: it’s not really them in there. I mean, really. How could you risk it? Why would you? There is far too much to lose. We needed American heroes, to encourage kids to go die in Vietnam and all that crap.

There is something wonderfully fishy going on in there. I can smell it. Lets take it step by step, shall we? Wonderful. Here we go… 1. A rocket takes off from Cape Canaveral Florida. Can you believe that? I can. Sure. Without a doubt. The rocket was real. 2. The rocket, with space travelers, leaves Earths’ orbit and goes into outer space. You buyin’ that? I am. That sounds easy. Doable. A walk in the park. 3. They dis-engage fuel tanks, and land a ship on the moon. OK. So maybe that happened. That would be hard. But lets give it to ‘em. They landed on the moon. Opened the door. Got out. Drove a car around. Sounds a little far fetched. But we’ll give it to ‘em. 4. They take off from the moon, break the moons gravity and go back to outer-space. Sure they did. Nothing went wrong. They had plenty of air and water and they collected samples and they were jet-setting around the galaxy again. Sure they did. Why not? 5. They break into Earth’s atmosphere, survived the 6,000 degree heat, and land the capsule with a parachute within 10 miles of their projected landing spot. Shut up. That didn’t happen. One thing at a time it’s plausible until the last one, but that there was not one glitch or whatever is terribly suspect. But lets stretch the possible over a few miles of impossible and give it to them. Mission accomplished. Right? Wrong. Why the secrecy? Why is there zero information available? It went too smooth. Which makes me think it was pre-recorded. I can see it. I can see bad acting. I’m a Carney. I can smell a show. Someone thought of this. This is a careful engineering.

And it’s brilliant. If it is indeed true that either man did not walk on the moon in 1968 or that it was men but not the men we think it was this is a work of performance genius. Like 9/11. It’s just too perfect. Beginning, middle, end. Reveal, conclusion, understanding. The devices trigger perfectly. It’s uncanny. Things just don’t ever actually work like that. I move through my day watching the show, with a critics’ eye. And I’m telling you I have trained myself to see things that you don’t see. You can shake my hand and I’ll tell you if you are an only child. It’s a carney thing. It’s hard to describe. But unlike a conspiracy nut, my intention isn’t to be paranoid. Nay. I could care less if the government is evil or whatever. I’m pointing out comedy here. Not tragedy. This is amazing. The possibility that is being spouted here is nothing short of mind-blowing. If the lunar landing is a hoax, what else total bullshit? That no one could ever use the phrase “… we can put a man on the moon, but…” can we? Can we really put a man on the moon? What else didn’t really happen? The civil war? The 50’s? What if the 50’s didn’t ever happen? And anyone over 60 was in on it?

OK. That’s absurd. But how many people would have to have been “in on it” to make the lunar landing a hoax? A thousand? A few hundred? What if it was 1 guy? What if there was a simulator for the Astronauts? What if the people at Mission Control were given false reading on rigged machines? Can you imagine how smug that one guy could get to be? And if the astronauts ‘thought’ they went to the moon?! That would be awesome. With all the different departments at NASA, he could totally engineer top secret this and top secret that and be the only one with ALL the pass codes and all the information. That puppet master! He’s a genius!!! If the lunar landing was a hoax, it could be the greatest prank ever to be pulled off in the history of mankind. I’m a fan. Do I think we actually landed on the moon? I don’t know. It’s too much fun to think of how we didn’t land on the moon. “Open the gates! But sir, the Turks are at the gates!!! Open the gates!!!!” Open the gates indeed.