Magnificent Desolation_ The Long Journey Home From the Moon - Buzz Aldrin [128]
“No, Homer,” I cried. “They’re ruffled!”
I had a ball doing the show, and to this day, it is one of the most popular episodes of The Simpsons ever aired.
Of course, with all this publicity and commercial effort, I opened myself to a great deal of criticism by my detractors, including a number of my fellow astronauts. Their big gripe was that I was drawing too much attention to myself. Their criticism hurt, but I took it in stride. The truth was, no other astronaut, active or inactive, was out in public trying to raise awareness about America’s dying space program. None of them. They were all content to sit back on their laurels, while the Russians, Chinese, and just about anyone else surged ahead of us in space. All the while, we had the technology and the wherewithal to keep space exploration alive; the question was whether we had the will.
Beyond that, what my critics never acknowledged was that what I was selling was not myself. I was selling the future of spaceflight— hoping to pave the way for ordinary citizens to explore space, for financiers to see the viability and the profitability of permanently orbiting space hotels and “sightseeing” trips to the moon and other destinations in space. NASA was not paying me to promote the space program, nor was anyone else. Fortunately, my commercial ventures made it possible for me to work on space promotions free of charge.
One of the more interesting and enjoyable of those commercial ventures came to me as a surprise.
18
POP GOES
SPACE CULTURE
FOR SEVERAL YEARS, LOIS AND I HAD BEEN SPENDING A LOT of time driving up to L.A. on business and to attend a variety of Hollywood events in the evenings. To avoid having to drive back the sixty miles to Laguna at night, we sold my old home at Table Rock and used the money to buy a small apartment in Beverly Hills that we could use as a pied-à-terre. Eventually we sold that apartment, as well as our home in Emerald Bay, and bought a luxury high-rise condo along the Wilshire Corridor of Los Angeles, just west of Beverly Hills, because so much of our business was now connected to the entertainment industry. It was a good move for us, making it much easier to meet with agents and publicists, and to participate more readily in Hollywood’s celebrity events. From my perspective, I liked the high security, and there was no yard work; also, we have a beautiful panoramic view stretching from downtown Los Angeles to the Palos Verdes Peninsula and the Pacific Ocean.
A little-known Hollywood fact is that my name had already been firmly ensconced in Hollywood lore long before Lois and I moved there. On the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame, at the corners of Hollywood and Vine, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and I have not one star but four, one on each corner of the intersection. Actually, our “stars” are in the shape of moons. Other celebrity stars lining the popular stretch of sidewalk include the very first person awarded a star on the street, Joanne Woodward, wife of the late Paul Newman. Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Gene Autry, Clark Gable, and even Rin Tin Tin and Lassie have stars embedded in the sidewalk on this famous street. But Neil, Mike, and I are the only ones with four “stars,” Hollywood’s tribute to the first lunar landing.
Lois and I loved being in Los Angeles, if for no other reason than that we could better keep up with all the entertainment news. When the animated Disney movie Toy Story was released featuring a character named Buzz Lightyear, I naturally noticed the play on my name. I called Howard Green, a vice president at Disney, and Howard invited me to come up to Burbank and meet Tim Allen, who had done the voice for Buzz Lightyear.
We took some pictures with Tim, as well as with Tom Hanks, who provided the voice for Woody, the “star” of the