James Dean and the Dead Men on the Moon

Today is the 54th anniversary of the day James Dean was killed in a car crash on a highway in the California desert.

I love Dean's movies, I've read quite a bit about him. I admire the way an Indiana farm boy was able to be so cool, dreamy, wild, rebellious.... and gay.

I sometimes wonder what he would have become if that other driver had seen him coming in his low slung silver Porsche Spyder...the one he called Little Bastard.

And not made that left turn.

And the two cars hadn't collided almost head-on.

And Jimmy Dean had survived...



Pretty neat ad eh?

And not too far off. I read that Dean had decided he didn't want to be an actor anymore. He felt he was being treated "like a puppet." He wanted to direct movies instead.

I wonder what movies he might have made. I bet they would have been interesting. But of course we'll never know.

Just like we'll never know what it would have been like to listen to the speech the late William Safire wrote for President Richard Nixon.

To be delivered if the first men on the moon had been stranded there..











Pretty chilling isn't it? Would they really have cut off communication with the astronauts and allowed them to die without even the comforting sound of another human voice?

Would we ever have been able to look at the moon in the same way?

The what ifs of life.Thank goodness the astronauts survived. Too bad James Dean didn't.

One of his favourite lines was from The Little Prince "What is essential is invisible to the eye." And it's engraved on a monument near where he died.

But when you think about it eh? Given more time... imagine the possibilities.

Isn't a bad epitaph either...