October 2003

--e*I*10-- (Vol. 2 No. 5) October 2003, is published and © 2003 by Earl Kemp. All rights reserved.
It is produced and distributed at least quarterly through http://efanzines.com by Bill Burns in an e-edition only.

By Ian Williams

Ian Williams

People can be too defensive about their cultural taste, assuming the defensive position, "If I like it, then it must be good, so don't piss me off." Well, sorry, but just because you like something doesn't make it good. Just because I like something doesn't make it good either, as I shall shortly illustrate.

There is good art and there is bad art and there is a lot of art in between. There are also criteria by which any piece of art can be judged. What cannot be judged is the effect of a piece of art on an individual. A piece of art can be objectively bad but still engender a positive response in the individual exposed to it.

In other words: it's okay to like crap.

My favourite blues artist - and by favourite I mean his would be the last blues CDs I'd get rid of - my favourite blues artist is one of the worst ever recorded. He wrote his own songs, he played lead guitar on his records, his sang. His songs were mainly thinly veiled copies of those written by other people, his guitar playing was rudimentary. His vocal range was limited. The production on his records was also similarly limited. On his early recordings it would be mostly guitar, harmonica, and someone bashing out percussion. His harpists were generally the most skilled musicians - respectively, over the years, Schoolboy Cleve, the legendary Slim Harpo, and the great multi-instrumentalist Lazy Lester.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you, the one and only and extremely talent-restricted, Lightnin' Slim, early star of Louisiana's swamp blues Excello Records.

There's a tendency in the Blues world to refuse to admit that any Blues artist - unless they're white - can be total shite. But that sad truth is that many were and are. Not everyone can be a Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf, an Albert or BB King. Blues recordings are littered with mediocre artists whom blue enthusiasts nevertheless deify. If Muddy Waters is a chandelier casting a glorious light over the whole room, then Lightnin' Slim is a candle in a darkened nook.

And yet, and yet, I just love his records. I love his grainy world-weary drawl of a voice, his crude guitar playing, the elementary percussion and the empathetic harp. I have no intention of attempting to justify my liking for Lightnin', he just strikes a chord in me whereas someone, say Lightning Hopkins, just leaves me cold. Technically mediocre on every level, nevertheless the recordings of Lightnin' Slim cause a positive response in me.

At least Slim has an identifiable "voice" and character, which is a damned sight more than can be said of many, and a substantial proportion of his numbers are memorable, funky, and sometimes genuinely funny. His take on "Boogie Children" titled "Just Made 21" is possibly my favorite - beating out JLH by a smile.

Fortunately I can no longer remember the names of the dozens of genuinely dull blues artists I have heard, but I can assure you that Slim towers head and shoulders over them all, so stop worrying about what the "authorities" say and just dance dance dance.
                --Greg Pickersgill, Wegenheim, September 2003

No one ever deliberately creates bad art.

Like all generalisations, there are exceptions. Lloyd Kaufman of Troma films intentionally set out to create bad movies, though lacking the funds, or being too mean, to employ anyone (acting, photography, makeup, etc.) with any discernible talent he didn't really have much choice. But he did set out to create entertaining bad movies. Having sat through ten plus over the last two weeks, I'm reluctant to say that he succeeded but right now - with the exception of Tromeo & Juliet which has a certain je ne sais quoi - I'd be quiet happy never to see another Troma product as long as I lived. I enjoy schlock tongue in cheek horror - the horror in Evil Dead 2 is gruesome as all hell but it is played as comedy and put together by talented moviemakers. Troma plays it for stupid inept badly timed comedy, which completely undercuts the impact. Eventually I started falling asleep.

Essentially, maybe the only way you can differentiate between trash art - and Lightnin' Slim and Troma movies are both forms of trash art in that, by objective criteria, they are mediocre
- is in the aesthetic response they engender in the individual. Which is just about where I came in. Love your trash by all means - love the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" and the Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird" - they may even be iconic, but it still doesn't mean they are any good. Enjoy your bad taste - I do, greatly - just please don't pretend it's anything else and don't be defensive about it because you have nothing to defend.

- - -
*Revised from a Wegenheim posting dated September 2003.

I had to add, though, that I knew a single word that proved our democratic government was capable of committing obscene, gleefully rabid and racist, yahooistic murders of unarmed men, women, and children, murders wholly devoid of military common sense. I said the word. It was a foreign word. That word was Nagasaki.
                --Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake, 1997

EDITORIAL:
One World

By Earl Kemp

I had intended to write an editorial for this issue of eI on the subject of "One World." The context of which would be to champion the fact that humanity is one family living in one small global village.

I couldn't do it justice. My thoughts were so preoccupied with the atrocities being perpetuated by Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, et. al. for the benefit of Halliburton and their other owners at the expense of us…the weak, misled, lied-to, and grossly misinformed.

My thoughts were so preoccupied with all the senseless murdering of all those completely innocent men, women, children, geriatrics, and infants in Afghanistan…in Iraq…in…? that I couldn't concentrate on what I really wanted to say.

My thoughts were covered with many generations yet to be born who will be crippled, maimed, and otherwise destroyed by the pollution BushCo is placing into the very soil of those illegally invaded and occupied nations from their weapons of mass destruction.

My thoughts were overwhelmed with their attempts to eliminate personal freedoms and legal recourse for us the shit-upon citizenry as a pretense of giving us Homeland Security.

Only I didn't want to go that way. I didn't want to think those thoughts, remember those truths, and speak against them again. I'm too old, too tired, and too ineffectual these days; the fun is all gone out of the struggle. Here, all I wanted to do was talk good things about good people doing good things….

And I can't do that when I'm even thinking about our administration because it is such a stranger to goodness as a concept.

One snip tells it all:

Of course, BushCo is hoping we're idiots, and to help keep our minds from wandering to what's going on with democracy here in The Homeland, they have us riveted on color-coded threats from afar, warning sternly that millions of the world's people hate us - indeed, as George so eloquently put it, "They hate our freedoms."

What they hate is that our government, corporations, and military storm around the world in betrayal of every democratic value that the American people hold dear. Bush poses grandly as the noble spearcarrier for democracy, yet he is (like his predecessors) a willing accomplice of brutal dictators and global corporate powers that oppress the world's people, impoverish them, and plunder their resources. Through his perpetual war agenda, his oil buddies, the World Bank, the arms dealers, his defiance of environmental and human rights treaties, and dozens of other actions, George W. (and our Congress) is an enthusiastic supporter of global-scale theft and thuggery.
                --Jim Hightower, Thieves in High Places

Those words need to be repeated often in hopes that they can be heard where they are most needed…wherever there are patriots in need of traitors.

#

Once again…breathe deep…forget all that propaganda crap coming out of DC…remember the goodness of One World and one peoples.

The real meaning I was striving to convey in this editorial in the first place was to focus on the intense amount of cooperation going on among and between the active members of numerous science fiction Internet discussion groups. The specific case in point that I would have been leading up to would have been this issue of eI because, for now at least, this issue represents the very best of that one family living in that One World.

To my knowledge, never before in science fiction fandom have so many people from so many remote locations around the globe gotten together to work on one single project…this issue of eI.

There is no way I can possibly thank those people for all the energy, effort, and excitement they placed into the work they did to make this issue as special as it is. And I would be negligent in my duties if I didn't make a point of mentioning some of them:

There is a whole gaggle of old friends who share their memories of Sidney Coleman in "Other Voices."

There are two truly significant works of literary appreciation, and both of them are about Kurt Vonnegut; one written by John-Henri Holmberg and one by M Andre Z Eckenrode, that grace this issue. They are staggering pieces of research and appreciation and I am extremely proud to present both of them to the world.

There is a modicum of help from a bunch of Brits who really need to get out more often: people like Harry Bell, Gregory Pickersgill, Ian Williams, Etc.

All that and Howard DeVore….

#

THIS ISSUE OF eI is dedicated to Sidney Coleman and Kurt Vonnegut. At a quick glance, I was surprised at the combination, and that I had elected them in consort. Then, the more I thought about them, borrowing "Seven Degrees From Kevin Bacon," I could easily see there was no way to handle them than as a dynamic duo.

Let us consider the degrees of separation:

1. Sidney Coleman, Kurt Vonnegut, and I, in 1960, participated in Who Killed Science Fiction? along with many others.

2. The three of us were published together in that Hugo Award winning first SaFari Annual.

3. The three of us were published together in a follow-up issue of SaFari discussing WKSF?

4. At the same time, the three of us were friends of Ted Cogswell.

5. At the same time, the three of us (along with many others) were contributing members to the Institute for Twenty-First Century Studies.

6. We appeared together in The Proceedings of the Institute for Twenty-First Century Studies [PITFCS], universally known as "Pitfucks."

7. The three of us appeared together, in 1992, in the Advent [of which Sidney and I are founding partners] omnibus volume of PITFCS.

And, just for nothing:

8. The three of us are exceptionally fond of the writings of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

9. All along I had hopes that Sidney Coleman and Kurt Vonnegut would join me in this venture so, after 40 years, the three of us would appear together again. Toward that end, I invited both of them to participate in celebrating themselves in this issue of eI.

That's why this issue of eI is dedicated to the two of them jointly.

#

And it is in memory of Louis Russell Chauvenet, Mike Hinge, Pamela Lynn "P.L." Carruthers-Montgomery, and Martin Smith.

#

As always, everything in this issue of eI beneath my byline is part of my in-progress rough-draft memoirs. As such, I would appreciate any corrections, revisions, extensions, anecdotes, photographs, jpegs, or what have you sent to me at earlkemp@citlink.net and thank you in advance for all your help.

Bill Burns continues to be The Man around here. If it wasn't for him, nothing would get done. He inspires activity. He deserves some really great rewards. It is a privilege and a pleasure to have him working with me to make eI whatever it is. And also, Dave Locke continues as eI Grand Quote Master. You will find his assembled words of wisdom separating the articles throughout this issue of eI and you will also find his "Words of Wonderment" quotations from Kurt Vonnegut

Other than Bill Burns and Dave Locke, these are the people who made this issue of eI possible: Robert Bonfils, Bruce Brenner, Marty Cantor, Jim Caughran, Sidney Coleman, Andrew Darlington, Howard DeVore, M Andre Z Eckenrode, Richard E. Geis, Howard Georgi, Julian Headlong, John-Henri Holmberg, Robert Lichtman, Alexei Panshin, Gregory Pickersgill, George Price, Robert Silverberg, Robert Speray, Steve Stiles, Jon Stopa, Kurt Vonnegut, Peter Weston, Ian Williams, Dave Wood, and Len Zettel.

PLUS for this issue we had some very special help from the Harvard University Physics Department, from Dayle _____, Rob Meyer, and especially Howard Georgi.

ARTWORK: I should point out that there are two exceptional pieces of original art done for this issue of eI by Alan White. They are the cover pages for both the Sidney Coleman and Kurt Vonnegut sections elsewhere in this issue of eI.

And, in addition to Alan White's two covers, this issue of eI features artwork by Harry Bell, Dave Hicks, Eddie Jones, Ray Nelson, William Rotsler, and Steve Stiles.

I try to keep deep love out of my stories because, once that particular subject comes up, it is almost impossible to talk about anything else. Readers don't want to hear about anything else. They go gaga about love. If a lover in a story wins his true love, that's the end of the tale, even if World War III is about to begin, and the sky is black with flying saucers.
                --Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday

…Return to sender, address unknown…. 2
The Official eI Letters to the Editor Column
Artwork recycled William Rotsler

By Earl Kemp

We get letters. Some parts of some of them are printable. Your letter of comment is most wanted via email to earlkemp@citlink.net or by snail mail to P.O. Box 6642, Kingman, AZ 86402-6642 and thank you.

Just to prove it, this is the official Letter Column of eI, and following are a few quotes from a few of those letters concerning the last issue of eI. All this in an effort to get you to write letters of comment to eI so you can look for them when they appear here.

Friday August 1, 2003

Excellent ish. I'm proud to be in it. It might improve lettercol response to have your e-address in the lettercol.

When years went by between Ralph Ginzburg's porn conviction (which helped make Arlen Spector a star) and sentencing, Paul Krassner called it a "travesty of injustice."

I notice you mention William Rehnquist. As well as being in the Nixon Gang, he spent some time on the bench so stoned from a prescription drug that he wasn't making any sense. When he came back from rehab, one of his first cases was upholding a 30-year sentence for selling weed. I did not make this up. Anyway, both Gore Vidal and Robert Anton Wilson wrote novels in which they substituted smut-stompers' names for the words you can't say on TV. The only name that meant the same in both lists was "rehnquist," for the male organ, which may tell you something. When he participated in the impeachment with those appropriately silly stripes on his sleeve, I thought, "The new, improved Rehnquist, now with golden ribs for your added pleasure."
                --Arthur D. Hlavaty

Just wanted to chime in that I really enjoyed eI. For instance, old-fashioned paperback cover art, also the lurid sort, has been one of my small hobbies. I'm generally also interested in history, and found the accounts of the porn publishing industry fascinating.

Spent part of the afternoon reading eI at efanzines.com, rather than the con flier I was supposed to make...
                --Per Chr. Jorgensen

Just immersed myself in el9. Thanks for your effort in putting it out there. It gives me some kind of hope when I read what you have to say. And it takes me for fabulous trips down memory lane, remembering who I was on the far, far peripheral of Kemp World.
                --Jan Hastings

My comments from the last time apply here as well.

My life, by comparison with yours, has been a sea of tranquility, for which I am very grateful. You obviously have enjoyed yours and still are, via recollection, the exhilaration of composition, and the accolades of like-minded people.
                --Rob Roy McGregor

You can learn much, much more about Earl by checking into his website. Also today came the ninth chapter in his autobiography, to be found at eFanzines.com/ED/el9/index.htm. It's long, as all of his chapters are, and by scrolling down to a piece by him titled, "Leer of the Sensualist," you can look in on your old employer at the acme of Greenleaf's years. Earl, it was great seeing Bea's picture, also others I'd forgotten about, like Mike Tomasulo. Look further, and you'll learn about Earl's crime and punishment, very important events in the rise and fall of the porn era, but too depressing to dwell on for long…it's about all the fun it was.
                --Jerry Murray

Saturday August 2, 2003

Thank you for this, Earl. I now understand why the Internet was invented, so you could disseminate your story out into the world. This is award-winning stuff, my friend, and bless you for it.
                --Lynn Munroe

Sunday August 3, 2003

Finally found some time to print out about 30 pps. No time to do more than skim a few pps. so far. Fascinating stuff! I had no idea of the magnitude of your longtime involvement.

I will try to find time to read whole thing soon, and perhaps get back with my take on pertinent reflections.

Yeah, like you need MY impressions.

Anyway, wonderful insights about the period, AND about Earl Kemp.

Thanks for alerting me to this.
                --Thomas P. Ramirez ("Tony Calvano")

I've been enjoying the journey through your ezine and the memoirs contained therein. I knew only the barest outline of the history of Hamling's career and empire and have found what I've read fascinating. Keep up the good work. What you are producing strikes me as being the best kind of personalzine: informative, opinionated, educational, and amusing.

Which leads me to your next question concerning Rogue. This subject especially fascinates me because I have a small collection of the magazine and have been very curious about the backstory of it all. I mean, a monthly men's magazine with Lenny Bruce, Bob Bloch, Alfie Bester, Frank Robinson, Mac Reynolds, and good ol' Harlan all appearing regularly AND it
has nothing to do with science fiction. Bunny Yeager, Nat Hentoff, Trina, and my ol' buddy Ted White.... To me this is a fascinating story and I want to know more about it.
                --Dan Steffan

Monday August 4, 2003

Enjoyed (am enjoying) the latest zine

It does occur to me in looking back over what both of us have written that we both somewhat missed the one truly fundamental point to it all. It doesn't really matter how underhanded and dishonest the opposition was - if they had done everything right, they still would have been wrong. I think that's the real point, Earl - we were right all along, and they were wrong.
That makes me feel better.
                --Victor Banis

Tuesday August 5, 2003

Really glad you're still out there giving them, hell. Too bad you're not in California any more. You might run for Governor.
                --Larry Townsend

Monday August 11, 2003

I have to confess that it is I that is checking in to your e-zine. I find all of your postings illuminating to say the least.

Of course, my main interest is in the historical and bibliographic aspects of Greenleaf's publications of which there is a plethora of information contained in yours and your collaborators essays.

Keep up the good work.
                --Victor Berch

Sunday August 17, 2003

Earl, your message arrived as I was doing penance re-reading e*I from the beginning (I thought I left Catholicism behind decades ago). Actually, I'm past re-reading and onto eI8 and then to 9. The fact that Hamling's name is mentioned a good 500 times only confirms the feeling that all my e-mail should be quarantined for a 24-hour moron detection period. Its one thing to frequently lapse into brain freeze, it's another to insist on sharing that state of affairs with the world. But yeah, Earl... I'll keep hanging around especially because I gotta read something a bit more uplifting than the Knoles piece before I sign off. What a downer...
                --Ryan Richardson

Tuesday September 9, 2003

Arthur Hlavaty's article on Liberia begs some questions…how many Vietnams does America want? How many does it need? Why does it need them? Why does it feel obligated to flex some military muscle from time to time, especially in some place where it's not wanted?

Victor Banis' article about changing morals is especially modern given recent news that Penthouse Magazine is on the edge of bankruptcy. The August issue hasn't been seen yet, and court proceedings for Chapter 11 protection may show up soon. Have, you heard anything more about this, Earl, or is this old news by now?

The quotation from Thomas Jefferson on pg. 36…not only does the American people fear its own government, but the rest of the world fears it. I don't think the Democrats realize they could deliver the whole world from the Republican tyranny.

In many countries, pornography is just another commodity. Puritan America says you can't have alcohol, drugs, sex, pornography and more, and the more you can't have them, the more you want them, crave them. In other societies, when these items aren't denied, they become a regular part of life, and not the forbidden fruit America makes them.

Every issue of eI is a strenuous read, and that's very much a good thing. Thanks again, looking forward to eI10.
                --Lloyd Penney.

"It's hard work," he said. "It's not pleasant--just in solitude, writing. You can't have anybody around. It's a very lonesome business, and we're social animals."
                --Phone interview with Kurt Vonnegut, Knoxville News-Sentinel, 4/01

Collibosher*

By Gregory Pickersgill

Original artwork by Eddie Jones for TED circa 1962, with addition of Gregory Pickersgill's head by Dave Hicks, in about February 2002. Courtesy Peter Weston collection.

Long ago and far away I used to be a fanzine reviewer. It seems incredible now, but it's what I used to be famous for in fandom. Now of course I am famous for having once been famous in fandom-strange world isn't it? Anyway, this was all back in the 1970s, when things were different, and fanzines had funny names like Fouler, Ritblat, and Stop Breaking Down.

Of course I didn't invent fanzine reviewing wholesale; people had been at it for decades, although I didn't encounter most of the best - almost universally US fans - until well after I'd actually stopped writing reviews myself! My personal model was Jim Linwood, who was perhaps the most truly serious - as in considered, critical, and witty - fanzine reviewer in British fanzines during the 1960s.

Having grown up fannishly on happily acquired back issues of Hyphen, I knew for a fact that fanwriting and fanzines could be a great deal more that hastily knocked-out rubbish, so I felt that it was my duty - hah!--to add my voice to Jim's in the pursuit of a rather higher standard of fanac. (Years later this resulted in the hideous manifestations of Alan Dorey, Joseph Nicholas, Don West, KTF reviewing, and the Standards War, but by that time, it seems in retrospect, we'd lost the plot more than somewhat.)

Stop Breaking Down, August 1981; cover by Harry Bell

So anyway, there I was unwittingly following on in a great tradition, one that is in fact very important to the health of fanzine fandom; it virtually embodies the concept of fanzines "talking to/about each other," which creates the sense of interlocked community which engenders the most pleasure and benefit from fandom, and which is, in so many ways, sadly lacking from the fanzines of the 21st century. Fanzines today seem to be viewed as discrete entities, produced almost as if in isolation from any others, and there seems to be a depressing dearth of the cross-talk that supplied that sense of community that was so strongly felt by me as a baby fan way back in 1967. I'm almost tempted to go further and say that today many fanzines are produced by people with no interest in fanzines, only in their own self-published product.

Over the years people have occasionally asked whether I'd be interested in reviewing again. Well, in essence I am, and as I said above, I think fanzine reviewing is important for the health of fandom, and some good, regular, seriously intended reviews might do us all the world of good.

(l to r) Tony Berry, Glen Warminger, and Gregory Pickersgill pictured at British Eastercon at the Adelphi Liverpool 1988. It was the year Greg was FGOH and was taken on the last day, and to quote Greg: " I was feeling really depressed because it had all been so awful." Photo by and courtesy of Dave Wood.

And how I wish I could write them myself! Unfortunately I can't - well, probably not anyway. It's a few years now since I last tried, and that was for British newszine Critical Wave towards the end of its career, and although I produced a couple of thousand words it just didn't seem good enough so it was dumped. As I recall the main thrust of it was trying to demonstrate that Attitude wasn't a fanzine - completely pointless as secretly the whole point of Attitude was that it WASN'T a fanzine, it was a well-meaning but futile attempt to engage the interest of people who really had no interest in fanwriting. Or fandom as we know it, come to that.

And of course my own attitude towards fanzines is different now. Back then it was easier, there were fewer fanzines for a start. I also had narrower horizons, and thus greater opportunity to be certain. Back then I was getting about four or five fanzines a month - I'd read them time after time and become very likely more familiar with the contents than the individual who'd done all the stenciling. I KNEW - believed I knew anyway - exactly what people were trying to do, and could gauge how well they were doing it.

Hyphen, October 1958; cover by Atom.

Badinage, March 1968; cover by Tony Walsh.

Maya 1970; cover by Jim Marshall.

We also need to take into account the size of the pond I lived in - and I mean both the smallness of British fandom in those days and the extent of ocean that separated us from US fandom, which I was later to discover had been operating at a very high level for many years, and justifiably looked askance at such cutting edge British efforts as Badinage. Okay, we - I -had the shining lighthouse beacon of '-' [Hyphen] as an example of what could be done, and excellently, but that was somehow safely in the past. There was a sort of race-memory of some Golden Age that might be revived, but we most certainly weren't there yet and it was simpler to judge our efforts against each other rather than against an apparently unattainable ideal.

Photo taken at Paragon, 2001 Eastercon at Hinckley Hanover International Hotel in the bookroom by Paul Oldroyd (onetime Chair of the 1987 Worldcon, Conspiracy '87, now head of programming for Interaction the 2005 Worldcon where Gregory is a GOH). Courtesy Julian Headlong collection.

In those days too the fanzines I saw were very much all of a piece; with the exception of Speculation they were all actually achievable, possible to emulate, and thus easy to see the flaws in. (You must remember here that for a variety of reasons we in the UK were seeing very few of the remarkably good US fanzines of that or any slightly earlier era.) As an aside, fanzines then seemed much more varied in terms of contents - many of today's fanzines with their neat little lifestyle essays by all the usual suspects sometimes just seem so bland, and predictable. There may have been a large percentage of crappy artistic aspiration or sheer nonsensical drivel in those Seventies fanzines, but they had a weird kind of vitality that I miss today.

Today things seem - on this afternoon's immediate world-review anyway - to split into three. There's a strata of little fanzines - essentially personalzines - by people I know little about and care less, and which I am unlikely to read rather than scan (they exist, it seems, as extensions of the producer's social activities in science fiction circles), then there's the larger multi-handed fanzines which I scan thoroughly for any interesting stuff by people whose writing I like, and then there's the rest, which are so good in every sense that they do not engage any reviewing response at all - you merely take them as they are, maybe seeing lesser or greater lights within each issue, but always expecting that a large proportion of the material will be entertaining, informative, and lasting. These are "mature" fanzines - real fully formed expressions of their editor's interests, enthusiasms, and skills. And for me they are often the ones that are centered on science fiction.

That's an oversimplification, of course, and there are exceptions in all three areas (where does UK fan Pete Young's Zoo Nation fit, for example, an excellent fanzine but not slotting easily into any of these hasty categories - wow, maybe it is a golden throwback, perhaps that's why I recognised it with such pleasure when I saw my first issue at Easter 2003!).

I dunno, I tend to think the days of the fanzine review are past, and more than that that fanzine reviews are not even required any more. It may have been true that Once Upon A Time our Little Jimmy Fan would read the Fanalytic Eye or somesuch and be rushing out the next morning mailing off postage stamps to Harry Bell for a copy of Grimwab (because he certainly wouldn't have been getting one for free, oh most definitely not!), but there's not a scrap of evidence that anyone actually does that any more. And as has been discussed many times we have found ourselves in the position where we discover that it is no longer a proud and lonely thing to be a Fan - scifi is everywhere, today's "fans" do not need to seek company beyond the hills.

Grimwab, March 1966; cover by Harry Bell.

Harry Bell, shortly before his beard withdrew from public life

I remember from innumerable conversations past that it irked you that you had to send me stamps for a copy of Grimwab. But what was Grimwab? A fanzine produced at a time when the fannish tradition had been lost, when the awful PaDS ruled the earth, and Mary Reed's Tribe X was inventing new traditions (which subsequently passed away of course). I asked for stamps for Grimwab because *everybody* asked for stamps in the several fanzines I'd seen up till then. Grimwab wasn't any good until I got hold of Tom Porter's fanzine collection (there's another "what happened to him?"), read it, and realised how wrong everything was. I tried, but I couldn't put it back the way I knew it should be. I do hope you're not REALLY still irked about the stamps, but it does seem a long time to be still going on about it. You can have the stamps back...                 --Harry Bell, Wegenheim, September 2003

And of course whatever fanzine reviews exist today are different; it all goes hand in hand with the stronger intellectual skills that are more common among fans now than they were in my day. Your typical piece of fanzine commentary is like a piece of critical art now, all very well expressed, most certainly showing the benefits of a university education, mostly accurate and reasonable, and somehow totally lacking in the kind of cheerfully critical enthusiasm that made me want to rush out and get fanzines back in the days when giant Linwoods ruled the roost.

- - -
*All cover scans by Gregory Pickersgill from the Memory Hole Permacollection at www.gostak.demon.co.uk . Special thanks to Julian Headlong, Peter Weston, and Dave Wood for the Pickersgill photographs. Dated September 2003.

I think it can be tremendously refreshing if a creator of literature has something on his mind other than the history of literature so far. Literature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak.
                -- Kurt Vonnegut, "Paris Review," Spring 1977

In a Galaxy Far, Far Away*
Artwork recycled William Rotsler

By Howard DeVore

"If Howard hadn't done a Boswell on George Young, he'd be totally unknown today."

George Young at 18. Photo courtesy Howard DeVore collection.

Once upon a time in a distant galaxy, George Young was "the lady from the welfare." He worked for the state of Michigan in Detroit in an office on Seven Mile Road and Schaefer. It is not a bad job. Mostly what they did was to take taxes from the poor people of Michigan (hereafter known as taxpayers), and redistribute that loot to people who don't have money of their own to buy cigarettes, beer, weed, crack cocaine, food, pretzels, diapers, and potato chips, in that order.

This is not the most desirable neighborhood in Detroit. The welfare office is on the corner, then there's a row of buildings down Seven Mile Road. Behind the storefronts is a huge parking lot for the state workers to park their cars in, and it's also a convenient place to conduct private enterprise ("Just let me have a nickel bag, man.") Each morning George Young would park his car in this questionable lot and enter the building through the back door. Automatic, unconscious, whistling a mindless tune, ready and able to perform his daily tasks.

The back door employee entrance was guarded by a security guard whose duties included keeping the undesirables out of the building.

This particular morning George entered the big state building, still whistling, and went across the room to his Dilbert-like cubicle. Still running on automatic, George started to interview a client who had been waiting for him to show up for a while.

Perhaps an hour later the security guard happened to glance outside. He noticed that George's car was parking perhaps 200 feet away from the door. The hood of George's car was up and there was a man leaning under it and doing something to the engine while another man set behind the steering wheel.

The security guard, ever prepared, leaned outside and yelled, "Hey! What are you guys doing with that car?"

The man beneath the hood raised up, took a quick glance at the uniformed guard, and yelled back at him, "Man, you come out here…I'm goin' to blow your fuckin' head off!"

This seemed very counter productive to the security guard, so he hid behind the brick wall, but he did phone George and tell him about the incident.

George ran from the front of the building toward the back door, exclaiming, "Call the police, they're stealing my Hupmobile! They're taking my car and I just put new hubcaps on it."
(Thereby doubling its accessed evaluation.)

The state security guard peeped outside the door again. He saw that the engine was running again. The outside man slammed the hood, jumped inside, and the car moved forward.

It moved about fifty feet and rolled to another stop. The passenger got out, raised the hood, shook a few wires, and the engine started again. He slammed the hood down quickly and got back inside the car. It wheezed, coughed a bit, rolled ten feet, and the engine quit once more. The passenger got out, lifted the hood, shook the same wires, and the car started again. The engine purred and ran smoothly. The man slammed the hood down, gave the tires two or three rapid-punch kicks, and got back inside the car.

The car headed for the exit half a block away. It paused at the intersection as they waited for traffic to clear. Then, at the exact worst moment, the engine quit as the car stalled once more.

George had reached the back door where the security guard was hiding by that time. He opened it with a violent tug, stuck his head outside, and yelled, "Leave my Hupmobile alone!"

The hood was already up and the engine was running again. The passenger leaned out and looked back at George, flipping him a bird as he screamed, "You call this piece of shit a car?" As he sat down on the seat, the car coughed once and rolled into the street and out of sight, headed for the expressway.

George stood there helpless and watched his wonderfully improved car disappear from view.

That evening after work, George rode a beat-up old city transit bus home. The next morning he rode a shiny new bus to work. The bus didn't break down getting him there, and he didn't have to change one much less two tires. George enjoyed the ride to work like a new experience. He realized it was nice to know he could get to work and actually get there on time for a change.

About noon, one of his co-workers asked, "George, is that your car sitting at a funny angle beside the expressway about two blocks west of here?"

A bit later, someone from his office drove George onto the freeway to see the car. Yep, it was his all right!

That's when he remembered that he had meant to buy gas the day before, but had put off doing it until after work.

Fortunately, George was prepared for almost everything. In the trunk of his car he had a little back-up help…an empty one-gallon gas can. George's co-worker drove him with his emergency can to the closest gasoline station. George bought one gallon of gas and had his friend drive him back to where his car had been abandoned beside the expressway.

George poured the gasoline from the can into his car, and started it right away on the first try. It ran as good as ever, which wasn't very good to begin with, but at least it ran!

- - -
*Revised from a Trufen posting dated September 2003.

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover your high school class is running the country.
                --Kurt Vonnegut

"I've Got Some Friends Inside"*

By Earl Kemp

The other night I caught Alger Hiss on television. He was making the point that even in the best of all possible legal systems (which ours is not), mistakes occur and innocent men go to prison. As you know, I sincerely believe that you are totally innocent of the charges upon which you stand convicted and, indeed, that you are innocent of all charges. Your going to prison is of enormous personal pain to me. I have done all I know how to do and cannot add anything to what I have previously said to you. You are not only innocent, but you are a wonderful person. I only hope that the prison experience does not rest too heavily on you. I was comforted, a little, by seeing how well Alger Hiss looked and how proud he appeared as he insisted upon his innocence and his hope that he would someday, in his lifetime, be vindicated.
                  --Stanley Fleishman, December 30, 1975

(1-6-76) When I left the courtroom we sat in a back room for half an hour or so and then, chained and handcuffed (three people on our chain but me

ant for four), along with TV8 and Cathy Clark who followed us, filming, all the way until we were inside the jail doors, in color close-up. I wonder what she had to say on the Evening News?

Once inside the jail building we sat inside another holding cell, some seven or eight people, until 3:30 p.m. before they began processing us into the inside….

Processing consisted of filling out forms with lots of extraneous questions, eight separate different identical-pose photos, two and three-quarter separate different sets of fingerprints, disrobing, storage of clothes, perfunctory asshole check for contraband, compulsory shower, dressing: boxer shorts, T-shirt, white socks, loafer tennis shoes (much used), short sleeve jump suit with holes in both front pockets for playing with myself through. As always, the Mexicans are constantly pulling at their dicks. A casual scan around this room usually picks up three or four at it, but self-consciously and nonsexually. A cultural trait perhaps?

This facility [Metropolitan Correction Center] is called the Tijuana Hilton and is about 95% Mexican. All public announcements and commands are in Spanish with a minor attempt at English. I am on the 8th floor which is a multiple-level floor housing about 80 prisoners but it is not full. The physical plan is very nice but the structure is radically poor. (For such a relatively new building) you would not believe the cracked plaster, etc. It is almost frightening just being inside the building it is that inferiorily built. Perhaps some form of contractor ripoff….

Extremely noisy as the Mexicans are given to loud shouts and farting noises and screams of Chinga tu madre. Lights finally out at 10 p.m., then on again at 6 a.m. for breakfast…. There was a whole orange on my plate; I started to keep it for later. A Mexican tried with difficulty to tell me that I couldn't do that because it would be considered contraband and be confiscated. I ate the orange.

Cigarettes are passed out free in here, liberally and in great quantity. There is no escape on this floor from a constant stream of smoke, even though the air conditioner works hard to clear it. Also no escape from the air conditioner itself; cold drafts abound.

(1-7-76) This place is not at all like a college or military situation when a group of guys get together in areas of dress and deportment. No nudity and an admonition to not "indecently expose" oneself….

…I answered Stanley's letter and, in so doing, I surprised myself at my ability to do so in the spirit of rational understanding and forgiveness (though that is not quite the correct word). I know now beyond any question my own value to the citizens - not the administration - of my (by choice, which is so much more significant than by birth) nation and no thing short of death or mind alteration can stop my concern - first - for all of them, even the bad ones.

Perhaps I am off again on a Messiah trip or some undefinable association with Christ, but the millions of miles I have traveled, the truly significant good I have accomplished, the emotional support of important persons in many countries, all these compel me to rise above myself (and coincidentally them), despite myself (and coincidentally them), in ever increasing degrees.

The future (for all my children, real and unreal, known and unknown) is known and secure.

(1-8-76) Last night we were issued clean sheets and pillowcases and this morning, right after breakfast, we had another general shakedown (the second in two days)…. The first thing that happened was the clean sheets were tossed in the middle of the dirty floor. Yes, we still have to use them and you're right, it doesn't make much sense. The search lasted from 8:30 until 11 and as far as I know no contraband was found. The whole thing is peculiar? Half the searchers were girls, a couple of cute ones and a couple of dykes…. You would not believe the cacophony of sounds the Mexican guys kept up in their presence. There was universal applause and appreciation for each step the cute ones took and loud pig sounds and calls of "machos" for each butch step of the others. Also an enormous amount of slight of hand going on while visibly manipulating contraband around the searchers….

Squeaky Fromme is on 9, just above me, and Tim Leary is on 5, secluded so as to not contaminate anyone's mind. I am constantly amazed at the types of people in here…. Some are quite simple and naïve people and others are sophisticated, affluent, high-I.Q. types….

Christ, I wish I could talk with Tim Leary. The freedom within him must be enormous. I would like to confirm (I think he could do it for me) some of my realizations. Here, everywhere I look, I see something I know first hand, and were I to attempt relating that fact to most of the people within a square mile of this building, I would receive only blank stares. Here in the shitty 8th floor library are books written by friends - close friends - I have known for years, but if I were to say Harold Robbins it would be incomprehensible. On TV was a movie located in Marseilles and it was all I could do not to say, "Hey, I know that place well." Meaningless to people whose horizon is limited by Los Angeles on one side and Tijuana on the other…. It is no wonder why they feel I must be confined. I forgive them….

(1-11-76) Some guys were smoking pot (mota) in here this afternoon, a commonplace happening; no mistaking the powerful odor. They left a trail of debris and seeds (imagine going to all the trouble of smuggling seeds into here?) across the floor. Fortunately someone spotted it before a guard did because about four of them went on a quick sweep and mop trip across the floor….

A Mexican in here barks like a dog, another crows just exactly like a rooster and yet a third one makes most convincing fart sounds. The floor echoes quite a bit and they get on sound trips that drive me out of my mind: bark answered by crow by fart by bark, etc. I wonder if any one of them ever gives a passing thought to the state of the world?

(1-16-76) There are about three big dealers on this floor, not necessarily dope dealers. I don't know and it's not important. They are the big dealers, constantly receiving the best of everything, from officers and inmates alike. It is amusing watching them. I do not know what it is they do (or did) to receive all the attention. Whatever it is, they get it first. Their clothes are hand picked for color and newness; ours are random as they come. They are fed first at every meal…. They do a minimum of "easy" work while we are assigned sweeping, moping, etc. (that they never do). They always have cigarettes, coffee, whatever, and sit around all day, frequently with officers, and bullshit. Very noticeably privileged people with nothing visibly being done to merit their quite special status. Sure makes me wonder. On the other hand, I have not seen any of them do anything objectionable to anyone and they have been cordial, if not downright nice, to me. (They are all gringo, but that is not the answer. Most of the officers are not.) I still can't figure any of it out.

Promoter - not to be confused with big dealer - is a Mexican dude. He floats around as if he owns the joint, has special attention, too. (Best noticed in handpicked clothes and in others "running and fetching" for him.) Wears big pilot-type sunshades in here, a forbidden item, and bebops around swaggeringly whenever he has to move for any reason. Does no work - always too busy promoting a deal or handicapping horse races. Looked up to by most of the Mexicans (envy?) because of looks? Fluent English? Success? - whatever, I can't figure it either, but there are lots of them subservient to him and/or trying to gain favor with him through gifts or services.

Last night's bullshit session turned to sex, the first I've overheard, and was quite interesting:

"The first few weeks in here, I had to beat off regularly, but then the need just disappeared by itself. It's been months without even that now. I don't even know if I'll be able to get it up when I get out of here."

"I was here a whole week before I could sleep at night, I was so afraid someone'd buttfuck me in the dark."

"I think it's an unconscious mental adjustment wherein your mind just simply turns off of sex. Really the only way you can get through something like this without flipping out."

Does an entire person atrophy from disuse? Is disuse misuse? What kind of basic unrealized readjustments will I have to make when I get out of here? How goes it with all the sane, law-abiding citizens?

I hope life is realer for them than for me.

(1-18-76) Time inside here takes on its own dimensions, which are not the dimensions outside of here. (Slower for some and undoubtedly faster for others.) The most immediately visible aspect is in the inmate's movements. When moving from one place to another, especially when being told to move for whatever reason, you could not possibly believe how slowly that movement is accomplished. It is almost as if two steps backward are made for each single forward step. It extends to all other body movements, too, very slowly indeed, like watching a (bad) movie filmed entirely in slowmotion.

(1-19-76) Now that two weeks have passed with me securely locked within an atmosphere of (at least) quiet contemplation, I now find it possible to make a minimal effort to convey my feelings to you…..

I have recognized my own uniqueness for quite some time now and I suppose in doing so I have created my own worst opposition. It is because of this fact that I have allowed harm to come to my person and, through me, to cause additional harm to all those who love me.

It is a quite abstract, quite perverse Kafkaian mental world wherein most of the things that have happened to me within the last five years have never happened at all. Yet I sit here locked within a "corrective" institution that would be totally impossible for me to gain entry to through any (such) effort of my own, a fact better known to the persons responsible for my being here than to myself….

…at the end of my appeals, when it was inevitable for me to acknowledge the fact of my conviction, I encountered a lady that I do not know at all, except by sight. I had seen her at some of my trial sessions and been told that she had been instructed (as graduate work?) to investigate some aspects of the trial for San Diego State University. What or how deeply she probed, I do not know, but evidently she delved deeply enough. I encountered her, as I said, quite by accident at a swap meet. We were face to face before I saw her. Instantly she grabbed me to her and started crying genuine tears of frustration and sorrow and resigned inevitability. I cried too. I held her in my arms and I comforted her and I told her to not worry or be sad, that life would somehow go on. I comforted her while people looked on in wonder. And all the time her mind was giving my mind the last missing piece of information. Someone does know. A person whose name I do not know has looked into my soul and washed me with tears of stark reality….

…the identity of the young lady to whom you spoke in the swap meet. Funny, because the very next day after you talked to her she came in to tell me that she had run into you. Her name is Linda Harshberger…she is a former student of mine and worked with a team of students purchasing porn throughout San Diego-to "prove" how easy it was to do, and how widespread it is throughout our community. She is one of the most beautiful and sensitive individuals I know.
                   --Jack Haberstroh, February 11, 1976

Miss Jini Carlsen, a journalism student of Dr. Jack Haberstroh, an outspoken supporter of…Kemp on First Amendment grounds, interviewed 277 males and 296 females at 27 sites throughout San Diego County over a one-month period, mid-October to mid-November, 1971. She reported 95% approved of the Presidential Commission recommendation that consenting adults should be permitted to buy and view explicit sexual material without interference from government; 94% agreed, after leafing through the Illustrated Report, that consenting adults should be permitted to purchase the book; and 60% (82% male and 39% female) favored receipt of the advertising brochure by consenting adults.
                   --Harold Keen, "Nixon's Revenge? Silencing the Kings of San
                     Diego's Porno Press," San Diego Magazine, September 1976.

I have spent much of the last ten years of my life looking for "a better place." Consciously, seriously, probingly looking for that place. I suspect it does not exist (oh, there are many aspects better elsewhere, but they are isolated and have bads offsetting the goods) and that this is the better place.

This is the better system, even allowing for corruption and favor-buying officials and wholesale mass murder and a day-to-day top-level hypocrisy that is beyond the comprehension of any human mind.

Perhaps, at the end, on the bottom line, it is all a question of "labels" (i.e. doublethink) or of a point in time, and yesterday's Mafia is today's CIA, today's administration is tomorrow's multi-national corporation. Only the hats, the names on the doors, vary….

This is MY nation. It is not the property of the wrong doers nor are its citizens property of the state. Ultimately one must hope that the evil done, and especially the evil powers, will phase out of time. Or we (perhaps more specifically I) will phase into step with them. Either will bring with it contentment on an overall scale.

As for me, yes, I believe I am content now. I am secure in what I have done. I have no shame nor embarrassment because of what I have not done but endure responsibility for. I bear no malice toward those who would lie or fabricate for whatever rewards at whoever's decrees.

I hope that God will ultimately grant peace to their consciousness. It is by far a better thing to know you have done no wrong than to suspect that you might have….

(1-20-76) It is 6:20 a.m. I awoke early and went to the bathroom and met the Grapevine.

"If there's anything you want to do here, do it quickly; you're shipping out shortly," the Grapevine said. I see no reason to doubt it.

I asked how that was known to them while I had not been notified.

"There are ways to know."

(1-22-76) The trip up to Terminal Island began after 5 p.m. and was uneventful…. This is definitely a prison, not a detention place like MCC. There are heavy bars all over and the dust of ages and everything looks like a 1940's Warner Bros. movie and surely James Cagney and Edgar G. Robinson are in the next cell.

(1-23-76) I saw Sarah Jane Moore both at dinner last night and breakfast. She looked very much the calm, middle-aged lady that she is. Some day I will find reason and opportunity to speak to her. She appears to be quite popular.

I am constantly amazed at the number of truly beautiful people locked up in here though I know beauty is no guarantee of acceptable behavior. In particular some of the girls look like (and dress like; they are allowed their own clothes, not uniforms) high-priced models. All true foxes and all on the arm of a big black dude. Except of course the black foxes, who have white steadies.

Another thing is payoffs in here. If you really want something you find out the price then proceed. Unlike M.C.C. where cigarettes were free, they are used as cash here. They buy anything (and every thing is for sale). You wouldn't believe some of the clothes in here, remanufactured from (WW II surplus navy officer) khaki uniforms (standard issue) and "altered" by the inmate tailors. Some really fine gabardine suits in ass-gripping, crotch-displaying, fine tailoring with tight legs and wide flares over expensive and totally forbidden snakeskin boots. Today I even saw a guy in a damn nice looking safari outfit, jacket and all. And jewelry, lots and lots of really expensive gold medallions and turquoise ropes and flashy rings and quite expensive watches (though the absolute value limit allowable is $10 per watch?).

After having a visitor, they put you through an intense, embarrassing body-cavity search looking for whatever it is you've stashed inside your asshole. It makes you wonder how the heroin or the much bulkier marijuana (you can smell it every night, all over the place) gets inside here….

(1-27-76) Yesterday we started having a series of lectures to orientate us to this place…. "You're treated altogether too well in here. If I had my way you'd all be locked up, really locked up, and have no advantages of any sort. You need to suffer.

"Don't be misled by the thought, or assume incorrectly, that this is a place of rehabilitation.

"We couldn't care less what happens here. You have been sent here for one reason only, to be punished…to the fullest extent of our abilities to do so. You have been locked away because you are a menace to society and society must be protected from you until an adequate amount of retribution has been extracted from you.

"We intend to see that you get religion….

"No advantage will be given you. We intend to extract the fullest measure of your time that the law will allow."

(2-4-76) I applied for a job. There is a shitty little high-school level Multilith "newspaper" here that would embarrass any first-year fanzine hack but, unbeknownst to anyone, the editor of same flitted away last Friday on his high-heels (the bulk of the newspaper currently being devoted to esoteric poetry about "pure love" and commentary on various homosexual causes) to escape clean. First thing Monday morning, being the most highly qualified person in that area ever to grace this establishment, I stood in line (third) to apply for the job….

(2-10-76) I wrote Terry and Erik letters and the simple fact of doing so just ripped the shit out of my guts and I sat here at the typewriter crying like a baby in the middle of this big open library room with all these people staring at me. It's really awful to be in a situation like this where you have to write letters to your kids. Just thinking back on it has done it to me again….

(2-26-76) It looks like I'm going to be appointed to the position of Editor of the T.I News over this weekend. I'm looking forward to it with great joy because it carries with it a private office and a private typewriter and a few other prestigious concessions….

(2-28-76) It is official now. Last night I was appointed Editor of the T.I.News. (I had wanted to change the name to Times so I could be officially the T.I.T. man, but I didn't let the idea get off the ground.) Monday I move into my private office and my private time and thoughts….

(3-4-76) My number one assistant at the newspaper is a very talented militant black named Rodney who is also quite a good musician. Perhaps the biggest brain on the staff is Sara Jane Moore who is women's editor, a part-time position, and she is under really heavy restrictions and can hardly even deliver her copy to the office. Nevertheless we've had a couple of chats and I've found her to be a very bright, literate, quite dedicated in her determination, lady…. She steadfastly considers herself better than they are (better meaning on a purer moral level), and won't give in to their under-handed tactics. A most noble gesture but one that guarantees her a long sentence. At least she is completely rational about it and knows pretty much how much she is sacrificing for her personal integrity. Someone has to make a stand, she says, as if chiding me (though that isn't so as she knows nothing about my case) for surrendering my convictions and living with the flow…in order to live longer?

(3-4-76) MAIL RECEIVED: My old 4-wheel-drive gang of desert marauders posed with an ancient Saguaro cactus (grows one inch per year) in Valle de Trinidad, Baja California, Mexico, in 1966. Pictured (l to r) are Jack Daws, Earl Kemp, Skip Ross, Rob Maier, Bill Whiteside, and Dave Wheeler. One decade later, they signed this postcard and mailed it to me in Terminal Island to help me remember the good times. Postcard postmarked March 4, 1976.

(4-7-76) There is a new lawyer in the case from San Diego…he had a private conference with Judge Thompson the other day and allegedly Thompson said to him, "I never wanted to send those men to prison in the first place, but I had to do it." Whatever that means. Perhaps someone up there is directing our courts.

(4-29-76) …the prosecution has gone on record as stating that they (and Washington) have no opposition for a modification in my case. Which is just about the same as saying we have no objection if you release him, as this was stated to the judge.

(5-13-76) I'm still optimistic. Papers ordering my return to San Diego were signed down there earlier this week. It is unknown to me when they will be executed but the best guess is sometime tomorrow evening….
#

- - -
*Earl Kemp, The Prison Letters of. Excerpt dates in parenthesis. In memory of Stanley Fleishman, friend, mentor, and genius.

It's my religion the censors hate. They find me disrespectful towards their idea of God Almighty. They think it's the proper business of government to protect the reputation of God. All I can say is, "Good luck to them, and good luck to the government, and good luck to God." You know what H.L. Mencken said one time about religious people? He said he'd been greatly misunderstood. He said he didn't hate them. He simply found them comical.
                  -- Kurt Vonnegut, "Paris Review" Spring 1977

Dear Sir: *

By Earl Kemp

Five years have passed since we first met; yet you have never heard from me. There have been times when the urge to communicate was almost unbearable. On this occasion I am overriding all advice to the contrary to write to you. This is a personal letter, to the extent that any correspondence is personal.

I have been informed, in three brief sentences, of your conferences regarding me Friday morning (4-23). This is representative of the detail to which I am privy, and of the efforts in my behalf. Frankly, sir, I am too old and too tired to continue being "et al." I am a person and I would like to think that you will discover me prior to May 3. It is my understanding that, beyond that date, I pass out of your hands. It is the last opportunity we will have, together, to alter my future.

This letter, this one attempt over these years, is my first and last chance to reach you. Hindsight and the incredible turn of political events have caused me to spend some time restructuring my situation. It is my belief that there is greatness in all of us, and there are times that try our abilities to their fullest. Reluctantly I view this as one of those times for you. I am aware of pressures on you and the structuring of the reasoning that has been furnished you. Consequently I am compelled to speak against those efforts because, beyond you, there is nothing left for me, however it is presented to you.

I have heard of some concern about my alleged difficulty in "adjusting to prison life." And try as I can, I can't translate that into anything comprehensible, considering my routine activities here. Next comes the letter of March 22 to Mr. Sonnabaum signed by Warden Jett (these letters, as you know, are only signed by the warden, not written by him). This letter was written by my case manager, the single person here with the responsibility of directing Parole Commission activity concerning me. His information is derived solely from Dept. of Justice written briefs concerning a probable me and bears little relationship to the real me, consequently he has no way yet of knowing who I am, the nature of my crime, the criminal intent, or the extent of my involvement. I interpret his letter: "I recommend against modification so I can handle him through the Parole Commission whenever I'm ready."

There are many evils here, of great potential harm to my person every day, and I do not speak of unnecessarily inflicted mental violence, but actual physical violence. I never knew a criminal before now…never had the opportunity to listen to people describe their last murder or their next bombing, what went wrong with their last bank robbery and how the next one will be foolproof. I never saw a fight before, but broken limbs and bloody noses are commonplace to me now. I never watched men make love, but am now forced to endure it regularly. I never saw heroin in my whole life, yet here it is considerably more available than Coca-Cola, and I am compelled to inhale the aroma of it cooking and watch as many as six persons pass around the same used syringe five times daily. These things are as alien to me as if they came from another planet, and they are dangerous to me beyond my ability to describe. There is nothing inside me to protect me from these things. Nothing in the structure of my past has prepared me to endure or condone such tolerated behavior. My case manager selected the word "distasteful." It is unfortunate he didn't tell you why.

I have honor, sir, and a reverence for truth that carries me beyond the point of self damage. It is my belief that, throughout these proceedings, I have not once compromised either. I am content with the record as it exists concerning me, and in the truths that are daily revealed through which all our pasts are reevaluated. My conscience has no fear of the future; the worst-real or imaginary-has long since been said of me. The good is yet to come.

Consider at least the possibility, if not the fact, that I have never been the person you were once told I was. I positively am not the person you met years ago. Is it proper to treat the person I am today as if I was the person who wasn't five years ago? I have already irretrievably lost those years, and almost everything I acquired honestly before them. Worse, so has my family. My wife and children are being punished, in some respects, to greater extents than am I.

Please don't overlook the affidavits filed on my behalf; they reveal the truths that are important to me. Remember please that I resigned from the corporations and individuals of concern to you long before this trial ever began, yet I have been "considered" with them all this time. That is cruelty, sir. Know, too, that I totally separated from the adult book industry years ago, not through any design or subterfuge aimed at you, but through my own evolvement as a growing being. I could not return to being as I was then even if I wanted to; it simply is not in me. My battles against things I considered wrong , however you wish to view them, have taken too much from me personally, and far too much from those who love me. I can cause them no further harm.

It is my earnest hope that you will act within your authority, and not relinquish your prerogative to any other. You alone have the facts, along with the untruths, concerning me as a person. You alone have the knowledge to do for me what your conscience and wisdom can arrive at.

Please do not abandon me, sir.

Totally aside, I have never had the opportunity (and I know this is not the proper time) to thank you for your personal attentions through these years, especially in regard to your allowing my unrestricted traveling abroad. It has been particularly kind of you not to separate me from my friends and neighbors in Mexico. That help from you has meant a great deal to me and my family.

In your deliberations, sir, may you find peace.

#

- - -
*Excerpts from a letter to Judge Gordon Thompson, Jr. Dated April 24, 1976.

The First Amendment reads more like a dream than a law, and no other nation, so far as I know, has been crazy enough to include such a dream among its fundamental legal documents.
                 -- Kurt Vonnegut

Work Production Notes for Charles Paschal*
Artwork by Harry Bell

By Earl Kemp

BACKGROUND: I had been continuously employed within the adult book industry for ten years during which I became the boss of the book production division of Greenleaf Classics, Inc. as well as the conscience, the moral guide, and the soul of the division. I was also the company front, voice, greeter, entertainer, and (when required) clown. I traveled extensively and was well known by many people. I was confident that I could visit any major city anywhere in the world and find myself houseguest to someone that knew me personally and felt me to be an honored guest. I was very confident about who I was, very proud, and very exacting. I demanded from everyone near me a standard of excellence and quality noticeably above anyone else's (one exception only, my hero Barney Rossett at Grove Press consistently outdid me down the line in every direction as far as quality of workmanship was concerned, and that's totally immaterial to here and now).

At the time of my indictment, the company was the fifth largest book producing company in the USA right behind Bantam Books, and I felt I had the right to claim all of that as my doing. (I was not the principal in the company, or the financial backer. Other people handled the distribution and financial ends of the business…I was the end-result product.)

I was, also, at the time of the indictment and trial, presumed to be the ultimate authority on world-wide sexual laws and expressions and, because of my wide travels and many-nationality friends, possessed by a world consciousness that gave me daily traumas just trying to live down to expected, locally dictated morality.

I had also, unfortunately, during that decade of becoming a national nuisance, acquired an unhealthy appreciation for the law enforcement community in general. I personally have witnessed or been involved in or a co-conspirator to paying off solicited (accentuate that word) bribes from numerous representatives of the law enforcement community at every level of local, state, and federal service. And worse; direct payoffs for solicitations from a presidential cabinet-level position, one sitting president, and one sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justice. After everyone who had sworn to protect and serve had extracted their demanded dues, they all just turned their backs and walked away, greedily. All of them. Every agency at every level.

And some of them lied, and some of them manufactured things, and some of them gave perjurious and fraudulent testimony, under oath, and, in the end, every single person involved with arranging to see that I was convicted and incarcerated was, themselves, sent to prison. Every one of them except the boss, Richard Nixon, who was pardoned in error, and Patrick Buchannan, who was Nixon's speech writer, confidant, strategist, and assigned back-up for Charles Keating. Buchannan actually even wrote the dissent for Keating that appeared under his name. All this, of course, before Keating stole all those millions from Lincoln Federal Savings and Loan that left all those poor retirees with no money for the rest of their lives and brought about the collapse of the entire nationwide savings and loan industry. Keating sits today amid all that luxury he stole…a completely free man…enjoying it all…Nixon's final gift to him.

CHRONOLOGY:

3-3-71 Indicted; 20+ counts "conspiracy to mail obscene matter."
_-_-71 trial; memory says many weeks (16?)
2-7-72 sentenced
6-7-73 judgment entered
10-_-75 appeals begin; denied (mysterious circumstances)
12-_-75 US Supreme Court
_-_-76 denied
2-_-76 to Terminal Island
5-17-76 released on probation HELLO THERE.
(The balance of '76 plus all of 77-78-79 were totally lost years.)
_-_-77 divorce started

ONSTAGE ACTIVITY:

In 1976, when the Supreme Court denied my petition, everything inside me began dying. Everything; shutting down one by one and turning off, automatically. I couldn't do anything, including think or walk across the street. For a while though I think I might have looked pretty normal. I believe I appeared to hang-on through the brief period of lockup at TI, and into the start of my probation period, but I'm not sure. The divorce action that started in 1977 was the final clincher, though, for me. Everything that had not already collapsed, collapsed at that time. I seem to have drifted through a fuzzy haze for all of 77-78 and 79. They were totally lost to me in any direction as far as positiveness or production were concerned.

You entered the scene somewhere around about here, driving, as I remember, a beat-up old Mercedes sedan.

For my state of mind it was necessary for me to view you only as someone positive and helpful to me. I looked at you only in that light. There could not be for me even the slightest suspicion that you could be negative toward me, I was that fragile inside my psyche; I needed professional therapy in the worst way. I was right across the board. You were an instant friend; though I could not recognize you as such for a long time. I remember I called upon you numbers of times for personal help regarding idiotic actions of my ex-wife or others, or some of the continuously ongoing harassment from local law types because of her false reports about me, and you came right away, every time, to help and to reassure me.

You might not have known that, at that time, I did not have a penny to my name and I was completely helpless and totally vulnerable to everything…not even a place to live. Apollo Caruso, a casual acquaintance, the friend of a friend I hardly knew, came to my rescue: He told me right out that he would give me three months of his energy, emotion, and best assistance, and that he had that much to spare. He adopted me and looked out for me and cared for me and fed me and slowly tried to teach me how to be a person again. He took a backdoor approach, but it worked. He inundated me in everything I had always wanted and opened doors for me that would allow me to be, and to do, everything I had ever even dreamed of being or doing (while you looked on).

Only, we were still broke, even together, and hungry. We were wallowing around inside of the most incredible erotic fantasy ever conceived, literally six in a cluster at a time.

Completely unknown to you (I hoped at the time; I care not now) Paulie and I were working full-time part-time all that time at a large pot packaging facility in El Cajon. Our job, daily, was to select from a warehouse filled from an unlimited supply of 50-lb. hard-pressed bricks those we would process and package into 65 individual one pound packages of the best looking, smelling, and tasting pot south of Humboldt County. Unfortunately we weren't paid in cash; we were paid in food (it was a Mormon warehouse filled with Mormon food) and in all the pot we could pilfer. To the best of my knowledge, no single person ever associated with that operation, that went on for years, was ever even investigated…everyone got out free (must have been a Federal operation; it was elaborate).

I remind you of how handsome I looked in those days, at 47, and what a stud-hunk I was with the gaggle of titshakers from Dirty Dan's (and you could not tell which ones were guys) who had somehow adopted me and paraded me around for weekends at a time surrounded by nothing but acres of bare tits and pubes. And I was writhing around inside a personal living hell, doing nothing, getting nowhere, and being no one. (But damn it was nice; sometimes almost more than I could keep up with, but I tried real hard.)

And here at this point, again, you enter and make it right. I was bitching or moaning to you about my sad, useless, nothingness plight…again…and you were growing a bit tired of listening to it…again. You said, "Quit your bitching. I think you've died and gone to heaven."

I didn't hear you correctly; I asked you to repeat it and you did. Slowly I began thinking: Is he serious? Does he really think that about me? That's a good thought; If he thinks it then there might be some hope for me after all….

That moment was the turn-around moment in the rest of my life, and you did it. When they get you, they'll make you suffer for having done it.

And I suppose that's about all of it that really matters. The rest is up to you.

What I want you to find inside your memories are all those unusual and extraordinary little things related to me in some fashion including the verbal instructions passed along to you. I want you to remember the tenor of the times and, especially, your personal view of those giving you the orders. This is your one chance to vent it out, Charles, should you find anything there you need to dispose of.

I am, Charles, asking this of every significant player in the cast. I am not singling you out for anything special, beyond whatever being a friend entitles you to.

I've always known you were that; once, knowing it was the only thing that kept me going. So much for the thanks, Charles….

- - -
*For Charles Paschal. Dated 2-26-01

Everyone has my sympathy, even those I'm most indignant about. I've never written a story with a villain. I think even the rich and the powerful are capable of great moods of tenderness, brought on by dogs and children. I think everybody's programmed, and can't help what they do. But I'd still oppose the rich and powerful - that's the way I've been programmed.
               --Kurt Vonnegut, 3/69

Going Over the Edge*

By Earl Kemp

When I was released from prison on May 17, 1976, and finished up all the exiting paperwork, I walked out of that door in my prison uniform and with empty pockets. In fact, everything I thought I knew, had, or owned was empty, but I couldn't recognize any of that at the time. And, I walked out of the lockup carrying some heavy baggage in the form of "Thou Shalt Nots" proscribed by the honorable Gordon Thompson, Jr. Included among them was a total prohibition against associating or consorting with any known pornographers.

Just outside the jailhouse door, waiting to claim the remains of my former self, were two of the very best known pornographers. Jerry Murray had been my close friend for years already, and Vivien Kern, from the original Gilmore Guadalajara porno mill, was right up there as well. The only thing wrong was, it wasn't me.

Nevertheless, they hustled me into Jerry's Volkswagen van where my wife Nancy and Jerry's wife Suzanne were waiting, and we went directly to the Murray's house in Pacific Beach.

Getting there was an awful ordeal, but one I would have to get used to.

#

As soon as we got inside the Murray household, I began stripping. I couldn't wear that prison uniform one second longer, even if it didn't look like a prison uniform. At the time, convicts at Terminal Island were clothed in surplus Navy officer khakis that were actually rather nice, except for the convict number permanently affixed to each piece.

For the first time in over three months I had an uneventful, uncruised shower. I could just stand beneath that hot water and feel it rolling all down my body and washing away every trace of Terminal Island contamination adhering to it.

If only I could do the same thing to the inside as well. The empty place where nothing resided any longer…where there was not even the remotest hope of recovering a single fragment of any of it…ever.

#

I had changed so drastically that I didn't know myself. All of those changes came about because I allowed them to do so. I am in charge of me. Why didn't I know myself any more?

I had physically changed in a number of ways. The prison food and lack of real exercise (a policy I have always supported, by the way) put on a bunch of extra pounds that I was unaccustomed to navigating around with me. My hair, such as there was of it, had turned white during my Terminal Island vacation. When I was a cook, the crew boss named me "Whitey" because of it. My plans and hopes for the future were completely obliterated. I couldn't maintain thought for any length of time on any subject.

I couldn't be a passenger in an automobile, much less be the driver. Just getting from the jail to Jerry's house was a nightmare of stark terror, careening along the freeway and residential streets, rocking from side to side…the movement, the world outside the van windows, was almost too much for me…and I had only been locked into retrospection for three months and one day, yet all these things had overtaken me and become me and I hated every one of them with all the disgust I could summon. It wasn't that I had become agoraphobic…there wasn't enough of anything even to qualify for that.

Nothing meant anything to me any more. Nothing. Not food, not family, not companionship, not books, not friends, not lovers, not nothing. All inside me was a homogenized gray mass of meaninglessness. Confusion reigned supreme.

I could not do, by decree, anything that I was qualified to do. I could not, by decree, associate with the people who had been my closest friends for the last solid decade. So what was left? Anything I couldn't do and anyone I didn't know were okay for me. Sure they were.

I didn't know it at the time…I've always been a slow learner…but I desperately needed some professional help. It took me a very long time to realize that, and how negatively I had evolved, and by then it was already too late. The toll had been extracted and claimed; parts of me, regardless of whatever happened, could never be reassembled.

#

Within one week of my release, Jack Haberstroh contacted me and asked me to appear at a seminar he was having for a group of his students from San Diego State University. Because Jack had been a friend for some time, and had worked so strenuously during my trial to help free me, I accepted his invitation with a heavy load of inner trepidation.

I wasn't the man they wanted to see. I certainly wasn't the man I wanted to see. I didn't know how I could fake it out for them, pretend to be someone I no longer was, but I gave it a good try anyway. Fighting motion inside an automobile all the way to the campus and back, terrified of my own shadow and of all those people outside that I didn't know but all, somehow, who knew me.

It was one of the most difficult things I had ever been through, trying to be the image of respect and pride that they saw me as, while all I could see was the tarnished baggage that once held it all right in the palm of one hand.

#

Home was hell, but the less said about that the better, and I'm really trying to avoid the whole issue only there's no way that can be done…. "Bianca's Hands," a short story by Truman Capote comes to mind, about a man's obsession with watching Bianca's hands.

#

In July 1976, my buddy Harold Keen contacted me. He was the elder journalism statesman of San Diego County. He had been my friend for quite a few y ears. He followed my trial closely and everything related to it, and we spoke of it occasionally. He was something like news anchor man at TV 8 in those days, and everyone in San Diego County felt they knew him personally, it seemed. The journalism students at every major college around the county revered and respected him.

He told me he wanted to do a real down and dirty article about the trial and Richard Nixon. But most of all, Harold wanted to bitch about William Rehnquist's conflict of interest and couldn't, apparently, not stop ranting about it frequently.

I agreed, of course. I would have done lots of things for Harold Keen; he certainly did lots of nice things for me over time.

Harold saw it as an article about both William Hamling and myself and, toward that end, he interviewed us separately, conducting a number of different sessions with each of us. He was writing the article for San Diego magazine and it appeared in the September 1976 issue with a banner overline reading "NIXON'S REVENGE ON SAN DIEGO'S PORNO KINGS."

Bill Reid, a prominent local portrait photographer of the period, was assigned the job of photographing me and Hamling for the issue. Considering that I didn't know who I was when he took his picture, I think it turned out rather well.

I have a copy of Harold Keen's original manuscript for his article, and I am excerpting the relevant parts here:

        Richard Nixon, whose fall was hastened by a probing press, in turn left his destructive mark on at least two journalists - both San Diegans - who defied his self-anointed righteousness.
        And whereas Nixon was pardoned of abusing his constitutional power and was permitted to retreat to San Clemente's serenity to make a fortune from his memoirs, his San Diego victims are smeared as ex-convicts, and ousted by court order from their particular milieu of publishing.
        The saga of William Hamling and Earl Kemp, released two and one-half months ago from the Terminal Island Federal penitentiary, might well be subtitled Richard Nixon's revenge. In their case, the line of demarcation between heroes and losers in a significant First Amendment judgment was the thinnest possible-a 5-4 vote of the Supreme Court. One vote, that of a Nixon appointee, William Rehnquist, who wrote the majority opinion, drastically altered their lives and careers.
        Attorney General John Mitchell personally announced the indictment at a press conference on the steps of the Justice Department on March 5, 1971.
        Hamling and Kemp were literally ahead of their time. The Illustrated Report, and even the advertising brochure, would be considered not far out of today's mainstream of sexually explicit reading matter available on newsstands or through the mail, in [defense attorney Louis] Katz' opinion.
        Some questioned the propriety of participation by Justice Rehnquist in judgment on this case. Critics point to the fact that an inherent predetermined attitude might have at least subconsciously prevailed, inasmuch as he was one of the top officials of the Justice Department, under Mitchell, at the time the indictments were handed down and announced by Mitchell at that news conference symbolically staged as a spectacle on the steps of the Justice building.
        In one of his last notable dissents before he himself was forced by failing health to resign, Justice Douglas delivered a masterpiece of succinct defense of the right of consenting adults to read and view whatever they choose. The Illustrated Report, he said, added a glossary to the commission report-"not in dictionary terms but visually."
        "Every item in the glossary depicted explicit sexual material within the meaning of that term as used in the report," he continued.
        At Terminal Island, Kemp became editor of the prison newspaper, and…had ample opportunity to observe the extracurricular conduct of inmates. An outstanding impression was the "absolutely overwhelming" use of drugs... "Heroin was ever-present," says Kemp. "Before reaching Terminal Island, I had never, in the varied experiences of a lifetime of writing and editing, encountered heroin. At Terminal Island you literally stumble over its use-men leaning against corridor walls, in showers, toilets, even in classrooms, injecting heroin. In the dormitories. I've seen as many as five people use the same syringe without cleaning it… The volume of drugs is enormous-not only heroin but cocaine, and an extreme amount of marijuana, the air is never free of the odor. Prison officials and guards can see and smell as well as I can, but do nothing about it. A possible reason is that drugs keep the prisoners complacent and malleable. Users were usually quiet-problems with them were at a minimum. Cabinets in the dorms containing personal belongings are inspected periodically, and they pretend to be looking for dope, but I've seen the guards deliberately overlook it."
        Prostitution is not an uncommon activity at Terminal Island…, according to Kemp. Although segregated in their living quarters, the men and women have ample opportunity to make the necessary arrangements…"prostitution is carried on in toilets, behind the altar in the chapel, and even under conference tables in classrooms while the class is in session," he says. "When they're caught, they're put in a lock-in cell for two or three days, and they're cheered by the other inmates on exit."
        Kemp attained the post of editor of the T.I. News…. Kemp must have strained at the leash of the antisepticised journalism he was forced to present in the bi-weekly, 24-page multilith publication. Prison life was pictured as a series of sports events and entertainments, and a chance to express one's creative talents (a Poetry Page was a big feature). "Of course, we weren't allowed to publish anything critical of the personnel or the institution," Kemp declared. "It had to reflect the good things, and seemed to be aimed more at the relatives and other people on the outside, rather than the inmates. I always thought it incongruous that the most extreme words we could use in an inmate-edited paper were 'hell and damn,' when we were surrounded by 1,300 people whose every other word was 'motherfucker.'"

        In his final issue before he and Hamling were returned to San Diego for modification of their sentences…, Kemp did manage to utilize the T.I. News' cover for a symbolic message: a prisoner is depicted shouting the words of the First Amendment into the air. And he managed to get by the censors a couple of fillers that leaked his own thoughts about prison life, while attributing them to others. He quoted the French historian-philosopher, Michael Foucault: "Prison is a recruitment center for the army of crime. For 200 years everybody has been saying, 'Prisons are failing: all they do is produce new criminals.' I would say on the other hand, they are a success, since that is what has been asked of them…." And on another page, squeezed between a report of a baseball game, and a listing of literary markets for prison writers was this unobtrusive indictment, "The Product Of Imprisonment Is Recidivism," signed by one "B.L."
        Kemp has special reason to feel bitter about his conviction. Although he edited the Illustrated Report, which was not declared obscene, he was out of the country…when the guilty advertising brochure was assembled and distributed.

#

It was clear to me that I couldn't be a pretender, I could only be real. If I couldn't be real, then I couldn't be anything at all. Out of all this blankness there was nothing except the sidestep over the edge that was inevitable.

I began immediately declining all personal appearances and speaking engagements. I hung up a large, figurative sign saying, "Closed! Out of business!," took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and fell forward over the edge and down the slippery slope into blissful oblivion.

- - -
*For Paulie Caruso who was ready to pick up the useless pieces. Dated September 2003.

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.
                  --Kurt Vonnegut

I couldn't figure out how to make this a two-faced ezine. All along I was thinking of it as a sort of improved version of an ACE Double novel where either side was the right side. It's that way with this ezine also, regardless of where you start.

Finally, I decided I'd take the easy way out and stick to alphabetical. Sidney Coleman comes first.

Then, to make sure my pseudo ACE Double looked really good, I asked Alan White to make two special covers for it.

This is Alan White's cover S*T*A*R*R*I*N*G Sidney Coleman:

Chopped Liver and Propeller Beanies*

By Earl Kemp

Robert Lichtman and I were involved in a discourse about nothing of any significance when something that was came up, the name of a mutual friend…the infamous Dr. Sidney Coleman of the Physics Department at Harvard University. Whereupon, for no reason at all, I volunteered the information that Sidney had just recently separated himself from science fiction completely, sadly.

This led to some innocuous business about Sidney's mother, Sadie Coleman, and brother Robert, who live in the Bay Area. And all that got me thinking about Sidney, so I came up with some memories.

I think Sidney Coleman was around 15 years old when I first met him, the boy genius, as he seemed to have graduated simultaneously from high school and college with a bachelor's degree. I think it took him another year or so to get his doctorate. He had a brilliant mind and sparkling wit. He was still young enough to play with and enjoy my children; they adored Squidney (their name for him; the full name was Squidney Peepots). One of my fondest memories is that of a photograph showing Sidney, wearing a propeller beanie, seated in the middle of my kitchen floor playing with my kids' toys just like one of them.

Sidney Coleman playing "engineer" while Terry Kemp (top right) looks on. December 1956.

It took me many years to realize that I select and adopt the children that I never had and that, today, they are scattered pretty much everywhere.

Sidney began right away teaching me things I had never wanted or needed, most especially about gross hypocrisy and the finer arts of Catholicism. He would come to my house, enter the front door, and say: "For God's sakes, give a starving Jew a piece of pork to chew on…."

He also taught me how to appreciate the "correct" Chicago style Jewish Deli chopped chicken liver sandwich. The next closest thing I ever found was in Mexico City, of all places, though Blummer's in San Diego serves a passable substitute.

Sidney was always available, I recall, for most anything, especially if it was a party where his charm and wit frequently made everything come out right. He also seemed to have tireless energy and devoted much of it toward Chicago fan activity. He wrote an occasional humor article for one of my fanzines, and became a founding partner of Advent:Publishers, Inc.

One other special memory of Sidney, that most people might not know, is that while he was still a shallow youth, he was quite an accomplished amateur stage magician. I remember at least two different times when Sidney put on one-man shows for the University of Chicago Science Fiction Club. He had all the equipment that went with the act, too, as I recall, and would let me go with him to the magic store to buy more. His affection for magic and my curiosity made me, ever since then, attempt to unveil the trickery of most magic acts I witnessed.

Time and Fate and all those other things got in the way of living, fanning, and communicating. But my interest in magic continued along with my interest in chopped liver and everything else he taught me, and I fell into a magical hole that Sidney might have loved to be in, now and then, and I never even told him about it.

It was in the mid-1960s and I was slaving away at the Porno Factory in Evanston, Illinois. More and more it became necessary to go to New York City for business reasons: meetings with agents, writers, publishers, lawyers, lawyers, etc. (Naturally I squeezed in a few fan activities now and then at the same time.) On one of those early-on trips, friend and co-worker Bruce Elliott took me with him to a meeting of a group whose name escapes me but could have easily been the League of Professional Stage Magicians. There were at least a dozen of them at that first meeting. I became so involved with them that, over time, I attended a number of their meetings.

…The ostensible occasion for my being in [Chicago] was a dinner meeting of Mystery Writers of America welcoming their Chicago chapter-founder, Clayton Rawson. Rawson was my editor at Simon & Schuster, …last-chapter revisions on a new book. (Psycho)

…I went over to Riccardo's Restaurant. Rawson wasn't there - he'd been bumped off a plane at Albuquerque - but I found Earl and Nancy Kemp, Fran Light, Bob and Fern Tucker, and Frank Robinson…Rawson finally showed up at 9:30. His reputation as an amateur magician preceded him, and he proved it magnificently; all of us, plus Harry Stephen Keeler and several others, acted as stooges in various tricks which he used to demonstrate points in his talk on mystery-writing….
                --Robert Bloch, "Chicon II-1/2," SaFari No. 2, SAPS No. 48, July 1959

#

Bruce Elliott was once on the staff of Bill Hamling…. Bruce had written a little science fiction, but was better known as a general pulp writer, after all, he's written some of the "Shadow" novels but he was a practicing magician and publisher of the magic magazine The Phoenix.
                --Howard DeVore, Kissett, SAPS, Spring 2000

There was no formal program or anything, they would just sit around a huge conference table and talk about old times…much as I am doing here at this very moment…and I would listen and enjoy and admire them all so very much. I can't remember their names…I'm good at that…but I can remember many of their faces and know that I had seen them all perform and that they were all really cream of the crop. Only it didn't end there, it just kept on getting better and better….

One of those professional magicians, the only single name I can remember, and I can remember a number of his names, was Clayton Rawson. Clayton performed professionally under the name "The Great Merlini." As a writer, Clayton wrote an excellent series of murder-mystery novels around his central character, named appropriately enough "Merlini the Magician." As an editor, Clayton edited the Inner Sanctum series of novels at Simon and Schuster for years. These included the works of My Hero Wilson Tucker. Now and then, Clayton would have to double and edit a science fiction novel.

As editor of Inner Sanctum, Clayton frequently had interactions with the New York Times' official last-word authority on murder fiction, H.H. Holmes, who really wasn't H.H. Holmes at all but was Billy White's identical nonexistent twin last-word authority on science fiction and everyone's favorite, Tony Boucher. See what a small world it is…?

And Sidney Coleman made all that possible. Knowing him greatly enriched my life.

I love Sidney Coleman and I'm sorry I've been talking about him behind his back the way I have been. Perhaps Robert Lichtman can help keep my secret.

#

- - -
*For Sidney Coleman for no reason at all. Revised from Robert Lichtman's Lilapa mailing 542, April 2001.

Christ, I can remember when TV was going to teach my children Korean and trigonometry. Rural areas wouldn't even have to have very well educated teachers; all they'd have to do is turn on the box. Well, we can see what TV really did. Look at what the O.J. Simpson trial has done to everyone. So much for all those Tom Swifts talking about the enormous benefit of what they were doing. The information superhighway will be two lanes loaded with tollgates, and it's going to tell you what to look for. People will just watch the show.
                -- Kurt Vonnegut, Inc. Technology, No. 4 for 1995

The Punch-Line Kid*
Buddha artwork by Steve Stiles

By Earl Kemp

I recall being accosted by Sadie Coleman's street waif Sidney, the wandering Jew, in early 1952. He was trolling a bookstore looking for unsuspecting victims at the time, either that or what turned out to be his usual, stalking the science fiction section.

As a result of our encounter, Sidney decided to keep me as an acolyte. There were many things he felt compelled to teach me. He was 15 at the time and I was 23. The thought of spending time with a kid had never occurred to me. I already had two of my own at home; I didn't need another one ordering me around. Only I must have, because Sidney kept me forever.

It wasn't easy, either…way back then…listening to a kid, however smartassed he was. That was the hardest part of it all, that he was some kind of mental giant spinning wheels all around everyone he ever got close to, and making them like it.

He was at his very best when criticizing someone for what he thought was a shortcoming on their part…and doing it with sparkle and charm, with witty words that left