the drink tank issue 102

8/14/2019 The Drink Tank Issue 102

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Subterranean Air Defense

Blues

by

Christopher J. Garcia

There are times when we who

toil in the world of Microsoft Ofce andcubicle walls when we feel like wevebeen staring at the same blips on the

same screens for days on end.Were weak in the knees bythe end of the day due to lackof circulation, having onlystood when walking to ourLean Cuisine lunches at thecommunal microwave.

But weve got it easy.In the 1950s, there was

a fear that gripped us almostas bad as the terror we feeltoday of terrorists. We calledit Communism in general, theUSSR in specic and the ColdWar in total. The US, at thatpoint far and away the leader

in computer science, neededa way to defend our air space.

The Air Force knew that aRussian bomber with a largeenough bomb could come and y overthe pole, drop the bomb on New YorkCity or Washington. They wanted anAir Defense network that would be ableto deal with just such issues, so theydid what every administration does

when they need science: they called

MIT. MIT had a machine called Whirl-wind, a design which they then adapt-ed to make SAGE, the Semi-AutomaticGround Environment.

SAGE was the largest computerever build. There were 2 CPUs, one al-

ways on warm stand-by. Each system

had 50k vacuum tubes.Thats right, our entire air de-

fense was run on the same things that

power really good guitar amps.The computers took up huge

bloc houses which required emenseamounts of power and often had morethan 100k sqft of room. These places

were lit with a blue light that allowedthe screens to glow most obvviously.

But no matter how advanced acomputer system is, it still requireshumans to operate it, and SAGE re-quired some pretty tough people. Theshifts were 8 hours at a stretch, requir-ing people to sit at large screens thatpulsed in layers. The rst layer being

a geographic outline, the second be-ing tracked objects, mostly planes inair trafc, and the last being details on

those objects. If the objectwas unidentied, they couldselect the object using a lightgun and the Weapons Direc-tor could have it blown out ofthe sky.

That was the businessthey were in, combining thestress of Air Trafc Control-lers with the worst of light-ing conditions. Headaches

were universal and expected.At least the computer had abuilt-in cigarette lighter andash trays so that the airmenassigned could smoke while

they were working.There were 27 SAGEs

built and networked. OFthe 27 sites, one, North Bay

Ontario (which is the one we have inthe museum) lasted until 1983. Thestrange thing is that by 1960, whenthe system was 100% complete, theRussians had developed the ICBM,

which couldnt be tracked by SAGE.

Best laid plans...


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ITS ALL IN THE GAME, OR:

THE CONTINUING SAGA OFGUIDOLON THE GIANT SPACE

CHICKEN vs. POWER-BROKER &

THE MONEY-GO-ROUND

I havent written about my Guidolonthe Giant Space Chicken lm project,and the ongoing attempt to sell it,since Issue 87, so heres an update.

We start with the story of myfriend attending a lm festival - whichshall remain unnamed - down in LosAngeles this summer.

On the Friday night of the festival,expectations were high among thelmmakers. They had traveled fromafar - even Greece and Russia, andtwo had returned from central Asiato screen their documentary about

a fraudulent election there. The

entry fee for this festival wasexorbitant, but it seemed

worth it, because this wasLos Angeles, City of Dreams.

The point of these gatheringsisnt just to try your workbefore an audience that isnt

biased friends. The point isto meet the shadowy power-brokers, the secret mastersof moviedom who hold tightthe knotted purse-strings andguard the sacred word YES.And here, just minutes awayfrom their hidden fortresses,

this theatre should be crawling with

these yes-men, right?The rst troubling sign was whenthe festival organizers kept asking mypal if shed brought her friends to herscreening. Odd. If she wanted to showit to her friends, she could have usedher living room. Not spent hundredsof dollars to attend, plus airfare, plushotel.

Yet she remained eager, lean and

hungry. Like that Shawn Mullinssong:

Everyone heres got a plan. Itskind of like Nashville with a tan.

When she sat down in theauditorium for her showing, a chill

went up and down her spine as afestival lackey walked to the front.She shared her timeslot with a coupleshorts, but there were only a dozenpeople in the room. As the lackey

introduced the lms and asked thedirectors to say something, it becameclear that everyone there was almmaker. There were no power-brokers. There was no audience.

Everyone thought one word, but noone said it.

Scam.

Perhaps the lm festival circuit islike a mob racket.

At this particular festival, awardswere given. This is not unusual,except that the awards numberedover 50. 50! The program listed justover a hundred lms. Was everyother documentary or short or featureso deserving? My friend thought it

was bogus - the number of awardsdiluted their value. Nonetheless,she trumpeted her award on herhomepage.

I see unhappy parallels between themovie industry and the science ctionpublishing biz.

Consider Locus, which declares

itself the magazine of the sciencection and fantasy (publishing) eld.One publisher - whos worked thiseld for 20 years - always buys ahalf-page ad in Locus for every newbook. Those ads, he suspects, havenever spurred a single purchase, buthis authors feel like hes not pushingtheir books if they dont get the ad. Idont know anyone who subscribes to

Locus who isnt a writer or wannabe,


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likely checking to see if theyvebeen mentioned, photographed orreviewed.

Are we becoming a worldof would-be writers without anyreaders? Mark R. Kelly, editor oflocusmag.com, the online parallel

of the print version, said in his1/10/06 blog entry, SometimesI wonder if there arent moreaspiring writers out there, intenton publishing their stories andnovels by whatever means (evenvia self-publishing), than thereare readers.

Returning to the movie biz,check out withoutabox.com. This

is an online guide to lm festivals. Doyou know how many festivals havedeadlines between now and the end ofthe year? 130. One hundred thirty.Forty a month. And lining up indroves are kids whove made moviesin their basements or folks like me

who went deep into credit-card debtto service their dreams. My animator

BenniiD told me of one lmmaker whosent his work to 200 lm festivals.200! Can all of these festivals possiblybe worthwhile and career-enhancing?How many are just scamming thedreamy-eyed would-be Fellinis?

A staggering, unbelievable numberof stories get written and moviesget made every year. And thats thecompetition.

In the publishing biz, Mark Kelly

counted 1,300 sci-/fantasy genrestories published in 2000. And heprobably missed some. The website

The Black Hole www.critters.org/blackholes/ compiles data-points from

writers who report submissions andsales to various magazines. Thus wecalculate that Analog magazine buysone story out of every 143 submitted.

Heres more data:

Analog (submissions/acceptances:143.0)

Magazine of Fantasy and ScienceFiction (87.4)

Asimovs (38.0)Strange Horizons (29.1)Realms of Fantasy (21.0)Interzone (17.0)

Neo-Opsis (10.6)

Clearly, most magazinesarent as picky as Analog,so Ill guesstimate two dozenstories submitted for eachpublished. (Remembering thatsome woeful stories are like theWandering Jew, journeying from

magazine to magazine, nevernding a home.)

This guess yields about31,000 genre stories submittedto magazines every year. Plushundreds of thousands that sitin drawers, never submitted.

Our esteemed editor,Christopher J. Garcia, tells

me that a thousand short lms aresubmitted to the Cinequest lm festivalin San Jose every year, with 100accepted. In contrast, the Torontofestival gets 7000 subs. Not everylm made is submitted, so Chris isguessing ten to twenty thousand shortlms are made every year, not countingstudent work. Thats your competition.

To say nothing of YouTube,which Wikipedia - the source of allknowledge, ahem - notes receives65,000 submissions. A day. Most ofthese are guys getting hit in the nuts

with soccerballs, but many are seriousefforts. Thats your competition, too.

So if you write a story, yourestruggling to get noticed in a sea of31,000 other stories. Or to get your

little lm some attention, amid the tensand tens of thousands.


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As Solomon said three millenniaago, Of the making of books, there isno end. (Ecclesiastes 12:12)

You can see why people want todo lm festivals, and they hope theawards there will oat them above themasses.

And in their desperation to make itbig, theyve become vulnerable to scamartists.

But still, if you want your storypublished, you need to print it out on8.5 x 11 white paper, double-spaced

with correct margins, shove theprecious pages into an envelope andtoss them upon the unforgiving rocksof some editors desk. (Or, for a few,theyll take email.) Writing your worksin vapor trails across the sky wont sell

your story. Nor will carving it in stonetablets. You have to mail it (snail or e)and then do the hardest thing in the

world: wait.I suppose there are other ways to

meet the Hollywood power-brokers. Ifyou dont want to go the lm festival

route, you can nd yourself an agent(I met a bunch) who will happily takea couple thousand dollars from youto put you and a power-broker inthe same room. Or you can do theroundabout route by getting your ideapublished in the form of a hit novel,but then you have to deal with THATOTHER industry. (And, if you want,there are plenty of people who will take

your money to edit your book before

had a job right

now. But after 9years of struggle,9 years of meetingeditors andpublishers andendless nights ofpainting, I haveover a hundredpublications andtwo Hugo Awards.

Not bad.Of course Im

exhausted andjaded and burntout.

But, hey, youhave to play thegame - and playhard - if you wantto win.

you send it to an agent.)And yet somehow its possible to

succeed.I did it. At least with art.It took years of endless nights of

heart-breaking toil and sweat. When Irst submitted my art to conventions

in 1998, I suffered through con aftercon where I didnt sell anything. I was

wracked with self-doubts and self-recriminations. Then, after sales andpublishing credits started building up,the recession hit. Would-be patronafter patron told me at art shows, Ilove your stuff, and Id buy some if I

So, more specically, how is TheSelling of Guidolon going?

Were still shopping it around. Nosales yet.

But were still doing the lmfestival/mob racket circuit, in additionto a couple other venues:

- The Licensing International Showin New York in June. There I met ananimation developer who watched the

whole thing and laughed from one endto the other, and then said, Ill have toask my partners. After the show, I gota call from another guy who later said,


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I thought it had great potential, butmy director didnt like it.

- Conestoga Science FictionConvention and Film Festival in Tulsain July. There we won two awards,Best Animation and Best in Show. Thelatter was an award theyd never given

out in the history of the lm festival,and they basically created just for us.

- KTEH, the local PBS station inSan Jose in August. It was half-timeentertainment as part of Mr. Lobo (withhis skits and studio antics) showingThe Day of the Trifds as part of theannual pledge drive. Chris Garcia(voice of Guidolon) and I even got tobriey appear on TV.

- Worldcon (the World ScienceFiction Convention) in Anaheim inAugust.There I met another TV developer

who said he liked it, but would have toask his partners about it. Never heardback from him.

- Los Angeles InternationalIndependent Film Festival this month.

There we won a Grand Jury Prize forBest Animation - wahoo!- In November, we show it at the

New York International IndependentFilm Festival. Wish us luck!

Im also doing some small edits andadditional animation to beef it up hereand there.

Ive learned a lot from my lm

festival experience and talking to

power-brokers. Frinstance, no onesays Ill have my people talk to yourpeople or Lets do lunch sometime.No, the deceptively pleasant phrase du

jour is: I love it, but Ill have to talk tomy partners about it.What does this mean? Maybe it meansexactly what it seems to. Or maybethey hate it, but wont admit that. Orthat the guy who pulls the trigger on

deals is gun-shy. Who knows?Another thing Ive learned is that,

yes, I can say no to the evil, evil peoplearound me.As I detailed in issue 87, after the

Licensing show we were approachedby some unsavory folks who wantedus to animate an evil chicken. Theygave us bad vibes. So, even thoughthey seemed to have money, we turnedthem down. Whew. Glad to be strongenough to say no to bad money.

This was a relief, because I recentlysaw Hollywoodland. That movie


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scared the jeepers out of me. Everyonein that movie is in the lm biz, andall of them are corrupt - everyones inan unstable or unhealthy relationshipAND has a little something on the side.

They all are letting money pluck theirhearts from their chests. And theyre

doing what I want to do - make moviesand TV shows.

I once thought that the closestthing to Hell on Earth was the San

Jose Family Courthouse. Thereshattered people shufe like zombiesthrough the catacombs of the legalsystem, dealing with divorce, trying toget their kids back, trying to prove thatthey are the father or that they didnthit anyone. Horric.

But nothing compares to thehollow, empty eyes of the fat, bald,middle-aged men in Hollywood wholong ago traded Love for one grab atthe pot of Gold or the little Gold statue.

They dropped a girls hand to grasp forsomething else and came up empty.Or perhaps... not empty, perhaps a

screenplay or two, or minor work onsome movie that was never nishedor never released, or went straightto video. Something less than theirdream.Was it worth it?

I dunno.I am thankful that Ive been able to

make a couple trips to Hollywood and

have several encounters with power-

brokers and I have escaped to tell you.Of course, I havent gotten that big

dumptruck full of money, either.I still have Guidolon and I am still

pushing it. Well see - cautiously -what happens.

If nothing else, as Lori Ann White

says, I have a cool little movie that Imade that I can be really proud of,and no one can take that away fromme. And I lived my life without fearingto take risks. As Guido says in thelm, In this life, we have a choiceof nightmares. One nightmare is tomake a movie. The other nightmareis to NOT make a movie. I chose themaking-the-movie nightmare, and soI can live without regret. And THATALONE is worth the price of admission.

Meanwhile, I have another idea.Get this: Instead of Giant Monsters

Making Movies, we have:Dinosaurs Playing Guitar. Like the

Monkees, but T-rexs, instead.Aging dinosaurs playing fossil records

- get it? I think early next year Illstart production for a short, 3-minmusic video of dinosaurs playing andsmashing guitars. Itd be a great ideafor a TV show. Or a clip on YouTube.

Or lm festivals.There are always some coming up

in Los Angles. City of Dreams.

Ive tried my hand at

filmmaking, even briefly workedfor a porn film company filing

releases (alas, I was never on

set), but watching Frank try and

make the dream makes me realise

exactly how much I dont want

to go that direction. Its not

that its scary, its that its

tedious, expensive and at times

soul-sucking. Im just not the

kind of guy who could handle

that. Rejection: no problem, Im

all for it, but the wait and

well call you attitude hurts.

Even worse is that even

if they know they wanna do it

immediately, theyll hold back.

Look too eager, even if moneys

already changed hands, and the

supplier has the power. Its arough world.


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If Only She Could Cook

As Well As Honeywell Can

Compute

by Christopher J. Garcia

There are bad ideas everywhere.

today, when computers are plentifuland small enough to t into every nook

and most fo the crannies in a home.But what about the 1960s? How

I tend to have seventeen oreighteen of them a day, mostly

while Im writing in my LiveJournalor thinking about articles for TheDrink Tank. Its a rough road tohave these awful ideas and nothave the dough to unleash them onthe world.

Sometimes, bad ideas areactually just bad solutions to real

problems or, even worse, badsolutions to things which arentactually problems. One such thingis the problem of recipe storage.Its obvious that the world will endif people keep holding on to those3 by 5 cards in little boxes or, even

worse, shoved between the pages ofcookbooks. There has to be a better

way to maintain these preciousrecipes and not have them on thosedamned cards!

The solution, of course, isputting them on a computer inan easy to read font on a wirednetwork that can be accessed atany time. Thats the solution for

were we to eliminate these despisedcards in an era when computersmeant IBM mainframes that rentedfor thousands of dollars a month and

were programmed with punched cardsand paper tapes that might stretch for

miles?Honeywell solved the problem

with the help of Neiman-Marcus. In1966, Honeywell started selling a

computer called the Honeywell 316.The series was smaller than many,had enugh speed to satisfy their clientbase, and enough exibility to do real

work in various areas.Including holding recipes.Someone at Needless-Markup

So, even though I am swimmingin a sea of bad ideas, none of mine are

as bad as the Kitchen Computer.

must have seen the computer andthought that the front portionlooked like a cutting board. In the1969 catalog, they offered it for salefor 10,600 bucks. The median pricefor a home in the Santa Clara Valleyat the time was 10,750. GO gure.

What could it do? Well, ifyou knew how to use the panelswitches and lights, you couldenter in the ASCII code for thevarious characters and enter yourrecipes. You didnt get any I/Oother than the panel switches andlights, but you did get a free 2

week programming course withyour purchase. There was anotherpossible use, as the ad so sexistlynoted: and if she pales at reconning

her lunch tab, she can programmeit to balance the family checkbook.Theres no evidence that they

sold any through N-M. They orderedsix from Honeywell and returnedthree. When the Museum contactedthem, they didnt even know theyddone it.


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10/27

Whats interesting about

Bono is that hes so

legitimately loved despite

spending much of the 1980s

as a Colin Farel prototype.When Yvonne and I were

driving around LA the two days beforeWorldcon started, we were oftenamazed by the fact the city seemsto go on forever. Toronto is a city ofabout three million, and the Greater

Toronto Area, informally Toronto andall the communities surrounding it,comprises about 6 million. Yet, LA

just kept going and going and going,much like a certain toy rabbit. Wed

never have been able to get aroundif it handt been for good road mapsand Mapquest, showing us whathighways and roads to take to get to

where we wanted to go and our hotel inAnaheim.

I think LA is one of the

largest cities in the US

by area (Sitka, Alaska and

Jacksonville, Florida arelarger). Its amazing to

think that the number of

people that live between

Valencia in the North to

Anaheim in the South is

roughly the same as the

total number of Eurpoeans

around the year 1300.Ken Patterson should know that

only odd articles go into The DrinkTank. Where does Chris nd the timeto write all this? Few people knowthat he is the next incarnation of theDoctor, and that many of the issueshe produced in (our year) 2005 wereactually written while he was observingthe Boer War and the Second MartianRevolution of 2218. Timewise, he getsaround. Chris says hes in his 30s, but

with all his traveling, he must be in histhird century. And he doesnt look aday over 160Happy Birthday, by the

way, you old codger!

There is a theory that

Im part of a time-travel

conspiracy, that 10 years

from now Im Jay Lake and

fifty years from now ImArt Widner.

Spent last weekend in Montrealat the local SF conventionwhere did

you go for good drink? While we werein Montreal, we stayed at the DaysInn on rue Guy, and the best place forgood sports TV and excellent burgersnearby is La Cage aux Sports at 1437

Rene-Levesque ouest.I am a giant supporter

of Anticipation and Ive

been wanting to make it

out to one of the smaller

cons there, though money

and...gulp...flying stand

in the way. I shouldnt be

afeart of flying so much,Ill be going to CorFlu and

NASFiC by plane, and if I

win TAFF, well, lets just

say I aint gonna take a

boat.Hey, theres that article of mine.

Number 13, hmm? Good thing Im notsuperstitious, crossing my ngers for

good luckmight be boring reading,but its all true. I got to sample whatboth lit fandom and media fandomhad to offer, and as they changed, andas my interests changed, lit fandom

was the best choice for me. I am notstarstruck, never have been, and muchof modern media fandom seems to beabout star worship. Not interested.

I thought it was a great

look at crossing-over.


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Id love more

articles from

ya, Lloyd. Gotta

represent T-Dot! Denvention 3is a denite no-go for

me. Some people I knoware angry with us fornot voting for the 2008site selection. Well, wehad decided that were

not going to any more Worldcons, forthey are exorbitant, and therefore we

would not vote. So, we didnt vote forChicago, true, but then we didnt votefor Columbus or Denver, either. Either

someone offers me a fabulous good-paying job, or I win the lottery. Thatmay be the only way we get to Denver.

Id offer you a job, but

alas, I have none to give.

Im exicted for Denver,

especially since Ill be

driving out there. If you

play the lottery, may I

suggest 04, 10, 16, 24,

29. 35 as numbers (from a

fortune cookie on my desk

that reads You May Soon

Change Your Line of Work)Rusty Hevelin is an easy man

to talk to, and I see him about oncea year at Mike Glicksohns home.

After hearing Bruce say he had amembership he couldnt use, and

hearing Rusty say he wished he couldgo, it was easy to get them together,and transfer memberships. Bruce gotsome money out of the deal, and Rustyattended an excellent Worldcon, easy

peasy. Mention of a wish to meet BobTucker saddens mesorry, Chris, thatjust wont happen. I was on one panelwith Bob, and that was at Chicon Vin 1991. It was called Neo-Fandom

Through the Ages, and included ToniWeisskopf, Khen Moore and LiseEisenberg.

Theres a lot of sandess

in me over the fact that Inever got to meet Bob.Baseball? The Cardinals and

the surprising Tigers in the WorldSeries. Any comments or predictions?How about the Tigers in 7? Thatshould put the fox in the henhouseright there

Im all about the Tigers

this year. St. Louis isnt

a bad team at all (unlike

the Dodgers),

but the Tigers

need it to bring

some light to

Detroit.They seek him here,

they seek him there,those Frenchies seekhimeverywhere. Ialways enjoyed reading

The Scarlet Pimpernel,or the Scarlet Pumpernickle, as fartoo many comedy teams had it. Whilemuch of good literature is driven bygood ideas, plots and situations, someof it also has memorable characters,

and the combination of the two canproduce memorable reading. Sequelsnever seem to do well, though, andI never did read any more of thePimpernel books.

Nor have I, but since I

read the article, Ive gone

out and bought a few.A shame you didnt get that TV

showIve been for several voiceworkauditions since last I wrote, and I gota call a few days ago saying that oneI did go for, I got. Huzzah! And nowto nd out more. I may be the kindlynarrator in a new childrens show theproducers may try to sell to one of thelocal stations that shows kids shows,like Treehouse Television. Ill let youknow what happens as soon as I gure

it out myself.


12/27

Id love to hear Lloyd

Penney as the voice of

something awesome! Maybe

the voice of Chrysler?Hey, John, am I impressed that

Chris got to 100 issues in 91 weeks?

Nah, hes just nuts, thats all. And, hesgot either the worlds dumbest or theworlds most forgiving boss. Chris, doesyour boss know anything about allthis?

Im not nuts...Ive simply

got too much time on my

hands.I am sure that writing about

difcult stages in your lives, M andSaBean and Judith, were cathartic.Can you maybe summarize how writingthose article have helped? Have theybrought you two closer together,or perhaps just allowed you tounderstand some decisions you made?(Hugs to you all, youve been so openin your writings, youre friends I justhavent met yet.) Santa Barbara should

be a house full of love and belonging.)I know one thing that I can

say for hte girls: theyve

both managed to get a lot

of the anger they have at

the world out. Ive held

on to a bunch of their

articles because theyre

a little...well, lets

just say that Im running

a clean and

slightly less

depressing

ship. I cant

wait til

theyre there

full-time!My locI

might have beenharsh in writingabout the movieindustry, but somany movies arebeing made, and Ireally dont wantto see about 95%of them. Another4%, I want to see,but never get to them. Hollywoods notmaking money offa me. There are lotsof movies being made here, but gettingCanadians to watch them is a toughsell. Perhaps the best movie madehere in a while is Bad Cop Bon Cop, abilingual (!) movie starring Colm Feore.

Its box ofce is the best a Canadianmovies ever had, I believe. Hey, Chris,got a 5.25 drive not doing anythingright now? I still cant access YouTube,even with software xes and severaldownloads.

I totally wanna see that

movie. I love Colm Feore.And after wiping the sweat

off my brow after reading Leigh AnnHildebrands letter (gulp), I shall try

my best to wind up the third pageof this loc. I know Ill be in trouble ifI ever run into her at a convention,and something tells me Ill be havingimpure thoughts, which, as we know,as the very best, and thats why Ill bein trouble. You said you were taking arestso much for that. Off this goesto you and my LJ, take the neededrest, and see you nextish. Yvonne saysHappy Birthday, too!

I am so glad Im immune to

all unpure thoughts. Why

do you think I run so many

pictures of lovely ladies?

They keep my mind from

wandering...Yours, Lloyd Penney.


13/27

Of Course The Americans

Invented the Computer

by Christopher J. Garcia

Theres a question we getevery time a majour anniversary

comes up in the history ofcomputing.

What was the rstcomputer and who invented it?

Theres no good answer.There are a lot of answers thatsatisfy a select section of thequestion, but no good answerover-all. If you wanna be ighty,say Charles Babbage in the

1830s. He was working withideas that predicted the moderncomputer, but he never completedit and everything he did wasmechanical. You could say thatit was a large company likeAmerican Totalisator or a pioneerlike Vanevar Bush for the largemechanical devices they designed

in teh 1920s and 30s. You couldsay that it was the theories ofClaude Shannon, or the devicesof Konrad Zuse in Germany rightbefore and during the way. Thereare a lot of options but none of

them really t.In England, youll have two

kinds of answers. The rst is Colossusis the rst computer. Now, it was anelectronic device, but itd be a stretch

to call it a computer. It was used tocrack Geheimschreiber codes unsingcomparitors and paper tape. But itdidnt really compute. The second

will say it was the Manchester Baby,the rst machine to have a storedprogramme. That was in the late1940s, so it was close.

In the US, we know the answer:

ENIAC.ENIAC was built at the

Moore School in Philly by Eckert andMauchley. The machine itself was large

and used 15,000 vacuum tubes,but it wasnt a stored programmemachine. In fact, while it waseasily the fastest machine inthe world through about 1951(the UNIVAC was faster, and so

were a few research machines),it was the rst to give a lot ofthe rst generation of ComputerScientists hands-on experience.It did the number work for theHydrongen bomb among all

the other work, and in 1955, itwas struck by lightning. Sadly,Science Fiction movies have liedto us becasue it did not gainconciousness and become evil,it simply broke and went out ofuse.

The designers went on tofound UNIVAC and that startedanother wave of innovation:

commercial computing (whichthe Brits had already invented

with the LEO: Lyons ElectronicOfce). Still, ENIAC was the rstbecause...well, because we say itis!

Let us not forget thatthe Russians were also buildingcomputers, mostly led by Prof. Lebedevand his pals in the Monastary. They

werent far behind.


14/27

Letter-Graded Mail

from Eric Mayer

Chris,I really wanted to LoC your

hundredth but I cower in the face ofsuch a faanish bounty. In another life I

tried to comment on every contributionto a zine. After all, wasnt I often acontributor, scanning the loccols fora scrap of praise (or even notice)? So I

would write ve page LoCs.A Drink Tank 100 would hit mymailbox and Id go loco loccing. Id becommenting on the page 42 llo whenthe next ish crashed down on me.And here Id thought it wouldnt be out

until real soon now. Great Ghu.Ive still got the jargon but lost mystamina. So now I just freeze, knowing

what has to be done, but no way to doit.Well, its my fault for putting

so much stuff out there. I

try to write my LoCs for folks

the first day I read it, but I

sometimes put it off a week. Nottoo often (though Ive had to

for Pixel this run) but what are

you gonna do?

What should I comment on?If I comment on this, then surely,in all fairness, I must comment onthat, because that was as good in itsown way as this. And what about theother thing, which was more thought

provoking than this or that, even if it

wasnt entirely my cup of tea?This is the kind of issue that

keeps me up at night. I never

know exactly what to commenton when Im reading a zine and

perhaps I miss the point of far

too many of the articles I read.

I felt vindicated when I read

reviews of the latest Chunga

that talked largely about Randy

Byers article. I had made that

the focus of much of my LoC. I

got it right for once! I often

worry about missing an obvioushighlight, and once in a while

its not my fault. One time, a

copy of Banana Wings that I got

had two pages stuck together.

And one time I sneezed, skipped

a couple of pages and had passed

over an LoC about wrestling.

These things happen...but mostly

only to me.

You see my problem? Perhaps I

should just send the whole zine to youas an attachment and say, I enjoyedthese bits. Or could I just say, not bad,but please more Harlan jokes nexttime.OK, Harlan Ellison walks into a

bar, the bartender says nothing,

just goes about his businesswiping glasses. Harlan jumps

up on a stool, and still the

bartender does nothing. Harlan

starts seething, as hes apt

to do, and then the bartender

springs out and tackles Harlan.

What the hell was that

for? Harlan asks.

How else was I supposed to

get you to give me your pot of

gold? answers the Bartender.

OK, that was stolen from a

friend of mine who told it about

another short friend of mine,

but it applies here as well.

I salute your energy andcreativity. You have been a breathof fresh air. A new perspective. You

are largely responsible for grabbingmy interest and making me loath toentirely abandon fandom again. Damn

you, Chris Garcia!BestEricAnd that is the spoken goal of

my conspiracy. The plot is to

keep you around for much longer

than you expected. And it seems

to be working!


15/27

Everyones Gotta Start Somewhere

Ive talked to a lot of sciencection authors that I know haveused computers for a long time. RayFaraday Nelson started with the IBM1401 and used the IBM 1620 and still

remembers the start-up sequence.I already told folks about KarenAnderson using the UNIVAC I, whichalso happened to be the rst computerused by Dr. Asimov (he had numberrun on it at BU). Even Kurt Vonnegutused an early computer for some ofhis research (and to make a little extra

money).Jerry Pournelle used ont too.

It was the IBM 650. We had a paneltogether and started talking about howhe had worked on the beast and whatit could do. The 650 was a mystery tome, so I started asking around. A lot

more folks had worked on it than I hadthought.

IBM was in the beginning oftheir total take-over of the computerindustry. There was still UNIVAClording over the public conciousness,but mostly IBM was taking the bigsteps forward towards conquering

everything. The IBM 650 was,like many machines of that era, avacuum tube machine that usedDrum Memory. Since it was deliveredin 1954, there were no disk drives

yet, but they started selling the 650RAMAC with the huge disk drive in the

late 1950s.The 650 doesnt get the praise

it deserves. There were 2000 of themmade, a huge number for the early1950s, and a lot of folks got theirhands on their rst computer with the650. I wish we had one at the museum,but theres one in Germany that runs!


16/27

Grant Kruger was kind enough to

send this my way after running

it on his LJ. ITs a fun little

article about the Evil SMoFish

Conspiracy. You can comment at

http://thirdworld.livejournal.

com/124661.html ifn youre so

inclined.

For those in fandom. An articlethat should be on Snopes:

Claim: SMOFS are a secret societydedicated to ruling the nerd world.

Status: Wake up and smell the coffee!False, you old sleepyhead.

Example: Variations exist everywhere.

1. There is this secret society ofcon runners that are makinga fortune running sciencection/fantasy conventions. Youdont want to cross them if youever want to get a book/storypublished, or have your TVseries succeed.

2. I deserved the Hugo, butthose lousy smofs nagled meout of it and gave it to one oftheir buddies in a secret vote!I happen to know I got moreHugo nominations than anyone,because, after all, I sent out atleast 300 of them myself!

3. I never was made a Worldcondivision head for my favoritedivision because those dastardly,evil, smofs conspired to shut meout of the whole committee andthe con itself. Its because they

knew Im so frigging brilliant thatId make them look bad -- I meanlook at how successfully I runour little local get-together at thePicayunne Coffee Corner!

4. I deserved to be president of theUS but those damned smofsconspired to create the wholebloody dimpled chad scenario!

5. SMOFS planned and executed9-11 and then planted fakeevidence to implicate oSammy& the boys, as part of a plot todistract regular folks from theirattempt to take over the sciencection world, and therefore thefuture.

Origins: SMOF = Secret Masters Of

Fandom.

The term Smof was inventedby the author Jack Chalker. Late atnight, while socializing in the consuite at a convention, he noticed thatthe ice buckets were somehow always

full, though he never saw anyone rellthem. He proclaimed that those whokept these buckets full were the secretmasters of fandom. From this came theterm SMOF(Also Smof or smof), whichlater came to mean many things, butbasically all con runners and clubrunners (the people who magicallymake fandom happen). The secretparthas no signicance other than that.

Those who see their being a Smof asbeing part of some sort of superiorclique/race have generally beenlobotomized... repeatedly... oh, did Isay that out loud?

Remember now boys and girls,no true secret group /society /cabal/election-fraud-team would ever usethe word secret in their name. Plus

they would be far better organizedto boot. I mean some of these smofsarent even talking to each other, nevermind plotting together. And those whoare talking (most of them to be honest)barely know many of each other, andare way too overloaded making yourconventions happen for next to no cost(yes, there are no labor costs becausethese smofs are all volunteers and

none of them ever make any money out

Photo: John OHalloran - [email protected]
http://www.snopes.com/http://www.snopes.com/


17/27

of the deal. Those making money arecalled (no silly, not some other secretorganization)companies!)

And the truth is there arethousands of smofs around the worldand most of them know no more thana few dozen of the rest of the smofs.

There is no central leadership, andwoe betide anyone who tried to createsuch a leadership, for they would beso roundly ignored and disparaged tosuch an extent that they would fadeinto nothing, crying, Im melting, Immelting!

These are tales as old as time.People too readily believe in secretcabals and conspiracies. Others,feeling slighted in some way, or lled

with the staggering emptiness oftheir own inadequacies, will makeup any story in order to cover theirown failures. Others really have beenslighted, but it was likely personal,possibly necessary, but not aconspiracy.

Is there politics in fandom/

smofdom? You betcha. As much asanywhere maybe. Some places fandomis more political than government. Sodo people ever get screwed over by conrunners? Of course. Its called humanfrigging nature! People are just likethat. Yes, yes, we all know that one daythe aliens/angels will come down andenlighten us, but in the meantime, justaccept the fact that people just plain

suck a lot of the time. We get political;

we stab our friends in the back; westab our friends in the front; worst ofall: we encourage our friends to runWorldcons (shriek!). Dont imagine a

frigging conspiracy just because somedumbass will not let you on their team.Oh, and these guys are

volunteers. They give of their timefreely. For no expectation of rewardbeyond a simple, Thank you. Giversin a world of takers. A rare and dyingbreed. This means your odds of havingnicer than average people go wayup. Which in turn means less of the

kinds of nonsense one usually nds in

volunteer groups.And nally, they have no real

power whatsoever, unless you considerbeing powerful as spending muchof your spare time and spare cashrunning conventions for others, justso that conspiracy boneheads can say

that you are making millions beingmean to people. Oh, some of them getto pick guests and the like -- woohoo,CIA eat your heart out!

Additional points:

Worldcons can be run by anyonewho runs a good bid. You canwin even if all the smofs there

vote against you. Elections arevery free and fair.

The Hugo Awards are open toanyone who attends or supportsthat Worldcon... yes, any ofthem can vote -- all 4.5 to 8.5thousand of them. Many smofsdont even vote, nevermindcontrol the process. Elections are

very free and fair. If you cheat in these ballots, your

votes dont count. Sooowwwy.

Each convention runs their staffthe way they want to. Nobodyis entitled to any position,no matter what. But guess

what, very few conventionsare overstaffed. Make yourselfavailable and the chances are


18/27

they willuse you... unlessyoure a known pain in the buttof course (some few politicalexceptions do exist, sadly).

Smofs were notresponsible for 9-11, Bush stealing the elections,

your not being able to takehomebrew onto an airplane, orany other of Bushs cock-upsfor that matter. And the onlymistakes regarding Gore thatcan be tied to smofs are some ofthe horror movies on the videotrack.

Smofs dont run the world, or

the TV studios, or the publishinghouses. Oh sure, some smofshave jobs in these industries,but they are a tiny minority andthey are not going to go along

with any corruption, even if anyexisted, because todays winneris tomorrows outbid loser.

Again: smofs make no money

off this malarkey. In point offact most of them spend some,or a lot, of their own moneyto make conventions happen.Why? Because they are stupidbrain-damaged morons withouta clue? No... well maybe, butthats besides the point. Becausethis is their hobby. Becausethey like running conventions.

Because they like being a part

of it. Because they like honoringwriters, artists, etc. Becausethey want to have a goodtime. Because many of themare alcoholics... no, wait, thatshould be, many of them drinkenough at cons to appear to

be alcoholics, but they usuallyhold down quite respectable jobsoutside of conventions (yes, theyhave to have jobs to support thishabit... no silly, the con-runninghabit, not the alcoholismdrinking).

Aw come on! No really! Whats the

true status?: If you still believe smofsare a nefarious secret society, wellthen you probably need more therapythan any secret cabal of psychologists/psychiatrists can give you... oh wait, I

wasnt supposed to mention them.

Thank you and goodnight!

The View From Higher Up

This was originally a project

the museum wanted to do that got

abandoned. Its a shame because

I got some great words from

folks like Will McCarthy, Sheila

Finich, Sean McMullen, HowardHendrix, David Brin and more.

Ive printed a few of them, but

heres one that I dont think

made it it.

Computers have transformedmodern art, from the writing of novelsto the creation of motion pictures. Theprecise mathematical control of pixels

on a screen or in a printer has hadamazing consequences already, andthe revolution has only just begun.Science ction visions of virtual realityhave clunked along for the last decade,but soon could leap to commercialviability. And who knows how that

will inuence creative types? As well,the ability to visualize the workings

of abstract or unseen phenomenon--from mathematical equations to thestructure and function of proteins--allows us to more easily understandnature, and ourselves. I look forward

with keen anticipation to the nexttwenty years, which should be justas earthshaking as the last twenty--though very likely in different andhardly predictable ways.

Greg Bear- April 26th, 2004


19/27

It All Started Very

Simply...with a Loom

I can remember people comingfor some of the rst tours I ever gaveat the museum. They were all inter-ested in the same things as the schoolkids who wrote in working on vari-ous papers. They all wanted to know

where it started. I handt formulated

the ideas that would makeup my current answers yet,but I didnt have to give ananswer one day. There wasa fellow, about 70 or so, onteh tour and he was veryquiet until one of the tour-

ists asked a simple ques-tion: Whered it all start.

I took them to theHollerith machine, the ma-chine that was used for the1890 Census. I was readyto give them an earful ofthe competition to developa faaster way of doing thecensus, about how Hollerith

was inspired by seeing aconductor punch little cards to indicateattributes of various travelers so thatthey could be kept track of. Before Icould launch into it, the old guy spokein a slightly Eastern European accent.

It was Joseph Marie Jacquardwho invented the Jacquard Loom in1801. He took designs from Basile

Bouchon, Jean Falcon and JacquesVaucanson and made them sim-

pler and more logical. His loom usedpunched cards to store patterns andthat inuenced a generation to usecards to store other kinds of data,including Mr. Hollerith who used it tostore information on each householdin America so that he speed up the

census. The Jacquard Loom conceptwas so ingenius that it is still the basicpremise for modern looms, though they

use electronics where Jacquard usedsteam or manpower.

There was a stunned silencefrom the other folks on the tour. Icouldnt have given that level of ad-vanced answer, not in my wildestdreams. Im not that smart.

Yeah, thats exactly right.The guy then went on more

about Jacquard and Hollerith, about

the early days of IBM and card punchaccounting. The audience, which in-cluded the tour guide in this case, was

just stunned. He mentioned thingslike the Card-Programmed Computer,an early attempt at a general purposecomputer done by IBM engineers that

IBM almost came down hard on butthen realised the power of what theyhad done. He told us about people like

Vanevar Bush and DH Lehmer.He even went into how me-chanical computers of Babbage

would have used the cards andwhat followers of Babbage didthe cards in the earlyBabbagetype machines. It was almosta Graduate level lecture from aguy who seemed to have givena lot of lectures.

Whered you learn allthat? I asked, hopign to hearthat he was the Great-great-grandson of Jacquard or aprofessor who had taught thisstuff since the 1950s.

I worked at Princetonas a graduate student in the1940s. I used to sit with John VonNeumann and he would tell me howthe cards worked.

Everyones jaw dropped. Asidefrom Edward Teller, Id never met any-one who knew Von Neumann, but thenhe dropped the bomb.

All those stories used to annoy

Einstein. He was tired of Johns storiesa long time before I was.


20/27

Letter Graded Mail...Long

Over-Due

I bought Ed Green at a BAS-

FA auction. That means I

got to tell him to do one

thing and I had him writean LoC on The Minute Six-

ty: The One Hour Zine we

did at BayCon. Here is his

LoC...FINALLY!

Chris,Okay, Im supposed to write a

letter of comment for the zine that the

Fanzine in an Hour panel put out atthe 2006 Baycon.

Im supposed to do this becauseyou gave me this task during one of theinfrequent BASFS meetings that I wasable to attend. Apparently you all havesome heathen tradition of auctioningoff someone around their birthday,

with the intent of having him or herdo something. Although it is a fundraiser for BASFS, there are much moredignied ways of raising money. Lookat the LASFS.

Okay, perhaps using the worddignied was not the best choice. Butat least the LASFS methods of fundraising are more sensible.

Well, they make more sense onceyou understand the LASFS auction

systems (If you do understand theLASFS auction system, please send

me an e-mail. Ive been helping to runthem for the last 15 or so years and Illbe Ghod damned to Hell and Anaheim

if I understand them).Anyway, you won the right tohave me do something. And you,

you fanzine writin TAFF candidate,thought it would be clever to makeme *write* an LOC for the abovementioned zine.

Now, mind you, I had to write anLOC about time, and deadlines!

Deadlines? Fannish deadlines?

Boyo, Ive seen deadlines for

Cons vanish in a wish and a prayer.Id watched contract proposalsgathering dust in the depths of aone foot in box. Hell, Ive blown offdeadlines imposed by the Pentagon;

you really think that watching this oney by like a meth addict screaming

after their connection is going to botherme?

Apparently not, since this hastaken almost six months to get out.

Of course, like all good little fen,Ive got excuses.

I was running a major divisionfor the 2006 Worldcon (And let memention here that my departmentheads were, without exception, damn

ne people who did tremendous workin spite of having me as their boss).Lots of deadlines to be waved at asthey zip on by.

The business I work for is notonly in its busy season, but businessindustry wide is over 50% off andeveryone is scrambling for construction

work. Between the MMJ(1) and the

SI(2), things get loud, people runaround with their hair on re andtheres a lot of swearing. Oh, thedeadlines that get missed tryingto juggle things here. And this is

where they pay me to be the sunnypersonality I am.

Theres at least four seasonsof Buffy the Vampire Slayer that Ihavent caught up on. (Which is true.

I never really watched the show when


21/27

it was rst on, and now Im watchingit by way of the uber-DVD collection.Damn, but its a fun show!) Oh andthat new Harry Turtledove novel is outand I just have to nish it.

And what the hell, I could startthis thing. Or I could deal with that

shambling stack of laundry that hasdecided that living in the clotheshamper isnt nearly roomy enough, andis currently looking on Craigs List for alarger apartment.

Then there are the new booksby Naomi Novik. The alternate history/ fantasy series where dragons arereal and the Napoleonic Wars arebusy being fought with them. Not

the typical elves and trolls fantasystuff, but a well thought out world.Great characters and very well done.Ive been thinking about getting aConvention ribbon

Oh, I guess Im supposed to saysomething about the zine itself.

Nice little zine you got there.How much for just the staples?

Oh, Im supposed to saysomething about the contents of thezine?

Actually, Im very impressed withit, more so considering it was producedunder such a deadline.

Randy Smiths story aboutfannish deadlines and the real world

was clearly the best thing in it. Noslight is meant to the other writers, but

Randy did an excellent job of showing

us how torn he was between the twoworlds we, as fans, have to stride attimes. It also speaks volumes aboutRandy that he understood where heneeded to be, and was willing to acceptthe consequences for that decision.If fandom ever gave out a Hugo for asingle work of fan writing in a given

year, Randys would have been one ofthe top ve contenders.

George and Vanessa VanWagners piece was falling on the oor

funny. But then, Ive grown to expectthat from the two of them. The rsttime I became aware of their senseof humor was at a LASFS meeting I

was running, when Vanessa made acomment from her seat about someDisney lms. I broke out laughing,something that didnt happen oftenenough when I was presiding over aLASFS meeting.

Writing well on a fast deadline

is always a tough thing to do. Youshould be very happy with the resultsof what you folks produced at Baycon.Not only was it well written, it was

worth the time spent reading it.And really, isnt time what it is

all about?

It is the belief of the writer of thisLoC that no deadlines were harmed inthe production of this letter. One ortwo might have been scared, but whatthe hell!(1) This is the nick name for theloud boss.(2) This is the nick name for thesneaky boss.

Ed Green

First off, Im so very

glad to see you finally appear

in print in one of the Garcia

Family of Fanzines. I gotta

agree, Randys stuff was so

great, not takign anything away

from Derek of The Van Wagners oreven myself. OK, maybe a little

away from myself.

As far as your tardiness,

you are forgiven because 1)

there was a WorldCon in-between

then and now and that must have

sucked you in like teh mob and

2) Ill hit you with the ruler

of fandom next time I see you.

Thanks, Ed!


22/27

Alright, Ill Give You

That...but is it ART?

Do computers think?No, no they dont. Can com-puters feel? No, no they cant.Will computers create of their

own accord if given the op-portunity? No. These are allcriticisms that hit the com-puter world in the 1960s and70s, as if these facts them-selves proved that comput-ers were not useful tools tothe proper users. The biggestproblem Ive ever had withthe idea of The Singularity is

that theres no way that com-puters can mathematicallyrecreate the important func-tions of the human brain.Were not important because

we can weigh choices andmake appropriate changes,

were great because we canignore what is right and go

for what feels right. Theres amajour difference that Im fairly certaincomputers will never be able to takeup.

But can computers do art? Thiswas a question that I struggled with fora while before I came across the worksof a guy named Harold Cohen.

Harold Cohen was a traditionalmodern artist in the 1960s and early

70s. He had a show at the Tate Gallery

among other important locations. Inthe late 1960s, he met several compu-ter science-types, including Ed Feigen-baum. This led him to start thinkingabout how computers could be used inart.

The rst thing he did was learnC, the language of the future back inthe early 1970s. He also made contacts

with various labs, including SAIL, theStanford Articial Intelligence Lab.

That gave him access to notonly machines, but know-how with those machines.By 1073, he had a prototypesystem that he called AARON.

AARON would actuallycompose pictures and then,

using a drawing turtle itwas do outlines that Cohenwould then colour in. It cameup with some bizarre shapesand weird constructions, butoverall, it was good stuff.

As time went on, Ha-rold found new methods andtechniques that he was ableto programme into AARON.

The most signicant advancewas the table version whichcould also do all the colour-ing. This produced many im-pressive works, one of whichhangs at the Computer His-tory Museum.

AARON is semi-retired.We have the atbed version

and theres a turtle on displayat Stanford. Harold still does some ofthe computer art...or should I say aversion of AARON still does it. Thatsthe biggest question his art raises: isthe computer making the art or theman who programmes the computer

which does the arting. Its so difcultto tell.

Harolds a nice guy too. I met

him once. We taked about Eastercon.


23/27

When I started thinking about

a computing issue, I instantly

thought of Arnie and he was

kind enough to send me this

great article.

The Urge

By Arnie Katzenjammer

I invented Fandom. The Immortal Storm, Up to Nowand All Our Yesterdaysmay sayotherwise, but I am unshakably sure ofmy claim.

Yes, really and truly, anddenitely not in the same sense thatAl Gore invented the Internet. So I say

again, and I declare emphatically, thatIO invented Fandom.

This will take a little explainingRoxanne and Bill Mills live close

enough to the Launch Pad, that weare able to overcome their innatereclusiveness and entice them over ona fairly regular basis.

In telling us about their day atthe Renaissance Faire and how itrekindled wonderful memories and asense that their time for immersion inthat subculture had passed. That, inturn, evoked memories of Joyce andme leaving the Fandom subculture in1976.

That led to my explaining that wehad eventually realized that we hadmade a colossal mistake by gaating.

You were never gaa, Roxanne

said earnestly. You were always afan.

I was about to disagree, becauseFandom seemed very remote to me formost of the 14 or so years I was gone.

When I considered it more carefully,though, I realized that she had a point.My fannish urges had not disappeared;I merely channeled them in a differentdirection.

Starting in 1978, I began writingabout video and computer games, acolumn in Videomagazine with co-author Bill Kunkel. That led to mebecoming editor-in-chief and associatepublisher of the worlds rst videoand computer game magazine inthe world, Electronic Games. Thatmagazine became a casualty of thevideo game crash of the mid-1980s,but Bill, Joyce and I continued to begaming journalists. I designed VideoGames & Computer Entertainmentandthen, around 1990, took the helm of a

revived Electronic Games.Like the old science ction

magazines, those electronic gamingmagazines generated lots of readerinteraction. I heard from a lot ofpeople, mostly teens, who yearnedto express their love of gaming andcluster with their own kind.

So I wrote a column that broached

the idea of gamers maybe doingsomething more than playing thegames and reading the magazine. Iexplained the idea of a fanzine asa means of personal expression. Ipromised to review fanzines sent to meso that they could get more readers.

Six months later, Id become theirRog Phillips. The reviews sparked aock of electronic gaming fanzines

and the reviews in the prozines builtreadership and lured still more fanzinepublishers.

With premeditation, I kept mydistance from EG Fandom. I was theprozines editor and fanzine reviewer,but I didnt mix in their discussions orparticipate in their fanzines. The lastthing electronic gaming fans needed

was a colossus in their midst.My reviewing style owed at leastas much to Mari Wolff, the egg oboo-splashing giantess in The EnchantedDuplicator, as to the proprietor ofAmazons Clubhouse. The electronicgaming fanzines couldnt hold a candleto the ones I recalled from my fanningdays in the 60s and 70s. It wassurprising that the gulf wasnt greater,

because just about all the eg faneds


24/27

were in high school or even younger.I was a booster, not a knocker. I

took these fanzines on their own terms,praised the best aspects and tried tomake it sound like fun. My conscience

wouldnt let me suppress all criticalcomments; I always mentioned one

defect so that readers wouldnt haveunreasonably high expectations.

Most eg fanzine editorsunderstood my method, but I gotseveral whining letters from a few whocould not accept the slightest bit ofcriticism. They all took the same line:You dont know how hard it is to doa fanzine! In such cases, Id tell themabout my own fanzine publishing and

point out that every fanzine has roomfor improvement.

Those encounters, while mildlyunsettling, provoked mostly laughter.

I found it harder to take theactual hate mail I got from the trulydisaffected. Electronic Gaming Fandom

was composed almost entirely ofrebellious, contentious teenage males.

In other words, just about all ofthem were Insurgents and the mostinsurgent of them would make Laneyseem like a pacist.

These ultra insurgents lacked onlyone thing something against whichto rebel. As the editor and the guy whoreviewed their fanzines, I was a naturaltarget. Ill never forget one letter whichincluded a poem about how all the

fans would hold hands and dance in a

circle, celebrating my death.One kid even started a campaign

to not send fanzines for review. I toldthe others that who receives a fanzineis solely the decision of the editor, butI also pointed out that elimination ofthe review column that was the goal

would quite possibly lead to the demiseof EG genzine fandom.

Since the vitriol came from onlytwo or three out of hundreds of EGfans, it soon passed as the sources

went off to college, discovered girls andfound other ways to channel all thatpent up combativeness.

Unfortunately, I was right aboutthe column. When I left Video Games &Computer Entertainment, I encouragedthem to keep coverage fanzines, whichthey did. I started a fanzine column inthe revived Electronic Games,whichgave the edgling fandom much wider

exposure. Then Ziff-Davis boughtVG&CEfor its circulation and foldedthe magazine. When Electronic Gamesgave way to Fusionin the early1990s, the prozines ceased to givespace to EG Fandom and the numberof publications entered into a steepdownhill slide.

There are still some like theexcellent (though sercon) Digital Press,

but the emphasis has shifted to onlineactivities blogs and web sites. Thereare two annual conventions and somesmaller, informal ones.

And so, you see, I inventedFandom, even though I couldnt playinit.

Maybe it was coming so close tosomething that reminded me so much

of my younger days in ourFandom thatstirred those embers deep inside, aspark that burst into a ame just a few

years after my stint as a poor gamersForry Ackerman.

So, as you see, I invented Fandom.Just not ours.And I really, really prefer this one.

-- Arnie Katz


25/27

Last Letter-Graded Mail

Let us begin with Eric Mayer!

Chris,

Well Ive heard of the 101st

airborne and 101 Dalmations, nowheres Drink Tank 101.I was tempted to do an all 101

issue of The Drink Tank, but

sanity gripped me tight and I

held off. THinking about it,

having an issue with all digital

numbers would have been better

for the computer issue.

That National Registery stuff

is fascinating. I didnt realize thatwas all online. Ill have to see if myequipments up to it. I want to hearWilliam Jennings Bryan. Now theresan interesting gure. A great populist,

which I liked when I read about him,but then he went and blew it by gettinghimself on the wrong side in theScopes Monkey Trial.Well, I wouldnt say he was on

the wrong side, I mean any side

that gets paid is the right side

if youre a lawyer!

Apparently his Cross of Goldspeech was a real political spectacle.When he delivered the closing line,

which was, as I recollect, somethinglike thou shalt not crucify mankindupon a cross of gold he reportedly

stepped back from the podium, inging

his arms out to the sides, rather asif he were being crucied. Kind of anineteenth century Madonna.

Imagine stirring people up with aspeech about monetary policy. Hemustve been some orator.Thats what gets me, the fact

that a pretty high brow speech

was so very well known.

Youre absolutely right, you canthave a later band like Nirvana included

without including the Ramones. Iwas really into punk rock in the mid-

seventies and it just never caught on.Until a generation later. My nephewplays me one band after another Inever heard of, which all sound like theRamones, and terric. Hmmm...I hopethis doesnt mean disco isnt reallydead...And youre also right about theVelvet Underground, of course. I guessto make the registery bands have tobe inuential as well. I guess the New

York Dolls and Joe King Carrasco are

out. Pity.You know, the Dolls are back to-

gether and touring, even though

Johnny Thunders is dead. I heard

a lot of Velvet Underground

this weekend driving to and from

Tahoe. I really think they need

to put in at least one of theiralbums.

You mention a lot of countrymusic. For the most part My favoritesong by a country music performer isSheb Wooleys Purple People Eater.OK, I think Hank Willims is one ofthe greatest singer/songwriters ever.I also like Patsy Cline. Ive listeneda bit to Bob Wills and he was pretty

interesting. Some of the music doneway back when could be very unusual.Wow, I oughta be a music critic! Well,maybe not.I heard a hilarious story this

weekend about the man who wrote

Patsy Clines Crazy, Mr. Willie

Nelson. Ol Dirty Bastard, the

Wu-Tang Clans filthiest rap-

per who died not too long ago,

was once asked who in the mu-

sic industry he most wanted to

meet. He said Willie Nelson,

because that motherfucker smoked

an ounce a day for forty years!

People find it strange that I

like country, but really, its

what Punk comes from.

Best,

Eric


26/27

Thanks, Eric.

And Now...John Purcell!

Okay, since youre almost donewith #102, lets see if I can wedge thisloc in there in time.You made it in, just under the

wire.#100 - An awesome

accomplishment, my friend. I am stillshocked and surprised at how quickly

you rebounded from this mammotheffort to get #101 out so quickly.

The contents in the Centennial DrinkTankare quite varied, to say theleast. I really cant single out any oneparticular item for commentary, so let

me just give you a blanket comment ofwell done, laddie and a slap on theback. Actually, maybe I should makethat a kick in the pants; its probablymuch more appropriate.Thats a solid comment as far as

Im concerned. I mean, #100 was

big, probably far bigger than

anyone ever expected it to be.

Really, Id probably have been

better off just doing an issue

at half the size, but I couldnt

help myself.#101 - Silicon sounds like its

the kind of con Id enjoy: lots of lms,relaxing with friends, chatting, andmostly night activities. Saturdayis usually the main day of mostconventions anyway, so your comment

that if you only came for Saturday,

you might have thought you were at amuch larger con makes sense. Even a

small relaxacon can seem bigger if youslap some surface structure to it.Ive always enjoyed relaxacons. Minn-stf used to run a couple of these every

year when I was active up there. Wehad Anokon, which was basically anexcuse to have a weekend -long partyin the far-ung northern suburb ofAnoka, and it was usually somethinglike the second or third weekend in

October when the weather is stillpleasant during the day and chillyat night. A good, old-fashionedIndian Summer kind of scenario.Once Minn-stf moved Anokon downthe road apiece to Coon Rapids, thecon was dubbed Not-Anokon mainlybecause it was fannish, but ostensiblybecause CoonCon had such a negative

connotation to it, even if it wasdeliberately misspelled as KoonKon.

Just didnt sit right with folks. So Not-Anokon it was.Sounds like a fun con. I

never make it to any of hte LA

relaxacons, thoughI hear theyre

fun. I might start one myself

in the future. Perhaps a sorta

relaxacon for hoaxers.Interesting selections from that

National Recording Registry. As youcan probably guess, I am also a bigfan of recorded music, and sometimesspoken word. My favorite compilationof recordings are the old bluesrecordings done back in the 1920sand 1930s of Robert Johnson, BessieSmith, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and

all, by the Lomax brothers. Those oldrecordings are full of vitality, pathos,and passion that a lot of modern-dayrecording artists would do well tostudy. Pure, raw music-making at itsnest.I think all of those folks are

in teh Registry. Im just not

excited by the Blues at all. I

dont know why, but I cant get

into Robert Jordan or even Muddy

Waters. It also explains why I

dislike Eric Clapton (and Jimmy

Page for that matter).

In your listing here, I agreewith your assessment of the Whoson First rst radio recording. It isnowhere near as funny as the lmedversion; the pacing was much better

in the second, plus you had the fun


27/27

of watching Lou Costellos facialexpressions. They were both comedicgeniuses, but Costello is generallyregarded as one of the best double-takers in the business. My wife isa big fan of Abbott and Costello,especially their movie The Time of Their

Lives, in which Lou is one of the tworevolutionary ghosts trying to... well,I dont want to spoil the movie foranyone who has never seen it, but it isa lot of fun.The filmed version also gives

you those wonderful expressions.

The delivery is just too fast

for the first half. Its still

funny, but there are a lot of

little laughs that they got in

the filmed version that didnt

come through. Of course, theyd

done that routine about a

thousand times before they did

the radio version. Ive seen

Time of Their Lives and was most

impressed.

We have a couple CDs Bob Wills

and his Texas Playboys. Wheneveryou start to feel down and a bitoverwhelmed by the idiocy of day-to-day living, slap one of these into

your CD player and enjoy the vibe.Seriously, you cant help but tap yourfeet and smile while listing to TexasSwing. It is a lot of fun to listen to.The six disc set of Wills stuff

I bought a couple of years ago

is stillin heavy roatation.

Charlie Byrd, called Jazz Samba(1962), Verve recording 8432, which alsofeatured Keter Betts on bass, Buddy

Deppenschmidt and Bill Reichenbachon drums. One word best describesthis album: scrumptious.Theres no doubt about that.

I like Getz, and my History of

Jazz prof Tony Cinamo was a pal

of his.

Hey, I remember watchingTW3- That Was The Week That Was- ontelevision, and it was easily the bestshow on the tube at that time. LovedLehrers stuff. For ages, Dr. Dementohas been playing The Vatican Rag onhis radio program. My personal TomLehrer song is Poisoning Pigeons inthe Park. And then, of course, theresthe Firesign Theater. My favorite -besides Dont Crush that Dwarf, Handme the Pliers- is Everything You Know

is Wrong. Great material, especially the

Regnad Kcin piece... Whoops! I wasreading that through the glass on thedoor. I am referring to, of course, NickDanger.Theres no question that

Leher deserves to be in, but

they chose poorly as to which

recording. The reconding of ThatWas The Year That Was was made

at the hungry i in San Francisco

and theres a mention of San

Jose in it!

Anywho. A ne follow-up issueto Drink Tank #100. So lets see;according to your livejournal, yourealmost done with #102. So heres thisloc.

Did I make the cut?All the best,

JohnYou made, John, by the skin of

your teeth.

Anotheritem youmention inhere is StanGetz versionof TheGirl From

Ipanema.Hey, if youliked that one,check out thecollaborativerecordingof Getz and

the drink tank issue 102

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