August 2003

--e*I*9-- (Vol. 2 No. 4) August 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 eI Grand Quote Master Dave Locke

…a damn fine essay on fanzine collection and disposition that ought to be - dare I say it? - published in a fanzine somewhere… An excellent job, Dave, of Covering It All.
                --Robert Lichtman, MemoryHole, July 3, 2003

This is not casually generated and is not meant for casual reading. It's serious shit, a bit light in places and heavy in others, and stuff to think about. It covers a bit of ground. Nothing will change as the result of it. Immediately print off a copy, take it down to the nearest beer garden, and tell the bartender that here's something he can set his drinks on.

Gregory Pickersgill wrote: "I don't need to tell you how much it amuses me to see people twitter on about how they 'want fanzines' to 'build their collections.'"

Yeah, same here. We'll take additions in dribs and drabs, but not in other fans' lifetime accumulations of, say, 50 disintegrating cartons marked "fanzines." And we'll be surprised when usually we hear nothing about the collections of fans who died without, apparently, really giving a crap about what happens to their stash once they're gone. And of course, what usually happened to the stash was it went to the landfill after years of taking up space the kid or the spouse could have used to good effect if it weren't packed tight with cardboard fanzine coffins.

For kickoff purposes the smoking gun is not so much Harry Warner's contested collection, but rather Billy Pettit's understandable angst at the question of available options for other fanzine collectors who wish to make future disposition of their property.

Billy Pettit on disposing of a fanzine collection: "1. Donate to a University. We've beat this to death in the past. There are only two University collections that I'm aware of that are being cared for and treated with respect: Andy Sawyer in England, and Riverside in US."

The whole concept of fanzine collections at universities is, to me, very questionable, but….

What about Temple University Libraries Fanzine Collection?
http://www.library.temple.edu/speccoll/fanzine.htm
Paley Library, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA

They also house the Paskow SF Collection, and some others. See the main page at http://www.library.temple.edu./speccoll/

Is Temple no longer considered a viable choice? I'm not up-to-date on this.

*Somewhere* in the past year I ran across an older list of universities with fanzine collections and a brief discussion of each. I *thought* I made note of the reference somewhere, but if I did then I haven't yet executed a thorough enough search to turn it up.

Dave Locke, January 2002. "My son Brian sent this to me with a comment to the effect that he didn't know I'd come out of retirement and rejoined the workforce. I think the real message was that he had learned how to fuck around with PhotoShop."

Billy, you've run through the possibilities with precision, and between you and Dwain Kaiser (and what is happening to Harry's collection), it's obvious the key point is to MAKE ARRANGEMENTS FOR DISPOSITION of the fanzines even if the options appear bleak. The alternative is to just face the fact that when you're dead it's all most likely going to the landfill. Harry got 99.999% of the way toward a good disposition and then screwed it all up by banding the UC-Riverside letters with his will for eight years instead of handing both to his lawyer and having the former incorporated into the latter. Just about anything could happen next, and there's zilch we can do to steer it.

Billy again: "4. Donate selected portions to various fan funds. Again, viable option but requires lots of work to sort out. But still leaves many tons of scrap paper."

I'm wondering if we've really given enough thought to this as an option to be developed. An option to not only keep fanzines in circulation, or at least in fandom, but also to benefit an ongoing fan institution. Probably we have, with the upshot that "this isn't going to happen."

Work? Hell yeah there'd be a lot of work. Tons of it. And the freshly departed would seldom have provided much of it. As Bruce Gillespie wrote: "...meanwhile I have almost all the fanzines I've received since the beginning of 1969, but unless I go through them again, and at least catalog the items I want to keep access to, then those are effectively lost as well."

So if someone dies and wills their fanzine collection to, say, The Fan Fund Properties Administration, the "properties" will often be boxes and bags of mostly unsorted Kipple. The inner workings of a mill to process that into something useful for auction would be nightmarish even if the goal is only to follow the Pareto Principle and deal with the 20% of items which represent 80% of the "value". The FFPA could be self-sustaining down the road, but getting to that point would require money, transportation, people, and sorting and cataloging and auctioning and coordinating. Volunteer labor wouldn't be enough. It would have to become an institution in its own right, generating its own expense money and overhead costs while providing for the continuity of fanzines and the primary source of
fan-fund monies.

Doesn't sound like a fan project, does it? A rhetorical question.

So, what we're left with is this. Anyone interested in collecting fanzines, if we leave universities out of the equation while discussing this, already has their own fanzine collection. From experience we know that some collections are well cared for, but most are in various stages of not well cared for, and few people can take on a (or another) complete in-chaos collection. In fact, the containers they're initially stored in will likely be the containers used to carry them to the landfill. And that back half of the garage or basement or attic or spare room, which could have been used for something useful like a car or an activities room, will have served no better purpose than to be a transition point between the property's life and death. Is it any wonder the spouse and the kids can't get rid of that shit fast enough once you bite the big one?

For most purposes, an in-chaos collection is of no value until someone goes through it and at least pulls out the items of most value. Another collector is unlikely to be willing or able to do that. It would take an organization dedicated to that task, and it's unlikely such an organization could arise within fandom.

What does that leave? Reality, more reality, and a bit of hope.

Reality: If you, and anyone else who gets control of your fanzine collection, can show an inventory list and have a guided tour of the actual inventory ("and here we have the fanzines of Bob Tucker"), you're one of the few and this isn't directed at you, because you're not going to have a problem if you make provisions in your will and someone with knowledge is available to cherry-pick what there is an actual demand for. But without those provisions, your efforts over the years with regard to fanzines will likely be nothing more than wasted anal compulsions.

If this isn't you, then wake up. Your memory of your collection is more solid than any visual or physical access to it. See, there, you just added to the stacks another sealed box of zines which you'll never open up to look at again, either. And no one else will want to. Jophan's collection is orderly, and he doesn't want to sort through shit to hopefully find the few known jewels he's still looking for. Janephan's collection is in as bad a shape as yours, and why should she add to her storage woes? She's storing boxes she'll never open again, too, but why should she add yours? For all she knows, yours are filled with 40 years' worth of junk mail and chewing gum wrappers.

Some more reality: Start fresh. Just save the jewels and pitch out the rest. A sealed box that no one including you looks at for umpteen years, can better go right straight to trash rather than just take up space until finally that's what happens to it anyway. All you're doing is storing a sealed coffin before finally someone else is putting it in the ground. Put it there to begin with. And make a goddamn will (in most places you don't even need a lawyer!) and gift the jewels to someone who's interested. "Here's a box of Hyphens." "I'll take it!" "Here's 50 boxes of we dunno what which have been in the garage for maybe 30 years." "Go away."

A bit of hope: It's not going to be all *that* much longer before the thrill of holding a dead tree fanzine becomes an act of nostalgia rather than a practical reality. It's time to get behind projects (like, f'rinstance, fanac.org) which aim to electronically archive the better fanzines from fandom's past. Rise above details here, and get a grasp on the concept. Fandom's early zines, in paper format, will not be as accessible to fanzine fans because:

- as more time passes, more and more copies will be destroyed as collections are hauled off to a landfill.

- universities which house them are not all that accessible, and do not have all of them organized and cataloged for accessibility.

- those containing items by pros will go to non-fanzine fans who collect even napkin scribbles by pros.

A serious effort at an electronic archive of older fanzines is desirable because:

- older zines in paper format will be scarcer and less accessible to fanzine fans as time goes by.

- one copy can serve anyone with Net access (and/or the cost of a CD or DVD), including those who come newly to the material and those who come to it in that format for ease of reference (like, maybe their copy of it is in one of the boxes up in the attic...).

- print facsimiles can be generated from electronic copies.

- a good-as-possible electronic archived zine would produce a better facsimile copy than a "hey, can you Xerox that for me?" request.

In sum:

- we have too many collections which are really just accumulation pits, held in a cardboard stasis field and pending the death of the owner before being carted off with the trash. There is no good way to make such accumulations useful beyond the life of the accumulator who finds them of value only in the having and hardly ever in the accessibility or viewing.

- good, organized collections are disappearing because no post-death provision is being made for a proper disposition. The collection is useful, or at least parts of it are, but it doesn't get passed on because people don't like to think beyond their own mortality.

- can we trust universities not to trash collections during budget-crunch moments? Probably not.

- we have no central archive of our paper fanzines, and the various outpost collections are disappearing with the graying of fandom.

- it is extremely unlikely that we will ever have a central archive for our paper fanzines.

- an electronically archived fanzine is not the same as the paper fanzine. It is, however, a lot better than having no paper copy at all, and the issue of access is alone a practical incentive for having it.

#

More blunt talk. No quarter given.

Dwain Kaiser says "do," don't "want":

If what one wants is to have the zines given out to interested fans all over the nation, then fine, set it up so that can be done. However don't leave that to random fate and local church/charities.

There are enough options, as bleak as they are, that all or most can be explored. The more diversity, the better. As much as I respected Harry Warner, and nothing I say about his handling of his will can detract from all the good things about him, he fucked up in pursuing the same university disposition as Bruce Pelz made. But Bruce was a mover and a shaker and a guy who got things *done*. Harry was a ditherer who let his will and the UC-Riverside correspondence exchange lie together in a desk drawer for eight years while spending hours agonizing in print about UC-R. People often don't get things done because they spend the required time talking about it instead of doing it. (And how do I know that? Um ... er ... uh ... why are you looking at me like that?)

And there are other options, and people who get things done make them work. People who want other fans to have all or part of their collection manage to make it happen. They line up someone to take it. They talk to the people who would physically deal with their Stuff after they're gone and make sure those people know what's to be done. They put it in writing; legal writing, if need be.

And right at the moment there are still enough of the early fanzines around to make various pass-along methods viable. There is no *one* method and not everyone should look for the name of a university to donate their zines to. Maybe Bruce and UC-R weren't a good idea, but it was a potentially good idea and he did a good job in making it happen. And UC-R has a number of other collections besides just Bruce's. That avenue of approach has been explored, and only time will tell how it works out. But it got done!

Most of the rest of us are looking at other options, because most of our collections aren't of epic length and breadth like Bruce's or Harry's, and universities are just so much interested in culling duplicates, and about ->this<- interested in the sorry state of our "collections"... We just want to keep them out of the landfill. So our major options are to gift them or sell them, both of which keeps them around.

The option a fan chooses is very close to being interesting. What's actually interesting is what happens at that point. You said it: "Set it up so that can be done."

It's in the Setting It Up that people - okay, not people, fans - find that an option is either good to go or needs modification or it's not viable. "No, I don't want your 110 boxes of unsorted
fanzines. Well, okay, I'll take the three boxes you've got date-stamped 1961, and the first one after that."

You again: "Set it up so that can be done. However don't leave that to random fate and local church/charities."

We don't like to face our own mortality, so we ignore it. We don't like rejection, so we don't place ourselves in a position to encounter it by talking to people about what they might like to have or might be willing to do after our death ("John, would you and Fred help with a fan or eBay auction so that Heidi can get a little more cash after I go? Would you accept this part of my collection in payment for those services?"). We don't want to *work* at anything involving that, like Billy Pettit is doing in his two-year project to whip his collection into shape and sell portions of it for retirement money.

So we've got fans who are going to make things happen, and fans who will ignore the issue until they - not the issue - go away.

So ultimately the problem isn't with disposition - to university, to fellow fan collector, to persons with $$ - but in providing for some manner of disposition to be made. Most of us don't, most of us won't, and most of us leaving this discussion will do so with a niggling little feeling of guilt. And we'll have that little niggling feeling of guilt each time we look at our collection - if indeed we can look at it all in one spot, and if indeed we can see something which more resembles a collection of fanzines than a collection of cardboard boxes.

The lucky ones will be those without guile and with honesty as blunt as a baseball bat. The ones who will come right out and say, "This collection is for my benefit and mine alone. I don't give a damn what happens to anything after I die, and the notion of making disposition is for stupid people who believe in the abstract preservation of community. If someone wants this bad enough they'll find a way to get it. Otherwise, there's money enough for those I leave behind to hire workers with dump trucks; whether they do any sorting before the workers get there or not. And the difference between me and that fan over there is that he's incompetent for never getting around to doing anything about disposition, and I just don't give a shit. Fuck you all, and to all a good night."

To put this all into some manner or personal perspective, I'm standing outside this discussion and looking in. Five years ago I let friends cherry-pick the (mostly) organized fanzine collection from my previous apartment. The balance of it was donated to fanac.org, and Joe Siclari and Roger Sims carried out box after box after box after first packing the zines from shelving units and a large credenza. Joe told me that what didn't go into the archives would, like warm puppies, go to good homes. That's all I needed to know.

- - -
*Revised from a MemoryHole posting dated July 3-4, 2003.

The idea of the Web is "one person one channel." You get to see what every lone nutter and alien subculture has going on in their little ant brains. I love this. Isn't it great that we can look at these wacky collections without having to go to their owners' homes? That's the beauty of the Web: You can roll around in a stranger's obsession without having to smell his or her house..."
                --Penn Jillette

GUEST EDITORIAL:
Liberia*

By Arthur D. Hlavaty

Excellent rant, Arthur. Reads like it belongs on the op-ed page of the Washington Post.
                --Ted White, Trufen, July 6, 2003

Where to begin? Perhaps with the image of a rich Republican - the kind who has heard that there's supposed to be something wrong with the economy, but it hasn't bothered anyone he knows - realizing that his Lexus has been stolen. He sees it the next day, being driven past his mansion by a guy who flips him the bird as he passes. The day after, the perp drives past again, and one of the headlights is gone. He keeps seeing the car, ever more damaged, and the thief, ever more contemptuous. But in this fable the Police Dept. tells him it's a fait accompli: "Get over it. Get on with your life."

I'm one of those guys who haven't gotten over Florida. Okay, so I was kind of happy back in 1960 when Mayor Daley stole the election for Kennedy, and maybe this is my payoff. I imagine Katherine Harris, reveling in all the election fraud she got away with, going to an underground gathering of an organization far more secret and sinister than Skull & Bones, leading a horrific ritual, clad in a mask of eldritch horror (or perhaps just her usual cosmetics), and chanting, "Richard Nixon, thou art avenged!"

When the majority of the Supreme Court went along with the gag, I was tempted to say something unreasonable, perhaps that they had signed on to the so-called Republican agenda. I was not a good sport about it.

So this is a rant. The guy who used to do the good rants is now sucking up to the gang in power. (I imagine that I would be shaken if I was replaced by John Madden, but I like to think I wouldn't suffer brain damage.) It's a dirty job, but...

Arthur D. Hlavaty. Photo by Kevin J. Maroney, dated March 2002.

So I'm not being reasonable. If you want reasonable, read Paul Krugman, Molly Ivins, and Jon Carroll. They're reasonable, and they represent the Extreme Left of that good old liberal media that we're supposed to worry about, while Ann Coulter and Savage Michael are evaluated politically, rather than psychologically. (Coulter, having accused the all-powerful liberals of slander, now is flinging the word treason, a term precisely defined in our nation's law in ways that have apparently not been explained to her in short enough sentences. The next book will no doubt be called Witchcraft, and she will inform us that the only way the liberals could have survived the blinding light of reason in her earlier books is through the machinations of Satan - Yes. I know. Do you expect her to understand the difference between witchcraft and Satanism?)

Anyway, to continue the stolen car image, the thief decided that the machinery could be made to work much better without pumping in all that premium rich people's money. The economy reacted badly to this effort to funnel more and more money to the rich, as it has to every previous effort in that direction, and the administration, taken by surprise, shrewdly decided that the only cure was to cut top-bracket taxes even further, an approach not unlike "I haven't smoked enough crack yet." Despite this encouragement, some of those who best exemplify the economic principles Bush was trying to reward, such as Enron, came to grief. Remarkably enough, our ever-vigilant court system has not yet punished any of these people.

And then came 9/11. In the absence of criminal evidence, I will say only that it was a good career move for Bush in the same sense that Elvis's death was a good career move for him. Bush & Co. reacted as well as might be expected: "This was done by Saudi Arabian religious fanatics, so we must strike out against secular Iraqis. It stands to reason, doesn't it?" Bush offered New York City and its police and fire departments the praise of a grateful nation, more precious than gold (which is a good thing, as he didn't send them any gold) and likewise provided rhetorical, rather than mere financial, support to our armed forces, whom he then sent into Afghanistan, a country that cannot be governed, to make sure that it was not governed by forces inimical to us. Sure enough, one can now find no agents of Al Qaeda or the Taliban anywhere in Afghanistan, an argument convincing to those unfamiliar with the old gag about Lion Powder.

Meanwhile, back in the States, the government offered our constipated economy the Imodium of cuts in the dividend tax. Those in power hoped that war would be the health of the state and cranked up for an invasion of Iraq. "Somebody did us dirt, so somebody better watch out" seemed unpersuasive to some, so our leaders decided to seek the Weapons of Mass Destruction. David Frum, hitherto best known for Dead Right, a book arguing that the main reason the Market wasn't working perfectly was the State's insistence on feeding the losers, explained that Iraq, Iran, and North Korea were an "Axis of Evil." (In the ancient days in which I was born, there was an Axis of Evil, which we were fighting a World War against. It did not consist of two countries that hated each other and a third that didn't care about either.)

Those ignorant of George Santayana are condemned to repeat him. As the government planned its invasion, Andrew Beveridge offered this list:

VIETNAM 2 PREFLIGHT CHECK
01. Cabal of oldsters who won't listen to outside advice? Check.
02. No understanding of ethnicities of the many locals? Check.
03. Imposing country boundaries drawn in Europe, not by the locals? Check.
04. Unshakable faith in our superior technology? Check.
05. France secretly hoping we fall on our asses? Check.
06. Russia secretly hoping we fall on our asses? Check.
07. China secretly hoping we fall on our asses? Check.
08. SecDef pushing a conflict the JCS never wanted? Check.
09. Fear we'll look bad if we back down now? Check.
10. Corrupt Texan in the WH? Check.
11. Land war in Asia? Check.
12. Right unhappy with outcome of previous war? Check.
13. Enemy easily moves in/out of neighboring countries? Check.
14. Soldiers about to be dosed with *our own* chemicals? Check.
15. Friendly fire problem ignored instead of solved? Check.
16. Anti-Americanism up sharply in Europe? Check.
17. B-52 bombers? Check.
18. Helicopters that clog up on the local dust? Check.
19. Infighting among the branches of the military? Check.
20. Locals that cheer us by day, hate us by night? Check.
21. Local experts ignored? Check.
22. Local politicians ignored? Check.
23. Locals used to conflicts lasting longer than the USA has been a country? Check.
24. Against advice, Prez won't raise taxes to pay for war? Check.
25. Blue water navy ships operating in brown water? Check.
26. Use of nukes hinted at if things don't go our way? Check.
27. Unpopular war? Check.
VIETNAM 2 YOU ARE CLEARED TO TAXI

But our president did not remember Vietnam, perhaps because of his habits at the time, or else because it didn't give him the sort of traumas that keep the past fresh in memory. Those who were sent there remember it. I was better off, but I can still recall all the trouble I had dodging the draft back then; if I'd merely been allowed to join the Air National Guard and quit when I got bored, it might have slipped my mind.

We had France thinking we were too arrogant and Germany thinking we were too militaristic, and some of our leading government and media types acted as if any expression of doubt by country music groups or stars of sports movies could overthrow the whole project, but we persevered, and we got a quick apparent military victory (with a certain amount of collateral damage to museums, hospitals, and the good opinion of the world). We celebrated with that most characteristic element of the contemporary American polity, the Photo Op. Our Prez, finally deciding to do a bit of that aviation activity he had signed up for when the alternative could have been actual military experience, copiloted a landing on an aircraft carrier. (I could not shake the image of Maggie Simpson copiloting Marge's car.) He looked good. Norman Mailer, who has always managed to get a few things spectacularly right, suggests that W missed a career as a male model.

For some reason, this display of power and beauty failed to answer those pesky little memories that the purpose of the whole mess was to find and recover the Weapons of Mass Destruction. Remarkably enough, we haven't found any, though we did discover a sinister-looking operation that turned out be a device for inflating hydrogen balloons (literal hot air). So we needed an Explanation. Ever see a cat leap onto the edge of a surface, scrabble mightily to remain, and fall to the floor, then act as if he had accomplished precisely what he set out to? Our president explained that the WMDs must have been taken by looters. Right. We spent billions of dollars, alienated most of the world, and sacrificed a number of American soldiers, not to mention (as we never do) a significantly larger number of locals, so that we could get the WMDs away from a nation-state we could locate and punish and into the hands of untraceable highest bidders.

But wait, there's more: This was supposed to be quick and "surgical," followed by leaving them to their own devices, but now it seems that we're going to stay in Iraq until we are sure Saddam won't come back, which I guess is sooner than when Hell freezes over or we actually find some WMDs. Does this suggest anything to those who remember the Sixties. Online, I am seeing phrases like qWagmire, qWicksand, and "Vietnam II: This time it's a dry heat."

One thing about rescuing a country that didn't particularly want to be rescued and staying there is that the locals start trying to pick off a few of their liberators. To Bush this was an opportunity to do a verbal equivalent of his Air Force drag. He dared the other side to attack, though not of course to attack him, as he was on the other side of the world. Patrick Nielsen Hayden says we shouldn't call Bush a "cowboy" because that feeds into his fantasies and those of his remaining supporters. He's right. Cowboys are supposed to be strong, silent men who issue challenges only when they themselves are at risk. This is more like the Signifyin' Monkey: "Hey, elephant! Lion say your weapons ain't shit. Bring 'em on."

It wasn't ridiculous enough. So now we are ready to send troops to Liberia, perhaps because Fernando Poo is no longer a nation-state. Just a few troops. ("I'm just gonna do one line".) I am tempted to suggest that when this possibility was mentioned to our president, he said, "Isn't that the place with all the books in it?" (How would he know? He's never been in either.) I just hope it's not a violation of federal law to suggest that W eat more pretzels.

- - -
*Revised from a Trufen posting dated July 6, 2003

In the current situation, as this country is ready to attack Iraq if it can get away with it, I think in one sense the country is politically illiterate. The American public has been so bludgeoned by the misinformation of the media that it cannot make wise decisions. Why does Bush have such high ratings? It boggles the mind. Why do so many people support him when he is totally incapable- - -him and his administration- - -of making wise decisions? Practically everybody in the world sees that, but the American public does not."
                --Paul Kurtz, 9/18/02

The person in this photograph used to be me. He is holding Robert Johnson's cover painting for Destiny winter 1954. He is content in his realities.

IMAGINE MY SURPRISE to discover that my 1953 fanzine Destiny had been nominated for a retro Hugo. Retro Hugos will be awarded at the 2004 Worldcon, Noreascon Four, for fanzines published during 1953.

This photograph shows me holding the cover painting for the first 1954 issue of Destiny.

THIS ISSUE OF eI is dedicated to the memory of Milton and Bea Luros, Stanley Fleishman, and Sam Rosenwein. Their respect and encouragement guided me through the battlefields.

In another world, science fiction to pornography, another of the Great Ones departed the building. Jane Gallion, also known as Lady Jayne, found release from a long battle with cancer. Her career as a fan and as a professional writer spanned a number of decades, lovers, and fabulous fan friends. She will be missed for a long time.

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.

A STRANGE THING happened to me this month, thanks to Robert Lichtman's harangues. I rejoined FAPA after an absence of several decades. And, for FAPA, for the August mailing, I revived my dormant fanzine SaFari. Volume 3 Number 1 should be included with the August FAPA mailing.

That makes two zines, both dated August, that I have produced this month. Damn, if I don't watch myself, I'm going to do a book next time around. Sort of reminds me of the good old days when I had a great deal more time to spend than money.

And, for the benefit of those unfortunates who do not have access to FAPA mailings, Bill Burns has agreed to produce the revived SaFari for eFanzines.com as soon as the FAPA mailing arrives.

Speaking of Bill Burns, he 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 Guest Editorial as well as another one written by Arthur D. Hlavaty. And, yet another installment of Victor J. Banis' very popular "Virgin" series.

Other than Bill Burns and Dave Locke, these are the people who made this issue of eI possible: Victor J. Banis, Robert Bonfils, Bruce Brenner, Robert Dawson, Jack Haberstroh, Arthur D. Hlavaty, Robert Speray, Steve Stiles, and Charlie Williams.

And, while I am on the subject of artwork, I should point out that there are two exceptional pieces of original art done for this issue of eI by Steve Stiles. They appear in "Ubangi? Ubetcha!," and "Mickey Mouse and the Buenos Aires Connection," elsewhere in this issue of eI.

And, Charlie Williams' Oval Orifice, in "Epilogue" to "Here Am I, Don Earlito, Man of La Chinga," deserves special viewing also.

ALSO RANS: I need to call your attention to some articles appearing elsewhere recently that are part of my memoirs. They are "Werewolves of London" in Sandra Bond's Quasiquote 5, April 2003, "Send lawyers, guns, and money…" in "The Chorus Lines" in Guy Lillian's Challenger 18, Spring-Summer 2003, and "Let's Do the Time Warp Again" in SaFari 3.1 August 2003 that will be posted on eFanzines.com.

Skepticism is sometimes confused with cynicism. Skeptics are seen as people who don't want to believe anything. This is incorrect - skeptics, like scientists, are people who just want to be confident that what they believe and know is the most likely thing that accords with reality. Put another way, a skeptic is someone who likes his facts to be correct. It is difficult to change long-held beliefs and it can be distressing to find out that you have an emotional investment in something which is wrong. Sometimes, however, it is just necessary to put away childish things, because there can be real danger in knowing things that just ain't so.
                --Peter Bowditch

…Return to sender, address unknown….
The Official eI Letters to the Editor Column

Trashman, by Spain Rodriguez, was quite a popular feature during the 1960s and 70s. I asked my daughter Edith to paint a large Liechtenstein-like pop art canvas for me using one of Rodriguez' single frames. This is the result. Dated 1970.

By Earl Kemp

We get letters. Some parts of some of them are printable.

Just to prove it, this is the new 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.

Ted White, Dwain Kaiser, Dave Locke, and others have suggested that I should feather the nest a bit by placing a nest-egg comprised of some of these letters in order to attract more. Ted even suggested I should write them myself if necessary; I had much rather Ted write a letter of comment to eI instead.

Consider yourself nested and feathered. Now, write….

Thursday June 19, 2003

Terrific! I do hope someone, somewhere will provide a permanent record of your inside information. You do a terrific job of telling the story - stories. Thanks.
                --Joye Swain

Saturday June 21, 2003

I read every word of your new zine. My education in the SF/porn axis continues, and I thank you for it. If, as you indicate, porn-workers are idealists while the audience for porn consists of the likes of bishops, colonels, and creeps - that sure gives me something to think about. I guess somebody has to rescue the unliberated.
                --Alexei Panshin

Sunday June 22, 2003

I should have at least noted your fascinating fanzines before, and am sorry not to have done so, but at least e18 prompts me finally to do so, as I was fascinated to see the photo of you and Ib Lauritzen. I've known Ib decently well for at least fifteen years, since he owns one of the largest literary agencies in Scandinavia and I've had the pleasure of buying a fair number of rights from him, as well as of enjoying his weird hospitality - Ib being one of those people who will happily invite you to a full-day meeting, then begin at nine in the morning by serving you Danish schnapps to go with your Danish (which around here, of course, we call "Wienna bread"), drag you out at noon for lunch which is best enjoyed with a bottle of Grappa, and after that start selling you translation rights to very peculiar things. If you're still in contact with him, do send him my best. He's a wonderful guy.

And even apart from that, as a far-off publishing colleague, I enjoy immensely your memoirs of the industry. It's a weird business, but more fun than any other I've ever had any contact with.
                --John-Henri Holmberg

I counted up the total pages in the PDF issues of eI, and in just 18 months Earl has put out 386 pages! He *has* to be a shoo-in for Best New Fanzine Fan at next year's Corflu.
                --Bill Burns

We are all in awe of Earl's massive, throbbing zine production.
                --Arthur D. Hlavaty

Thursday June 26, 2003

Bill Bowers posted a link to your site because someone on PulpMags mentioned that they were working on an index to IMAGINATION and Bill wanted to point out your articles in el.

The complete text of that message follows:
                --Curt Phillips

Peter E., Don W. ... and anyone one else interested in Imagination-the-prozine, might I recommend: "Tales of Imagination and Space Travel" -- eI5, December 2002 followed by....
"William Lawrence Hamling Digital Reference Archives, The" -- eI5, December 2002
Go to http://efanzines.com/EK/index.html and scroll down to eI5 (html)
[It is also available as a PDF download, but eI is designed for on-line reading (by Bill Burns). And, with the html version, when you get down to the Archives, you can click on each cover - they are *all* there, and get a very high-quality cover scan....]
Actually, any and all of Earl's issues on that Page, contains gems for anyone at all interested in 50s to 70s generic publishing - pulp and sleaze, from one who was there....
The latest one contains the story of the infamous "Illustrated" version of that Presidential Commission on Pornography - told by the one who took the rap, and went to jail for it....
                --Bill Bowers

Monday July 6, 2003

Many thanks for eI8. Well, Mr. Kemp, welcome to fanzine fandom! (I remember the cartoon from years ago.) Congrats on your point totals with the FAAn Awards. I came in a respectable second behind Joseph Nicholas for the Harry Warner Jr. Award for Best Letterhack, and I'm pleased with my showing.

Speaking of which…how many of us have to pass away nearly simultaneously? I used to dread picking up Locus because of the regular black banners on the front cover. Now, fanzines serve the same purpose…here's a round up of the latest decedents. Depressing. As I read the listservs I rarely respond to, so many reminisce about the great days past. I am in my mid-40s now, so I have my own great days past to remember, but I'd also like to think there are some great days yet to come.

I fully agree with you about Bill Burns deserving the kudos he gets, and now that he'll be taking over MemoryHole (or fmzfen) from Greg Pickersgill, he deserves more.

I guess Mr. Porno had lots of "hoars" he could loan out to all his good friends who read his books. I expect the clergy secretly wish Mr. Porno might have a few left over for them. For some of those who wrote letters decrying you as sinners and destined for a warm place (I don't mean Nevada), I am certain there is a extra-hot, extra-crispy place in Hell for the self-righteous. I don't know what the postage rates are down there, and I'm pretty sure they don't have e-mail. Yet, they responded, and they were out there, buying your product. That's loyalty of a kind.
                --Lloyd Penney.

Thursday July 11, 2003

I finally downloaded your magazine, and then found time to wade through it. Thanks for the compliments, and no thanks for making me wade through all the rest of the free association.

I will send the whole thing to my ex-partner, Irv Gostin, who was my partner when we tried Hamling, and who was also a personal friend of Stanley F.

The revelations about Judge Thompson getting calls from Justice Dept. and president are not surprising to me. We heard these rumors during the trial.

Bill Hamling spent a lot of money contributing to politicians, and that helped reduce the sentences.

Your Levanos comments, that I told you to talk freely with him, do not jibe with my recollections, but regardless of what probation recommended, I believe the judge would have given the same sentence. Probation recommendations usually have little meaning or influence in a high profile case such as yours.

Again thanks for calling my attention to the article on line.

I just keep plugging away (50 years of law practice) with no plans to retire or slow down. I miss the obscenity cases. They do not prosecute that stuff in the Bay Area. Now it is federal prosecution of computer Internet child photographs and meeting young kids on Internet and luring them into a date with a dirty old or not so old man, who is prosecuted vigorously with, long sentences. (What a waste of time and money.)
                --Lou Katz

"I wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal. It was the most premature definition ever given."
                --Lord Henry, in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray

Virgins No More*

The Bronze and the Wine (LB1172), by J.X. Williams (Victor J. Banis), sports an unusual cover painting by Robert Bonfils.

By Victor J. Banis

The brief and turbulent history of Greenleaf Classics began in 1959 with a meeting between Robert Silverberg and Harlan Ellison. Silverberg conceived a plan for struggling writers to sell more wordage and convinced Ellison to pitch the outline to his new boss at Rogue, William Hamling. From there, the plan moved straight to New York and the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, and Nightstand Books resulted from their fruitful consummation. [The whole story is told in "Have Typewriter, Will Whore For Food…" by Earl Kemp in eI2, April 2002.] The rest, popular knowledge history, ended with L'Affaire du Rapport de la Commision Présidentielle. That sticky business of The Illustrated Presidential Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography.

A mere ten years then. But what a decade it was, for everyone, of course, but it was an especially dramatic and fulfilling ten years at Greenleaf Classics and for those of us who wrote for Greenleaf.

I have mentioned before the list of name writers penning books for Greenleaf, but it is worth another mention-Evan Hunter, John Jakes, Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake, Marion Zimmer Bradley. Even in the hallowed halls of the New York publishing establishment, few houses boasted a more exciting slate, even if these noteworthy writers were only slumming at Greenleaf.

Ten years of great changes, too. I don't suppose anyone in publishing in those same ten years-setting aside Barney Rosset at Grove Press-did more to shake things up than Earl Kemp and his cohorts did.

To be sure, there were others fighting the same fight against the governmental censorship that had so hobbled American publishing for years-centuries even. From the very first days of its publishing existence, however, Greenleaf was leading the charge. If a heretofore forbidden word was going to be tested in print, it nearly always appeared the first time in a Greenleaf book. If we were going to say anything about anybody doing whatsoever to whomever, we said it in the manuscripts we sent to Earl-confident that however groundbreaking it might be, he was not going to tell us we couldn't say that.

I have said elsewhere that every gay writer who has come along since owes a debt of gratitude to Greenleaf, and I continue to say so at every opportunity. It would be impossible to overstate the impact that their books had, not just on gay publishing, but also on gay society as a whole. None of which is meant to imply that heterosexual writers don't owe thanks as well. They do, and interestingly they have often been quicker to express it than their gay counterparts. It is on the heterosexual front that Earl's efforts have been most applauded. His part in gay history has somehow remained an insider's secret, though by now it must be clear that I have made it a goal to change that fact.

I have, however, written at such length about Earl's impact on the gay world that I realize I risk implying some personal inclination on his part. Not at all. I was astonished to read Peter Cooper's notes in "Earl Is A Cool Head…" in el8 in which he more than once offers his opinion that Earl "looked" or "seemed" gay. I never saw that. To be honest, I neither then nor now considered it any of my business. But If I'm to be completely honest, my impression of Earl was that he didn't ever quite "get it" so far as homosexuality was concerned though I think he would have preferred torture to admitting that. He was after all a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, and in the sixties, that mean sexual tolerance and sexual freedom. But of homosexuality, latent, blatant, or transcribed in Morse code, I saw nary a trace. Anyway, it seems to me that a guy would have to be pretty secure in himself to even bring that question up for others to consider-I know many a man who would have crawled away from that subject.

But that is an aside. The real issue here is Earl's output as an editor, not as a cummer, in whatever variation. And Greenleaf's output in general.

Even the art of cover art was revolutionized by those wonderful Greenleaf covers, by Robert Bonfils, Harry Bremner, Darrel Millsap, and others. Certainly nobody had seen anything like them before. The C.A.M.P. covers are legend, but who could not love the covers that were done for The Gay Revolution (PR218), by Marcus Miller, The Erection (PR360), by Chad Stuart, or Eric Thomas' Ten-Inch Stud (PR393). Though they have since been much imitated, no one has ever quite equaled them.

The Erection, by Chad Stuart (PR360); cover painting by Robert Bonfils.

Ten-Inch Stud, by Eric Thomas (PR393); cover painting by Savage.

You can't make waves, of course, without getting splashed. Sadly, with the possible exception of Milton Luros' various companies, no publishing enterprise ever suffered the endless governmental harassment that Greenleaf suffered. It must have seemed at times to William Hamling and Earl Kemp as if they spent that entire decade in musty courtrooms defending against the notion that, throughout the great U. S of A., virgins and children were being horribly despoiled by the use of naughty words in paperback books.

And when they weren't in courtrooms, they were certainly aware that they were under the microscope, as it were-their every action observed, mail tampered with, phone calls monitored. Not a "good night sweetheart" that hadn't to be shared with the watchers and the listeners. Who, they would have told you, were watching and listening solely to protect a free society. I can only guess at the toll this endless surveillance must have taken on wives and families.

And in the end, the big finale, there was that business of the Illustrated Presidential Report. Up till now, despite years of non-stop legal wrangling, the government hadn't had much luck getting convictions, or getting them to survive appeal.

This time, there were convictions, and this time the convictions stuck. In a twinkling, Greenleaf Classics-the house that had done more than any other ever to eradicate the limitations on free speech in the written word - was out of business. Earl Kemp-the man who had done more than anyone else before or since to change the very nature of gay publishing-was behind bars. It seemed that "motherfucker" and words of that ilk were still crimes in 1974.

I do not intend to tell here the story of the Illustrated Presidential Report, for no better reason than it is simply not my story to tell. I was not a player in nor even a close witness to those events, and so can only write of them in the general context of the time.

Brothers in Love (LB1204), by Don Holliday (Samuel Dodson), sported this superb cover painting by Robert Bonfils.

It was a time, certainly, of a significant shift in that decade-long struggle between those espousing freedom of the press and the old school advocates of censorship-censorship, it must be said, exercised under the banner of protecting society. Having for years wrestled unsuccessfully and often hilariously with the issue of obscenity, a newly reshaped Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Warren Burger, made the momentous decision to bounce the ball back to the local jurisdictions. "Community standards" now meant local and not national "community."

Suddenly behavior and material that would scarcely have raised an eyebrow in New York City or San Francisco was bringing convictions in Nashville and San Diego. The Greenleaf convictions and the Deep Throat convictions were both handed down in 1974. Sadly, probably neither case would likely even come to trial today, let alone bring convictions. Those who believed in the constitutional guarantees of free speech lost those couple of battles, and ultimately won the war. Had we but won it a little sooner.

Dramatic as those events were, however, the truth is that the handwriting was already on the wall by the time those convictions were handed down. If it is not exactly true that "once you've seen one you've seen them all," it is certainly the case that familiarity breeds a yawn.

The naked and semi-naked go-go dancers who had once cavorted in expensive bars filled with excited crowds now entertained in sleazy dives for a scant few of the curious and the horny.

Deep Throat made a star of Linda Lovelace. In the same fashion, Behind the Green Door made a star of Marilyn Chambers and The Devil in Miss Jones did the same for Georgina Spelvin. Almost a decade later, Spelvin landed a choice recurring comedic role in the Police Academy series. Georgina was the Police Academy's award-winning resident cocksucker. This career, along with many other beautiful and good things, was killed by the blood-drenched, murdering hands of O.J. Simpson.

Sob…so much for drah mah.

The flood of customers who had rushed to see Deep Throat and Behind the Green Door had slowed to a trickle. The advent of the VCR had made it more convenient to watch porn in your own bedroom-and if it inspired you to action, you needn't hasten home to follow your urges. It was the sexual equivalent of home-delivered pizza.

The first Playboy Club opened in Chicago in 1960, and by 1969 there were a million members in 23 clubs in the U.S., London, and Jamaica. Less than a decade later, the clubs were gone, victims of changing social tastes.

On the publishing front, mainstream houses were now printing the sort of hot sex that had only recently been the exclusive purview of the pulp publishers. The novels of Jackie Collins, Judith Krantz, Danielle Steele, Philip Roth, and John Updike now dealt with the same themes-often with the same words and descriptions - for which some of us had not long before been indicted. When you could get all the "cocks," "cunts," and "fucks" you wanted in a high-tone literary work-the sort you could leave on the coffee table without fear of embarrassment while Aunt Dilda was visiting-who needed a paperback book store?

Certainly gay readers had gotten over the thrill of having a genre of our very own. Anyway, we too were popping up in "literary" books, in movies, even-timorously-on television. Some paperback publishers tried to up the ante by going for hotter and hotter sex, and more of it. One pulp writer of the times was told by his editor he needed more sex in his manuscript. "But there's a sex scene on every fourth page," he cried. "Not enough. Put one on every second page," was the reply.

The difficulty in that is obvious-there are only so many ways to describe any sexual situation, and only so many sexual situations to describe, even with your Kama Sutra at hand. And after a while, they begin to sound alike. The sales of gay fiction cooled.

Victor Banis in 1969, guarding the treetops.

On a personal note, I can tell you that where, only a few years before, people at bars and parties were all agog when they heard what I did for a living, they now yawned in my face. Yes, true, men had yawned in my face before, but now it was about my writing.

All of which is to say, the excitement was over. Certainly we could never go back to the pre-revolutionary way of life. As I have said before, once the man has come, there's no putting the jism back where it came from.

But it was clear that the once red-hot sexual revolution was burning itself out. It turns out that the government authorities trying to stamp out porn had it backward. If they had only let everyone publish anything and everything they wanted, the market would soon enough have put on the brakes, without any help from them. Markets have a tendency to do that.

Which brings up the all-important question: did any of it matter, then, did it count for anything? Had we wasted our time, our sweat, not to mention our four-letter words (some of which, I confess, I had to look up in my convenient glossary of sexual terms and conditions)? Having shot our wad, was it after all a wasted load?

Of course not. The publishing revolution of which I was a small part-and Earl Kemp a much larger part-and the social revolution of the same era fed one another and are inseparable, and we are all of us today the beneficiaries of those events.

Renegade Hustler, by Phil Andros (PR386), Song of Alexander, by Chrs Davidson (PR217), and The Sweetest Fruit, by Robert Desmond (GC306), show the wide contrast in Greenleaf Classics cover designs. The cover artist on the Andros book is unidentified. Robert Bonfils painted the Davidson cover, and the Desmond sports the work of Harry Bremner.

I recently took part in a book discussion event in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood. I could not help pointing out to the audience that only a few years before we could not have gathered without fear in a gay bookstore in a gay neighborhood to discuss gay books had it not been for writers like Phil Andros, Chris Davidson, Chad Stuart, Robert Desmond, Larry Townsend, Dick Dale, and host of others-writers, editors, publishers-who were willing to risks their freedom and their finances in the cause of free speech.

For some of them, the risk became reality, and while I have many times over the years celebrated my good fortune at having been spared the convictions and prison sentences that for so long dangled over my head, I have had simultaneously to grieve for those who weren't so lucky. I personally believe that getting and sustaining some convictions became for the federal government an essential matter of saving face. Here is a D.C. office scenario to contemplate: much wringing of hands. Hoover (Mitchell? Richard Nixon? Pat Nixon? Tricia?) sobbing "Jeez, fellas, we've got to convict someone. Of something. Can't you at least catching somebody onanisming in that San Diego complex?"

Laugh though you may, it was after those few major convictions that the authorities seemed to surrender the field. Unfortunately, the damage that they did to those few lives was not insignificant. No one wants to lose a year or two out of his life-unless, of course, it involves Maui and people in grass skirts.

In looking back, however, at what I have written up to this point about Greenleaf and my experiences with that operation, I had to see that I had been dishonest-if only by omission.

I have written about living with the threat of indictment, trial, prison sentences-and certainly all of us in the business in those days knew with every day of the year that these possibilities were ever present.

I have written about the seriousness of it all, and we all knew then that what we were doing was nothing less serious than affecting major societal changes. I think I can say without challenge that all of us believed wholeheartedly in what we were doing and why we were doing it.

I was surprised to realize, however, in reading back over what I had written, that I have not until now conveyed any sense of how much fun we were having. It wasn't all nail biting and looking over our shoulders. I don't think I ever got together with Earl, or Milt Luros either, or any of the other publishers, editors, and writers that I knew then, that we didn't find lots to laugh about-sometimes at ourselves, true, but we missed no chance to skewer our tormentors either.

No one laughed better than Lady Agatha. Lady Agatha was in reality Elbert Barrow, a dear, long-time friend. I first introduced Elbert, pretty much as he was in real life, in my 1966 novel, The Why Not (GC209), renaming him Lady Agatha. Elbert and the reading public were so delighted that I brought him back in the C.A.M.P. series, notably The Gay Dogs (EL386) in 1967. Elbert penned The C.A.M.P. Cookbook (PR220) by Lady Agatha as told to Jackie Holmes and The C.A.M.P. Guide to Astrology (LL789) also by Lady Agatha as told to Jackie Holmes.

Amusingly enough, in a bobbed brunette wig and white plumber's overalls, Elbert was a double for Jane Withers who was popular then in television commercials as Josephine the Plumber. This became his standard drag outfit, and as Lady Agatha he became a major figure in the Los Angeles gay circles of the sixties. He wrote columns for various publications, and worked for a time for Milton Luros as a magazine editor.

And I will reveal now something that I've kept to myself all these years. Those fond of my paperback novels-both of you - may have read far more of Agatha's prose than they might have supposed. When one of my novels for Greenleaf called for something in the way of kinky-say, leather, bondage, spanking or the like-I generally handed the manuscripts over to El and let him write those scenes. He was more familiar and more comfortable with them than I was. I told you, if you will remember, that I started out and to a great extent remained that young prig from the Midwest.

Now, I don't mean to imply that I had no familiarity with any of those scenes, though I cannot say with Madame (of Waylon and Madame) that I tried everything twice and enjoyed it both times. Mostly, when it came to the more outré forms of behavior, I was only an observer, and it's hard to make a scene exciting for the reader if it isn't exciting to the writer. Thus, Agatha's ghosted sex scenes, and he did them well, I must say. I never asked him how much was based on his personal experience and how much was imagination. Even between good friends, discretion can be a plus.

I don't want to make myself sound like Little Red Riding Hood. I did in fact have many friends in the leather community, and often visited the leather bars in Los Angeles. I was at The Falcon's Lair one evening, then L.A.'s numero uno leather hangout, when a young man came in sporting the most impressive bulge down one leg that I think I had ever seen. The local chiropractors must have enjoyed a bonanza the following day from all those heads snapping around. Of course, he was the object of many smiles and warm glances as he posed against the wall, or strolled about the room.

In time, the smiles got broader. It seemed that whatever was causing that bulge must have been pinned to something-his step-ins, one supposes. Anyway, clearly the pin had given out. The bulge began to slip down his leg, leaving a gap behind.

It had gotten nearly to his knee and the smiles had become downright chortles when a kind soul finally leaned close and whispered in his ear. The young man turned that shade of scarlet of which fey decorators are so fond, and fled into the night, never to be seen in the bar again.

But that was not what I started out to tell you. I do have that tendency, don't I, of losing my train of thought? What I meant to say was that, when Lady Agatha suggested that I might fit in better in these establishments if I wore leather myself, I took his suggestion. I dashed out the very next day and got a leather coat-white, just shy of floor length and practically blinding with glitter. I thought it very stunning but in an about face rare for him, Lady Agatha decided after all that perhaps I should just continue to wear my usual civilian drag.

My real point is, though, that no one-but no one-enjoyed that whole gay publishing explosion of the sixties more than Lady Agatha. Not a week went by that he didn't return home from our local purveyors with a stack of the latest paperback releases. It was he who introduced me to Chris Davidson, Marcus Miller, and even Richard Amory. And others like Aaron Thomas, Dan Porter, and Curt Colman. He shared his latest finds. We all did, passing them around. Gay paperback novels were the rage of the day in West Hollywood.

I was amused by Earl's recent article in el8, Dear Mr. Porno. My partner Sam Dodson and I got those funny letters also, and many of them did make their ways into the nonfiction works we did for Earl among others. Some of them were obviously pure fantasy, often written by individuals who had skipped spelling class when they were in school. I Got Wrapped On The Beach In My Panties, for instance, and You No My Panteys Are Your's. And then there was McDonald. He sent his picture. Handsome young man, thirty something, in bib overalls. McDonald was married, happily so, with just one problem. His wife did not like sex. At all. Ever, if it could be avoided.

McDonald was too devoted to his wife to want to cheat on her. However-and this is a major however-he did not consider it cheating if he had sex with a man.

Or with an animal. And yes, McDonald did have a farm. E I E I Oh!

In his first letter, McDonald told a story of picking up a young man at the local movie emporium. They retired in his car to a lonely country road, where his new friend proceeded to give him what McDonald described as sensational head. All was well right up until the very moment of impending orgasming-when McDonald put a hand upon his companion's head and explain that he was sorry, but that he had promised this very load to someone else.

And who, Companion asked, curiosity understandably piqued, might that be?

Petunia, McDonald explained (that is not her real name, I have changed it to protect the innocent).

Petunia?

McDonald's favorite pig, was the explanation. It seems that she was due to come into heat this very night (Forgive me for using scientific terminology here but I am trying to convey the seriousness of all this) and he had promised her when he left that he would return before the night was out to minister to her needs.

I am sure that Miss Manners would agree with me that under these circumstances a serious bite would have been entirely appropriate. At the very least, Companion might have insisted upon finishing what had been started. There is a limit, after all, to anyone's self control in these situations. If he has gotten that close, not even the Man of Steel is immune to meltdown.

But no, what Companion did was to suggest that he would like to meet his porcine paramour. So, up came the jeans and home they went, where...but no, this is a family publication and I think the details of what followed needn't be pursued herein.

Afterward, we got dozens, scores of letters from McDonald, describing his amours with the cows, the sheep, the dogs, even a turkey-though sad to say that experience proved fatal to the unfortunate bird. Talk about ruining Thanksgiving. I have never looked at a pumpkin pie the same way since.

My point here, however, is not animal husbandry or even wifery-my point is, in those days, people really did get fun out of reading this stuff. And some occasional inspiration, it seems.

The Gay Revolution, by Marcus Miller (PR218). This paperback sports a stunning cover painting by Robert Bonfils, king of the cover artists.

But I am still not telling the whole story. Of course it was fun to shop for these books, even without Lady Agatha's rampant enthusiasm. Sometimes one went home with something more than an armload of books. And certainly they were fun to read; we all knew that. They still are, many of them. If you haven't read Marcus Miller's The Gay Revolution (PR218) in a while, give yourself a treat.

What has been too little mentioned over the years is what a kick they were to write. How could they not be? After years of suppression, Earl Kemp had given us permission to write whatever the hell we wanted.

It would be difficult-probably impossible-for a young writer sitting down at the word processor today to fathom how liberating, how exhilarating, how gosh damned wet-our-pants exciting that was for us as writers. After all those struggles to find safe words and expressions-you can't imagine how sick we all were of "manhood," for instance, and "the center of her womanness"-we could suddenly let it all hang out. Finally, an asshole was an asshole, just as we always knew he was, and a man or a woman in a book could take a good healthy piss without being embarrassed. Just like in real life, which is what writing is supposed to represent and didn't for a long time.

Nothing was taboo any more, not in Earl's hands, nothing off limits, nothing impossible to describe. And not just old fashioned sucking and fucking, either. Leather, water sports, incest, black and white, sacrilegious, we threw it all into the pot and stirred it around. We were having a ball just trying to see how outrageous we could be. A sort of bookish version of the old radio show," Can You Top This?" And more often than not, we could. Holy Guano, Batman, you want to stick that where?!

Of course, if I am going to be really honest, I have to admit that the literary values of our efforts sometimes suffered for the cause. We were now writing with an agenda, and the writing muse does not take warmly to any cause but her own. I can look back at some of my efforts, certainly, and see that they might have been better for just a little more restraint.

The next time you are watching
Sex and the City, you might think about
the debt that series owes
Earl Kemp….

I offer neither regrets nor apologies. Those little books did the job after all for which we sent them out into the world. The world was changed, astonishingly changed, the publishing world absolutely, and the larger social world as well. And our books had played their small but significant part. The next time you are watching Sex and The City, you might think about the debt that series owes to Earl Kemp and Greenleaf and William Hamling, and to those writers bent over their typewriters and sniggering as their fingers guide their readers through those old familiar caresses.

Well, all right, the party ended. Parties do, and afterward there is always some mess to be cleaned up, and one or two hangovers-that's the nature of parties.

Two novels by Larry Townsend with very different cover treatments. 2069 sports a dramatic design by and photo by Harry Bremner, and Leather Ad Volume 2 S a classic treatment by an unidentified artist.

And as to why you should care-well, the changes that were wrought in the sixties and early seventies were, some of them, bought dear. You might ought to know that. And you ought to know too that they are far from etched in stone, however complacent we have gotten about them in the thirty years since. There are people out there who would like to see all of us - gays, hell-raisers, sexy book people, and why not Oprah Winfrey while they are at it - shoved back into our closets and the doors nailed shut. And some of those people are once again in positions of authority. If you think that sounds paranoid, just contemplate for a moment or two how quickly we have seen our rights and freedoms erode in the last year or so.

The next time, you might have to write the books.

Oh, and by the way, for what it's worth, while I was writing this, I was not alone at my keyboard. There were scores of others looking over my shoulder, offering their complaints and suggestions-a few editors, a few publishers, and lots and lots of writers-some of whom never did get thanked for their virginity.

So, just to clean things up: thanks boys and girls. You did a good job. And it was fun, wasn't it? Let's be honest, virginity isn't for everybody anyway.
_ _ _
*Copyright 2003 by Victor J. Banis. All rights reserved.

From Grand Master mystery author Lawrence Block's January 2003 newsletter: "And if you don't have email, well, what are you waiting for? Computers are simple enough nowadays so that an hour or so after you get one out of the box you can be online, and a week later you'll wonder how you got along without it. If you're convinced you're too old for this, well, you're wrong. Just get a grandchild to show you the ropes."

The Leer of the Sensualist
The Face of Pornography

Caricatures of some of the office staff painted and presented to me as a surprise at an office Christmas party in 1968. Pictured are, from the top down, Peter V. Cooper, Editor-in-Chief, Greenleaf Classics. Below him, to the left in a green shirt, is Art Director Robert Bonfils. At the right is Kevin Showalter, editor. Immediately below Kevin, at the typewriter, is Michael Tomasulo, editor. Immediately in front of Mike is Ed Halsey, editor, and below him is Robert "Shell" Dawson, from the art department, who painted these caricatures. Next to Shell, in gray, is Lois Ronaldson, editor. The name of the blonde above Lois, from the production department, has unfortunately been forgotten.

By Earl Kemp

There's an odd thing about pornography…it's very much like beauty or terrorism…existing only within the eyes of the beholder. The cliché would insist that we know that already, and that sauce for the gander is definitely not sauce for the goose.

Because pornography is a frightening thing to many people (as is war and mass murder and dope addiction and casual sex and affection), power groups use it to incite and enflame, to anger and divert…anything to keep attention away from the awful goings-on there just beneath the surface and deliberately kept outside the vision of the diverted masses.

Every vile name, accompanied by at least God's own admonitions, is routinely assigned to the pornographers, and that is then picked up and echoed and reemphasized and embellished and propagandized until it almost becomes a cliché in itself.

Immoral, degenerate, crime-ridden, gangster-enforced, mafia-controlled, and many more too unrelated to include in a serious attempt to list them, to categorize them. And the people who run these shameful, fly-by-night, rip-off, money-making businesses are the lowest of the low, the most promiscuous of the capable, the most indiscriminate of the nymphomaniacs, and more often than not found writhing about somewhere within an office clusterfuck.

The people within the sleaze paperback industry during the 1960s and 70s, regardless of who, where, or what they were, were somehow portrayed and characterized as working in dark, hidden locations with back-alley entrances, peepholes, and dirty passwords. Of being elusive and difficult to locate and deliberately mobile to avoid detection. Of corrupting everything they touched or admired. Of leaving helpless, used-up, callously raped victims behind in ever-increasing numbers.

And we were none of the above outside the creations of the federal administration, the holier-than-thou suck-up questionable clerics, the gullible, order-following media, and other fine, fun-loving party people.

#

Everyone kept referring to us as little…us being Greenleaf Classics, Inc. and Reed Enterprises, Inc., the publishing/distributing combine owned and operated by William Hamling in San Diego, California in those idyllic days.

Little, gangster-driven, dirty book purveyors.

How wrong is it possible for one administration to be…?

We were a diverse group of middle-class people struggling to get along in a world gone mad. We were publishers and editors and artists and writers and clerks and typists and bookkeepers and order fillers and box packers and forklift drivers and janitors and garbage men.

Shirley Rogers Wright, corporate secretary and bookkeeping department supervisor.

We were just ordinary people. Most of us were married with children and mortgages and everything we thought we owned needed repairs and new shoes and everything else, just like everyone else wanted or did.

We weren't promiscuous, any more than statistically appropriate, and we didn't have office orgies or sexhours, though there were many people who seriously insisted that we did…instead of doing our routine jobs. I even had close personal friends, more than once, try to get me to tell them the real truth about all the exciting things that really went on around the office you know what I mean hunh pal with a nudge and a wink.

We looked just like everyone else we came into contact with. We drove the same kind of badly in need of repair or replacement cars and lived in the same kind of cheap, 10-year-old frame tract houses also in need of repair or replacement. We dressed casually but comfortable (no jeans or tennies at the office) and weren't at all unfamiliar with wearing suits and ties. We were known to be religious, moral, upright, and would on proper occasion even attend church, go to PTA meetings, Little League games, and band concerts.

Just like ordinary….

#

Peter V. "Pete" Cooper, Editor-in-Chief, in Earl's office.

Our sleazy little fly-by-night business, at prime time, was housed in the four-story Mission Square office building in the heart of Mission Valley, directly across I-8 from San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium. We owned the building. We occupied three of the four floors and all extra space was rented out to ordinary respectable commercial tenants.

In addition we owned a block-square warehouse and shipping facility also located in San Diego. We owned and operated a number of building maintenance related businesses. We were landlords. We had office space and consultants in a number of major cities in the United States and elsewhere. We owned a healthy mail order company in San Diego. We owned a robust mail order company in Copenhagen. We owned a literary agency in La Jolla. We were partners in general-release motion picture ventures. We owned completely unrelated businesses like Perry Penguin, 10-lb bags of ice cubes in freezers in convenience stores. Bookland, an upscale book store front for Hamling in Palm Springs. Numerous upscale residential properties, bought furnished. A yacht. The usual….

We owned and operated a fleet of vehicles from delivery trucks to high-end luxury outfitted "executive" Lincoln Continentals.

Patrick A. "Petey" Dixon, Managing Editor.

At our peak of production we had 100 employees working in the San Diego area alone. We were first class, respectable, law-abiding, tax-paying citizens…sort of ordinary in fact…something that needs frequent repetition.

We were an almost even split of males and females, and included a number of minorities including especially Hispanics and Afro-Americans. Rudy _____, the warehouse superintendent, was Mexican. Freddy "Val" Valentine, our popular office boy and all-around entertainer, was down-home Southern black.

We were making above average wages for similar jobs within the area. That was deliberate; every effort was made to keep the employees content and busy and we didn't want any outside, agitating interference. We out-paid any union job in the county.

We had free parking spaces and Blue Cross to take care of all our family's medical needs and bonuses to buy frivolous toys with and office dinners now and then to build team spirit, as if we needed any coaching to begin with.

Mike Tomasulo, Senior Editor.

We were upright pillars of the community. We belonged to the Chamber of Commerce and did our civic duty for the local populace. At Christmas time we decorated the entire building like a huge Christmas present, with garlands and wreaths and red-and-green lights by the hundreds. We were very proud of who we were and how good we were, and we wanted to share our pride and goodness with everyone around us.

We were hearty supporters of the local academic community, having working liaisons with numerous departments and professors throughout the county. We regularly appeared at their classes, symposia, and lectures as participants or sponsors. We were close working partners with the more respected local media, the ones who knew what "journalism" was. Harold Keen was top man on the local totem pole, the ranking senior pure journalist still left in San Diego County. My buddy, Hal….

We were a rather tight little group, too, us guys at Reed/Greenleaf. We would socialize together, go on trips and vacations together, have dinners together…like regular people do. Some of us were known to drink too much alcohol when socializing, and others of us to smoke quite a bit of unbelievably high quality grass. Some were known coke sniffers and others were into speed. Does it sound like I'm describing any normal church group in California in the 1960s? I sure hope it does; otherwise I'm not getting through here at all.

#

In 1969 the city of San Diego celebrated its 200th birthday. In honor of the occasion, they issued special silver coins. Greenleaf bought many of them, enclosed in a block of Lucite as paper weights and labeled with our logo and the words Greenleaf Classics, Inc. We gave them away as souvenirs to our principal suppliers, doing our civic duty for our town and its citizens.

#

Greenleaf Classics, Inc., the publishing division of Hamling's enterprise, included the editing, art, and production departments. Reed Enterprises, Inc., the distribution division, included the manufacturing (almost totally subcontracted), distributing, and collecting departments.

Each of those corporations shared one half of the third floor. In my division, I had the big corner office with the windows on both sides and the view of the stadium across the freeway, the parking lot, and the semi-permanent FBI surveillance tent [atop a telephone pole 100' outside my office window and directly even with my desk]. Ed Hayes, who was boss of the distributing division, had a corresponding office on the opposite corner of the building only from his desk he didn't have to look at the FBI fuckers looking at me so damned long and so really goddamned frequently.

#

The entire production department was housed on the first floor and was a full-service shop from typeset to printer ready impositioned book pages.

The crown was overhead.

In a grandiose gesture, William Hamling claimed the entire fourth floor of the office building as his domain. He had the office suites there ripped out to the bare walls and a pleasure dome he did decree to rise in their places.

Fred "Val" Valentine and Georgia Remy.

Elron, the single most expensive and gayest interior designer in Palm Springs, was given the job of "creating" just the right office space for Bill. And it was really something when he finished with it [at just under $500,000 1960s USA dollars]. Much less than Hamling paid Elron for his lavish, furnished, gay mansion in Palm Springs.

It turned out to be a fully functional but totally illegal apartment in an area specifically zoned "non-residential." The rooms were enormous, as befits the corporate head, and decorated with only the very best of the very best. Completely outfitted in satin sheets for all the secret, hidden beds. Imported dishes in the full-service kitchen, along with real crystal stemware and honest to God silverplate cutlery.

There was a Turkish steam bath big enough to bake six close friends, and acres of actual office where huge leather couches scattered about seemed to disappear in the vastness.

In the Los Angeles Free Press (June 18, 1971) Brian Kirby describes his view of Hamling's office this way: "Hamling's suite is in the penthouse. To call it lavish would do it an injustice. His desk is as large as my office. A painting that looks like a Miro hangs behind Hamling…."

It was Brian Kirby's boss (Brian edited the Essex House paperbacks for Milton Luros' American Arts Enterprises), my Uncle Miltie, whose office most impressed me. It was lined with actual, real tree bark.

There was a locked, private-elevator access to the penthouse suite that was securely guarded by Joyce Benefel, Hamling's dutiful, efficient, and long-suffering private secretary.

#

In the editorial department, besides my corner office, the outside walls were all lined with editor offices. The design and art departments were at the rear of the same floor. There was also a large, locked library containing the most precious things of all, Greenleaf's reference library, collected erotic works from all over the world, and the sacred library of our own products. Even though this room was kept under locked, secure conditions at all times, and I had the only key to open that door, the contents, mysteriously, kept disappearing all the time. Our records were never intact, even for ourselves.

Harry Bremner, Design Director, in Earl's office.

There was also a conference room where we would sit around a huge table bullshitting, trying to come up with brilliant projects, and plotting clever strategy to thwart the feds who were listening to our every word as a matter of "national security." We had to resort to some pretty tricky maneuvers in those years to convey real messages that couldn't be intercepted by them.

Patty Lamb, my private secretary, doubled as Greenleaf receptionist. She was a beautiful, bright, ex-PSA airlines stewardess who really knew how to treat the public. She was wonderful the way she would stand up to the FBI as they would approach her again and again, intrusively, at her home in the evenings, threatening her with all manner of personal harm if she continued to refuse to tell them bad things about me. Patty had the front-and-center block-the-way desk and just the right disposition to go with it. She could ignore a cop, standing before her and trying to get her attention, with the greatest of ease.

Behind Patty was the bullpen, the large, open center court of the office itself. Here were the clerical staff, the letter writers and file clerks and note keepers and message takers who made the whole thing work right.

#

Significant production related work was subcontracted to other professional businesses. All our original photography, for example, was processed for us under contract with CFI, Consolidated Film Industries, in Los Angeles. At that time, CFI was the firm with the best reputation for quality laboratory work in the entire country.

Bea Wheeler, of the production department, looks into Earl's office.

Within my division, Greenleaf Classics, Inc., there were several subdivisions. There was the editorial department, the art department, the production department, and whatever else there was necessary to their operation.

The editorial department was further broken down into pre-edit, editing, proofreading, copywriting and blurbing, etc.

The art department was broken down into design, painting, and composition. They preplanned everything of any significance that we produced. From them it went into…

The production department was broken down into typesetting, page-makeup, impositioning, etc. When each product was completed and closed it was ready to be shipped to whichever printer had been given a contract to produce it.

This shipping, mostly, was done on a normal routine basis through United Parcel Service. They were in and out of our offices numbers of times every day. As were Federal Express, the USPS, etc. Normal, ordinary businessmen doing normal, ordinary, world-wide business.

The work schedule was somewhat fast-paced. You really had to hustle to meet all the deadlines and produce all the products that kept the whole world whomping away in ecstatic bliss….

FIFTY paperbacks EVERY month and MORE THAN ONE magazine EVERY DAY…!

[Did I hear a sob from Maurice?]

Grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.
                --Justice Thurgood Marshall

The Electric Ostrich

By Earl Kemp

This is the original cover painting by master artist Robert Bonfils for Stories From Doctor Death and Other Terror Tales (CR129). I posed for Dr. Death on all these covers. Note the electric ostrich to the right on the painting. Dated 1966.

Around the editorial offices at The Porno Factory, there were many things to amuse us and divert our attention away from the wolves that occasionally lurked around the doorways of our day-to-day routines. I tried to keep numbers of those things in play as best as I could. We had frequent office or pool parties at the residences of different coworkers. We had occasional let-down-and-howl parties in Tijuana where we felt considerably more secure than we did in our plush executive offices.

"The Electric Ostrich" was one such attempt. I wrote it, I assumed the persona of Harvey A. Tampa (named for Have-A-Tampa cigars) and wrote the short story. It was somewhat inspired by a large purse, decorated with multi-colored ostrich feathers, then favored by Ginger Sisson, of the Production Department. With "The Electric Ostrich" I tried to do a first class science fiction fanzine writer's best attempt at fan fiction. I tried to include the names, personalities, or actions of as many of the office staff as I could into the short story. And, at the same time, it was a half-assed attempt at writing a true period piece that would fit directly into the antique short story collection without a bobble.

Then I slipped it into the manuscript for Stories From Dr. Death and Other Terror Tales (CR129) and quietly sat back, waiting for the reaction, if any. Through the entire production process, no person appeared to tumble onto the joke, or at least they never let me know I had been discovered, which was more probably the case.

When the printed books were available, and sent to the office, I passed them around to the staff and told them all to be sure to read the story.

They appeared to be pleased and had a good laugh about the way they had been portrayed. All in a day's work at The Porno Factory.

I am reprinting the entire story here, in jpeg form, using the original typeset, blurb, and skull logos.

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.
                --Benjamin Franklin

we dont need no ed u cay shun…*

By Earl Kemp

I received a massive jump-start in Ph.D.ing in the early 1950s, thanks to Edward Elmer "Piled higher and Deeper" Smith. "Doc" Smith, The Skylark of Space, was my science fiction godfather and one of the most beautiful, most giving people I have ever been fortunate enough to know. (See "Skylarks of Cyberspace" in Janine Stinson's Peregrine Nations, April 2002.)

The things he taught me were so valuable I tried to pass them along to worthies I encountered in my journeys along the streets of life.

You never could tell when you would need a good "Doc."

#

It slowly dawned upon us, back in the early 1960s in Evanston, that The Porno Factory had accidentally bonded with the local academic community. Mind you, this was at a time when cops of all types were trying desperately to find us…all they would have had to do would be to pick up a telephone and call the closest journalism professor. Chances are they knew where to find us in a hurry.

There were a number of things contributing to this unique symbiosis, like the proximity of Northwestern University (with its Medill School of Journalism) to the factory…within walking distance. Then, way across town on the south side of Chicago there was the University of Chicago Science Fiction Club, where numbers of us claimed a residency. That, and our almost constant need of some form of part-time extra slave help.

That's where the professors came in, we would phone them and ask them to recommend some truly deserving and quite capable student who might like to earn a few bucks on the side. Did they ever know one, or two, or three…just name it.

By the mid-60s, we had rather extensive working relationships with numbers of the local academic community. It was almost a shame to have to leave them all behind when the factory moved to San Diego in 1965.

As soon as possible after we settled into our new offices in California, I began establishing working relationships with the local academic community, most especially the departments of Journalism and Law at San Diego State University. The school itself was only a few blocks away from the office in those days, and you couldn't find a parking place there then either.

Our needs, in San Diego, went far beyond anything we sought in Evanston, Illinois. Now we moved on out of Journalism and Law and into several foreign language departments. Over time we needed translators for German, French, Castilliano, Japanese, and I can't remember what all else. We asked them for graphics artists and photographers and just plain old box movers, but the outcome of it all was…they loved us.

As we moved a bit more into prominence and time passed, many of those professors became close friends and we would socialize together and meet for no reason at all. I would visit their classes and bullshit with their students. I would hold question-and-answer sessions and now and then give damn right serious lectures…always on the subject of "Pornography as Political Protest."

One of those professors, Dr. Jack Haberstroh of the Department of Journalism, became quite a good friend, as did Dr. Tom Gitchoff of the Department of Law. Both of them testified for the defense at my trial. Jack is still with me today as a friend, but somewhere along the way I lost Tom…and I miss him.

#

When I began traveling around Mexico, I noticed the natives had given me a name. They referred to me as El Profesor, the teacher. They probably did it because I always seemed to be giving orders or telling someone else what to do.

When I began traveling around Europe acquiring an erotic reference library for Greenleaf Classics, I again followed the academicians, only I switched to the English department instead of Law or Journalism. I figured that my native language was the only one I was almost able to communicate in. And, in those foreign universities, I asked those English professors to put me in touch with English-speaking librarians as well. Between the two of them, they opened up rare and almost unknown private collections that were simply astonishing. They were in Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Rome, and my ancestral home away from home, London.

      Librarians, like editors, are invisible. People looking for any book don't even know there was someone making it happen in the first place much less someone else who could point them to a copy of it.
      When I began collecting data for my memoirs, two librarians were of extraordinary help to me, and so far I have failed to acknowledge their assistance.
      Thank you, Dennis Lien, University of Minnesota Libraries
      Thank you, Andy Sawyer, University of Liverpool Libraries UK

All of these professors, the librarians, the department heads, treated me very special. This goes for the boys back home in San Diego as well. Every time I was around them, I felt as if they had accepted me as one of their own. This finally became apparent to me when I discovered that they listened and learned when I taught.

      …I have been lucky for I have always been able to indulge my true passion which is to teach others, to take pleasure in bringing out the best in (them)…to make them alive, and though I did not achieve any sort of kingdom in this world, I have established small human dominions along my way…and trained a hundred boys to make the best of their life, without complaint, or dishonour.
                --Gore Vidal, Burr.

Some of those professors, one each from Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Paris, were my houseguests in El Cajon, California, and also visited with me in Mexico. One of them in particular, James Haines of the Department of English, University of Paris, became quite a good friend, and I visited with him whenever I could because he gave me a Paris that had escaped me for years.

I was, ironically (but what else makes life worthwhile?), in Paris with Jim Haines, where I gave a series of three lectures to his different class divisions at the Vincennes campus of the University of Paris [and wouldn't you know, the University is housed on the grounds of what was originally the chateau of the Marquis de Sade], when the fabled brochure advertising The Illustrated Presidential Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography was finalized and mailed. The brochure I had no part in conspiring to be obscene or to have mailed as obscene. Jim gave a legal deposition to that fact that was filed with the court only to be ignored.

But then if you're holding an E ticket, you need to keep in mind at all times that you're sort of locked in for the whole terrifying downhill ride.

Following that, of course, there was the Far East. Professors in Tokyo and Hong Kong were especially helpful and the Japanese were unbelievably incredible hosts and entertainers…generous to a fault. Perhaps some day I will have to write of my life as Shogun…my Japan journeys….

#

This memory, however far a field it rambles, is about two specific professors of Journalism. One, Dr. Jack Haberstroh, I have already introduced, and the other might not need much of an introduction. He is my old science fiction friend, Dwight V. Swain.

Two Journalism professors, one from San Diego State University and the other from University of Oklahoma Norman…and both of them…at the same trial…testifying in my defense. Gloriosity! Along with at least one Law professor and all of them backed up by a chorus of Ph.D. Pips.

Dwight Swain was probably better known at the time as a pulp hack, knocking out pot boiling science fiction space operas one after the other…for various editors and publishers including our other old friend William L. Hamling.

I first met Dwight sometime in the mid- to late 1950s at some science fiction convention. His name was appearing all over the place then, as a writer, not a teacher or a person who would come up with the ultimate writers textbooks.

I met Dwight again, big time, in Houston, Texas, when we spent some time together while he was there testifying in defense of William Hamling and some of his crew. Most of this was covered in my article "Beauty and the Beast Otra Vez" [http://eFanzines.com/EK/eI4/index.htm]. The same article, by the way, features an Imagination cover of a Dwight Swain novelette.

I next saw Dwight Swain in Los Angeles. We met in dead Walt Disney's private apartment in Disneyland where the Science Fiction Writers of America were presenting our dear old mutual friend Mack Reynolds with a kick-ass honor, the First Annual John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Both of us made that trip to Los Angeles just to be with Mack and to celebrate with him.

And we continued that celebrating every chance we found…at Mack and Jeanette's fabulous home in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, the Paris of Mexico.

And full circle back to San Diego where once again, Dwight testified in my defense.

#

After Dwight Swain died [I try to think of it more as he has just gone ahead and joined Mack Reynolds and Ted Cogswell around that bottomless bottle of celestial tequila…waiting for the rest of the group….], there was an estate sale on eBay that included, among other things, the actual copy of The Illustrated Report of the President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography that Dwight used for his testimony during the trial. It was quickly purchased for me.

Holding it in my hands, going through the pages and reading the many copious notes Dwight made while studying the book, while making note of its value, while preparing to go to battle to defend me…saddens me and thrills me and honors me all over again.

Some of those notes are shown here in the form of jpegs. Dwight's notes continue in this fashion throughout the book.

#

One professor at San Diego State University, Dr. Jacqueline D. Tunberg, did permanent damage to me; she forced me to look the administration squarely in its eyes. She taught me to hate the things we were doing in Vietnam until the sight of camouflage was actually nauseating to me. She was very influential on me and some of her anti-administration diatribes led to my visiting Vietnam later on during the war.

Closer to home, my local Journalism professor doctor buddy, Jack Haberstroh, was treating me somewhat as I expect Thomas Paine might have been treated, or at least Patrick Henry. He had his classes so worked up that their admiration of me, their need to get close to me and to touch me, was palpable and vibrated through the air like wiggle-waves rising off mirages in the far distance.

Both the Law and Journalism departments at San Diego State University assigned our trial as classroom work. Numbers of their students and the professors attended the trial, en masse, every day. They sat there quietly and admiringly and took notes, now and then glowering How Could You? at the prosecution. They wrote reams of papers about what they saw and felt and learned.

At times during breaks in the trial, those students would surround me and ask me to sign their copies of Illustrated for them. The reporters (and I won't name them because they don't deserve the recognition) from both San Diego dailies would line up with those kids…and bailiffs and court clerks and courthouse personnel from all over the building…every one of them wanting that certifying autograph…the kiss of death no doubt…?

I tried to sign all of them "The truth will make you free" because it was very important to me that they comprehend that truism. [I often signed in green ink; it was my color, I was the only one at Greenleaf allowed to write in green. Green meant pretty damned right now hop!]

[ASIDE: I have a newspaper clipping without identifying credits or date. My best guess is that it came from the New York Times shortly before our conviction. In an article named "Can a Presidential Commission's Report Be Obscene?" by Lawrence Mosher ("from San Diego"), he wrote: "Whether or not the nation is moving toward unrestricted pornography for adults, as Hamling predicts, for now he will have to abide by the decision of 12 jurors here. And even they aren't totally free to look at his book… The judge has ruled that jurors must leave their copies under their seats during the trial. Jurors may look at certain pages that are put into evidence, but they won't be permitted a perusal until they are closeted for deliberation." Then, after the trial when it was legal to do so, a committee of members of the jury that convicted us asked us to give each of the jury members personal copies of the book because the Feds refused to. Of course we did, willingly and instantly; what more could one expect from a bunch of public-minded, Chamber of Commerce businessmen? . I do not know if their copies are signed or not.]

Many of those same students, at different times, arranged private interviews with me, trying to dig up something that no one else had yet unearthed. On one occasion I remember one particularly bright young lady asked me this question: "What do you think is your greatest accomplishment?"

And, without thought and instantly, I responded, "I have changed for the better the lives of every person under 30 who will ever live