The Drink Tank 123 (2007).pdf

Garcia@computerhistory.org

It was an exciting weekend for

CHristopher J. Garcia, and that’s not

big news. I had thought that it might

be a good time, but it was better than

that. It all started on Friday night

when I attended the Legion of Rassi-

lon meeting. Now, I love Carl’s Jr, the

best burger place in the BArea, and

that’s where the LoR meets. This week

was Torchwood, and I knew I’d only

be watching the irst episode. It was a

good one, full of sex and no real story. I

like Torchwood at the same time as un-

derstanding that it’s not very good. It’s

fun! Capt. Jack is a great character.

Any guy who would sit with a friend

while he commits suicide is a pal for

life. I liked the episode a good deal.

Now, the LoR, as their main

fundraising technique, holds a rafle

for DVDs and other memorabilia. They

showed a few Shaun the Sheep epi-

sodes as they set up the system and I

loved them. It’s from the good people

at Aardman Animation and it’s funny,

funny, funny. While there are no evil

penguins, there are hilarious sheep.

There was a DVD copy of it last meet-

ing, but I had to choose between the

Prisoner gift pack and Shaun. I love

The Prisoner, so that’s where I went.

This time, I won the DVD set. I

took it home and when I watched Eve-

lyn on Saturday, she loved it! Score

one for me!

Saturday night was the big poker

tourney. It was Omaha Hi-Low. This

was a pot limit tourney which was dif-

fernt for us. I’m not a great Hold ‘Em

Player (I’ve won one tourney and in-

ished second another time) but Omaha

is my number two game behind Razz.

I’m also good at Seven and Five Card

Stud and California Low Ball. I man-

aged to start at a table with some wild

bettors, and since I’m the wildest bet-

tor of them all, I played almost every

hand. I went down and I came back up

and I made it to the inal table where

I eliminated Marin and Ryan on one

hand. They’re my old roommates and

it was good to get rid of both of them

at once so I could continue trash talk-

ing. I eliminated my buddy Mike and

Donna on one hand as well and I per-

sonally eliminated more than one half

of the ield. I ended up in second place

losing to Mark, the Host. It was a really

fun time and it’d been a while since I

made it to the inal two.

I went home and slept late, wak-

ing up just in time for the WWE Hall

of Fame ceremony. They only showed

the top four inductees, which meant

that there was no Nick Bockwinkel

or The Wild Samoans shown, though

they were both inducted. I’m told the

whole show will be on the DVD. They

showed Jim Ross, announcing legend,

Jerry Lawler, regional superstar and

crack announcer, Mr Perfect Curt Hen-

nig, who passed away but was a great

star, and The American Dream Dusty

Rhodes. I was moved by the Perfect

and Rhodes inductions. I’m always

moved at Hall of Fame Inductions.

That led to WrestleMania. I love

Wrestling and WrestleMania is sort of

like Wrestling Christmas. No real fan

can get to sleep easy the night before. I

had a few friends over and we watched

the madness. There were guys drop-

ping each other on ladders and pile-

drivers onto steel steps. Vince McMa-

hon got his head shaved. There was

sound and fury signifying AWESOME-

NESS!!!

And so, I’m plum tuckered out.

Everything happens in these little

bundles and I’m glad I got to see all my

old wrestling pals. Now, there is perfect

time to make fanzines!!!

Garcia@computerhistory.org

Letter Graded Mail

sent to garcia@computerhistory.org

by my gentle readers!

I’m kind of recalling when I

lived in Rochester, New York and was

heavily into orienteering which I also

mentioned in my last LoC. That was

an activity in which I participated

in person. But that was because, by

chance, Rochester is one of the few

hotbeds of orienteering in the United

States. The Rochester club is one

of the most active in the country.

Participating in person didn’t require

any expenditure to speak of or any

travel. (Plus, crowds get pretty spread

out in parks, or you can just wander

away into the woods if it gets too

much!)

Living in Rochester, for

orientering purposes, was, I suppose,

the faanish equivalent of living in a city

which stages a big annual sf con.

So, who knows, if I had ever lived

in such a city I probably would’ve

dropped in on a convention now and

then.

My orienteering has dropped off

to almost nothing since I moved away

from Rochester since the available

meets require a bit too much travel.

Orienteering’s popularity suffers

from the fact that a lot of potential

orienteers simply don’t live near

enough to where meets are held. To

participate in orienteering you really

need to go out on a course.

That’s what the hobby is about.

I will also point out that Rochester

has one of the most active SF Fan

Let’s start off with my man Mr. Eric

Mayer!!!

Chris,

Another enjoyable issue. I have

to say, though, someone could tell

me anything about rap, or ritzy art

exhibits and I wouldn’t know whether

to believe it or not so it’s kind of hard

to comment. Maybe it’s appropriate

to feature hoaxes in the Drink Tank.

Eventually you can reveal that it isn’t

a fanzine after all! Or maybe all the

articles in this issue are true and that’s

the hoax.

Or The Drink Tank itself is a

hoax and I’m really Arnie Katz

in disguise (I’m Arnie Katz in

Disguise, oh yes I am, Arnie Katz in

Disguise...)

And now I understand you’re

going to have a Worldcon issue and

I know even less about Worldcons

than rap or art exhibits. (or hoaxes)

But wait. I can blather on about

conventions. Indeed, I can do I sort

of pre-LoC. After all, I found Mark

Plummer’s relections on whether, as I

had put it, one could be more than an

“afiliate” fan without attending cons to

be very interesting.

I gather from what Mark said

that he and Claire are not only

acquainted with most of the fans

on their mailing list via written

communication but have met them

in person. However, he reckons that

you can be a fully ledged fan just by

participating in fanzines but there

don’t seem to be many such people.

It’s nice to know that not everyone

considers con attendance as necessary.

However, while I rather wish every fan

shared Mark’s sentiments I suspect

that many don’t. Actually, it would be

pretty hard to. We all tend to feel a

greater connection to people we’ve met,

I think.

I can see that most folks in fandom

think of fandom as Con-going

fandom. I love Con-goers and

Fanzine Fans who attend cons

make me smile because I can talk

zines with people.

Clubs in the Country. There’re a lot

of orienteering groups out here in

the BArea as well. There are more

GeoCaching folks around too.

Fanzine fandom, potentially,

can be open to anybody, anywhere,

who wants to distribute a fanzine via

the internet. (I know, that till excludes

folks without computers or internet

connections) Provided that fanzine

fandom is primarily about fanzines.

But I don’t believe that’s the case

today, if it ever was. (I might add that

the term “Core Fandom” makes a lot

more sense if you don’t see fanzines

as the basis for fandom) If convention

attendance is fandom’s basic/most

important activity then fandom limits

participation in the same way as

orienteering does.

That’s a good point. I know a few

folks who I would call fanzine fans

who are seldom if ever seen in the

pages of any fanzine.

I’m not saying it’s good or

bad. A hobby is what it is. Plenty of

hobbies do require participants to live

in proximity to other participants. If

someone said to me, “I don’t live near

an orienteering club but I collect maps

and I trace out routes, at home, on

my maps, so I orienteer”...well, I don’t

know. I wouldn’t say that person was

really an orienteer. If I just write LoCs

to fanzines maybe I’m just tracing

routes out at home.

LoCs are a pretty big part for

Fanzines, though. I think a closer

approximation would be being the

guy who writes a zine and posts

it on the net without any LoCs or

anything from anyone else. I’m not

saying that’s a bad thing, but it’s

the isolationist method, I guess.

And, really, I don’t know whether

any of this matters, whether it makes

any discernable difference or what sort

of difference it might make.

By the way, I see you had an

interesting letter from Gregg Trend.

He also wrote a nice LoC to Pixel and I

hope I keep reading stuff by him.

Best,

Eric

It was good to see his email pop up.

I hope we see more too. I know he’s

a member of The Cult...or so rumor

has it!

And now...Mark Plummer!

Bloody hell, Chris, here you

are, an aspiring TAFF candidate and

everything, and you’ve never heard of

Derek Pickles.

*Never heard of Derek Pickles?*

Worse, you think I’ve made him up?

You do realise, don’t you, that *if*

you decide to enter the line-up for the

next TAFF race, and *if* you actually

manage to win, then that’s not the

end of the process. There’s still a test.

Greg Pickersgill and Peter Weston will

be waiting for you when you arrive in

the UK and if you can’t show yourself

to be fully cognisant of key events and

personalities in the UK fan scene then

they’ll have you straight back on the

boat to Californialand or wherever it

is you come from, and without any

sandwiches too. I’d start reading and

memorising Then...

( http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-

Archives/Then/Index.html )

straight away if I were you.

I have done so and am now

learning. It burns! Too...much...info

rmation... The thing is, I know I can

outrun Peter in a footrace, though

I’ve heard Pickersgill is wiley.

Derek Pickles. Old-time Bradford

fan from the ifties. Here he is, with

the rest of the Bradford group in

1952 ( http://fanac.org/Other_Cons/

Mancon/m52-001.html ). Back row,

third from left, next to Mal Ashworth -

- and you have heard of Mal Ashworth,

haven’t you?

Oddly, I have. I recently spent

a while trolling the waters of

FANAC.org and rememer seeing his

name as co-editing a zine called

Bug-Eyed Monster or something like

that.

Most importantly, Derek’s

often credited with starting the idea

of making fanzines available for ‘the

usual’. (See http://www.zeldes.com/

fan/ditto/ditto14_pr1.pdf -- page 11):

‘U.K. fan Derek Pickles and his

brother-in-law, Stan Thomas, were the

irst to announce, in the June 1954

issue of Phantasmagoria, the three

ways of getting their fanzine without

paying cash: 1. No subscriptions are

requested, if you send money we won’t

refuse it, but there is no sub rate; 2.

You can make sure of receiving future

issues, which will appear when we

feel like it, by a. Writing a letter of

comment, b. A contribution, c. Your

magazines. This formula quickly

spread. It’s unknown, however, who

was the irst to sum these up in the

useful phrase the usual.’

I always wondered who came up

with that idea, and it makes sense

that an imaginary fan invented by

Mark Plummer would be the one!

You’ve not fooled me, Mark! I’m a

hoaxer, I totally know when I’m

being hoaxed.

And anyway, what’s this with

being suspicious of good old British

names? Everybody knows that it’s

American fandom that has the exotic

names what with people like Elmer

Perdue, Calvin Demmon and Redd

Boggs. I’m still not entirely convinced

that Claire believes in Redd Boggs;

I think she still suspects he’s an

imaginary character invented by Greg

Pickersgill.

You see, Redd Boggs also makes

sense to me. Redd is a perfectly

cromulent name, and Wade Boggs,

Redd’s nephew I believe, was a

helluva baseball player.

There’s a vaguely serious point

lurking in this which is that the exotic

names of some American writers

contributed to the sense of wonder for

British sf readers probably through

to the seventies. The UK’s a lot more

multicultural now, but I remember

Greg remarking that to a young fan

living in the the bottom left-hand

corner of Wales in the mid-sixties the

very name ‘Asimov’ seemed genuinely

exotic and almost as otherworldly as

the books themselves.

Asimov still has a sense of the

unusual, though only as a irst

name. There was a guy in my

graduating class name of Asi

Konogian and the Asi was short for

Asimov. Needless to say, he was not

a fan of the late Doctor’s work.

I do sympathise with you

feeling that 32 is ‘a little bit old in the

everyday world, and still [makes you]

the young guy on the block in fanzine

fandom!’ I doubt it’s consoling, but I

feel pretty much the same way and I’m

43. At the last UK Corlu, the youngest

attendees were probably Claire, Bridget

Bradshaw and Tobes Valois, all then

27. I wonder though whether they’ll

still be the youngest attendees at the

*next* UK Corlu when they’ll all be

39. Actually, no, they probably won’t

be because there will likely be people

along like Max and James Bacon and

Ang (for GUFF) Rosin, but they’re only

a couple of years younger, and even

the group-formally-known-as-Third-

Row will be getting on for thirty.

Wow. I remember, back when

I was in my 20s and the Third

Row showed up on the collective

fannish RADAR. And they’ll be 30!!!

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: