Written by Fred Patten, and published on Bruce Pelz' mimeo, June 8, 1966. Intended for Apa L, Eighty-Sixth Distribution, LASFS Meeting no. 1504, June 9, 1966. Address: 1825 Greenfield Avenue, Los Angeles, California, 90025. Phone: GRanite 3-6321.
| It's a bird ... it's a plane ... it's Dracula!? | Salamander Press #179. |
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Fan HQ West has gone through another change in tenants. Or at any rate, a semi-change. This last weekend, Tom Gilbert moved out, back to his Pasadena address, from which he'll be looking for an apartment of his own in the Pasadena area, closer to downtown Los Angeles than is 1825 Greenfield Avenue. Tom was promptly replaced by Jerry Jacks, who is happily willing to help keep the West L.A. Center of Fandom in operation. Jerry got a job at IBM down by Vermont and 6th almost as soon as he arrived in town; that's not too near to West L.A., so I particularly appreciate his moving into 1825 Greenfield so I won't have to move, myself -- since I can't afford the rent here all by myself.
Jerry seems to've been particularly lucky in his choice of employers, too. He'd been working at IBM less than a week, when he got a telegram a couple of weeks ago saying that his mother was desperately ill and that he was needed back in Baltimore at once. So he immediately flew back -- it being a Sunday -- and happily found that his mother wasn't quite that sick (the telegram was from an over-nervous aunt), but he still couldn't come back to L.A. for about a week. Not only did IBM keep his job open for him, but he was paid for all the time he was gone, and arrived back just in time to pick up his first paycheck. Along with all the other benefits that IBM seems to have for employees, not to mention such privileges as buying IBM typewriters and company stock at a discount. I'm almost tempted to look into job prospects at IBM, myself. Not really, because I'm happy at USC, but it's the sort of situation that makes you think twice.
Another addition to 1825 Greenfield Ave. is Len Bailes, who moved in tonight as his UCLA dorm closed down at the end of the school semester. Len will be staying here until the WesterCon, following which he'll fly back to his home in North Carolina for the Summer. Hopefully, he'll be rejoining us in September, though that apparently depends on his getting his scholarship renewed, and word on that won't be coming through for a while yet. I sure hope the scholarship does come through; it's a lot more enjoyable having Len as a member of local fandom than as an out-of-town contributor.
While Len is staying here, he'll be working on getting the next issue of QUIP out in time for the WesterCon, while I'm busily at work on The Best from APA L, which has the same deadline. So it looks as though 1825 Greenfield is going into the Fanzine Factory aspect of its existence once again. If your copy of The Best turns out to have pages from QUIP mixed up in it, or vice versa, well, things are a little hectic right now, okay?
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"I pledge ... to fight against the injustice, corruption, evil and greed which fills this Earth in the hopes that somehow my example will be an example to all men."
. . . Count Dracula
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If you'll check back to last year at this time -- RR #34, in the Apa L Dist'n of the same number -- you'll see that I had just published my 100th fanzine, and I was speculating on how many more I'd be publishing in the coming year. Well, this issue of RR is Salamander Press no. 179, which means that I've turned out 79 fanzines in the last twelve months. Average page count of, oh, probably five or six pages an issue. That's a fairly impressive record, though when I look at it, I wonder if all the time & money I put into those 79 fanzines wouldn't have been put to better use on something else? Probably not; if I hadn't been publishing fanzines, I'd've probably just spent the money and time in buying and reading more science-fiction. Or comic books. I wonder how many more fanzines I'll've published by this time next year? Assuming Apa L continues, which it doubtlessly will, a Whole Lot.
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I thought that a lifetime of reading comic books had inured me to anything, but the idea of Dracula as a shining example of peace, justice, and the American Way is too much even for me. I suppose we can expect a television series about "The Legend of Adolf Hitler" any season now, showing dear little Adolf as a modern Robin Hood, saving Europe from the horrible doom of the Depression, and things like that.
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-- BEING COMMENTS ON LAST WEEK'S DISTRIBUTION
There's one rather important matter that that I'd like to hear everyone's views on -- particularly the views of those who often publish only one page a week. For some time now, it's been my practice, when I've got only one single stencil to publish for Apa L (an inclusion, or Len Bailes' IPZIK!, for example), and one of the out-of-town contributors has sent in a zine consisting of only one page and a blank backside, to run that odd stencil on that blank backside. This has obvious advantages; it makes the Dist'ns that much more compact, instead of having two separate sheets of paper, each blank on one side; and it correspondingly saves time in collating. Recently, since Jim Schumacher has been bringing his mimeograph to LASFS Meetings and running off stencils on the spot, I've been continuing my practice by giving him the zines on hand that are blank on one side for him to print on -- even asking some of our resident artists, such as Dian Pelz and Bill Rotsler, to do an illustration to fill an otherwise blank page. Admittedly, I have not been asking the permission of the contributors whose zines I've been using, before giving Jim the okay to publish something on the back; I am guilty here. Last week, one of our contributors got very incensed because I printed something on the back of his zine without checking with him first, and he pulled his zine out of the Dist'n. To keep anything like this from happening again, I'd like to hear from the rest of you -- particularly those of you who publish mimeographed fanzines, and sometimes leave one side of them blank. Do you have any strong objections to my publishing something on the reverse? If possible, I'll try to check with you first, but if you're one of our out-of-town contributors, or someone who habitually leaves the club early and has a friend pick up your Dist'n, or someone (like Jack Harness) who sends in your zine with someone else, I can't find you to ask you. So I'd like to know if it's all right if I run off somebody else's one-page fanzine on the back of yours, if need be? Naturally, I'll try not to commit any faux pas, such as running something by someone you aren't on speaking terms with on the back of your zine. A general Yes or No from you would be a great help in publishing odd contributions in as compact a manner as possible, and avoiding Dist'ns that consist of from 25% to 40% of blank pages. How do you feel about it?
Don Simpson -- Thanks for the ToC lettering. When can we get some more covers from you? Some more interstellar crustaceans, preferably?
Fred Hollander -- I agree with you that a lot of the real arguing in Apa L has descended to the personal level, with the participants really just telling each other to go to Hell rather than to win each over to a certain viewpoint. Bruce tends to use terms like "nitwit", "moron", "imbecile"; Dwain employs "liar", "troublemaker", and the like. None are calculated to a calm, impersonal discussion of whatever is supposedly worth discussing. Your notice probably won't shut anyone up, but it does a good job of serving notice that not all of us feel that a flock of red-hot feuds are the most desirable thing to keep Apa L a lively organization. Let's hope that some of the parties who obviously aren't even trying to come to an agreement will take the hint.
Bill Glass - I was beginning to wonder if ODTAA was ever coming to an end. On the whole, I think it's quite a good fanzine, and you're to be congratulated for keeping up the schedule of the serialized installments. There were parts that I didn't care for; there were parts that will be reprinted in The Best from Apa L. I hope you aren't going to start ODTAA; v.3 right away?
Len Bailes -- Now that The Best from APA L is swinging into production, it looks as though I probably won't be able to spare the weekend to see "The Sorcerer" up in Berkeley, after all. *Sigh* but I don't see any way out of it. You may have noticed that RR is being run off on Bruce's mimeo this week; the LASFS Rex is in the shop getting a complete cleaning in preparation for The Best, which will resume publication next week. (Stencils are still being typed in the interim, of course.) I may end up having to take some of the help that was so kindly offered by so many people in getting The Best ready, though I'd like to do as much of it as possible by myself, to insure similarity of format, typeface, etc. We'll see. Anyhow, don't tempt me with parties and trips for the next month.
Dan Alderson -- My comments on using Apa L as a wastebasket stand as stated; if there won't be any repetition of this, we can consider the matter as closed. As to why I didn't reject the reprint, since I considered it worthless, it's because I don't believe in setting a quality limitation for Apa L, and demanding that all contributions come up to a certain level of interest on pain of being banned. If I were to refuse to let anything into Apa L that didn't interest me personally, we'd be minus a fair portion of material every week, including all of your Diplomacy zines, no matter how legible they are. My policy is that any contribution that is legible and that will not hurt a member of the LASFS (other than through the contributor's own stupidity, to himself) should be allowed into the Distributions. Unless the majority of our contributors decide that they want me to act as a censor, this will continue to be my policy. I feel that public opinion alone should be enough to regulate a contributor's material; if he continues to send through material that is idiotic and valueless, the other contributors in Apa L will let him know what they think of it. If he persists in doing this, thereby gaining a bad reputation for himself, that's his problem. That's why I suggested that you recall the reprint of the back page of BARSH? #6, since BARSH? itself was in the same Dist'n, but I would not arbitrarily reject it over your refusal to do so. This is in effect a cop-out on my part; it leaves you with the job of justifying the material you put into Apa L, rather than giving me the job of justifying my refusal to allow it into the Dist'ns.
Tom Digby -- A very amusing letter, about collecting "rocks of special significance"; thanks for putting it through for us.
