| Martha Beck died peacefully in her sleep yesterday morning, Wednesday
March 13 2002, of respiratory failure. She had been suffering
from this condition for some time and been anchored to an oxygen
tank for much too long that considerably restricted her movements
and fan activities.
Since the 1950s she and her husband
Henry Beck were fixtures within MidWest fandom and stalwarts of
the Chicago fan group. Martha was a convention committee member
for ChiCon III where she ran the hospitality suite for the N3F.
Throughout the last fifty years she has been the soul and spirit
of fandom, making every convention or just a simple party something
extraordinarily special just by her presence.
Martha was mother to us all. She adopted
my family and me in the 1950s where we regularly commuted from
Gary, Indiana to Chicago for reasons that had nothing to do with
science fiction or fandom. We were integrated into her family.
Martha and Henry became godparents to my second son, Erik. All
of us and all of our children more or less grew up together.
Throughout these years Martha has been
one of the handful of people who insisted upon maintaining contact
with me, wherever I was, when most others had abandoned me or
long since lost track of my whereabouts, including myself. At
times when I was at my very lowest in spirit and volition, Martha
was always there, offering aid, comfort, and encouragement.
Martha took the place of her sister-in-law
Sally Rand, my muse, and worked unceasingly at inspiring me toward
a greatness that only she recognized. She alone has always insisted
that I had something important to say and that I should be about
saying it because she, at least, was waiting to read it...to hear
it.
Oddly, I know that she still will.
At this very moment she is seated in a plush, comfortable chair
in the VIP section of the Celestial Science Fiction library surrounded
by all the artifacts she ever wanted. She is breathing freely
and naturally for the first time in many decades. She is free
to eat her special treats and to indulge in her private pleasures
and nothing can ever affect her adversely again. She is no longer
burdened by the pain that regularly ripped through her or the
struggles just to get through each day. She is reading over my
shoulder...all of our shoulders...every moment of every day and
passing her blessings along to all of us.
The Spanish have a word for it, "adios."
It really doesn't mean good-bye but literally "into
God's hands, your keeping."
Martha is home, where she belongs and
where she desperately wanted to be. Rejoice in her contentment
and...at last...freedom from pain.
--Earl Kemp, March 14, 2002
Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. --Gilbert Keith Chesterton EVERYTHING in this issue of eI was written by me. Everything in this issue is part of the ongoing rough draft outlining of my memoirs. As usual, I am presenting these fragments here, in this forum, in hopes of attracting corrections, revisions, additions, memories, photographs, covers, jpegs, etc. Please don't hesitate to pass them on to me at earlkemp@citlink.net at any time. SPECIAL thanks for this issue go to Bill Burns, my producer and distributor at http://efanzines.com for his great services. Also to Elaine Harris for some extra heavy-duty photo restoration services and to Robert Speray for designing the layout and page make-up. THIS, the second issue of eI, contains stories about one of my former obsessions, bullfighting. There are three related stories, "Death in the Afternoon," "The King of Somewhere Hot...," and "Blood and Sand," all dealing with this fascinating but outgrown past. These three pieces are followed by "Have Typewriter; Will Whore For Food" dealing with the paperback publishing boom of the 1960s. THANK YOU for your wonderful letters and superlative blessings. Please don't stop. Without an element of the obscene there can be no true and deep aesthetic or moral conception of life... It is only the great men who are truly obscene. If they had not dared to be obscene they could never have dared to be great. --Havelock Ellis |
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| EDITORIAL:
"…For Nothin' Left To Lose…."* By Earl Kemp
"Freedom's just another word..."
the lyrics tell us, and they tell us true.
The word represents one of the biggest
myths and frauds ever perpetuated against those they are presumed
to "protect and serve" by those charged with that responsibility
in the first place.
These are, I swear, the unspeakable
and unhearable words, the unthinkable words. They are also the
undeniable words.
Everywhere I turn these days, following
the terrorist attack last September 11th, I encounter much concern
and dialogue about temporarily relinquishing portions of what
it is that we think of as being our freedom to those very same
people. And this comes from others who seem to think they have
some voice in the matter. Sadder still, they seem to think and
appear to feel that they have something to lose.
My long, bitter experience concerning
fights for some of those very same freedoms, especially the First
Amendment, has left me with the clear, unblurred knowledge of
how ridiculous it is to believe that I, or any other citizen of
the USA for that matter, felt I had any. I don't have valid comparisons
for other countries.
Politicians, and you must know this
even if you never allow yourself to bring it to mind, do not work
for their constituencies. They work first for personal profit
and fringe benefits in staggeringly obscene amounts, and second
toward the secret ends of their political party. Everything and
everyone else is totally expendable and can not be allowed to
interfere, even briefly, with personal, private political goals.
Fuck the people!
Most people in the USA never travel
any significant distance from home. They have nothing real or
tangible within their own realities with which to compare anything,
much less freedom. They know, because they have been taught to
believe, that they live in the "greatest country in the world."
Not for a moment has a one of them
compared statistics about where the USA stands, ranked among other
nations, in areas of education, health, wealth distribution, childhood
diseases, etc. They couldn't' t handle the truth that, in every
area except political/military, we rank very low indeed compared
with most of the third world, developing nations.
They believe that they enjoy and experience
the very best of everything there is because they have been taught
this ridiculous myth by rote and don't have a better to compare
their fare with. They don' t even believe there is a better, and
much better after that, followed by very much better, etc.
Encountering these words would neither
enlighten nor inform them. It would enrage and infuriate them
that I could be so callous, so unpatriotic, so treasonous...even
so traitorous...as to express the concept publicly. It's "me
and the Taliban" against them and, because expressing these
things means automatically that I am un-American and against the
War on Terrorism, I should be put away with all the rest of the
nut-fringe loonies. It could happen....
Still others say that I am just bitter,
a sore loser, cynical, too far out for everything.
#
The law enforcement community within
the USA represents the politicians and the status quo above all
others. Without authority or authorization or even "probable
cause," the law enforcement community at every level from
the White House down to the local postman and dogcatcher routinely
and customarily, whenever the whim strikes them:
Tap all your telephones (including auxiliaries and attachments
thereto like PCs, e-mail, Internet, and WWWs). Interfere with, open, and copy all classes of your mail. Run records checks and keep dossiers on you and yours. Plant bugs, microphones, cameras, transmitters, etc. on you. Do much, much worse things.
And these things are done in cases
involving known criminals and known criminal activity, in cases
of suspected but unverified criminal activity allegedly perpetuated
by anyone they don' t like for any reason. The best part is just
to hassle anyone they don't like, including persons known to have
no possible criminal connection. And it goes on for years and
years, as long as the thrill lasts for them....
So why are you concerned that President
Bush has signed a bill temporarily (and what a farce that word
has always been in similar situations) suspending the sham of
a myth of a right you never ever had to begin with?
In the real world, it happens this
way: Anyone suspected or disliked and singled out for this close
scrutiny is eligible for the full treatment. It doesn't matter
if they are aware that they are under a microscope or not; there
is nothing they can do about it. Nothing at all. What the law
enforcement community does, in place of solving crimes, is snoop,
bribe, defraud, steal, perjure themselves and others, invent evidence,
etc., and in general insist and appear to believe that "the
end justifies the means."
They can not see themselves as being
involved in the single most corrupt, illegal, criminal occupation
in the entire country. They think they are doing good. To be true,
I have encountered a number of honest, honorable law enforcement
types but they are very few and very far between and, even then,
the code of whatever drives them is hacking away at their honesty
and honorableness, trying to force them to conform to the actions
of the pack.
In Mexico, for instance, it is axiomatic
that every criminal carries a badge on him somewhere. The bigger
a criminal he is, the higher-ranking his badge, right up to the
highest Federale level.
Badges, in the USA, appear to have
been replaced with hard currency. That means large-denomination
unmarked bills, no checks, receipts, or records. And, as in Mexico,
a rigid pecking order is maintained. The Supreme Court Justice
solicits and demands a considerably larger bribe than the one
sought by the judge presiding over your local superior court.
In the USA, I've always felt that it
is very difficult to distinguish between the law enforcement community
and the criminal community. They all look alike, and walk and
talk and swagger alike. They go to all the same places and know
all the same lawyers, judges, and booking clerks. For the most
part, they dress and act alike as well.
Finally I developed this theory: The
only way to distinguish between the criminal and the cop in the
USA is to determine which one of them has the badge and exactly
where he stole it.
[I am well aware that there are exceptions
to every case, including the ones cited here.]
And most good "'merikans"
agree with the law enforcement community and anyone else who tells
them what to think and understand how really good they are and
how helpful...until you actually need some help. Most USA citizens
would say that I am way off the mark with these words, and in
so saying, condemn themselves to yet more of it and less of the
other...the personal stuff...the me or the you, my or yours.
Then, on the slim chance that some
damaging evidence turns up through these illegal searches and
seizures and invasions of privacy, the law enforcement community
moves to the next plateau. This is the one where they go to a
"friendly" judge who will sign and back date any legal
document they care to ask for. For some reason they seem to feel
the need to pretend to have been legal all the time when they
never have been yet.
Surely there's no need to mention the
fact that prisons all over this country house judges, lawyers,
prosecuting attorneys, chiefs of police, sheriffs, marshals, patrolmen,
and even an occasional presidential cabinet member or two. Let's
not pretend that all of them pretend to be law-abiding citizens.
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Next the file goes to some prosecuting
division where the fragments of illegally obtained or paid-for
bribery are lined up in some actionable order. At every gaping
hole, notes are made regarding what is needed to fill them and,
without regard to reality, they proceed to fabricate evidence
or extort or pay for perjured testimony to do the same thing.
Then the whole thing moves own down the factory assembly line
to the next stop.
It goes that way all the way to the
courtroom and to the prison cell, well greased with lies, deceit,
and unconscionable illegality. At every step along the way every
perpetuator, with a wink, an elbow-jab, and a leer, congratulates
the other with a pat on the back and a grab of the buttocks for
a job well done for justice, liberty, and the American way.
Patriotism is what you call it or what
you feel it to be. For years I felt I was nearly the only patriot
left standing, fighting against them for whatever it was America
was supposed to be. They had all the trappings of patriotism and
I had none, yet it was still just me, defending the things I had
always thought they were supposed to defend. It must be part of
that flip- flop syndrome where every time the Administration needs
a good war, our most recently last most bitterest and hateful
enemy suddenly appears, shoulder to shoulder, as our staunchest
ally now fighting with us against our most recently last most
trusted and honorably ally.
And the cannons roar and the factories
belch and Big Business makes Really Big Bucks that never dwindle
down to the minimum-wage robots living in the best country in
the world...and, where permitted by law, under God.
You will never see the day when you
get those temporarily disconnected freedoms returned to you. Get
over it and get on with it. Just remember how happy you've been
when you thought you had them but didn't; you can get there again,
with even fewer freedoms to worry about this time around.
Either you baah! like a good little
sheep or get in line for the mutton processing. You have no other
option.
Amid all the flag-waving (and I am
doing that too) and nation-reprouding and red-white-and-blueing
going on everywhere, you're "with us" or "against
us" and you don't matter, personally, alive or dead, for
doodlie-squat.
"...and the land of the free...."
Very early on, whenever leaving the
USA either on business or pleasure, I was struck by a tangible,
warm, caressing of something I couldn't identify. I spent a lot
of time working on it, trying to figure it out. I finally decided
that that good-glow of personal completion and satisfaction was
" freedom" and that I felt good because I was "free."
Once I left the country of my birth and lair of those who think
of themselves as being my controller.
Sadly, whenever it was time to start
thinking about returning to the USA, darkness and gloom would
set in. The awful dread of going through the Customs and Immigration
gauntlet as a "tagged" person (without evidence, probable
cause, or record, undergoing strip searches, genital grabbing
and denigration, raucous jokes at my expense, anal probes, and
other embarrassing realities all designed to make the day for
certain in-the-know federal inspectors). Somehow everyone feels
free to embarrass and criticize you directly in your face, to
defame you and call you names, because they carry a badge marking
them as minimum wage capable. They want their hooks in you again,
to exercise their dominance and control.
Imagine how wonderful it would be if
they could spend just a little bit of that time, energy, effort,
and invective trying to do something good or legal for a change?
To double-check myself, I began surveying
people I knew who traveled quite a lot about the same thing and
almost without exception each one indicated to me that they feel
more free outside the USA than they do inside it. Surely the proper
feeling for any citizen to have about their homeland..."Homeland
Security" or not.
Once, driving a visiting friend from
Amsterdam into Mexico, just as we passed clear of the port of
entry, he turned to me in amazement and said, "My God! You
can feel the freedom surrounding you here the instant you leave
the States."
Other visitors, notably from Denmark
and Sweden, have approached me seriously on the subject of how
could I live under such repressive conditions as they say they
felt everywhere they went around our country.
[There are many countries where you
can not feel free, and there are other countries where the local
citizens can not feel free but absolutely nothing will touch a
tourist there. Exceptions to every rule.]
I spent years of my life in the futile
attempt to help people see what really surrounds them beyond the
cloak of pretense that has been force-fed to them, daily, all
their lives. It didn't work then, it won't work now, and tomorrow
won't be any better. It has reached the stage where there is no
longer a starting point. You can't begin from here. You have nothing
to work with any longer.
Your children can't read or calculate.
Your grandchildren don't even understand
the need for either.
You pay five times the world average
price for prescription medicine and health care that is rendered
to you 23rd in line, nationwise, right after Costa Rica and just
before Cuba.
People in the USA live in streets,
dumpsters, and shrubbery. People starve. People die. Women , children,
the elderly die alone, unnoticed, and unwanted. People can't get
to see a doctor for any reason and can't afford the medicine that
would cure them if they could. Politicians eat cake.
Shame on them. There must be something
they need to eat a great deal more of.
It makes me sad, again. I mourn, again.
I die, again.
Only thing is, Patrick Henry don't
ride no mo', there's no more of it left. I gave at the office.
_ _ _ *For Mohamed Yasin, my Islamic friend in Tangier, Morocco; face Mecca from the Star of the East and breathe deep of the hashish drifting heavily on the afternoon breezes. � 2001 by Earl Kemp. All rights reserved. Dated December 2001. It takes physical courage to indulge in wickedness. The "good" are too cowardly to do it. --Friedrich Nietzsche |
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| "Death in the Afternoon"*
By Earl Kemp
When I was a youngster and impressionable,
I was captivated by many things that were radically unusual and
different from whatever it was I was exposed to within my native
environment. Naturally, I found most of those things within books
or movies or music, the only things that, somehow, managed to
intrude into that environment. And, it seemed, the more divergent
they were from the local norm, the more impressionable they were
upon me.
One of those things became the mystique
and romance of Mexico (or of Spanish things once removed) most
prominently portrayed in a bullfighting setting. Blood And
Sand was very formative to me, Tyrone Power, Anthony Quinn,
my love Rita Hayworth (formerly Rita Cansino, an adept child flamenco
dancer in Tijuana), Linda Darnell, and a cast of Technicolor bulls.
Death in the Afternoon and all the rituals associated with same,
Ernest Hemingway, et al. And even that was a remake of an old
silent starring Rudolph Valentino.
In 1965, as I made my move to San Diego
from Chicago, I met numbers of people who wished to show me around
and acquaint me with all the local entertainments and diversions,
among them being Tijuana, with which I became instantly fascinated.
I couldn't seem to get enough of it.
I would go to Tijuana for lunch, for
dinner...for a haircut...for absolutely any reason at all, should
I have to have had an excuse, I'd make one up.
Tijuana was, at that time, Sin City
to the world, with the downtown district itself a riot of strip
joints, bordellos, pimps, and some unbelievably raunchy floor
shows. There were shills outside each of these places, on the
sidewalks, trying to entice people into the establishments that
had hired them. "Fucking, sucking on stage; live donkeys..."
was a part of each of their enticement spiels. Some of those places
had already acquired world-class status among the notorious partiers
of the area, most notably off-duty military personnel from the
San Diego area where many, many such resided, being home bases
for marines, air force, navy, etc. Naturally, Tijuana was off-limits
to those military types, but what the hell, they were as mobile
as anyone else and as capable of denying their status as well.
One such place, The Blue Fox, was particularly
well known, having billboards, T-shirts, bumper stickers, and
other things that those in the know proudly flaunted wherever
they went, slogans like "Eat at the Blue Fox," "The
Blue Fox blue plate special," "Tijuana Pussy Posse,"
and on and on. The Blue Fox, on its stage, featured strippers
who would go all the way, but the real show was not the strippers,
but the customers in the "restaurant" instead, who had
perfected what might eventually evolve into something known as
"lap dancing." The customers would go up onto the stage
whenever they felt so inclined and whenever a particular stripper
of their liking was performing, and sprawl out flat on the stage
on their backs. The stripper, now nude, would sit on them if they
were so inclined, and the customer would have the opportunity
to partake of all they could eat. And they did, and the crowd
roared and cheered them on and changed places and on and on.
One club was a transvestite joint featuring
very elaborate stage shows. Above all these establishments were
rooms where patrons could go with any of the entertainers of their
choosing and do whatever it was they felt like doing inside those
rooms, for a price...something less than $10. There were numbers
of bordellos around town of several class structures, from the
commonplace quickie joint to the extremely elaborate executive
type places for wealthy businessmen, etc. All staffed and priced
according to what the traffic would allow.
Eventually, as progress caught up with
location, all those places were either shut down or moved to an
undesirable "Zona Rosa" (red light district) right up
against the United States border in a location that did not attract
so much tourist foot traffic.
#
But that is not the story this started
out to be. The story is about bulls. Some of my newfound friends
in San Diego took me to the bullfights in Tijuana to see how I
would react to them. I reacted positively so they took me several
more times. I was captivated by the rituals and spectacle of the
events. Not by the killing. I had by that time become such a pacifist
that I couldn't tolerate killing of any nature except of course
for food, etc. I wasn't going to give up beef, either.
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About the same time, I stumbled into
a nice upscale bar in downtown Tijuana which was clean and inviting
and offered a quiet place to get away from the hustle for a little
while. In the evening, a rock and roll group would set up in the
corner and shake the whole building with their very own rendition,
shouted at peak voice, of "come on, baby, light my fire."
Las Puertas, verdad....
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I found it becoming one of my favorite
stopping places. I think I had discovered classic margaritas by
then; certainly not the awful things you get at most places today
or from most well drinks. Naturally, I began to talk with the
bartender, George (Jorge), and he with me. He was a
 regal gentleman
with lots of dignity and bearing who, it turned out, was actually
an official at Plaza Monunental, the major downtown Tijuana bullring
in his real life. (There are two bull rings in Tijuana, the second
one located right on the beach.) He, like my San Diego friends,
continued to encourage me to enjoy and attend bullfights.
In fact, George opened the entire bullring
up for me, giving me access to most of the off-limits areas. I
would go to Plaza Monumental early in the morning and spend most
of Sunday with him (bullfights happen only on Sundays and major
holidays) being shown around, led into heretofore forbidden areas
for me at least. I would be there when they would bring in the
bulls, draw lots for position and matador, then parcel them out
into holding pens accordingly. I would be there when the cerveza
trucks brought in the beer and when the Coca-Cola trucks brought
in the refrescos. When the food vendors started working on the
tortillas and the carne asada...the mingling aromas, so early
in the morning, doing wild things with my senses.
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From this vantage point I became saturated
in the mystique of bullfighting, surrounded as I was by the actual
bulls themselves, snorting and prancing through oceans of urine
and fecal matter and stinking unbelievably. I got to believing
I was Ernest Hemingway again, getting ready to go to Paris, living
life to the fullest and getting right down in there with the damned
beasts themselves.
I had total access to the ring itself,
provided that I stayed behind the final protective barrier that
was allegedly bull proof (though I have seen a bull or two with
the powers to jump over that barrier and terrorize those standing
behind it where I frequently stood) where I would hang over the
retaining wall, camera in hand, and take the damnedest photographs
that have, regretfully, most all become lost as time passed by.
It was in Tijuana during this period
that one matador, Anthony Lomelin from Acapulco, captured my fancy
because of his courage and his good looks. Lomelin was not only
strikingly handsome, he had an audacious approach to fear that
was intriguing and perplexing. He had already become the darling
of the Acapulco social set and of the more affluent expatriates
living there.
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There were numerous prominent bullfighters
of the day who appeared regularly in Tijuana, El Cordobes, the
world leader at the time, Carlos Montoya, who fought his bulls
from horseback, La Paloma Linares, beauty at work...etc. But Lomelin,
the newcomer, the upstart, was my favorite. I wanted very much
to meet him, and made that fact known loudly and clearly around
Plaza Monumental.
I even went so far as to ask a friend
of mine on the Playboy staff to fake an introduction to
Lomelin for me on the staff to fake an introduction to Lomelin
for me on the pretense that I was researching an article about
him. He did, only he signed the letter with a fake name. Then,
in case of emergencies, he sent that letter to me with a care
package of unused Playboy letterheads and envelopes and
a note telling me to write my own damned not Playboy letters
in the future without bothering him and besides, he doesn't even
know me. I had occasion to use most of those Playboy letterheads,
including most notably during my tour of Viet Nam as foreign correspondent
for the Los Angeles Free Press.
My efforts finally paid off and the
doors were opened to me.
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One Sunday morning I was told to go
to Antonio Lomelin's room at the La Sierra Motel promptly at 2
o'clock where I would be allowed to meet him, speak with him,
and observe him prepare for that afternoon's fight.
Much to my surprise, when I arrived
at the La Sierra Motel, I was not alone...there was one other
person similarly privileged, Robert Conrad, star of Wild Wild
West, one of my favorite television shows. Conrad was at the
peak of his personal perfection and at the top of his professional
career playing the role of James T. West, Federal Agent, on one
of the most popular television shows running.
Maybe I was actually Artemus Gordon
cleverly disguised as me, only that wouldn't be revealed until
just before the end of the episode. Jim knew it was me though,
he could tell.
The La Sierra Motel, mostly because
of its location, had long been the official residence of visiting
bullfighters and other celebrities. It was a large, lavish, old-style
motel with big rooms and even bigger suites. Antonio Lomelin,
for the moment at least, was treated like royalty and assigned
quite a nice suite.
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Conrad and I were met by Lomelin's
secretary who introduced us to each other and to Antonio Lomelin.
We also got to meet his four groomers and handlers, and while
both of us thought of them as being beneath my and Conrad's dignity,
we were wrong. They were fellow participants in that day's fights,
and were already partially dressed in their brilliantly exaggerated
bullfighting costumes.
After that brief introduction, hand
shaking, etc., and attempts to talk (Lomelin did not speak much
English so that direction quickly proved to be a dead end), Conrad
and I were directed toward seats and told to sit down and be quiet.
We were told that we were not to take
any photographs, ask questions, talk, or in any way interfere,
just to sit there quietly and watch and learn.
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I had no idea what was going on, personally.
Conrad might have known what to expect, but I certainly didn't.
Lomelin's handlers and groomers knew
what they were doing, that was very clear to us. They began a
long process of bathing Lomelin. This was followed by mass massaging
and ego stroking being done to Lomelin by his dressers.
Now and then I would glance at Conrad,
and he at me. My reactions to what was ongoing were confusing,
to say the least. I couldn't imagine what was going on inside
his mind.
Lomelin stood there like a statue,
David perhaps, almost in a trance. I looked around me and checked
closely for signs that alcohol or drugs were being used, but there
were no hints at all about either. They finished bathing him and
dried him and anointed him with various fragrant lotions and cremes.
And while they were doing these things, almost as if they were
chanting a ritual, they kept verbally giving Lomelin mentally
uplifting encouragements. What they were doing, in reality, was
psyching him up royally. Every touch of their hands, every word
out of their mouths, was telling him that he could go out there
and face those bulls like no other person alive. It was almost
a lovefest, except for the possible deadly implications.
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Next, they began dressing Lomalin in
his suit of lights, the matador costume he would wear for that
afternoon's engagements. It was quite a difficult thing to do,
get him inside that costume. It was deliberately tight and it
took two to three of them pulling on the shining fabric to stretch
it enough to reach Lomelin's waist.
As I watched them, I could feel that
tight suit reluctantly being pulled up my own thighs as well as
his. I began sitting up much straighter. My voice dropped an octave
at least the way my groin was so tightly bound. I felt so damned
proudly masculine all wrapped up like that in bright pastel colors
I just knew my steps would reflect my new-found pride of being.
Was Conrad's mind doing tricks on him
as well? I couldn't ask him but I could see him cringing and shifting
just a bit, trying to make getting into that suit of lights a
bit easier.
After Lomelin had been completely dressed,
candles were lit and everyone fell to their knees before a well-used
altar. There was much, much praying and religious activities that,
not being Catholic, I knew not much of. Then it was all over,
the entire grand ritual. My appointment had me and Robert Conrad
arriving at the La Sierra Motel at 2 p.m. and the grand festivities
of the afternoon, as always, were scheduled for 4 p.m. exactly.
Finally it was time to make the short
walk from the La Sierra Motel to Plaza Monumental, and we all
went along together, in a little parade of quiet solemnity. It
was machismoism at its ultimate peak. No one could walk so manly
man-like as we could, on our way to extinction. Somehow I was
wearing Jose Greco flamenco boots in a bright black glove leather.
The heels were over two inches high. It was difficult walking
in them the way the heels made you arch your legs and push your
rear back, trying to keep pace with the loudly resounding sounds
of guitars and "Bambolero" pounding out all around us
like Gipsy Kings running wild on Owsley acid.
I could see some of the spectators
gathering for the afternoon's event move aside and make way for
us to pass, though no-one spoke. Now and then someone would make
the sign of the cross in silent prayer for the death that was
already approaching.
|
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|
Again I felt so proud, all of us...me
and Conrad as well...dressed in those silky looking tight-ass
suits and
 walking,
matador-like, toward destiny. All of us stepped so proudly, so
very manly, that afternoon. I fancied that my suit of lights was
a bright, fluorescing puke green somewhere between chartreuse
and key lime.
Conrad's suit of lights, I assumed,
was burnished gold to beige, almost a flesh color. He walked so
proudly and with such determination I swear he looked naked, there
in the brilliant afternoon sunlight in the midst of all of our
brilliant pastel colors. He didn't appear to mind at all; he radiated
his best James T. West perfection smile and moved resolutely onward.
Jim West's cinematic sequel son, Will
Smith, couldn't have performed the part even with a crotch double.
Once our little procession was inside
the ring, Conrad and I wished them well then we separated and
went to our seats, and Lomelin went on into the arena itself to
face his own worst fears alone.
|
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|
Bullfighting is not, as most people
think, a barbaric killing event draped in much blood and gore.
It is a classic ballet of rigidly prescribed dance movements wherein
everything has to be done just so. There are many, many performers
and each of them has a separate part of the dance to perform.
The more you know of the rituals, the more you appreciate them
and the more you respond in accordance with tradition itself.
#
Much later I was saddened to learn
that Antonio Lomelin had been gored seriously at least two times.
Once when appearing in Tijuana he was gored in his liver and a
 second time in Mexico City he was gored in his intestines.
Both of these injuries happened as Lomelin was attempting to place
his Banderillas. But the most distressing thing of all to discover
was that somehow Lomelin had become quite an alcohol abuser, and
with an impaired liver at that. Then he had a number of brushes
with the law that resulted in his conviction of a crime and being
sentenced to prison for a length of time. I couldn't discover
any details, not even the country it happened in, much less the
nature of the crime or length of Lomelin's incarceration.
After he was released from prison,
Lomelin briefly attempted a comeback, but the effort was unsuccessful.
The fans who once applauded him the most knew the flair and audacity
of the beauty he once was could never be reclaimed again. They
were right.
My affection for bullfighting followed
me elsewhere, at different times and places, wherever a truly
magnificent matador was booked and wherever it was possible to
get scalper tickets on the spur of the moment.
Far removed from the incomparable skies
of Jalisco, la casa de me corizon, where the clouds themselves
feel most at home, lies another of my special favorite hideaways...Barcelona.
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|
I just happened to be there one day
and encountered much, much enthusiasm for a bullfight scheduled
for the following afternoon. It was touted as something very special
indeed. It was a "mano a mano" (hand to hand) competition.
A challenge match between the No. 2 matador, La Paloma (the dove)
Linares who had challenged No. 1, El Cordobes [Manuel Ben'tez
Perez], to a duel to establish who was actually the best fighter
in all the world (Cordobes was acknowledged world-class champion
at the time).
|
|||
 The fight was to be held in a small little arena
in a small little town in the middle of nowhere vaguely accessible
from Barcelona. Naturally, I bought scalper tickets instantly
and boarded a special bus on Sunday morning bound for the arena.
It was quite a spectacle. Each of the
two fighters fought three bulls in rotating order.
|
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|
I recall, in the end, it was declared
a stand-off...probably no official would dare declare either one
of them to be the better fighter at that point in time.
_ _ _ *In fond memory of James Haynes, a good old boy from Louisiana who was perfectly at home in Paris; he loved it when I showed him the real Mexico. Dated July 1999. Courage and grace is a formidable mixture. The only place to see it is the bullring. --Marlene Dietrich |
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| "The King of Somewhere Hot"*
By Earl Kemp
Donald H. Gilmore, Ph.D., was one hell
of a guy. I never met anyone even remotely like him. On the surface
he seemed to represent everything I didn't like, yet somehow I
genuinely liked him. He was, without fear of challenge, the world's
best asskisser. And, knowing that, I never once felt he was kissing
mine, even when he was...he was that good. Everything, in fact,
one would expect from a true King of Pornography.
He was pushy beyond description, and
he moved onward and forward at a remarkably rapid pace. So much
so, in fact, that it was almost incredulous to watch him in action.
I never wanted to meet him, that's for sure, or anyone like him.
He was a regular pain in the ass as he pushed himself onto me
again and again as if he didn't notice the rebukes and dismissals.
I am glad he persisted, though. And
that I begrudgingly allowed him access to me and at least tacitly
granted him permission to keep at it...at me.... Otherwise I might
have missed out on one of life's greatest gifts...a true friend.
Even then, as we only first met, he
had some grand-scale schemes underway that clearly involved me,
only I was resistant. He kept hitting me with his plan of moving
to Guadalajara (the thought had never crossed my mind) and establishing
a world-class pornography empire, one where he, as king, would
rule, naturally. To that end he had already done much footwork
and preliminary exploration. It was clear to me that with or without
my involvement, he was proceeding full-speed ahead.
He did indeed move to Guadalajara where,
without wasting any time at all, he rapidly started struggling
right up to the top level of local Guadalajara politicians and
power brokers through the most effective asskissing I have ever
known. He was a real artist...within weeks there he was Patron
to and fund raiser for the Salvation Army Orphanage, president
of the 20,000 card-carrying-member expatriate U.S. citizen America
Society, and first-name socializing with such exceptionally prominent
local people as the Ibarras (chocolate), the Canadas (shoes),
and the Sauzas (tequila).
Ordinarily, for most people, any one
of those fetes would have been impossible to accomplish. Superman
couldn't do it. James Bond couldn't do it. An extremely well connected
undercover CIA operative couldn't even do it...only Gilmore did.
(Years later, under equally mysterious
circumstances, with an impossible amount of high-placed official
help, the Gilmores abruptly and without notice relocated quietly
and instantly in San Diego again. Don would never explain any
of it, or his now-and-then ramblings about being on the last plane
to escape from Havana, under gunfire, when Castro kicked the USA
supported Mafia scoundrels out....)
Betty Gilmore wasn't wasting her time
either. She produced a couple of dramatic coffee-table books on
needlepoint. To this day I still sit on one of Betty's needlepoint
pillows, a grand one featured in one of her colorful books.
(For the Gilmores' Phase II of Jalisco
domination, they adopted two Mexican children, opened a chain
of bookstores-Libros, Libros, Libros-and began buying up
residential lots in Guadalajara's most exclusive, upscale locations.)
And, following his master plan, Don
Gilmore had already located, identified, and contacted a core
group of retired pornographers-to-be, and was already instructing
them in Titillation 101. In his spare time, he wrote a best-selling
travel book, Mexico on $5 a Day, that saw a couple of reprintings.
Ah, for the life of the idle rich.
Don considered himself to be "best
friend" with the United States Counsel (i.e. ambassador to
Guadalajara). Don lived in the biggest, most pretentious, and
prominently situated house on Avenida del Bosque, right next door
to and sharing a common wall with the Bishop of Guadalajara.
This Bishop's house on Avenida del
Bosque is not to be confused with the pre-Revolution Bishop's
estate in suburban Zapopan. The Zapopan estate is liberally decorated
with bullet holes, pockmarks, and other desecrations still left
and still reflecting the consideration, reverence, and piety with
which they evicted the previous despot. That estate was the residence
of lovely Linda DuBriel, the pride of French Lick, Indiana, and
the reigning Queen of Pornography. Her garden parties (whole roast
pig in a pit) were as legendary as her athletic prowess (world
champion, one-hand, perfect joint roller).
The Bishop next door to the Gilmores,
it turned out, was alleged to be a pedophile, and there were endless
streams of little boys going into that house to receive special
blessings. Parents would bring their little boys there for that
purpose, and wait outside the fence, in the street, however long
it took for the Bishop to finish, comfortable with the knowledge
that their sacrifice somehow moved them, personally, closer to
heaven.
The Bishop of Guadalajara, at the time,
also owned one of the largest supermarket chains (Hemuda) and
was one of the municipality's (equivalent to a county's) biggest
slumlords. All this despite Catholic law forbidding any church
official to engage in public commercial enterprises. (In Mexico,
by federal law, the church is not allowed to own anything including
the church structure itself. Because they held such power prior
to The Revolution, the revolutionaries took everything away from
them forever; Clerics, nuns, etc. are forbidden to be seen in
public in religious dress, yet they are everywhere.)
Directly across the street from Don
Gilmore lived the Chief of Police of Guadalajara, whose eldest
son could pass for Jalisco's most prolific drug dealer, with endless
streams of probable narcotrafficantes going in and out
of the chief's house.
Down the street on the next block lived
the Zuno family...mother and father to then Mexican President
Echeverra's wife, an avowed Communist who preached insurrection
herself and dared to do the most blatant bad thing of all...loudly
advocate contraception, birth control, and abortion for Mexico's
female population. The first family were frequent visitors to
the neighborhood, passing in front of the Gilmores.
This was also a rather sad time for
U.S. history. It seems that Richard Nixon didn't like the recently
elected President of Chile, Dr. Salvador Allende Gossens (a pediatrician)
who, as candidate from the Unidad Popular party, in a clearly
free and democratic election, became president. Dr. Allende, who
had already earned a world-class reputation as a relentless champion
for the poor and downtrodden, campaigned on a platform of peace
for everyone and used doves as his personal symbol. He still turned
out to be the person Nixon and the CIA least wanted to see as
President of Chile. You might even go so far as to say Nixon and
the CIA somehow felt they had a right to make the decision for
all Chileans.
Nixon had his way. In 1973 he sent
the CIA into Chile with $10 million USA taxpayer dollars to spend
insuring the assassination of Dr. Allende. It also had a great
deal to do with threats directed at U.S. Copper holdings in Chile,
with I.T.T. and with the Sheraton Corporation, all at times, especially
then, closely associated with the CIA and its less savory activities.
It was the Echeverras, in Mexico, who
gave asylum to the Chilean first family, Mrs. Allende and her
orphaned children...a significant insult directed toward the U.S.
Administration. The Echeverras, and Mexico, garnered a great deal
of popular support and favorable publicity because of their actions;
the U.S. Administration got understandably bad notices. Outside
the USA, especially in Hispanic nations, explicit details of the
CIA assassination of a peaceful and honored person, the deposing
of a sitting democratic president of a sovereign nation, the replacing
him with and supporting a decades-long malevolent dictator, Augusto
Pinochet Ugarte, were clearly spread far and wide.
#
See the type of circles my friends
the Gilmores moved around in? They seemed to know everyone around
the area and how to find anything you might be looking for. Don
could take you to the grubbiest, down-home southern barbecue joint
(El Gallo) you ever saw...to walk-up sidewalk stands vending tacos
al pastor.... Which store sold the yard goods, which store sold
the thread, and which store sold the needles...in Mexico in those
days you were never sure about those things. Regardless of how
important the information was, or how insignificant, the Gilmores
knew it.
They knew to the minute and to the
centavo...weeks ahead of time...the time and amount of the next
Peso devaluation. Investing with Don, in Mexico, was a sure thing.
I know many people whose names are well known who took Don's advice
on when and where to invest large sums of money, and exactly when
to pull it all back out of the country. Every one of them made
considerable profits because of Don's connections.
The Gilmores lived in this huge mansion
with I don't know how many bedroom suites, with a full-time staff
of seven maids, a live-in seamstress, and a cobbler, all residing
on the top floor in rooms of their own...plus a cook and gardener
who commuted to work. That house, today, is La Casa de Cultura,
the Jalisco State office for "culture."
Little does Jalisco State know that
I knew that house as a rampant party place, and as the factory
producing large amounts of the pornography published in the USA
at that time. I can still see the maids all lined up in a row
on the third floor balcony looking down and giggling at the naked
people diving into the swimming pool and running around the copings.
The Gilmores' two steel-gray schnauzers were often underfoot as
they gathered and hoarded the ripe mangoes falling around them.
I was a frequent guest in that house,
as Don and Betty continued their relentless campaign to involve
me in whatever was unfolding. They would do their best to show
me how a king entertained a king...a bit beyond royally. Every
night club, every showroom, every entertainment venue...the very
best table in the very best restaurant served by the very best
waiter with the chef, in trepidation, standing by...watching,
terrified that he might somehow offend the delicate palate of
el jefe Don Don.
The Gilmores did their best to persuade
me that I really belonged there, in Camelot, as they called it.
And they called it right.
It took them a few months to set me
up in style, with a staff of my choice, in an enchanting little
villa in the picturesque suburban village of Ajijic. The Indian
fishing village beside Laguna Chapala was captivating and it instantly
and permanently became La Casa de me Corizon...the residence
of my heart.
 Laundry Day in Ajijic, by John K. Petersen (pastels on roughed surface paper), dated 1965.
But surely that is another story....
# _ _ _ *For Manuela, the Gilmores' housekeeper and cook, who always took very special care of me; her nopales were unforgettable. Dated July 1999. Bravery is believing in yourself, and that thing nobody can teach you. --El Cordobes |
|||
"Blood and Sand"*
By Earl Kemp  On one of my early visits to Guadalajara, as
guest of Don and Betty Gilmore, they wanted to introduce my wife
and me to local bullfighting. While I was already familiar with
bullfighting in Tijuana, they assured me that Guadalajara had
a style all its own, and were they ever right.
On Sunday, with some pre-arrangement,
we got ready to go to the fights. (The Gilmores also introduced
us to cockfighting, among other things, which is an entirely different
story.) Getting ready included, for the ladies, visits to a local
beauty parlor and complete hairdos, facials, etc., as well as
select clothing. We were advised that one wears traditional spectator
clothing to bullfights that is as white as possible, accented
with blood red scarves, etc.
So there were the four of us, gringo
yuppies to the max, decked out in white finery beyond the reach
of most spectators at that event. We were seated right up in the
front row in a large, pretentious box usually reserved for royalty.
(I've always said Gilmore was a Class A asskisser. He was always
able to come up with show-off things at the drop of a hat, and
he did it every time something special came along: front row center
seats for touring companies of Disney On Parade, Holiday
On Ice, Ballet Folklorico, Etc.)
 Directly across the ring from us sat a particularly
notorious Guadalajara madam who was well known to have quite a
thing for bullfighters...it was always open house and the main
entr�e always free at her bordello for any recognizable matador,
toreador, etc. She was herself very spectacular, even if somewhat
past prime, with long peroxide blonde hair and garish make-up,
with her entourage and truckloads of fresh cut flowers. She would
liberally sprinkle the arena with blossoms as each matador, etc.
in turn would stop before her, bow to her and pay homage to some
great gratis sex they had enjoyed in her presence, while
she watched.
Naturally we four gringos attracted
much, much attention, being so out of place and so obviously visible.
Consequently, the spectators at that fight began sending us endless
cocktails and beers, etc. There was a continuous stream of waiters
and serving people bringing drinks to our box that we had not
ordered and could not possibly drink. At times I remember as many
as a dozen drinks each just lined up in front of us, waiting for
us to try to consume them all.
Local customs had evolved some unique
rituals...among them was a game of "catch the sock."
When a bull would be killed, its beating heart would be quickly
cut out and jammed down into the toe of a knee-high black sock.
Then that sock, sling fashion, would be swung around in the air
and tossed in a random direction across the spectators around
the arena. This would go on for hours, it seemed, with the sock
being grabbed up in mid air, swung again, then flung in a different
direction only to be caught, swung, etc., etc. A grand game of
"keep away."
And, not at all being adept at this
game, none of the four of us could play it. Consequently, when
that bag of blood came hurtling out of nightmare space directly
toward us...we could do nothing in our almost drunken stupor by
that time but watch it, slow-motion like, closing in right on
us. Hitting, erupting, splattering all over us...all four of us...liberally
covered in fresh killed bull blood.
Amid much cheering, laughter, and good
humor...we bid adios to the crowd who had been so vigorously
plying us with drinks, grabbed a sitio (taxi) and went
to the Gilmores' casa for quick showers and quicker clothes
junking. #
 Finally, like most other affections, bullfighting
faded for me and became replaced with something more demanding.
But it still thrives there inside of me. Mostly because of Blood
and Sand, that I saw when I was still a youngster, because
it gave me permanent interest in the ritual. And in true Technicolor
as well. I can still hear the roar of "Ole" from the
crowd in that movie and see Tyrone Power battling Anthony Quinn
for Linda Darnell, and really wanting my love Rita Hayworth all
the time. And, when I try hard enough, I can still feel hot fresh
bull blood all over me and running down my face and down my neck
and inside my clothes and.... _ _ _ *For Gargantua the towel lady and all the gang at Casa Chelo; greetings from El Rey Sexo. Dated July 1999. Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear-not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave... --Mark Twain |
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| Have Typewriter; Will Whore For Food*
By Earl Kemp
Many strange and unusual things occurred
in the science fiction world in 1959 that set it on a collision
course with the planet Pornographia.
In New York City, popular young science
fiction writer Robert Silverberg discovered Bedside Books. At
that point in time (1959), Silverberg had already acquired a serious
case of Compulsive Writeritus and was looking for new markets
to conquer. Bedside Books looked like a natural. In short order
Silverberg was selling them manuscripts that appeared under the
bylines of David Challon and Mark Ryan. The new market direction
could be the answer to many writers' wildest dreams in the very
near future.
Harlan Ellison, along with his wife
Charlotte, was preparing to move to Evanston, Illinois, to work
for William Hamling. Silverberg approached Ellison with the glorious
possibilities for the future for energetic young writers and had
him all primed and ready for William Hamling so Ellison could
lay out the road map to Toontown in front of him.
Everyone thought Ellison was in Evanston
to work on Rogue, Hamling's Playboy-type men's magazine.
Even Harlan thought so at times, and talked about it incessantly,
thereby furthering his modest reputation.
It was also the exact same point in
time when, in a bizarre different dimension, Harlan Ellison and
I, vaguely disguised, slinked along the night-time streets committing
armed robbery upon poor, innocent, unsuspecting Chicago science
fiction fans, according to D. Bruce Berry in his delusional "A
Trip to Hell" (Robert Jennings, 1963).
Hamling liked the idea of the proposed
books and grasped the concept of the throwaway sleazy paperback
firmly in his hands. After a bit of formulation, Hamling sent
Ellison back to New York City to start the ever-loving money-making
wheels in motion.
Harlan Ellison went straight to Robert
Silverberg to report on his success with Hamling in the initial
set-up phase of the operation. It was Silverberg, not Ellison,
who took the proposal to Scott Meredith that eventually opened
the doors to the fabled black box clandestine enterprise that
virtually flooded the country with soft-core pornography.
I could even stretch the point just
a little and say that it was Robert Silverberg that made me what
I am today.
Daddy...?
#
The modern pornography phenomenon in
paperback books began taking shape then. It was spawned for many
reasons and the largest one of all was profit. Evolution and sexual
morals had reached the perfect point in time when mass-market
pornography, in a number of different mediums, was not only inevitable
but in increasing demand. With such a prospect before them, William
Hamling and Scott Meredith made a grand plan to capture the bulk
of that prospective market. Meredith would provide the raw material
and Ellison, under Hamling's direction, would produce the final
product. The two of them would be Emperors of a pornographic world
that reached beyond the scope of their imaginations, as they first
envisioned it.
In New York, Henry Morrison was assigned
the task of making it all happen to the best of Scott Meredith's
benefit.
Henry Morrison was the heart, soul,
conscience, and taskmaster of Scott Meredith Literary Agency at
the time. He was also janitor, gopher, and Meredith's toady. In
his own right, Henry was very well respected and was rapidly gaining
a reputation within the industry of being someone you could depend
upon. In the office itself, where Morrison had the prized crown-prince
office immediately next to Meredith's impressive corner office
(Scott's brother Sidney's office was on the other side of that),
he was almost a saint. Surrounded as he was by underpaid clerks,
part-time typists, and wannabee writers, Henry acquired a reputation
among them of being a straight-shooting, upstanding dude. Everyone
who worked close to him admired and respected him. And wondered
how he could possibly tolerate Scott Meredith and the way he acted
toward Morrison on the few days a week Scott would manage to reach
the office.
Sam Moskowitz was also a friend of
mine. In the real world he edited a frozen food industry trade
magazine. Chicago was the center of much frozen food industry
commerce and Sam was often in town attending exhibits, conventions,
seminars, etc. Whenever he had extra time, Sam would phone and
ask if he could come over and visit. I loved to listen to his
magical voice that was only slightly moderated inside a small
room talking one on one. He was also quite a walking encyclopedia
of fan information and could talk endlessly.
On one visit with me, I asked Sam if
he had a dossier on Scott Meredith. It had been my habit, whenever
I could, of obtaining all the information available about any
particular party I might be attempting to joust with.
"Of course," Sam said. "When
Scotty Feldman was thirteen years old, he stole the funds of the
local chapter of the ScienceFictioneers. He was in disgrace for
a long time for that."
When Henry Moskowitz went to work for
Scott Meredith, he changed his name to Henry Morrison at the specific
request of Scott, who was convinced there was anti-Semitism in
the publishing industry and required all his reps to assume WASP
names. Henry was proudly "Henry (Three Bridges, NJ) Moskowitz"
throughout his career as a science fiction fan and a prozine letterhack
who championed the return of Captain Future.
With Henry Moskowitz' name change to
Henry Morrison and Scotty Feldman's name change to...to...who?
really? What's going on? I've spent years trying to figure out
who's on first base. This is as far as I can take it: Sidney Feldman
changed his name to Scott Meredith and gave his birth name to
his brother Moishe Feldman who changed his name to Sidney Meredith
and could sign Scott's signature much better than Scott ever could.
Only if that's the case then it doesn't follow consistently with
Sam Moskowitz' story because Sam knew the Scott Meredith we all
knew and loved, before, during, and after. Will the real slim-shady
Scott please stand up?
The most logical explanation is that
Sam Moskowitz (who was known to be wrong now and then) retroactively
remembered Sid Feldman as "Scotty."
Henry Morrison was the King of Kings
of Pornography. Admittedly he wasn't acting on his own volition
but under orders from his boss, Scott Meredith the Emperor, but
he still was the single keystone man in the entire scheme and
plan for a profitable future. It was Henry who conceived the "black
box" plan and set it up to operate out of a Grand Central
Station post office box. There was an additional post office box
arranged to receive the money that would eventually start pouring
in in exchange for those anonymous black boxes.
INSERT SIDEBAR FROM HENRY MORRISON HERE Awaiting reply...
At the time, everyone involved with
the nefarious operation felt they were skating across very thin
ice, legally speaking, and took extreme evasive measures to hide
not only what they were doing but when, where, and how they were
doing it as well. In particular, Scott Meredith and William Hamling
were personally afraid of their involvement, which only served
to redouble the cover and nonexistent security measures. There
were no viable records of any of this commerce maintained by anyone
involved in it until well into 1964. That made many parts of the
operation unnecessarily complex and difficult.
Then Henry Morrison went to work with
the writers...with Scott Meredith's existing stable of competent
writers...to produce those magnificently erotic tomes. It was
Henry, in fact, who set the very tone and tenor of the manuscripts
themselves. Naturally, since the Meredith agency leaned toward
science fiction, it "owned" numerous popular science
fiction writers and a real stunner or two (Arthur C. Clarke comes
instantly to my mind as a personal favorite, and Robert Silverberg
before and after he reached his stride, etc.). Plus every one
of them jumped at the chance to make a few extra bucks for a little
bit of their fantasizing time put down on paper. (And their cousins,
neighbors, lovers, meter-readers, and delivery-men as well. In
years later, Art Plotnik would write of these hectic extremes
in his beautifully named semi-memoir Honk if You're A Writer.)
Some of those writers were people of the stature of Evan Hunter,
Donald Westlake, John Jakes, Lawrence Block, Hal Dresner, Marion
Zimmer Bradley, and others but it was the science fiction writers
who really shined and dominated the medium...at the beginning,
in the middle, and in the end.
Writers like Robert Silverberg were
routinely turning out from one to three manuscripts per month
and some of them, like Silverberg, did that for many, many years
continuously. Harlan Ellison made at least one contribution to
the black box machine also. As did Avram Davidson, Gil Lamont,
Art Plotnik, G.C. Edmundson, and yours truly (the real list, which
does not yet exist, would be very long and contain a few names
that might surprise some readers).
...people who, like me, once earned most or all of their living from writing science fiction. After a nasty period of conversion, I'm now busily at work in other fields, and will be writing science fiction only when and if I have some free time and an irresistible idea. (I'll continue to write science fiction novels, though.) --Robert Silverberg, Who Killed Science Fiction? Dated April 15, 1960.
Because of the "risky" nature
of the business, Scott Meredith demanded and got an exceptionally
choice deal for providing those manuscripts. He insisted that
he had to pay the writers $1,000 for each manuscript and that
he had to personally have an additional $1,000 override, per manuscript,
as his agency fee. These prices, for 1959, were in the neighborhood
of grand larceny.
True to form, for those manuscripts,
depending upon who wrote it and how valuable they were that day
to Scott Meredith, the writers were paid from $500 to $800 each.
Another miracle occurred then, as well; the writers were paid
royalties, at the rate of $200 per reprinting. I could not determine
what amount of commission Scott Meredith received on those reprints.
Paying those royalties, along with
the locked-in contract, became targets of mine. They were so unnecessary,
intrusive, and expensive. There were dozens of manuscripts atop
my desk noticeably better than the supply from the Meredith organization
and I couldn't buy a one of them because we were prior committed
and I could have any of them at one quarter the Meredith rate.
It was driving me nuts trying to find a way to tap that reservoir
of choice material.
|
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After I finally got the door open,
I simplified all manuscript purchasing down to the absolute minimum.
Every manuscript, with very few exceptions, the Porno Factory
used then was purchased "all rights outright" from a
"writer for hire." This means that for the record the
Porno Factory was the writer of everything it published and held
all rights to that output rather securely. Everything was formally
and officially recorded with the Library of Congress...who, like
a number of other federal agencies, had much better records of
our business activities than we did.
#
On June 13, 1959, I invited a few close
personal friends over to my house for a little science fiction
fun and games. Harlan Ellison was there. As were Bob Tucker, Bob
Bloch, Dean McLaughlin, Ted Cogswell...the usual suspects...and
most of Chicago fandom.
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Bob Tucker wrote of his experiences
at the party in an article named "Chicago Express."
"Is that you, Harlan?" I asked through the haze. "Goshwowboyohboy!" the answer came instantly, "It's the mosta of the besta, and I do mean that great big thrilling magazine, ROGUE!" It was Harlan all right. I listened to Harlan all night. I couldn't help it. I listened to him tell how he edited ROGUE, published ROGUE, illustrated ROGUE, and wrote for ROGUE. And I seem to have a faint memory of his saying once that he also sent a foreign correspondent to Europe for ROGUE-something about a war, or some fool thing, that he wanted covered there. I'll miss Bill Hamling: I always miss people after they are gone. They usually slip away like this without anyone telling me until later. But perhaps it is for the better. Perhaps Harlan will put a dash of sex into ROGUE and liven it up a bit. --Bob Tucker, "Chicago Express," SaFari, July, 1959, SAPS #48
#
Harlan Ellison, in 1959, came into
his own. William Hamling was taking Ellison's proposition literally
and setting him up to be the King of Pornography at Blake Pharmaceuticals
right down the hallway from Rogue magazine under Hamling's
watchful eyes. All Harlan had to do was figure out how to make
it all work, locate the pieces, grease up the machine, and get
it running. It wasn't easy being the one and only first and original
genuine King of Pornography.
AWAITING REPLY FROM HARLAN ELLISON
Harlan Ellison, writing as Paul Merchant: NB1503 Sex Gang, 1959 NB1503R Sex Gang, 1960 RN3003 Sex Gang (revised text), 1973 
In October of 1959 all those efforts
began to bear fruit. Nightstand Books, blatantly patterned after
Bedside Books,
 produced
its premier volume, NB1501, Love Addict, by Don Elliott
(Robert Silverberg). It also featured what would become a trademark
of the earlier Nightstands, a stylized Harold W. McCauley cover
painting using flat backgrounds and pastel colors. The McCauley
paintings with their heavy emphasis upon sexy women set the style
for all the early-on Blake Pharmaceuticals publications. NB1503
was Sex Gang, by Paul Merchant (Harlan Ellison). Both books
carried the cover price of $.50.
In the beginning those books appeared
under the imprint of Nightstand Books. Two titles were published
every month by a company named Blake Pharmaceuticals in Evanston,
Illinois. Blake Pharmaceuticals was a defunct Illinois corporation
that was purchased cheaply by William Hamling. Illinois corporate
law, at the time, required three legal Illinois residents to become
a corporation. Blake Pharmaceuticals' three ex-coworkers from
the Ziff-Davis Chicago era were William L. Hamling, Raymond A.
Palmer, and Richard S. Shaver. Only thing was, Palmer was a legal
resident of Amherst, Wisconsin and Shaver lived even further north
in Wisconsin.
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 Another co-worker from those glorious
Ziff-Davis days, the Amazing and Fantastic cover
artist Harold W. McCauley, was also close at hand. Since the company
moved to New York, McCauley had been doing lots of artwork for
Coca-Cola, creating that fantastic looking virginal girl next
door...and an occasional Santa Claus...that adorned many of the
Coca-Cola billboards worldwide. During the era of Hamling's Imagination
and Imaginative Tales, McCauley painted numerous covers
for them as well. He would soon be called into action once more.
Once reincorporated, Hamling redirected
Blake Pharmaceuticals into publishing pornography and Harlan Ellison
was running the whole show while seemingly running Rogue
instead. In those days, in spite of the popular acceptance of
soft-core pornography in movie theaters all across the country,
an operation like Blake Pharmaceuticals was at the very least
frowned upon and was kept, as much as possible, completely under
cover.
Producing Nightstand Books turned out
to be more work than Harlan Ellison had originally expected to
be involved with while operating Blake Pharmaceuticals. So much
so that, in early 1960, Harlan quit and returned to New York City.
He did, however, continue to write cover blurbs for the books
from there for a long time, at $45. per blurb. For a while, it
was Harlan's major source of income.
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Pictured here is a typical
example of the typesetting and page makeup of the period.
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Back home at Blake Pharmaceuticals,
Frank M. Robinson, under orders from his boss at Rogue,
filled in as editor with the help of some reliable freelance editors.
Evanston was home to Northwestern University, the Medill School
of Journalism, etc. and overflowed with an abundance of competent,
willing freelancers. Only Frank didn't like being forced to help
with the operation and felt he had his hands full being the real
editor of Rogue.
At the same time, in New York, Harlan
Ellison was arrested in early September 1960 for possession of
a handgun, brass knuckles, and a switchblade. He briefly resided
in The Tombs and wrote a real piss-off report about it that inspired
William Hamling again. All he needed was for Harlan to return
to Evanston and take over where he left off, only this time it
would be under the brand new disguise as editor of Regency Books,
which would appear and pretend to be a straight book publisher.
One of the earliest titles, Hamling assured him, would be Memos
From Purgatory, Harlan's fictionalized account of his arrest
and incarceration.
Harlan Ellison was once again crowned
King of Pornography at Blake Pharmaceuticals, now aka Regency
Books.
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In 1961, in an ironic twist of fate,
Hamling acquired Bedside Books from New York, completing the circle
to where it had all began in the first place. In a further twist,
the first Hamling Bedside Book (1201) was Robert Silverberg's
Woman Chaser, by Don Elliott.
In the fall of 1961, Harlan Ellison
moved A.J. Budrys (affectionately known to one and all as Ajay)
into position to be his assistant. Only in reality he was working
on a secret long-range plan of his own to leave Evanston again,
but with Ajay replacing him as the man in charge and the new King
of Pornography.
Alas, Ajay couldn't wait. He went behind
Harlan's back and exposed his plan to Hamling and had Harlan kicked
out prematurely, much to Harlan's astonishment (he loved Ajay).
My tenure with Blake Pharmaceuticals
began shortly after that, in early 1961 when I was hired on as
a bottom-rung apprentice. At the same time, we began production
on two new lines of books, Idle-Hour Books and Leisure Readers,
producing four titles for each line every month. The workload,
producing as many books as we were every month, was really heavy.
(Four each in four series of books plus two Regency titles meant
34 books a month.) There were a number of freelance editors working
at home almost full time trying to keep up with the public's demand
for more and more pornography. Simultaneously, Ajay hired Larry
Shaw who moved to Evanston as Ajay's assistant.
The experiment didn't work out well
for anyone concerned. Larry Shaw, another of Ajay's oldest and
best friends, said later, after he'd moved back to New York, that
Ajay had been impossible to work for, full of dark and paranoiac
moods. (Shortly after that, Larry accepted the job he wanted and
dreamed over all the time he worked at Blake, as an editor for
one of the imprints of Blake's competing Milton Luros pornography
organization, American Arts Enterprises, in Los Angeles.)
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AWAITING REPLY FROM AJAY BUDRYS
Meanwhile, back at the agency: Henry
Morrison was growing increasingly discontent at what he thought
of as being baddaddyism and plain old ignoring him while he kept
on doing the bulk of what got done. Finally, in one of those classic
"You can't fire me, I quit!" situations, he started
forming his own agency. Scott Meredith sued him for everything
he was worth, and lost. Henry was finally free, only he was stuck
with the Meredith-decreed Morrison name because by that time everyone
knew him that way.
Meredith recalled Richard Curtis, who
had worked for him previously, to take over the crown-prince chair,
wear the crown, become the King of Kings of Pornography, and keep
the money and love juices flowing. This worked out exceptionally
well because Richard was a favorite with the science fiction crowd
anyway, especially the writers. Why not, when he had worked for
Scott Meredith before, Richard had helped created many of them.
For him, it was relatively easy to keep the black box manuscripts
flowing just that much quicker. Richard Curtis kept them flying
back and forth across the country for years.
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INSERT SIDEBAR FROM RICHARD CURTIS HERE Awaiting reply.... 
Richard Alan Curtis: BB1210 Isle of Wantons, by Curt Aldrich, 1961 MR465 Lust Pro, by John Dexter, 1962 LB615 Jet Set Sinners, by Curt Aldrich, 1963 PB801 The Sin Makers, by Burt Alden, 1963 PB809 Sin Sell, by Burt Alden, 1963 PB814 Passion Spree, by Burt Alden, 1963 |
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In short order Ajay Budrys revealed
his own secret agenda, to leave the Porno Factory and take a job
with a bigger, more reputable company. He set his sights on an
editorial position at Playboy Press, the magazine's book division.
Eventually his dream was realized and he left Blake behind in
the dust.
Bruce Elliott was brought in briefly,
from New York City, to be the new King of Pornography, only Bruce
carried around some heavy baggage that precluded working at anything
resembling a regular job. [And, even with a handicap like that,
I liked Bruce Elliott a lot. He was very helpful to me personally,
took me everywhere with him and introduced me to everyone he knew
and he knew a lot of people in a lot of nice places.] Bill Hamling,
recognizing his mistake, eased Bruce out of his position as gently
as possible. [In an ironic twist of fate, Bruce Elliott committed
suicide after relocating in New York by taking a walk through
heavy rush-hour traffic.]
Finally, after years of patiently waiting,
I inherited the crown of the King of Pornography by default; I
was the only one Bill Hamling could trust to hang around a while.
I became the fourth King of Pornography
at Blake Pharmaceuticals and I held onto the crown for a full
decade, moving with the Porno Factory in and out of numerous locations
and legally dictated corporate name changes. There is very little
about any part of it that I have ever thought I might want to
try to change were it possible to go back and do so.
I had been arguing against having the
contract with the Meredith agency from the first minute I ever
knew it existed. Everything about it struck me as being insane.
I did everything in my power to short cut any business with the
agency. It took me some time to convince Bill Hamling to take
the risk and dump Meredith and every other agency who couldn't
understand the need for following the new rules...my rules.
We canceled the contract with the Scott
Meredith Literary Agency Black Box pornography mill in 1964.
Everything, quickly, improved. Especially
the corporate financial picture.
# _ _ _ *In memory of Scott and/or Sidney; whichever. Thanks for everything. Special thanks to Ted White and Robert Silverberg for helping with this memory. [Paperback thanks to Victor Berch, Robert Bonfils, Howard DeVore, Pat Hawk, Lynn Munroe, Robert Speray, and Mark Owens.] � 2001 by Earl Kemp. All rights reserved. Dated July 2001. Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage. --William S. Burroughs |
Although Earl designed this as
an eonly zine, requests for a printable copy led to the creation of a PDF
version (691KB)
