The Drink Tank 006 (2005).pdf

The Drink Tank

The Sixth Issue

Reflections and References

Written and Directed by

Christopher J. Garcia

Jack Chalker: 1944-2005

My introduction to Jack Chalker was in the pages of Mimosa. I

came across one of his articles, the first part of the History of

Baltimore Fandom, and with that, I felt that I could read his stuff

forever. Somehow, I found his writing completely easy to digest. For

me, that is quite rare.

I met Jack in the late 1990s, I think. We chatted briefly, as I

typically do when I'm meeting a writer I really respect, mostly about

the history of television. He had mentioned seeing something on TV

long ago and I knew exactly what he was talking about and we went

on for a few minutes. I never met him again, though I read a couple

of his books and a few stories of his along the way.

Jack belongs to a generation that is about to get the book closed on

it. The generation that entered the SF-writing world after being a die-

hard SF fan. Writers tend to come to fandom after they have started

writing now, which can lead to tragic misunderstandings of the SF

Fannish culture. Jack was one of the good ones, a guy who went

from the 13-year old writing for a fanzine to a writer of great science

fiction stories. He'll be missed.

The Fine Art of Texas Hold 'em

Truth be told, I'm not the biggest fan of Texas Hold 'em. My three favourite poker games are

Five Card Stud, Omaha Hi-low and Seven Card Stud. Hold 'em has become the game that

people play now, and I've entered a few tournaments. I won the first one I was in, then did

poorly on the next couple before pulling out a strong second when I went into the final table with

a short stack and managed to take it to the leaders by a tough series of raises and playing at the

big stacks. To me, stud is a much harder game than Hold 'em, mostly due to the hidden cards

coming the way they do. By being able to represent big with the first six and not have an

exposed card at the end, a wheeler-dealer like myself can do well at stud. I also love a game

called Razz. Razz is a version of Seven-Card Stud played with the lowest hand winning. It's a

tough game, requires a good sense of bluff and strong betting ability. I've been very successful at

times with it, and at times not. It's my favourite of the games that comprise the HORSE of the

World Series of Poker.

While I do have prefs, any Poker tends to be good.

So, I played in the Tournament of Champions, where all 7 of the past winners met and I

bombed out second. I played a good game, made a run a few times, but ultimately I was far too

loose a player to make it at the table. I did play a few hands better than I've ever managed to

before, but I let it lead me into the temptation of 'You can't win if you don't play'. I was taken

out by the girl who tossed me the time I took second, whihc hurt a little.

We're doin' an Omaha tourney next and folks seem to think that I'm a favourite to win.

The Drink Tank

The Sixth Issue

When asked who was better, Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton,

my answer is always the same: Harold Lloyd. He is over-shadowed

by the two bigger names, but Harold Lloyd certainly tops the

showman and the Tramp for pure comic genius. While Chaplin

was the better emotionalist and Keaton the visionary, Lloyd was

every bit the daredevil acrobat that Buster was and could be as

lovable as Charlie. Chaplin, the Impressionist, and Keaton, the

post-modernist, were both working on the edges while Lloyd

destroyed them both in terms of being further ahead in terms of

comedy than either of them. Only Lloyd's comedy manages to hold

up today.

Of course, Lloyd will always be remembered for hanging off the face of the

clock in Safety Last. Arguably the most iconic image from any silent comedy,

Llyod actually hung off the face of a giant clock and climbed the build, all

while missing two fingers on one hand. Harold did far more than just Safety

Last, though that is the film that gets shown most often. His Lonesome Luke

films were well-received and threatened to tie him forever to one character.

he did break away, after more than 50 films. His high point came in 1921

through 1925. In that period, he made films that are easily the superior of

any period of Chaplin or Keaton at any era. From I Do in 1921, through The

Freshman, Lloyd did make make a single bad film and he managed a couple

of classics. Lloyd made a few talkies, including the excellent Movie Crazy.

Sadly, Lloyd's career after the talking picture fad gripped the nation was

not on the level of his career in the silents. He did some good sound

work, but mostly he faded away after a string of good movies that didn't

produce box office. He produced a number of films, including the

fantastic The Cat's Paw, and is the only of the three Silent Geniuses to

own all of his work.

Lloyd's son entered acting, and one of the his daughters made it her

mission to make sure he was remembered. There are a lot of Lloyd

comies that still exist, probably a similar percentage to Chaplin, though

less than Keaton. Sadly, even I have to always put him in context with

Chaplin and Keaton. They were the touchstones of silent comedy.

Harold Lloyd isn't the only one wrongly ignored. The other great silent

comedian would have to be W.C. Fields.

If W.C. Fields had been around ten years earlier, he would be on the list

and a step above Lloyd (and Keaton in my eyes).

Fields' work in films like Sally of the Sawdust actually show his range and ability to turn on an

emotional dime. He is, at once, sour and harsh while maintaining a sweetness and lovabilty that

is both realistic and over-the-top. His juggling, featured in several of his silents, is amazing.

While most folks point to his sound work, that his voice and dialogue were what brought him to

the dance, his facials and his timing were even better without. He was a true genius and one that

gets passed over by Silent fans.

The silent era is still somewhat vital. In the Bay Area, we have the Stanford Silents series in the

summer and Cinequest is showing four during the festival (including 2 Harold Lloyd pictures).

There is a strong following that I hope will never be replaced by the Talking Picture.

The Drink Tank

The Sixth Issue

Trufen.net's Review of the Drink Tank

Well, Victor Gonzalez did a review of Issue 4 of my little rag and I gotta say he took me to task,

but I'm very happy with it. Oddly, I agree with much of what he had to say, and he complimented

my very short fiction, so those of you who aren't fans are gonna have to put up with more of them!

The meat of the argument was contra my vision of what I'd like to see Fanzine Fandom as in the

future and what he saw as my "anti-exchange" stance. I respect that.

And, in case rich brown or any of those who know him might be reading this, I'm an idiot and

when I proofed it, I capitalized your name, since when I write names I tend to forget and I over-

corrected. As EE Cummings once said "sorry about that."

So, what do I think about the review? Go over to trufen.net, look up Triage and mine is the

first comment. Overall, I though that it was a well-written review of a section of The Drink Tank

that is probably not even 1/5 as long!

A Very Short Story

BASIC, the Beginners All-Purpose Symbolic

Instruction Code.

When words began to form on the screen, James

had no idea what was going on, no concept of the

programme that had caused the words to appear on

the screen.

It's talking to me.

10 PRINT HELLO JAMES

20 PRINT I HAVE ALL YOUR ANSWERS

30 PRINT ASK ME ANNYTHING

James stared at the screen, half-horrified and half-

amazed. He began to think of all the questions he

wanted answered, then he stood and turned the

computer off.

No one with all the answers would be writing them

in BASIC.

Of My Many Fandoms...

I doubt that any of my readers here ever venture to the other site that I write for.

Fanboyplanet.com. It's like a comic shoppe on the Web, where you can go and see what ego-

maniacal fanboys believe is good and bad about comics, wrestling, movies, TV and more. We're a

small site that gets a decent number of hits. I write the weekly wrestling column called Falls

Count Anywhere and a fair number of movie reviews. I even got quoted in DC's press release for

their graphic novel Barnum! a couple of years back.

I wrote a couple of articles for a project called Once Upon a Dime. The concept came from teh

rather funny film Comic Book: The Movie. Basically, we were producing the comic book fanzine

that the characters in the film had supposedly written. My article, Once Walked The Reverend,

was a nice piece of satire, but the better one, Taking the Blame For The Bottler, was never used.

It was a funny story of a group of writers and artis trying NOT to get creators rights over a failed

comic character. Perhaps someday it will grace the pages of The Drink Tank.

The Drink Tank

The Sixth Issue

Freaks by Tod Browning

Side Effects by Scott Allen Perry

There is a type of a short film called a

Mindbender. It's basically a short film

that means to mess around with you,

either from the start or along the way.

Side Effects is one of those shorts.

It's a basic SF principal: a guy needs

money so he allows himself to join a

drug experiment. The guy is played by

the director and he does a really good

job with the role. He eventually meets a

beautiful young blonde played by

Katheryn Gordon. The two have some

minor adventures on the way to the big

reveal.

It may sound a little like an M. Night

Shamaylan film, but honestly, it's much

better than that. Perry's

characterization is dead on and Gordon

is actually electric on the screen. Daniel

McLeith is perfect as the head of the

trial, Mr. Samson.

Side Effects got a number of honours

heaped on it in it's run through the fests

in 2002 and 2003. It won the Best in

Fest Award at the Dead Center Film

Festival, even when running against

quality feature films. Film Threat gave it

a rare 100% rave review.

Take a look at

http://www.perryscopepictures.com for

more details on this great short film and

great filmmaker.

How you follow-up on your first big winning feature is

a huge deal. Many have made big mistakes in judging

their audience and their talent. Kevin Smith's Mallrats

did not deliver what Clerks did, though it's still

enjoyable. Tod Browning, a great director who had just

done Dracula for Universal, chose a film for his follow-

up that has kept people talking for decades: 1932's

Freaks.

Freaks is the story of a little person who falls in love

with a Trapeze Girl. The Girl only wants the Little Guy

because he's rich. She cheats on him and is eventually

found out and taught a lesson. Pretty simple, really.

The beauty of Freaks is the ability of Browning to

humanize the "freaks" and to make the mundanes

seem evil at every turn. From Johnny Eck to The

Living Torso, each of the sideshow performers is made

to look human in a way that current documentarians

could learn a thing or two from.

Freaks was despised by audiences and critics alike on

its first release. There hadn't really been much

support for looking at sideshow attraction as people up

to thta point, but no one wanted to see a film where

the bad guys were the normal ones. In the 1960s, the

counter-culture film movement picked it up and Freaks

was redistributed and ended up making the Nation

Film Preservation list of historically important films.

At first, I didn't want to like it, but as it unfolded, I

knew that it was a film of great importance than I had

given it credit for. On top of that, I found a depth that

I never expected and a midget with a switchblade.

M. Lloyd's Very brief review of the Triage on Trufen.net (from an email).

Chris, I love you, but you're an idiot. Mr. Gonzalez has all sorts of points on you, and he wrote

them well. Frankly, I woulda snapped and then realised that he was right! You could learn a lot

from his style, too, kiddo.

The Drink Tank

The Sixth Issue

Comments and Complaints

Sent to Garcia@computerhistory.org

By My Gentle Readers

Dear Chris:

While I don't /agree /with all of them, you make many very good points about my piece on

Cheryl Morgan in Earl Kemp's eI. I also note that Victor Gonzalez contested a few of them in his

Triage' column at Trufen.net, so I won't belabor any of the things he said to you there.

Or I'll try not, although I will say that while /he /also made a number of excellent points, I don't

agree with all of/ them/, either.

I asked a question of the people who read what I wrote about Cheryl and I have to assume that

your answer is implicit in what you have to say about the piece. And, really, I have to say I find it

commendable. If you were the subject of a smarmy attack in the pages of /Crstal City, /no matter

how out-of-context or based in butt ignorance Cheryl's comments about you might be, no matter

how distorted a view of you (and of fandom) she might be presenting to her readers, you -- for the

betterment of greater microcosm, to be sure -- would not respond with anything that was less

than kind. Well, you /couldn't /respond in the pages of her fanzine, since as a matter of policy she

wouldn't let you, so of course I mean in the pages of any other fanzine that might think it could be

a good idea to let other people know about the way she behaved toward you.

To an extent, I can admire that. I just can't emulate it. Honestly.

I partcipated in two of the three major (nearly fandom-wide) fan feuds which have erupted over

the nearly 50 years I've been involved in the microcosm. This spat with Cheryl is minor when

compared to those events, of course, but they do have something in common: I get (and got) no

pleasure from my participation in them. For the most part, I like expressing my views and even

enjoy a good spirited debate, but in these few cases speaking my mind takes on the aspect of

shouldering an unpleasant duty. You may have felt something similar in saying what you did

here. Yes? No?

The difference between us, I guess, is that I wouldn't change it.

Fandom is a realm of the mind, and the coin of the realm is egoboo. And egoboo is an honest

coin -- or it /should /be if it is to have any value. There's enough insincerity and bending over

backwards in the name of being "pleasant" in the mundane world; one of the major reasons I've

remained involved in fandom as long as I have is that it encourages us to be forthright and

honest. For me, it has grown to become a basic component necessary for friendship; if we can't

sspeak our minds honestly, what kind of friendship could we have?

In that spirit, you've paid me in the coin of the realm, and I thank you for it.

Regards,

rich brown aka DrGafia

First off, thanks for reading and writing in. Second, sorry for the caps in the article. Maybe I'm

overly sensitive because I'm afraid for the future of fanzines. I really am. I've seen too many of

my friends who would make wonderful additions scared off. My generation never became fully

engrained in fanzine fandom. I'm not saying I want Fanzine Fandom to be Pleasantville, I just

want to see us continue to exist and thrive, and as I said in my article, attacks and feuds aren't

going to help with that. At times, it seems that we're on the endangered species list. I don't

believe in sitting and taking it for the good of peace and love, but I don't believe in bile and

bitterness. I'm not in this for ego, since I don't really have one. I'm 100% sincere in all of my

writing, and I know you are as well, but the real difference is in presentation, I imagine.

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