The Drink Tank 028 (2005).pdf

The Drink Tank Issue 28 (or so they tell me)

A Fanzine for the Rest of Us

Hepburn to the Bridge!

Tea At 5

with Kate Mulgrew

Live! in San Francisco

of an actor to make that kind of transformation, and

Mulgrew does a great job. While she is pretty much

exactly the age between Hepburn at 31 in 1938 and at

76 in 83, she moves deftly between the two.

Mulgrew’s voice had enough natural Hepburn

characteristics that it wasn’t much of a stretch, but she

added a few touches that made her seem even better.

At times it seemed a little too authentic. I’d heard

Kate on old interviews and she sounded different than

in her movies, especially those of the early 1940s.

When they got to the 1983 section, she was 100%

incredibly perfect. It was hard to look away at that

section. I got to see Kate Hepburn at a tribute they did

to her while I was in school in Boston and there was

no difference between what Mulgrew presented and

the real thing.

The script isn’t bad at all. The opening section

is all about the days when Hepburn was up for the role

of Scarlet O’Hara and had been riding a long wave of

l ops. I seem to remember hearing that Stage Door did

good, but not the blockbuster that they were expect-

ing. The i rst act is an introduction and is all about

how Kate made it to the top and then muddled around

huge success and abject failure. The second act is all

about Hepburn’s past and the pains of loss that she

had experienced. She goes back to her brother Tom’s

death in 1921 and then all about her relationship with

Spencer Tracy. Everyone knows that it was a tempes-

tuous relationship at best, but the way they present it

here is heartbreaking and brutal and very real. It’s an

emotional act, but that may also be why the act is only

about 35 minutes long.

I’d highly recommend seeing it while it’s on

the road around the country. I’ve never managed to

read Me, Katharine Hepburn’s biography which details

much of the material that they used to put the show

together, but from what I hear, there are some discrep-

ancies. One of the funniest segments was where she

described living next door to a gent named Sondheim

while he was working on Company. I’ve heard Sond-

heim tell the same story and I think that the version

presented here is much funnier.

The photo above is of Kate Mulgrew. When

I i rst saw it, I really did think it was Kate Hepburn

from about 1945. Kate Mulgrew is just about as

Katharine Hepburn as you’ll be able to i nd in this

world today. Tea at 5, Mulgrew’s one woman show,

is Mulgrew showign off her chops as Hepburn in two

very different times: 1938 and 1983. It takes a hell

My Favourite Katharine

Hepburn Films

*- This list has nothing to do with

quality of the i lms, just my enjoyment

Wow! You can relive the past!

This weekend, I went to my pal

Mike Flores’ place and we watched the

pay-per-view centered around the return

of ECW, the promotion that changed the

face of wrestling. It was a great show,

made better by the fact that I had spent

so much of the 1990s watching the pro-

motion.

The funny thing is, the ECW pay-

per-view will probably end up selling 10

times as many views as the old ECW

PPVs did. That’s after alomst 5 years of

inactivity. The amount of money made

off this one show will probably equal a

year of old ECW activity.

This got me thinking about cons.

You see, in the early 1990s, there was a

con I went to every year called TimeCon.

It was a more media oriented con. It was

a good time, and ever since it went away,

I’ve missed it. What if that team went

back and did a new one? Would a nostal-

gia con sell more memberships than they

did when they were originally around?

The Best Conversations I’ve Ever Had With

Writers

-Robert J. Sawyer at Norwescon 2005

Me- My Dad used to wrestle up in those

parts.

RJS- Looks like you inherited some of

those wrestling genes.

-Robert Silverberg at Con Jose 2002

AGBob- Are you Tom Galloway?

Me- No.

AGBob- Sorry, you just looked the type

-Me, Julie Porter, Greg Bear and Charles

Brown at a Tapas Place in October 2004

Me- You know, I’ve wanted to do a fanzine

of Harlan stories.

JP- I’ve got a harlan story

GB- No Harlan Stories. They’re like potato

chips, you can’t have just one.

CB- True.

-Me, Some guy and Harlan Ellison,

LosCon 2001

Some Guy- Hey that’s the guy, Harlan

Harlan- You, and people that think like

you, are the devil.

- On Golden Pond- It’s one of her last

i lms and Henry Fonda actually over-

shadows her, but it’s a great role for

Kate.

- The Philadelphia Story- No question,

the movie that saved Hepburn’s career.

Possibly the one that most folks will re-

member her for.

- Stage Door- Not her best, but a good

one. I’ve watched it about a dozen times

over the years, and seeing it on the big

screen at the Stanford Theatre is a true

pleasure.

- Desk Set- The best science Fiction

movie of 1957. Ok, that’s a stretch, but

it was a great romantic comedy with

a computer that really tore the house

down when we showed it at the Com-

puter History Museum’s Summer Movie

series. Hepburn plays the brilliant li-

brarian and Spencer plays the efi ciency

expert who is studying how to make the

TV network research library they work

at more efi cient. Great interplay and a

lot of fun to watch. One of my top i ve

date movies. It never fails to get me at

least a kiss at the end of the night.

A Very Short Story

They gathered in the

streets, their strange suits

making noises closer

related to caliopes than

divesuits. The landing

site had just been extin-

guished and the groups of cops and ireight-

ers and newsmen and interested civilians

who had arrived before the barricades were

erected. The crew of the ship gathered in

a circle, issuing demands at the top voice

possible considering the age of the speakers

they used.

Sadly, at just 6.23 inches tall, their

words carried little weight

The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes

Let me say this, Disney has never

been known to shy away from science

iction. From their ine effects-riddled The

Black Hole to the Absent-minded Professor

to so many others over the years that I’ve

lost, Disney capitalized on the SF trend

and made a good deal of money on some of

them. The unequaled King of the Disney

Science Fiction Film happened to be Kurt

Russell.

In 1968, Russel starred in the irst

of the Dexter Reilly ilms, The Computer

Wore Tennis Shoes. It would be lying to say

that it was a classic, but of all the ilms I’ve

written about for various places, it’s a ton

of fun and shows a lot of the opinions on

computers from that period.

Here’s the story in a nutshell: Dex

is a college student whose favourite prof

manages to get a used computer for his

class. The class then sets up problems.

We’re shown the computer doing simple

tasks, like closing doors and letting in

the cat when it starts raining. That’s a

typical theme in older ilms that feature

computers, that they will do the simple jobs

that we just don’t want to do ourselves.

What nobody knows is that the computer

was actually used by a local mobster,

played by Caeser Romero, and all the mob

info is proteced by the password Applejack.

And here is where the plot begins and

the fun begins.

Kate Kelton is Coming to Town!

So, Kate Kelton, star of The Last

Woman on Earth and The Chick Magnet,

will oficially be moving from Toronto

(believe it or not, she grew up in the

land of Etobicoke) and moving out to LA,

where it will be much easier to have her

in our ilms...not to mention for her to

get real ilm work. We’re all very excited,

especially since we have a lot of projects.

5 Suicides, my irst feature ilm, will star

Kate and should start (in a very different

form than I intended) around January

irst. That’s not 100%, but it’s moe than

likely.

Another great thing about having

Kate out here is that I’ll get to use more

of her art, like the piece that’s illustrating

this little article!

seen many ilms that talk about computers,

but none of them were as stilted as this.

The idea that a computer can recall any

info fed into it instantly is patently false,

especially in those days when computers

required long search times when accessing

tapes. The idea of transfer to a human is

silly, but not offensive. In fact, I think it

makes the whole thing kinda fun.

If you like brainless little 1960s ilms,

this is the one to pick up.

Caeser and some guy who always plays the heavy

Dear Chris;

Please, PLEASE, don’t write about The

Computer Wore Tennis Shoes again. It makes

you look like an idiot -M Lloyd, 1999

Dexter, fresh in from the rain one

night when he was sent to ind tubes for the

computer, gets zapped and all the memories

adn processing power of the computer are

entered into him. The college enters The

College quiz circuit and makes tonnes of

money usign Dex’s new found brain power.

Of course, as Dex becomes beloved and

successful, he forgets about his friends.

After one of the answers to a quiz question

is Applejack, he spews forth the info that the

mob had been hiding. This leads to whacky

hijinks as his pals try to save him and still

win the quiz competition.

The idea that a computer’s intelligence

can be transfered to a person is ages old,

with some of the irst thoughts of it being

in the pages of old Wonder Stories. It’s not

surprising that lasted into the 1960s, when

computers were still a bit of a mystery. I’ve

News and Views From Chris Garcia

Now that M Lloyd is based in the US

(Chicago for the moment, likely Boston or possibly

Tahoe in the future) I’ve thought about starting

Stacked Decks again, perhaps workign with a

distro-group in Austin that a friend of mine runs.

This may or may not happen in the near-term, but

I’m fairly certain that it will happen.

The current count of Chris Garcia regular

activities is as follows: Claims Department

Number Four is printed, but there’s no cover yet as

the artist hasn’t sent it on it’s way from Australia.

Hopefully, I’ll have it by next week or it’ll be out

at some point in July.

The Drink Tank Chess issue is still behind,

mostly due to folks not getting me stories, but

it’ll be ready for the oficial opening of the chess

exhibit.

LISP has gotten some slight notice,

including an LoC from someone who picked it up

at BayCon. I’m thinking of doing another issue for

NASFiC.

Alternate Wildly, my eAPA zine, is inished

for next month with one of my better articles on

BayCon’s Alt Hist panel. I like the folks in eAPA

and am glad to be a part of it all.

I’m going to start submitting to The

Everlasting Club, an APA dealing with Ghost

Stories and Supernatural iction that’s based out

of the UK. I do love a good ghost story and can’t

wait to start up that one in the next couple of

months.

Note the guy in the fez

E-mail Words of Comment

really low oven until the gelatin reaches 150

degrees. Then just drop it in the fridge and

in a little while you’re good to go again. You

may have to add a skooch of water while it’s

melted to make up for evaporation during

use and during reheating. As long as you

don’t overheat the gelatin you can reset it

numerous times.

You may be able to increase your print

count by lightly misting each sheet with a

bit of alcohol (90% isopropanol, I’d think)

before laying it down. It’s an old trick.

Hecto is a very gentle printing method.

If it will take ink, you can hecto on it. Some

people take this as a challenge. I’ve heard

of ‘zines hecto-printed on bluejeans. Yeah,

you could screen-print on jeans, so that’s

not a major achievement. The Bologna-zine,

though, really is the ultimate “just because I

could” hectograph experiment (no, it wasn’t

mine). A friend in the midwest froze his

copy; I haven’t seen him in years, but I’m

pretty sure he still has it.

If you’re going to hecto a zine, put a

bit of political content into it; because it’s

cheap and requires no equipment, it was

the printing method of choice for opposition

political activists. “Printing, ofi cer? I was

only making jigglers!” When gelatin is

outlawed only outlaws will have printing

capability.

OK, a bologna zine probably won’t

come out with my name on it, though I

might do a zine entirely on yarmulkes.

Now that would be awesome!

My hecto experiment is going to be

quite a fun one, I think.

garcia@computerhistory.org

by my gentle readers

First off, it’s fellow Brother in Fez Andy

Trembley!

Thanks for the kind words about

BayCon; we were having a difi cult time

keeping up with all the zaniness.

Yes, there was far too much

zaniness, though much of it was caused

by Frank Wu. He must be hunted for

sport for his crimes!

Our “Kevin and Andy talk about

shit” panel was scheduled next door to the

MonkeyCon panel; we could hear the laughs

through the wall.

Yeah, we were a rowdy, though

smallish, bunch.

I think my only real complaint about

programming is that most of the “featured”

GoH panels were scheduled against at

least one other. Then again, none of us

were morning people, so that made things

difi cult. MonkeyCon sounded like a riot.

That’s almost always the case,

sadly. I wish I could have been at the

panel the two of you did and Jay’s

reading and everyone was raving about

the Spintronics panel too.

I’m going to tease anybody who claimed

they couldn’t i nd us to meet us. Between

the fezzez (worn out at all times except

when we were wearing the LJ commando

uniforms) and the fact that we were out and

about nearly all waking hours (except when

sequestered for judging) we were kind of

hard to miss.

I had mine on almost

On the gelatin printing front, Dr. Gai a

skipped a few things:

Gelatin is very recoverable. If you tear

the gelatin, just pop the cookie sheet into a

And now, The Drink Tank’s

favourite UK EWoCer, Helen Spiral!

Hi Chris,

If you print a hecto zine then there’s only

one possible name for it.

As you’re a i lm fan it’s gotta be: Bring Me

The Hectograph Of Alfredo Garcia.

God, I miss Sam Peckinpah. It

would be a suitable name for it too.

In DT 26’s ewocs Lloyd Penney asked how

Sent to

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: