The Drink Tank Issue 153 the DVD player entered into kids could climb and hang. A lot of the house (for my TV). There kids would jump from the 3rd set onto was a video store down the the grass and collect a lot of applause. way, a Wherehouse, where I would jump from the top, the 5th we could rent either VHS set. I never broke anything doing that or Beta tapes (and could do stupid move, but I twisted my ankle so until 1992) and we often among other minor discomforts. I was rented ten or more videos in also the king of taking kickballs off of a week. We rented one a lot: the face. A kid would throw one at me Viva Knievel! I loved it. I have and I’d just take it. That made me very watched it since and have much feared when fights would break discovered that it is perhaps out. the worst film ever made. The addition of bikes to my life It’s got a terrible story, Evel, made me want to jump over things. My who plays himself, is one of great aunt Bethel lived in Lake Isabella those actors who makes me in South-Central California. It was a think I’ve got a chance. Lau- dry place, I never saw the lake at all, Again, another hero of my youth ren Hutton is in it, and even I thought but there was a hill that ran at about has kicked it. This one is the one who that Leslie Nielsen was a terrible choice an 8% grade and it must have run a brought me out of my shell and made to play a drug lord. Martin Balsam in half-mile or so down to an empty lot. me want to jump over stuff. And of Mitchell is far more convincing. The That’s where I learned how to ride a course, I tried. I tried a lot. A couple film was awful, but it introduced me to two-wheeler. I chewed up my knees of times I actually made it. Of course, Evel. I was a little too young to remem- and palms when I was going 20 miles this is the article where I say that Evel ber too many of his jumps from when per hour down that hill with no idea Knievel was my hero, and he kinda I was a kid, though I remember seeing how to make the brakes work. When I was, but this is also the article where I them on Wide, Wide World of Sports came back a year after that, I had my recall one of the strangest moments of once in a while. I heard him a lot over own bike and the kids I had been play- my dating career. the years on various TV shows, in- ing with that previous summer were Yeah, it’s one of those articles. cluding the Bionic Woman. He was a still there. Let’s go back to 1979. We had a major part of the grade school collec- And I wanted to jump something. video cassette recorder. It loaded from tive subconscious. We would play imagi- So, we grabbed some wood from the top. It was the one that lasted well nation games where one or the other of one of the poorly-guarded construction into the 1990s and was finally retired us would do stunts. I couldn’t skate- sites that still seem to abound in that in the year 2001. I loved it well and board or anything, but I could jump off little city. We set up a ramp and put even after we got a regular VCR in the of things and land, usually hurting my- various things between the end of the mid-1990s, we had it on top of it, ready self just enough to make it look cool. ramp and the landing area. We jumped to go into service if it should be called We had this thing, a fifteen foot high each others bikes and even each other. upon. It was finally retired a year after series of pipes that were set up so that That was good old The day Lisa Calau agreed to go He played Evel Knievel with a style and fashioned stupid out with me I had been shopping for panache that really pushed the enve- fun. I went last and comics. I wasn’t at my normal shop, lope of subtlty. We rented it and took it I was to jump two it was Lee’s Comics I think, and I ran back to her place. bikes. I made my into a girl I kinda knew. We were talk- We were watching it and we way down and I ing and for some reason, there was an kissed a bit amd then, oddly, she fell would have cleared Evel doll up behind the counter. She asleep. Deep asleep. We were kissing them, if we had was a cute girl, so I was showing off one second and then she was out like a nailed the ramp to and she played along. We were reen- light. Evel hadn’t even made his big- the supporting box- acting the crash over the Snake River gest jump yet! Her roommates came es. I went down and when she was laughing really hard. home from Rocky Horror a few minutes since I wasn’t any Somehow the fact that I had tickets to later, when I was kinda panicking and good with the brakes, I was going way a film on the next night came up and Terry said that she had narcolepsy. fster than any of the other kids had she said she’d love to come and see Who knew. gone. I ended up hitting the ramp so it. I was excited because she was cute She woke up a bit later and we fast that it pushed down and sent the enough to be seen in public with and I finished watching the movie. wooden boxes flying forward, knock- wasn’t on the best of streaks. We were ing down the bikes. I managed to stay going to see the Crow, I think, and I on the bike for a few yards beyond the was very excited to see it. crash site and then ended up among I picked her up and we chatted the scrub in the lot. That was the worst until we got to the theatre. The movie part. Plants hurt. was good and afterwards we went off We tried it again, this time with for some coffee at the Coffee Society kids holding the boxes. I went to the and we chatted for another couple of top and came down, adding a little hours. We were both hopped up on more brake this time. I didn’t clear the coffee and having a good enough time second bike. My back tire caught the together that we decided to go to the handlebar of one and it bent it. Some- video store and get something to watch how, I managed to land it though. That at her place. She lived with two other other kid, a girl named Sara as I re- girls and a dude named Terry. member it, was pissed. She hit me a lot We went to Blockbuster and and had to explain it to her dad. She went through the hundreds of videos. came out to watch the rest of us jump We mocked titles and laughed found the next day. She told her dad she lost the Evel Knievel movie that starred control and ran into a stop sign. She George Hamilton. I love George Hamil- had a new bike the next time I visited a ton. He’s a huge talent in an exception- few months later. ally tanned skin and high-priced suit. Everyone knows I was a big news before Taral did. pages tumbled out of the machine, supporter of Montreal in 2009, I am pleased to see Taral receive waste paper needed to be slipped and I’m planning on attending this honor because he’s overlooked by between the finished ones to prevent that magnificent con. I’m also many fans, despite his long history. smudging. Unless you used Twiltone a lover of FanArt and here is Frank Wu with a fine interview This may be because he rarely travels mimeograph paper, which came in a with a Fan Artist who is also or exhibits his art outside his native rainbow of colors. the Fan Guest of Honour at Toronto. His work shows up in When I asked Taral to send Anticipation: Mr. Taral Wayne! fanzines, but these aren’t read by a me some pictures of himself, he even large segment of fandom. included this one, of Taral sucking a Another disadvantage he has is fan into a mimeograph. In Twiltone Yet Green: An Interview of Taral Wayne by that he often draws anthropomorphic Frank Wu characters, too easily dismissed as “furry art.” While he was one of the Part the First founders of this genre, Taral’s artwork is head and shoulders above most of Introduction what is seen in convention artshows. His linework is impeccable: powerful, Mike Glicksohn once described clever, supple. Unlike most furry artist Taral Wayne as “one of the most art, his characters are anatomically significant figures in the entire history believable. They have a liveliness to of Canadian fandom.” Others seem them; they are adorable without being Photo credit: Paul Wilson to agree, as Taral has been chosen to coy or too cutesy.