The Drink Tank

How does one write a fanzine about death and the alive & the dead: or my not make it depressing? heroes have always been That’s the question I’m asking and mortals answering in this issue. I mean, it’s not like we’re by christopher j garcia all going to be able to make this a light and fluffy issue, the topic is death after all, but it’s A few years ago, one of my comedic that kind of death that Dias de los Muertos is heroes passed away. His name was Mitch based around. Memory, tradition, a tinge of fear, Hedberg. He was one part observationalist, and deeper understanding. Death is tough, but one part Surrealist. He was an amazing guy, an it’s still not as hard as comedy. addict, but a hell of a performer. My favorite This issue was brought about when of his gags was “I have a pet shark, his name is two events happened at the same time. The Dave. Last week, he ate a guy. I really should first was the death of Captain Lou Albano, a invest in a leash.” The delivery, completely wrestling manager about whom you’ll read impossible to duplicate on the screen, was more in a bit, and the realization that my own cadenced and strange, adding to the humor father was exactly the same age, to the day, as via a route of bizarrity that is rarely attempted Michael Jackson was when he died. It was a day because if it fails, it seems as if you’re trying to of revelations and then the Brad Foster cover, suck. In many ways, he was the son of the kinds the magnificent piece that greeted you when of comedy proposed by Stephen Wright on one you logged on to eFanzines.com today, sealed hand, George Carlin on the other. When he the deal, though it’s a month + later than I had was alive, there the was the thought that one hoped and intended. should worship him, should come and behold I’m happy to have Gregg Trend send me him, born the king of comedic angles. an article that I think is pretty darn good, and And then he died. of course there’s me all over the place. This led to a realization: that when he Of course, even if I’m working on an was alive, he was a star, untouchable, a shining issue about death that’s not depressing, I spent perfection. His death turned him into an addict, a fair amount of time thinking about people a victim of his own excesses all of which we who have passed, and then in the middle, Alex, guessed at during his life, but left uncommented a fine human being who I only met a couple upon. He became flawed and missed. We cursed of times but is married to Johanna, who has him, perhaps because we didn’t know what appeared in these pages a few times, passed he had going on, though we all knew that it away of exactly the same cancer as my Dad. eddie guererro- 1967 - 2005 was there in his material. He told us he was Those things happen, and no matter using, though subtly and with that rising smile how it works, you have to cry., at least a little. throughout the gag that made you think that he So, here’s an issue that’s about death. I’ll was making it out of whole cloth. He wasn’t an try not to mourn out of key. addict, at least not anymore, he’s simply a guy who maybe once had a habit, who maybe once before the Franklin, but his was both much There is no one who is as widely a in a while liked to light a pipe or tap a vein, improved and much cheaper to manufacture hero as an inventor as Franklin. Steve Wozniak, who maybe liked to party. Then he died, and he and purchase. I’ve always felt a strong attraction Lee Felsenstein and Ralph Baer are all close, became the addict he probably always was. to his methods, his sense of humor, his absolute inventors of amazing things in the areas of Michael Jackson had been the butt of intelligence both as inventor, writer, pundit, and electronics, but none are Franklin. Funnily, Ron jokes for more than a decade. The jokes were most of all, wise-ass. Reading up on him, you Popeil, the infomercial King had gave us Pocket harsh and hid a wheel of distaste that Dante realize that he had a great deal in common with Fisherman and the Showtime Grill, is probably would have held only for the like of Judas some truly terrible monsters. For example, closer, but has not he gravitas. In fact, almost no Iscariot and the betrayers of Julius Caeser. We he fathered a couple of kids out of wedlock, one does. Franklin was long-dead and heavily have legitimately the most reviled of monsters: remembered for his stuff, something that may a pedophile, a fairy-tale creep, the troll under where are the people happen to Woz or the like after he passes, but the bridge waiting to sink his teeth into some in birmingham? where not yet. serious lamb. And then his death transformed A pair of heroes show the differences. him, turned him into one of the most amazing are the people in Writer Hunter S. Thompson and TC Boyle. performers of our time, a man to be mourned birmingham? where Both of them essentially describe the American by millions, a creative force whose work was are the people in experience. The sides they each show are without equal in his time. This was a switch in birmingham? gone to fiercely different, neither of them the true the minds of every viewer which was switched bury their dead. America of you and me, but neither of them so when his heart stopped. It was a powerful all dead by the far as to not show us what is true. Thompson moment which changed everyone. is a God, with all the baggage that goes with And that led me to think of my other fronteir fucking wives. it. His stories are tinged with his suicide, his heroes. There were dozens of men and women and one of them, the one he referred to as his memory sent into a greater sky when they shot who had shaped who I am, how I go about ‘little bastard’ was a Royal Governor, and he his ashes up with fireworks. Boyle is a master things Some of them are alive, and all of were mercilessly rode him about his allegiance to of a craft, a man who can tell you more about alive at some point, and those that have died, the Crown. He also womanized, which was to our lifestyles in a simple story like Jubilee or I realize, are so very different than those who be expected, and often lied to cover his tracks. The Road To Wellville than almost any other are still alive. The point came home to me very Yes, he struck an early blow for woman’s rights writer. He is over-looked, passed over in favor pointedly when I started a look into the life of with his series of articles about a woman who of writers whose prose turns on a dime, but Ben Franklin. was being punished for having children out of then he’s latched on to with all the fervor of a Ben Franklin was who I would love to wedlock and her going before a magistrate and grad student ripping into the lyrics of American be. In some ways, he was the Bill Rostler of his saying that the men had just as much to do Pie. The thing is, if you replaced the drugs days…minus the porn films. The man wrote, with it as she did, but it’s also been suggested with the self-importance, the two are almost more often for the sheer paycheck of it all than that he himself had been accused of such things interchangeable, their voices almost echoes most of that time, and he was an inventor who and he was simply writing what he knew. After of each other off the granite walls of a shared changed the general way of life for just about some serious digging, many people loved him, valley. The dead one, he is the legend. The living, everyone. His Franklin stove was a magnificent but everyone had a note about something merely a master. achievement. Yes, you could get effective stoves Franklin had done that was less that sagely. Among fans, there is much the same. Harry Warner will always be my greatest Fannish Hero. Longevity, perfection, consistency, these are people who Now, some background is necessary. For everything I can never achieve. He was gone died, died. these are some years, Mrs. W had been interested in before I started doing my zine and there has what I would call “self-determination” in end- been a glow around him as long as I’ve been people who died, of-life matters. She had been a strong believer doing The Drink Tank. Arnie Katz, my friend died. they were all in DNR (“Do Not Resuscitate”)orders and who is very much alive and whose Vegas my friends and they Power of Attorney in hospital car matters. Fandom Weekly is obviously the most powerful The week end after Thanksgiving in 1993, influence on Drink Tank, doesn’t have that glow died! Mr.

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