CAPTAIN FLASHBACK

A fanzine composed for the 400th distribution of the Wait for the Bus: Turbo-Charged Party-Animal Amateur Press Association, from the joint membership of Andy The Sanguine Story Hooper and Carrie Root, residing at 11032 30th Ave. of Light Aviation NE Seattle, WA 98125. E-mail Andy at and Popular Music [email protected], and you may reach Carrie at [email protected]. This is a Drag Bunt Press Carrie and I have been watching Ken Burns’ Production, completed on 10/20/2019. latest documentary series on PBS, Country Music. It has been as fascinating and moving as CAPTAIN FLASHBACK is devoted to old the very best of Burns’ previous work, and fanzines, monster movies, garage bands and other somehow more effectively paced than most of his fascinating phenomena of the 20th Century. All films. We have found each of the chapters so written material by Andy Hooper unless indicated. engrossing that their endings come before we expect them. And this despite the fact that each Contents of Issue #11: of the first three segments ends with the death of Page 1: Wait for the Bus: The Sanguine Story of a Country music pioneer – Jimmie Rodgers at Light Aviation and Popular Music the end of part one, Hank Williams at the Page 2: Comments on Turbo-Apa #399 conclusion of chapter two, and the tragic end of Page 6: A Key to Interlineations in Issue #10 Patsy Cline, Hawkshaw Hawkins and Cowboy Page 6: Lettercoltrains Copas at the end of chapter three. Page 18: I Remember Entropy Department: Selections by Andy Young, Harlan Ellison, The deaths of Rodgers and Williams were not Ed Wood and Dean McLaughlin much of a surprise – Rodgers had tuberculosis, Page 19: Fanmail from Some Flounder: Letters of and Williams suffered from a raft of physical Comment on CAPTAIN FLASHBACK issues and addictions – but the small plane crash Page 20: Top Fanzine Auction Prices in 2019 that killed Cline, Copas and Hawkshaw was a terrible shock. The country music community was still very small, and almost everyone in it had a personal relationship with Patsy Cline. And while plenty of people within that community would come to an early end, nothing has ever shaken it as thoroughly as losing Cline. There are many parallels between her death, and the loss of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson in the February 1959 crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, although none of those three had the stature in rock and roll that Cline had within country music. If Elvis had been on board instead of Buddy, that would be a closer match. On the other hand, listening to the details of the Cline crash, I could not help but mentally recall all the different stories of calamity and disaster that are associated with Monument to Buddy Holly, Clear Lake, Iowa. popular musicians and small aircraft. [Continued on Page 7] ------Issue #11, October 2019 ------

1 ------Sure, sure…and why don’t we just burn Galileo at the stake for saying the sun is round? ------Mailing Comments on Turbo-Apa #399: AoP was genuinely incapable of making any pursuit of the AoNV after the engagement, who Cover (Jeanne Gomoll): An image both really won the fight? comically delightful and slightly poignant, as the Tiptree Award went into the dustbin of OCCAM’S WHISKERS, Georgie Schnobrich: history the same month that we had our 6th Fandom is forever presenting me with curious peaceful regime change in the history of the coincidences, and you and Greg took your trip to Turbo=Apa. Jim has already shown he is going Eastern Germany and the Czech Republic at the to be an active OE and will wield the power same time that I was working to summarize my suggested by that crown with celerity and research on William Sykora, one of the three wisdom. And a bouquet for Hope and Karl, as fans in charge of the first World SF Convention depicted on the back cover, is only appropriate; in 1939. Both sides of Sykora’s family were they kept the apa going for 15 years! Czechs and he held early conventions and many fan club meetings at the Bohemian Hall in AN WISCONZINE, Greg Rihn: Your trip Queens. That institution is still a center of Czech reports are always highly detailed, but stop short cultural life in America, and has a brass plaque of exhaustion; on the other hand, you and commemorating a visit by President Vaclav Georgie have a capacity for day and night Havel. activity which I believe Carrie and I have now lost. Museum walking all day, followed by a People that open their homes as the site of an cabaret at night – we would be challenged. But ongoing salon are always of interest to me, and you communicated some of the enormity of surely not all of them are eventually punished opportunity which Berlin presents, and how for their hospitality. Not all of them. Next rational mass transit makes everything work month, the reprint section will include a piece better, for tourists and residents. Here in North by Ted Pauls describing events during the 1970 Seattle, the light rail will be within just a mile Lunacon, including a Saturday evening party at or so of us in another, um, two years…. Lin Carter’s apartment. The Carters’ place was a frequent meeting site for a certain faction of We have been talking about the Battle of New York fandom – for there is always a certain Antietam and have devolved on the question of faction of New York fandom – and they were whether McClellan’s dilatory pursuit after the apparently rather generous hosts. It would be battle lessened or invalidated the Union victory. fun to come up with a kind of database of I have, at times, apologized for George Brinton fannish parties, both historic and ongoing, if McClellan; I have been willing to overlook his such does not already exist. insubordination, his gullibility, and his pursuit of the Democratic nomination to oppose Lincoln SONOVA QUARK, Steven Vincent Johnson: I – and emancipation – in the 1864 Presidential enjoyed your investigation of the Flying Spider campaign. The fervor with which the defeated Invasion on the outside of your house. One Army of the Potomac greeted his appointment to wonders how many reports of aerial command them, as if he were the second coming phenomenon can actually be explained as cases of Christ – twice! – makes one long to find some of poor depth-perception? Our season of large reason that their faith in him was justified. But spiders will often persist into mid-November, beyond that charisma, he seems to have had before we have a significant frost that stops both relatively few military virtues. He drew up them and their prey. Birds get quite a few of complicated plans, then labored to execute them them including the hummingbird who is the at such length that the enemy always had ample unquestioned master of everything on our deck. time to reply. The failure to detail even a cavalry I’m glad to read that you enjoyed the reprint of brigade to maintain contact with Lee’s army as it “William Rotsler, Manhunter.” Bill had a lot of painfully crossed the Potomac seems stories like that, tales of custom motorcycles, inexcusable. Fresh troops arrived from the east exotic models, larcenous surfers, Hollywood in the two days after the fighting – they did Boulevard creatures, hot rodders, karate men nothing but participate in graveyard details and and diehard beatniks of both sexes. On the loot through the former rebel camps. So, if the handful of occasions at which I got to hang out

2 with him, these tales were constantly issuing on feeling that the change indicts the judgment from his lips, while he produced cartoon after of Pat Murphy and the founding mothers of the cartoon with his thick black felt tips, and when award. The second is that Tiptree’s work and hotel china was available, Sharpies. Sadly, only career so perfectly expressed what the award was a handful of these anecdotes were ever written about that throwing that away is a tragedy. And down and entered into the fannish record, so it ultimately, the process struck me as being just as was a treat to find a real “Rotsler Story” in, of all self-serving as any feud in fandom, and echoes of things, a Rotsler fanzine. Will Sykora and Don Wollheim stumbled around in my head, with Disability Activism THINGS THAT BEGIN WITH T, Jim Hudson taking the place of Michelism. & Diane Martin: Your summary of the issues around the changes to the Tiptree award was At the same time, the people doing the work now very concise, and of course, you have a better have the right to determine what they are grip on all the practical considerations involved working for, and if that requires changing the than anyone else in the community. I’m curious name, whaddaya gonna do? The Space Babe how effective the name change will actually be – abides. how many will begin saying “The Otherwise ALPHABET OBSESSION, Jae Leslie Adams: I Award,” as opposed to “The-Tiptree-That-Was.” was entertained by the idea of your “Reverse Anyway, your patience is exemplary. Advent” food bank calendar – of course a can of Sorry as always to read about the challenges to green beans on Christmas Eve might be very Diane’s health, and all the time spent in clinics useful, especially if one has mushroom soup and and emergency rooms. Your theatrical marathon some onions to crisp for the top. Your in Stratford was a lot of fun – a great variety of suggestions were all resolutely practical and shows, and I’m fascinated by the description of wholesome – much more rational than so many the production of The Lady Killers, with the food bank donations I’ve encountered. Your model trains, etc. If it comes here, maybe we can sequence contained absolutely no cans of go see it. My friend Denny Hartung is a pumpkin pie filling. for example. My revised theatrical carpenter and fabricator, forever schedule would likely run, in part: December telling me about outlandish productions and 7th, Port-wine flavored Kaukauna brand cheese impractical designs; the model railroad would be food; December 8th, 1 package Sun Luck Almond a highlight. Cookies; December 9th, 1 box golden raisins; December 10th, 1 16 oz. can of Hormel Turkey Sorry the faux smoking in The Front Page drove Chili, with beans; December 11th, 1 32 oz. can both Diane and Ariel out of the theater. We did grapefruit juice; December 12th, 1 16 oz. can not smoke during the production I was in back Frank’s Sauerkraut, with caraway seeds. in the 1980s; it seemed like there was already far too much to manage to begin with: playing cards, Your commemorative edition mailing comments telephones, hamburger sandwiches, briefcases from 2004 were amusing and terrifying, as all with pardons, pistols, typewriters, note pads, the content you reacted to seemed like I just read rain coats, wads of cash. It was so much fun to be it a few weeks ago. The piece on the Pharaoh in that show! My only regret was that I had to Psamtek I that you referred to was one of my play the Mayor instead of one of the reporters. first zines focusing particularly on the ancient They looked like they were having the most fun world, and I could see the subsequent 15 years of of all. fanzines flashing before my face. Trippy. As I recently confided in these pages, I’ve joined a LETTER FROM THE FARM, Marilyn Holt: second apa – SAPS – and one of the members Your zine was largely a reaction to the change of there seems to reprint a large slab of material the James Tiptree Jr. Award to the “Otherwise from about 20 years past in his every issue. It’s a Award,” that new name having been applied bit disconcerting how many of the people to since you wrote. I feel like my resistance to the whom he comments are no longer living. Tiptree Award dumping the name has two components; one is purely reactionary and based [Comments continue next page.] ------`------Oh, I could talk about clocks for hours, Doctor. But your time is expensive. Mine’s free. ------

3 ------We must accept the exile that our knowledge requires of us. ------Comments on Turbo-Apa #399, continued: A TURBULENT APA-RITION, F. J. Bergman: major writing and publishing projects which The revelation that your spaceships’ names were each one had triggered. My first reaction was derived from horse brass – and generic horse that this was a very helpful service to some brass at that – is perhaps the best part of the future graduate student, who will not have to story so far. Naming ships was always one of my connect all these dots on the way to their favorite parts of running a Traveller space dissertation. It’s remarkable that you have adventure game back in the 1980s. Imperial channeled all that emotional energy into things ships had names like Monitor, Reporter and that all seem profoundly healthy and helpful -- I Princess Monica; three frigates from the Sword can’t say I respond to internal upheaval in quite Worlds were named Nail Gun, Bolt Press and such a positive way. Tack Hammer; and the free traders and free My output has generally been more of a tankers included ships like Careless Florida, The continuing nature, rather than the “stand-alone” Blind Pony and Grand Donation. I miss the old projects that have punctuated your fanac. It’s Grando Nation, as the crew were called. They likely I have stopped and started things like had a water deck, and used to have far too much APAK and CAPTAIN FLASHBACK in fun there – spearfishing, water pogo and naked response to significant life events, but it would aquatic low gravity performance art. The cast take some time to recall those correlations. I entered the stage by being regurgitated by an think I’ve worked hard to find subjects that immense flounder, which ingested them because engage my intellect, but don’t get me “worked up” they were coated in a delicious slurry of ground enough to argue or fight about them. The long sea slugs. history of Haiti that I wrote engaged my sense of Your poem “Long Time No See” is indeed quietly injustice and the story of Annie Lemberger’s horrifying, yet felt utterly rational, as only a murder and the smears against her family also fool could think that one will stop worrying had me in a righteous froth. But I find that about one’s parents after they are dead. Things writing about things which happened hundreds which are slow, but inexorable, are far more or thousands of years ago has helped to insulate frightening than something which will catch me from modern political commentary, and I and kill you in a matter of seconds. Bitter have had very few unpleasant exchanges since silence and grudges can also be sustained well making that general decision while Jae Leslie beyond the grave. was still OE. MADISON FOURSQUARE #35, Scott Custis & Scott, the Sonic Mole and Gopher System seems Jeanne Gomoll: I was extremely sorry to read to have gradually lost its effectiveness on our about Jeanne’s fall and knee injury – in fact, it resident mole, but it was very helpful in really bordered on being painful to read. So glad dispersing what was apparently an entire to see a post online a few days ago saying that Movement of Moles that afflicted us in the late you were off your crutches. I’m a bit obsessed summer. I was never determined enough to with trying to maintain my mobility. At least pursue the pounding-on-a-steel-pipe strategy for one major branch of my family tree is generally more than a day or two, but it seemed to have the populated by characters lucky enough to remain same transient effectiveness. active and mobile right up to the hour of their While researching the lead article for this issue, demise. And broken hips, legs, damaged knees, I found another pilot who had served in the F-5 seem to have started several of my ancestors into Lightning, the unarmed photographic variant of their terminal decline. Daily walking and the Lockheed P-38 that Scott’s Dad flew during swimming are my best answer, but I’m wary of World War II. Count Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, working hours on my knees as I did for the patio the French aviator and author of The Little project last in August. If I can go out with my Prince, served with Free French Air Forces in a original knees in place, that would be a win. reconnaissance squadron, and flew the F-5B. In Jeanne’s comment to Diane and Jim, you The aircraft was a challenge for him as well; he listed a series of emotional life events and the wrecked an engine on his second flight and was

4 grounded for 8 months. He returned to flying after the personal intercession of General Ira Eaker and disappeared during a mission on July 31st, 1944. Portions of his aircraft and his identity bracelet were recovered from the sea in the 1990s, but they were found many miles from where his mission should have taken him. Notorious for the habit of reading and sometimes writing while in flight, the real circumstances of his death are still unknown. YET ANOTHER SHOT OF FLUFF, TWIRLING, TWIRLING, TWIRLING INTO THE FUTURE, Ruth and Jim Nichols: It always feels a bit futile commiserating on illnesses in the apa, since the illness in question is over a month in the past by the time such sentiment reaches you. But some of the stuff you described sounded quite scary – first responders – so I feel justified in wishing you a less exciting month or two. The trip to the Hawk’s Nest Cottages to read poetry to your friends sounds Count Antione de Saint-Exupéry, 1933 eminently restful – hope you had few breaks in Your comment to Hope and Karl, thanking the flood-inducing rains for the occasion. I hope them for running the apa for 400 years, you will share the verse inspired by your mentioned all the issues they had with previous historic house visits, too. equipment during that span. They just bought an You commented to me on our trip to Brooklyn expensive stapler a few months ago, which this past spring – yes, I would say it is a good proved just as inconsistent as previous models. I deal fancier than it was back in the 1970s. There feel like we contributed a reasonable volume of were a lot of high-rise projects under cash to the APA over the past 15 years, but when construction, while many older properties had I think about all those staplers and mailboxes, been recently fixed up. Brooklyn gave me a some further gesture would be appropriate. And similar feeling that I got from our old cash is always the right size. neighborhood of Fremont, where were first lived when we came to Seattle. We could see “The      city,” but it didn’t seem as if we really lived in it. ------ENTROPY BONUS: More from KTEIC #33, Bill Rotsler, April 1957. ------AN ATOM BOMB WOKE ME UP THE OTHER MORNING Normally, I sleep until morning – screams, shouts, falling masonry and furtive sounds in the night do not disturb me, But the other night – or morning, if you count 4:40 am as morning – something loud awakened Abney and myself. I opened my eyes, looking at the large window by the bed, through the leafy walnut tree at the predawn sky. It was light enough that the leaves stood out in black against the sky. It looked just like the giant dome of an H-bomb – remember those horribly beautiful pictures in LIFE magazine with the odd colors and dark blotches? This looked like a black and white picture of it. “A- bomb! A-bomb!” I thought. “Explosion,” I said to Abney. “Or a jet plane.,” but thought “A-bomb!” “Must be a plane for the base” mumbled Abney, going back to sleep. I stared at the ceiling a while, thinking, “Gee, that was loud.” Next morning we found out one of the Las Vegas bombs had been heard in LA and San Francisco. Whew. So…an atom bomb woke me up the other morning.

5 ------A Key to Linos published in September in CAPTAIN FLASHBACK #10: Page 2: “I hate each Julie Andrews film they’ve made.” & Page 3: “I’m just a nasty, narrow-minded Jade.” Lyrics, “I, Bored,” by Vivian Stanshall (1943-1995), recorded by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, 1967. Page 4: “We weren’t Democrats, we were sardines.” Interlineation, KTEIC magazine #32, Bill Rotsler, January 1956. Page 5: “Once when I was a kid I cried because another kid had a nosebleed. Boy, I was something.” Rip Torn as “Steve Morgan” in “Number 22,” S2 Ep. 21, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, 1957. Page 7: “A rococo clock with cops chasing crooks in circles and tumbling forth to chime the hour.” Claudia Pierpont describes Dashiell Hammett’s 1925 story “The Scorched Face.” The New Yorker, Feb. 11th, 2002. Page 8: “Henry Roe Cloud accepted the tablet in the name of the Winnebago, who were the original inhabitants of those lands.” From “The 1914 Meeting of the Society of American Indians at UW-Madison” by Larry Nesper, The Wisconsin Magazine of History, Volume 102, Number 2 Winter 2018-2019. Page 9: “Fashions of the future, modeled by science fiction’s most attractive women.” Program description, “Nycon 3,” 1967 World Convention Program Book. Page 10: “In anger unkind words are said that make the teardrops start” & Page 11: “Why can’t I free your doubtful mind, and melt your cold cold heart?” Lyrics, “Cold Cold Heart,” a 1951 song by Hank Williams (1923-1953). Page 12: “I am a vehicle of divine know how.” & Page 13: “My parents were fools that deserve the worms that burrow through their skulls.” Excerpts from the “Affirmations” of Orvie Garveau II (Ted Levine), of Showtime’s On Becoming a God in Central Florida, one of several television dramas currently airing that feature stories about pyramid schemes. Page 14: “Though he plays no instrument, Art Widner has sung professionally.” & Page 15: “Langley Searles and Chan Davis are pianists for their own pleasure and edification only.” Francis Towner Laney reviews the musical talents of fandom in FAN-DANGO #9, Spring 1945. Page 16: “The Sofa is mightier than the Sword.” Interlineation, KTEIC magazine #34, Bill Rotsler, June 1957 Page 17: “Marge, I’m a little vexed with you. You promised me the next time I saw you, you would be as svelte as an antelope.” Critic Fitzgerald Fortune (Barry Morse) “A Piano in the House,” S3 Ep. 22, The Twilight Zone, 1962. Page 20: “I’ve been on more diets than Arcaro has horses, but somehow I always get thrown before the finish line.” Marge Moore (Muriel Landers) in Earl Hamner’s script “A Piano in the House,” S3 Ep. 22, The Twilight Zone, 1962. ------LETTERCOLTRAINS

Steve Green Ken Fletcher Walter Breen Jenny Glover Tony Keen Michael Butler Donald J. Markstein Alan Hunter Jessica Amanda Salmonson Steve Green Joan Hanke-Woods Ned Brooks Harry Cameron Andruschak Bernard Peek Brian Earl Brown Jim Meadows III

Steve Green Dave Wood David Redd Mike Wood Roy Lavendar Susan Wood Laurine White Andy Sawyer

6 Wait for the Bus: in Albert Davis park in the Lake City neighborhood, not far from our house. Pop Music and Air Disasters [Continued from Page One:] Two days later, the pair departed in Post’s Lockheed flying boat. Although the floats which Anyone who has lived in Madison for any length Post had planned to use had not arrived, he had of time will eventually hear the story of Otis a slightly larger pair bolted to his aircraft, and Redding’s death in a plane crash in Monona Bay set off for the north, after a few practice take- in December 1967. But even though that crash offs and touchdowns on Lake Washington. The killed a major vocalist and four members of the flight apparently went well for the first week, Bar-Kays, it rather merges with all the other but weather conditions deteriorated as they small airplane crashes that have killed popular reached Point Barrow Alaska. Post touched musicians and people associated with them. I down in a lagoon about 20 miles southwest to ask was able to tick off several of them in my head locals where he was. When he tried to take off without doing any kind of research – and when I again, the plane either struck a submerged object began trying to make a list of such accidents, I or lost power on take-off, and nosed over onto its passed a dozen incidents in the first three back, killing Post and Rogers instantly. minutes of research. Although it took a few days for the news to be Lockheedless Abandon reported in the “lower 48,” the wreckage and the As you can see from the table on the following bodies trapped inside it were located and page, all online sources want me to start this recovered within a few days. The next major story with the death of Will Rogers, an musical legend killed in a small plane accident American vaudevillian, columnist, recording was Captain Glenn Miller of the U. S, Army, artist and movie star, who was killed in a crash and his disappearance in a Norseman seaplane with pioneering aviator Wiley Post in August of has never really been conclusively explained. 1935. I think it’s a bit of a stretch to call Rogers a musician, but he certainly derived income Miller was one of America’s most successful from performing music on record and the radio. band leaders, and his death had some of the Unlike many later recording artists who died in same effect as Will Rogers, or the actress Carole the course of touring for the purpose of Lombard, who died in an early airline crash. performance, Rogers was simply along as an But I decided that commercial airline disasters observer to document Post’s efforts to find a fall outside this list, so although a few of the seaplane route connecting America and Asia via accidents listed involved larger aircraft, they Alaska. were all chartered privately, rather than flying on an established commercial route. And it I am personally familiar with this story, because seems to stretch the premise to include Miller there is a monument to Rogers in my here, as he died as a consequence of wartime neighborhood in Seattle. Post’s expedition service, and certainly other musicians were departed from the seaplane base here on Lake killed on active duty; it is only Miller’s great Washington, and he and Rogers spent several fame that seals his inclusion here. days here before they departed for Alaska. They were guests of the executive of Boeing aircraft, Going Down in Glocca Mora and toured the YB-17, prototype of the Flying Buddy Clark (real name Samuel Goldberg, born Fortress bomber. Rogers was an avid amateur 1912) was a popular singer and radio host, who had post-war hits including “Linda” and “How polo player and took a trip to the north end of st the city, where the Olympic Riding and Driving Are Things in Glocca Mora?” On October 1 , Academy had set up a friendly match between 1949. Clark rented an airplane to take himself Rogers’ friends in the Beverley Hills club and and five friends to a Stanford University football local players. There is a monument to this event game against the University of Michigan. On the [“Wait for the Bus” continues page 9.]

------I’ve had a good run. I’ve built a lot of things that work and a lot of things that didn’t work. ------

7 Table of Private Air Fatalities of Popular Musicians, 1935-2019

Date of Crash Location Aircraft Celebrity Fatalities August 15th, 1935 Nr. Pt. Barrow, Lockheed Orion B Wiley Post, Will Rogers Alaska December 15th, 1944 English Channel Noorduyn C64 Glenn Miller Norseman October 1st, 1949 West Los Angeles, “Cessna” Buddy Clark, 5 others California June 30th, 1954 Clanton, Alabama Beechcraft Model R. W. “Bill” Blackwood 18 February 3rd, 1959, Clear Lake, Iowa Beechcraft Buddy Holly, J. P. Richardson, Bonanza Ritchie Valens March 5th, 1963 Camden, Tennessee Piper PA-24 Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas, Hawkshaw Comanche Hawkins July 31st, 1964 Brentwood, Tennessee Beechcraft Jim Reeves Debonair December 10th, 1967 Lake Monona, Beechcraft Model Otis Redding, Ronnie Caldwell, Carl Madison, Wisconsin 18 Cunningham, Phalon Jones, Jimmy King, 3 others. September 20th, 1973 Nachitoches, Beechcraft Model Jim Croce, Comedian George Stevens Louisiana E18S August 9th, 1974 Jackson, Minnesota Piper Twin Bill Chase, Walter Clark, John Emma, Commanche Wally Yohn, known as “Chase” October 20th, 1977 Gillsburg, Mississippi Convair CV-240 Cassie Gaines, Steve Gaines, Ronnie Van Zandt, all from Lynyrd Skynrd March 18th, 1982 Leesland, Florida Beechcraft H35 Randy Rhoads (Black Sabbath) Bonanza July 28th, 1982 Garden Valley, Texas Cessna 414 Keith Green January 31st, 1985 De Kalb Texas Douglas DC-3 Ricky Nelson August 27th, 1990 Elkhorn, Wisconsin Bell 206B Jet Stevie Ray Vaughn Ranger March 16th, 1991 San Diego, California Hawker-Siddeley 8 members of Reba McIntire‘s band DH-125 October 25th, 1991 Vallejo, California Bell 206 Jet Ranger Bill Graham October 12th, 1997 Pacific Grove, Rutan 61 Long-EZ John Denver California August 25th, 2001 Grand Abaco Island, Cessna 402B Aaliyah Bahamas August 29th, 2001 Mt. Archer, Bell 47G Graeme “Shirley” Strachan Queensland December9th, 2012 Iturbide, Nueva Leon, Lear Jet 25 Jenni Rivera Mexico June 22nd, 2015 Los Padres National Short Tucano James Horner Forest, California September 9th, 2017 Medford, New Jersey Schweizer 269C Troy Gentry October 20th, 2018 Vernon, British (unknown) Jon James McMurray – died wing- Columbia walking May 29th, 2019 Porto de Mato, Bahia Piper PA-28 Gabriel Diniz State, Brazil Cherokee

8 Wait for the Bus bank and a nose-down attitude when it hit and [Continued from Page Seven:] tumbled across the ground for five hundred feet. return flight, Clark’s aircraft ran out of fuel, lost Holly had chartered the aircraft and had altitude and crashed on Beverley Boulevard in originally intended the other two seats for West Los Angeles. There were no survivors. In Waylon Jennings and Tommy Allsup. They had 1958, crooner Jerry Vale would title his first taken up playing bass and guitar for Buddy after album “I Remember Buddy” in Clark’s honor. he parted company with The Crickets at the end of 1958. J. P. Richardson, who performed under In the 1940s and 1950s, there were relatively few the name “The Big Bopper” was suffering from musicians who could afford to buy or charter the flu and was granted Jennings’ seat on their own aircraft; the great majority traveled by humanitarian grounds. Singer Dion DiMucci car or bus, with a few able to afford commercial was also under consideration, but less inclined to airline flights. One group able to afford their abandon his bandmates in The Belmonts. Allsup own plane was The Blackwood Brothers, a flipped a coin with Richie Valens, who had gospel quartet that began its long career in 1934, suffered from a fear of flying, but was also at the height of the Great Depression. They gripped with an awful head cold. He won the became even better known in 1950 when they toss and took a fatal seat in the airplane. relocated to Memphis and signed a lucrative new contract with RCA Victor. The increased Patsy Cline and her group which included her popularity led to television appearances, and the manager/pilot Ramsey Hughes, as well as group acquired a Beechcraft Model 18 to allow Cowboy Copas (also Hughes’ father-in-law) and them to fly to appearances in rural locations. Hawkshaw Hawkins, were flying back to Nashville after a memorial benefit concert in The Model 18 was involved in Otis Redding’s Kansas City, Kansas. The trip was delayed by a accident too, but the Blackwood crash had few day due to fog, and all the passengers were eager other similarities. Just before dusk on June 30th, to return to Nashville. Hawkins took the seat 1954, the youngest member of the quartet, R. W. originally intended for Texas vocalist Billy “Bill” Blackwood, attempted to take two friends Walker, who received word of an emergency in on a tour of the Clanton, Alabama area in the Nashville, and returned there after the show on airplane. Witnesses suggested that the aircraft Hawkins’ commercial ticket. suffered some control failure locking it a climbing attitude; the plane stalled immediately Ramsey Hughes was also the owner of the Piper after takeoff and crashed to earth, killing all Comanche, which he had purchased in 1962. three on board. However, he was not instrument-rated, and had only 44 hours of flight time in the Piper, and The deaths of Buddy Clark and Bill Blackwood just 160 hours in total. both resulted from what might be termed recreational accidents. The crashes which killed He flew the party to Rogers, Arkansas without Buddy Holly and Patsy Cline involved flying to incident and refueled there. But when advised by or from performance dates, and both took place an FAA employee that the conditions were under dangerous weather conditions. The marginal for Visual Flight Rules over number of people killed in each case, and the Tennessee, he pressed on anyway, intending to wealth of lore surrounding the selection of navigate by finding the Tennessee River. About passengers for these flights invites comparison, 95 miles west of Nashville, near Camden, but they occurred under very different Tennessee, the aircraft descended to the tree line circumstances. in a “graveyard spiral” and was destroyed, killing all four occupants. As in the case of Buddy The Days the Musics Died Holly and also John F. Kennedy Junior, pilot The 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza carrying Buddy disorientation due to poor visibility was almost Holly crashed about six miles from the runway. certainly the reason for the accident; so perhaps The frigid, foggy condition at nearly 1:00 in the the similarity outweighs the differences. morning probably disoriented 21-year-old pilot Ray Stevenson; the aircraft was in a steep right [“Wait for the Bus” continues next page.] ------Once men are caught up in an event, they cease to be afraid. Only the unknown frightens men. ------

9 ------You love your brother, don’t you? ------Wait for the Bus player Phalon Jones’ cry of “Oh no!” He [Continued from Page Nine:] unbuckled his seat belt and was knocked senseless by the impact; when he regained Accused of Beechcraft consciousness, he was hanging onto a seat It’s interesting that a number of these accidents cushion in freezing water. Unable to swim, he befell pilots who were at the controls of an could do nothing to free anyone trapped or airplane manufactured by Beechcraft; this unconscious below. The pilot, who had been might reflect the fact that the company had the warned that conditions in Madison were largest part of the private commuter aircraft difficult, requested landing clearance from market in the 1960s and 1970s. It may also Truax Field less than a minute before the reflect that Beechcraft made somewhat “hotter,” impact. He was obviously confused about his faster aircraft than Cessna or Piper or location, and may have believed he was over Taylorcraft, and they were slightly more Lake Mendota, near the field, rather than Lake challenging to fly. But although the next three Monona, on the other side of town. incidents on the table all involved Beechcraft airplanes, there was no fault found with the By the 1970s, anyone following popular music aircraft in any of those cases. had to be aware of the growing list of performers who had died in air accidents, but there were Just over a year after Patsy Cline’s death, still more fatalities and crippling accidents on popular country vocalist Jim Reeves and his the road. Marc Bolan, Harry Chapin, the bass business manager and pianist Dean Manuel were player for Steppenwolf, the bass player for killed when Reeves stalled his aircraft in a Metallica, the bass player for the Marshall heavy downpour while trying to land at Tucker band…the list of musicians killed on the Nashville’s airport. Singer Marty Robbins heard road was so long that any given case is invisible. the crash occur from his nearby home; he and country legend Ernest Tubb were part of the In spite of very well-known incidents, more party which searched for Reeves and Manuel’s bands began chartering their own planes in the crash site, just as songwriter Roger Miller had 1970s, and sometimes these larger, older aircraft spotted Patsy Cline’s wreck by climbing a fire presented unique problems. The notorious tower and then dashing through the brush to a Gillsburg, Mississippi crash which killed three swath of broken trees. members of Lynyrd Skynrd in October 1977 occurred when the band’s chartered Convair CV- Singer Jim Croce and comedian George Stevens 240 ran out of fuel after fighting heavy winds were killed when a chartered Beechcraft E18S and storms along its flight path. This was ran into a tree at the end of the runway in another case where the airplane should never Nachitoches, Louisiana. There was nothing have taken off. wrong with the aircraft. The pilot had taken an unusually shallow attitude on takeoff, and did One-time teen idol Ricky Nelson died when his not try to avoid the tree, despite the fact that it vintage Douglas DC-3, once owned by the was the only obstacle anywhere near the runway. DuPont family and later by Jerry Lee Lewis, crashed in DeKalb, Texas. The aircraft had The crash which killed Otis Redding and four filled with smoke as it approached Dallas, and other musicians in December 1967 is also a had crash landed in trees 2 miles short of an puzzling case in which no fault could be found airstrip. Remarkably, both pilots survived, while with the aircraft. The sole survivor, trumpet Nelson, his girlfriend, and five members of his player Ben Cauley, was asleep until just before band were all killed. impact, when he was awakened by saxophone

10 Gospel singer Keith Greene died along with two of his children and seven members of another family when an overloaded Cessna carrying supplies for his “Last Days Ministry” crashed shortly after takeoff. The pilot was seriously deficient in the required certifications and flight time necessary to be Pilot in Charge of the 414. He took off carrying more than 440 pounds above the aircraft’s rated capacity. Even smaller aircraft have the capacity to wipe out an entire band. Trumpeter Bill Chase and all three members of his jazz fusion band “Chase” were killed on the way to a show in Jackson, Minnesota in 1974. Eight members of country vocalist Reba McIntire’s band were killed when a private jet crashed into a mountain after other hand, there are also people whose conduct taking off from San Diego in 1991. The bordered on the reckless or suicidal and were singer/actress Aaliyah died with several members ultimately rewarded by dying in their aircraft. of her backing band in a crash after takeoff I’m reluctant to put very many cases in this from Grand Abaco Island in the Bahamas. That category, even though one could argue that Will event may be slightly obscured in memory rogers, Buddy Clark and Bill Blackwood were because it took place 17 days before the attacks all killed in needlessly indulgent pastimes. One on September 11th, 2001. artist who would probably be comfortable being I’m not willing to sit down and count them up, called an idiot was the Canadian rapper and but it does seem as if country music – and extreme athlete Jon James McMurray, who died country rock, and rockabilly artists – have fallen just about exactly one year ago at this writing. out of the sky at a higher rate than soul, jazz or He was killed while walking on the wing of a acid rock artists. As recently as 2017, country stunt aircraft during a video shoot; something singer Troy Gentry was killed during a made him stumble too far out on the wing of the helicopter tour of Medford, New Jersey. John airplane, which tipped it into a spin. He Denver’s music may have been sui genera but it eventually let go of the airplane, which allowed sounded like country to a lot of folks. His demise the pilot to regain control and save his own life. came at the controls of a home-built aircraft, But McMurray was too low for his parachute to which had not been assembled correctly. deploy fully before he hit the ground. The proliferation of private helicopters has Just 4 days after Aaliyah was killed in the contributed to the deaths of several more musical Grand Abaco crash, Australian singer Graeme celebrities, including blues guitarist Stevie Ray “Shirley” Strachan suffered a fatal accident Vaughn. Legendary promoter Bill Graham died while flying in his new Bell 47G helicopter near when the helicopter carrying him collided with Mount Archer in Queensland. Strachan had high tension power lines. drifted out of the flight path assigned by his instructor and encountered a high wind as he got Wings of Idiocy closer to the mountain. This warped the One might argue that operating one’s own geometry of his main rotors so much than they aircraft is a dangerous affectation in the first bent downward and sliced off the aircraft’s tail place, but this list of calamities represents a tiny, boom, sending it spinning out of control. But nearly invisible fraction of the private flights rather than being a sign of poor judgment, undertaken by musicians and other artists over maybe this incident just shows that everything the past 75 years. Most people learn to fly, earn in Australia will kill you, even the wind. their license, and never have any incident any [“Wait for the Bus” concludes next page.] scarier than a little in-flight turbulence. On the

------No, but I’m used to him. ------

11 ------Always destroy what is inside of you. ------Wait for the Bus [Continued from Page Nine:] However, there is one fatal air crash involving a on his third attempt. At 10:00 am, Aycock famous musician that is the unquestioned dragged the tip of one wing through the roof of champion of bone-headed and self-destructive the bus. The plane tumbled along the ground on behavior utilizing an airplane. In March of the far side of the road and crashed into the 1982, the legendary heavy metal band – the garage of a large home, where it burst into original heavy metal band == Black Sabbath flames. Airey grabbed the fire extinguisher were in the middle of a tour in the American aboard the bus and ran toward the fire but had South, where so many of the best air tragedies no chance of putting it out. The coroner’s report have taken place. After playing a concert on the stated that Rhoads and Youngblood had both night of March 18th, the band’s tour bus headed been pitched through the windshield of the toward a show in Orlando. The driver, Andrew plane as soon as it struck the bus and were likely Aycock, stopped off at a location known as killed before the airplane hit the ground. “Flying Baron Estates” in Leesburg, Florida, Several of the people present were convinced that theoretically to repair a broken air conditioner the crash was no accident. Aycock’s wife Wanda on the bus. had come to the door of the bus to see what was There was a small private airfield at the Estates, happening during Aycock’s second pass. So it is and Aycock helped himself to a Beechcraft suggested that Aycock was actually trying to hit Bonanza H35, a 1955 aircraft that was very the bus in an attempt at mass-murder and nearly identical to the plane that Buddy Holly suicide. Some witnesses claimed that they had died in. Aycock had been up all night and was been able to see Rhoads and Aycock struggling in enduring the breakup of his marriage. His soon- the cockpit of the aircraft as it made its final to-be-former wife Wanda was also on board the approach on the bus. If that’s the case, Rhoads bus, which probably did little for his mental probably saved Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne’s stability. lives, as well as those of the rest of the tour personnel aboard the bus that morning. Aycock’s first flight in the Beechcraft, which was owned by a businessman named Mike There is something particularly perverse about Partin, was made with keyboard player Don this incident: Black Sabbath take the sensible Airey and tour manager Jake Duncan as approach of touring in a bus, rather than an old passengers. Duncan and Airey described or dangerously small airplane. And then their Aycock’s several attempts to “buzz” the tour bus, bus driver stops the bus, gets into an airplane, in the effort to wake up drummer Tommy and tries to crash it into the bus. I think that’s Aldridge, vocalist Ozzy Osbourne and his wife probably the worst case of tour-induced Sharon, who were all still sleeping on board. psychosis that I’ve ever heard of. At the same After less than thirty minutes in the air, Aycock time if there is something more purely metal landed, let Airey and Duncan out and loaded than trying to kamikaze your own tour bus with guitarist Randy Rhoads and make-up artist a stolen airplane, I don’t know what it would be. Rachel Youngblood for his second flight. Maybe you could eat a live alligator on stage or pull off all your skin with a pair of pliers; or Rhoads, already a veteran musician at age 25, dive five THOUSAND feet into a block of was afraid of flying, but claimed that he wanted cement – with your head, yet. But that still to try to take aerial photos to send to his mother. might not be more metal than Andrew Aycock. Youngblood had a heart condition; Aycock promised Duncan that he would “take it easy on them.” However, Aycock quickly returned to make close passes above the tour bus after only        about five minutes in the air. He made two successful approaches, but then dropped too low

12 ------I REMEMBER ENTROPY DEPARTMENT: GALA 400TH MAILING EDITION! The celebration of a notable anniversary – in this case, 33 and 1/3rd years of participation in the Turbo- Charged Party-Animal APA – is often an occasion for nostalgia and looking at ourselves as we once were. In keeping with that spirit, this issue’s reprint content includes several writers familiar from previous issues of CAPATAIN FLASHBACK and HOOPER’S ORIGINAL BAGATELLE before it. Harlan Ellison needs relatively little introduction, and we previously visited with astronomer Andy Young on the occasion of the launch of Sputnik in 1957. (There’s also a small piece by Bill Rotsler earlier in this issue.) Ed Wood was the subject of a column by Tom Perry reprinted in an earlier issue, and it only seemed fair to let him speak for himself, on the events of 1953. And I know relatively little about writer Dean McLaughlin, whose verse on the death of science fiction (in 1959) closes the section.

The Incomplete Fan By Andy Young Come, let us greet this wide-eyed tyro With Amidol, if not with Pyro; Pity that poor passifan Let’s develop, if we can, Who, present at the Super Man- A bona fide neofan Con, tape respondent of Grennell’s, Most adept at casting spells Give him paper, give him ink, From the Necronomicon Give him lots of time to think, Stencils, stylous, paper, guides, Though he be an expert writer, And a mimeo besides Zap-gun, sword and pistol fighter; On which to run the whole thing off, Though his prozines all are mint And his hardbacks free of lint Slowly, slowly, does he learn With their dustless jackets on; How to Give the Crank a turn How to make the pages neat Though he helped saw Courtney’s Boat, By slipping in between a sheet And kept the TransFan Fund afloat Designed to stop the setting-off. Learned why Yngvia is a Louse Has often been to Oblique House When the mimeoing’s done (Where his Ghoodminton is feared) When he’s counted out his hun- Dreds, watch his hands begin to tremble: Member of the London Circle He can now start to assemble – Owner of a deep-blue hurkle Now at last he is a fan! Having sold to Gold and Campbell and to Palmer (on a gamble); And though it looks a trifle cruddy Though he have a fannish beard, And the reproduction’s muddy And there still remains the mailing Though he’s beaten Bloch and Tucker And the postal clerk’s loud wailing Still we rate him as a sucker – We may call him: actifan! He has with Ghod his shoulders rubbed, Yet a FANZINE never pubbed

[First published in issue #2 of SMOKE, edited by George Locke, November 1959. In the original, Young explained parenthetically that Amidol and Pyro are old-time ingredients in photographic developers.] ------The summit sings what is being spoken in the depths. ------

13 ------The farther backward you look, the farther forward you are likely to see. ------[This piece was originally published in SF #8, edited by John L. Magnus, December 1953. Jerry Kaufman referred to some of these events in his column “Necessary to Invent” in CAPTAIN FLASHBACK #10. I was mildly surprised to find that Ellison was more upset by public drinking and necking than by the racist policies of the con hotel.]

Concerning that Midwescon Fiasco out why a well-known professional is never By Harlan Ellison again intending to attend a fan gathering. We’ll disregard entirely the miserable weather It started and began rolling with the advent of that cast a disheartening pall over everything for our entrance to Beatley’s-on-the-lake hotel. three days. We’ll disregard the yellow swamp There was no one there to greet us and if it had water that forced everyone who valued their life not been for me, who knew that this was the to drink something else (usually of a higher place, the rest of the fans in our group would alcoholic content, by the way). We’ll even force have thought we were in the wrong hotel. After ourselves to ignore the absence of those few well- that we began to detect the keynote of the Con. known fans who might have instilled a spark of A drunken fan staggered through the lobby, camaraderie into the otherwise thoroughly clutching a glass with come noxious liquid disappointing affair. therein, and breathed fumes in our faces: “Well, Let’s get one thing straight: your author has the well,” he bubbled at us, “you mus’ be fen, eh?” We facility of being able to enjoy himself wherever just ignored him and went about our business. he goes, sometimes to the utter horror of those A little later we stumbled upon a miniature orgy around him, but not in this instance. For I went taking place on one of the rooms on the first to the 1953 Midwest Convention at Indian Lake floor. The usual lap-sitting harlots were in and with the express intention of having an out of the room, necking here, seducing there, unsurpassed good time. We were sadly thoroughly nauseating those of us who, if we disappointed. wish to neck with young women, have the In years past, the over-abundant exuberance of common decency to do it in private. It was at this this author has perhaps covered up or glossed point that the younger members of the over to a certain extent the extreme shallowness convention thought they would impress everyone of the fans attending the Midwescons. But this all over the place by drinking. In the words of year, to be perfectly blunt, the pall of naivete one fan “There are few things as disgusting or as that surrounded your writer was dispelled humorous as a young fan who thinks he’s completely and I saw things in their true impressive when he’s either tanked or half- perspective. And, in the words of Dave Ish, upon tanked.” And he’s so right. To see those fifteen, seeing a particularly nasty but of Homo Sapiens sixteen and seventeen year olds (and older too) activity at Indian Lake: “I think I’ll send word guzzling like halibuts out of water, and the back to the mother planet to go ahead and blow results therefrom derived, would have made you this place up after all!” vomit or cry. For you see, the Midwescon brought out every For those fans became despicable, lascivious and base, every rotten, every thoroughly low and utterly worthless characters. The certain amount useless action in nearly everyone there. But let’s of intelligence these youngsters had was entirely trace the pattern of sodden lasciviousness that obliterated by the administration of liquor, and made this year’s Midwescon nothing more than a they became no more than gibbering infants, GLORIFIED SEX ORGY! imbued with their own self-importance and staggering around under a load of whiskey or If you are shocked easily, then beat feet, brother, scotch that rendered them nearly unconscious. for no punches will be pulled herein. You’re In short, to all intents and purposes they WERE going to get it straight and hard. You’ll find out unconscious! what made Ken Krueger and the bulk of the Buffalo group drop out of fandom after the con; The assorted sordid affairs engaged in at Indian you’ll find out why Mrs. Beatley and her sons Lake, wherein a number of gentlemen exchanged are thoroughly soured on fans; and you’ll find wives like members of a collectivist group, are

14 not for re-hashing here, but suffice to say that Then there was the affair of the drunken fan the ordeal wherein a certain young woman (of who was locked out of his room so a few serious- whom I am a good friend) and a young author minded characters could hold an intelligent (who I darn nearly worship) were accosted by conversation without having to her his blatant the management of the Con Palace, and the idiocy, screaming in a high octave, young woman stormed out of an unrented room “Whatthehellbranddoyousuysdrinklookatallthed wearing nothing but a sheet, and the young ifferentbrandsyouguysdrinkhic…” author made the unhappy recipient of a Or the case of the fan who got so stinking he had beautiful shiner. Is a sad commentary indeed on to be taken to an unrented room to be sobered so the morals of our Benighted Authors. he could drive back home to get his wife. Broadmindedness is one thing, but assuredly I realise I’m letting myself open for censure and conduct that can be construed as nothing but for rough treatment from these folks, but since lecherousness, is another. The contortions which they are my friends, all of them, I think it’s only these “free-lovers” and their ilk indulged in, fair that this is brought out. For if this conduct didn’t in the least shock me, having been to a continues, there may not be a con at Beatley’s number of fan conventions, but it certainly next year. pointed out an aspect of the Pros and Fans that puts the definite lie to the fallacious argument And can you blame Mrs. Beatley and her sons? we keep offering that we are free-thinkers and They allow the fans more leeway than any other the avant garde of a new, more mature breed, for place and fan conference has ever been held. “We can see the truth.” Bosh. They don’t send a house dick around every two It seems that every aspect of human cruelty was minutes, they allow noise and midnight to be exhibited at Indian Lake, for the pay-off wanderings, but do they have to take audacious came when three fans showed up, having wenching, wrecking of their furniture, traveled from, I believe, Indiana somewhere. characters running through the halls at four in Eugene DeWeese, the well-known fan writer, the morning, screaming, messing up unrented and two friends of his, one of them a negro girl, rooms as well as rendering useless the already journeyed all that way to attend the Midwest rented rooms? Convention. the young lay I met at Chicago, and It just isn’t worth it. I can truthfully say, although again this is superfluous, she is one of the most cultured, I’ve glossed it over somewhat. There’s no sense amiable and intelligent and thoroughly giving you the names, the times, and the innervating people I have ever met. She was able outcomes, for they would be boring. But the to rent a room at Chicago…but not at Indian outrageous conduct of the fans, not a minor part Lake. Before a total scream is raised against of which was the stealing of one fan’s wallet Mrs. Beatley, let us point out that the town of with his hotel bill money in it, is so distasteful Russel’s Point is a very small one, both in size to the majority, that it will inevitably wreck and group-mindedness. If Mrs. Beatley had fandom completely. This is, of course, only one allowed the young woman in, she would have, side of a story that will be told and re-told. most likely, been severely chastised and even possibly ostracized in the town. Once someone wondered if it wouldn’t be a good thing if all the fans lived in one town. Take my But needless to say, they were turned away, after word for it, if the results of just a three-day get- the bulk of Seventh Fandom did their damnedest together are these, then if all the fans lived in to get her and her party in. The kiss-off was one town all year long, the hamlet would no when DeWeese, and his two friends were forced doubt be put out-of-bounds for humanity by the to go all the way back…without even partaking government in nothing flat. of the so-called “Wine of Good Comradeship.” It is a loud and homely thing to be a fan! No further comment is necessary. The feelings of this author are painfully clear.    ------I think it is safe to say that even in death, Daddy is keeping it tight. ------

15 ------Hey, Steve, can a dame go crazy from being sawed in half too many times? ------A. Conventions FANDOM, GROW UP OR GET LOST! In the April 1953 issue of Vanations published By Ed Wood by Norman G. Browne, a sad item appears. Lyle Kessler of the Philadelphia group charged with th It is apparent by now that 1953 will not be a putting on the 11 World Science Fiction good year for fandom. Convention, has a letter asking (in a rather too abrupt manner) for help in advertising the A “whithering away” process which I had details of the convention. This must have struck anticipated and written about to a number of my Browne in a sore spot as he replies in an correspondents as long ago as 1948 seems to have explosive way totally unworthy of him. Not come to fruition this year. Consider: Fan review content with accusations of “profit making”, he sections in Amazing Stories and Startling hounds Kessler through the rest of the magazine Stories gone; reader’s sections in Amazing using quotes and answers from this exchange as Stories, Fantastic Adventures, Famous Fantastic filler material. Mysteries (as is the magazine) gone; readers’ columns in many of the new magazines not Now let’s be reasonable about this. Personally I apparent or without addresses. Thus many of the don’t think fans matter a tinker’s damn when it previous sources of new fans are now defunct. To comes to doing anything. Anyone who relies on be sure, the picture is not entirely black. The del them as a group, relies on a broken reed. It Rey and Lowndes Magazines, such as they are, would be best for Philadelphia to ignore the seem to be friendly to fandom, but until they “fanny” fans. They’re more trouble than they’re have proved themselves, they cannot be worth. With the convention less than four considered as being of major importance. months away at this writing, the Philadelphia people probably have more than their share of Many of the functions of fandom and fan troubles and work to take care of, than to also magazines have been usurped by the worry about fans. professionals and the professional science fiction magazines. The book reviews which were once Mr. Browne makes the statement, “It is common such a large portion of many fan magazines are knowledge that World Conventions are big now well established in many professional business. It is also common knowledge that they magazines, reaching a far larger audience than make a profit. It is also a well-known fact that all the fan magazines put together. Now articles the Chicago convention grossed in the dealing with the methodology, philosophy as neighborhood of $5,735.00…” Now let’s get the well as history of science fiction are now record straight. When $6,000 is considered “big business”, then it is obvious that we are dealing appearing in the professional magazines, the with people that are getting an allowance of 25¢ Lowndes magazines being pioneers in this phase. Now with such books as Modern Science Fiction: or $1.00 a week. Listen here, I have always Its Meaning and Its Future, many of the things believed that “for nothing you bet nothing”, and which fandom had such unique opportunity to if you think printing bills, hotel bills, telephone utilize, passes forever. and decorator’s bills can be paid for with piles of old fan magazines or fannish personality, then Think of the wealth of material about science think again. What does it matter how big the fiction which fans could have used in the fan gross is unless one knows the net? The financial magazines. But humor and fannish personality report as given in Bob Tucker’s Science Fiction won out. There is nothing inherently evil in Newsletter was badly done, and I have tendered most of the fannish material in the fan my opinions to the policy-making people magazines. It’s just that there’s little good in it responsible for the Chicago Convention. and it is a terrible waste of time. The World Regardless of the technicalities, no one can ever Conventions, once fandom’s very own, must now tell me that vast profits could possibly come out pass to the people best fitted to run them or else of such things as a $1.00 membership fee or that the very concept of conventions must be changed. stupid auction. I think the conventions operate under a tremendous financial strain, as items

16 have to be bought and paid for before revenue increase their circulation because they will pick comes in. Think how hard it would be if you up the readers from those that are defunct; personally were to put on a convention and had analogous to what happened to a number of pulp to rely on “promises”. (See D. The Willis magazines during 1951-52. When the circulation Campaign Fiasco.) of a number reaches a saturation point, that’s all there is, there isn’t anymore. If then it is no B. Regional Conferences longer possible for the news of the magazine’s Since it is difficult for people to always make existence to reach potential subscribers, then it the long trip to a World Convention, the regional will die. There is always an attrition rate on conferences have come into prominence during subscribers such as dying, losing interest, getting the past half-decade. Note the Westercons, the married, etc. all combining to decrease East Coast conferences, the Ohio meetings, etc. circulation. Also the need for the distinct type of Here again the problem of money comes into fan magazine may no longer exist. I would like play. Usually auctions or the altruism of a few to consider the case in point, namely that of Roy people is used to pay the expenses. The Squires and his Science Fiction Advertiser. conferences work but only because a need for (Don’t get me wrong, I subscribe to SFA, and I them has developed. shall attempt to get it as long as Squires has the energy and enthusiasm to put it out. It still fills C. Fan Magazines a limited need, and his material and format is of At one and the same time, fan magazines have the best.) There have been noticeable complaints been both the glory and the shame of fandom. about the lack of ads, a situation over which Mr. Sam Moskowitz in his The Immortal Storm so Squires has little or no control. In 1946 when thoroughly [describes] the origins and growth of Gus Willmorth started Fantasy Advertiser, the the fan magazine phenomenon that any selling and trading of books, magazines, and additional discussion would be presumptuous. even fan magazines was brisk and profitable. Today, with the clock turned back to the pre- With the influx of new science fiction 1939 days, it will be even more difficult to obtain magazines in 1949 to date and the appearance in the small and limited circulations that have the libraries of new science fiction books, the been obtained. Not everyone cares for or wants very lack of sufficient reading material was fan magazines. Also a form of Gresham’s Law filled if indeed not saturated. Today, there are seems to work here as in the res of fandom where no longer man extensive ads by book or magazine the bad drive out the good. Rog Phillips with his dealers in SFA. Yes, there will always remain an “The Clubhouse” column in the pre-slick extremely limited market for books, magazines Amazing Stories was instrumental in bringing and fan magazines, but nothing compare to the fan magazines to the attention of science fiction extent of 1946-48. readers. But by his uncritical attitude, he did a So the ebb and flow of history takes its great deal of harm (as well as good) in spite of remorseless toll … among the good and bad. Of very good intentions by forgetting that “He who little point to enumerate the long and dreary list praises the bad, seeks to corrupt the good.” He of defects of the fan magazines. It has been done has never been able to understand this. I have many times before and will be done many times written letters to him. I have spoken to him in in the future. There are many things that person about the matter. Regrettably he brings fandom can still do with its fan magazines if it out the isolated instances of fan magazine had the will and courage of its convictions. This editors who told him not to review their writer has no Messianic zeal to transform into magazines anymore because they didn’t want to his own image or ideal, fandom, but there is a expand their circulation past a few hundred. certain sadness when the thought comes, “What Well what did Confucius say “The superior man if the motto had been: Not many, but good?” So is patient with women, children and fools”? many fan magazines published, and about the There are perhaps ten or so good fan magazines, only apt remark is “Why?” about half of which I expect to hit the dust by early 1954. A few fan magazines will be able to ------I believe there is a certain amount of mysticism that all women should have… ------

17 ------I don’t know what the hell is going on in the most wonderful way. ------[Fandom, Grow Up or Get Lost! continued] I’ll go half way; not a millimeter, not a single D. The Willis Campaign Fiasco. millimeter more. I resent the way a few must work while listening to the rest boast like If Mr. Walter A. Willis of Belfast, Northern delinquent hyenas. Ireland had depended exclusively or even in a minor sense on fandom in making his trip to the What will be the import of these words, I 10th World Science Fiction Convention in neither know or care. Like many another reader Chicago 1952, he would have had to come over on of science fiction, I have stood on the sidelines a raft. Never was the total bankruptcy of fandom for many years, watching the fans come and go. revealed as in in this miserable showing. It is an These foolish creatures of the short run, eaten up insult to Willis and the few people like Shelby by their own egos. Yet there still remain the Vick, Henry Burwell and Lee Hoffman et al “true” fans, the old guard who still cling to their who did contribute the lion’s share of the funds, dream of a better day for science fiction. These to broadcast loudly the lie that “American few have made it worthwhile. Perhaps in some fandom brought Walt Willis to the 1952 future year, some new reader of science fiction convention”. I contributed $1.00, not $1.01, or will come and ask, “Why didn’t you do anything $.99, but exactly $1.00 to the Willis Campaign to prevent the smash-up?”, and a few others will because I felt this should be a true test of stop and look at him or her and say “We failed, American fandom. It was a put up or shut up not because we did not fight, but merely because deal. The talk was loud and long. The deeds were we were too few.” very, very small. I have maintained for years [Published in SOL #9, edited by Dave Ish, that when co-operating with others it should be August 1952.] a half and half procedure. If I like a proposal, ------The Waste Can Campbell’s was the cruelest mag, tossing Manuscripts out for the wrong reasons, mixing Pscience and bent wire, stirring Sly hacks to spin yarns. Boucher kept us warm, lavishing Art on belated rejections, printing Light bits of sex done by ‘droit hands. H. Gold confused us., coming up out of nowhere or other With a shower of pelf; we paused at his hog trough, Then moved on, when he changed, into men’s magazines And wrote sex tales and said stf was dying, But not any louder, I guess, than we were forced to, For, lo, it was we who had killed it, My brothers. We hoisted stf up like a flag Then deserted it. John said, boys, Boys, hold on tight, and down we went. Back at Street & Smith, Analog blossomed I write, much of the day, but….factual fiction? -- Dean McLaughlin

[Originally published in Issue #1 of PARSECTION, edited by George C. Willick and duplicated by Lynn Hickman, September 15th, 1960.]

------

18 Fanmail from Some Flounder Department: Letters to CAPTAIN FLASHBACK Steve Bieler 7667 SE 21st Ave. Portland, OR 97202 [email protected] Reading Captain Flashback has been an unusual experience, since I’m reading your reaction to things I’m not reading. And yet you’ve given me enough of a picture in these issues to keep me going. Captain Flashback is intelligible to the non-apa member. All it requires is patience and some inspired guessing. [Andy Replies: It is inevitable, I suppose, that Only in your zine can the unsuspecting civilian many readers-at-large seem to focus on my learn about the variants and performance mailing comments, the element of CAPTAIN characteristics of U.S. fighter planes of WWII. FLASHBACK that I find most problematic. After reading Captain Flashback and a few old Selling my way through so many apazines in FLAGS on efanzines, I feel as if I should trade recent years, I guess I’ve become completely you something. You wrote in the last FLAG, accustomed to reading such comments and have “Although the number of fanzines published on lost any self-consciousness I had regarding my paper has steadily dwindled for the past 30 years, own. Still, I often try to explain what I’m the amount of material I receive continues to be talking about in a manner that the intended formidable,” but if you’d enjoy receiving some recipient would hardly find necessary. odds and ends, I’ve got ’em. I did succeed in sorting my fanzine collection I’ve spent the past six months in a bureaucratic nearly two years ago and filed them in file nightmare as I, with increasing urgency, took folders and banker’s boxes. If I want to find over my parents’ lives. For example, there’s the something, I can do so as long as I remember VA: “Thank you for your service. Now stop who edited the fanzine. I did not manage to even asking for stuff.” And the Mass. state agency begin cataloging the collection – perhaps that that’s convinced my Mom is hiding money under will happen in 2020. I continue auctioning her mattress at her nursing home. Last month, fanzines on a weekly footing, raising money for my Dad joined her there, and I had 2-1/2 days to parties like the Corflu 50, and lining my own get their house ready for an estate sale. 2-1/2 days pockets, at least a little. following 62 years of life at that address. Not I am so sorry to hear that you had to prepare exactly what I had envisioned; no sentiment, no your Mom and Dad’s home and belongings for ceremony, no second thoughts. Not at all like sale with so little time. I got a pair of tables at your odyssey to bring order to your collection of our neighborhood flea market last weekend and fanzines and do something with all the zines you was able to sell some of the treasures my parents inherited or were entrusted with. (Two years on, sent to me in August, so the tide continues to how is that going? Have you emerged from the flow in both directions. If you find something tunnel or are you still slogging through it?) My that seems like an appropriate trade for life is changing rapidly, in ways I can barely CAPTAIN FLASHBACK, feel free to send it imagine, but as my folks are both in hospice I along. Perhaps it will inspire future content.] expect to learn about the next stage soon. I Also Received: Short, friendly letters from (My Uncle Eddie lasted three years in hospice, Jerry Kaufman and John Hertz. The latter which we believe is the Connecticut state record.) expects “There is always more Errata” to appear as an interlineation soon.

------The importance of an artist is bringing new signs into the language. ------

19 ------There ain’t a man livin’ who hasn’t talked to his dog. ------Top Fanzine Auction Prices, Spring & Summer, 2019: April: THE GRYPHON #12 John Foyster Oct. 1964: $56.50 THE INVISIBLE FAN #4 Avedon Carol Fall 1977: $41.00 PSYCHOTIC #21 Richard E. Geis Nov. 1967: $39.00 THE GRYPHON #16 John Foyster s Mar. 1965: $36.00 THE SYDNEY FUTURIAN #8 Apr. 1948: $35.00 THE SYDNEY FUTURIAN #9 May 1948: $29.00 FANTHOLOGY 1990 Mark Loney 1994: $26.00 SHADOW FAPA Mailing #17 Aug. 1966: $23.50 THE SYDNEY FUTURIAN #7 Mar. 1948: $23.50 EXCELSIOR #2 Shaw/Hoffman Apr. 1957: $22.50 STUNNED MULLET #3 J. Bangsund Nov. 1975: $22.50

May: PARERGON PAPERS #8 John Bangsund 1987: $36.00 WANTED FOR DUFF ‘74 Paul Stevens Feb. 1974: $35.25 VOM #33 Forry Ackerman June 1944: $33.00 BE PREPARED Ian Gunn cartoon collection 1999: $31.00 August: CONSEQUENCES UK Con History 1987: $29.00 DAY FANCY DREAMER #1 Vijay Bowen 1990: $26.00 CONCEPT V.3 #1 Larry Ivie Aug. 1958: $260.88 TENDABERRY #1 Vijay Bowen Aug. 1991: $24.75 THE CHATTAHOOCHEE GAZETTE Lee Hoffman TWIXT #4 Jackie Franke APAzine Nov. 1975: $24.50 Summer 1955: $27.26 PROLAPSE #11 Peter Weston May 2008: $22.50 THEN #1 Rob Hansen UK history Mar. 1988: $22.50 STRAW & SILK #1 Orszanski & Hope Aug. 2010: $22.50 PHILOSOPHICAL GAS #86A Aug. 1993: $20.50 WISCON 15 program book 1991 (2nd Copy): $17.16 June: PHILOSOPHICAL GAS #87 Bangsund Spr. 1993: $14.75 zEEn #1 Earl Evers Jan. 1964: $14.50 WISCON 4 SF Convention program book 1980: $76.00 CUBE #10 Madison sf fanzine Sep/Oct 1984: $13.50 WISCON 3 SF Convention program book 1979: $66.00 6 WISCON program books tied at $12.50 THE INVISIBLE FAN #5 Avedon Carol 1978: $45.25 WISCON 7 SF Convention program book 1983: $45.00 WISCON 5 SF Convention program book 1981: $34.00 September: BIZARRE #1 Marconette/Miske Jan. 1941: $30.00 WISCON 6 SF Convention program book 1982: $25.00 SPACESHIP #19 Bob Silverberg Oct. 1952: $112.50 THYME #98 SF Fanzine Alan Stewart July 1994: $24.75 SPACESHIP #15 Bob Silverberg Dec. 1951: $89.13 THE CRATERS OF THE MOON Redd Boggs 1983: $24.75 SPACESHIP #16 Bob Silverberg Feb. 1952: $89.13 XENOTECT #1 Grant Canfield art anthology 2016: $23.50 HWA! #1 V. Carson/K. Sobel Winter 1978: $22.50 SF #8 John Magnus sf fanzine Dec. 1953: $68.50 INTRON #1 Karen Trego Aug. 1986: $59.00 July: SF #2 John Magnus sf fanzine Oct. 1952: $34.33 SMOKE V. 2 #1 George Locke Fall1963: $29.00 THYME #106 Alan Stewart Nov. 1995: $35.25 SOL #6 Dave Ish June 1952: $29.00 GIANT WOMBO #3 Edmonds Mar. 1980: $31.00 DANGEROUS GAMES #4 Candice Massey Aug. SCIENCE FICTION FIVE YEARLY #10 1996 $26.56 1983: $24.50 SCIENCE FICTION FIVE YEARLY #11 2001: $26.56 THE SNAIL’S COUNTDOWN AND THE SCIENCE FICTION FIVE YEARLY #12 2006: $26.56 RAT’S REVENGE Christina Lake May 1984: $24.50 WISCON 11 program book 1987: $26.00 THYME #115 Alan Stewart May 1997: $24.75

THE NOTIONAL #34 L. Edmonds July 1988: $24.50

CONVENTION GIRLS DIGEST #2 1985: $20.50 DUFFLE BAG Joni Stopa DUFF 1985: $20.50      ORNITHOPTER #8 Leigh Edmonds 1981: $20.50

------Original art by Ulrika O’Brien (page 19 & Page 20), Bill Rotsler (Page 11). ------

20