You Only Live Once
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YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE Published in 2007 by Kim Huett for the special amusement of all John Brosnan fans anywhere and anytime. All written and drawn material is by John Brosnan himself except for the editorial which is by Kim Huett. Editorial address: PO Box 1443 Woden, ACT 2606, Australia. YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE Table of Contents 5 John Brosnan & Life: A Fight to the Death An introduction of sorts by Kim Huett 7 Confessions of a Job Hopper WHY BOTHER? #1 (December 1968) & WHY BOTHER? #2 (February 1969), Ed: John Brosnan 14 Most Memorable Moment at the Melbourne Convention WHY BOTHER? #4 (June 1969), Ed: John Brosnan 15 Rejection Slips Are a Many Splendoured Thing WHY BOTHER? #7 (December 1969), Ed: John Brosnan 20 The Double-Decker Dud Disaster THE SOMERSET GAZETTE #5 (January 1971), Ed: Noel Kerr 25 Ratfandom & Other Animals WHY BOTHER ABROAD #2 (December 1971), Ed: John Brosnan 28 Mervyn Barrett Presents WHY BOTHER ABROAD #3 (June 1972), Ed: John Brosnan 31 The Perils of Barley Wine: The Story of a Fan's Downfall MOTA #5 (May 1972), Ed: Terry Hughes 35 The Things That Go Bump in the Night Are Working Overtime EGG #7 (March 1973), Ed: Peter Roberts 37 Happiness is a Warm Rejection Slip SPECULATION #32 (March 1973), Ed: Peter Weston 40 The Good Old days Went Thataway!! EGG #8 (August 1974), Ed: Peter Roberts 43 SCAB #1 (1973), Ed: John Brosnan 46 SCAB #2 (September 1973), Ed: John Brosnan 49 SCAB #3 (October 1973), Ed: John Brosnan YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE Table of Contents 52 SCAB #4 (1973), Ed: John Brosnan 55 SCAB #5 (February 1974), Ed: John Brosnan 57 BIG SCAB #1 (June 1974), Ed: John Brosnan 62 BIG SCAB #2 (August 1974), Ed: John Brosnan 69 BIG SCAB #3 (October 1974), Ed: John Brosnan 75 SCABBY TALES #1 (November 1975), Ed: John Brosnan 79 SCABBY TALES #2 (April 1976), Ed: John Brosnan 84 Urethra! I've Got It! MOTA #22 (July/August 1977), Ed: Terry Hughes 89 A Different Set of Jaws EGG #11 (May 1978), Ed: Peter Roberts 93 London Life & Loathing Son Of Why Bother #1 (June 1978), John Brosnan 96 Oh No, Not Another Bloody Con Trip Report SON OF WHY BOTHER? #2 (December 1978), John Brosnan 103 Great Moments in Unpublished Science Fiction NABU #13 (1983), Ian Maule 109 SON OF WHY BOTHER #4 (1993), Ed: John Brosnan John Brosnan & Life: A Fight to the Death I can’t claim to have been a close friend of John's, I never even met him in person, nor did we exchange more than a handful of letters. It would be more accurate to say I knew of John rather than knew him. Early on in my own fannish career I discovered some of John's better writing in places such as Peter Robert's EGG and the various incarnations of John's own fanzines. It wasn't hard to to admire the gleefully scurrilous manner in which John wrote about fandom and his rather erratic life. Mind you, as much as I enjoyed the carnage that flowed out of his typewriter I did wonder what the likes of Roy Kettle, John hall, and Chris Priest had done to deserve such drubbings, and why they hadn't taken to John with big, big sticks in return. My only direct contact with John came when the Twentieth Anniversary of ANZAPA (the Australian & New Zealand Amateur Press Association) approached and it was decided to encourage past members to contribute. I didn’t hesitate to contact John and ask if he would like to write something. (He would, and did, in the form of SON OF WHY BOTHER #4, the last item in this collection.) During the exchange of letters that my inquiry sparked I suggested that since Perry Middlemiss had already labelled me a ‘larrikin writer’ I was clearly his heir and thus be considered a member of Ratfandom. John responded by suggesting that I'd need to do better than that to back such a claim. So I sent him a bill for my board and education and a note that he had till the end of the month to reimburse me. He must have laughed because in his next letter he named me an Australian auxiliary, a Kangaroo Rat if you like. Trouble was he also casually let slip that he had told his publishers that as his heir I would take over his Harry Adam Knight responsibilities once he no longer able deal with them. He assured me he had supreme confidence in my ability to complete any and all undelivered books. I'm still a bit worried about that actually. John Brosnan discovered fandom in the mid-sixties while still living in Perth. Back then John was a comics fan first and foremost so while he corresponded with various fans (and even met John Bangsund, editor of ASFR, during one of Bangsund’s trips to Perth) it was with John Ryan that he formed his closest relationship. So much so that when John decided to expand his horizons by moving to Sydney it was with the Ryans that he first lived. For the next couple of years John was an active part of the Sydney fan scene and Australian fandom as a whole. It wasn't enough apparently because in 1970 he became involved in a project to convert a double- decker bus and use it to travel to England (this was back in the days when young Australians who found their country of birth too limited and dull would conceive a desire for Mother England). The trip didn't run as smoothly as planned (according to John this was mostly because many of the original participants dropped out before the trip even started and their replacements were less than suitable) but despite this John survived till Greece where he decided to complete the trip on his own. Having abandoned the bus like a rat fleeing a sinking ship it was entirely appropriate that John's next move was to become a leading light with the London based group known as Ratfandom. And so it was that in the company of characters such as Greg Pickersgill, Roy Kettle, Robert Holdstock, John Hall, and Peter Roberts, John proceeded to create havoc in both the elegant steets of London and the cultured drawing rooms of British fandom. Not content with his reputation as a fanwriter to be reckoned with, (John was given a Novacon award for 'Best Fanzine' in 1974) he broke into the professional ranks with James Bond in the Cinema. After this the need to earn a living via professional sales saw John's fannish output shink and almost entirely disappear by the beginning of the eighties. -6- I won't attempt to summarise John's career any further as that story would be better told by the likes of John Baxter, Roy Ketter or Robert Holdstock, close friends of John's who kept in contact with him right to the end. I on the other hand had not heard from John for years when Roy Kettle passed on the news of John's death in April, 2005. In a way it was disconcerting news because John had speculated about his own demise so often over the years that I half-expected him to outlive us all. None-the-less it didn't take me long to decide how I should respond. While I’m not sure I have what it takes to be the next Harry Adam Knight (or even the old one in clever plastic disguise) it felt right that I should offer to publish a collection of John’s best fannish material. As it happened I'd already put John's name on a list of fans who deserved to be honoured by reprinting some of their better work. I had even drawn up a preliminary list of possible articles for a Brosnan collection so actually taking on this task was hardly a reach. Mind you, I never planned on taking so long to complete the project, but then again when I originally suggested a collection I didn’t realise the end result would be quite this large. However I like to think the fact that there is so much I couldn’t bring myself to leave out is a tribute to the quality of John's writing rather than a lack of taste on my part. None-the-less if it were not for Bill Burns and the eFanzines website I would have been forced to make some very difficult choices in order to keep the overall length manageable. I'd like to thank Bill for ensuring that there was no need for me to separate the cream from the merely good. While I'm at it I'd also like to thank Leroy Kettle, Ian Maule, Rob Hansen, and everybody else who made suggestions and offered financial or moral support. Projects like this are so much easier to finish when you know that there is an audience eager to see the final result. And that is enough from me, I can only hope the wait has been worth it. Confessions of a Job Hopper Since leaving the civilised part of Australia and settling in Sydney I've been indulging in a new hobby. No, not that. It's called job-hopping. Job-hopping is something that I've always had an urge to do but back in the West parental pressure sort of hampered me. Now, free from such influences, I'm able to act out these reckless, devil-may-care impulses.