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1 BEAM THE OCCASIONAL UNOFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE UNUSUAL SUSPECTS ISSUE #12 : NOVEMBER 2017 May Tucker’s Ghost be Smiling Upon Us EMINENCE FRONT Welcome back, my friends, to the show that’s yet to end, as this particular clown car is gassed up and ready to take another careening turn around the awkward corners of fandom, professional driver at the helm and a fierce-eyed navigator on shotgun. This given issue of the World’s Finest Fanzine is brought to you by a timely “They threw us out clashing cacophony of two of fandom’s of England. They greatest contrarian iconoclasts: Jeff Schalles threw us out of and Roy Hessinger... no, seriously, did I France. So here we have you going for even half a fuckin are.” second? Might I have had you going if you were even bothering to read this or any This issue of BEAM is edited by Nic Farey and Ulrika O’Brien. 3342 Cape Cod Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89122, USA, email : [email protected] 418 Hazel Avenue N., Kent, WA 98030, USA, email : [email protected] 2 other fanzine editorial, a chunk in any given with a crucial conrep, which was well good when publication typically noted for self-serving shite I got it, but caused him to become the butt of and general dullness? snark ever since, and really quite deservedly so. The keen observer (if such a person exists, We’ve been massively lucky the last nine years pretending to be Andy Hooper) may have idly (#1 came out June 2008) in that we’ve had a lot noticed the addition to the masthead of Ulrika of terrific and, yes, unusual contributors, names O’Brien, who co-edits thish and, as plans stand, you’d have rarely seen elsewhere, who’ve been the next one at the very least, and I do rather willing to have their names attached to pages up hope ishes beyond that an’all. in here. When BEAM got started, the genesis being in a Jim Mowatt (aka Trash) was on board as co- few drunken nights in a penthouse suite at the editor, in a fine fannish collaborative tradition for Plaza hotel in downtown Las Vegas, before it had several issues, adding to the scope and range of a bit of money spent on nicing up the rooms, and content, while still adhering to the spirit of the as I commented at the time, although it was alcoholic foolishness that started it all, or at least generally a bit grotty, the penthouse was at least a the sense of foolishness in general. bit more spacious grot, the enthusiasm of punting Back in the day, it seemed to be a “thing” that a new title was energizing, despite Curt Phillips’ fanzines which aspired to goshwow had to have best efforts at grinding it all to a halt by taking transatlantic co-editors, although in some cases half a fuckin century (or so it seemed) to come up the collaborators had actually met, and there may well have been some casual knob involved, which leads us not so delicately into lauding the long-term partnership behind Banana Wings, that fine publication’s original insistence that no knob occurred during the curation of the zine, only to cohabit with assumed thrusting mere decades later. You will find on page 63 a thoroughly believable and sincere declaration of lack-of-knob-between- co-editors in the construction of the publication you are currently perusing, despite the fact that we are perhaps unusually, but ultimately usefully, in the same actual time zone, though sufficiently far apart that we could think that the tequila may have worn off before anything untoward might occur. I’m not trying to put out any implicit criticism of other co-edited zines in what I’m about to say, since there are somewhat different versions of how this is done. Banana Wings and Littlebrook, for example, are zines where the co-editors are demonstrably partnered, accustomed to each other, and produce work which is reliably comforting and enjoyable, contrasting with, say, Journey Planet with its cast of (essentially) session players who are brought in according to need. 3 Thish of BEAM is “none of the above”, A phrase I’m still fond of saying, in addition to somewhere in between? “Good arrers!”, and “It’s all good” (both of which As I write, the co-editorship so far has been also apply) is: “We’ll find out”. occasionally adversarial, sometimes frustrating, As indeed we will. but at base typified by a spirit of understanding that we share fundamental fannish values, and is proceeding as a genuine collaboration. Nic Farey At risk of stretching credulity and/or pissing some Member fwa and Unusual Suspect people off, I have to observe that I’m exceptionally enthused, and looking forward to where this goes. Las Vegas, NV ACID QUEEN It’s always an interesting trip, when you ride with aside claiming Jim wasn’t well. That turns out to Nic le Taxi. You’re not sure how or where you got have been a species of joke, Nic’s allusion to a in, you have no idea where you’ll end up, but it 300-year-old Spectator schtick re the hung over non won’t be boring and there will be music. And appearances of Jeffrey Bernard, a joke which drinking. Lots of drinking. literally no one on the planet but Nic got, judging Thursday morning, early. There’s a Facebook IM by the outpouring of concern and condolence it waiting for me long before I even get up. It’s the elicited for Jim. But somehow we got to chatting first day of Nic’s weekend, so he’s been up before about things beyond TAFF and its mysteries. And the sun, putting away the cheap pish and cranking Bob, as the Brits so mysteriously claim, is your out the fanac for all he’s worth. He has an article uncle. in hand from a contributor, he wants feedback on When I was a kid back in the unenlightened ‘70s, I art for the next issue, or to update me on progress had a toy called a Wizzer. Or possibly Wiz-z-zer. on the next Farey Filk , or he’s nine and a half It was a gyrostatic top, a hard plastic spheroid months pregnant with scurrilous news from the roughly the size and shape of a billiard ball with a fandom front, and he’s vibrating with eagerness to rubber-footed spindle emerging from one end. share. (Men: they gossip with an ardor and Inside its guts dwelt some sort of fancy, fabulously vituperation that fishwives can only dream of. high tech bearing gizmo, which let you to rev that Srsly.) We chatter away in IM as I get ready for thing up super tight by swiping the conical wheel work, trading snark and character assassination across the floor a few times in rapid succession. It and occasionally even a tidbit pertinent to the made a high-pitched whizzing as you wound it up, upcoming issue. This is my life now. I’m co- and when you let it go it would BAM! zip away editing BEAM with Nic fucking Farey. What the across the linoleum, pinging and caroming hell? randomly off whatever it encountered, whining Already, I don’t quite remember how I got into like a heat-maddened hornet as it went, but this. One day, I’m minding my own fafia, and the careening away upright and wound tight for a next I seem to have agreed to co-edit not only surprisingly long time. Something about issue 12 but issue 13 as well. It may have started collaborating with Nic reminds me of that toy for when I privately expressed some concern about the first time in decades. At times I see my job as Jim Trash’s health in the wake of Nic’s editorial mainly keeping him from flying right down the 4 cellar stairs or doing bodily injury to the dog as he ricochets off the furniture. Yes. Yes, I am giving Nic Farey shit. That’s another component of what I see as my job. Nic wanted to dub me the Acid Queen for this first outing in the editorial sphere to keep the musical references going (if you haven’t found the musical allusion in whatever Nic Farey does, you probably haven’t looked hard enough); I have to give him his money’s worth. Vituperation. It’s not just for breakfast any more. So yeah, welcome to our shakedown cruise. Do please buckle your seatbelts; safety not guaranteed. Ulrika O’Brien Member fwa and Unusual Suspect Kent, WA A SPECIES OF JOKE Nic writes: Bait is for rising to, that is its purpose. Having been teased (putting it charitably) by Ulrika for the use of a 300 year-old schtick, how better to respond than with another 300 year-old reference, as we banter over the delights which await you within these pages. That’s it to the right, by the way. It may be properly unusual that BEAM pieces can have a long gestation period (insert your favorite Curt Phillips dig here), and in the case of both Jeff Schalles and Pádraig Ó Méalóid, turned up as I’d given many approving and appreciative nods to something quite other than that originally Jeff ’s postings of his old fan photos, thinking that suggested. I’ve been on at Pádraig for fuckin ages they’d make a terrific photo essay, but I got for something, remarking that a bit on the quite countered with an offer of a reprint of his taxi- bonkers Alan Moore (and perhaps his even more driving piece in his delusional belief that it might bonkers devotees) might fit the bill.

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