Issue #6 Feb. 2001 1 Again So Soon? ing and see the telltale signs of a short One problem with switching to elec- humorous essay lying on the sheet beside tronic genzines after doing a thousand or you. so of the printed kind is that I always The new distribution system delayed seem to run out of pages. When the the January 2000 issue until the end of snowballing guilt of committing such a the month, which probably accounts for memory-heavy fanzine grew to be more the sudden excess of material. I may rue than I could bear, I still had two feature this profligacy when I’m scrounging for articles, a big chunk of letter column and an article idea six months from now, but a list of suitable topics for “Chatter- I’ve decided to catch up a little on my boxing.” non-existent schedule and produce the So far, the largest issue of Jackpot! is February Jackpot! sooner than you 26 pages; 20 is about optimal for an elec- may’ve expected. tronic fanzine in this format at the cur- rent state of widely implemented tech- All That Jazz nology. By comparison, the typical Wild Ken Burns, chronicler of the Civil Heirs averaged 40-50 and the second an- War and Baseball to intellectuals, has niversary issue reached 100 pages. Even now applied his viewer-tested techniques Folly, my early 1990s to the subject of Jazz in a 10-part oxing oxing fanzine, was generally miniseries for PBS. I watched it all closer to 30 than 20 and enjoyed most of it. This slightly pages. surprised me, because I’ve never lis- The page count gap tened to much jazz. causes my creative flow Not that I have ever doubted the to back up like a artistry of the musicians or the so- clogged sewer. There’s phistication of their music. I might no literary Roto Rooter as well admit it; I’m a lowbrow with to clean the pipe, either. a penchant for popular music. My If I don’t get this fixed 10,000-title LP/CD collection is soon, I run the risk of dominated by Rock with Blues, embarrassing nocturnal Folk, Rhythm & Blues, Reggae and effusions. It’s terrible Cajun the next largest categories. to wake up in the morn- There’s even a section of Country In This Issue… Chatterboxing ::: Arnie rambles to hell and back ::: page 2 Again So Soon ::: 2 All That Jazz::: 23 Rotsler site: Work Continues ::: 4 XFL: The Hate We ::: 5 Share Jackpot! with a Friend ::: 6 What’s wrong with Videogames?::: 7 Visit the Fanzine Newsstand ::: 8 Arnie on the Net ::: 8 Good Housekeeping: Closing the Loop ::: More on fan publishing ::: 9 Saturday Night & Sunday Mourning ::: Arnie on TV weirdness ::: page 10 The Vast Wasteland Spreads ::: 12 Digital Discourse ::: The readers express their opinions ::: page 13 Where’s Lichtman? ::: 21 Chatterb Chatterb 2 and Western, mostly Jimmy Rodgers and Hank “Heard” is a better description of the Williams Sr. Jazz experience despite a wealth of vin- I have maybe one Miles Davis record, which tage photography and illuminating inter- came with Joyce as part of her dowry that also in- views. Rightly, you’re never far from a cluded an IBM Selectric. The typewriter, on which performance clip in this huge documen- Joyce and I produced many professional articles and tary. amateur magazines, got a lot more play than Miles. Even so, this is not a complete or ex- Like many writers and English Majors, I like lyrics. Much of my favorite music has words that resonate to something in me. I want to feel emotion- The typewriter… ally stirred by the music. Rock does that for me, which is why I like almost every type from Chuck Got more play Berry to Everclear. I’m not against complexity and Than Miles multi-layered composition, but they don’t engage me the way Bob Dylan, Muddy Waters and Lou haustive survey. Besides the logistical impossibility Reed do. Except for heavy metal, which is mostly of representing all of the genre’s major figures, the too simple and repetitive even for me, my least fa- subjective impressions and tastes of Burns and his vorite styles are progressive rock and fusion. crew caused them to emphasize some jazz giants and relegate others to mere men- Jazz paid more attention to Louis Armstrong tions or even less. Cab Calloway, a than any other performer, because of his personal favorite of mine, is men- seminal role in jazz in the 1920s. tioned once and his name is shown on a marquee in one photo. Fans of West Coast jazz may feel snubbed. I find some of it a lit- tle too laid back, but Jazz doesn’t reflect its importance. It’s also hard to believe that nine of the 10 epi- sodes cover 1900 to 1956 and it polishes off the last 45 years in part of one episode. Omissions notwithstanding, Hey yo! Survey says… This is Jackpot #6, February 2001. Arnie Katz (330 S. Decatur Blvd., PMB 152, Las Vegas, NV 89107) is the editor, writer and enigma-in-residence.. It is available for letters of comment or contributions of artwork. Both may be sent to the above snailmail address or electronically to: [email protected] or [email protected]. Abundant thanks to Joyce, Ken Forman and Marcy Waldie for all their help in the production and distribution of this fanzine. Thanks also go to Ben Wilson for technical advice, Irwin Hirsh for his help with Australian distribution and Alan White for answering my ignorant questions about digital graphics. Member: fan writers of America. 3 Jazz does present a lot of Duke Ellington, who excelled as a pianist, com- tances itself from people, the seminal musicians, band- poser and bandleader, was the most highly less I like it. Free jazz is im- praised of the performers in Jazz. His critical leaders and composers. Gi- success is a big bragging point for many jazz pressive in many ways, but I ants like Louis Armstrong, fans. wouldn’t want to spend hours Duke Ellington, Charlie listening to it. Burns may’ve Parker, Billie Holliday, Ella felt that this attitude was typi- Fitzgerald, John Coltrane cal for viewers, because the and Miles Davis perform miniseries goes to some multiple selections that mark lengths to follow the mathe- pivotal turning points in their matical, experimental stuff career. with a half hour or so of more Trumpeter and composer traditional material. Wynton Marsalis stands out among the engaging in- (Popularity doesn’t equal quality, but some 1950s terview subjects. He’s on screen far more than any- and 1960s jazz musicians act like they would be just one else, the connective fiber for a narrative that as happy to continue their explorations without an covers a lot of diverse material. Marsalis knows his audience. That could be highly satisfying for them, stuff and displays a poetic turn of phrase in his de- but a dead loss for me. That appears to be the cen- scriptions of jazz’s stars and styles. He also has the tral paradox of jazz. Though it came from the peo- skill to blow and scat musical phrases to make con- ple, it lost its common touch as it gained artistic cre- crete points that keep him from getting too meta- dentials. phorical. I’m still not a jazz-maniac, but Jazz provided The emphasis on both the impetus Jazz’s older forms and basis for fur- fit my personal taste ther exploration. I quite well. The way the miniseries John Coltrane (left) jumped back to and Charlie “Bird” Armstrong and El- Parker (right) got the lington after its brief most attention from foray into Free Jazz the miniseries among post-World War II suggests that my jazz stars. taste is not too far West Coast Jazz, out of the main- Charles Mingus and stream. Stan Kenton were among those slighted The more jazz by the seemingly pulls away from its truncated final two blues roots and dis- episodes. The Rotsler Site: Work Continues The Bill Rotsler Appreciation Site, lication. There’s no minimum lengtht, work, but he’s right that extra thought the mission of Michael Bernstein though I’d guess that a good, meaty now will save a lot of trouble later. ([email protected]), progresses at paragraph would be the minimum. We Michael must make a pile of a measured pace. The Rotsler site’s don’t want to swamp Michael with a picky, trivial decisions that add up to primary URL is http://www.rotsler. lot of marginal material when he could an absolutely necessary control system com, though Michael has also reserved be posting Rotsler art and writing. for a vast and diverse archive site. A the .net and .org alternatives and is us- Michael, only slightly handi- typical conundruim: What is the status ing forwarders to bring surfers to the capped by voluminous advice from we of an image that is a mimeograph or One True Rotsler Page. who aren’t doing the work, is formulat- spirit duplicated copy of a Rotsler illo A big immediate need is articles ing a classification system for the art- stenciled/mastered by someone other about Bill Rotsler, most definitely in- work. It’s hard to resist the impulse to than WR? He should have it all cluding stuff that has already seen pub- plunge ahead and start collecting art- squared away in the next issue. 4 imagine my CD collection will have more jazz in a football” led off his Monday radio show with com- year than it does now, which probably meets Burns’ plaints about how the XFL was too much about objective.