The Drink Tank 027 (2005).pdf

The Drink Tank Presents:

Completely Forgotten

Issue 27, boy-o

Over the last six months, a lot has happened and

I’ve written about a lot of it, but I’ve also missed

things and just plain forgot to put the stories in

some issues. Here, for you slightest of amuse-

ments, are the stories that slipped through my

stubby little ingers. Enjoy.

Why Should He Settle for Knighthood When He

Could Probably Buy The Throne?

*- Should have appeared in issue 11

Billy, Billy, Billy, what a fool you are. You

could have had it all. With a little thought and a lot

of money, you probably could have forged your own

kingdom, or even better, Bought the British Crown.

Think of it, King William the Super-Rich. You could

have named your pals Lords and Ladies. You could

have said that anyone using Linux is commiting a

crime against the Crown, but no, you settled.

Shame.

For those of you with no clue what I’m talking

about, William “The Refridgerator” Gates was made

a Knight of the British Empire on Wednesday. Now,

don’t feel like you have to call him Sir William, since

he’s not Brit-born there’s no need (Though I think

we should all start referring to Bill Burns by just that

moniker) but he does get to use KBE after his name.

Oh, the joys of post-name initials.

Honestly, I have it less in for Bill than most.

I’ve examined his BASIC paper tape and have to say

that he did a hell of a job. It’s powerful good and the

compactness of the code shows some strong creative

low from the programmer. Of course, having a PDP-

10 to work with made things easier, but still, he didn’t

suck as a programmer.

As a business guy, I’m just as hard on him

as the rest of the world. He’s made soem very smart

plays (buying into Apple right before they made a

strong comeback and buying into Red Hat Linux) and

some very evil moves (the Open Letter to Hobbyists

reeks of greed) but overall, I’d say that he’s worked the

system so that he can have a legal monopoly. Can’t

say that I wouldn’t do the same if I were in his shoes.

So, now, Bill Gates is on the list of folks who

are Knights. He’s on the list with Pele, Alan Green-

span, Bob Geldof, Bob Hope, Billy Graham and some

guy named Spielberg.

Not some bad company.

“Some Polish Writer Guy”- Tomasz Pacyn-

ski (1958-2005)

*- Should have appeared in Issue 26

I’m not a huge reader of SF and Fan-

tasy in translation, but I’ve branched out

a lot over the years and read some things.

Stan Lem became a personal favourite, and

so did a lot of the Spanish Magical Realists,

but when I came across Pacynski around

1999, I was drawn in.

And of course, now he’s dead.

I came across some of his stories on

a website that featured a lot of recent SF

and Fantasy. The irst story I read was

about Robin Hood, which I seem to believe

was actually an excerpt from a novel called

Sherwood. It was rollicking good fun. I

read a couple of other SF stories, but they

weren’t on the same level.

Sadly, Pacynski was also a fan and

seemed very willing to write for Polish fan-

zines. He had several stories in Polish fan-

zines (both those that regularly published

iction and more traditional ones) and

wrote many letters. A Polish fan, Macek,

is a friend and said that he was very much

saddened by the loss of his favourite Polish

author. I only hope more of his work will

be translated into English.

the two unpublished hugo articles

meant for issues 13 and 15

but i dumped them for some reason.

Fanzine Hugo Nominees:

Or Five Fanzines that are In-

initely Better Than The Drink

Tank

*- Should have been in Is-

sue 13, I had it in an early lay-

out of Issue 18 as well

personalities, combined with

the fact that folks LOVE Plokta

and add the fact that it’s being

voted on by Brits and you’ve

got all the makings for a win.

Still, my choice is Chal-

lenger. I love Challenger,

always have, and I’d love Guy

Lillian 3 to have a Rocket on

his mantel. The fact that he

also printed one of my articles

doesn’t hurt his chances for

my vote either. Cheryl Morgan

would also get my vote, as I

love Emerald City.

Hugo Weaving- The

Things I Just Don’t

Get *- almost in Issue 15

I’m saying it here and

now: Plokta. That’s right, you

heard me. P-L-O-K-T-A. That’s

the winner. No question. I say

this having only read a couple of

issues (for some reason, most of

the recent issue PDFs are trou-

blesome with my machines). I

know the Plokta Cabal is a pow-

erful force and that Sue Mason

is One of Them. I’m very inter-

ested in getting some issues, but

until then, I’ll settle for knowing

that they’ll win.

Why am I so certain?

Well, I think many folks are certain.

It’s a Brit WorldCon, which would put Ba-

nana Wings, which is one of my new faves,

and Plokta at the top of the list. Cheryl

Morgan is a Brit, but after the stink so many

people raised over her win (and let’s not get

into that again) I don’t see a repeat.

Banana Wings (which I’m grateful that

Mark Plummer handed me issue 21 at Cor-

Flu) is a great zine. No question. I’ve heard

others say the very same thing. It may be

the best written zine in the UK, as Claire,

Tanya Brown and Greg Pickersgill prove in

Ish 21. It’s a wonderful fanzine and it could

easily win, but Plokta has something that

Banana Wings doesn’t: That Damned Cabal.

You see, it’s a force of personality that

those good people have, a sway that seems

to run into all aspects of British fandom.

You can’t look into Brit Fandom without

coming across the names Alison Scott and

Steve Davies or Sue Mason. The force of

Some years, you have all the previ-

ous nominees repeat nomination, often

with tremendously different inal voting

results. Look at this year’s Best Fan Artist.

Not a change in who got the nod, though

I’m actually kinda thinking that Sue Mason

might take it in an All-Brits Sweep of the

Fan catagories.

Best Fan Writer has some folks who

will almost always be there, like Steven Sil-

ver, Bob Devny and some guy named Lang-

ford, but other sneak in, like Claire Brialey,

Jeff Berkwitz, and now Cheryl Morgan. It’s

a good bunch, but there are folks I don’t

understand being absent.

Like Arnie Katz.

Flicker and VFW are both worthy

fanzines that are wonderfully written. Why

no nod to The Kingish?

Or for that matter Greg Pickersgill.

My Dad calls him The Voice of Truth and

his stuff in Banana Wings and elsewhere

has been great.

Then again, it all comes down to

taste and you can’t tell fen what they like.

The Lick Observatory: or

‘What the Hell is a Giant Tel-

escope doing in San Jose?’

*- Supposed to be a part of the Guide

to The Bay Area CorFlu Visitors Issue that I

thought of doing instead of issue 8.

and in 1887, the irst set of buildings were

completed and he was buried underneath

the area intended for the largest telscope in

the world. It remained the largest for nine

years, though it still does important work.

Several of Jupiter’s moons were dis-

covered using the near-one metre telescope,

including Amalthea and Sinope. Several

Near-Earth Asteroids and a few Extra-solar

planets have been found using the newer

scopes in the place.

Now, in 1888, San Jose was the boo-

nies. They had a giant light tower and as

far as light pollution goes, that was about

it. The site was chosen because the area

gave off very little light to distract from view-

ing, but as the area changed, the amount

of light did too. San Jose took early action

and switched to low pressure sodium lamps,

which kept things dark enough for the good

work to go on.

I went there several times as a kid. It

gets soem snow, so that’s a place where Sili-

con Valley kids can go to play around in the

parking lot.

James Lick made a point to require a

“Good” road to be put in so that the Observ-

atory could be accessed. The road is still

there, though it’s been paved and improved,

slightly, and it’s a windy drive and a lot of

fun. There are a lot of bikers who love the

road.

It has a dumb name. That’s one thing

we all learned as kids. We think of it as

Look Observatory because it sounds better,

but it’s actually Lick, named after James

Lick, who’s actually buried there, who gifted

the money to build the thing. What I didn’t

know was that as much as I identify it as

a place where school kids go to take a tour

when they are studying stars, it’s actually

an important place of research!

James Lick was a rich guy,

the richest in California at the time of his

death, and after a

stroke suffered at

his home in Santa

Clara, the City of

my Birth, he spent

his time iguring

out ways to spread

his money around.

The Head of the

California Academy

of Science got him

to agree to funding

an observatory on

top of Mt. Hamilton

where they would

put up the World’s

Largest Telescope.

He died in 1886

It’s a neat

place with tel-

escopes everywhere

and varous exhib-

its. The place has

a tonne of great old

photos of comets,

planets and moons

they’ve discovered

over the years. If

you plan on visit-

ing, you can go

during the day, as

they don’t want

folks coming up

disturbing the re-

searchers who are

there at night.

The Other Very Short Stories

These are a bunch of the Very Short Sto-

ries I wrote since January that I never

felt like adding. Some were bumped for

space, but most just never saw the light

of day (And one’s a poem and not too

Short, either and features dirty words!)

Robert Pinsky once said that the Simpsons was his

favourite show on television, and for some reason he

thought that it legitimized them, gave them meaning

beyond the slapstick and stupidity..

And then ten seasons into the run, Pinsky himself

showed up to read the opening of Impossible to Tell,

and hoping that the masses would accept Basho,

banana tree, by associating it with the D’oh. By then

the family had become a work in history, fermenting

among the wise and savvy crowd that sniffs pop

culture like the last remnants of a week-old forty bag.

Fuck Robert Pinsky, and Gary Soto too for that

matter, the men who slide their Maker hooks into Shia

Halud to ride the sands of American Cultural interest.

They make themselves over, redoubling their ersatz

admiration daily so they might move in to plant a slow

drip of arsenic into the well.

Fuck Robert Pinsky. His dreary vision, semi-

humorless as the cancer the drips into our

consciousness. There is something there, or so he’d

say, laughing at the moment when he knows he should

respond.

Pinsky loves the art that he i nds in The Simpsons,

but fails to see that the art of the Simpsons lies in the

fact that it knows what it is, and what it is is nothing.

No meaning, no reality, no philosophy, no Jehovah,

Raa, Bol-Morah, Hecate, or Pluto, no Allegiance to

any state save that of insignii cance.

The Simpsons are the Simpsons, not a gathering of

archetypes. It is but a series that gives Americans

what they need: the injection of laughter that changes

no life, but makes it worth waiting for the next

dose. It’s not a symbol: it’s just a bunch of stuff that

happens.

Fuck Robert Pinsky and his slow dulcimer, gavotte

and bow, in autumn and the right that being named

Poet Laureate gave him to make The Simpsons into

signii cance to the sad low tones that echo off of

university corridors as debate over Itchy and Scratchy

comes to a fever pitch.

All I ask is that my children’s grandchildren get to

watch the Monorail episode on a Friday night at 6 or

7:30, long after the gasoline rainbow in the gutter has

washed away, the one man renga is forgotten, and the

books of Pinsky’s poems clutter up the bookshelves

of upperclassmen trying to bed Radcliffe girls using a

depth of Pinsky pretense impossible to tell.

WorldCon: 1896

Daphne Rogers stood, waiting for

a paddleboat to arrive to take her home,

hoping to avoid the fans who would come

to her and discuss this or that about her

books, or more accurately, the books of

Miles O’Brannigan, the pseudonym she

preferred.

Sacramento was backwater, but no

harm ever came to anyone who entered.

Certainly it was a much better choice than

Oakland in 1887, when incompetance ran

wild. As she stood there at the riverside

dock, an airship, longer than the boat she

waited for, l ew overhead. T

It turned, banking steep, and the voices

of men yelling instructions came across to

her.

The beauty of 19th Century News-

papers had to be in their willingness to

believe all the humbuggery.

The Last Words Heard By Human Ears

on The Ship Castallan On The Twen-

ty-third Day of March, 2009 Trans-

lated into English from the Language

Soe’Naskie

“Are you gonna i nish that?”

His Options were worthless, but then

again, so were everyone else’s. He had

made his fortune and someone had lost

them for him. How kind of them to save

him his precious time.

“Everything’s a gamble” he said to

himself as he reached into the bag, setting

the McNuggets on top of the McDLT.

“What About Dave Kyle?”

*- Should have been in issue 2, I

wrote it for another zine back about

2003

If you asked me who my favourite

all-time fan names were, I’d say Harry

Warner, Jr., Forry, and Dave Kyle. Of

those three, I’ve met only Forry, and that

was years ago (though we were supposed

to be on a panel together at LosCon 2001).

So, why Dave Kyle? What is is that makes

Dave Kyle one of my all-time faves?

Because he got away with it.

You see, the 1939 World’s Science

Fiction Convention was taking place in

the town so nice, they named it twice: New

York, New York. The site was Caravan

Hall, and if anyone knows where it is/was,

please tell me so I can visit. The whole of

fandom had been waiting, especially Dav-

id Kyle.

Dave was from Monticello, NY, and

had been writing letters and reading the

mags for years. He was a member of

The Futurians, that amazing New York

fan group. Dave printed a thing called A

Warning, a yellow pamphlet that talked

about ‘New Fandom’ taking over. He came

to the con and hid the box behind a ra-

diator. Dave, along with a few other Fu-

turians like Isaac Asimov, had wondered

about into the building, but when Don

Woldheim, Fred Pohl and others rolled

up, they were barred. None of those folks

knew about the pamphlet that Kyle had

printed, were barred from entry. They had

located Kyle’s stash and that was enough

for SaM and his two cronies to keep the

Futurian rable out, especially sinc they

were already involved in a feud.

And it was David Kyle who really

had done the dirty deed, and he was in-

side, enjoying himself greatly.

That is why I openly admire David

Kyle, because the irst great exclusion was

all his fault (OK, partly his fault) and he

got to hang around NyCon and let the oth-

ers take the fall for him. It’s his combina-

tion of luck and cunning that I admire.

I had wanted to use this piece by Nancy

O, but never found a story where it would

work and I’ve had it around for ages and

she said I could use it as is. Sweet of her.

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