December 2003

2003

Annual

--e*I*11- (Vol. 2 No. 6) December 2003, is published and © 2003 by Earl Kemp. All rights reserved.
It is produced and distributed at least quarterly through http://efanzines.com by Bill Burns in an e-edition only.

In the exclusive science fiction cosmos, this issue of eI is in memory of KIM Campbell, Lloyd Arthur Eshbach, Beryl Mercer, and Harry Clement Stubbs.

#

My article "Dirty Old Men" is incorporated herein by reference, and appears in Marty Cantor's No Award 14, that is also available at eFanzines.com .

As always, everything in this issue of eI beneath my byline is part of my in-progress rough-draft memoirs. As such, I would appreciate any corrections, revisions, extensions, anecdotes, photographs, jpegs, or what have you sent to me at earlkemp@citlink.net and thank you in advance for all your help.

This is me, chairing the 1962 WSFC, ChiCon III. ChiCon III photo by Gene Grant.

Bill Burns continues to be The Man around here. If it wasn't for him, nothing would get done. He inspires activity. He deserves some really great rewards. It is a privilege and a pleasure to have him working with me to make eI whatever it is. And also, Dave Locke continues as eI Grand Quote Master. You will find his assembled words of wisdom separating the articles throughout this issue of eI.

Other than Bill Burns and Dave Locke, these are the people who made this issue of eI possible: Robert Bonfils, Bruce Brenner, Howard DeVore, Darrell Doxmire, Bruce Glassner, William Hamling, Hugh Hefner, Gil LaMont, Robert Lichtman, Frank Robinson, Francine Schieskopf, Rayonelle Sieben, Robert Silverberg, Mary Southworth, Robert Speray, David Stevens, Bob Tucker, Richard Yerxa, Chris Wallace, and Ted White.

Special thanks to my workmates Bruce Glassner, Francine Schieskopf, Rayonelle Sieben, and David Stevens for making their loose copies and bound volumes of Rogue plus their photographs and memories available for this issue of eI.

ARTWORK: This issue of eI features recycled artwork by William Rotsler and Steve Stiles.

D.T. Shindler on the "Perfect" Ellison Quote: This one, which Ellison coined himself, is even used in his bio in the "Who's Who in America" books found in most libraries: "The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity."

…Return to sender, address unknown…. 3
The Official eI Letters to the Editor Column
Artwork recycled William Rotsler

By Earl Kemp

We get letters. Some parts of some of them are printable. Your letter of comment is most wanted via email to earlkemp@citlink.net or by snail mail to P.O. Box 6642, Kingman, AZ 86402-6642 and thank you.

Just to prove it, this is the official Letter Column of eI, and following are a few quotes from a few of those letters concerning the last issue of eI. All this in an effort to get you to write letters of comment to eI so you can look for them when they appear here.

Sunday September 28, 2003

Spend quite sometime yesterday, more today, at Earl's eI sites, having managed to enjoy eI-1 through e-4, leading me to wonder where I was while everyone else was having all that good a time "rolling the weed" and "partying up a storm" all up and down the western seaboard and into Mexico. Then, I remembered where I was and figured, oh, well, I guess I wasn't having all that bad a time on my own. Still...
               --William J. Lambert, III

Monday October 13

Your account of your prison and post-prison experiences in the new issue is unbearably poignant stuff. I knew (or could guess at) the general outlines of the story, of course, but the details are somber and chilling indeed.

The Sidney material is poignant too, for a different reason.
               --Robert Silverberg

Thursday October 16, 2003

Visitors to this newsgroup [Kurt Vonnegut] may be interested in checking out the new (October) issue of Earl Kemp's online fanzine. The issue is dedicated to Vonnegut (along with another person), and there is much of interest. Never mind that selections from Dave L's Vonnegut quote file are liberally sprinkled throughout, or that an essay of mine appears within it. There are more interesting items there for Vonnegut die-hards, including a fairly hard-to-find interview from a 1984 issue of Science Fiction Review, and a handful of obscure entries by Vonnegut to fanzines from the late 1950s and early 1960s. You can find it all and more here:

http://eFanzines.com/EK/eI10/index.htm
               --M Andre Z Eckenrode

Tuesday October 21, 2003

Highly recommended to Vonnegut fans. The Vonnegut section of the issue is a great delight, and that very much includes Andre's article (and I think his goal, as stated in his article, is a most worthy one).

For those interested in just the Vonnegut section, or who at least want to start with that, do a CTRL+F on "of jokes" (without the quote marks) and you'll go right to it. But I do recommend taking a look at the Sidney Coleman section, as well as the rest of this issue of eI.

The editor, Earl Kemp, is an old hand at the fanzine game, and has a Hugo Award for Best Fanzine to prove it. Earl was chairman of the 1962 Chicago Worldcon, my first convention and attended when I was but a teenager, just to show you how old he is... All issues of his
eI are online and accessible at <http://efanzines.com/EK/>.
               --Dave Locke, Kurt Vonnegut Newsgroup posting

Friday October 31, 2003

Have you learned much about the stories behind these books?

Yes, I've learned a lot, especially from a gentleman named Earl Kemp. His pieces on the publishing industry are fascinating, and his website features pieces by and about some of the original authors and artists. Tell him Ryan sent ya: http://efanzines.com/EK/
               --Ryan Richardson, Strange Sisters

Friday November 14, 2003

Many thanks for eI 10. I can't say anything more that hasn't been said about the Bush regime except that I'm as disgusted as anyone else about this transparent grab of power and reign of terror over the citizens of the US and the world. It doesn't take any massive chunk of brainpower to figure out that Iraqis want to be rid of the occupying troops because they've come in to do the same things Saddam did, and in some ways, with kicking down doors in the middle of the night, and threatening children with machine guns, they're doing much worse. I pray that American will leave Iraq before it becomes VietNam II.

Hey, there's my loc on page 9, with a doctored Rotsler illo. I appreciate the sentiment, though. I just checked my files (I've stored all my locs on my hard drive since 1999), and this loc is my 200th of the year. Besides, I'd never go for a dungeon. However, there is this empty apartment on the 17th floor... Nah, no one else around here writes locs…

Greg Pickersgill is right, it's a shame there's no focal point fanzine available. But, in many ways, I'm not surprised. I've been in fandom 26 years, long enough to know not to expect sweetness and light. Yet, as I read Usenet and Yahoo! listservers, there is a thinly veiled hostility we all have toward each other. The sneer, the insult, the foul disrespect...would we want to tailor a fanzine to cater to all? I'm not sure we can, and with these rotten attitudes, I'm not sure we'd want to. We seem to need to exclude someone in order to feel superior. Perhaps if we were the lonely fans we used to be, we'd seek out the presence of others. Now, there are many of us, and maybe we're just a little too close together, snarling at each other in our proximity.

Earl, I'm not sure how you stood prison. Such a place is totally outside my reality, my world, that I cannot imagine having to live a sizable portion of my life there. Guess there's still some naïveté in my corner. You said you shut down mentally and emotionally; I think that if I was sent to prison, and if I could, I'd will myself to die, or somehow transport myself out of there. If it was possible for me to hold my humanity for that sentence, it would be friends who would sustain me, and friends sustained you, and brought you back to your life.

A shame that Sidney Coleman has left our happy asylum.

Who killed science fiction? We all did. We wished for acceptance from society, and we got it, big time. Now, it's everywhere, still laughed and sneered at by some, but there's so much of it on television and the movie screen. There's plenty of it in book form, too, but that's not enough to get people actually reading; the millions of SF consumers have to be active to do that. They prefer to be passive consumers and sit have it fed to them through their eyes. Who are the true SF consumers? Those who are active, those who would not only consume it, but also create it, promote it and discuss it. Maybe it should be that we killed the quality of SF. The simplest of SF makes billions from us in movies and TV sales, with the likes of Star Wars and Star Trek, just to name a couple. (Enjoyable, perhaps, but not the most complex fare. Turn your mind off, and wade into it.) The best of SF remains in book form, unwanted and unloved, especially at $10 a paperback and $40 a hardcover.

I can only imagine what Vonnegut is thinking about the Iraq war and its very warlike aftermath. The conflict in Iraq is made to look stylish and reasonable and fun, in spite of the hundreds of American dead, and the billions of dollars wasted to try to remake Iraq in America's image. I hope he has spoken out about the utter waste of the Iraq conflict, and the intellectual and ethical bankruptcy of the Bush regime.

Our prime minister, Jean Chrétien, retired as the head of his party yesterday, and his successor will be chosen tonight. It is expected that he will retire from the prime minister's office sometime in January 2004. In his farewell speech last night, he reflected that one thing he was most proud of was that he resisted American pressure not to go to war in Iraq. That got a standing ovation.

I have a number of Vonnegut books on my bookshelf. Vonnegut has defied classification over time when it comes to his writing. Is he a science fiction writer? Is he a fiction writer outside of SF? The answer seems to be yes. And, because he cannot be strictly classified, he stands out and is easy to spot. So many books about Vonnegut? Not surprised. So, Vonnegut has contributed to fanzines. Has he ever guested at a con, I wonder?

Ah, thank you for that wonderful picture of Valerie Perrine. What a beautiful…smile…

It's taken me two days to get through the 81 pages of eI10, and it's been a fun ride. Many thanks. Are you planning issue 11 before Christmas? Please do; that would be quite a present. Whenever it comes, see you then.
               --Lloyd Penney.

Wednesday November 19, 2003

[Referring to eI7, the William Knoles/"Clyde Allison" special issue.] Interesting article on Clyde Allison/Bill Knoles, incidentally. Never met him myself, and I never read any of the books, so have no idea how good he may have been. Awful ending, though. But I can't help thinking his pen name must have come from the notorious gunfighter Clyde Allison, whose epitaph reads "He never killed a man who didn't need killing" - I quote from memory, but that's close, anyway. I'm sure if you Google Clyde Allison you'll find more than you need to know on the subject. . .
               --Lawrence Block

Monday November 24, 2003

[On my 74th birthday I received this email from Ray Bradbury about his birthday. I couldn't resist snipping this bit for you. -Earl Kemp]

I want to thank you for the birthday greeting you sent me…when the Society celebrated my birthday I shared with my friends a dream I have:

Some night one hundred years from now, there'll be a boy on Mars reading late at night, with a flashlight under the covers, and he'll look out at the Martian landscape - which will be bleak, rocky and red, and not very romantic. I hope he will be reading my book, The Martian Chronicles.
               --Ray Bradbury

Sunday December 14, 2003

While tracking down Rogue material on the Internet, I found the official documentation of the denial of the second-class mailing permit for Rogue, which extensively describes the magazine's content. It's a fascinating and scary look at what was thought to be obscene in the 1950s - things which today appear in mainstream magazines without any concern. It's worth reading to get a feel for the times in which Rogue was first published: H.E. Docket No. 4/202 Recommendation.

A second document records the appeal by Greenleaf against the denial, which they won: H.E. Docket No. 4/202 Decision.
                --Bill Burns

You are not alone. We are all the same, all in this fragile skin, suffering the ugliness of simply being human, all prey to the same mortal dreads.
               --Harlan Ellison

Fear and Loathing in Evanston*
Artwork recycled Steve Stiles

By Earl Kemp

When the pulp publishing giant Ziff-Davis moved from Chicago to New York, they left behind a huge void in the employment market. Magazine men and pulp people who were just ordinary working stiffs really had to scrounge around for buttwork just to keep going for a little while longer.

Fortunately, George von Rosen had lots of cheap, sleazy buttwork for the truly needy. And William Hamling certainly fits that description so, in 1952, he hired on at Publisher's Development Corporation as an editor.

Among the numerous magazines there were Modern Sunbathing & Hygiene, filled with airbrushed photographs of nude people, and a pin-up/adventure magazine for men called Modern Man. It wasn't long before Hamling and von Rosen's promotion director, Hugh Hefner, got around to talking about improving on some of those magazines.

The story has it that Hefner was already one step ahead of Hamling with his ideas, and considerably more commercial with them. Nevertheless, they became friends and continued their bullshitting about doing a real man's magazine like it should be done.

That was the year I first met Hamling, 1952. I was 22 years old and just about as dumb as they come, but if I knew one thing, I knew that I was addicted to pulp magazines and because Hamling was the closest thing I had to feed that addiction, I began visiting him. I would do everything within reason to promote invitations to go to Evanston. I loved nothing better than sitting there inside Hamling's basement of his house on Fowler Avenue between his and Frances' matching desks and breathing in the excitement.

This place was hallowed ground, decorated in grandeur, for me. Cover paintings from old Amazings and Fantastic Adventures hung on the walls, my favorite by far being a glorious Tarzan cover by J. Allen St. John.

This is the place where they, working side by side, had been producing Imagination since October 1950. Two years…two desks…one basement…. There were manuscripts and books and magazines by the piles; everything to amuse a naïve young science fiction fan and secret lecher without a doubt.

The very same basement where Hef sat with Bill and dreamed up things like black and white or the improbably expensive for 1952 four color? What should it be? How much would the customer pay?

And, at the same time, in and out between my ins and outs were the Hamling family's friends the Hefner family. I just kept missing them by days, minutes even. One never knows how close they are to real world-moving events while they are ongoing. Only in retrospect can we think, My God, that could have been me….

The two families were quite close by that time, and frequently visited each other, the children all playing together including Christie and Richard. The adults just sat around that basement talking endlessly about men's magazines and to what audience should they be directed. Slick? Pulp?

Then their plans moved on to something a bit closer to reality. There, inside the Hamling kitchen, on the countertops and on the table, they actually laid out dummies of that ideal men's magazine. And they did it together.

Most of this is told in memory fragments from Richard Yerxa, who was there at the time and remembers first-hand parts of it with much delight. Some of those Hefner/Hamling family events are described in Richard's "Some Notes In Search of an Article," elsewhere in this issue of eI.

But something happened to bring all of that to a quick and permanent halt. My curiosity drives me to find the answer to that riddle. What happened between Hugh Hefner and William Hamling to call a halt to their mutual plans and to separate them firmly forever?

Because I have known Hamling for a very long time, and worked closely with him, I have heard many tales about the two of them together but I have never heard a satisfactory explanation for what had to be the worst divorce in publishing history. I'm sure that, after a fashion, the two belong together permanently.

#

One year later, in 1953, as a solo and unidentified effort, Hugh Hefner's Playboy V1#1 appeared without a date late in the year [November]. It was an almost immediate success with that wonderful calendar photo of Marilyn Monroe being reused to its best advantage. I clearly remember getting my hands on my first copy of it and admiring the guts of the people who put it together, whoever they were.

At left is the cover of Playboy V1#1. At right is the famous Marilyn Munroe calendar photograph from that issue. In the center is Hugh Hefner, posing with that first issue. Photo by David Rose from playboy.com dated 1953.

There are stories, like the one Gay Talese tells in Thy Neighbor's Wife, about how the two of them remained friends and would meet occasionally for lunch, and the improbable story of how Hefner encouraged Hamling to copy his act and produce a competing magazine.

Hamling has also been quoted as saying that he ran cartoons by Hefner in Imagination. I have never been able to confirm that nor have any been credited to Hefner in the magazine.

It wasn't easy…running Imagination at home in his free time and working at von Rosen's for food and essentials, but the Hamlings kept doing it somehow, and they did it together while trying to find a way to make some real money for a change.

Some of the things they tried, like [Mollylube] recontainering lubricating oil and trying to sell it through mail order just didn't offer any real promise for the future. It was time to make the big leap or get off the pot.

In fear and trepidation, they began working on what would become Rogue.

Frances came up with the last of LeRoy Yerxa's legacy to get the doors open. They really had to work hard then, there in the basement at their dual desks, to bring it off.

Finally, two years to the date of Playboy's birth, in November 1955, Rogue V1#1 made its bushy tailed debut.

#

Portrait of Frank Robinson by Charles Magana from Destiny 9, 1954.

Rogue began much as Imagination had before it, there in the Hamling basement on Fowler Avenue in Evanston. Bill and Frances sat side by side and worked on it together, business as usual.

The initial cover price on the magazine was 35 cents and it remained that way until January 1960 when it was raised to 50 cents. In just one more year, the cover price was raised to 60 cents and remained at that figure for the rest of the life of the Greenleaf magazine.

#

Looking for data concerning Rogue on the Internet is wasted time. There is practically no information of any sort relating to the magazine.

By contrast, you can find Playboy information all over the place without even trying.

There is no Rogue website. There are no Rogue tribute sites, no avid collectors, no one, apparently, who gives a damn about it at all. I could not locate a single person with copies of the magazine from its earliest days, who would even communicate with me about it.

For that reason, the data portion of the Rogue material in eI11 is very sparsely documented and there are huge gaps where no data at all exists. Much of the reconstructed material here is speculation built upon those sparse details.

#

In 1958, business is so good changes begin happening. It is clear that Imagination is no longer needed so, in October, it is discontinued to devote full time to Rogue. Time passes and everything changes by bits and giant steps. Rogue is doing nicely and looks promising and a little money comes rolling in. The Hamlings get a brand new house in Highland Park, a step up from Evanston, and Rogue gets an office of its own.

I do buttwork cleaning out the Evanston basement office in exchange for all the artwork, manuscripts, and other sellable material for the University of Chicago SF Club. And a mighty loot it was that financed most of our efforts to capture the 1962 World Science Fiction Convention.

While in the process of cleaning out that basement, in my presence, Hamling gave the St. John Tarzan painting right off the wall to Mark Reinsberg. It had been the single thing in that office that I most lusted after, and it really hurt seeing it go in that casual fashion.

It hurt even more, later, when the nostalgia book store where Reinsberg sold his book review book copies (they saved them all for me) called me up and asked if I wanted to buy the St. John painting that Reinsberg had brought directly to them to sell right off Hamling's office wall. I wanted that painting very much, but could not pay the price they wanted for it, whatever the price was at the time. I obviously still want that painting these many years later.

Because money was again a little tight, Frances worked the night shift at the new Rogue office there in the Graphics Arts Building at Sherman and Dempster in Evanston. When everyone else was gone, she would come in and do not only editorial, but janitorial duties as well…anything to stretch the budget a little further.

#

In 1959, Harlan Ellison, along with his new wife Charlotte, moved to Evanston where Harlan was employed by William Hamling at Rogue.

He quickly became established in an apartment in Evanston early in the year, and became a fixture at local hangout coffee houses and freethinking establishments like No Exit and The Hut. Young people from Northwestern University seemed to gravitate to him and especially to his apartment. Even then, after only years of practice, Harlan put on a pretty good show.

On June 13, 1959, I had a party for Robert Bloch at my house in Chicago. I wrote of this in "Have Typewriter, Will Whore For Food" in eI2. Harlan was one of the guests at the party. I am reprinting Bob Tucker's quote about meeting Harlan there, a photograph of the occasion, and the photo caption from that article because they really belong here as well.

           "Is that you, Harlan?" I asked through the haze.
           "Goshwowboyohboy!" the answer came instantly, "It's the mosta of the besta, and I do mean that great big thrilling magazine, ROGUE!" It was Harlan all right.
           I listened to Harlan all night. I couldn't help it. I listened to him tell how he edited ROGUE, published ROGUE, illustrated ROGUE, and wrote for ROGUE. And I seem to have a faint memory of his saying once that he also sent a foreign correspondent to Europe for ROGUE-something about a war, or some fool thing, that he wanted covered there. I'll miss Bill Hamling: I always miss people after they are gone. They usually slip away like this without anyone telling me until later.
           But perhaps it is for the better. Perhaps Harlan will put a dash of sex into ROGUE and liven it up a bit.
               --Bob Tucker, "Chicago Express," SaFari, July, 1959, SAPS #48

#

King of Pornography Harlan Ellison ROGUEing Ghod of science fiction Bob Tucker. Photo by (and copyright by) Earl Kemp, from SaFari #48, July, 1959. Courtesy Henry and Martha Beck collection. Dated June 13, 1959.

Harlan Ellison has been reticent to write of his career in Evanston. However, in "Let's Pretend," Introduction to White Wolf's Edgeworks 2, dated August 1996, Harlan Ellison says, "it was not until 1960, when I'd been mustered out an was living in Evanston…." He missed the date by only one year.

I've never told this one before, Harlan says, and goes on to tell the sordid tale.

"Sort of did it with my left hand while editing Rogue magazine with Frank Robinson. It was a line of 'erotic' novels…called Nightstand Books, and in one year the line made this guy, my boss, over a million bucks. So then I split…."

Harlan makes sure never to name William Hamling. Instead he uses a number of substitutes to indicate who he was.

"Let me count the ways…."

"…this guy…."
"…a publisher I despised…."
"…the guy I hated…."
"…a schlock publisher…."
"…I had come to dislike the guy and would grow steadily from dislike to loathing…."

In May 2003, Ellison would again return to the same subject in a letter on harlanellison.com:

"I never wrote any real pornography. Closest thing to it was the creation of Nightstand Books…back in 1961. [The correct year was 1959.] I plotted out hundreds of the books for Scott Meredith clients of the time…the hidebound stick-up-the-ass '50s in which Playboy and Rogue were causes celebres…."

#

"Hundreds of books?" When hundreds of books? What year?

Only months after the birth of Nightstand Books, at two titles per month, Harlan quit and returned to New York. When did he have time to plot those "hundreds of books?"

In a letter dated July 19, 1961, from Scott Meredith to Thomas P. Ramirez, Joe Elder, writing as "Meredith," said this:

"Today we got a letter from your editor. It seems his publisher-boss came up with an idea for a book he'd like to include in his line, and he wants you to do it. I quote the editor, as follows:

"'WAY OF TWO WANTONS…two sisters, fifteen years old but blossoming, are in an orphan home. One gets sold to a supposedly nice couple who are in reality the open end of a white slave racket. The sisters, closer than Siamese twins, vow they will find each other. The second sister runs away. The novel should be set up with alternate chapters devoted to each sister. Trace one sister as she goes through the vilest pits of the white slave outlets, finally winding up in a cat house on the Embarcadero, or some red light district equally distasteful. Trace the runaway sister as she gets a job, gets kept, branches out as a hundred buck a night call girl. In last two chapters the call girl, now dripping with mink and diamonds, gets taken (for a lark) by her perverted companion of the evening to a whore house, where he will lay a dirty, filthy, diseased tramp, while the expensive chick watches and gets warm. Of course he winds up with the other sister. In the end, after a shocking scene of emotional involvement (after the expensive sister has taken part in a three-way sex orgy with her sister and the boy friend), the monied sister realizes who the lowdown whore is, and they clasp arms, wandering off into the sunset, vowing they will sew up their organs and not give it away again until they've found the right, decent man. There must be some logical method devised so that the two sisters cross paths more sensationally. Calvano should figure some way to make this story cohesive, but logical.'

"The plot is described in rather frivolous language, but it just reflects the editor, who's a light-hearted young so-and-so; the book, of course, will be a serious one…."

The result of the "light-hearted young so-and-so's letter was NB1600 Passion Pit, by John Dexter.

#

 

Not surprisingly, [Sex Gang] is not among Ellison's better known works. He wrote it, he says, "for a schlock publisher because I needed the money." Most of the stories had appeared under slightly less lurid titles during the late 1950s in upscale men's magazines - that is, Playboy clones - such as Gent, Dude, and Rogue (the latter for which Ellison served as an editor for a year).
                --islets.net

"…the stories are so awful, and the writing so juvenile, and the 'sex' so mild…for something that is little better than bottom filler for a birdcage…." is how Ellison described his Sex Gang in May 2003.

It was the third book [NB1503] Harlan placed into production for Nightstand Books. It was published in November 1959.

By early 1960, Harlan turned his back on the operation and returned to New York.

#

In Evanston, somehow production continued uninterrupted in Ellison's absence. A total of 31 books were produced that entire year, or 2.6 books per month. Now for just a moment, before ignoring the claim again, recall that Ellison "plotted hundreds" of those books.

Perhaps William and Frances Hamling edited many of those books, and the editors at Rogue could have easily been commanded to work on them secretly, but every 31 of them appeared more or less right on schedule. One thing is known for sure and that is that those books were edited. In those days, the editor's first job was to make sure that every book was pristinely clean and antiseptically virginal.

Ellison wrote that Hamling "came and found me…and I needed the bread, so I agreed to come back to Evanston…."

They haggled a bit over the price, the apparent set-up of the job, and agreed to start a line of clean paperbacks, including the writings of Harlan Ellison, that became known as Regency Books.

#

In 1960, Harlan Ellison, along with his new wife Billie, moved to Evanston where Harlan was employed by William Hamling at Rogue.

He quickly became established in an apartment in Evanston late that year, and went back to work editing Nightstand Books and doing an initial set-up for Regency.

"I spent two days a week on the line of what we called 'stiffeners,' and we were publishing six or eight titles a month by that time, which I edited single handedly, proofing, getting covers, writing up the plots for most of them, doing every phase of the production and editorial regime in a tiny, one-room office, with the name Blake Pharmaceutical on the door."

That's 1960…31 books…2.6 books per month. What a heavy workload.

By 1961, when I was hired on at Blake Pharmaceutical and while Ellison was still there, we were working in a 4-room office suite in the Graphics Arts Building and there was no name on the door.

Harlan Ellison photographed at a party at my house in 1959. In the left background is Charlotte Ellison and in the right foreground (off frame) is Robert Bloch.

They were known as "smut" or, more aptly, "beat-off books." Our printer, a publisher of children's books, knew them as "hoar" books and we liked that one around the office. My British friends called them "wankers" and we also liked that one for the suave, Continental approach. I never heard anyone refer to them as "stiffeners."

There was lots of that fear and loathing going on at that very point in time, but I was such an outsider I didn't know any of it was happening to begin with. Ajay had just done a dirty and blabbed to Hamling about Ellison's secret plans to desert him yet again and Hamling was in the process of dumping Ellison before he could score another major blow. Ajay was moving right into Harlan's job as boss of the book division at Greenleaf.

It was Ajay who began hiring his own staff to cover for the workload that was exploding month by month. First he hired Rayonelle Sieben, and then, at long last glory hallelujah…little old me. I got to watch lots of the last-effort bitch fighting but didn't understand any of it. I got to pick up on tons of Ajay's personal paranoia and a healthy load of Hamling's to boot.

I wrote about some of this, especially the manuscript part, in "With Fists Full Of Fantasies," in Mimosa 27. There were two particularly nice illustrations done for that article by Steve Stiles and, because both of them are very appropriate to right here, right now, I'm going to reuse both of them.

1961, as I said, was the explosion year. While only 31 books had been produced in 1960, production had jumped to 80 titles in 1961, or 6.6 books per month. Still no "hundreds of books" plotted, in case there's a scorekeeper out there.

And, 1961 was the debut of Regency Books…of controversy….

#

While Harlan Ellison was plotting those hundreds of books and doing all the work that needs to be done around a publishing company single handedly, he said, "…five days a week I worked on my passion, Regency Books. That was the line that published Robert Bloch's Firebug,…B. Traven's short stories…, my own Memos From Purgatory and Gentleman Junkie…and several dozen other kickass books…."

Twelve Regency titles were published in 1961, but Ellison was long gone before the end of that year. [See Ted White's "Two Editors" elsewhere in this issue of eI.]

Meanwhile, from the front office, Rogue was doing nicely also. They were planning to go monthly by the first of the year and were plotting a big time professional advertising scoring push.

1962 was a banner year around Greenleaf and Company. Lots of things were happening that involved everyone of them.

Much to my delight, Bruce Glassner was hired to fill the fourth editor office at Blake. Ajay did the interviewing and the hiring. Bruce fit right in and went to work immediately, cleaning up those dirty novels.

Personally, I was just getting hit with a blast from Hell by way of D. Bruce Berry's A Trip to Hell that was published in an attempt to harm and humiliate me as chairman of the 1962 World Science Fiction Convention. It didn't work, but for a while it sure shook up me, Hamling, Ellison, and a bunch of other people. See "Harl 'n Neverland," by D. Bruce Berry, elsewhere in this issue of eI.

Rogue was chugging right along as a monthly at 82 pages and selling for 60 cents a copy.

In the back office suite, the Blake crew produced 130 titles or 10.9 books per month. They were selling extremely well and there was a constant demand for more, more, I can't get enough of the wonderful stuff….

#

In Houston, Texas, in July 1966, several of these novels were on trial along with significant defendants. I wrote of that trial in "Beauty and the Beast Otra Vez" in eI4. One of those significant defendants was Richard S. Shaver, formerly of Wisconsin and Lemuria, but a resident of Summit, Arkansas, at the time of the trial.

Under oath, while being questioned by the prosecution, Richard S. Shaver testified that he was "president" of "Hamling's Freedom Publishing Company." Freedom had been identified as the predecessor to Blake Pharmaceutical. This would be the office that Harlan Ellison described as "a tiny, one-room office, with the name Blake Pharmaceutical on the door."

Shaver further testified that he did not know anything about the books and had nothing to do with the company, and that he was paid regularly by check from Corinth. Corinth was the 1965 California replacement for Blake Pharmaceutical.

That Shaver was paid by Corinth check was to become a significant problem for me in the near future that would have far-reaching affect on things to come.

#

1963 was the year of the major upheavals.

Whenever Billy, Jr. would visit the office with his father, damage and dismay followed closely in his wake. [Francine Schieskopf talks of this in "Midnight Readers on the Nightstand" elsewhere in this issue of eI.] One of the Rogue staffers, anonymously, named Billy "The Devil's Child." It was apt; it worked in either direction.

And it was a situation that would never improve. Over time, the Devil's Child took much more than his due. By the time he was 18, in San Diego, it took three company lawyers working full time to keep him "free." Billy's monthly "phantom payroll" draw from the company where he didn't work was many times my salary. Things to consider for the future….

#

Rogue lost its distributor and had to arrange for another, Kable, to take over in midyear and handle the magazine from then on.

Ajay Budrys left for his dream job at Playboy Press, taking Rayonelle Sieben along with him. And, to make matters even worse, Frank Robinson stole Bruce Glassner and had him transferred to the Rogue staff.

Francine Schieskopf was hired to fill Rayonelle's receptionist/editor desk, much to my delight. Eddie Yerxa occupied the fourth office for a while, but he wasn't ever able to do any work…but we were fully staffed. Sure we were…!

Editor's Panel (l to r): Larry Shaw [If], William Hamling [Imagination], Howard Browne [Amazing], Evelyn Gold [Galaxy], and Anthony Boucher [The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction]. fanac.org photo by George Young Dated WorldCon Cleveland September 1955.

Larry Shaw was brought in briefly to replace Budrys as paperback boss, but it didn't work out right so he was in turn replaced by everyone's old friend and drinking buddy from Rogue, Bruce Elliott.

Lunches at The Dark Place had already become legendary because of Ajay, who would take us there.

The Dark Place was a bar on the Chicago side of Howard Street, the borderline separating Evanston from Chicago. One side of the street was Evanston, a dry town. The bars facing it did a healthy business, especially among upwardly mobile junior executive wannabes. They featured a plate lunch of the day, always quite good and ready to eat, and the fastest bartender in the county.

Ajay's favorite was vodka gimlets, and he had all of us drinking them for a while.

Bruce Elliott posing as Maxwell Grant's Shadow

It took Bruce Elliott to bring drinking as a participant sport out into the open for real. It was nothing to have a three-hour, three-martini lunch and take extras back to the office with us in paper cartons to go. I know I was really out of it for the rest of the day following one of those frequent lunches. It was almost all I could do just to sit there and sip at my extra cocktail of the day, whatever was in style. Editing was impossible….

#

The high-priced advertising getting crew wasn't getting any and dark clouds were looming over Hamling's horizon.

On the personal side, Hamling had already committed to himself a move to California, and that move would take everything he had along with him, deserting Evanston completely. He quietly began setting up Reed Enterprises, Inc., in San Diego, to be his sole distributor so he would no longer have to deal with people like All State, Kable, etc.

He found a house he couldn't resist, in Palm Springs, and bought it. That was really the beginning of the end.

Severin Darden, along with other Second City cast members, posed for this Rogue advertisement.

He decided that he needed his car there so he told Eddie Yerxa to drive it to California for him. Eddie, who was living with Hamling's Receptionist/Secretary Annie Darden at the time didn't want to go without Annie. Annie, who was married to Severin Darden, ex of Second City and currently of Hollywood, wanted to go with Eddie.

However, before they could leave, Hamling insisted that Annie do a major advertising job for him that consisted of typing a large number of identical letters except for the name of the addressees. Annie wanted to do a form letter personalized fill-in thing but Hamling would have none of it. It was a last-gasp desperate effort to score some advertising and he wanted perfect individual letters typed for each recipient on his mailing list.

With his adamant instructions at hand, Annie patiently sat down and typed every one of those letters individually. She took them in for Hamling to sign, which he did, and then she dutifully mailed them. All just before she and Eddie took off in Hamling's car for the Golden State.

Around the office we were trying to figure out how many miles per ounce they would get on their weed consumption, and if there would really be a visible trail of smoke originating from inside the car all the way across the country.

Within just a matter of days, Annie's revenge on Hamling for forcing her to type all of those individual letters came embarrassingly home to humiliate him.

In every one of those important advertising client letters, in every instance where Annie was to type the name of the magazine, she had typed "Rouge."

#

As I said earlier, 1963 was going to hell in a hurry.

Finally, Hamling tired of Bruce Elliott's heavy drinking and sent him packing back to New York. Frank Robinson was moved into the top editor position at Rogue and I became boss of the paperback division. Plus, at the same time, Hamling called a halt to the expensive advertising search and fired the whole advertising staff.

Then, in November, John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. In the office, everything stopped. There were days when we just couldn't get going with anything remotely like work. We brought in television sets and just sat there all day long, watching the horror of it all unfolding like a weird movie of some sort.

While all of this advertising push had been going on, there were 19 staff members producing 12 issues of Rogue a year…one issue a month.

While all of this advertising push had been going on, there were 4 staff members producing 140+ paperbacks a year or 11.7 books per month. One of those 4 was always a useless, nonworking "excess" employee.

It was clear to everyone where Greenleaf's money was coming from and clearer to everyone where it was being spent, only that was a big secret that not one of them would ever recognize, much less acknowledge.

Plans were immediately made to drop Rogue's output to bimonthly starting with 1964…a staff of 12 producing six magazines a year contrasted with a staff of 4 producing 11.7 books per month from Blake.

#

Is McCauley Burning…?

Harold W. McCauley was one great cover artist, and the pride of the Chicago advertising and publishing community as well. In those gloriously repressive 1960s, he really had a brush for turning out tantalizing but obviously chaste vixens. Personally, he even looked great, as a great man should, big and friendly with lots of white flowing hair. I was fortunate enough to meet him in the 1950s, and worked with him well into the 1960s.

For years McCauley had painted wondrous covers for Ziff-Davis pulp magazines like Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures…scenes that set visions of forever running inside millions of young heads all over the world. Then, after the pulps faded away, McCauley found a new market with an old friend.

William Hamling and McCauley had worked together at Ziff-Davis, and then on Hamling's science fiction magazines Imagination and Imaginative Tales, and every one of his cover paintings was a real stunner.

Only Hamling had something a little different up his sleeve this time, salacious looking "clean" books with beautiful babes with big breasts adorning their covers. McCauley really had a way with beautiful babes with big breasts anyway, so he went right to work, turning cover paintings out two to four a month, and setting a whole new style of paperback covers at the same time…flat primary color backgrounds with central figures in sharp focus.

NB1506 Carnival of Lust, by J.X. Williams (actually John Jakes), sports a great Harold W. McCauley cover painting. It could easily have appeared on a pulp magazine such as Imagination. Dated December 1959.

There were many people who felt that the paperbacks sporting McCauley covers should not exist at all, and very many law enforcement types trying their damnedest to cash in on the fad personally while the books were selling. Newspaper reporters doing serious in-depth research kept knocking on our door. They just kept coming and coming, looking, demanding, and taking….

At times, paranoia and obvious clues could send some of us into stark panic mode. We never knew when it would happen or what direction it would come from, but most of us who worked at The Porno Factory were more or less poised on the verge of instant flight at all times.

As a part of routine work production, those wonderful McCauley cover paintings were returned from the printer and stored in a secret warehouse as dead storage. There were other things there, too, like used manuscripts, etc.

Then, whenever times would be the darkest, and doom literally only moments away from battering down the front door, and paranoia would take over completely.

One of those times came in late 1963, when William Hamling, my boss, instructed me to "go empty the storeroom."

That was secret code talk for spy stuff. We knew they were watching, listening, waiting, for only they knew what, so we really had to take precautions to do most normal, routine things.

That secret storeroom was about two blocks behind the office in the basement of an apartment building. Getting there unseen was always the problem, but there were ways of misleading, doubling back, approaching from the wrong direction, that seemed to work.

There was a huge furnace in that apartment building basement, conveniently close to the secret storeroom. My real instructions, spelled out to me in advance without the code words, were to destroy all those McCauley paintings stacked up there, and the manuscripts…the evidence of our unspecified crimes. There was to be no evidence left in case the Feds discovered the secret storehouse with all the incriminating evidence of…of…we were never quite sure of what.

One thing for sure, when Hamling said burn the suckers up, he meant burn the suckers up. They were all painted on heavy artboard, and all uniform in size. They were like big pieces of firewood. I would stand there by the hour, it seemed, with the furnace door standing open and the secret storeroom standing open, taking armloads of those paintings, as many as I could carry, and slowly tossing them one by one into that white-hot cauldron. The heat from the open door caused perspiration to flow down my face.

There were literally hundreds of those paintings, all stored up from over three years of production publishing several titles a month each month, and burning them was one of the saddest things I have ever had to do. I would look at each one, admiringly, one last time, before tossing it right into the flames and watching it still, crinkling and twisting and flaring up for one last brief moment of rapturous glory.

They never found that secret storeroom. It's easy to speculate what could have happened to those paintings, otherwise, except for idiotic acts of fate and mankind all coming together at the very exact wrong point in time and place.

I still mourn for them after all these years….

By 1964 Hamling's California plans were shaping up nicely. Reed Enterprises was up and running and began distributing his books. Hamling began preliminary efforts to move Blake to California and started trying to talk me into moving along with him. These were heady days of much commuting back and forth from Chicago to San Diego, and visiting the best of whatever there was to offer including unlimited visions of a glorious tomorrows….

By 1965 everything was all set. I would move to San Diego and, from scratch, set up a major publishing company, and operate it for Hamling. We decided on the name Greenleaf Classics and began work, in Evanston, on the first of those books…Candy, by Maxwell Kenyon. Dick Thompson, art director of Rogue, did the cover design as a command duty.

It was a wonderful time just then, working on Candy. The book invigorated all of us at The Porno Factory. When we first got a copy of it in the office, we took a time out and then took turns reading it aloud to each other until we finished it. The excitement in the air, the promise of a truly free future was palpable…you could feel it like gossamer strands of etherealness.

We doubled our production schedule in the office, trying to edit enough books ahead of time to allow for setting up the new office. Frannie and I, with the help of Mary Stanko, working free-lance at home, we finally had enough manuscripts edited to keep the assembly line flowing while setting up in San Diego.

Dick Thompson and I became rather good friends in those days. After I moved to California and while Rogue was still operating from Evanston, he came to visit me. We went to Disneyland together, without children, and had an unforgettable time.

Over time, many of the Rogue crew visited me where I lived in El Cajon, just outside of San Diego.

At last the time schedule said it was time for me to go to California and to begin closing down the Regency offices. As a last gesture, Hamling gave us the office furniture that we had been using there, if we wanted it, and we did.

I used my office desk to very good advantage several years later, in San Diego.

When Ed Hayes, Shirley Wright, and I resigned from Hamling's companies and went on our own, that desk moved out of my study into the editor's office at Surrey House, Inc. Then, later, when I left there I left the desk behind for my good buddy Pete Dixon, Hamling's boss editor, to move into as if it had been a plan all along….

#

I remember having very mixed feelings about leaving Chicago forever. It had been such a wonderful home to me, bringing me great rewards and even greater people to associate with, especially through science fiction fandom. I was going on ahead of my family by one month. This would give me time to find a house for us to live in, arrange to buy it, and have it ready by the time my family arrived three days ahead of the moving van.

David Stevens drove me to O'Hare Airport in his little Morgan for that final trip. A great friend to the end and beyond. He also came to visit me in California, while he was working for Playboy, and we went to Tijuana and did all the usual. Some good-byes are sadder than others.

#

For a brief period Hamling tried to commute from California to Evanston, to keep Rogue running, but it became unproductive. By late 1965 the word was out to the staff members to find another job in a hurry, and they did, one by one, leave for greener pastures.

Finally, before the end of the year, Rogue was "sold" as a property and the magazine, under Greenleaf's ownership, ceased with the December 1965 issue.

Only that wasn't quite the case. The February/March 1966 issue, V11#1, was published by Douglas Publishing Company, Inc., 7046 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, California but it was definitely an issue prepared by the Greenleaf Rogue staff. For that reason I am carrying it within the Greenleaf Rogue listing for reference only.

As a Greenleaf publication, Rogue had a lifespan of exactly ten years. After Greenleaf, as a Douglas publication, Rogue continued for an additional 15 years.

- - -
*For all the crew who toiled in the Greenleaf Evanston pastures…paper cups to go from The Dark Place. Dated November 2003.

It is a love/hate relationship I have with the human race. I am an elitist, and I feel that my responsibility is to drag the human race along with me--that I will never pander to, or speak down to, or play the safe game. Because my immortal soul will be lost.
                --Harlan Ellison

Science Fiction and the Men's Magazines*

ChiCon III photo by Jean Grant September 1962.

By Frank M. Robinson

I am not sure that all of you here know exactly what a man's magazine is. The definition is really very simple; a man's magazine is a magazine with photographs of half-nude ladies in it. In our society, of course, the same definition does not hold for women's magazines.

Before I go into my speech I would like to point out that Rogue published an all fantasy issue, dated August, to commemorate this convention….for those of you who may have missed that issue and would like a copy I have a limited supply up here. After the speech you may quickly run up, grab a copy of Rogue, and run back to your seats…. In consideration that this is a science fiction convention, all the copies are free.

Here are the full-page ads taken by Rogue and Playboy in the ChiCon III Program Book 1962

           The one 'skin magazine" I do hope to unearth from my stash is the August 1962 issue of Rogue. It was published in Chicago, by a science fiction "publisher"--Wm. Hamling, under one name or another--and they published a special Issue to commemorate the SF Worldcon. Which (my first convention) was in Chicago, that year.
          Among other things--I think there was a couple of science fiction-related graphic spreads--it featured fiction by Robert Bloch and Wilson "Bob" Tucker....
          Again, we are talking Really Ancient history here, but I recall that the Tucker was a reprint ... from a fanzine.
          So it went.
                                ---Bill Bowers, RARA-Avis, June 2, 2001

I would like to be able to address the people here as if all of you were writers, that is, as if all of you were potential contributors. Perhaps a goodly number of you here in the hall are. I have a request to make. I keep making this in personal letters to writers about once a month. Rogue magazine has virtually no fiction inventory. I need short stories. I know there are a number of really fine writers in the hall and at the convention here. I wish to God that you would send me some stories. This applies to Ted Sturgeon, it applies to Bob Bloch; practically anyone you may have seen here and it even applies, I hope, to undiscovered talent.

A long time ago, shortly after the Second World War, science fiction became popular. It became popular not only in the form of pulp magazines and pocket books, it became somewhat popular in the slick magazines.

The Saturday Evening Post, for example, printed a series of Heinlein stories. Bob also appeared in other magazines, such as Argosy and, I believe, the Kiwanis magazine.

The brief popularity of science fiction in the slick magazines died shortly thereafter, not to be revived in slick format until the advent of Playboy, back in 1953.

The reason I asked if I could speak frankly before is because it is a little known fact, and one probably not to be appreciated, that for at least a short time, Playboy was reprinting from Bill Hamling's Imagination - some excellent stories, I might add. Since then I have often wished it could have been the other way around.

I should mention something about the personnel of the men's magazines so that you will understand something of the popularity of science fiction in this particular field. In both Playboy and Rogue, going over back-issues this morning, I discovered that there really were an astounding number of science fiction stories in those magazines. The answer is really very simple: Ray Russell is something of a science fiction writer and also a science fiction fan. He is not, perhaps, as dyed-in-the-wool as some of you, and maybe it is just as well. When he started as editor of Playboy, his outlook at the field was remarkably broad, and it allowed a number of writers to do things in Playboy that perhaps they might not have done in other magazines….

I must say that the type of science fiction we print is not exactly what you are going to find in Analog, Galaxy, or some of the more straight science fiction magazines. In general, I would say, the men's magazines print three different types of science fiction.

There is the somewhat, if you will pardon the expression, risqué sort of science fiction. A good deal of this has been done in Playboy. We printed some ourselves. One of them was a story by Tom Scortia, "The Ice-Box Blonde." About the blonde you could buy in the supermarket who was conveniently in deep freeze. Purchase her, take her home, defrost her, and that's it for an evening of entertainment. I believer Charlie Beaumont also wrote some stories verging on the fantastic in one way or another, one of which was titled, "You Can't Have Them All." This, I think, would quality as a fantasy story. The fellow finally decided on the particular type of girl that appealed to him, managed to codify it and go up to the local IBM computer and determined that there were exactly 565 girls in the United States that fit his qualifications. The idea, of course, was to track them down thereafter, which he did.

Another example of the somewhat risqué science fiction story has been done by Richard Matheson. Two stories of his were enormously popular. One…was "The Splendid Source." I don't know how many of you are familiar with the story, it's rather light fantasy… I'm sure that at one time or another somebody told a, what shall I say, an off-color story, a risqué story; the only kind you really laugh at. Matheson's idea for "The Splendid Source" was just where the devil do these stories come from. I timed one. I was out on the West Coast some months ago when I heard a new one. I think it took exactly three weeks for it to travel from the West Coast to Chicago - I having kept my own big mouth shut. Shortly thereafter I got a letter from Alfred Bester in New York…and bester said, "Oh, by the way, have you heard the one, etc., etc." So it had made it to New York by that time. This is really an ingenious idea and Matheson did an excellent job of it. The punch in the story is that there is an establishment out on the West Coast where famous writers devote their leisure hours to making up these funny stories.

Another story that some of you may remember is Richard Matheson's "A Swirl of Strumpets," which dealt with a vastly improved call girl system. I will leave it to you to look it up.

This is the full-page ad for Regency Books from the ChiCon III Program Book

The other story is Tony Boucher's. Tony wrote an excellent story for Playboy…(July 1956) which would also fall under that category. It was called "Nellthu," and was one of Tony's very popular small demon stories. The hero is visiting his mistress who is really a remarkable woman. She is excellent in everything she does, which includes more than the usual after-dark gymnastics. She has been a poet, an author, a musician, etc. She has never failed at anything. In addition to this, of course, she is ravishingly beautiful. It occurs to the hero that for one person to have all these characteristics and/or qualifications is slightly unusual and, when you stop to consider it, out of this world. The butler comes in and the hero, in a flash of inspiration, says, "You're a demon, aren't you?"

The butler, nonchalantly, says, "Yes, sir." Our hero says, "Well, how did this all happen, the usual three wishes?" And the butler says, "Yes, sir." The butler, of course, is Nellthu. "The girl wished to be beautiful so I made her the most beautiful 100-year-old woman that there was. She wished to be wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice; that is nothing, so that is what I gave her. I gave her nothing. Of course, she had one last wish, and that was that she wished me to fall permanently and unselfishly in love with her which, of course, I did." Our hero looks at Nellthu and says, "How lucky for me that she said unselfishly." "Yes, sir," says the butler.

To leave that type of story, fascinating thought it is, we have the more or less straight science fiction story. That is, a science fiction story that could appear elsewhere, and some of the stories that Playboy printed actually did appear elsewhere.

One was "The Sound of Thunder," by Ray Bradbury. This is a straight time-travel story in which the hero can go on a safari back in time and kill himself a brontosaurus or what have you. He is warned that he is not to disturb anything back in time, not so much as a leaf, an ant, nor a small gnat-which would probably be quite big back then. But if he as much as steps on a small gnat, in the passage of years he may completely destroy the species, as well as to throw the whole ecological balance off. Our hero panics upon seeing his two brontosauri, goes off the beaten path, and crushes a butterfly. The sad result is that when he does come back the world had indeed changed drastically and rather tragically for him.

Another story which is almost a combination of the first two types is "Love Incorporated," by Bob Sheckley (September 1956 Playboy). It is about Albert Simon, an alien, who looks for love and adventure on Earth. He first finds it, at least a variation of it, in a shooting gallery where the owner of the gallery says, "Kill yourself a woman, son. Here, we'll give you a submachine gun and you can kill all you want." He of course, declines, and goes further up the street to Love Incorporated. Here the idea is that he really can purchase honest to God love. Sheckley makes a convincing scene of this except that Simon only has her for 24 hours. Turning bitter against the whole scene, on the way back down the street he stops in at the shooting gallery.

Perhaps you are not familiar with some of the stories that have appeared in Rogue. I wrote out a short list and tried to sum up once again exactly what we are looking for. Some of the stories that have appeared in Rogue have been anthologized. I'm sure that Bob Bloch used Rogue as a plant for half of his stories that appeared on the Hitchcock program and elsewhere on television. His "The Gloating Place' was one. Charley Beaumont's "The Howling Man" was another.

These are more or less simple fantasies, they cannot be classified as real science fiction. We have printed cannibalism stories which could rate as fantasy if you avoid the newspapers. One of them was "My Summer Vacation," by Borden Hill, a popular novelist. It is told as if it were done by a small boy who is required to write up a paper for his teacher on what he had done the summer before. He remarks how his father, his mother, his uncle, and he had gone off on a vacation trip to Wisconsin. Prior to going they had picked up a small boy in the slums to give him companionship.

The writer and his family did not eat meat, but the other boy was fed rather well - until the day they are to return to the city - then he becomes the piece de resistance himself.

We have had several stories which almost reflect what I would call modern psychological trends. For instance, the person who is 30 years old and, while shaving one morning, for the first time in his life, starts to wonder, "Who am I, who am I really?" Having been a conformist all his life it really may be that he does not know.

One such story on this order was "All of Us Are Dying," by George Clayton Johnson. In this there is a character with interchangeable personalities who is so plastic in his emotional make-up that he can be mistaken by anybody for practically anyone else that they may happen to know.

Another one, and an excellent story I believer, that Judy Merrill anthologized, was "The Handler," by Damon Knight. The scene is a cocktail party after a television show. The star of the show appears and is quite literally the life of the party. He is witty-he is the source from whom all blessings flow. Everybody at the party wants to touch the great man, and to hear a word of praise. You see him come in and say, "Boy this is a great, swinging affair here, a great party. Let's everybody live it up, let's start the music."

Halfway through the party the great man stops for a moment and says, "Now everybody, I'd like you to meet my handler." The party comes to a complete halt. The great man's back swings open and out falls a small, balding, nondescript fellow in a brown singlet. The very mild-mannered fellow says, "Geez everybody, that was really a great show, wasn't it?" People start to sidle away from him and say, "Yeah, yeah, it was a great show, good."

He goes over to a girl who had been getting very affectionate before and says, "Mavis, about tonight, you know, maybe after the show?" Mavis says, "Forget it, Fred, forget it, you know that I was just joking." The party starts to die down and the people start to leave by ones and twos. Finally the guy at the piano says, "Hey, Fred, why don't you get back inside." Fred looks around at the party and finally says, "Yes, I guess I better."

He crawls back inside and suddenly the great man comes to life again. "Let's swing, fellows. You know, let's have a little music here, sound, you know." People come back from the door and the party starts to go again. The great man is back on stage.

This is one of my own favorite stories. I felt that it had a good deal to say about people in general.

Another example was written by Charles Beaumont, it was called "Gentlemen, Be Seated." This one I recommended to Judy Merrill. The story takes place sometime in the future when humor has, literally, died.

Of course, it is increasingly unpopular to make any kind of a joke about people's race or religion. We make up for it in the form of sick jokes. One of the more classic examples is the current Heller Keller gag making the rounds. It goes, "Did you hear about the accident that happened to Helen Keller?" "No, I didn't." "Well, she tried to read a waffle iron."

Another example: "Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the show?" etc. This, in itself, could kill humor, I'll admit.

Anyway, in this future time, humor is dead. Nobody laughs at anything. The protagonist is called into his boss' office one day, and his boss says, "Look, I was watching you the other day and I happened to be walking outside the building and I slipped and fell. I noticed a peculiar expression on your face." The guy, who really hates his boss, denies everything. He says, "No, boss, I really felt very sad about it." The boss says, "Okay," lights a cigar, and the cigar explodes in his face.

Our hero struggles to control a smile and his boss says, "See, I caught you doing it again. You were going to laugh, weren't you?" Our hero denies it and says, "Certainly not, it was a tragic accident." The boss says, "Well, I'll tell you what, why don't we go out to dinner tonight. I have a place I'd like to take you."

They go out to dinner, and later they go to No Man's Land on the edge of town. And the boss says, "I'm taking you to a private meeting, I do not want you to see where we go." So he is blindfolded.

The meeting is a meeting of the SPOL, The Society for the Preservation of Laughter. When they get there the guard at the door asks, "Why does the chicken cross the road?" This is the password. The fellow says, "Why, to get to the other side, of course." "Okay, come on in." So they go in.

His guide for the evening is a Mr. Bones. They go through to the library and there are a number of people drinking at the bar. They examine the bookshelves, etc., the collection of bound volumes of humor; Joe Miller, all of that jazz. They watch a stage show and drink some more. Soon people start to tell jokes, to laugh, to have a good time. They watch a stage show in which various people imitate the famous comedians of the past: Charlie Chaplin; Joe Penner, the fellow who used to say, "Anybody wanna buy a duck?"' the Laurel and Hardy movies; etc.

The guy really can't stand the strain, and finally screams, "Turn it off, turn it off!" At that precise moment a hand reaches inside his mind and literally does turn it off.

He thinks it over that night and goes to work the next morning. He goes immediately into his boss, and says, "Anybody wanna buy a duck, I'll give you a goose instead. See, that's a joke."

His boss says, "I don't know what you're talking about." And the guy says, "The meeting…The SPOL." His boss denies everything, saying, "I haven't the foggiest idea what you're talking about." And the guy says, "I failed, didn't I?" And his boss says, "You're fired and don't bother telling anybody about this - they won't believe you."

The last paragraph in the story has our hero wandering out again to the edge of the city, looking and looking for the SPOL. He cannot find it, but some nights, when the air is really very still, somewhere far away he thinks he can hear the sound of laughter. And it is a lovely sound.

Another story, one that has a little more kick to it, was written by George Bamber. It was called "Between the Elephant and the Stuffed Giraffe." Now, in science fiction, we like to say that our stories enable us to discuss things that we probably can't talk about in other media. We can discuss race problems in the form of science fiction stories and get away with it.

George Bamber did just that in "Between the Elephant and the Stuffed Giraffe." It opens with a colored zookeeper. He is colored by perhaps 5, 10, or 3-1/2 percent. He is having trouble with one exhibit: the last genuine, 100 percent, all-white Caucasian found in the ruins of Berlin. He has a heart condition so the keeper really has to take very good care of him.

The buzzer rings one night in the keeper's office-it is the prize exhibit. So he goes out there and the prize exhibit wants to play checkers. The keeper says, "Gee, it's past my quitting time." He says, "Oh no, you know I have a bad heart condition. You realize that you are going to have to do what I tell you to do. Otherwise I will up and die on you, and then where will you be?" So the keeper sits down and plays checkers with him.

Finally the exhibit says, "Now I want to play the game." The keeper says, "You really don't want to play the game." And the man says, "Look, I want to play the game." So the keeper says, "Well, all right."

So he gives the guy a whip. The game is "Tote That Barge, Lift That Bale." As he bends to it the keeper thinks that someday this man will die; finally taking his place-someplace between the elephant and the stuffed giraffe.

Down in the bar, Frank Robinson, Charlie Beaumont, and Tony Boucher. ChiCon III photo by Jean Grant September 1962.

That is about all I have to say. Except that I think this will give you an idea of the type of fantasy and science fiction that the men's magazines really want, and which, quite frankly, I think the magazine field in itself could use….

[At this point there is a mad rush toward the podium. The audience quickly grabs off the 50 free copies of the special fantasy issue of Rogue. There is much noise and confusion and more than a little haggling over who got to what copy of the magazine first. In the rush, the platform, the tables, and the microphones are pushed around in various directions. A short pause in the proceedings is necessary in order to rearrange the tables and microphones before (continuing)….]

EARL KEMP: Frank, we certainly want to thank you for causing a riot.

- - -
*Excerpted from The Proceedings; ChiCon III, edited by Earl Kemp, Advent, 1963.

Playboy isn't like the downscale, male bonding, beer-swilling phenomena that is being promoted now by (some men's magazines). My whole notion was the romantic connection between male and female.
                --Hugh Hefner

HE's A Jolly, Good Fellow….*
Or Why I'll Never Hitchhike Again
Artwork recycled William Rotsler

By Earl Kemp

Harlan Ellison from the back cover of Gentlemen Junkie, 1961

I find Harlan amusing. (Well, we all find Harlan amusing, along with a lot of other things, I imagine, from time to time.) And I didn't say it first, Bill Rotsler did, dated 21 May 86 in Masque. Harlan, of course, is Ellison…the one and only..

I agree with the statement and I second it and find it convenient to use it as mine for now.

Just for the record, I've known Ellison for over half a century. He and I have exchanged the proper amount of "fuck you"s during those years along with an occasional "thank you" as well. We both known from where we speak.

That's why I feel like it's my task to try to fill in a few of the pieces of The Puzzle. The only problem is, this puzzle only has good pieces. These are the things that are most often ignored in the rush of accepting the latest outrageous Harlan fable as Godwrit truth…the good things that make the people who have known him long and well continue to admit that they not only know him but begrudgingly actually admit to liking him as well.

I am one. I've said it often that there is much to admire about Ellison…and that I like him even though I know him.

Bill Rotsler was another who also thought well of Ellison and frequently called him friend.

#

We were so young and dumb way back in the 1950s, and so ambitious and stuffed to the very gills with potential and aspirations. In Evanston we found another life style besides the commonality of science fiction fandom and fanzine production…and hard work and sleaze by the kiloscoopful. There were parties and lunches and rants and tempers flaring that make mundane commonplace cardboard cutouts of us all.

In 1959 I had a Psycho party that was really just an excuse for a weekend running, mobile party that involved a quick 100-mile drive to Milwaukee with Bob and Fern Tucker and back to Chicago bringing Robert Bloch with us. At Bloch's request, Harlan and Charlotte Ellison were invited to the booze and blowout at my house recognizing the sale of Psycho to Alfred Hitchcock.

There were also a number of hard-working Chicago BNFs of the decade in attendance.

Harlan was magnificent, as if he could be any less. He entertained all of us and kept us holding our sides in pain. He signed books until his hand hurt from all the exercise. And that wasn't all…the next day Harlan continued the party for Bloch, giving him a grand tour of the Rogue offices and a meeting with his old friend, Ellison's new boss, William Hamling.

At the time Harlan was working on Rogue while being set-up to front Hamling's paperback division that was already well underway. Good buddy Robert Silverberg's Love Addict, by Don Elliott (Nightstand Book 1501), appeared in October, and Harlan's Sex Gang, by Paul Merchant (NB1503), in November.

#

As in all true fairy tales, there came a time when I lost the joust and was condemned to a term of incarceration in U.S. Federal Detention Center, Terminal Island, Long Beach California. During this side step from real time, doing things to fill time was mandatory whether or not any thing of value resulted there from. Like classes. There were all kinds of classes taught every day in classrooms throughout the prison facility by people who knew little or nothing about the subjects they were attempting to teach. That's because they were all convicts and part of occupying their time was to have them pretend to be teachers teaching a bunch of people who were pretending to be students. The Feds have this whole thing figured out, they think….

Day in and day out…between smoking joints and snorting lines….

One class was called "Creative Writing" and was taught by a long-forgotten name. As an aside to this class, the teacher tried to bring in guest "lecturers" as often as possible. He had people like stand-up comic John Beyner coming in frequently, and Stacy Keach, etc. I enjoyed this class very much and did everything I could to help make it interesting and rewarding.

I knew that Harlan Ellison was living nearby in the greater Los Angeles metroplex, and I had his address, so I wrote him. I asked Harlan to come to Terminal Island to visit me as a prisoner there but I wanted him to do it through the front door. I arranged for him to come visit me as a guest lecturer for the creative writing class.

Harlan not only readily accepted my invitation, but also put it on a fast-track schedule. He turned up, as prearranged, for the creative writing class and amazed and entertained everyone for nearly two hours as only Harlan can, at his very best, on-stage and shifted into high gear.

Harlan didn't have to do any of that for me, that's what made it special.

That's why it is my all-time favorite Harlan Ellison story…going out of his way to be nice to me and to a bunch of neverwouldbe writers just because he could and did and became remembered for.

[ASIDE: In an incredible piece of irony, shortly after typing this, I found myself rereading a letter from Sarah Jane Moore, who we all knew as "Sally" in the slammer. She, you might remember, was convicted of taking a shot at Gerald Ford; she was also a staff member on the T.I.News when I edited the prison paper, and she was also a member of that creative writing class. Her letter is dated 4-25-76 and, among other things, Sally said, "All I'm saying, Earl, is that we operate on different planes. My friends (comrades) and I are in a deadly serious war against this government and they with us. My friends are being killed and chased…yours are visiting the creative writing class." (Boldface added for emphasis.) And that was a direct reference to Harlan's recent visit.]

#

Many years and many traumas later, I happened to be attending a San Diego ComicCon where Ellison, among other notables, was signing books, etc., for admiring fans. I did not know that he was to be there and it had been at least a decade since we had last seen each other while I was in prison. I was with my son Terry at the time, and we sat in chairs a bit off side to the signing lines.

From that position I could observe Harlan at work, the way he treated his fans standing in line waiting to meet him, the laughter and occasional frowns that greeted some of them. We sat there for quite some time before Ellison spotted me, and made a point of acknowledging my presence and asking me to wait…"Someone I used to know…lifetimes…ago…."

Harlan is far less "on" as the audience diminishes. As the hall grows dim and the numbers shrink, he becomes more person and less commodity. And I didn't make that one up either; it's Bill Rotsler again, from 31 Mar 86 Masque. And Rotsler was right, and I am right. And it is worth the wait to find the person inside and to try to ignore the commodity.

#

William Rotsler liked Harlan Ellison. That's a known fact. All alone that's enough for me.

Something beyond my control keeps forcing me to return to Rotsler's works again and again striving to have them make even more sense today than they did when they were first created. In particular I have been re-recognizing Rotsler's I's as I's for my ezine eI. Along the way many other topics have come forcefully to my attention and not the least of them is Rotsler's admiration of and appreciation for Harlan Ellison.

The pages of sixteen issues of Rotsler's posthumous fanzine Masque are filled with Ellison praise as viewed through Bill Rotsler's very selective eyes. And there is not one single negative Ellison anecdote contained in all those issues. There are vague references to "those 'Ten Nights Down a Rathole' that Harlan Ellison had umpteen years ago" to his most current companion and many mundane things between.

"The Dark Prince of American Letters," by William Rotsler, from Masque

"In March 1984 Rotsler was moving from one residence to another. Writing of this on 26 Mar 84 he said, "I have a bit over two weeks before I can move in. I called Harlan, since I knew he had a guest room and was more or less used to guests. 'I have a big favor to ask,' I said. 'If I can do it, you've got it,' he said briskly. Now that's a friend.

"Actually, he has three guests now, so I won't bother him, but he insisted I call him back if I couldn't find a place, that they'd 'do something.' Well, part of being a friend is not fucking up the lives of your friends any more than you absolutely must…."

7 May 84 "…drove past Dangerous Visions and saw there was a party. Turns out it was their 3rd Anniversary… David Gerrold, Steve Barnes, Harlan (oops) H*A*R*L*A*N, Charlie Lippincott were there…."

20 May 84 "I was over at Harlan's the other day - shooting him and Marty for their book jacket - and he has the most glamorous set up. Yet when I used his ancient manual to write an instruction to the photo lab, I couldn't find anything without a lot of searching - pen, tape, etc. Maybe he has people who come in and 'do' windows and trivialities…."

Conreport 1984 "Came back in Monday night, running late, and had Ed drop me off at Harlan's. They had just all gone to dinner, leaving behind a confused and embarrassed Cathy Novak, who I had invited along.

"We caught up to Harlan and a girl friend…[and numerous others and went to the Dining Car restaurant]. It was a fun dinner and Len got stuck with what I think was a $500 tab. I didn't know we were going fancy or I'd not invited a guest; I got the impression from Julie we were gathering at Harlan's and deciding.

"Anyway, on the way back Harlan's car died. And lived. And died. After several deaths we piled eight people in a small car and went to Ellisonland. Later Len and I went back and picked up Harlan...and everyone played pool at HE's house until late…."

7 Nov 84 "LASFS had its 50th Anniversary dinner the other night. Harlan was the speaker, and although he didn't have a 'subject' he was great, as always, just rambling on, bouncing off questions and memories like a pool ball…."

16 Sep 85 "Harlan called today to berate me for never calling him. I got a quote from him, though: 'Working in television is like working in the (Egyptian) House of the Dead.'"

26 Dec 85 "On Christmas Eve Harlan had in a number of people who 'had no place to go,' or Harlan's Orphans. Everyone brought something - on orders I brought four quarts of sherbet and about four tablespoons were used to cleanse the palate….

"I saw Harlan's latest secret room. I gave him a book wrapped in Betty Boop paper, which he loved and took five minutes to carefully remove the tape, saving the paper… His new secret room is mainly another book storage space but with those one-aisle, many shelf movable stacks thingys…."

19 Apr 86 "Got all excited about getting in on the upcoming Harlan roast. I'm planning to do a slide show, as I told him the other day, if I can get them to let me (and provide a screen)."

21 May 86 "I find Harlan amusing. (Well, we all find Harlan amusing, along with a lot of other things, I imagine, from time to time.) Today, he set up a conference call…to pick up a book HE had originally given me and now wants back for some reason…."

8 Jun 86 "I was very impressed, I must admit, when I got the flyer on Harlan's roast…being up there with Silverberg or David Gerrold is nothing new…nor Bob Bloch and Ray Bradbury... But heading the list is Robin Williams.

"I bet every guy on that list thought two things; (1) God, don't let them put me on after Robin Williams, and (2) William Who? I've decided to do well I must not try to compete in the Straight Insult like the others will do. Therefore I'm giving one of my slide shows on the history of H.E., his family, his 'My Sister-the-Cunt,' writing habits, etc…."

16 Jun 86 "Harlan called yesterday and among other things he wants me to do the slide show… He cautioned me not to pull punches, to be as dirty and lowdown as possible and never worry that I might hurt his feelings or anything. It had never occurred to me it should be any other way."

17 Jun 86 "I love Harlan and the way he does things. He doesn't want to go to Westercon 'not even for your birthday' so he's giving me a party at his place instead, a small chili party."

30 Jun 86 "Left that one early to go to a birthday party Harlan E*L*L*I*S*O*N gave for me. Actually he just discharged a lot of social obligations in one night and called it my party, but there was a cake…which was really a lemon pie, and twice they sang that goddamn song."

13 Jul 86 "Well, last night was the Harlan Ellison Roast. I got to the LA Press Club early, spent some time getting the 35mm projector set up - finding outlets (old building, few outlets), getting a mike strung to me in the back, finding a table and a chair on the table to get the projector high enough, etc…

"The place was crowded…all kinds of people were there - fans, pros, movie folk, etc…

"Then Came The Time. I was first. Digby Diehl read a slanderous statement by Harlan as my intro and I did my slide show. It seemed to be well received - I remember waiting for laughs before moving on…

"Everyone was pretty funny. Even the lawyer

"Then finally it was Robin Williams' turn and he was very, very funny. I kind of felt sorry, since several of the speakers had made mention…out of people really coming just to see Robin Williams. They were all probably right, but I felt for RW: 'Be funny, goddamnit.'

"…Then it was Harlan's turn and he lay waste those around him and some who had put the whole thing on. He even got into a bit of heavy repartee (read 'shouting') with RW and held his own. That's pretty good, considering RW is probably the premiere comic of the day…."

#

The above quotes were selected from the many that grace the pages of William Rotsler's Masque as dated journal entries, and they were all selected from a span of three years, from 1984 through 1986.

#

Harlan and I have shared a number of good friends in common across the last five decades, and both of us have lost an equal number of good ones along the way. One of those old friends, and a person I suspect Harlan rarely thinks of, stood solidly with Harlan and me on the edge of the Rogue/Nightstand/Regency precipice. Richard Yerxa has two Good Harlan anecdotes to share and both of them are from the last half of 1959:

Good Harlan: I remember the first time I "hung out" with Harlan. I don't remember how it came about but I had spent some time at his apartment in Evanston and he got his first credit card in the mail. He was jazzed and we lit out for Wieboldt's fancy new department store with three or four floors and escalators! Harlan bought and bought. We'd start at the top and work down and when we got to the exit Harlan would stop and wonder aloud what he had forgotten, what else he needed, what else he could possibly need or want-and we'd dive back in for another orgy of spending.

Another time I hung with him he decided we had to go down to a TV studio, the "Marty Faye Show," maybe. We arrived at the studio and Harlan bullshitted his way onto the set and walked right onto the show in progress with no invitation-walked right on camera and started rapping. What balls that fellow had! He whipped out a copy of Rogue and held it in front of the camera…. I never was much of a fan of his writing but I was quite taken by his craziness.
                --Richard Yerxa, February 9, 2003

#

In Masque, William Rotsler frequently mentions another mutual friend, Gil LaMont, and usually in connection with Harlan. I asked Gil if he would share a Good Harlan memory with us. He offered two:

Good Harlan 1: Watching the news with Harlan one night, he was appalled at the situation of a woman whose neighbors stole her electricity. They'd run a cable from her meter box up through the window of the apartment above. Although it wasn't her fault, the utility company didn't care, and they were demanding the $500 (!) owed. Although he really couldn't afford it, Harlan contacted the television station and paid the bill, on the condition that he remain anonymous.

Good Harlan 2: My world had fallen apart by the end of 1983. I'd been doing a little proofreading for Harlan, but when I showed up on his doorstep the first day of 1984 with a shaved head and desperation in my eyes, he quickly suggested I move into the "grotto" (the secret bedroom concealed behind a hidden door). I did so gladly. For the next ten months he fed me, kept that roof over my head, and helped me regain my assuredness as an editor. (Together we issued 6 books from his office.) Having Harlan on one's side is a major asset, and we remain close friends.
                --Gil LaMont
#

I asked if anyone on MemoryHole wanted to get into the "Good Harlan" mood, and received two significant responses from old Detroit fans who, like myself, knew Harlan as the noisy kid with too much promise and a heavy need to shake off the dust of Shaker Heights, Ohio.

This is what they had to say:

A time to live and a Time to Die: My wife Sybil was sick for a long time, during fall l999 she saw the doctor and he told the family that he did not expect her to live more than another six months; she kept going down, developed a leg infection and then gangrene. They had to amputate one of her legs and after that she was confined to bed. The time was getting close.

My daughter Cherry was cooking Xmas dinner at her house. I didn't want Sybil to go, but they insisted on it. She was not communicating very much but, Karol bundled her up and we all went in Karol's van. We got to Cherry's about 2 pm and stayed till 8 pm. Sybil sat in her wheelchair, she was alert, turning her head to look at everyone and smiling at the new baby, but I don't think she said a word .

It was time to go so we got in the van and started out. Karol was sitting in the middle seat with Sybil, and Karol's son was in the rear seat. Her son talks loud and fast, at some point he said something that we didn't understand. Sybil raised her head and said, " Was that Harlan?"

Karol said, "Harlan, do you mean Harlan Ellison?"

Sybil said, "Of course I mean Harlan Ellison," and went silent again. Sybil hadn't seen Harlan since St Louiscon in 1969, but her thoughts were on him.

I don't think she said a full sentence in the next week till she went into a coma and died a few days later. Her last communication concerned Harlan.

A week later I phoned Harlan and described the incident. He said, "Gee, that's sort of sad, but it's funny too ."

I said," Of course it is, Harlan, that's why I called you."
                --Howard DeVore, May 2003

#

I have known Harlan Ellison for nearly 50 years. I have seen his private side - and his public side. They are so different that I used to think he had a split personality. I used to kid him that he was running around in verbal raincoat when he wrote. Flipping it open and shouting, "LOOK! LOOK!" Just to see if he would get a reaction out of the readers. Yet there were times when what he wrote was reality.

He taught me how to write, and what to see in a world that was full of wondrous things. He gave me books that I never would have read, and music that I never would have heard otherwise.

If he is your friend, there is nothing he wouldn't do to help you if you needed help... Yet I flinch at the many times I have seen fans try to tear him down just to get a reaction.

I remember the college student in an audience who asked what Dachu was, and Harlan was ready to go after the fool. I remember the time he told a reporter off during the Manly Wade Wellman benefit auction.....
                --Mary A. Southworth, email, May 4, 2003

And others as well remembered a Good Harlan:

Good Harlan: Like the hand carved desk at a Worldcon artshow auction, for which Harlan
deliberately overbid by like a thousand bucks because he thought the artist deserved it?
                --Michael J. Lowery, MemoryHole, May 5, 2003

Good Harlan: Never met the guy, but fifty years ago he was a good guy to me when he shipped me a pile of paper backs in exchange for a few copies of a British comic he wanted for his collection. His gift far outweighed what I sent him. Though, probably now if he still has them, their value will be far in excess of the books.
                --Dave Wood, MemoryHole, May 7, 2003

---
*For the boy inside Harlan who writes so eloquently about the boy inside Harlan. Y tu mama tambien. Dated May 2003.

There are these wonderful, doomed, blessed few who have come our way through the ages who are able to tie up the universe in words and present them to us and say: if you will but immerse yourself, you will be washed clean and come forth anew.
                --Harlan Ellison

Two Editors:
Frank Robinson & Bruce Elliott

By Ted White

Frank Robinson:

Frank Robinson is, without question, the best editor I ever worked with. I've worked with a number of other good editors in my career, but Frank was the best.

In 1960 Harlan Ellison moved back to New York City in early spring from a stint in Chicago/Evanston, and stayed with my wife Sylvia and me for a couple of months before getting his own place just up the block (on Christopher St., in the Village).

Frank M. Robinson - a superlative novelist, a great editor, and a lifelong friend…saw that I was going down the toilet. And one night, in the middle of a party at my home on Dempster Street, filled with freeloaders and adolescents whose names I barely knew, Frank grabbed me by the collar and pulled me into the big walk-in pantry, and he put me against a cabinet and looked into my idiot face, and he said, "You're turning to shit, kiddo. This isn't your way of living. You know even half those creeps out there, breaking up your furniture and puking on your carpet? Get back to the writing. It's the only thing that will save your ass."
                --Harlan Ellison, "Let's Pretend," Edgeworks 2

I remember the first time I "hung out" with Harlan. I don't remember how it came about but I had spent some time at his apartment in Evanston….
                --Richard Yerxa, February 9, 2003

Ted and Sylvia White. fanac.org photo dated December 1959

Around late June or July he got his own place. I introduced him to Billie early that fall, and sometime in October or November they got married and moved back to Evanston to start up Regency Books.

Harlan left Evanston about a year later, coming briefly back to NYC with Billie, with whom he was breaking up. From there they drove out to California to go their separate ways. That was in late 1961.

While he was staying with us, we left him in charge of our apartment when we drove up to Newport for the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival, which I was covering as an editor at Metronome and a columnist for Tom Wilson's Jazz Guide. George Wein (who ran the Festival) was ticked at Metronome's editor, Bill Coss, and refused me press credentials for the Festival, even with Bob Perlongo, the Assistant Editor, standing at my side, vouching for me (he'd ridden up with us). So we turned instead to the "rump" festival being held a mile away at the Cliff Walk Manor, and being run by Charles Mingus.

The afternoon was a weird circus of kids cruising in cars, throwing beer bottles at pedestrians, and occasionally mooning us. That evening, while listening to Ornette Coleman at the Cliff Walk Manor (an outdoor concert with a respectable audience), my eyes began to sting, and I realized that we were being tear-gassed - the tear gas drifting from what turned out to be a riot at the main festival.

Around midnight, after the Cliff Walk Manor concert had ended, Sylvia and I got in our car and left to drive up to Boston where we could stay with friends, since the hotels in Newport were totally booked. On our way out of Newport we encountered roadblocks: we could leave, but no one was being allowed in.

Once in Boston, I called Harlan at our apartment to tell him what had happened. "Oh, man," he exclaimed. "This would make a great article for Rogue!"

So when I got back, at Harlan's urging, I wrote "Riot At Newport," for Rogue. Harlan wrote the first line ("It was a syncopated Sodom and Gomorra") and I wrote the rest - a rather turgid piece.

Harlan "presold" the piece to Frank Robinson, who was then Rogue's editor, but I had qualms about it. It was a bit of a fraud, since I hadn't actually been at the Newport Jazz Festival when the riot occurred and most of what I knew about it I'd gleaned from newspaper accounts and what my friends (like Perlongo) told me about it afterward. I felt uncomfortable writing the piece and it simply wasn't very good.

But when it was published, it actually was good. I read it with amazement. Frank had cleaned the piece up and all but completely rewritten it, as nearly as I could see. (In fact, the piece was subsequently touted to Rogue's other writers a