Forward Into the Past

White Rabbits, and the heat wave begins. Although I decided to make an English breakfast (lots of different breakfast meets plus eggs plus caramelized onions) I knew I'd be taking it easy the rest of the day. But I'd promised a work colleague that I'd send her a photo of all the old gum wrapper chains I'd made during my childhood and even into my young adult years, so I had to get out the five tin containers in which I've kept them lo these many decades, and while I was at it I dragged out the three or so jars of buttons I've kept for nearly that long. I even tried my hand at lengthening a couple chains with some wrappers still in the tins and, hey, I've still got it. I'm not crafty but by golly I can still chain gum wrappers! Anyway, Robin and I will devise a photo shoot tomorrow in the hopes that someone may want to give these sentimental treasures a good home. Meanwhile, more World Cup (England won, hoorah, USA winning at the moment but down to 10 men) and sending out of laundry (since put away!) and just not trying to move around too much in this heat. The living room blinds and shades are drawn closed until at least Saturday. Ugh...

Silly Site o' the Day

Well, that's my big social soiree for the year! And what a perfect day. By the time we got to the NJ side of the GW Bridge the sun was actually shining. On a Saturday! Unexpected and wonderful. We drove across I-80, down I-287, then across I-78, amidst the trucks and cross-country adventurers, and admired the absolutely awesome foliage along the way. I live all year for this. I guess in a way I also live all year for my annual college service frat reunion party, but this year was extra special as my old roomie from my junior year, was going to be in from CA, and I haven't seen her in lo these 40-plus years. But the light was still in her eyes as we hugged and hugged; she'd just lost her husband of lo these same decades, and they were kind of the Brenda and Eddie of my college experience, so I was pretty heartbroken on her behalf. But she was, as she's always been, amazingly resilient and still smiling and laughing, so that along with so many other moments should make for lovely memories (if I can hang onto them). We even got home with no problem, as I decided to ignore the GPS in favor of my driving instincts which turned out correct (I-80 turns into I-95 no matter what side of the divide you take). After this I just want to go back to my old yearbooks and seek out their photos again, but I'll make do with this instead.

Silly Site o' the Day

The foot discomfort eased a bit, enough for me to take a trip stumbling down memory lane for a project one of my Firesign friends is doing. It feels like that was a different person, but I'm glad I have my old zines around to serve as at least some sort of memory bank. So much of my youth has blended into the background like so many pop culture characters on sidewalks...

Silly Site o' the Day

So all this reconnecting with college frat brothers and figuring out where I go from here with seeing my comic book-y friends and thinking (as I always do) of folks I've lost like Leah and Bill-Dale and my dad and my aunts Laura and Kenie and my uncle Max, well, I'm kind of getting wistful for my childhood days. I kinda wish I could go back and tell stuff to my younger self. Or at least take cool Photoshopped selfies with the younger Elayne the way this guy did with his own boyhood self (via Laughing Squid). Alas, we only time travel in one direction in real life and the other direction in our memories...

Silly Site o' the Day

This was one of the weirdest days I've had in awhile. I felt... off all day. Woke from a nightmare, and just couldn't recover my equilibrium. So I cancelled a non-essential doctor's appointment, Rob and I got our shopping errands done, and then we were off to the wilds of Jersey for the first college reunion I've ever attended. This was mostly folks from my fraternity, Alpha Phi Omage, plus some spouses and friends. I remembered a few of them, some looked just like the did in my memory (and apparently that feeling was mutual), and I like to think I made a better impression as an almost-60-year-old than I did as an awkward college kid with no discernable social skills. One frat brother asked me if I were still writing, which made me happy because, well, see here! We didn't stay more than a couple hours as that part of NJ doesn't believe in street lights on their highways and I dislike driving in the dark in unfamiliar areas. I think we'll stay for dinner next year and perhaps crash at my brother's place around 15 minutes away. Overall I'm pretty sure I had fun, so it had a happy ending, much like this graffiti fairy tale.

Silly Site o' the Day

Tomorrow's the "big day" as it were, my fifteenth blogiversary! In the meantime, I've been helping out a fellow Firesign fan get some snippets together for something going on at the end of this month at the Library of Congress, so I've been immersed in some of their old radio shows, much of which I'd either forgotten or never heard in the first place. They did a lot of radio in the early '70s! And influenced tons of people, it should go without saying, one group of which was Duck's Breath Mystery Theater. BoingBoing reports on a documentary covering their grand finale:



Robin, please remind me to download this to celebrate my blogiversary!

Silly Site o' the Day

Looks like Friday the 13th done fell on a Monday this month, but it was a pretty good day nonetheless, and I was interviewed after work by a Ph.D. candidate writing his dissertation about '80s counterculture. He seemed to believe INSIDE JOKE was somehow central to that, particularly to the zine scene, and in truth I hadn't enough recollection to say whether he was correct so I went with it. I'm so not a trendsetter, but it was fun. I should have taken him up on his offer of a beer, as that might have kept me in the city for Manhattanhenge, but I'm an old fuddy-duddy who wanted my fuddy-hubby so there you are. I wish him luck with his paper, and remind him how people argue about research they don't like (via io9).

Remembering the Eighties

It's done. I've come full circle, in a way. In my first-ever blog post, I mentioned a zine I used to self-publish from 1980 through 1990 called INSIDE JOKE. IJ was kind of my first, best foray into the wider world of one-to-many communication, the way we all did it in the years after photocopying became cheap and before the internet made snail-mailed newsletters cost-prohibitive compared to websites and blogs. Anyway, as I may have mentioned I spent a day during my last vacation week scanning in all 80 issues of IJ and Drop Boxing them to Tom Gedwillo, who wanted to host them on his Chromium Switch website, where my other '80s/'90s zine Four-Alarm FIRESIGNal resides.

This past weekend I wrote what I hope is a fairly comprehensive overview of IJ and such, which Tom also put on his site. And at long last, every single issue of INSIDE JOKE is online and available for download. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

Silly Site o' the Day

This is relevant to my interests - check out today's Google doodle, an interactive Venn diagram. Via Robin. Edited to add: Via Susie, this is the Venn diagram of the day.

Silly Site o' the Day

Can't seem to wake up. I think it might be due to allergy season, or the vernal equinox (happy spring, everyone!), or just working late every day this week and being "on call" today again. Oh, speaking of Captain Equinox, don't forget to tune into the re-premiere of that old '60s favorite Radio Free Oz - now online for the new century! There will be a special group listening party on the Firesign chat page tomorrow from 9 to 11 PM Eastern Daylight Saving Whozeewhatsit Time - see you there!

It's Magic!

Our great thanks to Mark Evanier, who treated us to a lovely lunch at The Magic Castle. Lots of terrific chit-chat and Mark took us on a tour of the place afterwards. Mandatory celeb-spotting as we were leaving included Jo Anne Worley and Penn & Teller. (I didn't see Worley but Mark did, and as we were outside waiting for the valets to bring our cars I heard her unmistakable voice from inside. And alas, I didn't hear Teller speak at all.) I couldn't help but wonder if Penn & Teller are at the Castle every Friday for lunch. Here's Mark and Robin in the parking lot; the Hallowe'en decor abounds both outside and in.



Our very enjoyable time was preceded by a nice phone conversation with Phil Proctor from The Firesign Theatre, whose fan newsletter I published on and off for a decade or so in the '80s and '90s. By the way, did I mention that Tom Gedwillo (my "predecessor" of sorts in Firesign fan publishing) is back with the Chromium Switch website and blog? Anyway, Phil's schedule just didn't mesh with ours this time around. And after lunch we had a drive all around Hollywood and Beverly Hills and Bel Air and Santa Monica and even a bit of the Pacific Coast Highway and Robin really enjoyed it, but it wore him out. So he's currently sleeping whilst I'm catching up on blog reading, and later on we get together for dinner with Mom and my youngest brother Jay, both of whom flew in today, and bro Gene and sis-in-law-to-be Bridgette. So expect a number of family photos once we return, mostly for other members of my family who read this.

Forward into the Past

As I've elected to listen to some Firesign during my commutes, and particularly during the long drive home from Mom's house next Tuesday, I figured it was high time I organized my Firesign CD collection. Lo and behold I'm missing a few -- yes, me, the former Firehead Head! -- so Robin's going to be transferring the following from my LP collection onto CD so I don't have to search for 'em: Not Insane (1972), Lawyer's Hospital (1982), The Three Faces of Al (1984) and Eat or Be Eaten (1985). I could have sworn I have the CD+G version of EoBE somewhere, particularly because the '80s were my era, when I was actually putting out their newsletter -- but hey, that was over 20 years ago, it could be anywhere now. (Rob's going to buy me the EOBE and Martian Space Party VHS tapes, which we'll then transfer to DVD along with my VHS copies of Weirdly Cool and probably throwing in Everything You Know Is Wrong as well before that tape becomes hopelessly warped-not-in-a-good-way.) Also need to transfer 10 of my 11 Dear Friends discs (I have CDs of #1 and #6, the only one I don't own on vinyl), particularly #8 as that's the one with the straight reading of AA Milne's Winnie the Pooh story "Eeyore's Birthday," one of my favorites.

On Idiots and Privilege

So way too many people are giving Don Imus way too much publicity by talking about him, and I'm sorry I'm adding to that. The last (and only) time I saw Imus in person was as an audience member of his thankfully-cancelled television show, the name of which I can no longer remember. I do recall that weatherperson Mark McEwen was his sidekick and, while I didn't think the two had any chemistry, neither did I sense any race-based animosity either.

[Incidentally, while I was looking for the name of the show I came across this blast from the past (2002):

Perhaps shock radio is behaving a little bit better these days. But how long will that last? asks the New York Times.

The Times' question has been raised by Infinity Broadcasting's firing last month of two star radio hosts - Gregg Hughes, who is known as Opie, and Anthony Cumia - after they broadcast a live account of a couple having sex in the vestibule of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan last month. The incident was part of a contest to see who would have sex in the riskiest place.

The piece does not address the racist rants on shock-jock Don Imus' show, a favorite of well-known journalists. Imus-watcher Philip Nobile tells Journal-isms that Imus sidekick, producer Bernard McGuirk, discussing the CBS NFL pre-game show today says of the African American Deion Sanders, Boomer Esiason and another white ex-player: "Basically, you have a pimp and two meatheads."

So, you know, none of this is exactly new.]

Anyway, I had been invited to the taping by Phil Proctor and Peter Bergman, who were guests on the show, and wrote about it here. At the time I thought Imus was creepy and craggy and probably a drunk, even though (or especially when) he addressed me directly in the audience Q&A portion, and nothing I've seen since has changed my mind.

So nothing he says surprises me, but I fail to see why he keeps getting airtime -- both to spew his unfunny and unshocking prejudices and to have those same prejudices talked about 24/7 on cable news shows. It also saddens me that so many people aren't getting why the black community is upset over his latest remarks and his bad "apologies" that make things worse. Is there something that clicked with Michael Richards that hasn't clicked with Imus? Did the former incident remove the white privilege blinders more clearly because it featured the "n" word so prominently, while the latter only featured a euphemistic "n" phrase? Or because many people always thought of Imus as somewhat idiotic so him acting true to his perceived character is no big deal, whereas Richards may have been held in slightly higher esteem due to his Seinfeld connections?

When Lives Collide

So I'm in the middle of Firesign chat and my old friend Jan just happens to call so we're chatting and catching up for about 15 minutes, then I realize one of the chatters' names is familiar and someone starts talking about Uncle Floyd and lo and behold, this chatter (Bob Caterino) used to be a Floyd cast member, a couple years before I started hanging with the cast. The threads of my life are interweaving again. It gets very confusing when that happens all at once.

Geeky Gals Who Think Like I Do

Growing up I never had that many local female friends who were geeky in the same way I was. None of the other social misfit gals with whom I hung out seemed to have the same kinds of obsessions that I did. With a few exceptions (Helene the drummer at summer band school, my best friend Debby who loved Donny Osmond the way I loved David Cassidy), all through my school years my geekiest friends seemed to be male, and I didn't think that much of it because, in enjoying the same things they did and in not looking like a typical girl (I was large and boisterous, had very short hair and hadn't developed too many social skills, much like them) I guess I was accepted into their unspoken clubhouse.

After college, though, things shifted a bit when I struck out on my own, figuratively at least. I had befriended a few girls involved in Uncle Floyd fandom and who regularly caught other comedy acts like "Weird" Al Yankovic, but for the most part they didn't live near me. Jill, whom I met at a number of Jewish singles events, did. She introduced me both to actually effective pot and The Firesign Theatre in the same evening, and that's when it dawned on me both that "oh my god, there are people out there who think like I do!" and that women could be clever geeks and be very girly as well.

So Jill was one of them – more accurately, One of Us – and was around a lot during my INSIDE JOKE years, when I met more women who thought like I do. Those were the years of the zine scene, science fiction fandom, apas and so forth. And there was Anni Ackner and Candi Strecker and lots of others whose names are since lost to the aether of an aging brain. And we kind of stood out, especially those of us with zines that weren't strictly about sf fandom, because there weren't all that many young women self-publishing zines in those days. Like many pop culture hobbies, the zine scene was pretty male-dominated.

And then I married Steve and my circle of friends widened to encompass comic book fandom, and now that I'd attained the requisite social skills to get by in the real world it was like hitting a brick wall. After the relative female-friendliness of sf fandom, it was kind of a shocker hanging with all these guys who were creative and enthusiastic, to be sure, but also didn't seem to know how to deal with a woman who shared their interest. It was as though the unspoken clubhouse had suddenly reared its ugly head again, and after the comparative luxury of female geeky friends in IJ and sf circles I wasn't that used to being on the outside any more.

To me, comics were just another thing to read; I hadn't gotten into them earlier because, while I enjoyed (and still do) the fantasy aspect of "what would you do if you had amazing powers?" I found them too soap-operatic and didn't have the inclination (or money) to keep track of their interwoven plots. With Steve's help I'd quickly been brought up to speed on what was happening at the time and who was whom in the various "universes." He didn't prepare me for how female characters were depicted, but I'd had too many years of sighing in libraries during high school because Heinlein's space adventure books were soooo male that having female characters present at all in this new-to-me hobby was something of a relief. And of course, being the '80s, there were always plenty of independent comics to read as alternatives, including most of what Eclipse put out which was by and large female-friendly. Not having had the Marvel/DC habit ingrained in me as a youngster, I didn't put more weight on the content of those companies' books than that of the other comics I bought. So, while the social aspect of comics fandom was disappointing, the hobby itself still entertained me for the most part.

As the '90s rolled in, the more "grim and gritty" comics I encountered the harder the depictions of women characters became to ignore, particularly the visuals. And after the "speculeech" crash a lot of female-friendly indies went by the wayside, leaving mostly the male-appeal stuff. By this time I'd schooled myself in enough comics history to differentiate artists' styles, and I was learning more all the time thanks to apas, conventions and the Internet. And I knew it hadn't always been thus, both from a perusal of the medium's history and from my own personal experience. I was able to join Friends of Lulu, an organization which had just gotten off the ground and was determined to increase the visibility and viability of women in all aspects of the industry, from creators to retailers to fans, and that's where the great majority of my feminist energy went for the rest of the decade, as my circle of female geek friends increased.

By the turn of the century it appeared things were turning around. Many male as well as female readers were bored with "all grim all the time" and looking for books with more universal appeal. Girls were getting into manga in a big way. Women were becoming so accepted at conventions and on creative teams that some began to wonder if a specifically pro-woman industry group was even all that necessary any more. And yet, telltale signs remained that parity was far from achieved: the "cool" artists of the moment not quite getting that, to paraphrase Andrea Rubinstein, kick-ass female characters have no real claim to strength when their every move is in the context of male desire (skimpy clothes, butt- or boob-shots, etc.); the dearth of female names on convention guest lists and anthology "training ground" books at the Big Two; and the persistent creepiness of many male fans and pros at industry social gatherings (including not even giving any forethought to whether holding some of those gatherings at strip clubs or Hooter's breastaurants was at all welcoming to fellow creators and fans).

Every now and then such simmerings of frustration boil over, as evidenced by the most recent spate of feminist posts chronicled these last two weeks at the excellent link-farm When Fangirls Attack!, begun when one comics professional's dissatisfaction with conditions that virtually screamed at her "We don't want you girls in our clubhouse!" prompted her to give up on working in the so-called mainstream (the part of the industry that actually affords established creators a decent living). At such times when the glass ceiling seems more impenetrable than ever, it's heartening to see how many of us "geeks that think like we do" there really are. Thanks to the internet dozens of women, and not a few men, have weighed in on the subject with their own experiences, support and advice on how to continue improving things. And comics being at present but a tiny sliver of the entertainment pie with a loyal but vocal audience, chances of improvement are fairly good. After all, everyone concerned, from readers to creators to suits, wants to see the industry grow again. And being more welcoming to half your potential audience seems a win-win situation. The more feminist readers speak out about how to remedy continuing inequities, the closer those remedies become to implementation, and the more geeky friends we can all discover who think like we do.

Kicking It Old Style

Hey bloggers, remember online chatting? I know, that's so very-late-20th century. But thanks to Firesign chat tonight I became reacquainted with someone from my INSIDE JOKE days, way back before online-anything even existed (well, for the most part). So there you are. Obligatory shout-out to Rick in El-Lay!

The Greater Whole

[This is my entry in the Arrival Day 2005 blogburst.]

For as long as I can remember, I've been a "joiner." When I was a kid it was extra-curricular stuff like choirs and bands and BBYO and summer day camp (where I stayed on for years afterwards as a counselor) and the world of penpals and teenybopper mags and fan clubs, then in college it became APO and Queen's Chorale and whatever Bill-Dale Marcinko dreamt up from year to year, then afterwards it was Uncle Floyd and sf fandom and apas and zines and comics fandom and Firesign fandom and the world gradually went digital and it was CompuServe fora and mailing lists and Usenet and now message boards and blogs. And for each hobby-du-jour I seem to immerse and invest myself rather heavily, but I've also found through the years that a number of these hobbies seem to intersect with one another from time to time like a Venn diagram.

Which I don't find at all surprising, as many people are drawn to these creative hobbies for their communitarian aspects. It's also why many folks who aren't as geeky as me find comfort in religion. It's very empowering to know that you're not the only one who believes in or has passion for something, that lots of others out there also "think like you do." And I suppose it's what attracts folks to politics as well, the idea that by pulling together we can make our communities, our country, our world a better place than it was before.

That there is strength in numbers, in communities of like-minded people, tends to frighten those in power (particularly the current batch), because ordinary citizens outnumber them greatly and they achieve and maintain that power in large measure due to the tactic of "divide and conquer." This kind of scapegoating can have tragic consequences, as we know, but at the very least internecine squabbling takes power away from groups of ordinary people acknowledging their common humanity and focuses undue attention on the fighting itself (whether physical or verbal) rather than on what needs to be accomplished. Every now and then we can shake ourselves out of this media-induced lethargy, particularly when tragedy strikes as we've all seen this past week, but it isn't long before we pit ourselves against each other again for the amusement (and ultimate benefit) of the most privileged classes.

Sometimes it's an uphill struggle to remember that we're all human beings, we all have the same basic needs and desires and dreams and we ought to be afforded the same basic rights and dignity and chances to fulfill those dreams. Being outward-directed is usually a good start in the direction of reconnecting with the community spirit; it's one reason why, stuck as I am in a suburb-based soul-sucking job that affords me little leisure-time energy and mobility when I'm not on vacation, I've taken to reading others' blog entries far more often than writing my own. I've always maintained that just about everyone I know is more interesting than I am, and I hope I'll always feel that way. Thank you all for being a part of my greater whole.

Fireblog Alert - New Story Enter!

Gah, slept much of the day away, and I'm currently struggling to finish my final updates on the WDC and ISW lists before handing them over to my successor, so no Great Big Book of Tomorrow review yet. I still hope to get to it, you guessed it, tomorrow. :) Meantime, for your reading pleasure, Phil Austin presents the short story The Precipice of Angels on the Firesign Theatre's blog site. Enjoy.