Ending the Year in that Other Fandom- What they called "The Nut House" was a vintage, two story, wood-frame home in Los Angeles with a sticker on the front door reading “Civilization”. I had missed the October Halloween party, remarkable in that three gate crashers had been ejected and later, driving past firing several gunshots into the house. Diane Pelz and Bill Rotsler had been chatting at the time and Diane was hit with a few wood splinters. The police were called, but nothing came of it.
- My first visit was on New Year’s Eve of '66. Bjo pointed to a vine, growing through the bullet hole in the wall. Evidently Don Simpson and others lived there. He and Ted Johnston had some scheme to persuade the world they were actually aliens from another planet. Now it must be said that Don Simpson was endlessly creative and between he and Ted Johnston concocted a plan using battery powered lights and walky-talkies to manufacture alien-like gadgets. While in an upstairs bedroom, I was asked to inquire as to the purpose of a few mundane household appliances with a sincerity of one “not of this world”. I suppose I was sincere enough as they declared I was an official alien! From where, they weren’t quite sure, but I was to create an official monetary system from our home planet. Fortunately, after that night, I never heard another word of it.
- One of the interesting points of the house, was their library which included a selection of Edgar Rice Burroughs books, entirely in Esperanto!
- As the night wore on, Bruce Pelz and others were involved in a card game called “Bourré”. The hour of midnight drew closer and I was handed the phone dialed for the correct time and told to shout out when it hit midnight. Blindly dutiful, when the moment arose, I yelled “It’s midnight, Happy New Year!” Bruce yelled. . . “QUIET!” and the room fell into a hush as Bruce finished his hand of Bourré, then said, “OK, Now!" And the room broke into the standard screams and exultation associated with New Years Parties. Yes, I kissed Diane Pelz to which she exclaimed "Where do these neofans come from?".
- I sat on the window box near the intruding vine, chatting with Bjo who was surprisingly beside herself with the couples here and there, groping and grappling on the hardwood floor distilling their New Year passion. Rotsler and others would come by and chat for a moment, then resume their merrymaking till the crowds thinned out and by dawn, the revelers had either gone home, upstairs or found a nook somewhere to crash.
- Wow, it appeared I had stayed up all night as several of us sat on the porch watching the sun come up. Bjo and Bjohn assembled a pancake posse to storm the local House of Pancakes around the corner where a dozen of us partook. Bjohn showed up with a baby (Lora). Where she had been all night is anybody's guess but it was like a symbolic bringing out the Baby New Year.
- And thus, we put to bed a damn cool year to greet a new one, packed with jolly promise.
1967 - A Little Taste of Heaven Who would have thought Ricky Schwartz would make the pages of TVGuide, but sure enough, although the thrust of the issue was Star Trek, the article was called "Star Trek Wins the Ricky Schwartz Award". Sure enough, there's a picture of Gene Roddenberry holding a trophy. Truth of it was, Ricky took a sports trophy won by his brother, changed the plaque to something adequate, took it to the studio and there you are.- Maybe this is as good a place as any to introduce Ricky Schwartz. I liked the guy. He was young, enthusiastic and ballsy. We went a lot of places and did a lot of things. He knew everybody and we would spend an afternoon with Paul and Jackie Blaisdell in their Toganga Canyon Hideaway or get taken to lunch by Gene Roddenberry or Forry Ackerman. But Ricky was, in the nicest sense of the word, a "Thief". Not that he would scamper into your home and raid the silver, but if you had anything cool, he would convince you to give it to him for some special event or other and that would be the last you saw of it. If you really came down on Ricky, he would borrow the item back from whoever he sold it to and worry about him later. Clearly a lifestyle that would be catching up to you one of these days
- He was always planning some prank to make himself popular; one such event was telling me his school was having "Sci-Fi Day". Well of course I'd come and Ricky met me in the parking lot and wanted to introduce me to his teacher who was walking toward us. Ricky leans over and whispers: "I told him you're Robert Justman and you'd give a talk on special effects!" I must have been pale and clammy as I shock the teacher's hand - but I did it. I was in front of the classroom of high school kids for an hour telling stories and spewing technical jargon about special effects. It was all crap, I didn't know any stories. Couldn't get away with that today, but then. . . they bought it.
Bloopers- What became a mainstay at Star Trek conventions was a reel of collected outtakes from the Star Trek TV show known as the "Blooper Reel". Gene Roddenberry was kind enough to bring the reel to a meeting of the Count Dracula Society for which was probably the first fannish screening of the film. The room was abuzz with anticipation. Eric Hoffman was the projectionist for the evening and threaded the film. The lights came down, the projector started up and "Poof!" the bulb burned out before a single frame had hit the screen. No one thought of bringing an extra bulb, so that was that and we would have to wait for another day to see the film.
- That came some time later when MENSA had a party at a building downtown Los Angels. Ricky and i shoed up and were dismayed they were charging for the event. Despite their combined wisdom, they didn't realize you could take the elevator to the next floor up, cross over to the opposite elevator and take it down, directly into the party area, which is what we did.
- We had a great time scampering about this grand old building and enjoying the party, but the highlight of the evening was showing the long awaited "Star Trek Bloopers". I think they showed it several times that night. Later on, Ricky was in a hurry to get home, so we took off and half way back to his place Ricky says "Look what I found. . ." and pulls from his pants, . . . . the blooper reel! I don't know what he ever did with it, but I imagine someone at Paramount must have been pissed!
Evan a Man Who is Stewed at Heart. . . - Ricky had been corresponding with Lon Chaney, Jr., living in Capistrano and got us an interview. And so, one Saturday afternoon we found ourselves on the way to Chaney's home. Well, I can't say home, he asked us to meet him at a neighborhood liquor store.
- Ricky and I arrived early and waited patiently in the parking lot, imagining all manner of cool cars Chaney would be driving, when into the lot pulled this beat-ass station wagon and out-stepped the man!
- We approached and the first thing Chaney said was "I've got a Lincoln back at the house, but this is the only car I can get my fat ass in the front seat!"
-
- Ever thoughtful Ricky, knowing Chaney appreciated his liquor brought him a bottle of Whiskey flavored mouthwash. But Chaney seemed a little agitated standing in the lot and asked quizzically, "Yeh, but just who are you guys? Are you fags or what?" I was taken aback by that one, but explained we were just fans wanting to meet the great man! He lightened up, invited us to lunch and we had a grand time at a local eatery listening to a few stories about the old days. Oddly, he could remember few of them. All he could remember about the Wolfman, was during the application of the makeup he was completely stewed. Evidently, many of his roles were performed thusly and it was no surprise he died of liver failure in 1973. It was an interesting if not memorable afternoon with the end of a legacy.
|
A Brief Life on the Hill- When my grandmother died, she left "The Shack"; a little roost just off the road and up the hill from Topanga Canyon. You had to park at a turnout in the road and hike up the narrow one-way path, scarcely wide enough for a bicycle and certainly no place to park. She had purchased a small plot on a steeply inclined hill just over the main (only) road. So steep that should you drop your cantaloupe getting through the door, you'll have to walk back down the hill to retrieve it. The Shack met the pathway on one side and on the other was propped on a series of posts of varying heights keeping it more or less level. But the shack was a treasure for she had left all her books, wooden bookcases, thick dreamy Persian rugs, a potbellied stove, a huge wooden cased radio and a little coil toaster that allowed you to incinerate your bread one side at a time.
- Some would call the place "ramshackle", I called it "picturesque".
- But the magic was in her books, those hardbound beauties with the Brandywine covers and illustrations: "Tom Sawyer". "Treasure Island" and loads of others, But it was a great place to get away, bring a girlfriend for some weekend hanky panky and a few joints, write some poetry, sketch the great outdoors and wake up on a chilly morning to the smell of campfires and fresh air.
- From the Porch
- Somnambulant nights of November
- here but a moment longer.
- A soft chinook stirs the sensitive air,
- The softness of China silk.
- Stars tumble out in disarray.
- From the hill one sees
- the cars flash in and out
- like goldfish in a bowl;
- and lovers park, taking hours
- to say goodnight.
- Above them a delicate sepia etching
- of pepper trees and the fronds
- of Mexican fan palms.
-
- Sunset and we enter the restless opal
- of betwixt and between;
- the breathless beauty of twilight;
- day mingling with the night.
- The immensity of the heavens.
- Down the road next to the market was a swimming pool called Camp Wildwood. Idyllic and beautiful on a hot summer day to lounge or splash about.
- My mother had married another hayseed, a huge, thick-necked drunkard named James who, near the end of their relationship thought it was she who was carrying on up at the shack. One night in a rage, he drove his rickety Willys Wagon up the impossibly narrow pathway and backed it into the shack, sending it bounding pell mell down the hill, crashing onto the roadway in a splintered heap. By the time I heard about it, the shack had been removed by the city off to the dump and that was that.
- I had toyed with leaving home several times in the past, but this was the last of the proverbial straws.
|
