The Count Dracula Society was everything a young fan could desire. Entertainment figures mingling with an enthusiatic gaggle of delusional wannabes. Ray Bradbury, A.E. Van Vogt, Robert Bloch, all came and enjoyed meetings with the rest of us and every year there was an awards ceremony at some restaurant or another. Several hundred guests and members would attend where the award named after Mrs. Ann Radcliffe (The mother of terror and horror" as Don would say) were bestowed upon some lucky individual.
Oh, there were a lot of characters too! Particularly the ever jovial Bongo Wolf(William Donald Grollman). Brilliant on some levels, a train wreck on others. Known for his ubiquitous "Bongo Bag"; in which actually resideded a pair of bongos, assorted dildos, several magazines of an adult nature, several pair of fangs, a noose he would alternate as a necktie and a ream of werewolf pencil sketches he had done and was eager to show anyone. He also carried several photos of himself in younger days when he appeared remarkably "normal" and claimed he became as he was from being the official drug tester for The Beatles and PJ Proby. He also told stories of late night phone calls to Bela Lugosi to which Bela would reply "Why must you torment me??"
Who knows if his tales were true, but they made a good story if not a movie a few years later: "Bongo Wolf's Revenge". The movie, in which I had a miniscule part premiered to a packed house at the Los Feliz Theatre. Seemed the entire premise was to make Bongo look like a complete fool which must have crushed his parents who were sitting in front of me.
Don Glut's 1969 story in "Eerie" Magazine #24 named "Scavenger Hunt" featuring a character patterned after Bongo. Glut also dedicated his book "True Werewolves of History" to Bongo.
In 20 years the L.A. Weekly would refer to Bongo as the "Best Occult Oral Historian" in Los Angeles with this:
Bongo was a real live bongo player in the '60s before his synapses got scrambled. Now his passion is Occult-iana. (That's somewhere left of Uranus.) His eyes gleam behind thick horn-rims and his silver, bowl-shaped haircut, complete with stylin' widow's peak, bounces up and down as he relays tales of vampires, demons, human sacrifices and books on related subjects. Rumor has it that he has the best collection of occult paperbacks in California, but we're too scared to check it out. You'll find him Thursday evenings, around 6 p.m., making his rounds at Hi-De-Ho Comix, wearing a Radio Werewolf T-Short. Rock on, Bongo.
He would call now and again with greetings such as "I'm sitting here with myself in one hand and the phone in the other and thought we should talk!" But it seemed, characters were the backbone of the Dracula Society and certainly the stuff on which Don would build this august empire.
Guest speakers were an interesting lot as well. Writers of arcane literature, gothic, romance, worlds inhabited by ghosts and vampires in particular. Their books were strange even at conventions. One favorite was Devendra P. Varma, author of "The Gothic Flame" on his eternal "Quest for the Numinous" whose knowledge and eloquence was boundless. Alvin Germeshausen, the literary scholar and author whose name can now be found only as a footnote among the dusty tomes of the books he loved, from Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes,H. Rider Haggard and forgotten occult classics. Russell Kirk (The Wizard of Mecosta) was another spellbinding speaker of things ghostly and supernatural. . honoring Russell Kirk at the Germeshausens.
Steve Wachtel checks out the Walt Daugherty Exhibit
The third Count Dracula Society banquet was held at Rudi's Italian Inn on March 21, 1965. The Mrs. Ann Radcliffe Award was dished out along with the pasta to Ray Bradbury, Vincent Price,Alfred Hitchcock with a special award going to vampire scholar Father Brocard Sewell. Well, Bradbury and Sewell showed up anyway, but the day couldn't have been any grander being surrounded with such a great collection of characters. Don knew a follower when he saw one and quickly made me a Governor of the Society! Award .
Any exhilaration was soon quenched as the otherwise delightful mailman brought me that all too dreaded letter from Uncle Sam - my draft notice! At first, I was OK with it; after-all, I wasn't the only one expecting the same military missive. The prevailing wisdom of the day was, if you waited to be drafted instead of enlisting, you'd go directly into the Army or Marines! A fate worse than death as the Vietnam conflict was igniting.
My father, an old Coast Guard man carted me to the Coast Guard recruiting office and proudly presented me to the uniforms in charge. Yeh, there was a lot of manly nostalgia going down about the old days until I was called upon to take my first test. A quick one only requiring me to identify the number on a colored panel. FAIL! Yes, fail. Turns out I'm color blind and cause for getting the bum's rush! It was a long, quiet drive home and while I had no desire for the service; still, I was embarrassed and ashamed failing so dramatically and stupidly in front of my father. Next on the list was the Navy Reserves; less picky, yet with the influx of young recruits avoiding the Army, I was again given the boot.
An thus, on a warm Saturday afternoon, I took it upon myself to hitchhike to the local draft board and sign up for the Navy who would take anyone, no questions asked. Deed done, I walked back to the curb and put out my thumb and was quickly picked up by an older gent whom I explained my recent act of blind patriotism. "Whoa!" he bellowed, offering a large, calloused, congratulatory hand. "I was in the Navy during the "Big One" he continued, "And you know the best thing about being in the Navy?"
"Uh, no." I responded.
"I never had to shit in the dirt!" he exclaimed.
"Well, that's a plus", I thought to myself.
In an act to prove I wasn't scared shitless, some local friends and I hit the beach for a night of hot dogs and sand in our pants. Jeri, Jerry, Me, Tina, Jim and Joe>
But here we were, on the verge of a life altering experience under the threat of going who knows where for who knows what. I had received a notice to take the physical; a nasty business. Showing up at a large, dystopian structure in downtown Los Angeles at the crack of dawn you are immediately ordered to doff your duds and thus remain for the entire day; a parade of overexposed youth of every color and description with nothing else to lose, but their freedom.
Stand here, pee there, give blood somewhere else, fill this out; must have been 50 of us standing in a circle as this immense black jarhead, proceeded unceremoniously, grabbing each by their fundaments, commanding, "Turn your head and cough" then moving to the next without so much as a handi-wipe. And thus, poked and prodded, thumped and queried, a goodly portion of the day had passed before we were set free with a farewell promise "You'll be hearing from us".
All was not lost just yet; before I was shipped off to parts unknown, there were several things pleading for my attention and both happening on the same day. One being the latest incarnation of the Crummy Loogie Bomb. We had taken the entire year filling a brand new 33 gallon garbage can with thousands of matchheads, fireworks of all kinds, cotton packing and at last it was ready for detonation on the fourth of july.
Damn, I thought, I'm going to miss it! For there was something grander out there: Westercon 18!
Westercon 18 July 3 through 5, 1965.
Don Reed used my place to change into more comfy convention attire and thus bedecked in official vampire drag, off we went, merrily on our way to the Edgewater Inn, arriving in the early afternoon and began our fannish hobbnobbery with the natives, plus distributing homemade delegate badges. A delegate was anybody who happened to show up and mind you, there were a few! My first thoughts about fandom as opposed to the Count Dracula Society was, since I’d been reading “Fandom Was A Way of Life”, a family and so on, that nobody said “HI”, wanted to show us around, was remotely friendly or tried to connect in the most insignificant way. Much of the events elude me today, but that which I found of interest was meeting authors whose work I enjoyed. Ray Bradbury, Fritz Leiber, Hal Clement, Lester del Rey and Guest of Honor Frank Herbert.
I sat in on a Bradbury panel, next to a rather hairy, shabbily dressed fellow who was picking bits of grit from inside his shoe and eating it. There was an art show and a fundraising auction in which author Harlan Ellison would use the winner's name and three arbitrary words of the winners choice in a story. The winner was Larry Niven who produced his three words; Serapé, Minotaur and Polyp. There was also a banquet at which Frank Herbert won the Invisible Little Man Award proclaiming a "heavy fella'", quickly followed by .
Don and I at Banquet
With Fritz Leiber. . .
and Ray Bradbury
The Count Dracula Society in (and out) of costume.
Top Row: Tim Rusk and Jerry Fiore.
The Rest: Joe Viskocil, Me, Don Reed, Mark Shephard,
