MASQUE

TALL STORIES

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She's so old the zodiac only had ten signs then.

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Picture magazines have become frozen television.

--------------------------------~-------------------"Better the evil you know than the evil you don't know," is the excuse people have used since ancient times to explain why they haven't don't something about either evil.

MASQUE formerly Kteic Magazine is published on a whimsical schedule by William Rotsler 17909Lull Street, Reseda, CA 91335 ©1994 All unsigned items are by the editor.

Advice to Children: Destroy your report cards because unless you got straight A's you won't want your children ever to know. Waiting is nature's way of telling you it will get back to you. Rebecca Kurland

Roisler's Law of Turnpike Restaurants: The word cuisine" is inoperative and irrelevant. Equally incorrect: Home cooking, Good Food and chef." JJ

She's the kind of woman who greets you at the door with, "Hello, darlingwhere's for dinner?" Men who shave have unnatural faces.

1/

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My psychiatrist tell me I'm improving. He lets me sit up on the couch now. ------------------------------------------------------

The sooner creativity is fostered the better. But adults must encourage and help and not censor or the child will abandon his or her creativity and seek safer and more conventional paths of expression. You gain superstar status in Hollywood when your mansion is no longer known by the name of the celebrity who built it or lived in it, but by your own.

We are all more comfortable, and much relieved, when someone volunteers to do the dirty work, whether it be the .dishes or the Presidency. We avoid responsibility, are insecure in our ability, lazy and weak. -----------------------------------------------------Jerry Ford was President Pro Tern. ------------------------------------------------------

Preservatives may preserve food-· but not you.

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()

../

,.

~_J

OXNARD, NEW CALIFORNIA Modern presidents have been criticized for having speechwriters, unlike the giants of the past, like Jefferson or Lincoln. These critics forget that all presidents up to the electrionic age made few speeches, were asked fewer questions, had simpler issues, and didn't know what a "press conference" was. Her voice came softly, asking for assurances, quietly hoping for an erotic medal. Images of Love

Art is the only certain communication between one people and another, between one generation and another, no matter how distant in time or space.

I was cast aside like a sucked orange.

Artichokes are the only vegetables that fight back. Sharman DiVono

Neuroses, symbols, fetishes, compulsions-doesn't anyone do anything for fun anymore? If you cannot accept the truth, then get violent, abusive or skeptical-that's the normal reaction. ---------------------------------------------The basis of every relationsdhip is needs.

My head is due fora 40,OOO-think tuneup. Today's woman is not yesterday's Woman. She's not even this afternoon's woman. ------------------------------------------------------

Artists are translators of reality.

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The heritary paths in the sea and sky and on the land of migrating wildlife are the ·most ancient of freeways.

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Speaking of 20 July 69 ... 1 had a big party that day, a long party. I don't really remember who was there. Paul Turner, Evan Hayworth, who had the 15-year-old girl he was to eventually marry, some others, including Michael Kurland, who said he was there and I don't remember at all. I remember being "high" but I don't think it was a chemically-aided takeoff. I remember. telling everyone to go out on the wide balcony that went the whole width of the house on the two levels and "Smile" as the astronauts. prepared to take a picture ·of Earth. Some of us 01' time fans were looking at the lander and kept sating it was the wrong shape, until Wendy (the ·15-yearold) said, "What do you mean it's the wrong shape? It's the shape it is!" We explained that we grew up expecting the moon rocket to look like a Hugo, to go up in one piece and come down in one piece and that the little scrap that was left just· wasn't "right." She never did understand. Later:

Later

Add to the above "Tantala Talks," an interview with "Tantala Ray," a dominatrix. She id a lot of fun, has fun (serious fun) with what she does, which for your local fans is Club "0" in West Hollywood, our very own Perverse City.

•

III

•

still:

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•

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----------------------------------------A cow is grass's way of becoming dinner. -----------------------------------------

You see much worth seeing while traveling the world,- but much of it is not worth going to see.

----------------------------------------For some, going into show business 1s a drive; to others, just work. For some, it's fun; to others, drudgery. For some, going into showbiz is purest ego; to others, the impurest ego, .

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----------------------------~-----------Say what you think but first¥" think what you say.

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Tell me who you could kill if you were certain of not being caught and I'll tell you what kind of person you are.

Knowing what you can't do is more important than knowing what you can do, for it saves a vast amount of energy, running around, and ego deflation.

---------------------------------------Most family trees are bushes or scraggly stalks, but fortunately there are a few. great oaks and, here and there~ a sequ01a. But there are also palms, bend1ng to the storms of time.

---------------------------------------I found the above in the Gertrude Stein Diet is a Diet is a Diet Diet, or maybe it was in the minutes of the Jean-Paul Sartre Flippancy-in-Literature Brigade.

---------------------------------------On the difference between poise and confidence: Poise os confidence that if your confidence goes you'll still look good.

---------------------------------------Our sense of failure and disappointment at divorce, our feelings of guilt and shane, are just reflections of an injured ego. How could we, of all people, make such a mistake?

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---------------------------------------Greg & Joan Benford were in town and last night we assembled at the Pournelles and went to dinner at a good but very noisy Greek restaurant, where Roberta got up at the insistence of the owner (I think) and danced her little heart out quite well.

19 July 85

13 July 85

Just watched a few minutes of the LIVE AID concert, not for the music but the technical expertise by which they did it. They get about a 6. Noticed most "shots" were 4, 5 seconds long. But what really got me were the images of the starving Africans, those poor sonsabitches. It brought tears to my eyes and god knows I've seen those kind of picttures often enough. In fact, I think I~ve seen them all my life. Still can't still the shots of insects crawling across not-quite-dead-faces of infants. So to "buy" my way out of the feeling I came in here & wrote a check for far more than I can afford, since I am very broke at the moment. (Don't tell me the gifts that hurt are the best kind, hey. ) Yesterda7 I spent about 90 minutes being examined by the doctor for the Opposition in my accident case, X-rayed out the kazoo, probed & questioned. Not fun. I'm really tired of feeling all beat up. My hands are the worst ever, with now pains in the tendons up the forearms. One of the worst parts of this all is that I feel singularly uncreative. On the bright side, a video company is taking my HOLLYWOOD BLUE VIDEO tape for distribution--not in their hardcore area, which would be inappropriate, but in their general section, which it will be "risque." Have no idea what this means in money-probably not very much. I've written a letter to the guy who I thought I had a deal with (to make a deal) and told him since after almost 6 weeks he hasn't called back, fuck off. (I did it more politely than that, but ... ) You pay alimony

as ransom

for freedom.

The Pournelles have remodeled their home, shoving out for a music room for Roberta, and up for a second story which is all work space for Jerry. "It's been called the Grand Hall," he said and it looks it: a high-ceiled, housewide room with leather sofa & chairs and many bookcases, swords, knives, etc. A Neverto-be-seen writing room off that with a fan & exhaust setup just so Larry Niven can smoke & the dirty, filthy fumes be sucked out to pollute the rest of the world. Plus a bath, storage room, and a very large room filled with computers. Jerry gets them to reviews as I do books & Grennell does guns. There's a balcony or terrace or something out front, brick facade, with 2 griffons on the ledge. I said, "Yet to come is the audio detectors for when there is a rising verbal noise level in the neighborhood. This will trigger the heating system to boil the oil and a tracking system will aim the gargouyles." I also criticized the remodeling as wrong because there were no arrow slits. The remodeling has almost doubled the space of the house and probably given Jerry 6 or 8 times the work space. It was a good evening of talk-politics, science, art, furniture, people. You know the kind. Joan looked well, tanned and quiet. She's been attending a Getty Institute series of classes for grammar school art teachers, involving portable museums, which from her description I'd say was an excellent scheme. Getty is not trying to make artists but art appreciators, and their plan is excellent. "The thus self

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Noise is the chief product of civilization. Today we can export noise to other cities and countriesvia.radio, television, records and the telephone.

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liberty of the individual must be far limited: he must not make hima nuisance to other people." (John Stuart Mill) 0

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There are styles in opinions and philosophies just as there is in fashion. And, as in fashion, there are those who follow the trends slavishly.

I bad an odd experiencetbe other day. I think I mentioned that some days, after a 3pm porn film screening in town the traffic might be heavy, so I'll go to a movie or bookstoring or something. So I went to see Pale Rider, at the 5pm show in a large Hollywood theater. I was the only person in the auditorium for several minutes. Then in came a woman I took to be a baglady type-strange, fuzzy, wraparound clothes, scraggly fuzzy hair, etc. She sat down about four seats from me. Now you know the feeling ... hundreds of seats & she sits next to me. She was talking to herself, or I think she was talking to herself. Looking back, she might have been talking to me. Then she was talking to me. "Hey! Got a cigarette? I like Clint Eastwood. The popcorn here sucks. Want to see my boobies?" That one made me blink. Did I hear her right? I looked at her and realized she was not really a baglady; lf anything I suppose she was chic. Sloppy as hell, but chic. The wraparound clothes were clean and interesting fabric, the fuzzy hairstyle that new type that looks as though they washed it, let it dry without combing. You know the kind I mean. And she was in her late twentyies to early thirties, had a plain face and .•. Well, she didn't wait for an answer for any of the questions, much less the last one. I thought she was fumbling in her lap but then I realized she was hunched over and was unbuttoning something. Her. blouse. She whipped it open almost with a Ta-Dah! and showed me two reasonable similar, well-tanned breasts. In fact, they weren't bad at all. "You have lovely breasts," I said to the flasher. She looked at the back of the theater and up toward the booth. Then she stood ~ and turned

toward the rear and really snowea off her boobs, laughed with what I can only describe as a maniacal cackle, covered up and ran to the aisle and up and out. I looked around. I was· alone. Then two people can in, then some more. I never saw her again, though she could have come back in when it had started and left during credits. I've never been flashed by anyone before that I didn't know, much less a woman. Figure models used to do it all the time, but that .doesn't count because I knew them & it was "professional." Odd. A female flasher in the Vogue Theater. Not bad boobs, either. 28 July 85

Yesterdayi.was Ed Kline's 35th birthday. He gave a party at the house where he is setting up a studio, that of animator Wendell Washer. It was a very dull party since none of them know how to carryon a conversation, or to stop the mindless flow of one girl friend of a guest who talked on & on in a monologue about her tribulations in learning to play various instruments. I didn't care enough, planned to be there only an hour, then picked up Cathy Novak to go to the 7th CAPS banquet. It was pretty good, both the food & the conversation. Talked to atl kinds of artists & people, including the incomparable Burne Hogarth (who brought as a guest .Jack Cummings, an old time MGM producer, who told some interesting tales of the very early days of movies, a period which fascinates me), Sergio Aragones, Gary Owens, Mark Evanier, others. Also to Lee Nordling & David Seidman, of the LA Times Syndicate about my cokumn, plus the idea of a fumetti comic strip. Mark Evanier ~ach year gets--strictly as a favor and for nada--really top young comics. This time was-Frank Welker, who was VERY funny. Now we know comedians have routines and as funny as they might be (and FW was consistently funny) they

2 Aug 85

Michael Kurland and Tom Waters drove down from SF yesterday and are now out looking for apartsments 8t cars. Awhile back I was killing time in Pickwick Bookshop (well, it's really a Dalton or something these days) and Siegel, in charge of paperbacks, is an old friend and he showed me an article in New Republic or Old De~ocracy or something about who & what was romantic/unromantic,' For example, Ronald Reagan is romantic but Nancy isn't. Old Coke is romantic & new Coke isn't. Get the picture:? I instantly thought of the first example in this Close To Home list ... Romantic

Unromantic

Harlan Ellison F8tSF Niven LASFS Bradbury ERBurroughs LILAPA

Norman Spinrad Omni Pournelle NFFF Heinlein Lin Cart-er FAPA

I also thought of a number of others which I have no intention of putting in here. (Like MejThem) 6 Aug 85

30 July 85

Sharman has agreed to work with me on a fumetti comic strip idea for submission to the LA Times Syndicate. Either a sf adventure strip, or· a Romancing the Stone/Indiana Jones type, or possibly both. Saw Silverado last night--it was every bit (not quite cliches) you've ever seen in a western all in one place but I thought it worked. It was fun. About 2 hours after I went to sl~ep this morning, or about 4:20 I was awakened by a loud thump. bang sound, of the "What the fuck was that?" type. Sleepy/groggy but with the adreline flowing I went to the front door, .45 in hand, turned on the light & looked out without opening. Nothing. I looked out into the back yard. Nothing. T'hell with it. Managed to go back to sleep in about a , hour. This morning Ed found the remnants of a balloon in the back yard with an incomprehensible DBAE TAKES OFF SITE 1 on it. DBAE? .Anyone know what that means?

If we didn't have habits we'd constantly have ·to rethink every common act, to create and improvise.

ABC Nightline was doing this show last night about how if we had not dropped the Bomb and had to invade Japan. This was quite interesting for me in that would have been "my" battle. I would have been out of advanced radio school, I was 19, fresh blood, etc. During the course of this Ed Kline told me how, at the height of the Vietnam war, he got his draft notice. On the appointed day & hour he appeared at the address designated and found nothing there. The building had been demolished & there was just dirt. He and his father doubled checked and, yes, that was the address. Ed goes to his draft board & tells them. A stony-faced woman said, "Go home. We'll contact you." He hears nothing--and not being stupid, he doesn't call them, either. One month later he gets a new draft card, no explanation, and he's 140-A or something, never does get drafted. I said it was all a weird intelligence test and they didn't want him because he couldn't have found his way to the front lines. But that is the strangest draft-out I've heard.

---------------------------------------On congress: man's target.

One man's

seat is another

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Summer 1s Florida Satan winters.

is the kind of place

are routines. But he brought in a TV set, turned it on, turned off the sound and flipped from channel to channel making up sounds & dialogue. He was both fast, even to the point of almost lip-synching, and funny. It was a very nice evening indeed. Oh, and Frank Thorne from Hawaii was there, as well as Daws Butler, June Foray, and other "voice people." 26 July

85

Just talked to Terry Carr re the To The Stars cover & such stuff and he was saying he was rejecting stories right & left. "I'm sorry to inform you this piece of shit does not fulfill our requirements at this time," he said. I added, "But should we ever need a piece of shit we will certainly call upon you." Reminds me of David Gerrold's rejection slips of yesteryear & my drawing which he used for one of the series. Saw the color sketch on the symbolic setting-the-mood cover yesterday. He did everything right except the one thing I said it had- to have over everything else: emotion. Perhaps my corrections will "take." I'm finding a not-unexpected seam of hard-nosed attitude in me . regarding the art in this publication. I suppose it comes from the fear/suspicion that Fred Harris will go behind my back and someho=w undo everything ... all very easy for someone who knows nothing .... and the dismaying discovery that so few people can draw or design. Ed Kline, for example. He's a good technician, has oodles of imagination--but has no design sense worth spit. I'm hand-holding him on the assignment I gave him, designing all the illos first. Normally I wouldn't bother but because of the odd requirements of Silverberg's story I must look over _the illustrator's shoulder. Had dinner with Sharman a couple of days ago and we finally have a "handle" on our mystery, tentatively titled SLATED FOR MURDER.

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T~d~;~-h~~~-~;-;h~~~-You computer.

plug

in your

-----------------------------------I cull from books of quotations all the time and I f_ind them of varying degrees of accuracy. Usually, the quotations are correct but sources and names are often muddled: One book had Thomas a Kempis as Thomas A. Kempis. Practically everyone puts a period behind the "s" in Harr~ S Truman--but since it stands for noth1ng no abbreviation symbol is appropriate. Sources are eliminated. There are a LOT of "Anonymous" quotes who have known "fathers." It's usually "Mahatma Gandhi" rather than Mohandas K(aramchand)-Mahatma meaning Great Soul and was a~ added attract{on, as it were, someth1n~ like the "the" which I seem to be gett1ng a lot in front of my name in introductio~s. Reader's Digest ran a line by Joe E. Lew1s a couple of months ago and gave it another attribution. (They really check, too-it must have been a young checker. ) They also don't seem to know there were two Samuel Butlers--the poet (1612-1680) and the English author (1835-1902)m the latter usually designated as II.

Life has few joys such as running into an ex-wi:fl_e when you are with a loving woman who is more intelligent, more beautiful and more charmimg. But few, if any of us, are that lucky. Received a thank~you note from-Phoebe Gaughan about a cartoon I sent her after Jack's death. About the other one, seenearlier in t_his "magazine," she said, " ...your wonderful get-well cartoon as it was right on the mark. Jack fou~d the earnest get-well cards to be frustrating, he knew he wasn't going to get well, but it was not a thing to be discussed. However, his sense of humor sustained him to the end." Goodbye, Jack, whatever atelier in the s~y you are 1n. My diet is that I only eat things I hate, therefore I eat very little and lose weight. I have never actually tried this out, _mind you, but it certainly sounds as though it would work.

Every time I see a man in one of those trick getups of plaid trousers, white belt & shoes, a checkered or striped shirt, • and a jacket of no color identified by science I think he is kidding. But he never is. He really thinks he is ... how shall I say it ... natty.

What a fantasy race we would be if we could inherit acquired memory.- We'd either be demi-gods or stunned into immobility by the weight of memory.

Undue haste:

Trying to make the flowers grow faster.

Sharman & I made the proposal to Ed Kline the other day--to do a presentation to the LATimes Syndicate (and failing that, to others) on a fumetti strip called EEON. This would be based on Ed's character "Eon" (adding an E) which some of you may have seen in masquerades, the mutated pony. It would be a s-f theme, of course, and we are beginning work on the strip at once. 16 Aug 85

Recently Bill Warren asked me a pair of intriguing questions. The first was "Who is the most famous person you know?" If defined as met, I'd say Jacques Cousteau. If defined as know I'd say Ray Bradbury. His next question was even more interesting: "Who is the most famous p:rson who knows you?" I said Bradbury r~ght off, since he is probably more famous than Heinlein, Azimov, Harlan, or any other science fiction writer I know. He's 'probbably more famous than Stan Freberg, Fess Parker, Sergio Aragones, Kliban, Andre de D1enes, who know me. Know that -b i t about. being only five people away (or three) from anyone in the world? Thinking about this I realize I know virtually no politicians of Big Name Scientists (except Sid Coleman), but I have met Milton Caniff, Charlet on Heston, any num~er cartoonists, Leonard Nimoy, and Mar~lyn Monroe who certain~y have met all kinds of people. -----Thinking about who I'd like to meet, three people come to mind immediately: Henry Moore, Saul Steinberg & Sophia Loren. I have NO idea what I'd say I've met a lot of actors & actresses, a few directors of minor stature, and a few writers outside of s-f (including L. Ron Hubbard), a leg-breaker, and a woman with four boobs. Oh, and Uschi Digart, the world's most famous etc. Reading all the above I feel both like I know few people & am very lucky in the ones I do know. Hypochondria imagination.

can only be cured by .

---------------------------~---------~--20 Aug 85

A Big Time Political Spokesman, talking about testing the defense system by shooting down a dead satellite: "But of course you can't see it with a dead eye." That reminds me that a few weeks ago Famous Amos, talking about illiteracy called it a "disease." Why is everything a disease these days? Does that make it not your fault, like catching a cold? I am tired of that. Same with calling drinking a disease--I think that is vastly overdone. MyoId film partner, Dan Easton, became an alcoholic, then after some years started going to AA & became a goddamn prude about it ... then a addict of grass, then LSD. He was an addictive personality looking for a way out, that's all. He found it with a shotgun in his mouth. I suppose many effects of booze are "diseases" or whatever--after all, we are all allegric/receptive to various things.

But I still don't-know about alcoholism being a disease ... I think people have troubles & look for all kinds of ways out-that might be a disease in a psychological sense--but I just don't think alcoholism is always a disease per se. If life is a stage who does my stunt work? 23 Aug 85

Yesterday I couldn't spell newspaper columnist, today I are one. Don Michael, of the L. A. Times Syndicate just called, said they are going ahead with my quote column idea, though it will be in a short form, and as a trivial quiz. But since it should take me (once I get into the How To of it) about a day to do a week's columns it should be no problem. There's a "floor" at which the syndicate "reevaluates" (i.e. decides whether it's worth it or not). Translated into one day's work, even the lowest floor is worth doing. The sad thing is there only hope is hope:

Later

on

are times

when

our

23 Aug:

SEZ WHO? is the title picked for the column, which will be small, a mini-quiz kind of thing. # Sharman was over for a meeting ·on the Eeon project, with the opening week's script and I showed her the ideas for the "Togo adventures," and other stuff. Things are progressing. 27 Aug 85:

I erred. SAYS WHO? is the title--they were talking to me on the phone. I went down and had a conference, mainly to decide format, but also to determine just who was Important and who wasn't. They want the quotes to be as many from Well-Known persons as possible. My problem is that I seem to . have a FAR wide range of "who's imprtant" than the LATimes Syndicate, who does not seem to have ever read. They do realize the!' can't all be Marilyn Monroe and Marx, Groucho, but names like Elbert Hubbard, Gallagher (the comedian), Herman Kahn, Dr. 'Lauen ce Peter, Louise Nevelson, Don Marquis, etc were blanks. Anyone famous in the 20's/30's seems to be unknown to them unless it was a movie star. Grrrr. I finally made the dividing line this way. "If you don't know what they do but you think you've heard the name it's okay to use the quote." I'm afraid that drops out a lot of you. I'd used Benford, Gerrold, Pohl, Azimov and probably only the latter would survive. Sorry, guys, I guess I'll have to hang out with more famous people. We also discussed some technical aspects of EEON and the Sunday color will be made by me coloring b/w photos. Very strange but will, in fact, give the best definition on newsprint.

---------------------------------------A hint to those species worried abo"ut extinction--evolve into something cute, cuddly ... and harmless.

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----------------~I~-~~;;~~;~-;,~;~-~~~i~wed, only outlaws would have in-laws." (Dean A. Grennell)

---------------------------------------29 Aug 85 Another hotweather trip to Downtown LA--not my idea of fun. The column leaps ahead, contract in the mail, bio presented, but the biggest problem continues to be the fact that.they are ill-read (mal-read?) and have no 1dea who is Important. Drat. That really cuts out huge sections of Quotebook, along with "Anonymous" and myself (oh, I guess I'll slip some of mine in now and again, when I'm looking for a certain length ... not that I'm Important, but after all, my name is up there a few inches ..• I must be important~. When asked (for the Bio) why I had done the column my answer, which they are going to leave in, I guess, was "Greed and a lust for power." 30 Aug

85

Another hot trip to the Syndicate today, but now everything's done, except after thet do a paste-up of the printed columns, the way they will be sold to the newspapers, I check 'em out. # Now thinking of trying BALLOONS, even though single panel cartoons sell only one-third as well as strips--due yo having only one-third the space. Also, I'm told, the competition is much greater. But I have enough for two whole books, in book form, so wIll give them a look later, Can't hurt. The mail from Down Under today tells me I lost a Hugo to Alexis Gilliland (I thought the wording in the letter was odd unless of course, I was 2nd, which I d;ubt). Frankly, I would have thought it was Brad Foster's year, but I'm quite pleased for Alexis, as he is the best. Old age sharpens not taken."

the

feeling

of "roads

---------------------------------------A strict upbringing and a rigid moral code serve best as something to rebel against.

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10 Sept

85

Fred Harris, of To The Stars, is dangerous because he's ignorant. Yesterday he had me do a complete 104pp dummy in 4 or 5 hours! I did it, even though it is near meaningless, because we don't have the actual' typeset copy to play with. Grr.· These people have hive minds, constantly checking what each other thinks, like ants touching antennae. They cannot seem to hold independent thought. I've done almost everything I can do on the column for awhile. Seven days a .week, four quotes per, or about a 100 words means 1460 quotes a year or 146,000 words, plus attributions. Since I add 75,000-100,000 words a. year to Quotebook I shall fall behind and run out ... in 20 years or so.

We are all capable of silence, is always a question.

but when

A conversation with a beautiful woman is always a bit strange. The conversation might just be a way to keep her within viewing range, to just watch her breathe. But the very best conversation of all is when there's someone at horne, someone interesting, someone intelligent and valuable.

The camera

lie~. but ~o beautifully.

Having a poor memory for such things prevents me from being a bore by constantly quo~ing apt comments glesned from my Oquotebook research. Thu~ I um forced to fall back upon my own resources, alas.

We strive mightily to shed the habits and prejudices of our parents so that we might adopt them later in life with a clear ~onscience.

Hard work will get you places. it need not be your hard work.

Of course,

Phantom marriages. I believe every once in awhile people think of those they did not marry and about the life they did not have. This can be both sad and enormously relieving.

12 Sept 85

Did some figuring last night and realized 1 need 28 quotes a week for SAYS WHO? At the minimum guarantee it means a quote ·is worth $4.50 to me ...which means 1 can subscribe to just about any magazine or newspaper that would yield 4 or 5 quotes a year, and be even. Or about 189 a word at the minimum. Prejudice

follows

no logic or law but its own.

15 Sept 85

Did some figuring again last night & found QUOTEBOOK has 261 major categories and 935 sub-categories, which is better than twice what 1 thought 1 had. Gadzooks! But the making up of columns goes on--1 have close to 10 months done, though this is meaningless in a sense. First of all, I'll do a LOT on money, love, marriage, etc., planning to spread them out over the next couple of years or more. Second, 1 have ·not yet gotten a copy of the 1986 Chase's Annual Events, which lists all kinds of "Days" and birthdays, festivals and holidays, etc. I'd like to key the columns to something. If people notice, fine; if not, that's okay, too.·

16 Sept 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." # 1 was wrong about how much 1 had done--1 have 60 weeks done now. Art, graves and garbage are the main ways we know about our distant past.

---------------------------------------A civilization is judged by its highest attainments

and by its commonest.

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Some actors are always on; the move from stage to reality is just an exit and an entrance to another scene. 1 Oct 85

Went into Hollywood tday for a meeting on TO THE STARS fully prepared to quit. I didn't, mainly because what I had been told was not exactly correct. But there were production people there who had been told. they were going to design the magazine. "You are wrong," I said in my No Nonsense Voice. "If you don't want to do it my way then one of has .t o go." Seems Fred Harris fucked up & the way he got out of it was to let me hack & chop. At-Sreakfast, on the way in, I struck up a conversation with a young, handsome, intelligent, nice California Highway Patrolman at the next table. We talked about a half hour & I got all kinds of writer-stuff about being a cop, arresting people for speeding when they may just have robbed a liquor store (he wore a "bulletproof" vest), watching for patterns. He said it still amazed hin to see am old timer work--hearing calls out of the jumble of radio noise, spotting a drunk driver before a less experienced man, etc. Very nice to know there are police like that out there--sensible, seemed honest, had a sense of humor and parted with, "Hope I don't meet you on the h i gnway.." It is easy for a belief, especially won belief, to get ·in the way of a greater belief.

a hard-

8 Oct 1985

I've spoken before in here how I do things in burst of creativity ... or at least bursts of work. For some reason in the last 3 days I've been writing epigrams & the like. Well over 3 dozen! Perhaps this is because I have been reading three different books of quotes, checking & xeroxing them, filing them into The Master File, etc. Or perhaps because of the SAYS WHO? deal. In any case that's all I've been doing, except for reviewing-some porn tapes, which I do when my ass feels flat from this seat. Remember me telling you of the burst of creativity that gave me dozens of "Balloons" cartoons in one day? Same now. But I've learned not to try and Qtop it, like not trying to stifle a sneeze. But I've become very sensitive to quotations, even more than I've been for years ... and for years I think I've been more" aware" than most people, in that urea, I mean. Just sitting here working, listen to Michael Jackson and Paul Harvey News I got two; two from TV last night; a 6-parter from Sunday comics someone left here, etc etc. Experience never gives you time off. not even in sleep. Maybe when you're unconscious. Even after you are dead other people go on learning about you.

"The reason there are so few women comics is that so few women can bear being laughed at." (Anna Russell)

There are times I'm terrible. The phone just rang. I said hello and either a very young child or an adult with a damned good Small Child voice said, "Who is this I'm' talking to?" "God," I said. (I don't know any Small Children who might call me. ) There was a long pause. "Who?" "God. The God, actually. I am He Who you wished to speak to, am I not?" "Uh ... no .•. " "Then why did you call Me? I don't like to be disturbed. The world is in a hellava mess right now and only I can save it. Are you certain you .weren't calling me? Sometimes I am known as 'Jehovah, the Desert God of Vengeance." "Who are you?" "God. You've heard of me. I've been in all the newspapers, though not' nearly as often as I should be." "Uh ... I don't think I should be on the phone right now ... " "Very well, but remember, your God is only a phone call away." She hung up, I hung up, having no doubt warped a child forever. (I confess to a slight re-writing of reality ... but not much.)

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In the late afternoon children are just bundles of energy that need recharging. I never thought that saying someone had "horse sense: was much of a compliment, considering the mentality of our equine friends.

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---------------------------------------With the beginnings of genetic engineering man is on the verge of deciding not only the pace, but the direction of his evolution. But the greatest .question is still unanswered: If we can go where we want, where do we go?

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1 think th~ apundageo to my face are falling apart. Awhile back I rolled over in bed, snapping the wing off my regular g Las se s lying there. A couple of days ago the little shoe on the nose disappeared. Then I broke a pair of reading giasses (without which I cannot type, which I why I always keep the last pair, even though they are obsolete). The transmission bands on my Honda are going kaput. The typewriter here is developing old age. Not to mention my 45-month-old headache (anniversary today, 24 Sept). Or that I have something that may be gout in one toe. Today, having lunch, a gold crown fell out. (The only good thing was that sitting in a dentist's office~-picked by being in a meducal building nearest the restaurant-~ I found enough quotes in a magazine to pay for the repairs and maybe then some. ) They sprung it on me that the Syndicate has been having the salesmen tell the newspapers that there will be a sports coiliumnevery week. Of course, no one told me. But I buckled down and found that doing the sports bits have one great advantage--1 can now spell Joe Garagiola without checking. I've also noted that baseball players are by far the best, most voluminous, and funniest of all the sports types. Tomorrow, then I deliver 20 months of the column. I can't seem to STOP! There are two ways to lose: you make mistake or the other side doesn't.

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---------------------------------------Often, the weight given to a man's opinion is judged by the weight of his purse.

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---------------------------------------the verge of tomtirrow, We are allan where great things happen.

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I was married this day, some 32 years ago. The reason I remember it is that it is "ten/ten." # Earlier I mentioned 60 epigrams (or whatever) in the last few days. Last night I wrote 51. And it is only noon.

---------------------------------------Thoughts between parens (generally ing) are words you stumble over.

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Planning ahead (foolishly, perhaps) that SAYS WHO? is successful, I bought a book called THE ADDRESS BOOK, which is an updated version of an earlier one, "How To Reach Anyone Who's Anyone." I went through, checking off people I plan to contact regarding getting quotes from them. Will cost about $600 in postage, so it'll take awhile. But what was amazing was the number of people I ~ or had at least met. And the people who WtTIJil 't i 11 i t-. ---lieru ur-e t he on es I've met or kno.w &. so do you, somet i me s: Forry Ackerman,. Poul Anderson, Sergio Aragones, Asimov, Ralph Bakshi, Stephen Basustow (animator), Bradbury, Marilyn Chambers, Don Reed of the Count Dducula Society, Drea (porn director) and her ex-, Bill Margold, one of the XRCO, June Fo ray , Arthur Lake (Dagwood}, Christopher Lee, Trini Lopez, Dale Messick ("Brenda Starr"), Rita Moreno, Greg Mullavey. (actor), Leonard Nimoy, Patti Page, Denver Pyle, Lou Rawls, Chrustopher Reeve, Vin Scully, Ravi Shankar (I did an album cover for him once, I think, about 1959), Bobby Short, Danny Thomas, 'Me L Torme (album covers), Bjo'Trirnble, Daniei Travanti, Jonathan Winters, Robert Young, Efram Zimbalist, Jr. Now I'm sure you know some of those, too, and others, but what struck me were the people who weren't listed. Most are simple references to publishers, & agents, not much help. But if a min