#2161

Written by Fred Patten, and intended for Apa L, 2161^st Distribution, LASFS Meeting No. 3609, October 12, 2006.
Golden State Colonial Convalescent Hospital, 10830 Oxnard Street, North Hollywood, California 91606-5098.
Telephone: hospital(818) 763-8247; personal (818) 506-3159 * eMail:fredpatten@earthlink.net

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Michael Burlake brought me to last week's LASFS meeting. We had time to see the first three cartoons on Tom Safer's program of Warner Bros. cartoon characters created by Chuck Jones; the two Sniffles the Mouse cartoons and the first of the two with Hubie & Bertie. The Sniffles cartoons brought questions of, "Where is Mary Jane?" She was never in any animated cartoons; she appeared with Sniffles only in the much longer-running Loony Tunes and Merrie Melodies comic books.

On Saturday, my sister Sherrill brought me to the Estrogen Zone's screening of Westerns. It was announced at the LASFS that the EZ screening would start an hour early, so we arrived at 1:00 p.m. to find that nobody knew about this, so we had an hour to kill before the usual 2:00 p.m. startup. We only had time to see the first two features, Cimarron and 4 for Texas. Cimarron was preceded by the two extras on the DVD (all 1931), a very early MGM color comedy short, The Devil's Cabaret, and one of the first Warner Bros-Leon Schlesinger Merrie Melodies, Red Headed Baby (Harmon-Ising). All three were fascinating. The only actor in the obviously pre-code (Evil is much more hedonistic fun in nightclubs - 1931 was still during Prohibition -- than prim Goodness) The Devil's Cabaret who got screen credit was the star, Eddie Buzzell, whom I never heard of before (playing Howie Burns, the Devil's front man), but Satan was an obvious Charles Middleton hamming it up outrageously; the only time I have ever seen him play anything other than what might be called stuffed-shirt villain roles like Ming the Merciless in the Flash Gordon serials (not counting an almost-invisible appearance in the chorus line of bemedalled generals in the musical declaration of war in Duck Soup). Cimarron was the first RKO Radio movie I ever saw to display the Radio Pictures logo alone. It was also my first time that I can remember seeing a movie starring square-jawed Richard Dix, although he was such a popular star that I must've seen him before. 4 for Texas was a team-up of Frankie & Dino minus the rest of the Rat Pack (with Anita Ekberg & Ursula Andress as the other two for Texas), in a Western with Charles Bronson as the killer gunman and Victor Buono as a wonderfully slimy fat crooked banker, and an unnecessary cameo appearance by the Three Stooges.

By the time 4 for Texas ended, it was 6:45 p.m., which was too late to watch another feature and still have time for dinner before I had to return to my hospital, so Sherry & I left to eat. We went first to the Marie Callender's in Toluca Lake, but its parking lot was full implying a wait inside to be seated, so we went instead to Sherry's nearby apartment for a home-defrosted meal and I got to see my latest hanged pictures. (I still have to identify three original Jack Gaughan paintings that I am sure were covers on Worlds of Tomorrow or Worlds of Fantasy during the 1960s. Unfortunately, my copies of those magazines are now at the UCRiverside Library, and the LASFS Library's are inaccessible.)

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ˇZANAHORIAS ELECTRóNICAS!

-- Comments on Last Week's Distribution:

Oh, All Right!!! - (Lembke) I wish I could have attended Conjecture. I enjoyed the first three, before my stroke. Glad to hear that Conjecture 5 was a success, too. ## "Tennth Planet" is both witty & timely. Very good! ## The Evans-Freehafer Award is only for service to the LASFS, and usually for whoever has done the most service (or something really spectacular) during the past year. I thought of the Mason Award as more like the Rotsler Award, for service to s-f throughout fandom over a long period, for such accomplishments as John Hertz's years of serving as an Art Show docent and Regency aide at Worldcons and other conventions. The fans that are veterans of the Floating Worldcon Committee would be appropriate honorees. To be meaningful, the Award would have to be given to fans outside the LASFS as well as LASFS members, but this would be an appropriate place to award LASFS members as well such as June Moffatt for her years of helping convention committees, co-starting mystery fandom & co-writing one of the better TAFF reports, etc. I was thinking of this as an award to be voted upon by the LASFS membership, like the Forry Award, so it would be up to the restraint of the members to give it to fans outside the LASFS at least often enough to demonstrate that it is more than just a local club award like the Evans-Freehafer Award. ## Yes, I think that the cost of my caregiver for the Worldcon was something like $200 per day, so the cost for Loscon 33 should be 3/5 of what it was for the five-day L.A.con IV.

Toony Loons #15 - (Zeff) $20 for a cell phone sounds like a good bargain. I was seriously considering getting a cell phone just before I had my stroke, to have a phone with me in case of emergencies; but I was also trying to seriously cut back on expenses at the time, and signing up for what looked like a minimum of around $50 a month for a service that I might never have to use did not seem like a good idea. ## A Mason Award could also be voted upon by the LASFS Board or a special committee thereof, rather than the whole membership. That might be a better way of ensuring that fans outside the LASFS are seriously considered, in case the LASFS membership would turn it into a club popularity award only which would render it meaningless outside the club. ## Do parrots produce more guano than other birds? Are the parrots nesting in the park crowding out any other birds, which might nest there otherwise?

Godzilla Verses #108 - (DeChancie) My mother is 94 and she still drives her car, though only to get to her local market. She expects that this is the last year she will be able to drive, due to failing eyesight. ## You have written more than just a couple of s-f stories over a number of years, and they have all (that I have read, anyway) been very good. There might be other s-f authors who have written more or who might be more popular, but you are not out of place among the Forry Award honorees. ## Thanks for showing us what your cartooning looks like. But it is Winsor McCay and Friz Freleng.

Vanamonde #699 - (Hertz) I understand that an award for longtime service might be more meaningfully named the Pelz Award (to keep it to deceased fans). But his name is well-enough known throughout fandom. There is a movement to honor Michael Mason now. If his achievements were primarily local, they were many over a long period, and they indicate that Mason would have become more internationally known (presumably he would have been a major participant on the L.A.con IV Committee) if he had lived longer. I count Bruce Pelz as one of my best friends in fandom for over four decades, but I do not feel that I am unjustly ignoring him in promoting Michael Mason as the award's namesake.

De Jueves #1499 - (Moffatt) Christian McGuire tried to withdraw his nomination for the Forry Award but was not allowed to do so. You may not have taken your nomination seriously, but the voting record of the last two or three years shows that more and more club members who have simply done a lot for fandom such as working on con committees are being nominated and voted for as the equals of the s-f authors, artists, editors, filmmakers, and similar professionals that the Forry Award was created to honor. CLJII did come in a close third for the Award this year, and the general voting was so close on the first couple of ballots that the votes cast for LASFS members may have kept some professionals like Bujold or Cherryh or Spielberg from making the cut to the later rounds of voting. Rather than see the Forry Award evolve in this new direction, I think that a separate award should be created. ## I have seen raccoon roadkill too, but not nearly as often as opossum roadkill. Given a chance, raccoons will run away from the middle of the street quickly, while possums tend to freeze. In my single encounter with a possum at night (driving home after a LASFS meeting), I had to stop my car and wait for the possum to unfreeze and skitter off.

Trial by Jury - (Cantor) Your views about what constitutes "real" science-fiction are so narrow that I can understand the club ignoring your repeated cries of "What has THAT person ever done for science-fiction!?" every time someone like George Lucas, J. Michael Straczynski or Alan Moore gets nominated.

I TK - (Gold) I favor restricting the voting for a Mason Award to the LASFS (whether to the membership, the Board, or a special committee to be decided) for reasons of practical logistics. But other s-f clubs or fans in general might be allowed (or encouraged?) to suggest nominees shortly before the voting, to make sure that worthwhile fans outside of the LASFS' knowledge are brought to our attention. ## I do not know whether New Fables will accept fannish reprints or not, but I can ask Tim Susman (Or you can query him at sofawolf.com (tsusman).) It will be a Furry magazine, so any filksongs about well-known subjects &/or from long out-of-print cassettes would have to be Furry in some respect. ## Scott Beckstead and I conversed at last week's LASFS meeting, and we seem to have our Loscon questions answered.

Fish Out of Water #191 - (Helgesen) Mozzarella-sama is certainly the richest and most powerful character in Trouble Chocolate, a Mitsubishi-type mega-industrialist with a personal military force that dwarfs most nations' armies (which he allows his teen grandson Truffle to deploy to impress his high-school classmates and attempt unsuccessfully to put down Cacao, his Archie Andrews-ish rival - but it is no match for the city-stomping monsters like the giant Maneki-Neko possessed by evil interdimensional demons), but he is a background character in the first six episodes. I will have to see more episodes at future C/FO meetings to find out whether he becomes a Big Cheese later in the TV cartoon series.