Article 217756 (441 more) in rec.arts.books:
From: gharlane@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.arts.mystery
Subject: repost of a book review; "BEYOND THE BEYOND."
Date: 19 Mar 1997 21:09:35 GMT
Organization: Evil Beings from Planet Eddore, Inc.
Lines: 638
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: @ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu
Summary: amusing enough to be worth reading (the review, not the
book)
I'm taking the liberty of cross-posting this here, since I knew
you RABble and rec.arts.mystery folk would enjoy it.
(Or, at least, I had the chutzpah to *PRESUME* you would.)
I haven't bothered to clear this with the original poster, who
with great restraint and civility only cross-posted to three
topics; but knowing that he may not be aware of certain of Lee
Goldberg's habitual on-line desmesnes, I thought it appropriate
that a review this well written be spread to two more locales.
=================================================================
BEGINNING OF REPOSTED BLOCK
=================================================================
-Originally-posted-to:
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv,rec.arts.sf.written,alt.tv.seaquest
-From: dzhines@midway.uchicago.edu (David Hines)
-Subject: Review: _Beyond the Beyond_
-X-Nntp-Posting-Host: kimbark-nfs.uchicago.edu
-Message-ID:
-Organization: Rocket Squad Patrol 34
-Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 04:51:12 GMT
_Beyond the Beyond_, by Lee Goldberg
(Hardcover. Overpriced at $23.95. 292 pages in large
type.
St. Martin's Press, 1997.)
review by David Hines
Lee Goldberg's novel _Beyond the Beyond_ is the latest in that
long tradition: the story drawn from the writer's life and
acquaintances. This sort of thing is especially prevalent in
speculative fiction, as a result of organized fandom; writers and
fen (fans, for the mundanes among us) know each other, so many
works exist which, although they can be read as entertaining
stories in their own right, can also be a game of "spot-the-pro"
or "spot-the-fan" -- even more fun, because you get to spot
thinly-veiled insults, and gags at others' expense, or
references to fannish history.
And oh, there is a long and sordid history of these little
stories. _Rocket to the Morgue_ (1942) by Anthony Boucher
(writing as H.H. Holmes) is a classic example, and the novel
_Fallen Angels_ (1991) by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and
Michael Flynn is a more recent specimen of such a romp. The
advent of media fandom has created a whole new mud pit in which
writers of this sort of thing can roll around and get dirty in...
but despite the fact that media fandom is even *sillier* than
prose fandom, there hasn't been much spoofing of media fandom.
(Ben Bova did base his novel _The Starcrossed_ on the hellish
ordeal he and Harlan Ellison went through trying to make a TeeVee
show, but that was more a look at the process of trying to
create, rather than fan reaction at the end result.)
So nobody's done the great media fandom spoof, and the phenomenon
has grown, and "Creation" is getting bigger and bigger, and
*still* no one's done it, and Trek comes back and merchandising
gets ludicrous, and media fandom becomes a gargantuan, gawky,
gluttonous, goofy beast, and even though it's all but screaming,
"Here I am! Make fun of me!" *still* no one's done the job --
And now Lee Goldberg comes along --
And *STILL* no one's done it.
Goldberg tries. I'll give him that. He tries with all his
might: shoulder to the wheel, nose to the grindstone, hack to the
typewriter. He struggles against the odds, against nature,
against his lack of facility with the English language, but wow,
does he ever try! (This puts him one up on Patricia Cornwall, who
quit trying several books ago.)
I'm being a little harsh, I admit. Even though he's trying far
too hard to be like Carl Hiaasen or Dave Barry or Elmore Leonard
(to whom he's compared -- inexplicably! -- on the back cover),
much of Goldberg's prose is quite adequate, with only occasional
forays into godawful. His plot is serviceable, and occasionally
amusing, if clumsily executed; but his satire -- which is, after
all, the whole *point* of a book like this -- is lacking, and
that drives the book into the ground. If you don't want a
spoiler review with several pertinent quotes of the text,
don't read below the blank lines and control-L. Here's the
non-spoiler review: the book isn't worth your time, unless
you're some sort of SFTV completist or a Lee Goldberg fan (Ghu
forbid). _Beyond the Beyond_ might be a tolerable read for the
reader who enjoys the dull, unremarkable prose that marks so much
of mainstream fiction; for those left cold by such literary wet
blankets, it'll be another disappointment. SF fans looking for a
hilarious expose of SFTV's foibles would do well to look
elsewhere; _Beyond the Beyond_ doesn't induce *nearly* as many
snickers as the average episode of _Star Trek: Voyager_.
[warning: the following review contains harsh language and
excerpts from a mediocre novel.]
I guess I should mention the plot, shouldn't I?
Wealthy porn magnate Milo Kinoy, publisher of _Big Hooters_, buys
up Pinnacle Pictures from the Japanese to create a new competitor
to the network dinosaurs: TBN, The Big Network. A new network
needs programming that will have a guaranteed audience, so he
hires Conrad Stipe, creator of the cult sixties show _Beyond the
Beyond_, to come back and produce a new version for the studio.
The catch: although Captain Pierce, Mr. Snork, and the other
characters will be the same, all-new actors will be cast to
appeal to a young demographic.
Needless to say, the fans aren't happy. Neither is Guy Goddard,
who played Captain Pierce in the original series and since has
gone mad -- he never wears *anything* but his captain's uniform,
and has set up the _Endeavor_'s bridge set in his living room.
Goddard has some loyal fans at his beck and call; at his behest,
they start killing the "alien doubles" who have replaced the
_Endeavor_'s crew. Super-evil agent Clive Odett is also trying
to get in on the action of _Beyond the Beyond_. Due to some odd
circumstances, he winds up representing one of Goddard's stable
of fans, Melvah Blenis (who is, incidentally, a giant in fanfic)
-- whose ambition is to take over the show, since Conrad Stipe
has clearly sold out.
There's plenty else going on, of course, but that's the basic
idea. _Beyond the Beyond_ is an open mystery; the reader knows
what's going on at all times, who killed who, et cetera. Usually
this is a tool for character-building; here, it's used as a tool
for satire, so Goldberg can skewer left and right.
Only it doesn't quite work out that way. Goldberg, you see,
bases _Beyond the Beyond_ on *his own experience.*
There's a bit of a problem with that.
Lee Goldberg is a former writer/producer of _SeaQuest_.
Now, some background may be in order. If you have never heard
of, or never watched _SeaQuest_, you are *lucky.*
_SeaQuest_, originally titled _SeaQuest DSV_, was a product of
Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment. It was a story about a
scientific vessel, exploring the sea, doing good deeds... et
cetera. It had a captain, a boy, a talking dolphin, and --
*despite* all this -- fans. The first season of SeaQuest
ostensibly was based in science fact; the second, abandoning all
such pretense, was out-and-out fantasy. That is, it was what the
TeeVee crowd considers "science fiction." The second season
featured episodes about killer seaweed, giant crocodiles (yes,
I'm serious), and one featuring the ancient god Neptune (they
called him the "Greek" god, but used the Roman name), who verily
did threaten the crew with his big pointy trident. And despite
this, the people now making _SeaQuest_ had the brass balls to
declare that they were making a great show. The fans, seriously
put out by this, started up a campaign. They begged for decent
scripts. It was at this point that Javier Grillo-Marxauch wrote
a famous open letter -- widely reposted on Usenet -- about
SeaQuest being a great show, and the changes being for the
better.
The series's star, lauded veteran actor Roy Scheider, got so fed
up with the mess that he quit after season two. Michael Ironside
replaced him. The fans were even less happy. To many of them,
Roy Scheider *was* _SeaQuest_. (The show's title, BTW, was now
changed to _SeaQuest 2032_.) The third season, to do it some
charity, was better than the second. That's not high praise by
any means: the current season of _Sliders_ is of higher quality
than the second season of _SeaQuest_ -- admittedly, not by much.
Lee Goldberg was a writer/producer on that last season of
_SeaQuest_, and took a lot of flak from fans of _SeaQuest_ and of
SF in general. In other words, Goldberg isn't just an observer in
this, poking fun at his friends and whatnot; the man has some
grudges to settle. He isn't an impartial, or even a slightly
jaundiced observer; the man is partisan.
Goldberg isn't popular with the fans. This book won't help.
I can think of four reasons to read a book like _Beyond the
Beyond_: quality of writing, quality of story, quality of satire,
and spot-the-personality. Since the first two often are in short
supply in dramatic speculative fiction, it's the third that will
probably do Goldberg in as far as the fans are concerned. It's
not so much that fans are poor sports, but Goldberg's choice of
method leaves a lot to be desired.
Were _Beyond the Beyond_ a _Star Trek_ fanfic -- and that's not
such an impossible conceit as it would seem -- the fan posting it
to alt.startrek.creative would thoughtfully label it NC-17.
It's pornographic, scatological, ultraviolent, and generally
over-the-top. Innately, this isn't bad; I've got a fond place in
my heart for extremely offensive satire. But Goldberg uses this
extreme openness to lousy effect, for the most part. While he
happily descends into the gutter about such things as what a
lunatic sex-obsessed fan calls his penis ("superwarp plasma
pleasure warhead," in case you're wondering), or what a
nauseating female fan uses for personal pleasure (a homemade
vibrator in the shape of Mr. Snork's elephantine nose), he
doesn't use his range to the best effect. Rather than use this
freedom to be *creative* and extraordinarily vulgar, Goldberg is
just vulgar. He too often is content to stick to the repetitive,
brainless cheap shot, and doesn't fully exploit the targets that
scream for attention. Imagine, if you will, a guy waving a
butterfly knife around in a flashy, ostentatious way... and then
using it to clean his fingernails. Dumb. Tedious. Bor-ing.
How repetitive, you ask? Well, for one thing, I lost count of
the jokes about fans being fat and having bad skin a little way
in. The exchange below is typical:
"What do you know about the typical fan of your show?" Milo
asked.
"If it's a guy, he's awkward, ugly, and his sex life is his
subscription to one of your magazines," Stipe replied. "If it's
a woman, she's fat, has a lot of unicorn jewelry and elf
statuettes, and wishes she could find a man as affectionate as
her cat."
Cheap shot? You betcha. Funny? Sure. Once. Or twice. But
then it starts to grate. "Yeah, yeah, fans are fat, acned, and
maladjusted," says the reader. "Okay. Move on. Gimme something
new." Especially considering that this insult is a standard one
as far as fans are concerned, and it's heard all the time from
every source. It is, in other words, cliche.
There's a truckload of fertile ground in media fandom for other,
more imaginative japes. Dig: as someone once said, a joke is
necessarily an exaggeration. Take something innately a little
goofy, blow it up beyond all proportion, and you've got a gag.
Goldberg displays a downright hesitancy to come up with new gags,
especially regarding fandom, which is severely disappointing.
Even more frustrating, Goldberg touches briefly on some issues
that are more deserving of repeated mockery, but fails to make
good use of them. For instance, he only makes a few brief
comments about the propensity of media fans to spend insane
amounts of money on collectibles, and *none* of those comments
are as wild as the real situation. The concept of _Beyond the
Beyond_ merchandise infomercials (considered by one character)
is tame compared to the Trek specials on QVC, and the idea of a
"900 number fans could call and test their _Beyond_ trivia skills
at six bucks a minute" just isn't as innately terrifying as the
new Viacom store, which is selling ship models "cast from the
original molds" -- that's right, models that *weren't even used
in the series* -- for prices in the thousands. Some fans will
certainly take Goldberg's insults seriously; others sympathetic
to Goldberg (providing any can be *found*) will point out that
there's one exchange in which one character offers a sympathetic
view of media fans... but that's only one kind note amid many fat
jokes. I myself, being one of the skinny fen, will point out
that Goldberg's personal annoyance with the fans is probably
manifesting itself to a degree, but that the repetitive fat jokes
are more emblematic of Goldberg's lack of imagination than of any
hatred he may have for fans collectively.
But to sum up: the prose is serviceable but clumsy, the plot is
serviceable but clumsily executed, and the satire is -- you
guessed it -- about as physically adept as Dick Van Dyke in any
room in which an ottoman is to be found. I will also note that
despite the author's decision to throw in sex and gratuitous
violence on a level usually to be found in those dull anime
series about virginal Japanese schoolgirls being repeatedly raped
by armies of demons whose phalluses are powerful enough to do to
Tokyo what Godzilla only dreamed of, Goldberg writes *lousy* sex
scenes.
When it comes to pornographic satire... well, frankly, I've read
fanfic that does it better. _Star Whores_, of course, is the
cardinal example; were it not unpublishable for legal reasons,
I'm sure it would sell better than Goldberg's book. If he has
any intent of doing this again, Goldberg ought to read _Star
Whores_, as well as (although it's not quite in the same realm)
_Bored of the Rings_.
Contributing to the poor satire is an apparent lack of knowledge
on Goldberg's part: _Beyond the Beyond_ is often inaccurate on
science and science fiction. In some instances, this is
obviously intentional, as when Goldberg spoofs Treknobabble; in
others, it's not clear. When a character claims she's a great
actress because she's "got the Hugo and Nebula awards to prove
it," it's unclear whether the joke is on her or on Goldberg; the
DP Hugo isn't given for acting, and there isn't a Dramatic Nebula
(which would be given for writing, by definition). Likewise,
when Goldberg uses "light year" as a unit of time rather than
distance, it's unclear whether the stupidity is intentional or
not -- which may give an SF-grounded reader some unpleasant turns
of the stomach.
Which brings us to the final part: personality-spotting.
When it all comes down to it, this is the source of any delight
in the book. Since so much of the _SeaQuest_ flap went down
online, the book will be more fun for the online fan, especially
because... But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The greatest problem with this aspect of the book is that there
aren't nearly enough personalities to spot. Well, I couldn't
identify the actors on the 90s version of _Beyond the Beyond_,
although I'm pretty certain that Goldberg was using them to get
back at some actors with whom he had personal experience.
Others, however, stand out like a sore thumb. Conrad Stipe is, of
course, Gene Roddenberry.
Back in 1964, when he was a struggling TV writer, when his
stomach was flat, his teeth were white, and his manhood was in
constant tumescence, he signed a pilot deal for shit money to
create a series for Pinnacle Pictures. But before he got around
to writing the script, he was hired on the Western series
_Destiny's Journey_, where he quickly rose from staff writer to
producer by writing the best damn episodic scripts on television.
Those bastards who accused him of stealing credit, of simply
sticking his name on other people's scripts, didn't understand
the genius of the subtle rewriting.
His little touches made all the difference. If you leave
the yeast out of dough, the bread don't rise.
That's one of Goldberg's few good stings, BTW. He does have a
couple of others, but this is one of the best. (He does get some
good stings in on *individuals,* which makes his jokes about
groups seem even less inspired than they are.)
Conrad Stipe, incidentally, is divorced from Shari Covina, the
well-endowed actress who played the computer-breasted (seriously)
Dr. Kelvin on the original _Beyond the Beyond_. It's a fairly
good skewering of Majel Barrett Roddenberry, but it doesn't quite
play enough on MBR's milking of her dead husband's name.
Granted, it is a kick when the hero tells Covina that "You're so
bad, you couldn't get either Stipe or Eddie to cast you [in the
new version of _Beyond the Beyond_]. And you were *fucking*
them." But it needs a little more, I think. (It is fun to see
Covina enraged about being relegated to the voice of the ship's
computer...)
Guy Goddard is an extremely out-there William Shatner spoof. I
don't think anything more needs be said.
Cannibalistic super-agent Clive Odett is Mike Ovitz. Ditto.
Kimberly Woodrell may represent of Lucy Silhany, president of
UPN, but I don't know enough about her to know if that's the
case.
And now we come to the *fun* part.
The SeaQuest flap went down, for a large part, online. Online
communication and discussion were *major* parts of the whole
affair, and this is reflected in the book. One character spends
some time "flaming a couple of fuckhead writers from the new
_Beyond the Beyond_ because they thought the Endeavor security
guards wore red uniforms, when everybody knows they're *blue.*"
And -- this is the best part -- the following people are known to
fans from their online postings. *grin* In one case, the
individual is widely known *only* through Usenet postings...
Usenet offers media fandom something that's been common in prose
fandom for decades: some communication with the pros, and a semi-
common framework in which to operate. This is important:
without the contact resulting from the online world, many of the
below spoofs could never have come to be. One of the below
spoofs would not be accessible to fans. And that one is my
personal favorite: the spoofing of Javier Grillo-Marxauch.
Javier is notorious among SFTV devotees; his post about the
changes to _SeaQuest_'s second season was *so* moronic that it
made the verbal dribblings of H. Ross Perot seem coherent and
sensible by comparison. No one I know is quite sure *how* he got
onto _SeaQuest_; he sort of washed up there, like a piece of
driftwood with the uncanny ability to write extraordinarily bad
scripts. I've heard various dark rumors about his work on the
show, but refuse to repeat any of it directly 'cause I don't have
any proof of them. Judging from _Beyond the Beyond_, Goldberg
thinks even less of Javier Grillo-Marxauch than the fans do:
Nick ignored Charlie's hand and used the antenna on the
portable phone to point at the ceiling. "I want him thrown out
of this hotel and escorted off the island."
"Who?"
Nick threw the phone at the ceiling in fury. "*Him.* Javier
Grillo, the hack, credit jumping, ratfucker the studio is paying
a hundred thousand a week to do a production polish on my
script."
And:
"Grillo isn't a writer, he's a thief. He comes in, adds a
stupid joke or an idiotic car chase, then tries to fuck you out
of your screen credit. Everyone knows that," Nick said.
Later in the story, Nick arranges for a mook to smash Javier
Grillo's hands into mush with a hammer. I don't know what
Goldberg's relationship with Javier Grillo-Marxauch is, but I'm
willing to bet that it's not very good. (Of course, Javier
doesn't need to lose sleep over Goldberg's snide comments; Javier
managed to secure himself a position as story editor on _The
Pretender_, and he's doing a great job of making sure that every
episode of _The Pretender_ is *exactly* the same as all the
others, thus ensuring that the writers don't strain their little
brains coming up with new plots.)
And on the subject of Guy Goddard's killer fans Melvah Blenis,
Bev Huncke, Artie Saputo, and Thrack of Oberon... I'm not up on
_SeaQuest_ fandom 'cause I don't get alt.tv.seaquest (thank Ghu).
Nonetheless, I think at least two of the psycho fans in Guy
Goddard's stable are based on real _SeaQuest_ fans. It's likely
that they're really composites, but there are some things that
make me wonder. Such as:
"One day, _Beyond the Beyond_ will be yours, but Guy Goddard
will never, ever be Captain Pierce again," Zita said. "I know
how much you admire him, but he appeals to a very narrow, very
old, demographic. If _Beyond the Beyond_ is going [to] succeed,
if the *universe* is going to prosper, you have to draw in young
viewers, and he won't."
"He *is* Captain Pierce," Melvah whispered, her voice
quivering.
"And Captain Pierce would sacrifice himself to save the
universe, wouldn't he?"
Melvah nodded, a tear rolling down her cheek.
Now, granted, Melvah Blenis is big into fanfic, and I don't think
Mary Feller is... but exchanges like that lead me to suspect that
the organizer of the "Save _SeaQuest_" campaign is being
represented in the book.
I won't say who I think Bev Huncke is based on, simply because
the character is *so* obnoxious, so disgusting, so revolting,
that I wouldn't want to embarrass the individual -- another
online fan -- I think she's supposed to represent. If Goldberg
is targeting the person I think he's targeting, he's striking
*far* too low.
Thrack of Oberon isn't Gharlane, despite the name scheme; Thrack
is simply an out-and-out invention, not a charicature of anyone.
But Gharlane is in the book. Not counting the panel moderator
whose con badge identifies him as "Warren of Eddore," Usenet's
Evil Eddorian ( gharlane@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu , accept no cheap
imitations) has a small but important role. Interestingly, he
fares the best of anyone spoofed in the book; in fact, Gharlane
is a minor hero whose vast knowledge of pornography helps the
hero catch a killer.
Lou looked at [Charlie] for a minute, then held up _Big
Hooters_ and waved it to make a point. "There's a guy rents a
unit here, thin, eyes dart around like a squirrel. He has every
single issue in storage."
"Gharlane."
"Yeah, Gharlane. You can show him any tit and he can
identify the woman."
This uncanny ability comes in handy when Shari Covina kills
Conrad Stipe by smothering him with her huge breasts (the better
to inherit his merchandising rights). In the throes of death,
Stipe bites off a nipple (to give you an idea of the depths of
lousiness to which Goldberg can sink, she *enjoys* it), which is
subsequently recovered by the M.E. Using the nipple and the
bruises on Stipe's face, the boys in white coats reconstruct the
fatal breasts. It falls to Gharlane to track them down (which he
does successfully).
Regrettably, Goldberg lacks the skill to mimic Gharlane's style
in the one extended scene the character gets:
Gharlane was inside his storage unit, scrutinizing an issue
of _Big Hooters_ with a jeweler's loupe, when Charlie Willis
scooted by in his golf cart on routine patrol of the facility. .
. .
"How's it going?" Charlie asked. Gharlane sat on a stool
in the center of his unit, directly under the single bulb that
hung from the ceiling. The unit was crammed full of boxes
bulging with decades' worth of men's magazines.
"I'm getting closer to discovering the truth." Gharlane
dragged his loupe slowly over the centerfold, his body curled
over the magazine so far, the bumps of his vertebrae poked
through his Grateful Dead T-shirt.
"The truth?" Charlie asked.
Gharlane raised his head. "Last night I saw a movie with
Julia Roberts that had a love scene. They showed her breasts,
but not her face. Well, those were definitely *not* her breasts.
Wrong shape entirely. They belonged to a body double, and I'm
tracking those breasts down."
"Why?"
Gharlane stared at him and scratched his bony knee, which
stuck out through the hole in his faded jeans. "I thought you
were a police officer once."
"I was."
"Then you should be outraged. The producers perpetuated a
fraud on the American public," Gharlane said. "A lot of people
paid seven bucks to see Julia Roberts, not a body double. I
think the public has a right to know just whose breasts they were
looking at."
Done right, that scene could have been an utter howler for those
who know the Evil Eddorian. The image of our favorite
brain-in-a-jar with a huge collection of porn is a minor funny;
with good mimicry of Gharlane's writing style, it could've been a
major funny for online fans. As it stands now, it's just sort of
there. Goldberg is trying, yes, but the only humor is in the
incongrous image, not so much in Gharlane's determination to
find the truth.
(Considering that the One True Gharlane has ripped Goldberg
several new rifices online, Goldberg seems to have some actual
warm regard for the Eddorian. Of all the real people spoofed,
Gharlane is one of only a couple who emerges relatively unscathed
-- gently mocked, but not savaged as some others are.)
And in the end, what does it all mean?
The book is grossly overpriced at $23.95. I don't encourage
anyone to buy it; it's just not worth it. It's not good satire,
although it does manage to elicit a nasty chuckle or two.
Sensitive media fans will be offended; spec-eff fen who think
media fandom deserves a really great skewering will be
disappointed; fans of _SeaQuest_ will probably burn Goldberg in
effigy all over again. The concept is sound, but Goldberg simply
isn't up to the task. He's not a good enough writer. He either
doesn't know enough, or doesn't have enough interest, to skewer
the greatest idiocies of media fandom. He's simply *wrong* on
some of his judgments. Good idea. Lousy delivery.
The only reason I bought the book is that I didn't want anyone
else to beat me to the punch reviewing it. But despite its
nearly uncountable flaws, it may be of interest in future years
*if for no other reason* than that it is probably the first book
to satirically reflect real media-fan/media-pro interactions
within the guise of fiction. At least, I can't recall another;
I'd welcome corrections if I'm wrong. What is most interesting
about the above-mentioned media-fan/media-pro interaction is that
it is growing beyond mindless fan-worship of hunky actors or
well-proportioned actresses... slowly, yes, but it is growing
a bit. While _Beyond the Beyond_ is not a great book, or even a
good one -- at best, it is mediocre -- someday it may be a
historical document testifying to the part of the Internet in the
evolution of media fandom. There's a slowly growing common
community between media fans and media pros online. Prose
spec-eff has had such a community for decades; media
is a different story. Media spec-eff is dominated by a consumer
mentality. The pros sell. The fans buy. There is no interaction
based on a common love of speculative fiction; there is merely an
unending flow of green paper from the pockets of one to the
pockets of the other (well, the pockets of the suits who control
the careers of the other). Might online interaction change that?
I don't know. I hope so, because I think it's disgusting to see
media fans herded like fat sheep. If Goldberg's book tour takes
him into my neck of the woods, I'll try to get it signed. If
that media fandom evolution takes place, I'll have a piece of
history that marks the beginnings of the change -- and I can sell
it to some deluded media fan for a tidy sum. Heh, heh, heh.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
| David Hines
d-hines@uchicago.edu |
| http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/dzhines
|
=================================================================
===
| "Attaining success in Hollywood is like climbing a gigantic
|
| mountain of cow flop, in order to pluck one perfect rose from
|
| the summit. And you find when you've made that hideous
climb... |
| you've lost the sense of smell." -- Charles Beaumont.
|
=================================================================
===
| "Television today remains a study in imperfection. Some of its
|
| basic weaknesses and mediocrity are still with us. There is
still |
| wrestling, soap opera, overlong commercials, and some
incredibly |
| bad writing." -- Rod Serling, 1957.
|
=================================================================
=================================================================
END OF REPOSTED BLOCK
=================================================================
For any who've read this far down, I'd just like to add that the
idea that I couldn't spot Shelly Michelle, the *real* star of
"PRETTY WOMAN," is as ludicrous as the presumption that I'd
actually have to root through old magazines for chest shots,
instead of recognizing Ms. Michelle by her gorgeous gams, which
have graced more films than anyone but her agent remembers.
(Check out the opening scene of "MY STEPMOTHER IS AN ALIEN," some
time, and you'll see why Ms. Michelle, and Ms. Michelle's Legs,
have fan clubs all over the world.)
Mr. Goldberg's presumption that I'm mammary-fixated and amnesiac
is, in short, a vile and base canard, indicative of typically
Goldbergian disinclination to do basic research. (Like, all he
hadda do was *ask*. )
And I wouldn't be caught *alive* in a "GRATEFUL DEAD" tee-shirt.
(Paul Horne, Joni Mitchell, or Enya, *maybe*.... but the vast
majority of my tee shirts, except for the few with the big
"5"'s on them, or the ones with the "INTERPLANETARY EXPEDITIONS"
logo, just say "GENERIC TEE SHIRT LOGO.")
I must remember to mention Mr. Goldberg appropriately in the next
thing I try to get published.....
---------------------------------------------
By the way, subsequent communication has disclosed the fact that
Mr. Goldberg is so unacquainted with the genre and the people
that
he hadn't personally encountered the terms "fen" and "Spec-eFf"
before the book went to press, and regrets not being able to use
them in the narrative.
Folks, I think we have a Major Contender for the McCrumb Trophy
Of
Ignorance, here......
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