The Drink Tank 018 (2005).pdf

The Drink Tank

Issue Eighteen and Life to GO

Watching The Detectives...

Over the years, I've grown fond of detective stories. When I was at Emerson, I thought I wanted to

be a Noir writer, working like Spillane to get the atmosphere right in a world of hard-boiled jargon.

When I announced that I was giving up on fiction (as a gift to Gordon Van Gelder who no longer

had to keep rejecting me) I realised that the odds of me ever doing anything detective-related

seriously diminished. It's not easy making a detective movie, or any movie for that matter, though

my script for 5 Suicides was more or less a detective script.

5 Suicicdes was the story of a young woman reporter who goes to a small town to find the

connection between five seemingly unrelated suicides. It uses all the detective tropes. Sadly, it

looks like the project has been scrapped for the time being.

Another Detective thing I once wrote was about a detective who was trying to find out who killed

a writer of detective movies on the set. That ultra-Post Modern beast will never happen.

Thomas Dolby

There's a company

in San Mateo, CA

called Beatnik. You

can find them at

Beatnik.com. They

do music software

that has been called

very impressive by

folks who have used it regularly. I've even

taken to it. The interesting thing is Beatnik is

headed by a guy who SF Music fans will know:

Thomas Robertson, aka Thomas Dolby.

In the 1980s, Dolby had a majour hit with

She Blinded me with Science. He was one of

the guys who was using the synth in most

unusual ways. I was a huge fan back when he

was at his peak, mostly because he was

making funny music. It seems quite natural

that he would go on to be the head of an

internet company.

Sadly, most of the music-types out there now

are so deadly terrified of the internet takign

away their profits that they steer clear of it

almost altogether. Robertson has embraced it,

even going so far as the put out an all net

album! To me, that shows he understands the

future better than any of the others (except

maybe Chuck D of Public Enemy).

Dolby is probably my favourite of the heavily

science fiction-oriented rock stars...as long as

you don't count surf rock as a whole in that

catagory.

The Queen of the World by Kyme-Chan.

You can find her stuff at http://kmye-

chan.deviantart.com/gallery/

She's one of the more impressive illustrators I've

seen on DeviantArt.com.

The Drink Tank

Issue eighteen and Life to Go

Turn up the Bass, Turn up the Treble...

As most folks who read this will already know, I'm a huge music

nut. Honestly, it rarely matters what kind of music it is, I'll tend to

listen and enjoy it. Of late, I've taken to thrash, speed metal, and

funk. In the past it's been bluegrass, ska, punk, jazz and comedy.

But, come right down to it, I've always had a thing for Rockabilly.

To most hard core fans, Rockabilly is less about the music and more

about the lifestyle. Greaser style reigns supreme with guys, while

girls hit everything from 1950s party-girl to what I refer to as Hillbilly

slut garb. There are the cars, which tend to be amazingly painted,

and the bikes. It's a giant lifestyle, but there's always the music, and

since I don't go in for lifestyles (I'm pretty much in the F[or anything

else]IAGDH camp), I simply hang for the music.

Maybe it's the fact that I listened to so much 1950s and 60s country

when I was a kid, but I love the fast lick guitar and the slam-pluck

bass. I've really gone to many Rockabilly shows, mostly groups like

Rev. Horton Heat and Hayride to Hell, both of which could be called

PsychoBilly. Still, I love the music.

Why do I mention this? Because I've got a bite on a script that

takes place at a Rockabilly show in the UK in 1989!

The View From Higher Up

Sheila Finch, May 4th, 2004

My first three novels were laboriously composed on an electric typewriter, and I counted myself

lucky not be writing with a quill pen. In those days, the work in progress seemed to me like an

unfolding road-map, a forward-moving narrative that I pursued determinedly. The story didn't

allow itself to be seen from more than one angle at a time-going back to change or fix things while

I was still in the middle of forging ahead threatened to seriously derail the creative process. I'm

not referring to the difficulty of inserting and deleting stuff in a typed manuscript, or the number

of times the complete manuscript had to go through the typewriter before it was finished (one

novel had to be typed seven times), but to the way I thought about the work. Serious revisions

happened only after the first draft was in place; anything else would've killed the story for me.

Asked to draw a representation of my thought processes, I would have given you the one-way

arrow of time.

When I came to write the fourth novel (which was published as my "first"), I had purchased an

Apple II with a whopping 64k of memory. And almost from the start, the way I thought about the

story began to change. I vividly remember the day when I realized for the first time that the story

existed in my head "in the round"-as if its future lay in front of me, its past at the back of my

head, detours on either side. I'm not following a road-map; I'm embedded in the landscape. Some

of this is probably due to the ease with which I can switch from file to file (and thus scene to

scene) on the the computer, but it makes for a complete revolution in my thinking about the story

I'm writing. The sudden insight for chapter one that occurs while I'm dealing with chapter twenty

no longer sabotages the process; instead, it's as if a myriad little lights flick on all over that

interior landscape, illuminating the connections. No longer a one-way arrow, the story exists in

my mind as a hologram, each part connected to and reflecting the rest.

The Drink Tank

Issue Eighteen and Life to go

Comments and Complaints

Sent to garcia@computerhistory.org

By My Gentle Readers

Matt Appleton- Editor of Some Fantastic

I'll call your "Lame" and raise you an "Ignorant" in regards to

unread sf. A few notable books I haven't gotten around to

reading yet:

-Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed.

-Joanna Russ' The Female Man.

-Many of Heinlein's major novels, most notably Puppet

Masters and Have Spacesuit... (I spent most of my teenage

years trying to read the entire body of Asimov's sf&f output,

which by that time was substantial.) -Robert Silverberg's

Dying Inside.

-George Stewart's Earth Abides.

And I have the nerve to publish a sercon! :-)

Well, the ones I listed were the ones I felt bad about not

reading. On the list you sent, I've managed to make it

through Have Spacesuit, Puppet Masters and The

Female Man. I just plain don't enjoy Le Guin most of the

time (there are exceptions) and Earth Abides has never

really been on my radar.

There are plenty of others I could list, but you get the general

idea. I wouldn't sweat not finishing Dune -- it took me four

tries before I was finally able to plow my way through it.

I'm thinking of going at it again shortly, after I finish

Howard Hendrix's The Labyrinth Key and a couple of

other books I need to review. Either that, or I'll try and

make my way through Finnegan's Wake again!

A Few Notes on up-coming

plans

The Drink Tank is still going to be

coming out weekly until the middle

of June or perhaps early July. Then

I'll take a two week break and ship

out the Chess issue. I've got some

great stuff lined up for that issue

and I hope y'all'll have a chance to

read it.

Claims Department issue two is

just waiting for my artist to get me

his cover art and then it'll be out

and about. It's a fun one. I'm doing

the final design work on issue three

and writing an issue that will

probably come out in October, since

I've written the next few already.

As far as BayCon goes, there'll be

two special issues, one before and

one after, and my new work LISP

will debut. That will be in a run of

about 100 issues, far more than

Claims Department will ever do!

So, keep you eyes open, folks!

The First Ever Claims Department LoC!!!

Barbara Johnson-Haddad- Secretary BASFA

Hi Chris,

Enjoyed the fanzine, thought your reaction to 'Donnie Darko' was great - and your assessment

of what makes a good sf bookstore was spot on. However the most amusing thing [to me] was that

the guy on the cover art looked remarkably like Geo W Bush (& if so, then I hope he likes his job

at the reception desk for hell :)

The bookstore theory took dozens of years to formulate. It also probably cost me

thousands of dollars in impulse buys at less-than-worthy shopping establishments. Still, I

gotta love cheap books.

I've revisited Donnie Darko a bunch of times, but the settign of that campground may

have ruined it for me permanently.

Yeah, I kinda see how you might think the guy on the cover would look like George the

Lesser. I didn't realise it until just now and feel kinda dirty.

The Drink Tank

Issue Eighteen and Life to Go

A Very Short Story

The Fall of The Californian Government

The crowds never dispersed, even when the hoses were turned on full blast. Rubber bullets

were greeted with the mob's real bullets, battons with switchblades. The battle raged and rolled,

consumming more and more real estate until it broke free, became a general riot, engulfed the

city, the Bay Area, the state itself. From one single spark had this fire bloomed, and by the

fifteenth day, the governor had fled, the State House burned, the Senate packing papers hastily,

though many were far too late.

And still, even as all this destruction spread north and south like burnt dinner smoke, the rioters

remained clothed in their Silver and Black, cheering the Raider's SuperBowl victory while tearing

about the State of California.

The Little Hurt Girl

by M Lloyd

Image (C) Aisha Roper

I had a doll and her name was Sarah. Sarah loved me, most deeply

I'd say. She showed more devotion than the Giving Tree, offering me

solace and love in exchange for nothing more than sitting with her

and playing pretend tea party.

But I outgrew those activities.

At first I asked if she would mind if I took her eye and tried it on.

She said nothing, but you could tell my dolly didn't care, she put up

no struggle as I took the scissors and cut the string that held it

there. My brave little doll didn't even cry.

That afternoon I fixed the hole that remained, I showed her happy

times on the swings and slide out back. The next day, I carved off a

piece from the back of her head and made it into a small coin purse.

That night I made her a new dress that she loved.

The next morning was school and I put my doll in my backpack. It had been a long time since

I took Sarah to school, but this time she did not come out to play as she had when I was in

elementary school. Now she stayed on the bottom of my bag. I don't think she cared, since she

didn't say anything. I brought her to the bathroom with me, and put her on top of the back

when I fished out my cigarettes. When I heard a teacher opening the bathroom door, I stubbed

it out on Sarah's belly. She must not have been bothered since she didn't even scream.

And now, I sit on the bedroom floor, having tripped over an old kitchen playset that I had

buried under my dirty clothes in my closet. I can see that Sarah has come around, limping

slightly, but smiling a smile as she comes to me, the playset knife sharpened and ready to do

her work.

The Drink Tank is Edited and Directed by Christopher J. Garcia and posted to eFanzines.com by the

Immortal Bill Burns. Everything in here you might wanna use you'd have to ask the writer/artist, save

for things written by Me, which are free to use. If you've got a comment or want to correct my spelling,

you can send a note to garcia@computerhistory.org or using the quaint regular mail at 1401 N. Shoreline

Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94043. If you want to get on the list for Claims Department or LISP, let me know

and I'll set you up. Keep an eye open for my up-coming works in other Magazine and more. Art from the

issue belongs to the artists and you have to ask them for specific usage rights. You can find Aisha Roper's

work at http://misericordia.deviantart.com and DL Norton's at http://dlnorton.deviantart.com. .

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