The Drink Tank 281 (2011).pdf

OK, so I’m betting you’ve heard. Yes, it’s

true, I’m now a 10 time, 10 time, 10 time, 10

time, 10 time, 10 time, 10 time, 10 time, 10 time,

10 time Hugo nominee. That’s great, I thank ev-

ery one of you who helped make it happen, I’ve

got a huge list of Thank Yous, though you’ll want

to read about that in Handicapping The Hugos.

As cool as it is to be on the ballot for the 5th

straight year, there are two nominations that

have me even more estatic.

The ﬁrst is Cover Girl Mo Starkey! She’s

done so much for The Drink Tank and it’s awe-

some to have her on the ballot. It’s the ﬁrst time

since 2007 that there is a Bay Area person in

each of the Fan Hugo sections! I think, Frank Wu

I’m pretty sure moved before his nom in 2009.

I’ll be putting together a bit of a Mo tribute in

the coming weeks. When she told me, I’m affraid

I nearly knocked her over when I leapt in to give

her a giant hug!

The other is, of course, my partner in

crime, James Bacon, for Best Fan Writer. Our

next issue will be the Handicapping The Hugos

issue and in that, I’ll talk more about that. It’s

great to see James ﬁnally put onto the ballot be-

cause, like Guy Lillian says, he’s the best fan writ-

er going today. I look forward to him destroying

me in August.

There are other nominations that rule,

but I gotta say, those two were special. You never

forget your ﬁrst nomination and I’m pretty sure

at least one of them is gonna walk off with a

trophy!

So, I love Westercons. They’re a long-run

of cons that I think are spectacular, and this year,

the Artist Guests of Honor are the Foglios. I

shouldn’t have to tell you about the Foglios, you

know Phil and Kaija. Phil won a couple of Best Fan

Artist Hugos in the 1970s, right aroudn the time

he was working with Chip somethingorother on

the zine Effen Seseff. It was a really good little

zine too. His style evolved over the years, and his

comic works i nclude Angel & Ape, Buck Godot,

Xenophile and, most recently, Girl Genius. Kaija

and Phil do Girl Genius and they’ve won two

Hugos for it, too! They’re amazing folks and I had

the good fortune of being the Fan GoH when

they were Artist GoHs at WindyCon. Watching

them do Girl Genius Radio Thatre at the ﬁrst

SteamCon (and then again at the ﬁrst Nova Al-

bion) was a real treat.

I haven’t read much, if any, Patricia McKil-

lup, but she’s the Author GoH. I Know Glenn

Glaser read all of her books this last year and I’m

hoping that he’ll write a bit about her. I do know

that she won the

ﬁrst World Fan-

tasty award for

Best Novel.

There’s

a lot of great

stuff planned, I’m

running the Fan

Lounge by Day,

Leigh Ann will be

in charge of the

Night Lounge,

and They’re gonna

be good fun. The

Match Game SF

will be happening,

which is always a

blast. I think I’m

going to be on the

panel and I can’t

wait. I love the way Kevin hosts and I’m particu-

larly fond of the interaction between the play-

ers. I love the normal panel and even the various

guests we’ve had over the years have been awe-

some!

There was also the announcement of

John The Rock Coxon as the 2011 TAFF Del-

egate! John’s a great guy, he’ll make a great del-

egate and I was one of his nominators, so I’m

over the moon! It was also the most controver-

sial TAFF ﬁnish ever, with every other candidate

eliminated except John by the 20% rule! More

on that as it develops!

So much to write about here! This issue

has a Taral piece, LoCs look at Robocop III, a

photo piece from Howeird, and then 52 Weeks

about Forbidden Planet! Let’s get to it!

More on Gojira

A Couple that came a bit late...

‘Godzilla’ was one of the ﬁlms that

my dad [helped] warp my brain with. My

dad was a tall, red-headed Swede who

wanted me to be a boy. In many re-

spects, I did boy things, was treated like

a boy and was expected to excel. Being

smart was applauded, learning was nec-

essary, reading was good and I needed

to be fearless.

To show me how to be fearless, my

dad watched scary movies with me. He

actively cheered the monsters and was

ﬁrmly on their side - and his enthusiasm

got me to see things his way. To look

at things differently. To understand the

monsters and root for them. Developing

empathy for scary creatures that were

ﬂoundering around, causing destruction,

let me see that a lot of human behav-

ior was a knee-jerk reﬂex to obliterate

anything that was not like themselves.

You bet I cheered on Godzilla as

he stomped Tokyo, sunk ﬁshing boats,

wiped out military divisions intent on

blowing him up! I’ve since heard the

theory that Godzilla was meant to be a

metaphor for the atomic bomb: a force

of destruction punishing those who

weaponized science. But I know better.

Godzilla is an outsider, poked and prod-

ded by the clueless masses of confor-

mity until he ﬁnally lashes out.

-- Barbara Johnson-Haddad

Big Monster by James Bacon

Psycho-surf band Daikaiju daily for good luck and

health!

Are a fusion in my mind of west coast

rock and grunge with a hell of a lot of surf and

science ﬁction. There is an element of new metal

to them, but they have that nice open and hollow

sound of the surf guitar.

Dhaikaijie Die is an incredible track, it just

starts off at a high pace and real loud, a sort of

aural assault and then it continues, with the right

sort of surf riffs and its great. There are no lyrics

to these songs, but the titles are inspired and ob-

viously one can imagine what they mean, as they

use the music, like the great classics to portray

their story. It bloody brilliant.

Attack of the Crab women and the Trouble with

those Mothra Girls, are excellent tracks and give

an indication to what type of angle they have. Its

a wry smiling cheeky grin.

They have that guitar slide sound about

Mothra Girls which is just haunting, and the ac-

curacy with the pic must be awesome. I am sure

Tom would explain it better, but its grand stuff.

The old Godzilla mythos is not something

I ever truly got into, like most European kids, we

knew exactly what Godzilla was. Hanna Barbara

gave it to us really frequently -

Like it was a bit of a shock when Matthew

Broderick turned up with Godzilla and there was

no Godzuki at all.

Up from the depths, 30 stories high,

breathing ﬁre, his head in the skies, Godzilla,

Godzilla, Godzilla and Godzuki..... Godzilla.

I especially liked Earth Eater who tried to

hump the Golden Gate Bridge. But you can see

the sort of problem that I am faced with, thinking

that well, Godzilla is a bit lame due to this Ameri-

canised version, whereas America translating and

even changing Battle of the Planets and Robotech

from the respective Japanese version, Gatcahman

and Macross, worked out well, this American

cartoon although at the time delightful, lacks the

brilliance of others from the same stable.

So that was about it. We didn’t have much

of the Japanese movies really, I suppose we are a

bit further east than the west coast of America,

where there is a very heavy oriental inﬂuence,

noticeable in a way that in the east, say new York

and Boston there is a European inﬂuence.

So as I enjoy this type of music now, the

whole genre is pretty new to me. From my teens,

the big inﬂuence from Japan, was of course Aki-

ra:

Ceramic double rotor two wheel drive,

it even has computer controlled anti-lock brakes,

1,200 rpms... the hollow xylophone the echoes

haunting lyrics, oriental in nature, the blare of the

sirens, the noise of the revs, the clown faces bit-

ing dirt.

The movie and then the comics, sure al-

ways doing things arseways over here, and it was

an opening to other manga and animie, which

then exploded.

I think I always liked the Beach Boys, again

as a teenager it was impressed upon me by peo-

ple who know music that pet sounds is just an

incredible album, and again, just as I hit 20, I was

assaulted by the music choices of Quentin Tarrin-

tino, when I went to see Pulp Fiction, crikey – that

was 17 years ago – feels like yesterday.

Daikaiju and songs like Zombie Harem

are great, and I can see why they get to play places

like Dragony Con and right now they are touring

the states.

I was getting a lift from Tom Becker and

he has an interesting taste in music. He would

listen to some very bizarre student radio station,

which he could pick up, this would play a very

idiosyncratic selection of tunes, sometimes mak-

ing me wonder if I should lean forward and ﬁx in

that fannish ‘it must be broken’ way, but no, the

squeaks, beeps burgled and feedback are all part

of the sounds, although occasionally a rock selec-

tion of high calibre would ﬁnd it’s way onto the

listing.

Tom likes surf music in the way that I like

Jimi Hendrix, which is a bit awesome, because

in one science ﬁctional track – 3rd Rock from

the Sun, Hendrix says “To you I shall put an end,

then you’ll never hear surf music again.”, which

wasn’t what it sounded like, apparently it was a

direct message to Dick Dale, who was very ill at

the time, a taunt to get better. Who knows. But

I know for sure what the beach boys say about

American girls is so true!

On one of these car journeys, there was

some interesting surf music emulating from the

speakers, and Tom got to telling me about Dhai-

kaiju, and you know, I just wasn’t so sure, like Japa-

nese surf music?

Of course once back to base I turned on

my soon to be useless spotify and I found them

and was pleasantly pleased with this band.

Daikaijiu

Who is the Daikaiju??? Premium action

heroes deliver most high rocket music! Special

reverb skill combo for full impact! Loud sonic

boom for earful pleasure! Beautiful radiation of

hyper-dimensional springy sound creates divine

psychic wind for your special defense! Worship

http://www.daikaiju.org/

Nowhere to Go...

Taral Wayne

It’s sad, really. I’m reminded of a very old

joke about an Irishman who doesn’t believe in

God, who has died, and is laid out for his wake.

His friends are there, and one of them looks

down into the box with a mournful expres-

sion. Another old friend comes over and asks,

why the long face? “It’s because of him that lies

there,” says the ﬁrst friend. “He didn’t believe,

you know. Now he’s lying there all dressed up

and nowhere to go.”

That’s how I feel, for now. I have no-

where to go, either.

...And Now That I’m Here

Seems I do have somewhere to go. Reno,

Nevada. That’s where this year’s Worldcon will

be held. Allan, a friend of mine, has enough Fre-

quent Flier points that he’s offered to send me

to the Worldcon this year, so I may be present

for only the second time in my life, while I’m up

for an award... and can watch someone else win

it, again.

The occasion? Many of you will have

guessed it if you read “Nowhere to Go...” At

the time, I couldn’t say that I’ve been nominated

as Best Fanartist for the Hugo again. As usual, I

had to wait for the Ofﬁcial Announcement, this

year on April 24th.

That’s ten nominations, now. I won’t go

as far as to say I’m tired of it, but the excitement

I felt the ﬁrst few times has completely worn off.

I look at it mainly as another opportunity to be

disappointed. I can always refuse the nomina-

tion, naturally, but then I wouldn’t be able to go

on collecting the nifty little silver pins.

I have few illusions about the Hugo any-

more. This is the tenth time I’ve been nominated

for Best Artist, and have always lost to artists I

thought I clearly outshone, but they were more

popular. I’m not the only one in this situation,

either. There is Steve Stiles, who has been doing

superb work for fanzines for much longer than

even I have, and we are both Nine-Times losers

at this point. With this year, we have ten Hugo

nominations each, and if we both lose this year

too, we will both have a chance to set a new

record.

Among the fan Hugos, the longest string

of nominations and losses was held by Stu Shiff-

Once in a while I have good news... it

keeps my straight razor safely in its case, unused.

I had some good news recently, but nothing is

ofﬁcial yet, so I can’t come out and say what’s up

for a couple of weeks. You have all that time in

which to speculate.

Maybe I’ve:

A) Sold a Dalmirin novel

B) Made a movie deal for my Beatrix comics

C) Won a trip to Europe, all expenses paid

D) Found $4.66 million in unmarked bills in an

attaché case

D) Discovered a door into a fantasy kingdom

where I’m the Evil Overlord

E) Just remembered that I can ﬂy, using only the

power of my mind

F) Met a girl

If none of the above, then maybe it’s bet-

ter you wait and see, and not speculate further.

The odd thing about it is that when I got

the news, I didn’t have anyone I really wanted

to tell. My family doesn’t care or understand

about such things. I have some good friends in

my home town, but they wouldn’t really be in-

terested in this business, either. One of the only

two people I know who might really give a damn

is in Germany for a week, and won’t be back

for several more days. Nor can I make a pub-

lic announcement to routine well-wishers until

the details are made ofﬁcial at the end of the

month.

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