Back in 1975, a much younger me caused a much younger Stan Lee to burn money. Well … pretend to burn money, anyway.

It was staged for a subscription ad I’d written which appeared on the inside back cover of Crazy #14. The fake flames, which today would have been Photoshopped in, were quite obviously airbrushed.

As I recall, he required no coaxing to go along with this.

Whenever I happen to remember I used to see Stan each day for years, I can’t help but think … wow.

Man, was I lucky.

I’d have shared a Science Fiction Age rejection slip with you long ago as part of this series if not for the fact that even though thousands of them passed through my hands during the eight years I edited the magazine (I was seeing 8,000-10,000 stories per year), I apparently didn’t save any for my records. So I had to wait for one of you to dig up a copy.

As you can see, it was certainly one of the wordier rejection slips out there.

Thanks to Brad Torgersen for taking the trouble to find this.

It’s Irene’s birthday tomorrow, and as part of the weekend’s celebration, we’ll be driving to Richmond for a visit to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to catch their Fabergé exhibit. While we’re there, I hope to snag her one of those eggs I keep hearing so much about.

And along the way, I hope to add two more Man v. Food restaurants to my “yeah, I’ve eaten there” list—Buz & Ned’s Real BBQ and The Black Sheep.

But as for Caliente … never. I don’t do heat, and poor Irene would probably burst into flames if we even drove past the place.

I’ll let you know what I thought of these restaurants—and how they compare to other Man v. Food picks—once we get back.

I’m going to write this post without digging into my old journals, notes, and memos, so I may end up being off on some of the dates, a point I want to get out of the way first thing. But the spirit of what I’m about to share with you is true, and I want you to hear it today even though I don’t have the time for that. I may someday write something longer and more detailed on the subject with all the i’s dotted, t’s crossed, and details revealed, but for now, this will have to do.

I edited Science Fiction Age magazine from 1992 through 2000, but what very few people know is that I almost quit before the first issue ever appeared. (Or perhaps it was during the space between the first and second issue. I can no longer be sure without doing that research I mentioned.) And the reason for my possible resignation is a short story that’s just gotten published in the September/October issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction, a story which you’re only finally getting a chance to read nearly two decades later than you should have.

Sometime during 1992, before the first issue of Science Fiction Age was published, I read a submission titled “Anise” from writer Chris DeVito. I loved it, and sent out a contract immediately. If the name doesn’t mean anything to you, or if the name does mean something to you, but you only know Chris as the editor and publisher of the magazines such as Fuck Science Fiction or Proud Flesh, well … I still feel guilty about that.

Because “Anise” was NOT published in the second or third issue of SFA. Instead, the publishers overruled my decision due to the story’s explicit sexual content. I was told that maybe we could publish it a couple of years down the road, but not during the first year or two of our existence, when the chain stores were still paying close attention to the magazine’s content.

I was furious. (more…)

According to a May 1937 Associated Press article, blonde drivers are “much more dangerous” than brunettes, because:

When the lights of an oncoming car hit a driver’s eyes he drives blind for a certain number of feet. … It takes from one-fifth to one and one-fifth seconds to recover natural night-driving vision. Blondes with light eyes take far longer than brunettes with dark eyes and should drive much slower.

Since this 74-year-old article is the first time I’ve ever heard of this theory, I figure it’s safe to assume it was disproved a long time ago.

You’ll tell me if I’m wrong in that assumption, right?

It’s been about a month since I last shared a rejection slip from a dead magazine with you, and I think it’s time you once more had a chance to … well … gloat.

Fantasy Book was good to me—I published two short stories with them (“Guinea Pigs” and “You Ain’t Just Whistlin’ Dixie“), though obviously not the one that got me this slip. (That story, “There Will Be No Miracles Today,” was eventually withdrawn from circulation, and has never never been—and never will be —published). In addition to those two acceptances, I was rejected 27 times, so I’d submited a total of 29 stories there, which meant that as I approached submission 30, it seemed like a magical number.

Why?

See, my first sale to Fantasy Book was the 10th story I submitted. I then thought I understood what the editor wanted, as we all do the first time we click, but no, I was rejected nine more times after that, only to sell them my 20th submission. (See the pattern?)

And then I was again rejected nine more times.

Back then, I thought—I get it—the editor will only buy every 10th submission from me. (Writers have strange superstitions.) So I was hopeful as I considered which story to shove in a manilla envelope for my 30th shot at a sale. But, alas, the magazine stopped publication, so I never had a chance to learn whether my superstition had any basis in truth.

By the way, if you think 29 a high number of submissions to any one market, far from it. Someday, when I have the time, I’ll do an exact count, but I’m pretty sure that there are a couple of magazines that I’ve submitted to 75 or more times … without a single sale.

Hope springs eternal.

I didn’t get to attend the Small Press Expo last year because our trip to Melbourne for Worldcon trumped everything, so I was glad I had no SPX conflicts this time around. I only attended Saturday, but still managed to make it to three programming items—a Q&A with Roz Chast and Kate Beaton about working at the New Yorker, a panel on the Secret History of Women in Comics moderated by Heidi MacDonald and featuring Jessica Abel, Robyn Chapman, Alexa Dickman, and Diane Noomin, and a presentation by Chester Brown on his new graphic novel Paying For It. In between all that, I had drinks with John Sullivan and Jamie Gegerson, and of course made several circuits of the dealers room.

I managed to resist most impulse buys, but here are three things I found I couldn’t resist.

The first book that caught my eye was Frog & Owl: Regret is for the Weak, by Molly Lawless. There was something about the title that attracted me. Maybe it’s from too much reading of Frog and Toad are Friends to my son a couple of decades ago, but the idea of a dysfunctional relationship of a similar animal pair attracted me. So I picked it up and started to read.

The second strip in the book, titled “Love Is” (see below), made me laugh. And as I then told the artist, “OK, you made me laugh. Now I have to buy it.”

It was a good choice, because when I read the book on getting home last night, Lawless made me laugh a LOT. (more…)

On September 4, 1978, Irene and I celebrated our second anniversary by having lunch at Windows on the World restaurant. It was part of an anniversary weekend that included a rented Rolls Royce, orchestra tickets to the then-hit Broadway show On the Twentieth Century, dinner at the reopened Stork Club, and a suite at the Plaza Hotel overlooking Central Park. (No, we weren’t rich … but I’d just gotten paid for The Captain Midnight Book of Sports, Health and Nutrition and decided to blow most of the proceeds celebrating.)

For those who don’t remember … Windows on the World was on top of the north tower of the World Trade Center.

The original to this photo is displayed to the right of my desk, which means I see it and think about that lunch and that venue every day.

I sure wish we lived in a world in which we could go back there again for some future anniversary …

As we rode the Spaceship Earth attraction at Walt Disney World during our 35th anniversary weekend, our pictures were snapped and dropped into a personalized video showing our future, which was screened for us as the ride was ending … and then emailed so it would be waiting for us when we arrived home.

So here’s what Irene and I will be doing in the world of tomorrow!

We giggled when this unexpected video popped up.

We did a LOT of giggling at Disney World …

Looking at the list below, August seems to have been comparatively light on dreams. Too much travel and too much sleep in unfamiliar beds, I think. But still, Stephen Colbert managed to make yet another of his appearances, plus Walter White, Gen. William Westmoreland and Jonathan Winters showed as well.

Were you in my dreams, too? Only one way to tell!

August 2011

I dreamt I wandered NY’s Forbidden Planet, which was filled with familiar comics titles, ALL of which were drawn by unfamiliar artists. 31 Aug

I dreamt a woman escaping a horde of zombies scampered up a rose trellis to a building’s second level and they were too clumsy to follow. 30 Aug

I dreamt I starred in a new Batman TV show and ran costumed through city streets with Robin to get to the taping of the 1st episode in time. 29 Aug

I dreamt I was Jimmy Berluti from The Practice, and a bodyguard I’d hired accidentally discharged his gun at the airport and shot a kid. 29 Aug

I dreamt I was a reporter attending Gen. William Westmoreland’s final press conference, where one of his aides forced my arm into a salute. 29 Aug

I dreamt I was in a softball league with Steve Carell and needed to pay refs, but the bills in my wallet for $180, $360, etc. confused me. 28 Aug

I dreamt it was my first day at a Boston comics shop, but couldn’t find a spot nearby so had to walk a mile to get there. And I had a beard! 26 Aug

I dreamt stories of mine occupied all five slots on next year’s Hugo ballot, but told Allan Steele I would probably be beaten by No Award. 26 Aug

I dreamt I was in a diner with Jonathan Winters discussing where to find great BBQ. We agreed the best ever had been cooked by Elvis’s maid. 26 Aug

I dreamt that @pnh was attempting to sing “Billy Don’t Be a Hero” in the SFWA suite, but forgot how it started, so I pulled it up on iTunes. 25 Aug (more…)