  It was a chilly night in San
Francisco, as usual. We had intended to take the cable car back to our hotel, but
there had been some kind of breakdown in the system and the cars weren't running.
After about ten minutes walking down the hill it was time for a rest stop, so we
ducked into one of the large hotels on Powell Street, and were surprised to find
ourselves in the midst of a convention.But this wasn't just any
kind of convention. We'd arrived, apparently, right in the middle of the
convention's Big Event. As we entered the hotel, we heard music cascading out
from one of the ballrooms, and then thunderous applause as the music ended. That
event was closed to outsiders like us, but there was another room open, their
equivalent of a dealers' room. We poked our heads in there, and it took only a few
seconds to realize what kind of gathering we had inadvertently crashed -- it was
the worldcon equivalent for belly dancers.# # # #
San Francisco was just the first
stop in a two-week California vacation that would eventually take us to Anaheim for
this year's science fiction worldcon. It's almost impossible to visit
California and not want to spend a few days in San Francisco; the last time we
enough time away from the convention to enjoy the city. There were places we
wanted to visit that we never got to; there were things we wanted to do that we
never got around to. So when we arrived home, after a very enjoyable worldcon, we
were still disappointed that we hadn't planned the trip as well as we should
have.This time it was different. There
was no convention as a distraction and we spent two days exploring the city, from
the human kaleidoscope of Grant Street's Chinatown to the unhurried congeniality of
Union Street's cafes and shops. We went to places that were almost deserted, like
the old Victorian house where the only other people were two tourists from Germany,
and other places like the 'Stick where we shared a Giants baseball game and
fireworks with thousands. When the time came for the drive south, we felt it was
probably too soon to leave. We promised ourselves we'd be back again in a few
years, but in the meantime further adventures on this trip were still awaiting
us.The road to L.A.Con did, eventually,
take us to the Anaheim Convention Center, and yes, there were some adventures to
describe. Before we even got to the Los Angeles area, we spent a very pleasant
evening in Ventura with Lester and Esther Cole, whose essays about 1950s fandom
you've read in some of our previous issues. Ventura is a lovely town, situated
between the mountains and the ocean, with a main street lined with used book stores,
antique shops, and cafes. The next day, it was time to head down the coast again,
then inland for Three Days in the Valley.The San Fernando Valley, north of
Los Angeles, seems to be one big bedroom community, with its share of freeways,
golf courses, and shopping malls. It's also the home of much of Los Angeles fandom,
including Bruce Pelz. When we were planning this trip, we'd asked Bruce for some
help in finding a reasonably inexpensive motel while we were looking around the
city for a few days. He didn't have to look very far, as it turned out there was
such a place only about five blocks from where he lived. But since he obviously
never had to stay there, he was blissfully unaware of the awful truth about the
Granada Motel -- it was the Hotel From Hell.To be fair, it wasn't the worst
place either of us had ever stayed at. There are much worse places in Eastern
Europe, for instance. And the price wasn't bad -- the nightly rate for a double
was only forty dollars, pretty reasonable for Southern California. But that's
where the good news ended. Our room air conditioner seemed to be The Little Engine
That Couldn't, which made for two somewhat sweltering nights. The room was clean,
but the carpet had holes, the beds were in a state of deconstruction, light bulbs
were missing from about half of the lamps, and the towels were very threadbare
(actually, it was more than just that -- all the hotel linen had 'Granada Motel'
printed in large letters on them, as if they were afraid that someone would
actually want to steal any of it). The next day, when two guys driving motorcycles
pulled into the parking lot, they suspiciously eyed the place, then asked us how
the place was. We replied, "About what you'd expect for forty dollars a night."
(A bit later, after they had checked out the rooms, we overheard one of them
telling the hotel person, "You don't get much repeat business, do you?")But you can stand anything for two
nights, and we did. We used those three days before the L.A.Con to visit some
places we'd always intended to go see someday, but never had until now. One of
these was the statue of Bullwinkle Moose and Rocket J. Squirrel, on Sunset Avenue.
(We're both Jay Ward fans, and Mr. Peabody's 'Way-Back Machine' is kind of a symbol
of the fan historical nature of Mimosa.) Another was the Griffith Park
Observatory, with its splendid location overlooking the city and nice view of the
Hollywood sign in the surrounding hills.The Hollywood Hills are actually
home to a more famous site yet, at least to science fiction fans. Halfway up the
twisty narrow road rather generously named Glendower 'Avenue' lies the Ackermansion.
We visited Forry's house the same day we went to Griffith Park, and like the
observatory, it lived up to our expectations. Every room was chock-full of
books, paintings, posters, and memorabilia, even including the outdoor storage
rooms (one of them is a huge library in itself, entirely of extra copies of books
he has in his main library) and the roomy crawl space area under the house (which
was set up as a vampire cave). There was much emphasis on the movies, as you'd
expect, but it was easy to see that Forry has not lost track of his fan roots; he
has many mementos and artifacts from decades past and has probably the second- or
third-largest collection of fanzines, including many from the 1930s when sf
fanzines were first being published. To restate what Walt Willis wrote about Forry
many years earlier, Forry Ackerman really is a true fan in a way that most of us
don't come within a mile of being; he really believes in fandom. We are
sold on Ackerman.Finally, it was time for Worldcon.
We drove to Anaheim on Wednesday afternoon, spending part of the time playing our
annual Worldcon First Fan Guessing Game (trying to guess who the first person we
recognize there will be). When we rolled into the Anaheim Marriott, we didn't have
long to wait to find out; almost immediately, a familiar face appeared at the car's
side window, and asked, "Could you take us to pick up some party supplies?" It was
that well-known party animal, Moshe Feder.From then on, our memories of the
convention are mostly a string of vignettes, like the interlude on Thursday when
Andy Hooper, on the way to a fanzine panel, made the comment that *already* the
convention seemed like something out of a David Lynch movie. And then, as he
turned a corner, right in front of him was Michael Anderson, better known as the
Dwarf from Twin Peaks.It was that kind of convention,
where the real often merged with the surreal. Even the dinner expeditions were
unusual. One of them turned into a continuation of a fan artists panel, with five
pens furiously scribbling and piles of cartoons mounting ever higher as the waiter
looked on in bewilderment. The night of the Hugos, we made reservations with our
friends Neil and Cris Kaden for dinner at a more upscale restaurant, The White
House; we were pleased to find out that the restaurant supplied its own
transportation, but we were surprised when it turned out to be a stretch limo. On
the way back, we shared a ride in it with fellow nominees Scott Edelman and Allen
Steele, wondering which of us, if any, would be fortunate enough to get one of the
Awards this year.It turned out that Allen Steele was
the one. The fanzine category was actually one of the closest votes, but we (and
Mimosa) finished second to Dave Langford, the scoundrel, by only eight
votes. Just wait 'til next year!One thing about worldcons: they are
maybe the best place to find people, especially other fans you've corresponded with
but have never actually met before. This year was no different, and we were able
to add many new faces to names, including... Roxanne Smith-Graham, who was holed up
like a mad scientist for much of the convention behind a bank of computer equipment,
furiously digitizing fan photos for an archival project... Noreen Shaw, co-chair
of the 1955 Worldcon, who was able to spend only one afternoon at the convention;
she looked so much like Richard's mom that he felt like a second generation fan
while he walked around with her... Perry Middlemiss, the Down Under Fan Fund
delegate, who spent two nights with us in Maryland a bit later in his North
American trip... And Michael Burstein, who had lost a Hugo vote almost as close as
ours had been. The convention was very much a positive experience for him, and he
promised us a fanzine article (which appears in this issue) to describe it all.But there's not enough room here
for us to describe it all! So we'll take the opportunity to stop here,
with hopes you'll enjoy this new issue of Mimosa. We think it's filled with
entertaining things to read; we hope you think so,
too. Title illustration by Sheryl Birkhead |
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