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| re: Opinions, opinions... | |
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pidunk 04:17 am UTC 05/30/07 |
| In reply to: | re: Opinions, opinions... - Pudding 07:57 pm UTC 05/29/07 |
> > > I am an authentic source of information about Jim. > > > > I really don't know what to say! > > BULLSHIT would probably be a good start...LOL > > Susan's into Science Fiction, I was waiting for this to come up. A really good place to give you this background. You don't need "evidence"; I have discussed science fiction literature convention involvement in context of Jim both on this message board and my websites, and of course it became the auspices under which I was brought by social associates to see Rocky Horror, and also, seven months later, my second significant adult encounter with Jim. But, without the distraction of these two things, let me tell you about this. How it came about, how long and how deep my involvement was with science fiction, and when that involvement ended. There are two Susan Rothmans in science fiction fandom. One of them is an author of science fiction novels and that is not me. I found out when I was looking up my birthday in a science fiction fandom birthday directory, and saw the incorrect date. I wrote to the webmaster who made the correction but I also at the same time did web searches and found that there really was a basis for the mixup. The birthdate had been that of the author's. I explained to the webmaster that even though I was not the author, I had my own claim to presence in the calendar because in the past I had had my own standing in the fandom society, by having been a founder and organizer of one of the annual science fiction conventions in New York, worked at other science fiction conventions, and assisted others in their activities. As one science fiction fan who was taking me to his party being hosted by his parents in San Jose, California put it to me in 1983, "Everybody knows who Susan Rothman is." But, at that time, the author of novels had not yet been on the scene. Now, everyone knows who Susan Rothman is, but she is not me. I have not been in a convention since 1989. I would not have gone to a convention unless a friend had taken me to a science fiction convention in Philadelphia in January 1977, where I was ushered into the same room as Jim, and then the pair of us wound up spending the beautious night (Jim called it "a hell of a night", which he later wrote in BFG) together, alone in a hotel stairwell. Ah, the joys of quiet corridors, red carpets, and adventurous desperation. He was so thin. He was so tall. He was so....passionate. This was our second time. It was two years after the first. Science fiction held no familiarity to me other than the social environment gave me the impetus to seek an author that intrigued me, and that author was Harlan Ellison, whose books I read one after another and formed a stack two feet high in my room once finished. There was no shortage of people making book recommendations to me for reading of other authors. I found some good books to read, and enjoyed the busy social life that these activities gave to me. It was in the summer of 1975, when this began, quite inadvertently when I attended with a boyfriend and his rock record collector friend the first rock and roll convention, called Rock N Roll Expo, which was at Washington D.C.'s then Shoreham Americana Hotel on that July 4th weekend. I met a girl there who was looking for a business sucker, er I mean partner, and I looked ripe for the picking. She told me she would pick the venue for the sales, and I would buy the entrance fees, and we would work together and split the profits. Little novelty things that had no particular purpose, but they were decorative. We went to a couple of these and she introduced me to her supplier of merchandise, who introduced me to others, and through these, I met the nucleus of the social life I was to have, which led me to the Philadelphia hotel with Jim a year and a half later. But, Jim was actually at one of the 1975 venues, but we did not get to talk to one another. I remember he was wearing a blue yankees baseball cap. I looked at him as he passed me, and totally melted, too soppy to say a word to this wayward Jimmy. Later, someone told me his name was exactly what I thought it was, but also told he had left already. It was one day when the past came into the present and I understood the past, and its connection to him, but I was not able to bring that understanding to an effective outcome with him already gone from that location, and not knowing when or how I would see him again. It was not a science fiction convention. It was a memorabilia convention of popular culture called "Nostalgia Convention". It was being run by a very enterprising teenager called Phil Hecht, who became a friend of mine in that general environs. I met Phil Hecht by a guy named Jon Estren, who was introduced to me by the guy who confirmed Jimmy's name, who I met through some others while I was working at the merchant sales table. Jon sort of pursued a friendship with me. He called me up on the phone and said that he had a dream in which he was told to call me. Hokey, but he called, and over time he and I became friends. The guy who confirmed I'd seen Jimmy, his name Steve Hartman is probably the most popular name on the internet and is none of the ones you'd find on google. And, nowadays, Jon's songs wound up in Rufus Wainright's collection, and Jon was going to change his name to that, but my look-see backstage at one of his shows gave me no particular confirmation of who is who. Songs, name, well, there is always the possibility that the two guys are friends of each other. Indeed, Jon made it a point to be socially high climbing, and prided himself on having a roster of who's who as members of his speed calling list, and some of them called me to leave messages for him. Steve Hartman decided alot of things on the day I missed talking to Jimmy in 1975. One of those was to rape me. He concluded his act with the phrase, "Marry me" and held me a virtual captive in a relationship for four and a half months until he had the satisfaction that Jimmy had got the idea I was with someone else. Then at that point, Jon told me that I could break free of that squelching social downer by attending a science fiction convention, as opposed to the comic conventions which followed the Nostalgia convention. Between them there were star trek conventions too, one in particular I recall which was run by another enterprising young man by the name of Stu Hellinger who also became a friend of mine in those environs. I didn't mix with the fans, I mixed with the ones who gave the fans places to be fans. I worked assisting both Hecht and Hellinger, and was with Hellinger before my flight back to New York when he had a disappointing showing at his star trek convention in Boston, in 1976. There were also other comic conventions like the one called Creation Convention, run by a pair of guys Adam Malin and Gary Berman. When I moved to California in 1982 it was Gary Berman who took me with him and a couple of others at my first visit to Disneyland. I have not seen any of these people since this described era. I ran a convention called Empiricon from November 1977 to July of 1980. Jim was seen at the first of these in July of 1978, several days before he gave one of his european shows with Meatloaf. I didn't talk to him then, though, and at the time did not recognize him. In California I joined the local science fiction club which was the social sphere. Under its auspices I met and got to know the author Larry Niven and others, and in this sphere also I knew and didn't know the writer Barbara Hambly that I described in a recent post. I had not been to their clubhouse since 1991. People I met in 1983 who also belonged to this club, again led me to Jim. But oddly enough all of their efforts aside, Jim and I began our true association as we know it now, without any help or intervention from others. We ran into each other in Los Angeles taking the bus to our shared home town, and that was in 1992. >there's evidence on the > internet to prove it, so her whole life is filled with > bullshit stories created by people who don't have a real > grasp on reality. > | |
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