Frankly Speaking #5 January 14, 1995 Here we go again ... taking what is turning out to be our annual walk on the backstage of the real centers of (r)evolutionary change. It seems we can get out only one issue a year ... not because of any lack of great material ... we have about half of the next (year's) issue waiting in our file. It's because we have a great full life ... which TC(r) is one part of. In other words, don't rush us! After all, look at this issue. Wasn't it worth the wait? We have added more pages, then crammed stuff in. We had to because every time we go to our P.O. Box, it's full of great art, photographs, and writings from around the world. It is one of the perks of doing a zine ... one of the privileges of being a linking channel between you writers/artists and you readers. And one of the hardest aspects of being a channel is deciding what to leave out because of limited space. Have you noticed there is a plague in all walks of modern life of people forgetting their function as servers? We editors tend to take our position much too seriously (or not seriously enough). One editor of a literary magazine actually charges writers a dollar a poem ($3 a short story) for the "privilege" of having her read their stuff ... and they don't get a comp copy if she publishes their work! Then there are editors who come unglued if another zine prints, without giving him "credit", a poem that he had first published ... as if he shares ownership rights with the poet ... maybe he has forgotten that he had neither hired the poet to write it nor bought it from the poet ... he had just published it. Then there are the editors who must think that when a poet sends her work to them, she is asking them for their god-like judgments! I realize that I and this zine are just middlemen, just a pipe. When the art goes through the pipe, that is when the pipe is important ... not before or after. I also realize that, except for when deciding what gets into this zine, my not liking something don't mean shit! (Again, I should say I get way more great art then we can publish.) I'm honored to be able to be exposed to all of the art! But I have a bone to pick with those artists who send lists of who has published their work before. Frankly, I don't care. What we have here is a place where we mix everything and everyone together to get something fresh. I need to thank the zine community for all the kind reviews of TC(r) over the years. I only wish they would not classify TC(r) as a sex zine. We do have a lot of sex in us. We will never shy away from that. But we really are an Anarchist/ Arts/ Avant-Garde/ Experimental/ Art/ Beat/ Cartoons/ Community/ Counter-Culture/ Alternatives/ Culture/ Dada/ Surrealism/ Erotica/ Essays/ Ethics/ Feminism/ Fiction/ Gay/ Humanism/ Humor/ Interview/ Lesbianism/ Libertarian/ Literature (General)/ Magic/ Non-Fiction/ Philosophy/ Photography/ Poetry/ Prose/ Psychology/ Satire/ Sex/ Short Stories/ Spiritual zine ... or a life on the edge zine ... for short. Finally, I need to footnote my talk with Paul Krassner. I'm a very lucky guy to be able to spend time with one of my heros ... who else has dropped acid with Groucho? Anyway, when we were talking about L.B.J., what that referred to is the hoax Paul pulled. In the 60's, there was a book about John Kennedy that Jackie had censored. Paul published what he said were the censored parts ... in which Jackie saw L.B.J. fucking John in his neck wound in his coffin on the plane ride from Dallas. The rest is history! See you next year ... or look for my June performance in Toronto ... or in the Bay Area!