Frankly Speaking #7 Friday, May 23, 1997 Help me! Please, anybody! Help me! They have tied me in the chair in front of this computer ... ripped the modem from the wall so I can't surf the Internet, can't contact the E-Salon for help. They say everything is ready to put this issue to bed ... except for this column and my review of Tony Ryan's great photography book of nudes. (Face it. That review is just a cheap excuse to be able to publish more of Ryan's beautiful work.) Is this any way to treat the editor? They already have forced me to computer-paint on the sexy photo of Heather (assumedly taken by Matt, her mate) for the cover! (Got you to buy the zine, didn't it? Don't be embarrassed. It is natural.) Never fear ... you can see Heather inside ... without my paint job! But I don't know why they bother with me! Look at the great goofy stuff LaBash drew around my "painting." And look at all the great artists and writers in this issue. Who needs me? Sure. I can get the art world all upset by my "Mainstream Avante Garde?". But that is easy to do. It just takes writing the obvious. But writing in your own blood, shit and puke as John Fleetham, Elliott, and Robert Penick do, or drawing with your own raw nerve endings dipped in paranoia and/or sweet surrealism as Seabury, Rich, Blunt, Viveros (special thanks to Les Bareny for turning us on to B.V.), Bieri, Montebravo, and Fleming do...well, I don't hold a candle to them! I just hope they live long enough to do more art! And that reminds me. Robert, you can die now! Folks, people do all kinds of cheap stunts to get into these pages. Robert said he couldn't die until he made it into here. I pictured the walking dead! I didn't want that karma! Anyway, if you are a regular reader, you will meet some old friends. We could not include all of the regulars because we want to introduce you to new friends. The regulars who aren't in this outing will be in the next ... which we hope will not take a year to get out! (But, as I have said in past issues, we have a life filled with other things other than this zine.) The regulars also appear in the channels we have created on our web site, THE WEB OF ALL POSSIBILITIES, at http://www.eroplay.com ... channels like art galleries which can include color ... and SOUNDS FROM THE UNDERGROUND which includes music, sound collages, poetry readings, interviews, and whatever we/you create. If you are on the Internet, visit us. But even if you are not on-line, send us stuff to put on the site ... we just might use it! Above I mentioned THE E-SALON. What that is, is a community which has developed via my e-mail. It is a community of "artists" (whatever that is) of all kinds talking, sharing, plotting together in a very deep freeing way. The pieces by Paul, Heather, Kara, Ray, Lob, Jodi, and Brian all came from THE E-SALON, one way or another. If you want to join in the fun, drop me an e-line to fmoore@lanminds.com. And don't Annie and Kim look happy? Happy life together, gals! Now for those who are thinking of starting your own zines, web sites, or whatever ... please don't get fooled by our "technical quality." We just have an in-house graphic art company. But all you need is good contents ... which money can't buy. Good contents are in you. So let's see what you got! Frank Moore P.O. Box 11445 Berkeley, CA 94712