Hobbies
My various interests have led me to a lot of fun times. Mainly I have been interested in Science Fiction (movies and novels), Fantasy (mostly Lords of the Rings), Computers, Motorcycles and drawing.
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Computers
My interest in computers started in high school in the late 60's. I was going to Hug High in Reno NV and we went on a field trip to the Desert Research Institute outside Reno, Nevada. I was impressed with their IBM mainframe. It intrigued me because I was always interested in calculators and such. I bought my first computer, an Altair PET, to learn about them more in the early 70's, then there was the Radio Shack Model II, Apple II and so on. I wanted be able to use a computer with my artwork, but never had the money to get all the equipment needed in those days. I later became a good word processor and used the computer to work on fanzines, mine and those issued by the National Federation of Fantasy Fan (N3F) which I was president of for a while. Up to my present AMD 1.3 GHz engine I now use I have had every IBM clone from an XT up, all the Macs up to the PowerPC 7200 series, Atari 520ST, 1040ST, the Amiga, TI-99 and some many others they are hard to name. The most fun was when I got with my fanzine friends and we used to play Santa Paravia on the Apple IIe in the late 70's. Right now I run 2 mains and 3 laptops. I also sell computers and have gotten rid of the last of my Macs.
Art
I have always had an artistic slant. But I never really got much training and that shows in my art. When I was young I used to copy cartoons from the papers. I later developed a cartoon character consisting of a head and legs that I called "gremlins" my jr. high school buddy, Jim Gray, convinced me that was covered already and called them "globs". In Panama I used to draw attention to myself by drawing the cartoons on the class chalkboards. This led to a stint on the school newspaper. During the heyday of National Lampoon and such I learned about Vaughn Bode. He had work in a lot of the SF periodicals as well. I copied his style a lot and used it in Fandom, both SF and comics. When I was introduced to The Comics Buyers Guide by my brother Guy, I wanted to do my own fanzine, this led to No Sex Magazine, which I hope to continue. Most of my art could be seen in SF fandom from the mid 70's into the early 90's and was composed of covers to fanzines and interior filler art.
I never could figure how kids got cars when they were in High School. My family could hardly afford to keep hold of the main car. While in Jr. High school my father interested me in motorcycles, I think because he liked them and rode them on the job when he was a Military Policeman. He threaten to get me one, but that never panned out. It had me thinking about them all the time. I didn't learn how to drive a car at home and hitch-hiked or rode a 10-speed to college. When I graduated from University of San Francisco in 1974 I went into the Army from my ROTC scholarship. Luckily I did not have to go to Viet Nam. I learned to ride a motorcycle at my first assignment at Ft Knox, KY. I bought a used Honda 250/4, later I bought a used Honda 750/4 and shipped that to Germany. I inherited a Harley Sportster in Germany as the Road Captain of the "Bombholders Motorcycle Club". When I got home I bought one of the fastest bikes of the day the Yamaha XS11, fully dressed. It was the only new bike I ever bought. Then it was a Kawasaki 1300 when I was stationed in Southern California and later the Yamaha Venture Royale (again fully dressed) I sold that a couple years back and now have a 1982 Honda GL1100 Goldwing Aspencade. I also owned a Honda Hurricane 1000 and a Ninja 900 but don't talk about them much since I don't like the "pocket rocket" style bike. I like straight-up touring and so the Aspencade suits me.
Science Fiction
I didn't like to read at all when I was young and wasn't that great a student early on. This changed when I was introduced to Science Fiction (SF) in the 9th grade. I became addicted and gobbled it up in large doses. I read completely through the San Pedro, CA library section of SF, including the adult section (that took some begging), I went through all the Heinlein, Asimov, Niven, Clarke and Sheckley I could find. My mom used to read the Ace Novels on breaks at work and that got me hooked on the art. Covers by EMSH, Morrow, Adkins and later Bode tore me up and I wanted to emulate them. I did try to copy some of the styles, but that is a discussion for the art section.
I caught a bit of the collectors bug and at one point had the entire run of Galaxy Magazine, the main periodical I used to read, IF Magazine (its sister magazine), Worlds of Fantasy (another sister magazine. I also collected the Ace double novels starting with D13. I used to prowl back issue stores looking for that certain copy during my military career from the mid 70's into the 80's it was great fu. In the 70's Owen Laurian saw my work in The Buyers Guide for Comic Fandom and noted it's SF slant. He contacted me and said I join the National Fantasy Fan Federation (N3F). That is a SF/Fantasy national fan club devoted to introducing fans to SF fandom. The neat thing is that they had two publications; TNFF (The National Fantasy Fan) and Tightbeam (their newsletter). Though the publications had a history back to 1941, there was always a need for artists. That is where the fun began. From the mid 70;s through 1986 I was editor of TNFF, art director of Tightbeam and Director and President for the club in an era they now call their "golden age". I published some much art by myself and my friends that it overcame the lackluster look of the zines in prior years and was able to boost membership I was able to experiment with computer formats as well in that forum when word processing and graphics for the common person was just breaking out.
My fandom activities have been varied. I have been associated with SF, Fantasy, Comics and Computer fandom. This includes going to conventions, working on newsletters and fanzines/APAs parties and so on, I don't do much of that now but invite you to the sites of folks and events that I have had fun with. I started drawing when i was very young and remember mostly when we were in San Pedro California while my dad was in Germany. I developed a cartoon character I called Gremlins and Jim Gray convinced me to changes the name to Globs to protect copyright issues. I took this character by practicing drawing the faces and emotions they could display 3-5 hours a day like a Tiger Woods would practice golf, it came to the point that i could draw globs at the drop of a hat. My natural desire to tell stories led me to start putting them into long complex stories in the form of art strips. School gave me a chance to expose my talent and learn more and more about how things are done, story telling, layout publication. From High School to college I got my stuff done, but by my senior year at USF I was intense about publishing my own work and so No Sex Magazine was born. My brother got me into The Buyers Guide and that is where I got the contacts to draw for other fanzines. I did most of my work for N3F publications and as I said, do a little now for them.
