7 NOTES & BOLTS
11 MOVIE OF THE MONTH
15 LETTERS
17 FANTASY TAPE
20 INTERVIEW:
Steve McQueen
His final words by R. Allen Lieder
23 TANYA
Pictorial
She makes her men suffer
31 SHAMELESS TALES
Double Dessert
40 THE LAST OF THE GREAT HAREMS
A whole lot more than a roomful of broads
Article by Arthur R. Turner
43 THE GREAT CANADIAN BEAVER HUNT
A Visit to the Bedrooms of the Nation
48 MARYANN
Pictorial
Satin turns her on
54 MEETING MRS. DILLEY
Pick up Granny or lose your job
Fiction by R. D. Benford
57 CAROLINE
Pictorial
She's still waiting for her man
71 DREAMIN'
Pictorial
His only problem was that he awoke
87 DIRECT YOUR OWN CUSTOM FANTASY
91 THE WORKOUT
Pictorial
Ping Pong
PUBLISHER'S STATEMENT
TRAGIC FANTASIES
I'm writing this on December 10, the day after John Lennon was shot. It
may not see print for months. I am upset and angry. Not that John
Lennon was my favorite musician; he wasn't. But I liked his work and I
liked the way he stood up and spoke the truth in public. He refused to
be ruled by his celebrity status.
Like a lot of other people today, I'm trying to figure out why anybody
would want to shoot a man like that and, though I don't have any
answers, I think I may see a pattern. Consider:
The late Dan Blocker, Hoss Cartwright on Bonanza, used to tell a story
about a little old lady who approached him one day while he was making
a personal appearance. She advised him the he and his brothers and
father needed a real woman cooking for them and not "that Chinese
fella". She told him to tell this to Ben Cartwright when he got back to
the Ponderosa. When Blocker explained to her that he was not Hoss
Cartwright, but an actor who would be going home to his wife and
children, she shot him a quick look of scorn and continued telling Hoss
Cartwright how much he needed female cooking.
Harlan Ellison, a science fiction writer with a Star Trek script to his
credit, tells of giving a lecture and having a member of the audience
break down in angry tears when he casually mentioned that he had
written a certain speech of Mr. Spock's. Apparently the listener
thought that the actors made up all those words themselves — actually
lived their parts.
I can't remember any of the names involved, but a variation of this
story crops up at least once a year in the newspapers: Some new York
actor
or actress, working regularly as a villain on a soap opera, will be
assaulted on the street by a total stranger who demands, while beating
them, that they stop husband-stealing, or whatever it is their
character does on the box.
The obvious common thread here is the confusion of fiction and fact,
people acting toward made-up characters as though they were real.
This may have been what happened in the mind of the man who shot John
Lennon. From songs, performances and interviews, this man made up his
own "John Lennon". We all do it. Your "John Lennon" is not the same as
mine; we react in different ways to different aspects of the man's
work. And the "John Lennon" we make up is not the real John Lennon. The
real one was known only to his family and friends — just like all of
us. To think any different is to confuse the artist with the art.
And we do just that, time and time again. I don't know why. I only know
that, more and more, the evidence says we are losing our ability to
distinguish between reality and fantasy.
I can't prove it and I don't know what the trial will reveal, but I'm
convinced the man who shot John Lennon was killing a fantasy figure who
lived only in his mind. It is a pity and a tragedy that the real man
died in the process. And I'm afraid that, as long as we continue to
believe our entertainments are reality, such tragedies will be
perpetrated on the people who make them.
