From the same folder comes this page of letters, apparently destined for a humor magazine. But what was SNAFU? There was a short-lived magazine of that name published by Marvel in 1955 and 1956, but most of the material in this folder is from about ten years later. Was there another one? The Keel files are full of puzzles!
Two of the recent posts here, “Report from Hollywood” and “Al Mercy,” were taken from a folder of miscellaneous papers that John labeled “Milky Way Productions.” Milky Way published Al Goldstein’s risqué periodical Screw, and the folder does contain a few unfinished ideas for Screw. (Goldstein did publish several humor pieces by John, under the pseudonyms Thorton M. Vaseltarp and Thaddeus T. Farnboggle.) But it also holds three scripts for Mack and Myer for Hire, fragments and ideas for several TV shows (Lost in Space, The Flintstones, The Dick Van Dyke Show), gag letters to something called SNAFU, a 1972 letter about a burglary of his home in Woodstock, a 1971 letter from Loren Coleman, an outline of a book called The Last Great Mysteries, and two résumés from 1965. John’s filing system was as idiosyncratic as the rest of his life.
I posted one of the résumés here. This one may have been a first draft. As usual, it raises a few questions. What, for example, are John’s two hundred film credits? Was The World of the Living Dead ever produced? I can find no trace of it, although it may have been made under another title. John is not listed in the credits of Diary of a Bachelor (you can see them here), but it was produced by Sandy Howard and featured Joey Faye (one of the stars of Mack and Myer) so he was probably called in to provide a few gags. He did write about the technical problems of sound for 8mm film (at least two articles in 1963, for Better Home Movie Making and U. S. Camera); his film The Whimper has survived, and has been digitized. Call My Bluff did air for a few months in 1965, although John is not credited in any of the accounts I’ve seen. I don’t think John ever wrote for Playboy, except for a letter; his proposed article on UFOs was rejected as too long. He did write for the American Forces Network; I’ve listed the scripts he saved in the bibliography on this site. “Hundreds of radio shows,” I’m afraid, is an exaggeration. He did work for Funk & Wagnalls, and is credited as “assistant editor” in the 1960 Book of the Year. I haven’t seen the 1958 edition of Who’s Who in America, but inclusion reportedly involved a fee. The other résumé is a bit more reliable!
Here’s the rest of John’s article “Report from Hollywood,” a melancholy reflection on the unromantic dream factory of 1965. I assume he wrote it for his hometown paper, the Perry Herald, since he mentions Perry several times.
Here’s another curiosity from John’s files: a description of his life in Hollywood, from 1965. Given the references in the introduction, my guess is that it was written for the Perry Herald. A couple of notes: Bed of Nails was the working title for Three Women. Robert Q. Lewis was the host of the TV show Play Your Hunch, which John wrote for back then. Here’s a picture of the two of them. And I’ll post the second part next week.
This letter was published in Gray Barker’s Newsletter, #6, April-May-June 1976. A few footnotes: Jennings Frederick claimed an alien contact in Fairmont, WV, in July 1968: a “vegetable man” who hypnotized him and took his blood. The Frank Gorshin movie was Invasion of the Saucer Men, from 1957. Jerome Eden was a ufologist and Reichian. James Moseley was one of John’s favorite targets: Coral Lorenzen was the head of APRO (Aerial Phenomena Research Organization), and may indeed have fallen out with Moseley; Joe Pyne was a TV host who specialized in ridiculing his guests, one of whom was Moseley. J. Allen Hynek was a prominent ufologist, known particularly for his role in Project Blue Book. Stendek, or Stendec, was a popular word among UFO buffs: it was the last word sent by the airliner Bormujos Star Dust before it crashed in the Andes in 1947.
As the second (and last) chapter of John’s unfinished spy story concludes, secret agent Al Mercy and his contact, Gerda Feldstein, wrestle naked for her Luger, before settling for naked kissing. Damn this war!
As the second chapter of John’s unfinished spy story continues, the reader learns more about Al Mercy’s mission and background. Unfortunately, Gerda Feldstein has her suspicions, as well as a gun…
In the first chapter of John’s unfinished and untitled spy story, WW2 secret agent Al Mercy parachuted into a nudist colony on a Scandinavian island. As the second (and last) chapter begins, he discusses his mission with his contact, the beautiful and naked Gerda Feldstein. Assassination, mutual suspicion, and sexual tension lie ahead…
The exciting serial of Al Mercy continues! In the rest of the first chapter, Al Mercy, an American secret agent in World War 2, after having parachuted into a Scandinavian nudist colony, meets his contact.
For those of you just joining us, John wrote two chapters of an untitled spy story, which I’m posting here. I have no idea what he meant to do with it.
John apparently started this spy novel in the late ’60s, judging from the other papers in the folder. Maybe it was a first attempt at Love That Spy, maybe not. At any rate, he wrote two chapters, in which secret agent Al Mercy parachutes onto a nudist colony on a Scandinavian island in World War 2. There he joins forces with the beautiful Gerda Feldstein to find and kill General Hans Von Passel. It’s pretty silly, but you may welcome some diversion in these troubled times. John didn’t give it a title, so I’ll just call it after its dashing hero.
