Page 347 - Gay Pioneers: How DRUMMER Magazine Shaped Gay Popular Culture 1965-1999

Jack Fritscher Chapter 13 329

March 5, 1979 (Monday): Diary entry - “I can’t handle the situation at
Drummer anymore.” Spent two hours last night on a Drummer photo shoot.

March 6, 1979 (Tuesday): I spent several hours this day and dozens of
other days editing chapters from Mister Benson (as originally titled inside
Drummer before shortened to Mr. Benson) for its East Coast author John
Preston who, dangling his ten-chapter novel for serialization, had hustled
Embry into publishing him in Drummer.

March 8, 1979 (Thursday): Jim Enger flew into Santa Rosa airport in
a small plane to surprise me at my home in Sonoma County. “Omigod! He
can fly!” said David Sparrow who was visiting me trying to fend off the man
he thought was his competition. Nevertheless, I spent several hours working
on the Drummer swim meet photographs David and I shot, including sitting
down to write the poem “Wet Stough” to caption the photos for Drummer
28 (April 1979). On this date, outside the Gay Ghetto, but reflecting my
professional design and production involvement with Drummer, I won two
first-place awards in two categories from the Bay Area Society of Technical
Communicators for brochures I wrote and produced during my concurrent
day job as Manager of Publications at Kaiser Engineers in Oakland.

March 13, 1979 (Tuesday): Drummer publisher John Embry told me he
had cancer. His growing “dis-ease” the last few months now had a name.
What turmoil. “It’s a full moon tonight.” As editor-in-chief faced with pro-
ducing Drummer without the publisher, I sat down and outlined the next
three issues of Drummer., continuing its metamorphosis in style and con-
tent. I wrote: “Embry might die. Will Drummer?”

March 14, 1979 (Wednesday): Embry checked into the hospital for sur-
gery. The new issue of Drummer appeared—six weeks late: Drummer 27
(February 1979).

March 16, 1979 (Friday): Embry had cancer surgery.

March 17, 1979 (Saturday, Saint Patrick’s Day): David Sparrow and I
officially divorce. Having met in Chuck Renslow’s Gold Coast Bar, July 4,
1969, and having been married in Manhattan by S&M priest, Jim Kane,
on May 7, 1972, we formally and amicably ended our ten-year domestic
affair, but continued to share our home, and to photograph together for
Drummer. David took possession of our cameras. I took possession of our

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