Page 502 - Gay Pioneers: How DRUMMER Magazine Shaped Gay Popular Culture 1965-1999

484 Gay Pioneers: How Drummer Shaped Gay Popular Culture 1965-1999

This is an amazing piece of work [Staley’s press release], con-
sidering about the only thing vaguely “American” about this new
Drummer is their eagerness to take U.S. dollars. The new debut
online Drummer, based in Amsterdam, consists of exactly four
“pages”—more than half of which was taken up with this letter.
New direction? In fact, Drummer [which Embry did not own
in the 1990s] has been trying to launch a successful website since
1996, with dismal results. The U.S. operations of Drummer were
discontinued last year and the name “rented” out to a Pittsburgh
organization [Zuhl], turning the fund-raising Mr. Drummer
Contest into a for-profit venture. [Coincidentally, Embry himself
had caused the Drummer Slave Auction bust by changing its pur-
pose from a private fund-raiser for the community to a for-profit
event for himself, and on those essential changes, the LAPD based
its justification for the raid that cost thousands of taxpayer dollars.]
When the magazine ceased publication, employees, advertis-
ers and subscribers were left dangling in the wind. In this letter
the “new” Drummer clearly takes direct credit for that decisiton
[sic]. It was Super MR who, as a goodwill gesture, offered Drummer
subscribers and advertisers a credit equal to their unfulfilled subscrip-
tions and advertising. [Wrote trickster Embry! Italics added.] It may
be difficult to seize the legacy and at the same time dodge the
responsibility.
Whatever Zen sort of moving-to-the-next-plane-of-existence
spin you put on it, Drummer, as we knew it, is plainly gone. It is
particularly embarressing [sic] to Alternate Publishing who origi-
nated the title 25 years ago, [that] the name is now just an empty
trademark. In this case, with limited apologies to both Mark Twain
and Mr. Staley, rumored signs of life (or certainly of any continued
credibility) are greatly exaggerated.
—[Signed] Robert Davolt

©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved—posted 03-14-2017
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