JOHN KEEL NOT AN AUTHORITY ON ANYTHING

Sondrio John’s daily notes continue, as Jaye Paro buys salt for Agar and Apol, refuses to steal items from the drugstore, and visits their home. Sex rears its ugly head, and Princess Moon Owl covers Petula Clark. It’s best to keep in mind John’s all-caps parenthesis. He also takes some notes on the 1967 Congress of Scientific Ufologists, with appearances by Gray Barker, Long John Nebel, and Vivenus. Frank Edwards dies during the convention, apparently fulfilling a prophecy from Barker, and John is accused of being a CIA agent. (By the way, I posted some material about Vivenus here.)

We have here another of John’s abandoned projects from the ’80s, and it’s an odd one. Prurient Interests was to be a comic novel written in exaggerated bad taste, under one of his preferred pseudonyms, Randolph Halsey-Quince.  And the main character was none other than Dr. Thornton M. Vaseltarp.

Vaseltarp was the name John used for his humor pieces for Screw.  I revealed this in an article in the Fortean Times in 2002; William Gibson read it, and used the name in his novel Pattern Recognition.  Since then, Vaseltarps have proliferated on the internet.

In Prurient Interests, the good doctor appears as a fart expert on a TV show, warning about the danger that flatulence poses to the atmosphere, and promoting the Vaseltarp Fart Filter.  His performance leads to the producer being taken away in a strait jacket.  After an irrelevant and obligatory sex scene, Vaseltarp visits a gun store, where he buys a field mortar.  He then goes to the park, and shoots mortars at all the people having sex in the bushes.  He also runs into one of his fart subjects, Stanley Furchin, who is dressed as the Shadow.  (John knew Walter Gibson, who wrote the Shadow novels, which may explain it.)  After an interlude in which the TV director and his assistant discuss the commercial possibilities of flatulence, an unnamed couple tries to have sex in the back seat of a Volkswagen.  Claustrophobic sex scenes also played a large part in Kiss My Gun; John must have found them particularly funny.  A novelty song called “Making Love in a Subaru” did pretty well in 1977; maybe he was responding to that.

John sent the 34 pages to his agent, Knox Burger, but Burger’s response isn’t in the envelope.  Judging from his reaction to Kiss My Gun, I suspect he wasn’t enthusiastic.  John must have had fun writing it, though.

Following are the first few pages, the irrelevant sex scene, and a concluding pitch.

John worked on a comic novel called Kiss My Gun in the late ’80s. He was pitching it as early as 1985, and seems to have abandoned it by 1987. It involved UFOs, MIB, midgets disguised as aliens, and, for reasons known only to the inscrutable Keel, numerous sex scenes in small enclosed spaces. He completed four chapters, as well as a few scattered synopses and addenda. His agent didn’t like it, however, and so he abandoned it. I can understand the objections, but I’m still sorry we were deprived of a Keelian comedy about UFOs. As John said, “Jeez… What’d you expect from a book titled KISS MY GUN? Tolstoy?”

Following are John’s letter to his agent, Knox Burger; Burger’s reply; and a four-page synopsis that followed the sample chapters.

In 1969, John Keel contemplated writing a history of stag movies.  It wasn’t meant as a serious history, and he didn’t plan to put his name on it.  Instead, he planned a sort of satire of the industry, and of the late ’60s growing permissiveness, using screenplays for imaginary films,   However, he ran into trouble with the idea, and, as he said, “I had created a Frankenstein.  Instead of writing a funny book about dirty movies I found myself writing a dirty book about funny movies.”

He sent an intriguing letter to his agent, Knox Burger, about the project, and a sample of one of the phony screenplays.  I suppose I’ll post them on another page.  There are no pictures, but he does talk about dirty movies, and somebody may be in a workplace that would find it NSFW.

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One of John’s more intriguing abandoned projects is “The Return of the Umbrella Man,” a proposal for a novel. The Umbrella Man, of course, was the mysterious man with the umbrella at Kennedy’s assassination, long an object of speculation by assassination researchers. In 1978, he was identified as Louie Steven Witt, who had simply picked a particularly bad time to protest Joseph Kennedy’s support of Neville Chamberlain.

In 1977, however, John cooked up an idea for a novel, making him a spirit who was repeatedly killed, only to walk in to other host bodies. The premise allowed John to have some fun with a plot brimming with sex, violence, conspiracy, poltergeists, walk-ins, organized crime, mysterious cartels, the Elks, and the Kennedy assassination. And, for good measure, funny underwear. In later years, he often lamented that fictionalized forteana was more commercial than reportage; and that “The X-Files” and “Men In Black” were lifting plot points from his books. “The Return of the Umbrella Man” was an attempt to create an entertainment using some of the same paranormal material.

John’s agent, Knox Burger, didn’t like it, however. Below is John’s cover letter, with Knox’s reply: “John: Names like Henry and Myrtle are death — they’re out of 1937 comic books. Wife shouldn’t cuckold him with police chief… (notes). John: I really don’t have any confidence I could sell this for you. Comic novels about changelings or whatever are just not in demand. I’m awfully sorry. Knox.”

So, the project was abandoned. Perhaps it’s just as well, considering that Witt surfaced shortly afterward. But, if you’ve ever wondered what a “novel of suspense and supernatural horror” by John Keel would be like, here are the first six pages, of 30. After this, George takes over Henry’s body, hooks up with his girlfriend (another walk-in), and they run from the unidentified powerful group trying to kill them. Unfortunately for this group, walk-ins just find another host body when killed. Eventually, the villains learn that only a nuclear explosion can kill off a ghost, and duly prepare an accident at a power plant. It’s action-packed!

After the last exchange of letters, Ivan Sanderson fired off a short note to John, full of enthusiasm for the subject and for the proposed book.  He also attached a 16-page talk he had given to a local UFO group.  The title (if you’re curious) is “Notes on a New Concept: This may be described as a General Biological Field Theory of a cosmic nature.”  Vintage Sanderson!

Two days later, he responded to the criticisms that John had written to their agent, Ollie Swan.  He puts up a lively defense; and points out his years of experience in writing and speaking for the public.  There’s also an interesting bit in there about the “worrying matter of Forteanism.”  He also attached a few pages on the different kinds of ufologists, and a transcript of the Q. & A. from his talk to the UFO group.  (I haven’t included the attachments, since they’re long and faint carbons).

Sanderson wrote to his agent, Oliver Swan, on April 12, 1966, filling him in on the proposed UFO book.  He gave his reasons for the title, and discussed his working relationship with Keel.  I should mention that, in fact, John didn’t have a commission from Playboy to write the definitive UFO article; he had agreed to a short article on spec.  Also, he didn’t write regularly for the magazine, but had only been published in the letters column.

On April 15, John also wrote to Swan.  There was trouble brewing: he was already balking at Sanderson’s chatty style.  John was an American journalist, and Sanderson a Scottish raconteur; and they had very different approaches to their material and to their audience.  Ideally, they should have complemented one another, but ideals don’t always materialize.

John had somewhat of a career crisis in the 1980s.  UFOs were no longer a profitable subject; and the men’s adventure magazines he had written for throughout much of his career had folded.  He turned to writing novels and plays, only to meet rejection from agents and producers.  Partially to keep himself busy, and partially to generate a bit of money, he started putting out ad sheets and self-published booklets.  Here’s one of them, an eight-page pamphlet called “How to Start a Club,” from 1984.  I’m sorry about the holes; John kept his file copy in a binder.

Shortly after this, he took his own advice, and founded the New York Fortean Society.  It wasn’t exactly the cash cow that he planned, but it was fun while it lasted…

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In the 1980s, John Keel made several attempts to return to his earlier career as a comedy writer.  He pitched a number of comic novels and plays, none of which made it past an agent.  Larry “Ratso” Sloman was then editor of the National Lampoon; and John also made a number of suggestions in the gross-out vein of that magazine (like a “sick humor” book on Hitler, called Hitler Was a Nice Guy).  His only published piece was in the November 1985 issue, entitled “The Mad as Hell Issue.”  105 celebrities were invited to write about their pet peeves.  most contributed only a paragraph or two, but John weighed in with a longish article.  Here’s the first part of it:

However, he did make one other appearance: as an uncredited print model in the January 1986 issue.  The photograph was one of several illustrating an article by Ed Subitzky and Karen Dale Boss, “The  Modern Woman’s Guide to Time-Efficient Sex Planning and Management.”   Since this was a pictorial on sex in the workplace, it is, by definition, not safe for work; so I’ve placed it on another page.  It shows John in a way that may be unfamiliar to some of his readers.

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John described his agent, Knox Burger, as “the Maxwell Perkins of the era.”  Here’s a letter from Burger, from April 23, 1974, discussing initial reactions to The Mothman Prophecies, and the possibility of spinning off the material on phone troubles into another book.

Dear John,

Sopkin called to say he’s not finished with the book yet, feels it may be too long and discursive, but he likes it very much.  I told him to finish it up and send money.

Cheers, Knox

P.S. I liked it too, and suspect the phone stuff near the end may be a whole ‘nother book.  I dunno.  I see what you mean about needing more time to document all the odd happenings.  I’d have liked some more expertise on how individuals can cut in on phones, more first-hand accounts of oddball phone experiences — but we can’t have everything.

It’s a good job.

Best, Knox