EDITORIAL

A hazard any Editor must brave is the letters of complaint which pile in upon him. "Why do you print you print those ridiculous stories? Pocketbooks about gay life are a dime a dozen these days, and, believe it or not, most of them are better written than the junk you print in ONE Magazine." Complaints of this sort are classified as belonging in the "For-God's-sake-give-us-better-fiction-or-no-fiction-at-all" file.

However, they cannot compare in decibels with the "Oh, that awful poetry!" file, one of the largest and really jumping of them all. "Who needs poetry, anyway?" anyway?" is the usual question. "Save the space for something that means something," run other complaints. The real nasties say, "A bunch of sick queens trying to make like they know something the rest of us can't figure out."

On articles, there is a wide split between the With-It and the Not-With-It groups. The With-It crowd likes long and "deep" articles, "real deep and meaty, man. Something you can bite onto. Pack the poets and the storytellers off to group therapy, which is what they need." The Not-With-It crowd groans, "Not again, please! One more of those wordy, messy 'explanations' of it all and I'll have me a trip just to get away from it all, and probably get busted. Don't those solemn guys know that one simple, groovy little story gets more across than all their gab about Reik and Jung and a lot of crap they know nothing about anyway?"

"Book reviews? Who reads books these days? So, why reviews?" This leaves the embattled Editor with what left? Well, there are letters and news. While news can be all out of date and, "I've read that before" from the I-get-around types, most readers seem to like news of what is going on over the fence from where they live, and especially behind those drawn shades down the street.

Letters have a fine way of either irritating or pleasing about everyone. So there are more letters about the letters just read. And these letters then get printed, telling how irritating it all was, or how much they much they agreed with carlier letters. Given this convenient self-multiplying factor, perhaps the Magasine should be all letters. It might also be a lot simpler that way.

Don't forget Editorials though. Nothing can be more aggravating or more boring and not needed in this world than an editorial, they say. "I'm going to write that stupid Editor, and tell him what a fool he 18. He seems not even to suspect the situation as it really is. Ugh!"

It is pretty hard to know just where some of the letters really do belong. The circular file is a great temptation at times, but, who knows, the worst of them all just could be what really sends someone, somewhere. So, maybe that writer in PEOPLE TODAY wasn't so far off when he called ONE Magazine, "The voice of U. S. homosexuals" way back there in 1954.

Bitching and complaining griping, and, once in a great while, liking something, why would they bother if they didn't feel it was THEIR Magazine? And that is the way ONE likes it to be.

Richard Conger, Editor