It has been almost six years since the Cacophony Society of San Francisco found me. I would say, more modestly, that I found them, but it was here at Marcel Proust Support Group Headquarters that I first came to know the stellar members of Cacophony.

One of my old housemates had brought copies of the Society's newsletter, Rough Draft, into the house years before the Cacophonists came themselves. We chortled over the weirdness of it all, affixed the newsletter to the refrigerator door, and promptly became so re-involved in our own concerns that the newsletter was out of date before we noticed it again, under the fresh layers of important info posted in the one spot of communal attention. But one day our housemate Kevin came home from art school with tales of extraordinary new friends, Cacophonists, some of whom were artists, insisting that I must meet them.

My very first introduction to one of the Society's most charismatic movers and shakers, Sebastian Melmoth, was at the former dwelling of our housemate Lance, whose elegant watercolor portrait of MP graces this month's cover. The occasion was Lance's annual social event, the March Hare Ball, to which guests were invited to bring "something to gag on." I had surveyed the buffet, platters of raw meat chunks, black Jell-O, and the pièce de la résistance , the roadkill in aspic, among other offerings, and chose to wander to the back of the flat in search of other pleasures; it was then that I saw S. Melmoth crawling in through the third story window. I looked out to see if there were other colorful folks on the fire escape, but found, to my surprise, that there was no fire escape, or any other visible means of ascent from the ground floor.

Soon thereafter, Cacophonists gravitated to our house, and I was talked into attending my first event, a late night walking tour of the Oakland storm drains, for which the dress code was formal wear and hip waders. My night vision is not what it might be, and soon I was trailing at the tail end of the party, clinging to my friend Cyndy (whose obituary appeared in my premiere issue) while she somehow managed to videotape the tour in spite of me. At one juncture, our former housemate Miss Dawn was at the head of the party with Kevin and Sebastian, the hosts for the event, when they found a stretch of deep water; "if it's up to here on me," the tall Miss Dawn told Sebastian, "it will be over P's head." The dashing Mr. Melmoth raced back through the line to find me and carry me over the rough spots. It was the first of many occasions on which he rescued me at a Cacophony event.

As the years passed, I began avoiding events that I knew in advance would require a Sebastian Melmoth rescue. Fortunately, the adventures of Cacophony aren't necessarily dangerous; few involve physical peril. There was plenty for me to do, especially after the inception in 1991 of The Marcel Proust Support Group, which I believe holds the Cacophony record as the longest-running event.

In the years following the beginning of the Marcel Proust Support Group, I was able to meet dozens of the Society's members, and many of them became well-loved friends. Most of the people who frequented Cacophony were colored with ingenious prospects of amusement, with spectacular notions of entertainment, and the times I spent with them were seldom if ever without laughter. A fair number of them read Proust with me, or became interested in matters relating to the era; Joe Fenton and Edwina Pythagoras, one of Cacophony's original members and constant activists, have produced articles for our first two issues.

There was a time, of course, when numerous members of Cacophony were concerned about the massive Proustian sensibility that was taking over the society. To counteract this effusive sensation among some of us, and of course in sheer amusement, others launched an opposite crew: The Charles Bukowski Support Group.

I must admit to being a Bukowski fan myself, ever since an occasion in Los Angeles after my college years; my old friend, the LA poet Michael C. Ford, wanted to arrange a fund-raising reading for Kenneth Patchen, who was very ill at the time, and since my one skill in life has always been finding a great place to live, Michael asked if we might hold the reading at my huge Santa Monica dwelling. Of course I said yes.

Twenty wonderful poets came to read at this event, and Charles Bukowski was one of them. He drank 2 six-packs of cheap beer, then rose to the podium to read without a trip to the bathroom. "This podium is a prop," he began, "in case I need to fall down."

After Bukowski's visit to my house, and a wonderfully amusing reading, I began to read his books. Like Proust, he writes about what people are really like, and he certainly makes us laugh.

I helped Sebastian Melmoth begin the Bukowski Support Group by making a search of the bars in the Tenderloin district in search of a perfect place to meet. In one perfectly seedy establishment, the Ha-Ra, as we downed a few martinis we found ourselves talking to an older gentleman who told us that he'd owned a bookstore in New York, after we told him about our plans to launch the support group. He pointed at the bartender who had made our drinks: "See that guy there?" he asked us. "He's extremely literate; he reads 20 books a week." We knew we'd found the perfect spot.

Soon thereafter, the Bukowski Support Group made the edition of Rough Draft, and the first meeting created a stir at the Ha-Ra, where we read aloud, drank a whole lot, and toasted Hank. In a later Rough Draft, the Bukowski Day at the Races was announced.

Soon after the birth of the Bukowski Support Group, I began thinking about editing Rough Draft. When I finally began, I made a point of adding to each issue at least one quote from Proust.

Editing Rough Draft made it clear to me that it was possible to edit a publication, and the presence of Proust in a regular publication brought about the plan to do Proust Said That. After I had done about five issues of Rough Draft, Cacophony started thinking about having a different editor for each issue (no doubt to avoid the presence of other editors' manias). Maxwell Maul set about lining up monthly candidates; I longed to do Proust Said That. After I completed the seventh issue, another editor was found, and I was free to start a publication of my own.

Last fall, however, we began to think about the fact that Rough Draft #100 was soon coming up, and several of us wanted the honor of editing it. For me, however, it was impossible, because I would be out of town during the week that it would be created. It did occur to me, however, that Issue #102 would be needed not long after, and for a Proust nut, #102 holds a special significance: it was at 102 Boulevard Haussman, Paris, that Proust began writing the fabulous Remembrance of Things Past.

I was already in possession of a drawing of Proust's most famous address, created by Dean Gustafson, Cacophonist par excellence, the splendid artist who has done so much to illustrate both this zine and the Rough Drafts I had edited. I told him I'd use his sketch of Proust's place for this issue, but he wanted to do yet another drawing in which the house number was visible. And, he said, the issue should be cork-lined, to represent the cork-lined interior of Proust's room. As luck would have it, it was a big month for events; only one corner remained in which I might inject a quote from the great Marcel.

Proust stamp by cynsa

Now that I've produced the official Proust issue of Rough Draft, I will let many months go by before I feel compelled to do another; I'll use the time to get on with Proust Said That instead.

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