On personal data privacy

When I saw Mike Godwin's op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, I recognized his name from CPSR and RISKS. And reading the piece reminded me of a handout I used to give my students. I sent this letter (not published):

Mike Godwin urges a tech code of ethics concerning censorship and privacy policies. The Code of Fair Information Practices would be an excellent start on the privacy part. Proposed in 1973 (!), it has five principles:

• There must be no personal data record-keeping systems whose very existence is secret.
• There must be a way for a person to find out what information about the person is in a record and how it is used.
• There must be a way for a person to prevent information about the person that was obtained for one purpose from being used or made available for other purposes without the person's consent.
• There must be a way for a person to correct or amend a record of identifiable information about the person.
• Any organization creating, maintaining, using, or disseminating records of identifiable personal data must assure the reliability of the data for their intended use and must take precautions to prevent misuses of the data.

Porn Star Autographs

And then there's my collection of gay porn star autographs!

These were gathered at two events, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, and the Bad Boys Pool Parties (BBPP) in the L.A. area.

I went to CES in January 1990 with a bunch of fellow Xeroids. Winter CES is "for the trade only," not open to the public. We got in as Xerox employees. We paid for the trip and accommodations ourselves. Then and now, CES is enormous. That year, it filled the Convention Center and parts of six hotels.  There were vast halls full of computer games, fancy home and car audio, video stuff of all sorts, calculators, security systems, and on and on.  

Best of all for me, one ballroom of one hotel was set aside for "Adult Video."   Yes, that means porn.  Of all varieties.  All these porn purveyors were there trying to convince retailers and video stores to stock their lines.  Most of them brought some of their "stars" (scantily clad, of course) to autograph photos, calendars, magazines, and posters.  I consider porn the highest and best use of video technology.

It was a great time to be an openly gay man.  There were l-o-n-g lines of men (no women to speak of) waiting for an autograph and a few words with the female stars, and there was no waiting at all for the male models who were there.  Most of them were delighted to talk and sign stuff.  I met and brought back many autographed publicity photos and posters. It was lots of fun.

It was also the only time I ever kissed a porn star. Joey Stefano was supposed to be at one booth, but every time I went by, he wasn't there. Finally, when he showed up, I got his autograph and then reached to shake his hand and say thanks. But he pulled my head down and deep kissed me!

The Bad Boys Pool Party was an annual AIDS fund-raiser event for several years. It was first in L.A. and then moved to the Palm Springs area. The porn stars were the draw. Here's Chase Hunter signing:

and here's a lineup of screen studs signing:

 Click here to see all of my porn star autographs.

Counter-culture buttons

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, I bought (and sold) lots of counterculture buttons and posters. I still have quite a few.

Naturally, one batch are gay-related. That theme continued in later years, too:

Another theme is the war on the war on drugs:

Sex is a popular topic:

A handful are about Middle Earth. (The last two translate to "Frodo Lives" and "Go, Go, Gandalf") :

And plenty are miscellaneous:

Update: In 2022, I donated most of my buttons to the University of Connecticut collection . 

Comic books

While I'm on the subject of magazine collections, I must write about comic books. From childhood into my teens, I read lots of comic books. (All those well-muscled men in skin-tight costumes? Of course, I loved super-heroes!)

At some point, I started saving some of them, too. When I went away to college, I had two bags of comics saved at home. One was a mixed group of comics, the other was my favorite, a nearly complete collection of early X-Men comics, including #1. I think I had about 20 of the first 25 issues. This one was years later:

I also was a charter member of the Merry Marvel Marching Society:

Years later, I couldn't find the X-Men collection. My mother said that, during her several years as a substitute elementary school teacher, she let her students cut them up to help learn reading. She never even asked me first, and she didn't realize their value to me, but I never forgave her.

The remaining bag contains over 40 comics, including 

• a handful of Classics Illustrated
• 11 of the 13 original issues of Not Brand Ecch
• a bunch of 12-cent comics
• a bunch of 25-cent King-Size Specials

Click here to see a photo album of them, plus those buttons.

P.S. (April 2024) I recently bought this to partially make up for the lost bag of comic books. (Sadly, it's all black-and-white.)

P.P.S. (April 2026) Over a few days, I sold ten comic books to three buyers for $1210. I'm sure the lost bag would have brought more than that. I now have 33 comic books, and I will still try to sell those.

Final P.S. (August 2026) I sold the rest to a comic book store in Burbank for $300.

To the Moon

Long before I worked at JPL, I was a space enthusiast. In 1968-69, I saved many books and magazines about NASA going to the moon. The magazines are a little beat up, but 50 years later, I still have them. Here's an overview:

Now, take a look at my entire collection.

Sweepstakes and a minor rarity

I enter sweepstakes all the time. I win small prizes now and then. In recent years, I've won a digital camera and a couple of $100 gift cards. My largest wins, years ago, have been travel: my Katmai and Puerto Vallarta trips. I also won $10,000 cash in an LATimes sweepstakes. That was in 2010, and helped me decide to retire in 2011.

In the current Albertsons Monopoly sweepstakes, I won $5 cash in the first weeks and again last week. I've also won a free bagel twice. The other day, I got this game ticket:

It's good for a $5 gift card, and it's highly unusual. It's uncommon for one game ticket to have even two pieces for the same prize. This one has four! Since this prize requires exactly those four pieces, this is a winner all by itself! Unheard of!

When I turned it in, the clerk agreed she had never seen this before.

Autographs — Deji Bryce Olukotun

Deji Bryce Olukotun has written novels, short stories and essays. He has one story in this collection. He read a great short excerpt from his latest book at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and I got his autograph afterwards.

(Index of autographs)

Autographs — Chisholm, Duretta, Lorino, Sisco

Nick Duretta is a personal friend, and a member of the book discussion group I'm in. He has a short story in this book. At the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books yesterday, I made sure to stop by the book's booth while Nick was there. I bought the book, and Nick and several other contributing writers signed my copy.

The autographs are from Sara Chisholm, Nick Duretta, Gabi Lorino, and Cody Sisco.

(Index of autographs)

Loltun cave ― Dec. 1994

Inside the cave

Of our many travels around Yucatán, one of the more unusual was to see the cave at Loltun. We went with our California friend Jeffery, one of the few times we've traveled with someone else. Jeffery took this photo of Victor and me at Loltun:

Loltun is hard to get to, or at least it was in 1994. From Mérida, the closest we could get by bus was Oxkutzcab. That took well over an hour, and we were still about 7 km from Loltun. We hired a car to take us to the cave.

The cave is great, worth the trip. (For more photos and details, see, for example, this write-up.) Because it's remote, there were few other visitors. As we left, I spotted this sculpture, part of El Culto Falico:

Finally, we were faced with how to get back to Oxkutzcab! We waited a bit to see if any car might arrive, drop off passengers, and be available for us. After a while, Jeffery convinced us to try hitchhiking. To my surprise, that pretty quickly worked. When a truck driver stopped, Jeffery, whose Spanish is good, explained what we wanted. The truck driver said we were welcome to join the vegetables he was hauling. We hopped in and got back to Oxkutzcab. I wish I had a photo of us among the vegetables. This remains the only time I've ever hitchhiked.

DescriptionMérida

DescriptionMérida

Visa progress

Sudden, silent rule changes

Progress, but not quite complete.

We finally made it through the interview, but now they require us to mail in several documents: an updated official police report showing that Victor still hasn't been arrested (we had one a year ago; now they want another), and both Victor's and my birth certificates (see "rule changes" below). At least we don't have to return to Juarez!

We are also to include Victor's current passport. That's a sign that they will, finally, paste a visa in it!

Victor's interview appointment was for 8:15 am Thursday. He was at the consulate just after 8 am. He did not get out until just before noon! He spent more than three hours waiting in multiple lines.

This time, we only spent one night in Juarez. We flew in Wednesday, had the interview Thursday morning, and flew out Thursday night.

Sudden, silent rule changes

I can't understand why they need our birth certificates, since they've seen our passports! 

Also, Form I-134, about my finances, has a section asking about my U.S. citizenship: if I was born in the U.S., give city and state and SSN. It does not ask for any documentation of that. I had to attach tons of documentation about my finances, but nothing about my citizenship. This form, last updated in February 2019 (!), was one we just submitted at the interview. 

I guess they just changed the rules in March, deciding that now they need documentation.