SUCH A LITTLE scam artist!
I sent Merilee Rowling a postcard. It said, Dear Stranger: Read your story. Nice work. Please return my daddy's hat or I'm telling on you. Your pal, Spencer.
Photo World was even more interesting.
My prizewinning photo was on the cover. Inside, a brief article consisting of quotes from Mr. Leiberman and an assistant professor at St. Louis University named Jay Schmo, Ph.D., declared that a new branch had burst forth on the evolutionary tree of the visual arts. An exhibition in New York was predicted but no details were provided.
How do people get away with such stuff?
How do the disseminators of facts continue to engage in such egregious half-truths and falsehoods?
Is the whole world made up of liars?
Uncle Milton sent me a twelve-thousand-dollar advance on the book of photos. He had titled it Inside a Bug's Eye, which I thought was fairly restrictive, but when Newsweek magazine picked a portion of the collection for a special issue and the bonus check arrived, I couldn't have cared less if he'd called it Inside a Bug's Ass.
The money kept pouring in.
Who s the girl you're rolling around with in Newsweek ? Maureen Balderson questioned me on a postcard bearing an image of a hay bale wearing oversize sunglasses with the headline "LIFE IS A BEACH IN KANSAS." It looks a lot like that strumpet Merilee Rowling that I met at your house. What's happened to you? Always, MO.
Immediately, I sent off a reply, also on a postcard, this one a split image showing wild turkeys happily gobbling in a field on the left half while on the right half they were being carried like gray flour sacks flung over the shoulders of two men with shotguns. It bore the headline "LIFE IS A SPORT IN KANSAS!"
It's not what it seems, I swear, I wrote to Maureen Balderson. I am a victim of unscrupulous business opportunists. She means nothing to me. Less than nothing. Just a prop for a picture. Love, Spencer.
Not that I'd been all that scrupulous.
But the fact is, you don't get to be a big success without cutting a few people off at the knees when the situation calls for it, and having a smart lawyer for a brother, or having a friend who has a smart lawyer for a brother.
Milton Swartzman's brother was a big shot lawyer in Palm Beach, Florida. His name was Howard. His office was on the top floor of a bank building that overlooked the surging Atlantic Ocean.
From his office, Howard Swartzman looked down not only on everybody else in Palm Beach but also on many rich Europeans arriving on private yachts and cruise ships.
With Howard's help, I was able to stop Merilee Rowling from getting the money for the movie rights to Chief Leopard Frog's story, which Universal Studios had offered seventeen million dollars for, based on her fascinating and widely read article in the once obscure Poetry Week.
The case was unique in the annals of copyright law and eventually became known as the "Frog Decision."
The judgment hinged on this point: A heavily fictionalized story about an imaginary person, when presented as legitimate journalistic fact, is wholly dependent upon the imaginary person's actual existence. Inasmuch as the imaginary person in Honesty versus Rowling, namely, Chief Leopard Frog, was imagined entirely by Honesty and not at all by Rowling, the imaginary character is the exclusive property of Honesty.
The court compared the case to Walt Disney's imaginary creation of Mickey Mouse. Many artists drew the character in various settings and with various appearances, but to this day Mickey Mouse remains the exclusive property of Walt Disney, his heirs, and his assigns.
Although Rowling owns the copyright to her actual written words, in their unique sequence and configuration, the court explained, she is prohibited from exploiting the imaginative creation of Honesty known as C. L. Frog.
In other words: Girl, get your own imaginary friend!
You can't steal another person's delusions and expect to get away with it—not in this litigious day and age.
Additionally, Howard Swartzman was able to extract a very generous compensation from the well-endowed Poetry Week magazine for its unauthorized publication of Chief Leopard Frog's poems.
When Merilee Rowling tried to countersue for my failure to obtain a model release for the use of her image in my prizewinning photo, Howard-the-lawyer threatened to charge her with the theft of my peach-colored Columbus Catfish ball cap, a serious federal crime since the hat had traveled across state lines in violation of the Baseball Fann Act.
Her case against me immediately collapsed.
Clearly, genius runs in Uncle Milton's family.
Howard then sued Photo World for failing to pay me for use of the cover photo, went after FedEx for routinely delaying my shipments, and, quite by accident, filed suit against his own brother for a number of contract violations involving the talismans, the pumpkins, and the books, but when that inadvertent action came to light we all quietly settled over an excellent home-cooked meal prepared by my mother. As I recall, it included chicken livers.
Afterward, as a gesture of kindness, Milton gave Howard the Sammy Davis, Jr., pumpkin for his office in Palm Beach, where, I understand, it is much admired by his wealthy clientele.
Peace prevaileth, so to speaketh.