Clyde bashing...

["Quinn, Thomas" <Thomas.Quinn@ASM.CA.GOV>]

Barbara, I love you to pieces, but I have to speak up here.  The following
is just my opinion, you and everyone else is certainly entitled to thin as
they wish.

I've known Clyde since the beginning of the Sumo show.  From the start, he
was always an eccentric, an extremely shy human being, with enough
mannerisms and quirks to fill a Freud seminar to capacity.

He has habits that put him way out on the scale of  off-the-wall people.  He
is also extremely loyal to probably the only true friend he ever had - Andy.

When Andy decided to leave Tokyo and his life of the past 55 years, he IMHO
talked Clyde into taking over the magazine.  The asking price was unreal -
according to Clyde - but he did it.

What happened then?  Well not to put too fine a point on it, another person
who lost out on the bidding for SW declared that HE was going to put out a
Sumo magazine.  Of course that was, what, three years ago?  No magazine as
of yet, but nearly everyone who was staffing SW at that chose to follow the
so-called editor of the new magazine.

Suddenly Clyde had a title - Sumo World - no staff, no contributors and a
fulltime job during the day. This is/was/will continue to be a recipe for
disaster.  He does not have the will to make it better, not because he is
weak, stupid or sleazy - I think he is just not cut out for the job.

When Clyde was barely out of his teens, he published a book - "Rikishi of
the Showa Era" - that was huge, something like 600 typewritten pages.  It is
still the definitive work of its kind in either Japanese or English, you'd
have to look over a copy to really understand the immense task it must have
been.  

Even the NHK sports department had a battered old copy in their library that
the guard like gold.  Clyde has forgotten more about Sumo than anyone else
on that show knows about. 

How much is a subscription to SW?  Probably about what a lot of us pay for a
cheap Friday night out.  It's not like someone's life savings.  I grant you
that it's a frustrating and, to some, intolerable situation, but it's not
anyone's future security.

Clyde was probably one of the best people I knew in Tokyo, a true gentleman,
a great dinner partner and someone who was extremely generous to me with his
knowledge.  But I also think he has developed some serious issues along the
lines of clinical depression for which I hope he gets some help.

I read a lot of Clyde bashing here, and I believe it is long past due to put
it away.  He isn't a monster or a hustler, just some poor schmoe who got in
way over his head, had the rest of the staff leave the publication and
follow one of the bigger jerks I met in Tokyo, and was stuck with a huge
payment and no help.  Don't subscribe to Sumo World.  When I started the
show, there was NOTHING like this mail list.  It was unbelievably hard to
get info in English, and the pathetic few who followed Sumo in Tokyo were
constantly at each other's throats about who knew what.  You think Clyde is
loony-toons?  Man, you should have been around the scene back in 1991...

I heard that Andy was back in Tokyo for a while - San Diego wasn't all it
was cracked up to be - and was going to help Clyde.  That's a good start.
Personally, I try to send some positive psychic energy to Clyde when I can.
He deserves it in my book.

Last?  Well as they say in my current line of work, no good deed goes
unpunished, so anyone who disagrees with me certainly has the right. What I
am writing is my opinion, based on what I know about the situation, the cast
of characters so YMMV.  

That won't change my admiration for Clyde or my good feelings towards
Barbara.  Like Katrina W, Dave W and a few others, both are great people,
whose love of Sumo brought us all to the same place.

Tq