For sale: my past, $348.20

When I was a freshman at UCLA way back in the ‘60s, I convinced the editors of the campus humor magazine, Satyr, that I could write funny, and they put me on staff. The following year all the staff, except me, was gone. I was named editor. What happened next, some might say, would overshadow the rest of my writing career.

I had an office; typewriters, telephones, light boxes and a budget. But no one to help me. Then, one day, a fellow sophomore knocked at the door. He had a cartoon to submit. It was of one Volkswagen Beetle on top of another, with two guys looking on. One of them said to the other, “Perhaps if we turned the hose on them.”

It was sophomoric. It was crude. I made him the art director. The next guy to walk in said he was a writer. I made him assistant editor.

Little by little, we took on the responsibility of satirizing college life; making fun of courses and teachers, testing and grades, drugs and politics. It was a time of protest, assassinations, free sex and hallucinations -- a great time to edit a humor magazine.

In three years, we published nine issues. We had articles about seeing a campus psychiatrist, visiting Forest Lawn cemetery, having a “hate-out” (rather than a “love-in”) and defending cheating. We published a Draft Dodger’s Handbook. We did illustrated satires of the Greek tragedy “The Oresteia,” Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” and Barbie and Ken dolls. We did a CliffsNotes for a sexy “Little Red Riding Hood.” We published Tony Auth’s illustrations and Jon Kellerman’s cartoons. Auth would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize at the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Kellerman would stretch out his first name to Jonathan and become a bestselling author of psychological mysteries.

We even managed to get into trouble over a phone number (my art director added what he thought was a made-up number to an illustration of a Blue Book; the number turned out to be an actual coed’s). For one particularly dicey issue, the printer refused to print the magazine. With another issue, we expected possible repercussions over some sexual and political content but got none. However, the University of New Mexico’s humor magazine, the Juggler, reprinted the pages in question and wound up creating a huge media controversy that made us envious.

We printed 2,000 copies of each issue and sold them for 50 cents each. So, imagine my surprise when I recently discovered that Amazon.com had a listing under my name that said: “SATYR . Paperback. Used. $366.”

$366! Was this a joke?

I went to the site offering the three issues for sale, and sure enough, it was for real. Only at Zubal.com they were listed at $348.20. It was also offering a first edition of my 812-page biography, “The Hustons,” for $1.

Here’s the description: “SATYR (Fall 1966, Winter 1967, Spring 1967). Los Angeles. American humor magazine, cartoons, satire -- 3 issues. Illustrated throughout; loosely connected with UCLA by an editor now best known for his celebrity interviews; parodies, cartoons, humorous essays, etc., some a little risque by the standards of its time. $348.20”

I spent a few months putting together each issue of Satyr. I spent three solid years writing “The Hustons.” I was a teenager for two of the three years I edited Satyr. I had 20 more years of experience when writing “The Hustons.” So how could a 40-page college humor magazine wind up being worth so much more than the book I spent so much time and research writing? I have no answer.

Nor, apparently, does John Zubal, who priced these things. I wrote to him and asked where he acquired the magazines. He said he didn’t know. I asked him what was on the covers of the three issues he had. He said: “Unusual artwork.” How did he decide to price them at $348? He said: “Trade secret.”

Had anyone inquired about them, other than myself? He didn’t know because they didn’t track inquiries. Nor did he know if he ever received an offer for less than the asking price. Did he ever read any of the issues? “No.” Did he think that anyone would one day purchase them? “Yes,” he e-mailed me. “My old colleague David Lawyer said ‘If you live long enough, you can sell anything.’ ”

So there you go. Three Satyr magazines for $348. “The Hustons” for a buck. And if you buy either of them and want them signed, I’ll be happy to do it.