Drang
06-28-2018, 08:29 PM
1012406845758062592
Let us remember him as one of the most brilliant and imaginative writers of speculative fiction, and not as a commie who was calling for Antifa and Occupy in the 60s and 70s.
(If you doubt me on the latter, read the collections of the articles he did for the LA Free Press in the 70s, The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat. (Available on Kindle.)
Excerpt from my blog post:
I have no personal stories of Harlan Ellison. Never met him. Certainly never argued politics with him.
Things I remember, though...
I know he was Guest of Honor at a con thrown by the SF club at Eastern Michigan University before I joined: someone heard he would be in the general area visiting family, and got hold of his phone number, and called him in the middle of the night, when he was coherent enough to answer the phone and say "sure", but not coherent enough to say "No."
Or, famously, "Fuck you, pay me." (Typically, the GoH at a con gets their travel and room comped, but not even that always happens. I understand Heinlein always paid his own way. So far as I know, Ellison never actually demanded pay for a Con appearance, but I don't know.)
There was an essay where someone had referred to him as a "gadfly"; ISTR that this was about the time I saw him referred to in a letter column in Analog magazine as "Harlan 'I Am All Mouth And Therefore I Scream' Ellison". Anyway, he refuted the "gadfly" claim, because gadflies are mere nuisances, not actually accomplishing anything.
There was a column in, ahem, a man's magazine IYKWIMAITYD in which he described his half-day of employment at Disney. Apparently, at lunch he was hanging with a bunch of other writers who had been brought in to "reimagine" Disney product, or something. He started in on "we should do Disney porn" and riffing on the roles of The Mouse, The Duck, The Big Stupid Dog, doing expert impressions of all their voices and really getting into it...
And Eisner was at the next table.
While I was attending the Defense Language Institute the first time, one of my classmates mentioned to me that "They've republished the collections of the TV criticism Harlan Ellison did for the LA Free Press." Yes, they had, The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat. I picked them up, and the articles I most remember are the ones he did on the "Junior Miss" pageant -- "Can you say 'child pornography'?" -- and the one about the time he appeared on one of the early Dating Game shows.
He claimed Barris had the tape burned, after he (Ellison) told the woman that they would spend their dream date down at the city dump, shooting rats with chrome plated 1911s...
I told Bill Quick that story, and he said "Harley's a commie, you know."
I said "Duh."
And, really, just re-reading TGT and TOGT, I have to wonder what Ellison thought of the state of political discourse today. He not only predicted AntiFa, Black Blok, the Occupy Movement, BLM, Maxine Waters, Peter Fonda, Cathy Griffin, the whole vile lot... He was calling for it!
I suppose it is possible that Harlan repented of these opinions, or his extreme statements of them, as he aged; he might have seen what he and his ilk had wrought and realized that maybe this would not work out so well after all...
Still, I look at his politics, and wonder if growing up Jewish in small-town Ohio was really so traumatic that calling for violence was a rational outcome. I dunno, I didn't grow up Jewish in small town Ohio.
So I while will try to remember the talent that was responsible for some of the most imaginative speculative fiction ever -- "'Repent, Harlequin', said the Ticktockman", "A Boy And His Dog", "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream", not to mention the Star Trek episode "City On The Edge of Forever" and his contributions to Babylon 5, and I will continue to admire one who relentlessly refused to cave in to mainstream thought and convention just because it was convenient.
Let us remember him as one of the most brilliant and imaginative writers of speculative fiction, and not as a commie who was calling for Antifa and Occupy in the 60s and 70s.
(If you doubt me on the latter, read the collections of the articles he did for the LA Free Press in the 70s, The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat. (Available on Kindle.)
Excerpt from my blog post:
I have no personal stories of Harlan Ellison. Never met him. Certainly never argued politics with him.
Things I remember, though...
I know he was Guest of Honor at a con thrown by the SF club at Eastern Michigan University before I joined: someone heard he would be in the general area visiting family, and got hold of his phone number, and called him in the middle of the night, when he was coherent enough to answer the phone and say "sure", but not coherent enough to say "No."
Or, famously, "Fuck you, pay me." (Typically, the GoH at a con gets their travel and room comped, but not even that always happens. I understand Heinlein always paid his own way. So far as I know, Ellison never actually demanded pay for a Con appearance, but I don't know.)
There was an essay where someone had referred to him as a "gadfly"; ISTR that this was about the time I saw him referred to in a letter column in Analog magazine as "Harlan 'I Am All Mouth And Therefore I Scream' Ellison". Anyway, he refuted the "gadfly" claim, because gadflies are mere nuisances, not actually accomplishing anything.
There was a column in, ahem, a man's magazine IYKWIMAITYD in which he described his half-day of employment at Disney. Apparently, at lunch he was hanging with a bunch of other writers who had been brought in to "reimagine" Disney product, or something. He started in on "we should do Disney porn" and riffing on the roles of The Mouse, The Duck, The Big Stupid Dog, doing expert impressions of all their voices and really getting into it...
And Eisner was at the next table.
While I was attending the Defense Language Institute the first time, one of my classmates mentioned to me that "They've republished the collections of the TV criticism Harlan Ellison did for the LA Free Press." Yes, they had, The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat. I picked them up, and the articles I most remember are the ones he did on the "Junior Miss" pageant -- "Can you say 'child pornography'?" -- and the one about the time he appeared on one of the early Dating Game shows.
He claimed Barris had the tape burned, after he (Ellison) told the woman that they would spend their dream date down at the city dump, shooting rats with chrome plated 1911s...
I told Bill Quick that story, and he said "Harley's a commie, you know."
I said "Duh."
And, really, just re-reading TGT and TOGT, I have to wonder what Ellison thought of the state of political discourse today. He not only predicted AntiFa, Black Blok, the Occupy Movement, BLM, Maxine Waters, Peter Fonda, Cathy Griffin, the whole vile lot... He was calling for it!
I suppose it is possible that Harlan repented of these opinions, or his extreme statements of them, as he aged; he might have seen what he and his ilk had wrought and realized that maybe this would not work out so well after all...
Still, I look at his politics, and wonder if growing up Jewish in small-town Ohio was really so traumatic that calling for violence was a rational outcome. I dunno, I didn't grow up Jewish in small town Ohio.
So I while will try to remember the talent that was responsible for some of the most imaginative speculative fiction ever -- "'Repent, Harlequin', said the Ticktockman", "A Boy And His Dog", "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream", not to mention the Star Trek episode "City On The Edge of Forever" and his contributions to Babylon 5, and I will continue to admire one who relentlessly refused to cave in to mainstream thought and convention just because it was convenient.