The Angry Man of Letters
HARSH LANGUAGE TO FOLLOW
- Harlan Ellison, From his introduction to the Pinnacle series of Doctor Who books'>
morgansong and I watched "Dreams With Sharp Teeth" last night. It is a very recent documentary on the life and works on the aforementioned Harlan Ellison. I have never met Mr. Ellison in person, but I have been an admirer of his works, his life, his attitude and his actions for most of what I would consider my adult life.
My introduction to Harlan Ellison came when I was in high school and one of my friends, another member of the "Outcasts and Throw-Offs" club, also known as our D&D group, mentioned him in passing as an author I might enjoy. I took his advice with a grain of salt and never thought about it again.
My real initiation to Harlan Ellison, however, came while staying up far too late one evening. It was 1993. I was sitting on the couch, with my girlfriend at the time, who is now my wife, flipping channels to see if there's anything on we can use to cover the sounds of our other activities from my parents ears. And I see this graying nebish of a man looking out at me from the other side of the screen. And he's DEMANDING that I pay attention to what he has to say. This is new, I think. The TV has always BEEN there, it's never DEMANDED anything. Out of our own curiosity, we do exactly as the curmudgeon on screen tells us to. We sit up and pay attention.
A lot of my friends have heard me recount the story wherein I claim Harlan Ellison as a personal hero. The story wherein he dismantles some poor, young woman at a college speaking engagement Q&A session for having the absence of knowledge and pure temerity to ask him WHO Treblinka and Dachau were. The story where he rails against this woman, and all her ilk before him, for not being merely ignorant, but being WILLFULLY and PROUDLY ignorant.
As a 21 year old Jew-turned-atheist, I didn't just sit there staring at my TV. I stood the fuck up and applauded the little man in my TV set. I cheered at him, across the great digital divide, for saying something that needed to be said and said in the harshest language possible.
That was my very late introduction to Harlan Ellison.
"How do I feel about being called `Elitist?` In this country, less than 30% of the population can identify China on a map of the Earth. How do I feel about it? I wear it like a badge of fucking honor."
-Attributed to Harlan Ellison
After my introduction to Ellison, I started to try and track down anything I could find of his works. Collections of his works, collections of other works that have his stories, collections he had edited. I tracked down Ellison's works voraciously. The way theologians talk about their realization of a higher power, I talked about Ellison. The way that I talked about authors like Twain and Swift, I talked about Ellison.
And I read.
Man, did I ever read.
And I kept watching Sci-Fi Buzz, waiting to hear more, to receive more nuggets of such obvious wisdom it was shocking no one had had the balls to say it before. I kept reading, too, only now I moved on to authors Ellison recommended. I remained amazed at the insights into human nature this man laid bare in his stories. Ellison always challenged me. Intellectually. Verbally. Philosophically.
So, I kept reading. I kept trying to find new writers who challenged me on the same level. I found a few, but I tasted more than a couple of shit sandwiches on my way, too. And I never stopped listening to what Ellison had to say.
He is one of the single most divisive personalities in the literary world today. No two people have the same opinion on the man and he regularly falls into categories of either pure idolization or abject disdain.
Occasionally, in deep, dark, introspective moments, I wonder what the world is going to lose when it must finally and inevitably lose Harlan Ellison. A man who has never hesitated in his life to lay it all on the line. Personally and professionally. And then DARE any motherfucker who thought they were hard enough to come and get some.
A man who has never thought of what he might lose were he to do something, but only to wonder what he would lose if he had not.
A man who was at the table when a collection of writers cobbled together Scientology for a flat-broke L. Ron Hubbard.
"Scientology is bullshit! Man, I was there the night L. Ron Hubbard invented it, for Christ's sakes! (...) We were sitting around one night... who else was there? Alfred Bester, and Cyril Kornbluth, and Lester del Rey, and Ron Hubbard, who was making a penny a word, and had been for years. And he said "This bullshit's got to stop!" He says, "I gotta get money." He says, "I want to get rich". And somebody said, "why don't you invent a new religion? They're always big." We were clowning! You know, "Become Elmer Gantry! You'll make a fortune!" He says, "I'm going to do it."
-"The Real Harlan Ellison" in Wings (November-December 1978) p. 32
A man who marched on Selma, Alabama in 1965.
A man who sued AOL, in defense of intellectual property, at the cost of his own near bankruptcy and won.
A man who has been married FIVE TIMES and yet never stopped loving humanity and our potential.
A man who has been called abrasive, argumentative, arrogant, cantankerous, contentious, curmudgeonly, and more unseemly epithets than I have space to type. And agrees with most of them. Then lays claim to a couple others no one has the vocabulary to use properly saving only himself.
"I sell my soul, but only at the highest rates."
-Harlan Ellsion, from "Dreams With Sharp Teeth"
I have never met the man, but he remains one of my personal heroes. For never accepting the shit other people have handed him. For maintaining one of the highest personal standards in literature. For writing some of the most moving fiction I've ever read. For showing that if you embrace who you are, even in the face of the harshest criticisms, you can be loved for it.
If you have never read a Harlan Ellison story, I recommend him with the greatest of approbations. If that's not enough, so do the vast majority of his peers in the literary community.
If all that isn't enough to get you to read at least a single Ellison story.
If everything I've written here doesn't pique your interest or your curiosity even a bit.
If any of the anecdotes about Ellison; the stories of his ego and his opinions and his point-blank harshness, are enough to keep you from reading even a single word he has written.
If you are too self-absorbed or intellectually lazy or doorknob-fuckingly stupid to pick up a fucking book Ellison is published in and read the words contained in it for your own fucking edification?
I can only answer you in a way I think Harlan would approve of.
Go fuck yourself.
- Harlan Ellison, From his introduction to the Pinnacle series of Doctor Who books'>
morgansong and I watched "Dreams With Sharp Teeth" last night. It is a very recent documentary on the life and works on the aforementioned Harlan Ellison. I have never met Mr. Ellison in person, but I have been an admirer of his works, his life, his attitude and his actions for most of what I would consider my adult life.
My introduction to Harlan Ellison came when I was in high school and one of my friends, another member of the "Outcasts and Throw-Offs" club, also known as our D&D group, mentioned him in passing as an author I might enjoy. I took his advice with a grain of salt and never thought about it again.
My real initiation to Harlan Ellison, however, came while staying up far too late one evening. It was 1993. I was sitting on the couch, with my girlfriend at the time, who is now my wife, flipping channels to see if there's anything on we can use to cover the sounds of our other activities from my parents ears. And I see this graying nebish of a man looking out at me from the other side of the screen. And he's DEMANDING that I pay attention to what he has to say. This is new, I think. The TV has always BEEN there, it's never DEMANDED anything. Out of our own curiosity, we do exactly as the curmudgeon on screen tells us to. We sit up and pay attention.
A lot of my friends have heard me recount the story wherein I claim Harlan Ellison as a personal hero. The story wherein he dismantles some poor, young woman at a college speaking engagement Q&A session for having the absence of knowledge and pure temerity to ask him WHO Treblinka and Dachau were. The story where he rails against this woman, and all her ilk before him, for not being merely ignorant, but being WILLFULLY and PROUDLY ignorant.
Click to viewAs a 21 year old Jew-turned-atheist, I didn't just sit there staring at my TV. I stood the fuck up and applauded the little man in my TV set. I cheered at him, across the great digital divide, for saying something that needed to be said and said in the harshest language possible.
That was my very late introduction to Harlan Ellison.
"How do I feel about being called `Elitist?` In this country, less than 30% of the population can identify China on a map of the Earth. How do I feel about it? I wear it like a badge of fucking honor."
-Attributed to Harlan Ellison
After my introduction to Ellison, I started to try and track down anything I could find of his works. Collections of his works, collections of other works that have his stories, collections he had edited. I tracked down Ellison's works voraciously. The way theologians talk about their realization of a higher power, I talked about Ellison. The way that I talked about authors like Twain and Swift, I talked about Ellison.
And I read.
Man, did I ever read.
And I kept watching Sci-Fi Buzz, waiting to hear more, to receive more nuggets of such obvious wisdom it was shocking no one had had the balls to say it before. I kept reading, too, only now I moved on to authors Ellison recommended. I remained amazed at the insights into human nature this man laid bare in his stories. Ellison always challenged me. Intellectually. Verbally. Philosophically.
So, I kept reading. I kept trying to find new writers who challenged me on the same level. I found a few, but I tasted more than a couple of shit sandwiches on my way, too. And I never stopped listening to what Ellison had to say.
He is one of the single most divisive personalities in the literary world today. No two people have the same opinion on the man and he regularly falls into categories of either pure idolization or abject disdain.
Occasionally, in deep, dark, introspective moments, I wonder what the world is going to lose when it must finally and inevitably lose Harlan Ellison. A man who has never hesitated in his life to lay it all on the line. Personally and professionally. And then DARE any motherfucker who thought they were hard enough to come and get some.
A man who has never thought of what he might lose were he to do something, but only to wonder what he would lose if he had not.
A man who was at the table when a collection of writers cobbled together Scientology for a flat-broke L. Ron Hubbard.
"Scientology is bullshit! Man, I was there the night L. Ron Hubbard invented it, for Christ's sakes! (...) We were sitting around one night... who else was there? Alfred Bester, and Cyril Kornbluth, and Lester del Rey, and Ron Hubbard, who was making a penny a word, and had been for years. And he said "This bullshit's got to stop!" He says, "I gotta get money." He says, "I want to get rich". And somebody said, "why don't you invent a new religion? They're always big." We were clowning! You know, "Become Elmer Gantry! You'll make a fortune!" He says, "I'm going to do it."
-"The Real Harlan Ellison" in Wings (November-December 1978) p. 32
A man who marched on Selma, Alabama in 1965.
A man who sued AOL, in defense of intellectual property, at the cost of his own near bankruptcy and won.
A man who has been married FIVE TIMES and yet never stopped loving humanity and our potential.
A man who has been called abrasive, argumentative, arrogant, cantankerous, contentious, curmudgeonly, and more unseemly epithets than I have space to type. And agrees with most of them. Then lays claim to a couple others no one has the vocabulary to use properly saving only himself.
"I sell my soul, but only at the highest rates."
-Harlan Ellsion, from "Dreams With Sharp Teeth"
I have never met the man, but he remains one of my personal heroes. For never accepting the shit other people have handed him. For maintaining one of the highest personal standards in literature. For writing some of the most moving fiction I've ever read. For showing that if you embrace who you are, even in the face of the harshest criticisms, you can be loved for it.
If you have never read a Harlan Ellison story, I recommend him with the greatest of approbations. If that's not enough, so do the vast majority of his peers in the literary community.
If all that isn't enough to get you to read at least a single Ellison story.
If everything I've written here doesn't pique your interest or your curiosity even a bit.
If any of the anecdotes about Ellison; the stories of his ego and his opinions and his point-blank harshness, are enough to keep you from reading even a single word he has written.
If you are too self-absorbed or intellectually lazy or doorknob-fuckingly stupid to pick up a fucking book Ellison is published in and read the words contained in it for your own fucking edification?
I can only answer you in a way I think Harlan would approve of.
Go fuck yourself.