On the heels of last weekend’s Mad Con 2010, The Daily Page spoke with sci-fi author Harlan Ellison about his claims that he’s dying:
Due to his failing health, there had been some doubt about whether Ellison would show up in person or participate in panels, readings and other events by telephone from his home in Sherman Oaks, Calif. But at press time he affirmed he was coming. He is also adamant that MadCon will be the final convention he ever attends, in any fashion.
“The truth of what’s going on here is that I’m dying,” says Ellison, by phone. “I’m like the Wicked Witch of the West — I’m melting. I began to sense it back in January. By that time, I had agreed to do the convention. And I said, I can make it. I can make it.'”
Ellison claimed he was going to die onstage, but that didn’t seem to happen. The interview is well worth reading for Ellison’s opinions about the end of his writing career (his wife is on orders to burn the 100+ unfinished manuscripts sitting around the house the minute he dies). It’s quintessentially Harlan Ellison.
(Thanks to Slog tipper Badger. If you’re looking to get into Harlan Ellison, I recommend The Essential Ellison. I’m not usually a “Greatest Hits” kind of guy, but it’s a really stellar collection.)
Ugh. What a creep.
He was always interesting at parties.
Never really heard him from the audience, tho.
Harlan Ellison kicked me out of an elevator at the Olympic Hotel in 1978 – great writer, lousy human being.
“Time’s almost up,” said the Tiktockman.
It seems like the problem of sci fi is that some of the best works come from people who are assholes (cf. Orson Scott Card).
#1: Ellison has always had, uh, issues with women. On the scale of awesome writers who were actually incredible assholes in person, he’s only about a 1.6 on the Ezra Pound Scale (absolute), but yeah, you wouldn’t want your sister to date the guy. (Or even be in the same room as him without advance warning.)
@5: I know! Asimov, Heinlein & Clarke we’re all such notorious dicks…
In the Gay Talese story “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” there’s a great confrontation between Sinatra and Ellison.
________________
Finally Sinatra could not contain himself.
“Hey,” he yelled in his slightly harsh voice that still had a soft, sharp edge. “Those Italian boots?”
“No,” Ellison said.
“Spanish?”
“No.”
“Are they English boots?”
“Look, I donno, man,” Ellison shot back, frowning at Sinatra, then turning away again.
Now the poolroom was suddenly silent. Leo Durocher who had been poised behind his cue stick and was bent low just froze in that position for a second. Nobody moved. Then Sinatra moved away from the stool and walked with that slow, arrogant swagger of his toward Ellison, the hard tap of Sinatra’s shoes the only sound in the room. Then, looking down at Ellison with a slightly raised eyebrow and a tricky little smile, Sinatra asked: “You expecting a storm?”
Harlan Ellison moved a step to the side. “Look, is there any reason why you’re talking to me?”
“I don’t like the way you’re dressed,” Sinatra said.
“Hate to shake you up,” Ellison said, “but I dress to suit myself.”
. . .
-were
Canadian Nurse@5: these days I’m less inclined to cut OSC any slack. The quality of his writing has steadily declined as his political insanity has ramped up.
(Ellison, in contrast, maintained a sinusoidal/manic-depressive pattern of personal misbehavior, but pretty constant quality of writing all the way through his effective retirement in 1997.)
I’ve never met Ellison, Card, Heinlein or Clarke. But I’m here to tell you that Asimov’s reputation as a dick was understated, if anything.
I didn’t know that Heinlein was also a jerk. Damnit.
@10: The problem is that I’ve wanted to give Enders or Speaker to various friends, but I can’t stomach the idea of contributing to him getting even a small royalty.
Ellison claims that he never edits anything – it’s all published as it’s first written. Why then burn the unfinished manuscripts?
@3 you too?
I do agree about the Essential Ellison recommendation, though.
Now, for a great human being – Fred Pohl. Class act from beginning to end.
12: There’s this awesome thing called a “used book store”. I recommend it highly for exactly such ethical dilemmas. (Although I don’t advocate giving copies of ‘Speaker for the Dead’ to people that you actually like. I seem to be in a distinct minority there though.)
13: As with many(/most/all?) of Ellison’s rhetorical flourishes, it’s best to take it with several cargo ships worth of salt. Which is a nice way of saying that he was lying because it sounded good.
@13 curse words.
@12
i assume when mentioning royalties, you are implying that a new book is bought. BUYING A NEW BOOK IS FUCKING LUDICROUS. There are exceptions like if you’re a friend of Dan’s, buying his book shows support, or if your family is the happy kind at Christmas, one can expect a new book being a gift….BUT SERIOUSLY…libraries, used book stores, yard sales…this past weekend i got a brand new hardcover in shrinkwrap coffeetable book on the history of a semi-renowned medical facility…guess would have to be list price 40-50 dollars. 3 Bucks at yard sale. Fuck Royalties. God Save the Queen.
Best thing is to buy a paperback anyway.
Or to have picked it up at a Friends of Seattle Public Library book sale this past weekend.
It always seem cheap to give a used book as a birthday or Christmas present. It’s hard to find ones that would look pristine enough to give.
He has no mouth, but he must scream.
Man’s a dick, but he did have the single best writing conference speech ever, though. He asked, at a seminar for prospective writers, “Who here would like to be a writer?” Every hand was raised. He said, “Then why in the hell aren’t you home writing?” and left.
So when is Last Dangerous Visions coming out?
Bruce: heh, it’s a good question. I’m hoping that (a) his alleged instructions to burn all of his manuscripts are BS or will be quickly and quietly ignored by his wife (*), and that (b) the rights to the TLDV stories revert to the authors on his death.
(* There is, I think, good reason to suspect that he’s actually leaving in pretty bad financial shape, hence the slightly ludicrous ‘fire sale’ of his first editions last year. Given that his last wife is probably up for sainthood for putting up with the man for 20+ years, I hope that she arranges for a good literary executor and gets some decent change out of the deal. Although if nothing else, that house in Sherman Oaks has got to be worth a pretty penny by now.)
Harlan Ellison is a tremendous contribution to society. Face it. Think of everything he has done to promote writing. Look it up if you don’t know. The guy even had the balls to write a story all day in front of a storefront window, not to boast, but to show people what it takes and that it is not a mysterious, divine art. Is he an asshole? Yes. But he’s a terrific asshole. He’s completely one of a kind, and he strives to make people strive. He, like Socrates, is a gadfly on the back of humanity. He is loud, crass, and intelligent because he wants you to wake up, to be smart, to be stimulated. From what I can gather, his groping was a schtick that backfired. He was pretending to be a stubborn child that was mucking with everything on stage. Do you really think he was trying to sexually fondle Willis at the podium in front a large crowd of their fans? Willis herself has spoken in interviews on Hour 25 about how she detests politically correct behavior, how it has gone overboard. Sure, a fat, old, crude man groping a fat, old unsuspecting lady is probably something that doesn’t sit right in the stomach. But, I can’t believe people still bring up this issue. I have the feeling it has seriously and unjustly damaged his reputation way beyond the damage done by his own quarrelsome nature. I am very sad to hear that he is dying.
@25: Oh for fuck’s sake. “But, I can’t believe people still bring up this issue.” Yes, god forbid we dare to remember something that happened an entire four years ago. That’s practically the jurassic era! And surely it was just an isolated incident of bad judgment, not the logical culmination of a well-documented lifetime of boorish behavior towards women and frankly pathological writing on the subject. And it’s not like Ellison’s “apology” was appallingly half-assed and self-serving, invoking the bogeyman of ‘political correctness’ to distract form his own jackassery.
Or maybe, just maybe, it’s possible to enjoy “Shatterday” on its own (considerable) merits without having to defend every last action its author takes to the death… of one’s own credibility.
er, “#23”.
Clearly I am paying way too much attention to this thread.
@23:
Whatever history deems as Ellison’s “tremendous contribution t society”, that doesn’t excuse in any way, shape or form the fact that he was a demonstrably vile human being, and his personality went far beyond merely being “quarrelsome”. I personally witnessed him excoriate – literally berate a young woman to tears – for having the temerity to present to him for his autograph a paperback copy of a book which he apparently considered not his best work. After what was perhaps a full minute of yelling, cursing, and calling this poor girl (probably in her early 20’s – I was a mere lad of 17 at the time) every pejorative in the book – he concluded his rant by throwing – not tossing, but throwing with an overhand wind-up – the offending tome across the breadth of the Olympic’s Spanish Ballroom shouting, “If ANY of you morons shoves this piece of drek in my face again, I’m going to rip you a new asshole!” At which point he calmly sat down, glared at the young woman until she slinked off in abject humiliation, and proceeded to very calmly sign the umpteenth copy of “Dangerous Visions” shoved beneath his pen by the next person in line.
The man had some SERIOUS issues, and his talent in no way mitigates his abysmal behavior.
Comte@26: to be fair, if the book in quesiton was “Doomsman”, I can kinda see his point.
(I kid, I kid. That’s jawdropping, even by Ellison standards.)
Also, seriously: “tremendous contribution to society”? Look, I find Ellison’s self-authored press releases as amusing as the next guy, but let’s face facts: his alleged political significance peaked with his (completely unsubstantiated) allegations that Spiro Agnew somehow personally scuttled the publication of “The Other Glass Teat”, and it’s looking touch and go whether his writing is going to be remembered by anyone other than Star Trek fans in another 20 years.)
Now, if you want significance, one of our NW SF writers has her daughter shipping out to a tour of combat duty in Afghanistan this week.
That is way more significant than Dan posting threads where he calls women names.