Science Fiction Friday: Harlan Ellison and the Lies That Are a Life

by Damon Gambuto     Department: Culture

February found itself without a Science Fiction Friday interview, but - fear not - I've an entertaining behind-the-scenes SFF story for you in this March installment.  The last time we checked in Paolo Bacigalupi was opining on a possible future shaped by environmental irresponsibility and regaling me with a story about being tracked down by Harlan Ellison.  The thought of the former becoming my reality seemed credible.  The thought of the latter happening to me seemed a flight of my imagination.  A flight of my imagination, that was, until my imagination crashed into the reality of Harlan tracking me down.

So all of this began with my interview of Paolo Bacigalupi.  If you haven't read it and are interested, here are the links:

Part I
Part II
Part III

For everyone else, here's the quick refresher on Paolo's version of events:

Paolo Bacigalupi: Later on, when I sold Pocketful of Dharma, I had Harlan Ellison call me up and he was convinced... Are you familiar with Harlan Ellison?



Damon: Yup.



PB: Harlan Ellison called me up out of the blue.  It was soon after the short story had come out and I was in my house mopping the floor and I get this phone call and this man on the other end was like 'This is Harlan Ellison, do you know who I am?' and I was like 'Yeah, yeah, um yeah.'  So he says, 'Go get your story.'  So I do.   He then proceeds to basically critique every single aspect of my entire story.

He starts out by saying 'At first I thought that you were some sort of professional writing under a pseudonym because, you know, nobody has a name like Bacigalupi, I know the Abbot and Costello routine blah blah blah...' He goes off about how Paolo Bacigalupi is obviously a pseudonym or a joke name of some sort.   Now he's getting a bit worked up.  He says, 'You know, I thought you were a professional, and then I got to page 5 and right down there at the bottom you used the word jerked... and then 2 sentences later you used the word jerky--you took all of the power out of the fucking word!'  



I'm sitting there on the line sort of terrified of this man just haranguing me.  At the end of that whole conversation - a conversation in which he critiques, line by line, my entire story - he finishes up by saying, 'Well you got some potential, but don't write in genre, it's a waste of time. Don't get stuck in it like I got stuck in it.' And then he hangs up.  

That was the last thing that I heard from this guy--I don't know what it was--sort of like a love tap I guess, but it actually sort of got to me.

I thought it was an entertaining story, and - quite honestly - in some ways consistent with the stories I've heard about Harlan.  I mean, come on, his Wikipedia entry has a "controversy" section.  In the introduction to Harlan's short story collection I HAVE NO MOUTH, AND I MUST SCREAM, Theodore Sturgeon describes him this way:

"He is, on these pages and everywhere else he goes, colorful, intrusive, abrasive..."

Yes, yes, and yes.  Okay - so you get the idea.  He has a distinct personality that - like most personalities that go public -  has transmogrified into its often useful and often hateful doppelganger: a persona.  But believing in personas keeps people stupid, and that seems - as Harlan might say - felonious. (Sturgeon went on to call him, "one hell of a writer.")

So was Paolo telling the whole story?  I can't say it really concerned me so much.  It was his story to tell and that's the bargain of doing an interview.   Then I got an email.  On Facebook!  One of Harlan's friends found my Facebook page and dropped me a message.  (By the way, you needn't go through the trouble of all that social networking, you can just email me at correlationsblog@gmail.com).  He let me know that Harlan had read the interview and wanted to talk to me.  

Talk. To. Me?

That's right.  It seemed the faithful messenger was poised (with back to well) to discuss a disturbing interview with the Spartan king of science fiction.    Oh, and when Harlan says "talk" he means using the phone (at the very least).  No protective layer of internets for me.  The note read "Harlan doesn't do email, he does the human voice."  Ah yes, I think I've seen this movie before.

So I steel myself, make a cup of coffee, and ready a cigarette.  I dial the maestro's number and ask his assistant to speak with him.

Assistant
What is this regarding?

Damon
Um, me.  

Assistant
Who are you?

Damon
Damon Gambuto.  Harlan contacted me through one of his friends.  He wanted to discuss an interview I did.

Assistant
Just a minute.

Okay, so it doesn't read like a suspense novel, but certainly I am both excited and a wee bit scared.  I've talked to a lot of famous people and usually don't bat an eyelash.  It's no big trick really.  It's usually been an actor which means I am either actually smarter than he or she, or - at the very least - I've read more books.  But this time both of my usual security blankets have been wrested from my grasp.  The infant blogger realizes that he's living out his Freudian drama.

Then. . . there he is.  Harlan and I are having a conversation.  It's a little awkward at first, but we feel each other out and - soon enough - we're having a downright friendly chat.  I am laughing at Harlan's one-liners and he's politely pausing after mine.  The conversation twists and turns through a series of anecdotes of Harlan's life and times as a writer and mentor to writers.  The Paolo encounter comes up.  The broad strokes are the same, but there is a distinct difference in tone when Harlan tells it.  Mayhap this was just the barrier of the telecommunication technology.  Harlan cracks wise and that can often lose its irony on the phone.  I ran into this more than once when chatting with Paolo.  (My readers will be shocked to learn that I am a wiseass at times, I'm sure.)  

Harlan wanted to help out a young writer in whom he saw potential for greater things (perhaps even greatness).  Paolo seems to know this even if in his first telling he seemed a bit unappreciative.  In the comments follow up on the post Paolo writes:

Two things. 1) After I got off the phone with Harlan, I went to tell all my friends about what had happened. After all, I was stunned. It was like God reached down and touched me. So I went and told everyone I knew... and almost all of them had never heard of him. I'd always thought that H.E. was famous. And he is, within the relatively small orbit of SF. Stray far from the genre though, and it turns out he's just a name.
2)Regarding his critique, it was actually quite useful in the particulars. The part that was less useful, at least for me, was that he urged me not to get pigeon-holed in the sf genre-- and I, in my hero-worship state, listened. His opinion wasn't wrong. It just turned out not to work for me.

Okay, that seems a little more in line with Harlan's narration and - to be quite honest - narrating Harlan's perspective is a large part of my motivation for writing this post.  Of course I offered him an interview for SFF, and - not surprisingly - he demurred.  That said, Harlan was nothing, but pleasant and earnest and thoughtful when talking to me and describing Paolo.  His memory for specifics was startling.  I couldn't help but feel that he'd been a little hard done by.  So here I am exercising a little undoing.  The legend we've heard about - the caustic, impatient, incisive Harlan - is alive and well.  And so is the less storied man - the thoughtful, funny, helpful Ellison.  He deserves a little time in the spotlight too.

So here is some illumination.  A little light on the narrative of events that appeared on my blog and about the man I got to know a little bit.  Why should any of this matter?  Any narrative of any life will always have a competitor, won't it?  I imagine Harlan offers up an answer at the end of his story PALADIN OF THE LOST HOUR.  

"Like the wind crying endlessly through the universe, Time carries away the names and the deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we are, all that remains, is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment."

Tags: Damon Gambuto, Harlan Ellison, Paolo Bacigalupi, Science Fiction Friday

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