Remembering Ellison: A Wonderland of Memories
Remembering Ellison: A Wonderland of Memories
The year was 1977. I was in my sophomore year at Fitch High School in Austintown, Ohio. I was scanning Walden’s fiction stacks at the Southern Park Mall. Having just received one of the few A’s I earned at Fitch for a report I did on New York street gangs, I was searching for fictional stories, or a novel, on gangs. Soon, my eyes spotted a very intriguing title, “The Deadly Streets.” I removed the book from the stack. The front cover had the author’s name in large, black block letters and below the title was “Muggers, slashers, street gangs, lurkers in the shadows: no need to read Lovecraft to be thoroughly terrified.” Okay, you have my attention. Flipping the book over, I was hit with this: Remember Charles Bronson stalking the streets of New York blowing holes in muggers in Death Wish? At the time, I was, and still am, a big fan of Charlie’s. I bought the book. The majority of these sixteen grisly street tales stem from the time Harlan spent ten weeks running with a New York street gang doing research for his novel “Web of the City”. There’s an element of truth in every one of them, folks. And the characters in these short stories are more brutal and more devoid of humanity than any of the ones you’ll find in S.E. Hinton’s novels. We actually cared about Pony Boy and Soda Pop Curtis, but the boys and girls in Ellison’s depictions of society’s outsiders – well, you just wouldn’t want to turn your back on any one of ‘em. I read “The Deadly Streets” twice, before I graduated from high school. I didn’t pick the book up again until around late 1981. Having been recently discharged from the Marine Corps, I found myself on my bed in my parent’s newly constructed home, bored and wondering what the hell I was going to do with my life. That’s when Harlan yelled, “Read me! Read me!” from my small bookcase.
By 1987 I had purchased and read every book of Harlan’s I could get my hands on. Harlan had become, and remains to this day, my favorite writer.
It was during that year I had the opportunity of a lifetime. Harlan Ellison was coming to town. He was giving a lecture at Kent State University, in remembrance of the massacre. It was springtime and it just happened to be on my daughter’s second birthday. (Yes, folks, I gave up part of my daughter’s day to spend the evening with Harlan).
Now I don’t recall if it was because I thought the
giant, green station wagon my wife and I had at the time would actually make the 45 minute trip to Kent or I only wanted company, but my mom drove me up to the campus.
Two months prior to Harlan’s event our family had received the news from my father’s doctor that his cancer had metastasized throughout his body. He was given six months to live. Tops. And yet, my mom knew how much meeting Harlan meant to me. She knew how important he was in my life. So, while her husband lay dying at home, she took her loving son to meet the man. Two weeks later my father was dead.
On the evening of Harlan’s talk, we arrived pretty early. Cautiously, I asked my god-fearing mother if she wanted to come in. She asked me if Harlan swore a lot. I acknowledged that he did. Thankfully, she declined to accompany me. I don’t think she would’ve lasted a minute after Harlan opened his mouth. After I got out of her car, she found a nearby café to spend the time in.
After entering the room where the lecture was being held, I walked straight down and plopped my innocent self dead center in the front row. Oh boy.
Now this was over thirty years ago, folks. My memory isn’t as sharp as it once was. But this is what I do remember:
At one point, during one of Harlan’s anecdotes, he stepped forward and grabbed my right wrist.
Also, during another anecdote, to do an impression, he needed both of his hands. So he asked me to come up to hold his microphone.
He read Eidolons in its entirety.
During the signing, I told him that it was my daughter’s birthday. He asked me for her name. After I told him, he signed my hardcover copy of Alone Against Tomorrow to her, from Uncle Harlan.
The event was recorded on cassette. Man, I wish I had a copy of that puppy.
A few years later, sometime during the reign of George Bush Sr., I wrote a song for Harlan, which consisted of titles from some of his stories and essays. I had started putting pen to paper when I was 16. While mowing our yard, lines began forming in my head. I couldn’t get my weekly chore done fast enough, so that I could get it all written down before I forgot it. I called the song Shot Down Dreams and had, for whatever reason, either before the composition or shortly thereafter, scribbled MSB on the paper. My sisters actually thought it was a song from the Michael Stanley Band. (Those of you who reside or came from North East Ohio know of whom I speak).
Anyway, I mailed the song to Harlan. Oh, how naïve I was. At the time, I felt so proud of what I created. I didn’t know he hardly read things like that and deep sixed them. Ah, well.
Moving on. Sixteen years after I saw Harlan in Kent, I was able to see him for a second time. Again, it was around my daughter’s birthday. She was now eighteen and I thought I’d treat her and my partner, Judy (I’d been divorced for about twelve years) to an evening with Harlan Ellison.
Although the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is ninety minutes away from my hometown, I have only been there twice. The first time was to see Harlan; the second was for the John Lennon exhibit.
For Harlan, we took our seats several rows behind the first. Harlan gave his lecture on a stage. I remember there was a young crowd in attendance. I’m not sure if they were from a particular school or not.
Sadly, I can’t recall hardly anything he talked about. He did have us laughing when he related an episode he had at an airport. He was in a restroom, washing his hands. A gentleman, having finished urinating, zipped up and exited without washing his hands. Harlan ran out of the restroom, chased after this guy, while yelling something like “Hey, you didn’t wash your hands! You didn’t wash your hands!” It pales in the retelling, but he had every one of us rolling.
As stated above, soon after being discharged from the Marines, I voraciously began reading Ellison. To be honest, I didn’t do any reading while in the Corps; I drank. Heavily. In a recent conversation with my mom, she said it was Harlan who sparked the passion for reading in me again. And I haven’t stopped. For this alone, the debt of gratitude and love I have for this master of the written word cannot be measured.
Although I’m a college graduate, I can honestly state I learned and remembered more from Harlan’s books than any damn textbook. He was a double serving of entertainment and education. He introduced me to movies (Val Lewton!) and writers (Robert Bloch and William Kotzwinkle).
Then there was the politics. From King in Selma, Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority to the blackballing of Ed Asner in Hollywood, he shared his world with us, We may not have agreed with him but, with every word, we felt his passion.
Like Harlan, I am an atheist. I know there isn’t a god. However, I am a very spiritual person. My spirituality is rooted deep in the earth, our mother. We have a spirit, a life force, energy, that doesn’t dissipate when all living beings expire from this existence.
Since Harlan’s death I have been crying every day, but, I must admit, a smile comes to my face, and my imagination runs wild, when I think of the force of nature that was Harlan Ellison being taken back to the earth. And would she ever give that spirit back to us? Could you imagine Harlan as a kick-ass earth elemental? Being a fantasist, perhaps he’d get a kick out of that. Perhaps not. All I know is in my fanciful mind that scenario, along with the work he has left behind, gives me comfort.
Before I leave you, I want to address one final topic: Animals. Harlan cared for them, as do I. And, I’m sure, many of you.
“The more I see of people, the better I like animals,” wrote Harlan in the new introduction for “Paingod and Other Delusions”. Aside for that one incident which he “regretted instantly”, Harlan “ was never mean to an animal. Never. I’d step around an ant. A moth in the house, I would take and put it outside. I still do to this day.”
I’m the same way. I take all the insects and spiders outside. I feed the birds and squirrels in our backyard. I do what I can in supporting small, non-profit animal organizations and spread the word about their good work. Also, a few years back a friend and I made a video tackling the atrocities of rattlesnake roundups. To this day, I keep trying to educate people on these despicable events.
Since I’m on the topic of snakes, and I’ve slithered to the end of this piece, I’d like to leave you with one of my favorite Ellison quotes.
“It is not that I am into revenge. I promise you this is the truth. I am… honest to god, the best analogy, I am a snake on a rock. Fuck with me, I won’t bite you. Fuck with me, you’re going to walk around with me hanging from your neck the rest of your natural life”.
Thank you, Harlan. To us all, you mattered.
