The Three High-Verbals, Part 2

digresssmlOriginally published November 9, 2001, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1460

So after I had completed my fifteen minutes of fame at MIT and Harlan had done his forty-five—which seemed proportionate, somehow—Neil came out and did this own chat with the group, far closer to my time than Harlan’s. Speaking in that calming and urbane fake British accent he puts on, the highlight of Neil’s time (as far as I was concerned) was a charming poem he’d written for his youngest daughter called “Crazy Hair” (i.e., the poem, not the child, is called “Crazy Hair.”) After that, Neil took his seat, at which point the dogs of war were unleashed.

I should have seen it coming, for Harlan in his opening remarks came at MIT students at full bore. These are supposed to be, after all, among our best and brightest. Upon these shoulders, upon these minds rest hopes for future technology, for breakthroughs in science, technology, and advancement. Just because Harlan still prefers a manual typewriter over a computer hardly means that he does not have as keen an appreciation of that fact as anyone else. And because these are supposed to be the nimblest, most thoughtful minds in America, Ellison naturally challenged them to think, that’s all, just think, in his trademark aggressive manner.

Neil would later remark on his website that he and I had far less of a presence than he would have thought, and that MIT should consider rebooking Harlan solo for an evening of “Ellison vs. MIT.” I don’t know that is necessarily what’s required, but I certainly think that—should Harlan, Neil and I ever do this trio gig again—question and answer lines should be organized in the following manner. There should be two lines. One line should consist of people who want to ask genuine questions about our opinions on various topics, or have works-specific questions. And the other line should consist entirely of people who want to try and show that they have as big cajones as Harlan Ellison and spend fifteen minutes debating him as if the 900+ people who paid money to get in came to hear the opinions of some yutz who they can hear for free at next Saturday’s kegger. We would then field questions from the former line, while the latter line would be repeatedly smacked with wiffle ball bats wielded by cranky seven year olds up past their bedtime.

Harlan naturally could not resist rising to any challenge thrown to him… and since the Q&A’s were largely just that—mostly students intent on debating the rip-snorting, endlessly tangled topic of copyright infringement—Harlan was the point man for the majority of the evening. So much so, in fact, that at one point during a lengthy back and forth, I interjected something and Harlan said in response to the interruption, “Hey! I work a single.” Now that’s his reflex comment that he uses to hecklers who try to break in on him when he’s doing a talk, but it kind of backfires (and I think he knew it instantly) when you use it on someone who’s supposed to be up there. I glanced at Neil, but he just seemed amused, as was I. And as Harlan continued to talk, I very calmly picked up a copy of American Gods which was sitting on a table at hand and started to read it in full view of the audience, as if what Harlan was saying was of so little interest that it didn’t warrant my attention. Neil, noticing, reached for a copy of Sir Apropos of Nothing and he likewise started reading.

By that point the audience was howling, and Harlan turned and saw what we were doing. Whereupon he hopped down into the audience and, posing as a fan, started asking us questions. Affecting an accent that should have been accompanied by a Deliverance banjo, he said, “Yes, Mr. Daaayvid, ah’ve heard of Mister Ellison, and ah know Mr. Gaiman, but may ah ask who you are and what you’re doin’ up there with these famous gentlemen?” Which was, in point of fact, a question going through the minds of a significant number of people in the audience (every single one of whom would make sure to stop by during the autographing later to tell me that they’d never heard of me before but would be sure to pick up Apropos. They couldn’t buy it there because I hadn’t brought any. See, I’d been told there would be a bookseller set up on premises who’d be carrying our novels and I didn’t want to horn in on his sales. What I didn’t find out until I got there was that the bookseller also apparently hadn’t heard of me, and therefore his table was largely uncontaminated by any of my novels.)

Anyway, I explained to Ellison-the-inquisitor that I was there to throw myself into the line of fire and take a bullet should anyone attempt to fire on the far more important Messrs. Gaiman or Ellison. I saw people in the audience nodding in comprehension; it probably seemed as good an explanation for my presence as any.

The most curious give-and-take of the evening occurred when a young man approached the microphone. He was wearing a striped shirt and a deer-in-the-headlights expression, and he spoke in an odd tone that made it sound as if his body was in the theater but his mind was out in the parking lot, and there was a lag time while information was processed and retransmitted. I realized belatedly that he was one of those rare people who actually considers a question or statement, analyzes it, formulates a response and then delivers it as concisely as he can…as opposed to people like, say, me, who starts talking immediately and my brain sprints to play catch-up, which is how I get myself into trouble more often than not.

In any event, he asked Harlan whether or not Harlan’s fundamental message of the evening—which was, as far as he was concerned, that most people there seemed “dumb as a post”—might very well be valid, but could possibly be obscured by what he referred to as “signal to noise ratio.” Which was an interesting, if debatable, point: Was Ellison being so overwhelming in his deluge of endeavors to get people to think that he was becoming the equivalent of a tsunami hammering a sand castle? In the course of his response, Harlan asked the guy, “Do you feel you’re dumb as a post?”

Dead silence.

There was laughter and then uncomfortable laughter as once again the guy pondered the question. Then he said, “Yes.” More uncomfortable laughter, as the audience’s thought was obvious and likely unanimous: They figured running the bulls in Pamplona was a safer pastime than telling Harlan Ellison that you’re ignorant. But Ellison, running contrary to expectations as he often does, seemed intrigued. “Why do you say you’re dumb as a post?” he asked.

Another silence. And then: “Because every day I realize how much I don’t know, and I can only thing that I’m as dumb as a post because there’s so much I have to learn.”

Stunned silence. I mean, geez louise, boys and girls, it doesn’t get much more Zen than that. There was a slow realization that this guy might actually be the most intelligent person in the joint. Ellison, utterly fascinated, came down off the stage and talked to the guy for ten minutes. I kept waiting for him to tell the guy to snatch a pebble from his hand. Neil would later say he expected Harlan to say, “You may follow me and I will teach you,” and bring the guy home and have him sit outside his house for a week, to be followed by gardening, yard work, and doing wax-on, wax-off on Harlan’s car. I only wish I’d gotten the guy’s name, or even his autograph, because I figure either he’ll go on to become a world leader or a criminal mastermind… which occasionally is much the same thing.

After the Q&A, and Harlan’s quite successful reading of a short story, there was autographing until 1:30 in the morning, with a big line for Harlan and a big line for Neil and I sort of got the spillover. The single most-asked question I got: When will there be a new But I Digress collection? A question that the powers-that-be at Krause just seem to shrug over, and considering the audience there appears to be for it, I may just get tired of waiting and seek another publisher for it.

The next morning we all (including Kathleen and the girls) assembled in the hotel dining room for breakfast and post mortems. I opined that Neil, upon arrival, would announce that he’s “not a morning person,” and we promptly started a pool as to how long it would take him to say it. Harlan took sixty seconds and then, upon Neil’s arrival, promptly tried to win the bet (understand, there was no money at stake; Harlan just wanted to be right) by turning the conversation so that Neil would say the magic words inside of a minute. And Neil was sitting there, bleary eyed, and finally under Harlan’s prodding, said, “You’ll have to forgive me, I’m not…” Harlan leaned forward, clock ticking down the final seconds of the first minute. “Not what?” Neil exhaled and said, “Not quite awake yet.” With sixty seconds gone, Harlan tacitly admitted defeat by not pressing the conversation any further, and Neil never did say the magic words, so no one won.

Harlan regaled us with an assortment of anecdotes, many of them involving well-known actors. Sitting not far was a rather dyspeptic elderly woman who was clearly not happy with either the service or the food… kind of curious since we later learned she dined there every Sunday morning. At one point she made a rather acidic comment directed at Harlan, voicing skepticism that Susan was in fact his wife instead of, say, his daughter, which is right up there with short jokes in terms of ways to endear yourself to Ellison. But as the meal progressed, she obviously was becoming intrigued by the litany of famous names Harlan was rattling off. Her eavesdropping was hardly subtle (although, to be fair, we were hardly a quiet bunch.) We finished about the same time she did, and she came over and said to Harlan, “Are you a movie director? Because I heard you talking about all these movie stars. So I figured you’re a movie director.”

Without hesitation, Harlan said, “Yes, yes I am in a movie director, that’s very clever of you to figure that out.”

“What are you doing here in Boston, so far from Hollywood?”

“We’re filming a movie here on location,” he said.

“What’s it called?”

Flesh,” said Ellison.

The rest of us all exchanged incredulous looks and mouth “Flesh?” to each other. The old woman, meantime, was quizzing Harlan on the cast.

“Well, we’ve got Kevin Costner in the lead,” said Harlan smoothly, “and what’s her name, from Incredible Mr. Ripley…”

“Cate Blanchett,” Neil volunteered.

“Yes, yes, right, Cate Blanchett, right…”

“Because,” I put in, “Gwyneth wasn’t available.”

“Yeah, right, though we had Gwyneth locked up, last minute conflict,” said Harlan.

And the woman started asking him about the plot and all about being a director, at which point I suddenly realized we weren’t going to get out of there anytime soon. Quickly I went over to Kathleen and whispered, “Give me your cell phone.” She handed it to me, I put it to my ear, nodded for a moment as if I was listening, then walked over to Ellison and said briskly, “Sir, I’m sorry to disturb you, but Kevin’s calling from the set.”

“I’m sorry, I’ve got to take this,” Harlan said quickly, grabbing the inactive phone and talking into it. I prayed the dámņëd thing didn’t suddenly start to ring, or the bit was blown.

“Oooh, all right then, I’ll be on my way,” said the elderly woman, and she walked away as Harlan said briskly into the phone, “Kevin, yeah, hi, we’re done with breakfast, we’re on our way… no… no, Kevin, I’ve told you a hundred times, no applesauce…!”

I watched carefully as the old woman departed, then turned to Harlan and said, “Okay, she’s gone.”

Ellison let out a sigh of relief, handed the phone back to Kathleen and said, “Brilliant move. Inspired. She wasn’t leaving. Great move.”

Well, you know… when you’re the guy whose job it is to throw himself in the line of fire for Harlan Ellison and Neil Gaiman, that comes with the territory.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)

 

2 comments on “The Three High-Verbals, Part 2

  1. I love the story, Peter. The last bit with the Harlan having fun with the lady at the restaurant reminded me of a good friend that recently passed. It was something he & I would do when hanging out. Just make a story up on the fly when noticing that people were listening to our conversation…. I miss him. Happy Halloween Peter & family.

  2. Apropos of absolutely nothing, I noticed it’s been five years since the last installment of “Potato Moon”. Any idea when we’ll finally get a final chapter from you and Ariel?

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