Harlan Ellison: shitheel ?


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Harlan Ellison: shitheel ?

Post by SandRider »

not being a big SF fan or follower, I don't know,
but I know I've heard this kinda bullshit before:


http://harlanellison.com/heboard/archiv ... 090706.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

HARLAN ELLISON
- Monday, June 22 2009 14:22:2

TO THE ANONYMOUS "GARY"

...who posted the unremittingly negative review of DREAMS from some equally anonymous doryphore, in hopes it would demoralize or pink me.

As I've said many times before, quoting (it was either John Simon or Gore Vidal, both acquaintances of mine, Ellison added, strictly to make the blogger "cringe" anew), "Well, if one seeks the approbation of monkeys..."

Or (Ellison added redux, just to sink the barb deeper) to quote William Blake from PROVERBS OF HELL, "Listen to the fool's reproach! it is a kingly title!"

If I had a dime for every spewing mudmouth who, at far less age than mine, and who has accomplished less in all those years despite his/her sophomoric arrogance than I have, in any given year beyond age nineteen (when I sold my first story), I would have WELL OVER $300,000. Apparently no matter how much good work you do, no matter how many Good Works you perform, no matter how large an impact you may have had on your times, because they are cranky nasty child-products of a shabby and narrow pop culture rife with the stench of me me me gimme gimme gimme...a venue that stinks of cultural amnesia salt&peppered with selfishness&rudeness...with the plopping into their ichor-dripping claws some electronic blabbering device, everything goes away. Or never existed. Or has grown too old and out-of-touch with THEIR grand fevers(notably heavymetal, Sanjaya, Micahel Bay Transformer FX, the scent of Paris Hilton's thong, MEtubeYOUtubeIpodWiisqueal) And all that counts to them, all of which they're even cognizant, is what happened to THEM...today.

Goodbye Bradbury. Goodbye Lieber. Goodbye Aeschylus. Goodbye Pliny the Elder. Goodbye Donald Westlake. Goodbye Faulkner and Harvey Swados and William March and Leigh Brackett. Goodbye Owen Wister. Goodbye Shirley Jackson. Goodbye all and every...for the sin of not being recognized by a jealous semiliterate jackalpak of craven wannabes do-nothings and toadstool-licking fanboys who have pudding for memory, dust for generosity, rust for respect. They who post as you would have me cry over, Gary; those who, fear the day their mommies and daddies pitch them out into the krewl krewl world wherein they must perform and not just snipe. A krewl krewl world in which your pissing and sniping at those who DO, those who HAVE DONE and WILL DO, is intolerable to true strugglers against the ignorance of your shallow observations. A krewl krewl world wherein I have made my mark, for good or ill; and yet...I'll be waiting for them, kris in hand.

The score, Gary, is ME: everything; YOU: no name at all.

Harlan Ellison
what say the Iduali ?
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Re: Harlan Ellison: shitheel ?

Post by TheDukester »

He scores high on the Shitheel Meter. Always has; always will.
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Re: Harlan Ellison: shitheel ?

Post by SandRider »

the plot thickens:
alan
largo, fla. - Monday, June 22 2009 17:10:30

FOR NICK MAMATAS-YOU FUCKING BOTTOM FEEDING FUCK FACE

Or excuse me "GARY",you erstwhile learned prick!.You cowardly erudite swine! Am I to swoon to your astute observations?You low gutter back stabbing FUCK! I would have left comments on YOUR blog but the site is equally mind fucking and uninteresting.Do something positive with your time you pimple-faced fuck.


HARLAN ELLISON
- Monday, June 22 2009 19:33:12

ALAN IN LARGO:

Thank you.

I've spoken to Our Beloved Webmaster. He is seeing to Mr. Mamatas. Fret not, you're a Good Soul.

Harlan
HARLAN ELLISON
- Wednesday, June 24 2009 22:14:25

REPLY TO GARY

You have only my word on this, but when I tell you that in no way or suggestion or maneuver did I "send my"" friend and Webmaster "after you." Nor anyone else. You may believe that or not, as you wish; but I am not given to lying to those who come here.

An effort was made to establish WHO you were, as we have had our share of false identities, trolls, agents provocateur, and just general all-around putzes who don't like me for whatever their neurotic impetus may be. I've asked Webderlanders, if they come across such twaddle as the Mamatas insult Mardi Gras, simply not to come into MY PERSONAL AERIE, and gig me with an awareness of something that'll only make me feel bad.

At one point, one of the number here thought your URL and "iconoclast-kid"s were the same. So you came up on the radar. I asked a couple of people to do for me what I cannot do: check out who's who and what's what. I sic'd no one on you.

In truth, there was nothing to be done about this Mamatas fellow. He has every right to say anything about the film that he is so moved to say. The piece is clearly not a "review" at all, but a vessel for him to express his jealousy and self-loathing. Were I entombed in his pseudo-intellectual graveyard of an existence, I would resent me or any other Icarus who could actually soar. Turns out, he is a manque, a poetaster, a no-price for whom the internet is a last chance slave market where, for free, he can bleat to his shrunken little heart's delight.

You say you are not Nick Mamatas, well, okay. I'll take that on faith. But a first name, no location, and an act most often performed by a Fifth Columnist here to annoy me and my friends...well...

If you have been mistakenly accused, a genuine apology. If you're playing me...big fucking deal. I'll survive.

If you care to clarify any part of the foregoing you think I've cobbled up inaccurately...we're adults here. Get it on, and say it out loud. But know this: unequivocally, no weaseling, no lie: I did not "send my webmaster after you."

Respectfully, Harlan Ellison

apparently, "Gary's" posts, if they on this I-luv-Harlan-he-luvs-me little hole-in-the-web, were deleted ....
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Re: Harlan Ellison: shitheel ?

Post by Robspierre »

Harlan has always been a shameless self promoter. He also has short man's disease. He likes to do the rapid fire tough as nails New Yorker bit. He has written some very good material in the past but he really hasn't done much of anything since the mid-70's.

Rob
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Re: Harlan Ellison: shitheel ?

Post by TheDukester »

He's like a cartoon. And his Harlan-versus-the-world routine got really old in about 1974.

Verdict: shitheel.
"Anything I write will be remembered and listed in bibliographies on Dune for several hundred years ..." — some delusional halfwit troll.
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Re: Harlan Ellison: shitheel ?

Post by SandRider »

I think I'm inclined to agree -
spent the last hour trying to ferret out the original review
that knotted his panties - no joy, but along the way I found
out that a whole lotta people hate him ....

him personally, tho, not much bad to say about his writing,
so if Keith is taking him as a role model, he's only halfway there ...

I also reconfirmed what I already knew - any shitheel with a keyboard
can clutter up the nets with their blaghs and "I'm an author" bullshit.

I hate people.

So, my initial reaction is that Harlan's just an average run-o'-the-mill asshole,
but a talented asshole, who thinks the world should drop to its knees at his
wit and wisdom, based on his past work, and he also thinks because he's an
old fuck, he can say anything he wants to - which he can, but in the real world,
away from the keyboard, that all depends on how well you can tolerate a punch
to the face, or a boot to the head, &etc.

if your tolerance is high, rave away, old man ...

so definite asshole, maybe borderline shitheel .... occasional shitheel ?

I also had difficulty in the search because apparently,
June and July of 2009 were prime Ellison assholery ...
he picked a number of fights, and got the self-published blaghers
in an uproar several times; so all their bitching and the comfort-bitching
of their friends fucked up the results ...

and I still don't know if Gary is Nick Matamas, but I guess now I know who
Nick Matamas is, and I'm not sure I'm happy about that, either ....

Seems like Omph had given me a warning about how grumpy and bitchy Spinrad could be,
comparing him to Ellison .... I guess it wasn't not well-known that he can be an internet jerk ...
or troll, depending on your POV, I guess.

anyway, fuck all this, now I don't care -
I was actually just trying to find the exact wording of the Dickens line in Simmons's book
from some other thread, somehow stumbled into Harlan's Treehouse, read that bullshit I keep
hearing from Keith & the 501ers, thought wow. shitheel? ... and thought I'd just leave it here ...
................ I exist only to amuse myself ................
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Re: Harlan Ellison: shitheel ?

Post by SandChigger »

Robspierre wrote:He has written some very good material in the past but he really hasn't done much of anything since the mid-70's.
Thanks, Robbo! This is just what I was about to ask. :)

He sounds like quite a shithead. But I like a lot of his old stuff. "The Deathbird" is one of my favorites.
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Re: Harlan Ellison: shitheel ?

Post by Omphalos »

Deathbird Stories, Angry Candy, the Dangerous Visions anthologies, and maybe one other collection are aces in my book. But its been a loooooong time since he wrote anything worth reading. I don't doubt that he has some rabid e-fans, what with the way the internet attracts the nut-jobs and what-not. The only time I have heard his name lately is in connection with one or another lawsuit. He seems to be pretty litigious. He has a horrible reputation for verbal and written responses such as the above, and he really seems to me to in fact have the Napoleon complex Rob pointed out above, and he seems to me to have a pretty vengeful heart. That really came out in some of his writing too, which back when it was worth reading was edgy and angry.
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Re: Harlan Ellison: shitheel ?

Post by SandChigger »

He likes to claim he's the one that discovered Dan Simmons, too. ;)
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Re: Harlan Ellison: shitheel ?

Post by Aquila ka-Hecate »

While I've never been a Harlan Ellison fan, for some reason the illustrated version of Shattered Like A Glass Goblin has haunted me ever since I scanned it, sometime in the late '70s. Anyone remember that one?

Possibly it rang a prescient bell, because I grew up to be an alcoholic and an addict. There was a dark authenticity there.

Pity the man turned into such an imbecile, although I'm obviously not one to talk.
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Re: Harlan Ellison: shitheel ?

Post by Sev »

Gary could be Gary Groth - the two of them have been feuding/sueing for 30 years now, ever since a remark about Michael Fleischer in Comics Journal.
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Re: Harlan Ellison: shitheel ?

Post by Mandy »

I've never read Harlan Ellison, but I like old shitheels :)
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Re: Harlan Ellison: shitheel ?

Post by Omphalos »

Mandy wrote:I've never read Harlan Ellison, but I like old shitheels :)
Well, well, well. I think someone just gave SR the go-ahead! :wink:
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Re: Harlan Ellison: shitheel ?

Post by SandRider »

Omphalos wrote:
Mandy wrote:I've never read Harlan Ellison, but I like old shitheels :)
Well, well, well. I think someone just gave SR the go-ahead! :wink:
we got that green-light quite awhile back;
wait until it blows up and I'll email you the
vidcaps from the webcam ....

Sev wrote:Gary could be Gary Groth - the two of them have been feuding/sueing for 30 years now, ever since a remark about Michael Fleischer in Comics Journal.
not Gary Groth - in fact, while trying to suss out the review, I had to use "Gary -Groth -Wolfe";
there are pages and pages of the Groth v. Harlan saga; google kept asking me if I meant
Harlan Ellison's Growth, and I finally gave in and there are pages and pages about that, too ....
................ I exist only to amuse myself ................
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Re: Harlan Ellison: shitheel ?

Post by SandChigger »

:laughing-rolling:

What kind of growth was it? :shock:
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Re: Harlan Ellison: shitheel ?

Post by TheDukester »

Actual evidence of shitheel-ery:

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/02/do ... quote.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Harlan Ellison: shitheel ?

Post by Sandwurm88 »

Hahaha, I like it. I'll give him this, his insults are more creative and venomous than KJA's. (Especially that Paris Hilton thing). What's a shitheel? Like a cantankerous jerk old guy or sumthin'?
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Re: Harlan Ellison: shitheel ?

Post by SandRider »

Connie Willis' breasts were the ones Harlan groped onstage after introducing at some conference sometime -
can't remember the details, learned more than I ever wanted to about him the other day -
................ I exist only to amuse myself ................
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I personally feel that this message board, Jacurutu, is full of hateful folks who don't know
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Re: Harlan Ellison: shitheel ?

Post by lotek »

You can never learn more htan you want too: if you watch this video this affirmation might just be proved by the absurd :)
But if you really believe what you said don't watch it!

What say you Sandrider?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 0586546104#" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Harlan Ellison: shitheel ?

Post by SandRider »

SandRider say rural dial-up internet connexion too slow wait for video download,
and must now go supervise artificial insemination of cow .....

SandRider say paraphrase video please and post vidcap ....
................ I exist only to amuse myself ................
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I personally feel that this message board, Jacurutu, is full of hateful folks who don't know
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~ "Spice Grandson" (Bryon Merrit) 08 June 2008
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