Dinner with a Bud

Had dinner last night with Harlan Ellison and some of his merry friends. What an incredible evening, filled with stories and jokes and general bonhomie. When I think back over my life, I realize that there are a handful of relationships I treasure almost absurdly much. And one is definitely this man, the most honored living fantasist. When I first heard about Harlan, I was reading strange little stories by him, loving them, but not really paying attention to the name on the byline. Then I read a series of articles in the Free Press, stuff about television called "The Glass Teat." Brilliant column written by a man who seemed totally fearless, would express controversial ideas so clearly that I had to just shake my head, and make jokes so incredibly un-PC (I remember a joke about "interracial faggotry" that had me on the floor) that I just HAD to meet him. And then there was this guy on the radio, interviewed by somebody on KABC, and I thought he had the fastest mind I'd ever heard outside certain comedians in programmed, controlled contexts. This guy worked without a net.

Then I discovered that these three men were the same guy. I started going to lectures at college campuses, sitting in the front row, over about eighteen months. Always polite, asking good questions, not buying into the "insult Harlan and get him going" mood often present at these things. And over time I could see him start to wonder who in the hell I was. Finally, I out-bid everyone else and got dinner with him at an awards dinner. I was going to try to find an opportunity to catch his attention, make him really notice me. Just one opening...

At the dinner, Sammy Davis Jr was given an award for the TV movie "Poor Devil." I leaned over to Harlan and said: "they only gave it to him because he's Jewish."

Harlan looked at me scornfully and said, in an instant, "shut up and eat your watermelon."

Sigh. Memories are made of this. It was so wonderful to see him again, really.

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I hear "The Wolfman" is really, really terrible. Is that right? And why does it seem so hard for big-budget horror movies to work worth a damn? I have to suspect that the best horror comes from one artist's nightmares. Corporate horror will be a collection of "this scared 'em last time" moments. Hmmm. Is the same thing true about sex? Can I think of a really sexy moment in big movie? There must have been a few, but nothing is coming to mind at the moment. I think the intimacy of sex and death make it hard to create by committee. Now, I'm looking forward to "Shutter Island," which is big studio, but Scorsese has the juice to pull it off. Hope he does.

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Am I really duping the Hero's Journey course next week? Good Lord! I can't believe it. And can't believe how good it feels to get this all down, all out of myself. I have to mail out the copies. I feel emptied out, husked. Like I had to get all of the things I've ever been taught out of my head, to make room for...what? I don't know. What I do know is that I would hate to die without sharing everything I've been given. Perhaps none of us ever get to do that completely. But the effort is worthwhile. I ask myself if I'm just doing it for money. That voice is in my head, some kind of nasty little bug that is probably left over from my childhood, some kind of negative associations with making a profit. All I can say is that if Bill Gates gave me a billion dollars, I wouldn't just give "Hero's Journey" away for free. I'd pay people to listen to it. That's as close as I can come to shutting that little voice in my head up.

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Tiger Woods is giving a press conference as I write this. Tananarive asked me if I thought he should have made this conference. I asked: "as a person, or as a corporation?" As a person, he owes nothing to anyone but his family, and his own heart. As a corporation, he sure as hell needs to--there are millions of people who identified with him deeply. This is nothing new in human culture: we have always had heros, royalty, and so forth. I'm sure that the village's best hunters got applauded by the village, and that is appropriate. People act as if there is something unique to the 20th or 21st Century about such behavior. At least we don't act as if royalty is divine. So the Tiger Woods' of the world are given the awards we used to reserve for people whose ancestors slaughtered thousands to take the throne...hmm. I can deal with that. And he went haywire, living out a fantasy of endless sexual conquest. To my knowledge, no one has written a book on how to deal with massive fame and success. Even the small, isolated versions of this I've experienced can be disorienting. It would seem that he made the traditional promises of fidelity to his wife, and violated them big time. If I were her, I would divorce him, take the money, and do whatever I wanted with it. Create educational foundations for my family, perhaps. Then I'd see if he would court me. If so, I might be able to forgive him. But that money would be in MY account, not a joint account. Yep, I think I would.

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It would be difficult to imagine a culture in which those who perform at extreme levels of competence were not revered. People who complain that teachers aren't given that kind of acclaim or money miss the fact that as a group they earn far more than athletes. And as individuals they assiduously AVOID the kind of hierarchical rankings that would ever create celebrity. If we clearly knew who the best teachers in the world were, trust me, those individuals would be celebrated, as Plato and Aristotle have been celebrated for centuries for being the greatest teachers of their time. You can't have it both ways. The higher the safety net, the lower the ceiling. The people who get fantastic rewards are always in professions where the least successful get NOTHING. Always. We can disagree on which behaviors and skills should be most prized, but I suspect that they will remain things that can be visually identified, and that engage large numbers of people simultaneously. Tony Robbins is just a teacher--there is much he is doing that is also done at Learning Tree, Community colleges, and even advisers at junior high schools. The difference is marketing. THAT is actually his genius. Any time you can cut someone from the pack and hold them up as "the best in the world!" it can be promoted. We care about that, no matter what "best" it is. And that will probably never change.

Should it?