s***@earthlink.net
2004-06-24 18:41:33 UTC
The following is my response to a query on the Israeli Science Fiction
Association web site with regard to Harlan Ellison's reference to me
in "I, Robot." I am posting it myself here, lest it otherwise appear
altered or lacking in context.
Wryly, teeth grinding with the desire to insert a railroad spike atan
inch deep into the left eyeball of such critic-manqu'e as the woefully
bitter, jealous and untalented Gregory Feeley or Sheldon
Teitelbaum,who regularly kvetch that I am no-price because I don't
write novels..."
Harlan Ellison
Intro, I Robot -- a Screenplay
Aharon, I was not previously aware of the above, having determined
never to line Harlan's pockets with my hard-earned shekels. Please
feel free to post this on the SF site in English, and if you wish to
suffer the afflictions of yesteryear (for which I am eternally
grateful, of course), you may translate it into the "mama loshen."
To the extent that Ellison can now engender any sentiment in me save
pity, it saddens me that a so-called giant of Ellison's otherwise
diminutive
stature would sully his own book -- and Reb Yitzhak's memory, Z"L --
with
such puerile invective. But that is Ellison for you -- as cowering,
anal, mean-spirited, and otherwise contemptible a toadeater as has
ever infested a stagnant pond . For 15 years, perhaps longer, the
"shrying"
Svengali of Sherman Oaks finds himself compelled to swing headless
chickens
about his pointed head while cursing my name in French fanzines and in
prologues
to failed screenplays.
"Nebach."
Understand the pathology here. Ellison states that I "regularly
kvetch" about his failure to write novels. In fact -- and this can
be demonstrated by a LexisNexis search -- I alluded to Ellison's
lack of distinction as a novelist all of once, and just in passing. I
have just run a search, and turned up all of two mentions of Ellison
in any regard at all in the the hundreds of articles I have published
since leaving Israel in '85 in the Los Angeles and New York Times,
Wired, Time-Digital, The Jerusalem Report and The Jerusalem Post, in
the
Los Angeles Reader and L.A. Daily News, in the Montreal Gazette and
Toronto Star, in Entertainment Weekly, Premiere and Cinefantastique,
in Present Tense, Hadassah and Moment, in the L.A. Jewish Journal,
in Foundation and Sci Fi Universe, in SF Eye and Midnight Graffiti,
in Army Magazine, and more venues than I should list here.
Here are the references that have rendered Ellison helplessly (and
wryly) gnashing his teetth night after sleepless night, year
after rage-filled year since 1990 at least. Not that I know precisely
how one
can "wryly" gnash one's teeth, except to point out that Ellison
misuses the word to protect himself from potential charges of violent
incitement. Conceivably, one of the thousands of lost souls who hang
on to every trickle of blather that dribbles down his gibbering chin
will not internalize that his dreams of torturing me are "wry," and
will dutifully show up on my doorstep, railroad spike in paw.
Had the book been published in Israel, Ellison would be rotting in a
cell in Abu Kabir now, literally gnashing his teeth...and a few
other choice appendages.
Meileh. As promised:
Copyright 1993 The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times
October 8, 1993, Friday, Home Edition
SECTION: View; Part E; Page 10; Column 1; View Desk
LENGTH: 789 words
HEADLINE: CRAMMED WITH ENOUGH INFORMATION TO FILL THE UNIVERSE;
LITERATURE: COMING IN AT 1.3 MILLION WORDS LONG, THE NEW EDITION OF
"ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION" SEARCHES FOR ORDER IN AN UNWIELDY
FIELD.
BYLINE: By THE WOEFULLY JEALOUS, BITTER AND UNTALENTED SHELDON
TEITELBAUM, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES
" Questions of editorial judgment remain. The entry on Harlan
Ellison, for instance, is embarrassingly fawning, given his failure
to contribute a single novel to a field largely shaped by novels "
AND...
Copyright 1990 The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times
April 19, 1990, Thursday, Home Edition
NAME: MORDECAI RICHLER
SECTION: View; Part E; Page 1; Column 3; View Desk
LENGTH: 2339 words
HEADLINE: MORDECAI RICHLER WAS HERE;
AUTHOR: THE CANADIAN'S NEW NOVEL, 'SOLOMON GURSKY,' HAS WON CRITICAL
ACCLAIM AND RACKED UP IMPRESSIVE SALES AT HOME.
BYLINE: By THE WOEFULLY JEALOUS, BITTER AND UNTALENTED SHELDON
TEITELBAUM, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES
" On his permafrost-ridden home turf, the prickly Richler is a
caustic social critic who makes Southern California's curmudgeon,
Harlan Ellison, seem like Mr. Rogers. If Richler inspires equal
degrees of loathing in some circles, suggests Canadian chronicler
John Robert Colombo, perhaps the country's ranking anthologist, it
may be because he is too worldly, too openly Jewish, too urban and
too outspoken to suit some super-patriots in Canada "
-------
This is it. These minor asides plunged this creature in a homicidal
tizzy.
Such is the impotence, physical and psychological, that fuels 15 years
of
payback. In the above-mentioned French fanzine, for instance, Monsieur
Le "Gamad"
(Critic manqué" indeed il parle Francais comme je parle Chinois,
inal dinak, zeb!) howled that I envied him his career and talents. As
if any of his readers on any continent have ever heard of me.
I am hardly a household name, either in the SF world or in the world
of
letters. I have certainly -- and having known me for 25 years you
can surely attest to this -- never aspired to write any kind of
fiction. I have also never aspired to operate on a spleen, build a
gazebo, or design radioactive waste canisters either. According to
Mr. Ellison, though, I envy and begrudge those who do these things
as well as Ellison's own distinguished career.
This is the response of a certified paranoid who cannot countenance
any critique of his work or any accounting of his doings without
succumbing to blood rage. These are the wet dreams of a porcupine
undone by erectile dysfunction. What a maroon!
What this "gawad" does not and cannot fathom is that I do not object
to his work so much as I do to his comportment. He is the Napoleonic
scourge of Coy Drive, a bully a mountebank, a thief in the night. He
struts and gibbers with impunity because his victims are either
terrified of
him or, more likely, cannot be bothered with his mishegos. If I
begrudge this
puffed up bullfrog anything, it, it is his abysmal lack of
"menschlichtkeit" and
his perennial posturing as a tough-guy (even as he hides behind a bad
heart that,
per his endless bleating, should, Inshallah, have killed him years
ago.
Most of all, I begrudge him his sanctimonious self-designation as a
champion of First Amendment rights. Ellison will invariably fight
for the right of all right-thinking folks to express themselves as
they
please. Unless, that is, they please to direct their pens in his
direction.
In which case, the call comes forth from the musty cloisters of
Ellison
Wonderland to go to the mattresses. Errant editors are rousted from
their
sleep and threatened with unspeakable torments. Writers are pilloried,
favors
called in, chips cashed, contracts made and cancelled, acceptance
slips recalled,
checks voided, lawyers whipped into demented frenzies, and fanzines
mustered
for the grand jihad. Almost inevitably (though notalways, recalling
musings on
Ellison's strong-arm tactics by Christopher Priest, John Shirley,
Charles Platt and others),
the offending reference quickly disappears from the public domain.
Such is the abject terror of Harlan' s bilious existence, moreover,
that he feels compelled, meanwhile, to depict himself as the
victim of a literary stalking, nay, a conspiracy, led by yours truly ,
and undertaken by accomplices I have never heard of (including this
Feeley fellow).
Why? Maybe inclined to mention him yet again in passing in periodicals
people actually read. That I may, this time, expose him as a paranoid,
swollen,
mendacious, obsessive-compulsive, mealy mouthed, needle-dicked poseur.
Or
maybe because, having failed to take me to task in a publication read
by as many
people as the Times, he can only do so in a book. A book whose sole
purpose, mind
you, is not to showcase his failed screenplay so much as it is to use
it to launch the
latest episode of the endless serial looping in his loopy mind, the
one you aptly dub "Ellison Against the Known Universe."
In retrospect, though, my comment about Ellison's failure to write
novels was ill considered. Short-story-writing is an honorary and
difficult craft, and I was remiss insulting those short storywriters
whose elegant doorway Ellison has darkened. Had I composed the piece
more recently, I might have opined, instead, that Ellison has
consistently evinced an idiot savant's ability to regurgitate random
esoterica from
Roget's and use the resulting outpouring as a cudgel. That and a
shameless genius for marketing such effluvia as wit to the "terminal
acne cases" that comprise the mainstay of his readers.
And as for any disparagement of Mordecai, Mordecai was a "gever,"
an honest, moral and truly courageous short story writer, novelist and
essayist. Richler had a heart. And he could write. Le'havdil.
But this wasn't the start of our contretemps by any means either.
Nor was the subsequent business of the so-called "Enemies of
Ellison." That lamentably christened organization, you may recall,
was comprised of people who had in fact suffered Ellison's efforts to
shut
them down in word, print or livelihood. Lamentably because these
poor souls were not Enemies of Ellison in the sense they hoped, as
Ellison's cronies insisted, to destroy him. Rather, they were
victims of Ellison's endless and insatiable gall and ire.
Am I or have I ever been a card-carrying member? Be'chayeicha.
Six or seven years ago, veteran SF critic Charles Platt created the
group by publishing that deadliest of weapons in Harlan's sad,
compacted little universe -- a fanzine. When I heard about this from
a third party, I asked the L.A. Times Magazine if I might be
permitted to cover this otherwise amusing "affaire de lettre." The
Times gave me a green light. However, I told my editor that Ellison
Had taken exception to earlier articles. I was concerned that when I
called
upon him for an interview, he would become abusive, perhaps even
violent. I certainly did not
want to expose my small children, who might answer the phone on my
behalf,
to his tirades.
I did not recuse myself from the story, as "Babylon 5" creator Joe
Straczynski later insisted I should (and who kept me off the set of
his show when I didn't). Any animus between Ellison and me at that
time was still largely one-sided, flowing mostly from his direction.
Indeed, I eventually concluded that if every individual Ellison
purported to detest were forced to desist from writing about him,
there'd be
no one left to write about him ever. Not that this would be a tragedy.
But it is
probably why Ellison invariably inflates his venom sacks in the
presence of media.
Not a bad scam if you can keep from turning green from your own
poisons.
For my part, approving or disapproving of Ellison remained (and
remains) immaterial. There is no such animal as journalistic
objectivity. Never has been. Humans are incapable of objectivity, if
by objectivity we mean complete neutrality. And no journalist is
ever truly neutral. The craft does not require neutrality. It
demands professionalism and fairness. The journalist is entirely
free to despise the object of his attentions. He is also free to
change his mind about his principals should the facts suggest they
are more creditable or deserving than they had first thought. He is
not, however, free to harass, to invent incident, to give vent to
unsupported or insupportable malice, or to deny the person he is
writing about a fair hearing and accurate representation. I very
much wanted Ellison's response to this group and its contentions.
I wrote to him promising a fair and polite hearing if he wished
to confer with me... and a thorough drubbing if he became abusive or
violent.
Characteristically, Mr. Ellison concluded from my interview request
that I had connived with Charles Platt to initiate the group and
give it publicity. This was not true, although I like Platt and
sympathized with those I learned Ellison had abused. I was
particularly miffed when I learned that Ellison, the self-proclaimed
street-fighting man, had punched Charles in the snoot at a
convention for allegedly criticizing one of his cronies in a
literary journal.
Charles, you must understand, is a frail, wan
British type, not a brawling Pars fan (except, maybe, in his
columns). Ellison punched Platt because he knew Platt would not and
could not ever punch back. And he punched him not because Platt had
impugned a pal whose memory had been besmirched, but because Platt
had once, Ellison reportedly suspected, put the moves on his wife
while residing as a guest at his home.
Hell hath no fury like a cuckold, except, perhaps, one who is
plainly cuckoo to begin with. Longtime Ellison confidante and horror
editor Jesse Horsting suggested during an interview about her sister,
a
fortune teller, that Harlan's blood rages stemmed, uh, from
long-standing (oy)
sexual impotence. But it wasn't enough to take a poke at Charles or,
periodically,
to defame him before standing-room audiences at science fiction
conventions
nationwide. Later, according to Platt, Ellison called him with some
news he
thought might prove alarming. Ellison's friends in the Mob had
purportedly taken
umbrage at Platt's writings. And plaintively, Ellison didn't think he
could restrain them. Yessiree Bob, In Ellison's fever dreams, revved
up on
mimeographed fanzines, the Bada Bing Gang was saddling up for a
night ride intent on whacking Charles Platt. And so Ellison gnashes
his
teeth while dreaming of penetrating his enemies with iron rods.
Fortunately for Harlan, I am not a psychiatrist, another of my many
failed professions.
Hell hath no fury like a cuckold, except, perhaps, one who is plainly
cuckoo to begin with.
Upon receipt of my interview request, Ellison instructed his lawyer to
write a letter to the
Times editor-in-chief complaining of harassment. End of story. My
story. Come to think of it, end of my association with the Los
Angeles Times as well. Not that I have cause to complain, mind you. I
should have called the little putz, asked for an interview, and in the
event of an outburst, bitch-slapped some manners into him. Live and
learn.
But no, this wasn't the start of this danse macabre either. In 1990,
I had been commissioned by the Times Magazine to do a lengthy
investigative piece about Craig Strete. Strete was an SF writer and
teacher at San Jose State University who had been accused by former
collaborator Ron Montana of plagiarizing an entire novel, published
under Strete's name alone as "Death in the Spirit House." I had
never met Strete before. But I could not imagine anyone trying to
pull off anything as described, briefly, in Locus. And after
interviewing the principals, I was left to conclude that matters
were, as you might imagine, a great deal more complicated than
depicted by Strete's supporters or detractors.
There was no shortage of blame to go around for what I concluded was
a cascading series of mishaps reminiscent of those that sink
submarines. One thing goes wrong, then another and a third and
fourth. And before the first foul up can be addressed, the vessel,
or in this case Strete's career and reputation, reaches crush depth
and implodes. There was no villain in all this, except, I was
astounded to discover, Ellison. Our deranged scold in the Wonderland
Attic had insinuated himself in Montana's good graces, worked him
into a froth, and put his own lawyer at Montana's disposal in a bid
to sink Strete's ship once and for all.
The story floating about was that Montana had labored over a novel,
and then awoke one day to discover it had been printed under a
stranger's name, notably Craig Strete. No mention, of course, that
Strete and Montana had collaborated on the novel. Or that, upon
parting ways, the two had agreed to take their respective
contributions and develop them on their own for individual
publication. No mention either that the publisher -- this in a
conversation with me -- had received the wrong manuscript from
Strete, and then failed to substitute it with the correct one when
Strete informed him of the switch.
And certainly no mention that Ellison had declared to any who
would listen that Strete was a fraud, that his claims to have been a
script doctor on major Hollywood features was baseless, that even
his claim to partial Native American descent was bogus. Or that
Ellison
had reasons apart from generosity or mentorship in egging Montana on
in his
tireless pursuit of Strete. Strete, you see, had incurred Ellison's
wrath some time before by withdrawing of one of his stories from
Ellison's still unpublished "Last Dangerous Visions" anthology.
Ultimately, and quite appropriately as best I could determine, the
initial version of "Death in the Spirit House" appeared anew under
Montana's name alone. Strete, meanwhile, disappeared beneath the
waves with nary a trace.
I myself incurred Ellison's wrath the moment I became involved in
untangling the web of lies I didn't even know, at first, he had
spun. When I became aware of his manipulations (he targeted me for
special treatment long before I knew he had anything to do with the
story),
I tried to reach Ellison for comment. Close to deadline, Ellison
called me -- at 3
a.m. Gnashing as always, he said, "This is Harlan Ellison. I
am going to talk and you are going to shut the fuck up and take down
exactly what I say, and if you say one word, I am going to...."
I hung up on him. My editor, Bret Israel, told me he took a call the
next day from a raving Ellison who, after maligning me at length,
threatened the Times with legal action if they ran the story with
any mention of him. A few weeks later, the Times informed me it
would not run the piece.
Why? Because I had demonstrated that what had been depicted as a
breathtaking act of plagiarism proved instead to be a much more
mundane publishing snafu. Did I believe Israel? Yes, certainly. The
Times were always straight with me. Did Ellison's rant play a part
in killing the story? You tell me.
The story ran, shortly after, in the semi-prozine "SF Eye." Ellison
greeted its publication with the aplomb of an inquisition victim
having his thumbnails snatched out. His proxies flooded the magazine
with letters of outrage for several issues, until the editor grew
sick of the entire business. There was some mention
in the Comics Journal, whose editor, Ellison would later opine (nu, ma
hadash?), had
it in for him. Eager for revenge, our dwarfish Van Helsing
commissioned one of the parasite fish feeding off his sour old man
farts
to produce a hit job about me in another fanzines. You can find it on
Ellison's site,
or Google the title, "Bugfuck." I believe it still appears as a
highlighted feature on Ellison's website.
The piece contains the damning revelation that I once knocked off a
bottle of expensive Scotch Platt's companion had been saving for a
special occasion. Duly ashamed at my perfidy, and for other
transgressions, I apologized to her and to Charles.
But no, that wasn't the beginning either. At the risk of bringing to
mind a low-rent version of Ridley Scott's "Duelist," there was the
time within a month of my arrival here in '85 I reckon -- I quoted
Walter Koenig about his oft-voiced disdain for William Shatner. I
culled this from an appearance on Ellison's late-night radio show,
"Hour 25." The quote appeared in Cinefantastique. Van Ellison
responded with a demented, six-page diatribe, some of it personal
vitriol, some of twisted testament from people unhappy with my
reportage in CFQ or my demeanor ("arrogant," wouldn't you know
like all the other Israelis), most of it warning me against writing
about him or
his friends again, lest I find myself unable to eat lunch in this
town again. What I can't recall is whether he meant I'd get the
Julia Phillips treatment or whether he'd have his minions knock my
teeth out. I can tell you that Julia took me for lunch one day to Le
Dome,
where we sampled the duck salad.
On reflection, though, maybe Ellison's midnight snuff film musings
go back to my sojourn in Israel. You may recall, back in the good
old days of Fantazia 2000, when Ellison weaseled out of his
commitment to fly in as guest of honor at Jerucon. This was back in
June or July '82, when Lebanon, Peltours and my own organizational
ineptitude put the kibosh on our efforts. Alas, Ellison never
bothered to inform us that he had pulled out. Eventually, though, he
did bluster in the LA Weekly about Israel's inherent thuggishness,
not just in Lebanon, but in general. I wouldn't argue with him about
Lebanon. But I am left with the sense that, per his modus operandi,
he had trashed the entire Jewish homeland as a measure of his
displeasure either for being held accountable for bailing, as I
suspect, or because Peltours had not sent him a first-class ticket to
Tel Aviv.
I may have sent him a note composed at the UN School overlooking
Beirut International objecting to his denunciation of the Zionist
Entity, especially in lieu of his biographical posturing as a Jewish
folk hero beating off the pogroms he faced as a child in the
American Midwest. But I also accepted responsibility for this
imbroglio, having pushed for Ellison's designation as GOH in place
of the far more deserving, decent and talented Harry Harrison. For
this idiocy, as for many other related transgressions, I will
doubtless pay dearly, and willingly in the next life.
As for this life, can there be any doubt that once he reads this,
Ellison will gnash anew while lathering up his pointed spike? Does
one require a science fiction imagination to know for certain that
in coming weeks and months he will denounce me repeatedly from the
podium of science fiction conventions and in the pages of whatever
rag will be thrilled to run anything he tenders, including the
tissues soiled with his nightly discharges? Or that his minions will
applaud his ruminations thunderously, not because they have ever or
should have ever heard of me, but because they love it when cavorts
like a demented monkey on a stick? Do you imagine that he will not
direct his lawyer to pull out all the stops in removing this letter
from the Web, or wherever else it may appear, goading him until he
suffers an embolism? That he will not commission a private dick or
three to delve into my private life so that he can do to me what he
did to Strete and has done to others? Or that he will contemplate
following his buddy Robert Blake's example, and look into the
exigencies of hiring someone else to do his dirty work?
No matter that I make harbor no pretensions either as a writer of
fiction or as an SF critic, manqué or otherwise. No matter that I make
no
pretenses as to my own purity of spirit and action, past and
present. No matter that I have not taken pot shots at the old boy in
any subsequent
writing, or responded, until now, to his mewling. As we witnessed last
week so
tragically in Israel and I hope you read this as everything else in
this
missive with appropriate wryness -- there is simply no calling off an
Amstaff
once its territory has been defiled. You can beat it bloody and it
will keep on coming. That is, until a bullet to the head, preferably
two, puts it out of its misery.
For my part, I'm in the book. If Ellison wants to come a calling,
"ahalan wa'sahalan." I suffer thrice weekly from cluster headaches.
These
attacks center in my left eye with the fury of 40,000 volts pulsing
through it every 40 seconds. Folks so blessed don't gnash their teeth
-- they poke their gums with dental picks as a distraction. A spike in
the eye would be a welcome diversion. But only if wielded by Ellison.
To keep him from gumming himself to death, meanwhile, there's a
horsewhip in the umbrella stand and a P226 in the vestibule.
Ya 'heah, Harlan? We'll leave the light on for ya.
Sheli Teitelbaum
Agoura Hills, California
***@earthlink.net
Association web site with regard to Harlan Ellison's reference to me
in "I, Robot." I am posting it myself here, lest it otherwise appear
altered or lacking in context.
Wryly, teeth grinding with the desire to insert a railroad spike atan
inch deep into the left eyeball of such critic-manqu'e as the woefully
bitter, jealous and untalented Gregory Feeley or Sheldon
Teitelbaum,who regularly kvetch that I am no-price because I don't
write novels..."
Harlan Ellison
Intro, I Robot -- a Screenplay
Aharon, I was not previously aware of the above, having determined
never to line Harlan's pockets with my hard-earned shekels. Please
feel free to post this on the SF site in English, and if you wish to
suffer the afflictions of yesteryear (for which I am eternally
grateful, of course), you may translate it into the "mama loshen."
To the extent that Ellison can now engender any sentiment in me save
pity, it saddens me that a so-called giant of Ellison's otherwise
diminutive
stature would sully his own book -- and Reb Yitzhak's memory, Z"L --
with
such puerile invective. But that is Ellison for you -- as cowering,
anal, mean-spirited, and otherwise contemptible a toadeater as has
ever infested a stagnant pond . For 15 years, perhaps longer, the
"shrying"
Svengali of Sherman Oaks finds himself compelled to swing headless
chickens
about his pointed head while cursing my name in French fanzines and in
prologues
to failed screenplays.
"Nebach."
Understand the pathology here. Ellison states that I "regularly
kvetch" about his failure to write novels. In fact -- and this can
be demonstrated by a LexisNexis search -- I alluded to Ellison's
lack of distinction as a novelist all of once, and just in passing. I
have just run a search, and turned up all of two mentions of Ellison
in any regard at all in the the hundreds of articles I have published
since leaving Israel in '85 in the Los Angeles and New York Times,
Wired, Time-Digital, The Jerusalem Report and The Jerusalem Post, in
the
Los Angeles Reader and L.A. Daily News, in the Montreal Gazette and
Toronto Star, in Entertainment Weekly, Premiere and Cinefantastique,
in Present Tense, Hadassah and Moment, in the L.A. Jewish Journal,
in Foundation and Sci Fi Universe, in SF Eye and Midnight Graffiti,
in Army Magazine, and more venues than I should list here.
Here are the references that have rendered Ellison helplessly (and
wryly) gnashing his teetth night after sleepless night, year
after rage-filled year since 1990 at least. Not that I know precisely
how one
can "wryly" gnash one's teeth, except to point out that Ellison
misuses the word to protect himself from potential charges of violent
incitement. Conceivably, one of the thousands of lost souls who hang
on to every trickle of blather that dribbles down his gibbering chin
will not internalize that his dreams of torturing me are "wry," and
will dutifully show up on my doorstep, railroad spike in paw.
Had the book been published in Israel, Ellison would be rotting in a
cell in Abu Kabir now, literally gnashing his teeth...and a few
other choice appendages.
Meileh. As promised:
Copyright 1993 The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times
October 8, 1993, Friday, Home Edition
SECTION: View; Part E; Page 10; Column 1; View Desk
LENGTH: 789 words
HEADLINE: CRAMMED WITH ENOUGH INFORMATION TO FILL THE UNIVERSE;
LITERATURE: COMING IN AT 1.3 MILLION WORDS LONG, THE NEW EDITION OF
"ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION" SEARCHES FOR ORDER IN AN UNWIELDY
FIELD.
BYLINE: By THE WOEFULLY JEALOUS, BITTER AND UNTALENTED SHELDON
TEITELBAUM, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES
" Questions of editorial judgment remain. The entry on Harlan
Ellison, for instance, is embarrassingly fawning, given his failure
to contribute a single novel to a field largely shaped by novels "
AND...
Copyright 1990 The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times
April 19, 1990, Thursday, Home Edition
NAME: MORDECAI RICHLER
SECTION: View; Part E; Page 1; Column 3; View Desk
LENGTH: 2339 words
HEADLINE: MORDECAI RICHLER WAS HERE;
AUTHOR: THE CANADIAN'S NEW NOVEL, 'SOLOMON GURSKY,' HAS WON CRITICAL
ACCLAIM AND RACKED UP IMPRESSIVE SALES AT HOME.
BYLINE: By THE WOEFULLY JEALOUS, BITTER AND UNTALENTED SHELDON
TEITELBAUM, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES
" On his permafrost-ridden home turf, the prickly Richler is a
caustic social critic who makes Southern California's curmudgeon,
Harlan Ellison, seem like Mr. Rogers. If Richler inspires equal
degrees of loathing in some circles, suggests Canadian chronicler
John Robert Colombo, perhaps the country's ranking anthologist, it
may be because he is too worldly, too openly Jewish, too urban and
too outspoken to suit some super-patriots in Canada "
-------
This is it. These minor asides plunged this creature in a homicidal
tizzy.
Such is the impotence, physical and psychological, that fuels 15 years
of
payback. In the above-mentioned French fanzine, for instance, Monsieur
Le "Gamad"
(Critic manqué" indeed il parle Francais comme je parle Chinois,
inal dinak, zeb!) howled that I envied him his career and talents. As
if any of his readers on any continent have ever heard of me.
I am hardly a household name, either in the SF world or in the world
of
letters. I have certainly -- and having known me for 25 years you
can surely attest to this -- never aspired to write any kind of
fiction. I have also never aspired to operate on a spleen, build a
gazebo, or design radioactive waste canisters either. According to
Mr. Ellison, though, I envy and begrudge those who do these things
as well as Ellison's own distinguished career.
This is the response of a certified paranoid who cannot countenance
any critique of his work or any accounting of his doings without
succumbing to blood rage. These are the wet dreams of a porcupine
undone by erectile dysfunction. What a maroon!
What this "gawad" does not and cannot fathom is that I do not object
to his work so much as I do to his comportment. He is the Napoleonic
scourge of Coy Drive, a bully a mountebank, a thief in the night. He
struts and gibbers with impunity because his victims are either
terrified of
him or, more likely, cannot be bothered with his mishegos. If I
begrudge this
puffed up bullfrog anything, it, it is his abysmal lack of
"menschlichtkeit" and
his perennial posturing as a tough-guy (even as he hides behind a bad
heart that,
per his endless bleating, should, Inshallah, have killed him years
ago.
Most of all, I begrudge him his sanctimonious self-designation as a
champion of First Amendment rights. Ellison will invariably fight
for the right of all right-thinking folks to express themselves as
they
please. Unless, that is, they please to direct their pens in his
direction.
In which case, the call comes forth from the musty cloisters of
Ellison
Wonderland to go to the mattresses. Errant editors are rousted from
their
sleep and threatened with unspeakable torments. Writers are pilloried,
favors
called in, chips cashed, contracts made and cancelled, acceptance
slips recalled,
checks voided, lawyers whipped into demented frenzies, and fanzines
mustered
for the grand jihad. Almost inevitably (though notalways, recalling
musings on
Ellison's strong-arm tactics by Christopher Priest, John Shirley,
Charles Platt and others),
the offending reference quickly disappears from the public domain.
Such is the abject terror of Harlan' s bilious existence, moreover,
that he feels compelled, meanwhile, to depict himself as the
victim of a literary stalking, nay, a conspiracy, led by yours truly ,
and undertaken by accomplices I have never heard of (including this
Feeley fellow).
Why? Maybe inclined to mention him yet again in passing in periodicals
people actually read. That I may, this time, expose him as a paranoid,
swollen,
mendacious, obsessive-compulsive, mealy mouthed, needle-dicked poseur.
Or
maybe because, having failed to take me to task in a publication read
by as many
people as the Times, he can only do so in a book. A book whose sole
purpose, mind
you, is not to showcase his failed screenplay so much as it is to use
it to launch the
latest episode of the endless serial looping in his loopy mind, the
one you aptly dub "Ellison Against the Known Universe."
In retrospect, though, my comment about Ellison's failure to write
novels was ill considered. Short-story-writing is an honorary and
difficult craft, and I was remiss insulting those short storywriters
whose elegant doorway Ellison has darkened. Had I composed the piece
more recently, I might have opined, instead, that Ellison has
consistently evinced an idiot savant's ability to regurgitate random
esoterica from
Roget's and use the resulting outpouring as a cudgel. That and a
shameless genius for marketing such effluvia as wit to the "terminal
acne cases" that comprise the mainstay of his readers.
And as for any disparagement of Mordecai, Mordecai was a "gever,"
an honest, moral and truly courageous short story writer, novelist and
essayist. Richler had a heart. And he could write. Le'havdil.
But this wasn't the start of our contretemps by any means either.
Nor was the subsequent business of the so-called "Enemies of
Ellison." That lamentably christened organization, you may recall,
was comprised of people who had in fact suffered Ellison's efforts to
shut
them down in word, print or livelihood. Lamentably because these
poor souls were not Enemies of Ellison in the sense they hoped, as
Ellison's cronies insisted, to destroy him. Rather, they were
victims of Ellison's endless and insatiable gall and ire.
Am I or have I ever been a card-carrying member? Be'chayeicha.
Six or seven years ago, veteran SF critic Charles Platt created the
group by publishing that deadliest of weapons in Harlan's sad,
compacted little universe -- a fanzine. When I heard about this from
a third party, I asked the L.A. Times Magazine if I might be
permitted to cover this otherwise amusing "affaire de lettre." The
Times gave me a green light. However, I told my editor that Ellison
Had taken exception to earlier articles. I was concerned that when I
called
upon him for an interview, he would become abusive, perhaps even
violent. I certainly did not
want to expose my small children, who might answer the phone on my
behalf,
to his tirades.
I did not recuse myself from the story, as "Babylon 5" creator Joe
Straczynski later insisted I should (and who kept me off the set of
his show when I didn't). Any animus between Ellison and me at that
time was still largely one-sided, flowing mostly from his direction.
Indeed, I eventually concluded that if every individual Ellison
purported to detest were forced to desist from writing about him,
there'd be
no one left to write about him ever. Not that this would be a tragedy.
But it is
probably why Ellison invariably inflates his venom sacks in the
presence of media.
Not a bad scam if you can keep from turning green from your own
poisons.
For my part, approving or disapproving of Ellison remained (and
remains) immaterial. There is no such animal as journalistic
objectivity. Never has been. Humans are incapable of objectivity, if
by objectivity we mean complete neutrality. And no journalist is
ever truly neutral. The craft does not require neutrality. It
demands professionalism and fairness. The journalist is entirely
free to despise the object of his attentions. He is also free to
change his mind about his principals should the facts suggest they
are more creditable or deserving than they had first thought. He is
not, however, free to harass, to invent incident, to give vent to
unsupported or insupportable malice, or to deny the person he is
writing about a fair hearing and accurate representation. I very
much wanted Ellison's response to this group and its contentions.
I wrote to him promising a fair and polite hearing if he wished
to confer with me... and a thorough drubbing if he became abusive or
violent.
Characteristically, Mr. Ellison concluded from my interview request
that I had connived with Charles Platt to initiate the group and
give it publicity. This was not true, although I like Platt and
sympathized with those I learned Ellison had abused. I was
particularly miffed when I learned that Ellison, the self-proclaimed
street-fighting man, had punched Charles in the snoot at a
convention for allegedly criticizing one of his cronies in a
literary journal.
Charles, you must understand, is a frail, wan
British type, not a brawling Pars fan (except, maybe, in his
columns). Ellison punched Platt because he knew Platt would not and
could not ever punch back. And he punched him not because Platt had
impugned a pal whose memory had been besmirched, but because Platt
had once, Ellison reportedly suspected, put the moves on his wife
while residing as a guest at his home.
Hell hath no fury like a cuckold, except, perhaps, one who is
plainly cuckoo to begin with. Longtime Ellison confidante and horror
editor Jesse Horsting suggested during an interview about her sister,
a
fortune teller, that Harlan's blood rages stemmed, uh, from
long-standing (oy)
sexual impotence. But it wasn't enough to take a poke at Charles or,
periodically,
to defame him before standing-room audiences at science fiction
conventions
nationwide. Later, according to Platt, Ellison called him with some
news he
thought might prove alarming. Ellison's friends in the Mob had
purportedly taken
umbrage at Platt's writings. And plaintively, Ellison didn't think he
could restrain them. Yessiree Bob, In Ellison's fever dreams, revved
up on
mimeographed fanzines, the Bada Bing Gang was saddling up for a
night ride intent on whacking Charles Platt. And so Ellison gnashes
his
teeth while dreaming of penetrating his enemies with iron rods.
Fortunately for Harlan, I am not a psychiatrist, another of my many
failed professions.
Hell hath no fury like a cuckold, except, perhaps, one who is plainly
cuckoo to begin with.
Upon receipt of my interview request, Ellison instructed his lawyer to
write a letter to the
Times editor-in-chief complaining of harassment. End of story. My
story. Come to think of it, end of my association with the Los
Angeles Times as well. Not that I have cause to complain, mind you. I
should have called the little putz, asked for an interview, and in the
event of an outburst, bitch-slapped some manners into him. Live and
learn.
But no, this wasn't the start of this danse macabre either. In 1990,
I had been commissioned by the Times Magazine to do a lengthy
investigative piece about Craig Strete. Strete was an SF writer and
teacher at San Jose State University who had been accused by former
collaborator Ron Montana of plagiarizing an entire novel, published
under Strete's name alone as "Death in the Spirit House." I had
never met Strete before. But I could not imagine anyone trying to
pull off anything as described, briefly, in Locus. And after
interviewing the principals, I was left to conclude that matters
were, as you might imagine, a great deal more complicated than
depicted by Strete's supporters or detractors.
There was no shortage of blame to go around for what I concluded was
a cascading series of mishaps reminiscent of those that sink
submarines. One thing goes wrong, then another and a third and
fourth. And before the first foul up can be addressed, the vessel,
or in this case Strete's career and reputation, reaches crush depth
and implodes. There was no villain in all this, except, I was
astounded to discover, Ellison. Our deranged scold in the Wonderland
Attic had insinuated himself in Montana's good graces, worked him
into a froth, and put his own lawyer at Montana's disposal in a bid
to sink Strete's ship once and for all.
The story floating about was that Montana had labored over a novel,
and then awoke one day to discover it had been printed under a
stranger's name, notably Craig Strete. No mention, of course, that
Strete and Montana had collaborated on the novel. Or that, upon
parting ways, the two had agreed to take their respective
contributions and develop them on their own for individual
publication. No mention either that the publisher -- this in a
conversation with me -- had received the wrong manuscript from
Strete, and then failed to substitute it with the correct one when
Strete informed him of the switch.
And certainly no mention that Ellison had declared to any who
would listen that Strete was a fraud, that his claims to have been a
script doctor on major Hollywood features was baseless, that even
his claim to partial Native American descent was bogus. Or that
Ellison
had reasons apart from generosity or mentorship in egging Montana on
in his
tireless pursuit of Strete. Strete, you see, had incurred Ellison's
wrath some time before by withdrawing of one of his stories from
Ellison's still unpublished "Last Dangerous Visions" anthology.
Ultimately, and quite appropriately as best I could determine, the
initial version of "Death in the Spirit House" appeared anew under
Montana's name alone. Strete, meanwhile, disappeared beneath the
waves with nary a trace.
I myself incurred Ellison's wrath the moment I became involved in
untangling the web of lies I didn't even know, at first, he had
spun. When I became aware of his manipulations (he targeted me for
special treatment long before I knew he had anything to do with the
story),
I tried to reach Ellison for comment. Close to deadline, Ellison
called me -- at 3
a.m. Gnashing as always, he said, "This is Harlan Ellison. I
am going to talk and you are going to shut the fuck up and take down
exactly what I say, and if you say one word, I am going to...."
I hung up on him. My editor, Bret Israel, told me he took a call the
next day from a raving Ellison who, after maligning me at length,
threatened the Times with legal action if they ran the story with
any mention of him. A few weeks later, the Times informed me it
would not run the piece.
Why? Because I had demonstrated that what had been depicted as a
breathtaking act of plagiarism proved instead to be a much more
mundane publishing snafu. Did I believe Israel? Yes, certainly. The
Times were always straight with me. Did Ellison's rant play a part
in killing the story? You tell me.
The story ran, shortly after, in the semi-prozine "SF Eye." Ellison
greeted its publication with the aplomb of an inquisition victim
having his thumbnails snatched out. His proxies flooded the magazine
with letters of outrage for several issues, until the editor grew
sick of the entire business. There was some mention
in the Comics Journal, whose editor, Ellison would later opine (nu, ma
hadash?), had
it in for him. Eager for revenge, our dwarfish Van Helsing
commissioned one of the parasite fish feeding off his sour old man
farts
to produce a hit job about me in another fanzines. You can find it on
Ellison's site,
or Google the title, "Bugfuck." I believe it still appears as a
highlighted feature on Ellison's website.
The piece contains the damning revelation that I once knocked off a
bottle of expensive Scotch Platt's companion had been saving for a
special occasion. Duly ashamed at my perfidy, and for other
transgressions, I apologized to her and to Charles.
But no, that wasn't the beginning either. At the risk of bringing to
mind a low-rent version of Ridley Scott's "Duelist," there was the
time within a month of my arrival here in '85 I reckon -- I quoted
Walter Koenig about his oft-voiced disdain for William Shatner. I
culled this from an appearance on Ellison's late-night radio show,
"Hour 25." The quote appeared in Cinefantastique. Van Ellison
responded with a demented, six-page diatribe, some of it personal
vitriol, some of twisted testament from people unhappy with my
reportage in CFQ or my demeanor ("arrogant," wouldn't you know
like all the other Israelis), most of it warning me against writing
about him or
his friends again, lest I find myself unable to eat lunch in this
town again. What I can't recall is whether he meant I'd get the
Julia Phillips treatment or whether he'd have his minions knock my
teeth out. I can tell you that Julia took me for lunch one day to Le
Dome,
where we sampled the duck salad.
On reflection, though, maybe Ellison's midnight snuff film musings
go back to my sojourn in Israel. You may recall, back in the good
old days of Fantazia 2000, when Ellison weaseled out of his
commitment to fly in as guest of honor at Jerucon. This was back in
June or July '82, when Lebanon, Peltours and my own organizational
ineptitude put the kibosh on our efforts. Alas, Ellison never
bothered to inform us that he had pulled out. Eventually, though, he
did bluster in the LA Weekly about Israel's inherent thuggishness,
not just in Lebanon, but in general. I wouldn't argue with him about
Lebanon. But I am left with the sense that, per his modus operandi,
he had trashed the entire Jewish homeland as a measure of his
displeasure either for being held accountable for bailing, as I
suspect, or because Peltours had not sent him a first-class ticket to
Tel Aviv.
I may have sent him a note composed at the UN School overlooking
Beirut International objecting to his denunciation of the Zionist
Entity, especially in lieu of his biographical posturing as a Jewish
folk hero beating off the pogroms he faced as a child in the
American Midwest. But I also accepted responsibility for this
imbroglio, having pushed for Ellison's designation as GOH in place
of the far more deserving, decent and talented Harry Harrison. For
this idiocy, as for many other related transgressions, I will
doubtless pay dearly, and willingly in the next life.
As for this life, can there be any doubt that once he reads this,
Ellison will gnash anew while lathering up his pointed spike? Does
one require a science fiction imagination to know for certain that
in coming weeks and months he will denounce me repeatedly from the
podium of science fiction conventions and in the pages of whatever
rag will be thrilled to run anything he tenders, including the
tissues soiled with his nightly discharges? Or that his minions will
applaud his ruminations thunderously, not because they have ever or
should have ever heard of me, but because they love it when cavorts
like a demented monkey on a stick? Do you imagine that he will not
direct his lawyer to pull out all the stops in removing this letter
from the Web, or wherever else it may appear, goading him until he
suffers an embolism? That he will not commission a private dick or
three to delve into my private life so that he can do to me what he
did to Strete and has done to others? Or that he will contemplate
following his buddy Robert Blake's example, and look into the
exigencies of hiring someone else to do his dirty work?
No matter that I make harbor no pretensions either as a writer of
fiction or as an SF critic, manqué or otherwise. No matter that I make
no
pretenses as to my own purity of spirit and action, past and
present. No matter that I have not taken pot shots at the old boy in
any subsequent
writing, or responded, until now, to his mewling. As we witnessed last
week so
tragically in Israel and I hope you read this as everything else in
this
missive with appropriate wryness -- there is simply no calling off an
Amstaff
once its territory has been defiled. You can beat it bloody and it
will keep on coming. That is, until a bullet to the head, preferably
two, puts it out of its misery.
For my part, I'm in the book. If Ellison wants to come a calling,
"ahalan wa'sahalan." I suffer thrice weekly from cluster headaches.
These
attacks center in my left eye with the fury of 40,000 volts pulsing
through it every 40 seconds. Folks so blessed don't gnash their teeth
-- they poke their gums with dental picks as a distraction. A spike in
the eye would be a welcome diversion. But only if wielded by Ellison.
To keep him from gumming himself to death, meanwhile, there's a
horsewhip in the umbrella stand and a P226 in the vestibule.
Ya 'heah, Harlan? We'll leave the light on for ya.
Sheli Teitelbaum
Agoura Hills, California
***@earthlink.net