Discussion of the man and his work.

Mason Proffit album "disappeared"?
I may be totally misremembering this, but it seems that I read in
"The Glass Teat" about an effective anti-war album by Mason Proffit being pulled from the market despite brisk sales.

If this is correct, or even nearly so, can anyone provide me with the name of that album?

Just saw this posted elsewhere, had to toss it in:

WHAT DO WE WANT? TIME TRAVEL!

WHEN DO WE WANT IT? IT DOESN'T MATTER!

Carlos Fuentes' final works
Carlos may have left us, but he also left behind two completed works that will see the light of day in Latin America and Spain this year: "Personas," a memoir of those individuals who influenced his work and his life (Buñuel, Julio Cortazar, François Mitterand, etc.) and "Federico en su balcón" (Friedrich on his balcony) where Fuentes' literary alter ago holds a series of fictional conversations with Friedrich Nietzsche who just happens to live nearby.

When these works will be available in English, who knows. Fuentes published five works (novels, essays and short story collections) that have yet to see the light of day In Shakespeare's language.

21st century co-worker

Jeff R., has it occured to you? Maybe she's not dumb.

Maybe... she's... a time traveller!

Just When I Thought They Couldn't Get Any Dumber...
Yesterday, a co-worker asked me if this is the 21st century. She wasn't sure.

I swear by whatever you guys would have me swear by that I am NOT making this up.

Hi Tim. I cant get my email to work. So I may post some poems here. I have to finish my story, it isnt science fiction or horror, it's just a story. Maybe I will win the lottery and fly to LA with my stories for the powers that be to review.

Fuentes was a great man. Clasped hands over a gaggle of doves.

Condolences, Sympathies and Prayer
As always, Harlan, I and others on the Pavilion grieve and (some) pray for the families, friends and fans of these men.

I wish to add one person to the mix, although none of you knew her: my cousin, Harriet Broadus. She passed last week, however, I am not as sad as I could be, because I saw her in March. She was happy, in her right mind, got around on her own power, aided by a walker. She even sang one of her favorite spirituals...

...at her 100TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION!

Sad she's gone? Of course, but as I tend to say, do tell someone that you love that you love them. I'm glad I got the chance with my cousin, because I almost didn't make the trip to Baltimore. I'm glad I listened to my wife.

Love to all of you.

Dad told me that I have to say that.

Brian Phillips

Tony DeZuniga
I echo Harlan's comments about Tony DeZuniga. The man could draw and draw anything. His romance comics were amazing, just like his work on Conan, Jonah Hex, Thor, and so many others.

I only met Tony once or twice while I was on staff at Marvel, but he was a good guy. I probably couldn't list everything we did together when I was an editor. He also drew one of my favorite of my own Marvel stories: Bounty for a Vampire.

Easiest sale I ever made to Marv Wolfman. Four words. Dracula versus Jonah Hex. He gave me the green light.

When I turned in the plot, Marv made my week:

"Oh, yeah, Tony DeZuniga will be drawing this."

Tony

P.S. The Hilliker Curse
Hey, ALL:
Meant to include this p.s. on the last posting, but somehow managed to post before finishing my typng. So I hope I'll be forgiven for this, and I will, of course, go radio silent for three days.

While on the subject of great reads (Harlan's forthcoming reprint below), I wanted to also recommend, THE HILLIKER CURSE by James Ellroy. It is, in my estimation, one of the finest memoirs by a writer that I've ever read. It is, by turns, funny, frustrating, moving and enlightening. Sometimes it's almost too much -- which is a reflection of the author, and his stage persona. Other times, it is spot-on perfect, like prose poetry. And, although I admittedly only got to know the man just a little (from two separate meetings and interviews while both of us were living in Kansas City), I think it is a stunning portrait of a troubled guy --someone who came from a background of childhood abuse and violence (something with which I'm familiar, to a lesser degree) -- who is reshaping himself, and his future, via the love of several good women -- and one woman in particular. One line in the book, near the end, says it all: "She commands me to step out of the dark and into the light."

Although I certainly don't agree with his political view of the world most of the time (he still sees Reagan as someone to be admired over Bill Clinton -- on the other hand, he comes out and calls "Dubya" odious and says he voted for Obama), I do enjoy Ellroys novels and found him to be a truly nice guy, at core (at the time I met and spoke with him, he was still struggling with inner demons, but his stage "persona" -- and much of the talk was just that -- all talk). Ellroy and his new-found love, Erika Schickel, may not last as long as Harlan and Susan, but after reading this memoir (especially the last section, Part VI, HER, which details Ellroy's final transformation into a better man and human being), I find myself hoping they certainly do.

In any case, pick up a copy of the book -- it's in paperback, so it's cheap. The writers among you will dig it (who among us hasn't "conjured" a woman now and then -- especially through his writing?), and I think others will, too.

Disappearing for awhile.
Cheers,
DTS

Mr. Barber,


Great camera work. I took the time (finally!) to go through the rest of the images on your site.

Very good, sir. Every good. Thank you.

PULLING A TRAIN -- preorders at Norton Records site?
Hey EVERYONE: I _think_ that PULLING A TRAIN may be available for preorder (from Kicks Books and Norton Records). If you got to the Norton Records site, you'll find the book -- in "vanilla" and "chocolate" flavors (that is, regular and boxed/limited editions), as well as "Sex Gang" perfume, available for order via Paypal (and/or via email).

Cheers,
DTS

You expected me to say something pithy, didn't you?

Monica’s Contraption


I built a contraption
For Monica
It had no moving parts
“This thing will last a thousand years!”
I said.

When the future people dig it up
they will exclaim in future language
“Look at this contraption!”
and they will be
exactly
right.


Give me a little more time.

Tim Raven

Tony De Zuniga
Very sorry to hear of his passing. As a kid I devoured hundreds of pages of his work, especially his finishes over John Buscema's wonderful pencils on CONAN and THOR. I believe no one was better suited to Buscema as a collaborator than Tony.

Harlan, you have my condolences.

Oh, fer chrissake, re: my last post/reply to DTS...I meant the impact of words here are "NOT unalterable"

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In any event, my condolences, Harlan.

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If there are any SHERLOCK fans here, I was disappointed - I THINK - with the show's take on HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, aired in America last weekend. More convoluted than it needed to be - I THINK! The segment was not scripted by Moffat, and that may account for the letdown.

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A current film titled KEYHOLE: I'm very interested in seeing if this one works. I really love the LOOK!
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The Lakers need Phil Jackson back!

Another...
...PM post about Harlan, from 2005, before the curtain opened on his "third act," still happily well-underway.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/050714-ellisonharlan/

DREAM WITH SHARP TEETH and other stuff
Other stuff first:

Tim Raven: Welcome back. I enjoy your rants to greater or lesser degrees (the one that got you banished I found both odious & very well-written), but they never bore and crackl with energy and uncensored outside-the-box opinion, traits that I value. All the best in harnessing your demons to productive ends. In that battle, you're certainly not alone.

Frank Church: in re: the Prez pandering on gay marriage. Politicians sometimes do the right thing because they feel it's to their advantage? I'm shocked, shocked I say.

Link below is to a review of DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH. If any fellow diners have yet to see it, correct that oversight with your next click on AMAZON or NETFLIX. It's a fairly insightful review from a great website, POP MATTERS, where clicking around can find one articles on Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce, reviews on all musical genres, comics, movies, and our esteemed host. The only bad thing to be said about PM, and it's a fairly grievous sin, is that they don't pay their writers.

And Harlan, happy pre-birthday. Bets hell out of the alternative, eh?

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/93953-harlan-ellison-dreams-with-sharp-teeth-2008/

Mark by the beach

FIRST GALLERY

HARLAN: I have published the first seven shots Bud Webster sent me of the Milford Conference.

They be here: http://mysite.verizon.net/res7n0zi/id59.html


BUD: The shots not yet loaded are proofs, not jpegs. I can't open them. Do you have them in another format???

It'll be Harlan's birthday, but Kicks Books is giving us the gift: PULLING A TRAIN has a street date of May 27.

More info - including that great gender-flipped cover homage to SEX GANG - posted in their blog:

http://www.kicksbooks.blogspot.com/2012/05/harlan-ellison-is-on-loose-do-not.html

Boy, I go away for a few months, and look what I come back to.

Tim Raven, I missed the brouhaha that sent you away. No matter, I don't need to know. Welcome back. As Wayne Dyer says, "When you judge other people, you do not define them; rather, you define yourself as someone who needs to judge." I would like to believe that I am, and I continue to strive to be, someone who does not need to judge. And as someone who nearly lost her only child to the same demons that stalk you and Harlan, I know your pain. Hang in there, kiddo. Don't lose sight.

Harlan, dammit, I've missed you. The rest of youse guys, too. I'll try to stop in a little more often. Life has been interesting, but pretty much only to me, so I won't bore you. I look forward to reading and participating in great discussions. And, oh yeah, what did happen to Fishheads in Aspic??

DEATH IN THREES


It is said, ridiculously, death comes in threes. By that, I presume, it is meant "three notables" (to whomever) are presaged by the deaths of two preceding. Death, of course, works blue-collar overtime double-golden-time hours: hundreds a day. No doubt thousands, Darfur, Indonesia, the Sudan, the Sandwich Islands...and we take no note.

But on this day of the going of Jay Kay, and the inimitable, the oh ever so great Carlos Fuentes, I have been apprised also of the recent passing of the comics maestro, the fine writer Tony De Zuniga, creator of--among a host--Black Orchid and Jonah Hex.

Three may be the number. But it is a mugg's game.

Sadly, Harlan

Addendum: Words
About the Tim Raven matter: Nothing new to add.

About the subject of words? Um. A simple truth: Words are the only toy we have to play with here. Sure, we can add a link -- using, ah, words and symbols -- to pictures or movies or ancient maps of Atlantis, but the name of the game in this kind of forum is words on a screen.

That, as Minnesota Fats said to Fast Eddie, is all you get, kid.

Can I pick up the phone and call? Sure. Maybe even get together, circumstances permitting. But here? HERE BE THE WORDS. Period.

It is disingenuous to go off on a tear about how meaningless words are in such a setting. They are all we got, and while smell-o-vision and pheromone TV might be in our future, along with telepathy and radiopathic orgasms, what we have right here, right now, are -- wait for it --

Words.

Input, these are, by vox or keyboard or some other instrument that strains 'em into the aether and zips them across time and space to appear on our computer screens.

Doesn't do you any good to lament how ineffective they are, vis a vis face-to-face communication, we all know that. It's what's for dinner, folks, and if you don't care for the menu, try another restaurant.

(And the idea that NOBODY ever goes past that, EVER? Patently wrong. I've gone to meet folks face-to-face that I've met online, to see the bigger picture, and I know a shitload of others who have done the same.)

I got your humanity right here.

Perry

Ignore!

Hah! Barney replied to himself while I was replying to him!

Jay Kay Klein's work preserved

Barney, I have read that at least some of Jay Kay Klein's archive was donated to the Eaton Collection at University of California Riverside before his death. (If you Google Jay Kay Klein and Eaton, you should find plenty of details.)

This has to be one of the safest places his work could have gone to.

- Phil

United States
*** Jay Kay Klein ***

Please ignore my last post. It seems it's covered...

"...He donated his collection of fandom photographs to the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction & Fantasy at the University of California Riverside."

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