terror, erebus and sinus pain

the social etiquette of the western hemisphere requires that we are and associate ourselves with the most successful, beautiful, desirable, intelligent and talented people in the universe. but even more importantly, this same unspoken emily-post-like umbrella of good conduct reminds us to never boast more than a twinkle in our eye-- maybe secretly stashing away photos of our children in our wallets, but never publishing their juvenile detention art class honors on the bumpers of our cars.

but sometimes it's important to break convention and just say it...we're american, we're proud of our snot-nosed punk-ass kids, our run down beater cars, our dishes-in-the-sink houses. we're a proud country, and sometimes pride is our strongest emotion. well, today i'm willing to slap a cheap sticker on the back of my car that says: "my dad can kick your honor student's ass on the new york times extended best seller list".

dad called me a few days ago from his book tour to pass along the entertaining information that he was about to be in a documentary on my favorite author, the biggest eccentric, brilliant mind and raging asshole of all time, harlan ellison. even better, as if that could *get* any better, is that the production company was the same that made "grizzly man" with werner herzog (please see future blogs: "werny herzy's producer might give me a job interview this spring"). so dad did the interview, finished his book tour, flew home today mid-tour, and showed tom and me the 'rough' (but mostly polished) cut of the harlan ellison documentary produced by "creative differences" in los angeles.

i have been reading "the terror" since bumming a copy last week, and all day at work i've been finding myself thinking about how much i'd rather be in bed with ships, ice, seafaring adventures and failed expeditions. mom and i have dutifully been compiling various reviews-- a big splash in the washington post and nyt, people magazine, men's journal, amazon, barnes& noble, all the local papers, publishers weekly starred review, the kirkus starred review. my friend steven called me laughing from the subway in new york where he had just seen a big poster on his way to dodgeball practice, and an hour later my friend meredith called to say that she was happy to see something so nostalgic in an entertainment weekly during her lunch break.

saturday i sat through the horror flick "the descent" to help dad decide if he wanted to turn down the director's hefty movie offer, and as we spoke, jealous representatives at paramount sent two producers on a lear jet at 7:30pm to try to counter-offer at a meeting in los angeles. unrattled, dad's film agent stayed late at the office with a strong cup of coffee, casually text messaging all three men on his blackberry trying to buy a few more days of time so the author could get a few hours of sleep before he had to decide.

i don't know. i'm proud of my dad, and tonight, watching him pinch his nose the way he always does when he's laughing hard as Harlan Ellison peered out of our television doing an impression of a yiddish ant, i remembered why it's important to pause and remember who inspires us, and why. i've never had a moment of talking about, talking to or hearing from harlan ellison without thinking very deeply (or at least very quickly). the man is a catalyst for thought, for creative energy, for intelligent conversation, for deep introspection. he's a life-changing man, and i'm so grateful to have heard his crazy life anecdotes and experienced his unbelievably talented writing. but i'm a thousand times more grateful to have met my dad, a silver-haired glasses-wearing man who sits down and writes 1300 page books in a year, who has been such a good parent and mentor to me, and who also moves me almost every time we talk. i've known him for 25 years, and i still barely understand what he has left to teach me-- everything from science, politics, growing up poor to being successful in a business, how to identify animal tracks, sociobiology, ancient and modern history, art, architecture, filmmaking, sociology, how to smash a toilet with a sledgehammer and the hardest-to-remember rules of writing. my mom has taught me thousands of things, but it was dad who taught me how to ride a bike, how to be brave when i fell off of it, how to wind paper into a typewriter, how to stand up for myself, when to be compassionate and when to stop giving wretched people a chance, where the best coffee milkshakes are and why it's important to hike without listening to music. dad and i have our differences, a history of butting heads, and seemingly impossible- to-endure confrontations, but in the end, no one could ever be closer to me than the person who wears a sport coat in a dark room, writing epic stories by the light of a bankers lamp at 4am.

everything that harlan says is quotable to some extent. i happen to like these:

There is a collective unconscious working in me that is absolutely true; I trust it absolutely; I give myself up to it; I will go anywhere it takes me.

There are these wonderful, doomed, blessed few who have come our way through the ages who are able to tie up the universe in words and present them to us and say: if you will but immerse yourself, you will be washed clean and come forth anew.

Everyone whines "but I'm entitled to an opinion"-- bullshit. You're entitled to an *informed* opinion.

whether or not i like the internet does not make me a hypocrite for having a webpage

(that's an old picture of harlan, because he doesn't look old and SUPER CRANKY)
harlan's documentary is coming soon to a discovery channel near you

dan simmons is coming soon to a tattered cover near you

jane simmons's sinuses are coming soon to a pit of hell near you-- they are such a battle field lately that i had to stop copywriting twice at work to smoosh my face in the middle of our sales catalog. the cold paper felt good, but the pages left ink on my cheeks and then i looked like a tool.

tool is coming soon to a superdome near you.