Harlan Ellison on the WGA Strike

I’m reposting something that Harlan Ellison, sage sci-fi writer and member of the WGAw wrote on his semi-private message board.  I haven’t heard the details of the contract yet, but apparently, he isn’t happy about it.  I respect him as a writer and I’m a huge fan of his work.  I don’t know if it’s as bad as he is making it sound, but I don’t think he’s full of shit either.  Read on if you’re interested. 

HARLAN ELLISON ON THE WRITERS STRIKE SETTLEMENT

YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION TO RE-POST THIS ANYWHERE:

Creds: got here in 1962, written for just about everybody, won the Writers Guild Award four times for solo work, sat on the WGAw Board twice, worked on negotiating committees, and was out on the picket lines with my NICK COUNTER SLEEPS WITH THE FISHE$$$ sign. You may have heard my name. I am a Union guy, I am a Guild guy, I am loyal. I fuckin’ LOVE the Guild.

And I voted NO on accepting this deal.

My reasons are good, and they are plentiful; Patric Verrone will be saddened by what I am about to say; long-time friends will shake their heads; but this I say without equivocation…

THEY BEAT US LIKE A YELLOW DOG. IT IS A SHIT DEAL. We finally got a timorous generation that has never had to strike, to get their asses out there, and we had to put up with the usual cowardly spineless babbling horse’s asses who kept mumbling “lessgo bac’ta work” over and over, as if it would make them one iota a better writer. But after months on the line, and them finally bouncing that pus-sucking dipthong Nick Counter, we rushed headlong into a shabby, scabrous, underfed shovelfulla shit clutched to the affections of toss-in-the-towel
summer soldiers trembling before the Awe of the Alliance.

My Guild did what it did in 1988. It trembled and sold us out. It gave away the EXACT co-terminus expiration date with SAG for some bullshit short-line substitute; it got us no more control of our words; it sneak-abandoned the animator and reality beanfield hands before anyone even forced it on them; it made nice so no one would think we were meanies; it let the Alliance play us like the village idiot. The WGAw folded like a Texaco Road Map from back in the day.

And I am ashamed of this Guild, as I was when Shavelson was the prexy, and we wasted our efforts and lost out on technology that we had to strike for THIS time. 17 days of streaming tv!!!????? Geezus, you bleating wimps, why not just turn over your old granny for gang-rape?

You deserve all the opprobrium you get. While this nutty festschrift of demented pleasure at being allowed to go back to work in the rice paddy is filling your cowardly hearts with joy and relief that the grips and the staff at the Ivy and street sweepers won’t be saying nasty shit behind your back, remember this:

You are their bitches. They outslugged you, outthought you, outmaneuvered you; and in the end you ripped off your pants, painted yer asses blue, and said yes sir, may I have another.

Please excuse my temerity. I’m just a sad old man who has fallen among Quislings, Turncoats, Hacks and Cowards.

I must go now to whoops. My gorge has become buoyant.

Respectfully, Yr. Pal, Harlan Ellison

(this is presumably copyright (c) The Kilimanjaro Corporation)

There you go, all his rants.  Repost this if you like, I think he’s really pissed and wants everyone to know about it.

Happy Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you, and for those of you who hate this stupid holiday, you can blame Geoffrey Chaucer (yes, that Chaucer) for our romantic entanglements being linked to this Martyred Saint.  You can also blame some stupid American for inventing the mass-production of Valentine’s cards (before that they were just handwritten notes), and most of the other big business involved in the whole thing only dates back to the 1980’s or so, so ignore the chocolates and diamonds and all the other crap we’re supposed to hand out today, if you want to.  The tradition is only 25 years old. 

Anyway, on to other things.  Yesterday was the best day in history for views of this Blog, 10 whole people showed up.  That is pretty fucking awesome.  It’s sad that 10 people makes my day, but it’s better than none.  Whether any of those people come back to read more, who knows?  But at least they were here. 

Got some more feedback on Paradox Magic yesterday as well.  My best friend Troy finished reading it (this doesn’t seem as monumental as it really is, you’d have to know Troy and know that he doesn’t normally read anything, but is really big on Book on Tape (or CD) as he is a truck driver… Anyway).  He really enjoyed the book, particularly the huge fight at the end of the thing.  He had some other feedback and I think still prefers my first book more, he said this one, and I’m paraphrasing here, seemed like too straight a shot from beginning to end, there’s less extemporaneous stuff going on in the background.  Now, that was partly done on purpose, I wanted to write a simple book that was easy to grasp as a whole.  But, I think I may have gone a little too far, so I’m hoping adding the shorts about the magicians and fleshing out the female lead a bit more will help with all of that.  Also, I made a ton of typos (“of” instead of “or” hte instead of the, you know, the usual stuff when you’re typing 80 words a minute for 109,000 words) which really pulled him out of the story, so I have to go back and really watch for that the next time through.  My grandfather (also a writer) and my dad both finished it as well, I’m really excited to see what they think of the whole thing.  Even, and this is huge, my mom started to read it.  She hasn’t read anything I’ve written that was longer than 5 pages in years, decades almost.  I can’t wait for her to get to the bad ass stuff.

Other than that, I’m looking forward to this weekend, Shanna and I are going to see a movie (either Jumper or Definately Maybe), and I think we’re going down to see her parents on Saturday.  We haven’t seen them since Christmas, so it should be a nice visit.

Time to get back to whatever it is I’m doing, see you all on the other side of this darkened tunnel of a day.

-m

Let’s see if this works…