09/10/95
Yesterday I noticed the blinders I was wearing. Today I stopped and took them off, so I could really see, just for a moment or two. Tomorrow I am having them sewn to my face.
It's been 09/10/95 for five minutes and 15 seconds by my watch.
Holy crap, I just realized it's really been an HOUR and five
minutes and I've been lying my ass off on all my web-page notes.
Oh well. Consider this an errata.
I'd say the best two things about creating this page have been
the e-mails I have received in response and the chance to
actually talk to Da Man Himself under an actual valid pretext.
I'd like to say the increased awareness of Ellison on the Net or
the information I've gained about Harlan were in the running, but
the simply truth is that human contact leaves them both standing.
I feel that as a species we have been given a fantastic ability
to elucidate our thoughts and communicate with others, but that
we have mainly used the fey powers evolution has given us to
pervert the elucidation and avoid the communication. I have used
the analogy before that we walk the city streets of our existence
with our heads bowed before a driving rain, and that on the rare
occaisions we lift our eyes to our fellow travelers we are
usually scanning their eyes for a threat rather than seeing if a
piece of our own soul is reflected there.
So, briefly but sincerely, thank you for lifting
your eyes to mine, if but for a moment. I have not had one
negative comment about myself, Harlan, or the page since I
started, and this is remarkable to me as my vision of the Net is
usually similar to a game of Doom, where you're most
likely to have your efforts repaid with a shotgun blast or a bust
of plasma flame. If I don't reply to something, try me again, I
probably just did something typically stupid and lost or forgot
your message.
While we're on the subject of human contact, I talked to Harlan
tonight. I called just before Midnight my time, which is 9 pm his
time. He didn't know who "Rick Wyatt" was, but he did
know who "The Web Guy" was. I guess I shouldn't expect
more after two brief in-person conversations and two phone calls.
Harlan was, of course, gracious and helpful. My impression of him
has been nothing like the horror stories I've heard, and this has
been echoed by several of the e-mails I have received. Of course
Harlan always makes a few caustic or sarcastic remarks, but they
are invariably funny (at least to me) and more on the level of
the quips I and my close friends exchange than anything hurtful.
I am tempted to do something really inane just to incur his wrath
and see what all the fuss is about. It wouldn't be that hard: I could
just do the unthinkable and send him a Christmas card in a few
months.
Maybe someday Harlan will actually check out this page and go off
on me over something like my inclusion of the Deadloss stuff. For
now, though, I am pleasantly surprised, especially since when I
sent the letter asking for permission to do this page several of
my friends were worried he might actually call me, project a
distended jaw through the phone, and swallow me whole. I, too had
my fears after mailing the letter of hearing a knock in the
night, opening my door, and finding a pair of small but
devilishly strong hands squeezing my neck so hard that my eyes
bugged out like the bad special effects in Total Recall
Needless to say my eyes are still with me and I am not resting
uncomfortably in a pythonic stomach. While folklore portrays
Ellison as the kind of monster used to frighten small children,
my experience has been quite the opposite. I would love to add to
the myth and tell you that he flew to Atlanta just to throw
bricks through my bedroom window or that he mailed me a
long-since-deceased rodent of some kind. Unfortunately, my
real-world experiences with Harlan show him to be more mensch
than monster. Go figure.
It was hard for me, hanging up that phone and going on with my
life. I tried watching Saturday Night Live (some repeat from when
Dennis Miller had long hair and still dressed like one of the Bee
Gees), but it all seemed a little trivial. Maybe it was the state
of euphoria one gets from actually being treated like a human
being by one of one's heroes, maybe it was just that I thought
maybe I could do something better than sit vacuously before a
tube while blood collected in my buttocks. But I had to do
something else.
If I were a writer, I'd probably have gone and written a story
about it. But what came out instead was an update to this web
page and this little testament to my relative ability. Ellison
made a comment about how Christopher Priest's work about the
non-appearence of The Last Dangerous Visions has
sold more than anything else the guy ever wrote, and that it was
sad that Priest had to ride on Harlan's coattails to get noticed.
Just now, writing this, I am aware of how much that comment may
apply to me, as well. Here I am writing another fucking elegy
instead of adding something worthwhile of my own to the general
store of knowledge. Here I am thinking I am somehow meaningful,
somehow important, when I've merely hitched my wagon to a
more-deserving and underappreciated star. Well you know what?
Fuck it. If I touched five people with my work here, that's more
people than I would have touched if I'd have spent the time
jerking off. And if you read this because I slapped like a
"Kick Me" sign on the back of a great writer, well, at
least you read it.
Like the poem I put at the top there says, sometimes having your
eyes opened exposes you to more than your share of pain. In this
little Internet excursion I have become aware of nothing more
clearly than my own ignorance and insignifigance. But behind the
self-loathing and questioning there is this: I have also met a
few folks throught this I never would have otherwise, read their
words intended only for me, looked up from my rain-drenched
pilgrimage and seen a glimmer or two I thought was only found in
my own eyes.
I have felt, if but for an instant, the warm breath on my ear of
another whispering my name.
Now, you tell me that ain't worth it all.
Rick Wyatt
September 1995