Harlan Ellison ON Compuserve 23:06 EST Sunday 26-Feb-95 (excerpt) Moderated conference in progress: ...The next book Tom Monteleone's Borderlands Press will be doing is Paingod And Other Delusions. But let me say something about your first question... You know, last year I had three books published. Three. Not one, not two...but three. And as much as I'm pleased that one of you asks when you'll see BloodUs a Rover, and another asks when you'll see The Last Dangerous Visions, and you ask when you'll see Slippage, to be perfectly honest about it...you clowns fry my frijoles! I'm dancing as bloody FAST AS I CAN, TROOPS! Do you have any idea how annoying it is? Like endlessly chirping baby birds demanding worm after worm, and never getting filled up? Have a little mercy, willya? (#56,Michael Kelly) When did you know you were a writer? That's easy. I was ALWAYS a writer. Look: when I was a kid, I was like a lot of YOU. I was smart as hell, inquisitive, adventurous, and a genuine card-carrying pain in the fundament. I could do ANYTHING! I was talented. I could sing, I could tell jokes, I could steal and shoplift with the best of them. I thought EVERYBODY couldwrite and sing and do a lot of stuff. I'd read about the Renaissance, where everyone danced and played instruments and wove and practiced science...and thought it was the natural state of things. When did I kinow? Hell, the moment I came out of the egg. (#80,Bill Schwartz) I have admired and enjoyed your work since reading "I Have no Mouth and I must Scream" in RVN in 1969. Have you considered cyberspace as a topic? "Playing with the Glass Teat", for instance. Dear Bill: no. (#3,Jay Armstrong) First let me say thank you for hearing the muse.. Or whatever voices you hear. Deathbird Stories intros often contain inflammatory comments. What feedback have you received on them? Hey, Jay...I knowed your brother, Jack, the All-American Boy. Sorry. I'm not sure I understand what you mean about "inflammatory statements" in Deathbird Stories. The stories are fables, of course, and they play with some of the accepted dogmas of half a dozen religions, but they weren't intended to be inflammatory. The book has been out a long time, has gone through innumerable editions, and has been "banned" not one one-thousandth the times that Huckleberry Finn or Catcher in the Rye have been squozed by the bluenoses. (#1,Neal Bridges) I've heard you say that if you did it all again, you'd have been a plumber. Do you still feel that way? Yes I do. At age sixty, I have conflicted thoughts about the actual real-world value of what I do. This is a deep one, Neal, and I don't mean to blow you off with an incomplete answer, but this is the kind of question one answers face to face, not at a keyboard as unfamiliar and uncomfortable as this one is to me. By the way, on another tack entirely: re have a copy of the first issf Marvel's Ren & Stimpy comic..Y the second printing. I've got the first and the third. I need a second printing. ting in tu've got one...take it, JOE!a 91413 USA. And I love you! (#27,Peter David) Three quick questions: First, given the abysmal state of TV and the proliferation of "specialty" cable channels, how would you program a "Harlan Ellison Cable Channel"? Second, any reaction from film studios to the success of I Robot? And third, what are we gonna do tonight, Brain? WHAT WE DO EVERY NIGHT, PEENKY...TAKE OVER THE WORLD! The HE Cable Channel would be 48 hours of 0000000000 peace and quiet, with occasional breaks to laugh at OJ's attorneys asking about "invisible footprints." So far, nothing from Warner Bros. on making a film of I, Robot. You see, that would only make them billions of dollars, but it wouldn't have any brain-damaged gazoonies as in Dumb and Dumber and Billy Whatsisname. So they just sit there and read all these letters that tell them there's a willing, waiting, anxious audience for such a film, and they play with themselves. Or whatever it is they do. (#14,Joe--MODERATOR) Harlan, we're really grateful for staying ... let's take two more questions before we wrap. Okay. Mah pleasure. (#30,Ray MacDonald) Harlan, enjoyed seeing you with Tom Snyder again. Please comment on Babylon 5. Do you enjoy being Rcreative consultantS? I'm NOT a "creative consultant." I'm a CONCEPTUAL consultant. Beeeeeg difference. How do I feel about it? (You ask this of a man using the computer of the show's producer...with the producer sitting right behind me, helping me me use this damned machine properly?) I feel that BABYLON 5 IS THE GREATEST THING SINCE THE INVENTION OF THE BIDET. It is a godsend, a wonder, a joy! Blah blah blah. It's TV, kiddo! It ain't the Unified Field Theory. But then, neither are you. (#20,Tom Reed) You've shown your literacy and intelligence in your Sci Fi Buzz commentaries. Have you ever thought about debating in a wider forum? Have you ever considered appearing in debate with...or rather against... Rush Limbaugh? Or appearing on a show like Politically Incorrect? We made a run at Politically Incorrect. I enjoyed the show. But when they achieved a little popularity, they went the way of all such shows: they had their pick of "celebrities" and so they got snotty and shined us on, in favor of Albert Brooks or suchlike personages. As for "debating" Rush Limburger, that's oxymoronic. One cannot "debate" with a brick. One can only toss it through a window, or use it to build an outhouse... Mr. Limburger doesn't want to hear anything but the great wind of his own flatulent verbiage. If I were one one-millionth as sure I knew everything, as Rushie-poo is that he has all the answers, hell, I'd run for God. (#14,Joe--MODERATOR) Harlan, thank you for spending so much of your evening with us...We appreciate your staying with us past the scheduled time! Thanks! It's been a little pie-wedge of Heaven. Y'all stay outta the line of fire. Bye now. (#14,Joe--MODERATOR) The conference has ended. Thank you for attending. (#20,Tom Reed) Applause! (#9,Ben Cooper) Encore (#86,Richard Gilliam) Very nice (#27,Peter David) Great (#1,Neal Bridges) Thank you very much (#66,Ron Borcherdt) Well done (#112,Wayne Sadler) Bravo (#47,Grant) Enjoyed it (#78,Mark Videan) Nice job compuserve (#1,Steve Custer) What's going on? (#1,Stan Witnov)