fellah to have write a kinda sorta sf film Disney was thi nk ing of making.
• A shul is a synagogue. As a Jew I’m not allowed to have chwchmice. That’s okay, they’re trayf.
My first reaction to “Disney wants you” was horror, and then stark amazement. “There’s been a mistake,” I said to Marty the Agent. “I’m a crazed, radical, bomb-throwing loon who writes stories about things that come up out of the toilets to bite off babies’ asses … are you sure they don’t want Bob Ellison? He writes comedy. Very clean-cut guy. Drives a late model car. Shaves regularly. Never says fuck in mixed company. You sure they mean me, Marty? I’m Harlan Ellison, remember? The one with the hook for a hand.”
No, says Marty the Agent, who has been my theatrical agent (as opposed to my literary agent, who is Bob the Agent) as well as my friend for over fifteen years, no, they have clearly lost their minds and they want you, and I have made a nice little week-to-week deal for you, with a guaranteed six and options … and he named a figure that might not purchase San Simeon in these crazy days of lettuce going for $3.00 a head but back then ten years ago was more money than anyone had ever offered me for anything, including my body.
“Contracts are coming,” Marty said, “but go over to the Disney Studio tomorrow morning. They have an office for you.”
I was in heaven. So okay, it wasn’t writing The Great American Cinematic Answer to Potemkin, so what?! I was on my way. I was going to work in the Studio! It was the big time. And just to get up in the part of a successful scenarist, I dragged out my complete collection of Uncle Scrooge McDuck Comics and re-read them all, till the night had passed away and the morning had come.
I dressed smartly, put on the one tie I owned, looked at myself in the mirror before leaving the treehouse and went back in and took off the tie and put on a shirt first. Okay, so I was excited, shoot me.
I drove out the Ventura Freeway to the Buena Vista exit, drove up to the front gate in the disreputable 1951 Ford I mentioned earlier, which hadn’t been washed in so long that strangers wrote cleanliness-is-next-to-godliness obscenities in the dirt, and gave my name to the spiffy guard at the kiosk. “Oh, yessir, Mr. Ellison,” he said, validating my existence, “your office is in the Writers Building.” I beamed. “How do I get there?” I asked.
He smiled exactly the same smile as Doc of Seven Dwarfs fame and said, “Well, you drive in here and take the first left, that’s Mickey Mouse Avenue. Then you go down Mickey Mouse Avenue till you get to Thumper Boulevard. Turn right on Thumper to Clarabelle Cow Way and take another left. Go straight down Clarabelle Cow Way till you hit the corner of Horace Horsecollar Drive, and the Writers Building is second building on your right.”
I think I nodded dumbly, refusing to believe what I had just been told. But I drove in and, sure as shit, there was Mickey Mouse Avenue and Thumper Boulevard and all the rest of them, and I said to myself, Ellison … you has fallen down a rabbit hole, keed.
But right there, in front of the building to which I’d been directed, was a parking slot that said H. ELLISON. Right there, on the blacktop, between the thick white lines, some industrious Audio-Animatronic robot (possibly cobbled up in the image of Matisse or Lindner) had stencilled my name for Eternity or six weeks with options … whichever came first.
To those of you out there in the Great American Heartland, that may not be such a significant thing, but in the world of studio sinecures, a parking space of one’s own is dearer to the heart than never being put on “hold” when calling the networks. I know Sammy Glick manques who have given up perks and titles and even a Bigelow on the floor just for a parking space with the name thereon. So there I had it: authentication of my elevated status in the universe of the
• A shul is a synagogue. As a Jew I’m not allowed to have chwchmice. That’s okay, they’re trayf.
My first reaction to “Disney wants you” was horror, and then stark amazement. “There’s been a mistake,” I said to Marty the Agent. “I’m a crazed, radical, bomb-throwing loon who writes stories about things that come up out of the toilets to bite off babies’ asses … are you sure they don’t want Bob Ellison? He writes comedy. Very clean-cut guy. Drives a late model car. Shaves regularly. Never says fuck in mixed company. You sure they mean me, Marty? I’m Harlan Ellison, remember? The one with the hook for a hand.”
No, says Marty the Agent, who has been my theatrical agent (as opposed to my literary agent, who is Bob the Agent) as well as my friend for over fifteen years, no, they have clearly lost their minds and they want you, and I have made a nice little week-to-week deal for you, with a guaranteed six and options … and he named a figure that might not purchase San Simeon in these crazy days of lettuce going for $3.00 a head but back then ten years ago was more money than anyone had ever offered me for anything, including my body.
“Contracts are coming,” Marty said, “but go over to the Disney Studio tomorrow morning. They have an office for you.”
I was in heaven. So okay, it wasn’t writing The Great American Cinematic Answer to Potemkin, so what?! I was on my way. I was going to work in the Studio! It was the big time. And just to get up in the part of a successful scenarist, I dragged out my complete collection of Uncle Scrooge McDuck Comics and re-read them all, till the night had passed away and the morning had come.
I dressed smartly, put on the one tie I owned, looked at myself in the mirror before leaving the treehouse and went back in and took off the tie and put on a shirt first. Okay, so I was excited, shoot me.
I drove out the Ventura Freeway to the Buena Vista exit, drove up to the front gate in the disreputable 1951 Ford I mentioned earlier, which hadn’t been washed in so long that strangers wrote cleanliness-is-next-to-godliness obscenities in the dirt, and gave my name to the spiffy guard at the kiosk. “Oh, yessir, Mr. Ellison,” he said, validating my existence, “your office is in the Writers Building.” I beamed. “How do I get there?” I asked.
He smiled exactly the same smile as Doc of Seven Dwarfs fame and said, “Well, you drive in here and take the first left, that’s Mickey Mouse Avenue. Then you go down Mickey Mouse Avenue till you get to Thumper Boulevard. Turn right on Thumper to Clarabelle Cow Way and take another left. Go straight down Clarabelle Cow Way till you hit the corner of Horace Horsecollar Drive, and the Writers Building is second building on your right.”
I think I nodded dumbly, refusing to believe what I had just been told. But I drove in and, sure as shit, there was Mickey Mouse Avenue and Thumper Boulevard and all the rest of them, and I said to myself, Ellison … you has fallen down a rabbit hole, keed.
But right there, in front of the building to which I’d been directed, was a parking slot that said H. ELLISON. Right there, on the blacktop, between the thick white lines, some industrious Audio-Animatronic robot (possibly cobbled up in the image of Matisse or Lindner) had stencilled my name for Eternity or six weeks with options … whichever came first.
To those of you out there in the Great American Heartland, that may not be such a significant thing, but in the world of studio sinecures, a parking space of one’s own is dearer to the heart than never being put on “hold” when calling the networks. I know Sammy Glick manques who have given up perks and titles and even a Bigelow on the floor just for a parking space with the name thereon. So there I had it: authentication of my elevated status in the universe of the
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