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 I
accompanied Quinn to the Oakland airport to retrieve Harlan
and his girlfriend and convey them to the Claremont Hotel, site
of the conference. I remember bumping Ellison's portable typewriter
into a wall. "Hey," he said, "you trying to ruin
my career?"
Quinn took Harlan and his lady to her place,
where, with some disgust, he scanned a fanzine, eventually quoting
one of its lines to the SFWA. And now I get to tell an Ellison
anecdote ...
So we reached the Claremont and piled out
and went in - Harlan in his L.A./Carnaby Street best, the lady
six feet of blonde class and beauty, and
the squalid hippy wretch that was GHLIII,
toting a bag. As we were crossing the lobby a hotel flack ran
up and grabbed Ellison by the arm. "Where are you playing?"
he demanded.
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Squawk! Screech! "Oh! You're guests!" The man
fled. Livid, Harlan proceeded to check in. Norman Spinrad called
a hello from the elevators. "And where are you
playing?" asked Harlan.
Ellison, then as always, was the star of
the show, granting interviews (viz right), touting The
New Wave, doing his thing for sci- ... excuse me, speculative
fiction. Hey, it was the way the future was. I'd have those days
back. |
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