The cosmos conspired to make it nearly impossible to choose which "On This Date" birthday to celebrate. Film legend and horror icon, the late Vincent Price, born on this day in 1911? Or Price’s great friend and fellow legend of horror cinema, the late Christopher Lee, born on this day in 1922? Or legendary speculative fiction writer, scenarist, anthologist and raconteur, my late friend Harlan Ellison?
Spoiler: it's gonna be Ellison, who I'd seen in person a few times over the years, but we became pals when he accidentally posted his home phone on his message board, and I called him, reached his wife Susan, and said that he probably shouldn'ta done it. She thanked me, he took it down. We swapped a few messages on his board, then a fan of my blog who is also the Producer/Director/Enabler of Harlan Ellison's movie, "Dreams With Sharp Teeth", got in touch with me (for which I am eternally grateful) and one thing led to another, and suddenly I was Harlan's "Man in Chicago". It was during this time when I was also given the great gift of making the acquaintance of the big brain behind Deep Shag records, who has spent years collating, compiling and publishing Harlan's public speeches.
The man did like to talk.
Harlan would blow in a call from time to time to talk about writing, drop some wisdom on me, and quiz me about Obama, local politics and the ways of the Windy City. He knocked me out by offering to edit a time travel story I'd written about the "murder" of Edgar Allan Poe. He asked me some very incisive questions about it, I made some minor changes, then Harlan sent it off to a magazine publisher he knew on my behalf for their consideration, and from whom I got the nicest rejection letter I'd ever received.
So while the internet can be an open sewer of rage-hustlers, hate-mongers, grifters and lunatics, in these parlous times it has also allowed me to keep company with the good and the great, for which I am very grateful.
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