Re: FWIW: ST Enterprise Cancelled

From: Andre Lieven (dg411_at_FreeNet.Carleton.CA)
Date: 02/04/05 

Date: 4 Feb 2005 22:15:29 GMT

Pat Flannery (flanner@daktel.com) writes:
> Andre Lieven wrote:
>
>>OK: Can you testify that, in thirty years, you have not misremembered
>>one thing about that program ? Hint: I did see it, as well, and I've
>>seen a tape of it, more recently.
>
> Wasn't he on it more than once?

Yes: I was referring to the specific program you were citing.

> Tom liked him because he caused
> controversy, and would get himself in trouble by shooting his mouth off.
> It was fun to watch.

Sure: Harlan is entertaining. So was Carl Sagan...

> Regarding the "City On The Edge Of Forever" controversy; I note that
> Harlan starts giving "his side of it" in his 1996 book; around thirty
> years after it happened...and five years after Roddenberry was dead...

Well, in book form, yes, orally, no.

> so that Roddenberry can't defend himself against Harlan's
> charges...which are pretty severe.

And, they are backed with citations, and copies of documents where
Roddenberry makes his lying claims. I cited one of them, the
Humanist interview, with his tame biorgopher, David Alexander,
where R claims to have created the character of Edith Keeler.

And... thats a lie.

> I haven't been able to track down
> this whole interview; but what's here:
> http://www.trektoday.com/news/130300_02.shtml
> Isn't particularly flattering to Roddenberry, to put it mildly:
> "HARLAN ELLISON: I wrote an 18,000 word introduction to the book where
> throughout I refer to Roddenberry as the Great Pretender, El Supremo,
> and an outright naked liar, and [say] that after 30 years I was sick and
> tired of this bull*** of him telling people how expensive this script
> was and how it couldn't be shot, when in fact I had letters from him
> proving that that was not the case. Two weeks after the show aired, I
> have a letter from Gene Roddenberry that said the show went $6,000 over
> budget. Six thousand dollars. By 1988 when he was speaking at the Museum
> of Television in New York, he said that my script was $360,000 over. All
> of this in photographed evidence is in the introduction."

Indeed.

> My question is simple, if Harlan knew that Roddenberry was telling
> scurrilous lies about him and his script in 1988, and at ST conventions
> earlier, why did he wait till after Roddenberry was dead to do something
> about it?

Because folks like OM, would then have complained that Ellison was
saying " bad " things about R...

For that matter, why have I not " published " my story, about my
divorce ? Well, unlike Harlan's case, in mine, to the best of my
knowledge, no one's continuing to tell untruths about it, and me.

So, I have no need. Harlan did. I cannot find any fault in him deciding
" I've taken this *** long enough, and every time someone BSed about
it, and I called them, privately, about it, they said they'd stop,
and they still haven't. So, I'm not going to take it any more. "

That works for me. As I said, Ellison was far more patient than I
would have been, but thats me.

> He could have published his book earlier...far earlier in
> fact...say a decade or two earlier, and nipped the problem in the bud.

Sure. Do you think that him *being busy with earning a living* might
have had anything to do with that ? Would you tell him " Hey, put down
your paying gigs, I want you to do this, now " ?

I'd like to have been there, when you tried that... <bg>

> Instead, he waited till the man he criticizes was dead, and couldn't
> offer a rebuttal to his charges...in my opinion, particularly given that
> this is just about a single script for episode of a one hour television
> program, his behavior in this matter impresses me both as extremely
> petty and indeed wretched and base.

That strikes me as a double standard: The *evidence* of not only
Roddenberry's lies, but others, is amply made in Ellison's book.

Why is your ire only aimed at the recipient of the lies, and *not*
their tellers ?

> This guy -not to put too fine a point on it- is a world-class ***.

No proof offered ? Claim fails.

> I'm glad you inspired me to do some digging around for info on this
> matter. Before I started this, I thought he was a sometimes amusing
> loudmouth.
> Now, I'd like to spit on the little ***.

Well, ain't hate... pretty ?

<shudder> I thought that you're a gifted guy, Pat. Funny and
creative as hell. I still do. But, this side of you, well, its
nastier than anything that you criticise Ellison for.

Hate makes us worse than what we hate. And, when it's *personal*,
thats the most reflective kind of hate of them all. Ugly, even.

Andre 

--
" I'm a man... But, I can change... If I have to... I guess. "
                                    The Man Prayer, Red Green.
Quantcast