In Memoriam: Harlan Ellison

In Memoriam: Harlan Ellison

Harlan Ellison was the greatest writer I ever read.

I’m not sure if that is literally true.  I’ve read some great writers; Shakespeare, Twain, and Hemingway to name a few.  But Ellison was the only one who, after I read his work, made me say to myself, “If that’s writing, then I can’t write.”

Ellison died today at age 84.  He reportedly went peaceably, so it was possibly the first time he did anything that way.  He was notoriously combative, litigious, and confrontational.  He wrote what is arguably the best Star Trek episode of all time, City on the Edge of Forever, and then bickered with show creator Gene Roddenberry for decades.  The broadcast version of the show won a Hugo award (one of nine for Ellison); the original script won Ellison a Writer’s Guild award.  So, let’s call it a tie.

Harlan Ellison would be better known except for two things: he worked primarily in genre (science fiction, horror and mystery), and he worked primarily in short fiction, rarely going over novella length.  His short story The Whimper of Whipped Dogs, a fictionalization of the famous Kitty Genovese murder case which won the Edgar Award for best short story, is a classic.  His science fiction novella called A Boy and His Dog was turned into a moderately successful movie starring a young Don Johnson.  But most of his work was so invested in his singular imagination that it was utterly unfilmable, and most of his work is not familiar to mass audiences.

Take, for example, The Deathbird, a Hugo-award winning short story that interweaves segments about a dying planet, a son being asked to euthanize his mother, an essay about Ellison's dog dying, and a written exam being given for purposes that are not clear.  There is no clear plot line, few characters, and a narrative that shifts gears about a dozen times in 29 pages, but together it conveys something profound about death, dealing with death, what it means to go on, and also to not continue.

Much of his stuff was dark, but he had a sharp sense of humor.  His three-part essay “The three most important things in life: sex, violence and labor relations” is probably the funniest thing I’ve ever read.  Part one describes a date he had with a young woman when he was a struggling writer in Hollywood that went terribly wrong; part two is about a close encounter with death in a Times Square movie theater balcony; and part three is about his infamous tenure as a contract writer for Disney that lasted almost one entire day (Roy Disney overheard him telling other writers that he had an idea for a porno movie featuring Mickey Mouse and Tinkerbell and did not appreciate it).

He wrote a lot of cerebral stuff, but he also wrote for television (the ironic juxtaposition would not be lost on him).  He wrote two episodes for Outer Limits, called Soldier and Demon with a Glass Hand, that are not only classics, but also allowed him to successfully sue James Cameron for plagiarism when The Terminator came out (frankly, I don’t see any similarities other than time travel and robots, but whatever).  He wrote for several TV series in the 1960, most notably the aforementioned Star Trek episode whose lore is almost as famous as the episode itself.

The plot, for the unfamiliar, sends Kirk and Spock back in time to repair damage to the timeline that wiped out existence as they knew it.  They arrive in 1930’s New York and meet a social worker named Edith Keeler, played by Joan Collins.  Kirk falls in love with her (because, well, she’s Joan Collins) but then must make a choice when she appears to be the item in the timeline that caused the change.

Ellison’s script was a spec script, with no regular characters named because they hadn’t been created when Roddenberry asked for the script.  In Ellison’s version, the Chief Engineer of the Enterprise was responsible for distributing an illegal narcotic that precipitated the events leading to the change in the timeline.  Network standards wouldn’t accept a script with illegal drug use, and it was changed to an accidental overdose of a prescribed drug.  Ellison complained, loudly, about this and other changes; when Star Trek conventions became a thing, Roddenberry loved to tell audiences that Ellison’s version had “Scotty dealing drugs.”  Ellison again complained loudly, and Roddenberry promised never to say that again, a promise he broke at the next Star Trek convention.  It was too good of a line.

Ellison didn’t write much for TV after the 1960’s, but he was a consultant on the Twilight Zone revival in the 1980’s (Bruce Willis was in an effective dramatization of Ellison’s short story “Shatterday”) and Babylon 5 in the 1990’s.  He created a series called The Starlost but became so enraged at the producers that he demanded that his name not be put on the series, which was attributed to his pen name, Cordwainer Bird. 

An entertaining documentary was made about him in 2008 called “Dreams with Sharp Teeth.”  He also edited the groundbreaking anthologies Dangerous Visions and Again Dangerous Visions that pushed the boundaries of what themes science fiction could tackle, from sexuality to drug use to violence.  He also won numerous awards for a short story titled "Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54' N, Longitude 77° 00' 13" W," which may be the longest short story title I’ve seen.

A lot of what he wrote, especially his essays, displayed a seemingly inexhaustible supply of anger.  That's okay.  To spew vitriol indiscriminately requires almost no talent; to vent one's spleen with humor, intelligence and style is genius.  Jon Stewart on The Daily Show could do it; critic Robert Hughes was a master; Harlan Ellison was the Grand High Lord of the Realm.  

Ellison won 9 Hugo awards, 4 Nebulas (including being the only writer to win three times in the short story category), two Edgar Awards for mystery short stories, four Writers Guild Awards for TV scripts, and a bunch of other awards. 

So long to Harlan Ellison.  I wish him an afterlife more pleasant that most of those he imagined in his stories.

Don't ban the defensive shift

Bill Veeck, the great, iconoclastic owner of a number of major league teams, once said, “Baseball must be a great sport; the owners haven’t killed it yet.”  Professional baseball has survived for 149 years, outliving the deadball era, the Black Sox scandal, the Great Depression, the powerball period of the 1950’s, the pitcher-dominated 1960’s, and the steroid era of the 1990’s.  But I still get nervous when I hear the owners want to improve on perfection.

The latest is a desire to outlaw the latest attack on baseball orthodoxy, namely the defensive shift.  The shift is a relatively new invention, arising in the late 1940’s (baseball is a game ruled by traditionalists, so change rarely happens quickly).  It was invented in 1946 by Cleveland Indians shortstop/manager Lou Boudreau, himself a Hall of Famer, to challenge another future Hall of Famer, the great Ted Williams. It was Boudreau who first put three infielders on the second base side of the diamond  in an effort to discourage left-handed pull hitters from swinging naturally.  What was once an obscure tactic suddenly gained credibility in the 21^st century, and suddenly this defense is being credited for destroying the game of baseball.

It isn’t entirely clear that the shift is actually effective, although there is some evidence to support it.  And the people who despise it, like Yankee manager Joe Girardi, are who you’d expect to complain—people who make their living off of slow footed left handed power hitters (Girardi probably wants all pitches other than 82 MPH fastballs outlawed as well).  Of course players like Ryan Howard, whose career was ended by the shift, hate the strategy the same way that 7 foot tall basketball players hate the 3-point shot and slow defensive linemen hate mobile quarterbacks. 

But, as the commercials used to say, chicks dig the long ball, and MLB is listening.  According to reports MLB is considering trying to improve offense by banning defensive shifts and implementing the DH in both leagues.  One irony in this is that MLB worries about length of play, but increasing offense makes games last longer.  A Sandy Koufax/Bob Gibson duel back in the 1960’s would be over in two hours, tops. 

Someone of ESPN’s Around the Horn said that the defensive shift was causing offensive production to go down.  That is precisely wrong—not adapting to the shift is responsible for any drop in production.  As Hall of Famer Wee Willie Keeler advised players over 100 years ago, the secret of batting is to “hit ‘em where they ain’t.”  When there is only one fielder to the left of second base, and no one within 50 feet of the third base line, just hit the ball to that side of the infield.  Heck, anyone with any speed could turn a bunt down the third base line into a double.

Defensive shifts do not create an unfair advantage, as any increase in defensive coverage on one side of the field is equaled by creating a defensive liability on the other side of the field.  If you want to increase offense by eliminating an unfair advantage, then outlaw the 100 MPH fastball.  Hey, there are too many strikeouts, so let’s make it four strikes and you’re out at the old ball game.  Remember that proposal to have a runner start on second base in extra innings?  Why not start EVERY inning with a man on second?

One way to improve offenses would be to have better players.  In 1941 Joe DiMaggio struck out 13 times in 139 games; Aaron Judge strikes out that many times on a typical weekend.  Of course Joltin’ Joe was a better ballplayer that Aaron Judge, but with that many strikeouts you wonder if Judge is even trying to make contact with the pitch, or is he just closing his eyes and swinging as hard as possible?

Or you could shorten the base paths to under 90 feet.  Or maybe go back to the time when batters could tell the pitcher where they would prefer to have the ball thrown to them.  There are a lot of ways to increase offense (one could, hypothetically, tamper with baseballs to reduce their drag coefficient and fly further).  But any change in the rules meddles with the balance of a game that has been appreciated for nearly 150 years.  Sometimes intervention is needed; the dominance of pitching in 1968 needed to be dealt with.  But given time any innovation that threatens the game will eventually be met with techniques to counteract them.

So don’t ban the infield shift.  A better idea would be to limit teams to using four pitchers per nine inning game.  That would improve offenses and speed up pace of play.  But instead of banning the shift, make batters learn how to bunt.

TV Review: Arrested Development, season 5 part 1 (spoilers)

It’s a fact (or at least it used to be; the economics of the entertainment industry are changing) that the key for any television show was longevity.  The important thing was to amass a minimum of 100 episodes and start raking in that sweet, sweet money that comes from syndication.  His explains why so many TV shows continue on past their sell-by date; why All in the Family continued on as Archie Bunker’s Place and eventually morphed into very short-lived spin-offs like Gloria and 704 Hauser (about a new family living at the Bunker’s address).

This isn’t a phenomenon of bad shows or mediocre shows (I suppose truly bad shows don’t have a chance at an extended life), but even great shows tend to wear out their welcome.  Lost was unique in having its creators demand that the network give them an end date so they could control the pace of the show’s plot as it meandered towards the finish line.

Which brings me to Season 5 of Arrested Development, a show whose first three network seasons placed it in the pantheon of one of the greatest sitcoms of all time.  The show featured unlikeable people, convoluted plotting, subtle visual jokes in the background, and an endless stream of callbacks to previous jokes.  Perhaps because of these traits, in had extremely low ratings through its run on FOX and never achieved any sort of widespread popular support.  It did win 6 Emmys, including Outstanding Comedy Series in its first season and two Best Writing for a Comedy awards.  The show is about the Bluth family, wealthy real estate magnates in Southern California who are, generally speaking, as stupid as they are dishonest and arrogant.

But fans being fans there was always lobbying for the inevitable movie follow-up.  After the success of Superbad there were fears that Michael Cera would not be interested in reprising his role as George Michael Bluth, but the cratering of his subsequent film career made going back to the role look more and more attractive.  Netflix picked up the series for an additional season in 2013, seven years after its finale show on FOX.

The results were contentious, to say the least.  The show’s creator, Michael Hurwitz, tinkered with the format in this new binge-watchy medium, pushing the limits on how convoluted he could make the plots and how many call backs he could cram into the show.  The results were generally not appreciated, to the extent that before season 5 was launched he had to go back and re-edit the season 4 episodes to make them more intelligible.

We now have season 5 available, or at least the first half of season 5, another five years after season 4.  I think it is fair to pull out the old trope and say the show has jumped the shark.  Arrested Development is still trying harder than any other show on TV, but it is trying too hard.  Characters that were on the edge of being cartoonish are now insufferable, plots that were barely coherent now make absolutely no sense, and the unavailability of some actors has required the scripts to do somersaults to paper over the holes.

Some of the actors continue to do top notch work.  Jason Bateman, who has twice been nominated for Best Actor in a Comedy for his portrayal of Michael Bluth, the most “honest” member of the family (on a sliding scale that is not saying much), continues to be an excellent straight man.  Jessica Walters continues to make Lucille Bluth, the family matriarch, the funniest, most self-involved, and most conniving character since Lady Macbeth (assuming you think Macbeth is a comedy).  The standout in season 5 is Alia Shawkat as Maebe, George Michael’s cousin and teenage crush (it’s okay, they aren’t really cousins), as a young woman who spends much of the season impersonating a 75-year-old woman residing in an assisted living facility.  She has the mannerisms and the vocal intonations of an elderly woman down pat, and if season 5 of Arrested Development snags any Emmy nominations I hope the make-up department gets one for her look.

Just an aside, but I always felt the most subversive thing about Arrested Development during its network run was that George Michael was raised by an attentive, devoted father and was an emotional basket case, while Maebe was raised by two inattentive narcissistic idiots and turned out relatively well-adjusted (other than being a borderline sociopath, but given the ethics of the Bluth family a little sociopathy is to be expected).

Other actors don’t fare as well.  Will Arnett, who always came close to over the top as GOB (pronounced Jobe), the eldest Bluth son, is reduced to being in continuous bombast mode.  Also, while GOB was never the sharpest tool in the shed, Arnett now portrays him as so dumb you can’t imagine how he manages to feed himself or get dressed in the morning.  David Cross as Tobias Funke, Michael’s brother-in-law who gave up a career as a psychotherapist to pursue being an actor, is another character who used to teeter constantly on the edge of being over the top who now tumbles over into buffoonery.

The oddest thing about season 5 is Portia de Rossi as Lindsey, Tobias’ wife and Michael’s sister, who plays a central role in season 5 as a candidate for Congress.  The problem is that de Rossi wasn’t interested in coming back, so they obviously green screened her into a couple of scenes and then had her disappear for most of this half of the season for no explanation (or at least not one that makes sense).  Of the eight episodes released, she doesn’t appear in half of them.

Arrested Development always was a gossamer confection that succeeded despite its intricate plotting and multifaceted call backs.  But with the 5-year time gap since season 4, plus the unavailability of some actors, the strain now shows and the narrative no longer makes sense.  The best evidence of this is the massive overuse of Ron Howard as the narrator, who it sometimes seems provides context to about half of any given episode (I would swear he does voice-over during 90% of the first episode of season 5).  Howard did great work on the original series, but he was so good they started using him as a crutch to explain away plot-holes, and it just got to be too easy.  Also, including Howard as a character in season 4 doubled down on the over use of the Oscar winning director and former child co-star of Andy Griffith.

The result is painful to watch.  Arrested Development is now grasping for laughs that it used to get seemingly without effort.  One of the joys of seasons 1-3 were all the various dyads the group of actors could be paired into, but now limits on availability mean that various characters never interact with others, while some are constantly thrust together. 

At some point, the work needed to pull off the high wire act becomes drudgery and not a lot of fun to look at.  I’ll probably watch the second half of season 5 when it comes out, as the binge format makes no demands on my time.  Mainly, I just want to see if George Michael gets past second base with Maebe; I think those two crazy kids deserve each other.

I do hope that Arrested Development ends with season 5.  With rumors about an attempt to spin-off Roseanne without Roseanne swirling, I hope that at least one classic sitcom can go gently into that good night.