And they're OFF!
Sep. 27th, 2005 09:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebitterguyWell, this past weekend at Foolscap Con in Washington, the guests were Tycho and Gabe from Penny Arcade and Harlan Ellison. During a GoH event, words were exchanged:
"So Tycho and I are up in front of the audience with Harlen, and Hank (the con organizer) presents us with some jester hats ("Fool’s caps"). Tycho and I put ours on because we are polite, but Harlen - who is apparently too cool for school - refuses to wear his. I turn to him and say, "Don't you want your hat?" and he tells me to fuck off. This caught me off guard, I mean I have no clue who this fucking coot is. Then he points to a pad of paper he has and asks if I'm aware that his paper is also called foolscap. Now, I've never heard that term before, I pretty much just call it paper so I shake my head "no." This really isn't a fair question. I mean, it would be like me asking him about Photoshop or if he can remember what he had for lunch. The guy was essentially setting me up to look stupid in front of all these people. So then he asks me if I even attended college and I say "No, I did not." Then, he says "did you at least finish high school?"
I said that I had, but you couldn't really hear me because the audience is laughing at me along with Harlen. So once they stop, I turn to him and I say, "While I've got you here I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the Star Wars stuff you wrote."
I didn't know him very well but I felt like mistaking him for someone who writes Star Wars books was the sort of insult that would cut right to his brittle old bones. The audience seemed to agree because I could hear a lot of ooooooooh's and oh no’s over the laughing. Some people in the front even suggested a fist fight was now in order. I look over at Harlen and he’s staring at me like he wants to choke me. He then says "so that’s how it’s going to be." Now keep in mind that he’s the one that started hostilities when he told me to fuck off. I'm just the one that finished it. The guy tells some pretty funny stories about how witty he is and how he’s always saying clever things at exactly the right moment. When confronted with someone who was unwilling to take any crap from him he had no clever retort. The great writer just glared at me and then walked off stage. I don't doubt that given enough time he could craft a perfectly worded and extremely vicious response but up there on stage in front of all his fans the man didn't have shit.
I don't blame Harlen for not knowing who I am. I honestly don't expect him to. I don't expect anyone that old to know who I am. I did expect him to be polite and at least respect the fact that I was a fellow guest of honor. That was apparently too much to ask for from the great Harlen Elison."
And since then? Well, Gabe & Tycho posted their version on PA, and the grognards on HE's website have been visited by the pep-boys who love PA. It's been... interesting. (by the time you see this, of course, it may have cycled off; check the conversations on webderland from today's date, for the comedy).
It looks like it was just a stupid misunderstanding on all parts. God bless the Internet for bringing cranky goofs together! Or at least for allowing them to spread their snittiness far and wide.
Personally? I think if you locked all three in a room, humanity would be better off for it. Let 'em all burn!
"So Tycho and I are up in front of the audience with Harlen, and Hank (the con organizer) presents us with some jester hats ("Fool’s caps"). Tycho and I put ours on because we are polite, but Harlen - who is apparently too cool for school - refuses to wear his. I turn to him and say, "Don't you want your hat?" and he tells me to fuck off. This caught me off guard, I mean I have no clue who this fucking coot is. Then he points to a pad of paper he has and asks if I'm aware that his paper is also called foolscap. Now, I've never heard that term before, I pretty much just call it paper so I shake my head "no." This really isn't a fair question. I mean, it would be like me asking him about Photoshop or if he can remember what he had for lunch. The guy was essentially setting me up to look stupid in front of all these people. So then he asks me if I even attended college and I say "No, I did not." Then, he says "did you at least finish high school?"
I said that I had, but you couldn't really hear me because the audience is laughing at me along with Harlen. So once they stop, I turn to him and I say, "While I've got you here I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the Star Wars stuff you wrote."
I didn't know him very well but I felt like mistaking him for someone who writes Star Wars books was the sort of insult that would cut right to his brittle old bones. The audience seemed to agree because I could hear a lot of ooooooooh's and oh no’s over the laughing. Some people in the front even suggested a fist fight was now in order. I look over at Harlen and he’s staring at me like he wants to choke me. He then says "so that’s how it’s going to be." Now keep in mind that he’s the one that started hostilities when he told me to fuck off. I'm just the one that finished it. The guy tells some pretty funny stories about how witty he is and how he’s always saying clever things at exactly the right moment. When confronted with someone who was unwilling to take any crap from him he had no clever retort. The great writer just glared at me and then walked off stage. I don't doubt that given enough time he could craft a perfectly worded and extremely vicious response but up there on stage in front of all his fans the man didn't have shit.
I don't blame Harlen for not knowing who I am. I honestly don't expect him to. I don't expect anyone that old to know who I am. I did expect him to be polite and at least respect the fact that I was a fellow guest of honor. That was apparently too much to ask for from the great Harlen Elison."
And since then? Well, Gabe & Tycho posted their version on PA, and the grognards on HE's website have been visited by the pep-boys who love PA. It's been... interesting. (by the time you see this, of course, it may have cycled off; check the conversations on webderland from today's date, for the comedy).
It looks like it was just a stupid misunderstanding on all parts. God bless the Internet for bringing cranky goofs together! Or at least for allowing them to spread their snittiness far and wide.
Personally? I think if you locked all three in a room, humanity would be better off for it. Let 'em all burn!
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-28 01:50 am (UTC)I thought this post by the aforementioned Hank (posted to the harlan site) merits repeating:
ANOTHER word from the chair
*sigh*
Harlan didn't put on a hat because Harlan wasn't provided with a hat. It was A JOKE. We had cheap, silly-looking jester's caps for Gabe & Tycho, and a legal pad (another type of "foolscap," for those of you who didn't know) for Harlan.
I think Harlan was mildly amused by this nonsense, as he was meant to be. (And if he wasn't, I expect he'll let me know.) The look on his face while I was handing out the hats was the setup that made the payoff worthwhile. In any event, he gave a mild smile when he saw the paper, and realized that no, I was not going to try to get him to wear a silly hat.
Gabe wasn't trying to needle Harlan when he asked if Harlan would like to wear one, I think, although it may have been perceived that way.
Due to some scheduling problems, we were not able to have Gabe & Tycho around the convention as we'd have liked. That's actually part of the reason we ended up overworking Harlan.
Among the missed opportunities there, I had hoped to have panels where all of our GOH's could meet. Gabe and Harlan are a lot more similar than they are different, and they share a lightning-fast wit I don't have, and have always envied.
They also share a basic quality of being genuinely nice guys who try to do the right thing. You can see that with Harlan's insistence to keep working the programming schedule he'd been presented, because he's a professional and he didn't want to disappoint anyone. You can also see it with Gabe & Tycho, who couldn't participate fully due to scheduling problems, and so turned down all payment for their appearance at Foolscap this weekend.
To the many partisans dismissing the works of either Harlan or Gabe and Tycho, my answer is that you should go look at what you're missing.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-28 02:13 am (UTC)Harlan Ellison, while a good writer, is a complete twat as a person. Yes, he's well-spoken, intelligent, entertaining to read or listen to at cons, but he's still a complete twat. He thinks he's better than most people b/c he knows bigger words, and is comfortable throwing out mean words or making fools of them in public. What he needs is a good solid ass whooping. I don't care if he's 90 years old.
The guys from PA, while mildly entertaining artist/writer/whatevers on infrequent moments, are also twats. They buy into their own hype, and that's sad.
So, I agree with ya - on a personal level, we could do without (but then, hell, most people prolly would lump me in that same category, so meh.)
no subject
Date: 2005-09-28 01:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-28 02:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-28 04:05 pm (UTC)Usually, snide comments that spiral into misunderstandings stay in the fan communities.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-29 04:22 am (UTC)Hmmm... Having read only this description of events, and having no idea who these characters are, istm that it's "Tycho and Gabe" who come across as being complete morons. They didn't get the fool's cap/foolscap pun? Egads, somebody buy these twits a vocabulary for Christmas, will you?
Cu,
Andrew