Thursday, June 28, 2018

On the Death of Harlan Ellison

Harlan Ellison Tribute
By Jordan Owen
(C)2018


Harlan Ellison passed away today.  As I sit to write, the words are still ringing silently across the barren planes of existence. The world is slightly quieter now, with colors more subdued and the screeching aggravations of the daily grind only a vague wail across the distant horizon. Still, one blast of white-hot consternation penetrates the membrane of my solitude:

I was thinking about him today.

I was driving to work on this, a dreary, rain soaked Thursday and the thought of what sort of tribute I’d offer Harlan when he died was very much on my mind. I don’t know why I was thinking about it except that all the greats are passing lately and of all the grand masters in all fields of endeavor, Harlan’s my main man. Not only do I aspire to write as well as Harlan Ellison writes, I aspire to play the guitar as well as Harlan Ellison writes.  Since age twelve I have taken comfort in the knowledge that an imagination such as Harlan’s existed- that no matter how towering the iron and concrete barriers that stared me down in every direction there was someone out there whose mind was boundless and free- effortlessly soaring through the outer reaches of the psyche.
I first discovered Harlan’s work reading an issue of Electronic Entertainment from the mid 90’s that was doing a pre-release first-look at the upcoming CD-ROM game adaptation of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.  By that point I was an avid reader forever lost to the realms of science fiction and fantasy and the escape they offered from the doldrums of reality. I was already enamoured with Brian Jacques, Douglas Adams, Frank Herbert, Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, and many others but in all cases there always seemed to be a threshold of imagination that none of them seemed willing to cross.  When I read that article about a game in which an insane, self-aware supercomputer tortures the five remaining survivors of nuclear war in a subterranean Hell of self-replicating machinery, I was instantly transfixed. Other writers teased at such a world- showed us quick, horrifying glimpses to fuel nightmares and morbid curiosity but Ellison crossed over completely- and seemed, like Virgil to Dante, comfortable strolling through that endless realm of madness and machinery.
I quickly got my hands on a copy of the I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream short story and was transported to that underground realm that was as fascinating as it was disturbing. And that word- disturbing- would come up time and again as I further explored those corridors of dreams that Ellison laid down in each of his short story collections, novels, screenplays, and essays. He put out stories like Frank Zappa put out music- at a decades long fever pitch that filled the mental inbox as quickly as it was voided but those prolific extremes seldom faltered in their quality- Ellison unleashed brilliance with a quick flick of the wrist, like a sleight-of-hand magician whose effortless form is just as fascinating as the trick itself.
From there I consumed the I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream computer game and it quickly became my favorite piece of interactive media, an honor it holds to this very day. At the time I was living in Oxford, Mississippi, which I hated, and my two great escapes were both in Memphis, TN: the Borders bookstore and the Egghead software boutique.  In both places there seemed to be a flourishing of creativity, as though the brilliance of Ellison were rubbing off onto the surrounding expanse, making artwork brighter, graphics sharper, music more melodic and words more meaningful. To this day I can still recall the smell of the coffee at Borders and the mouse pads at Egghead. In truth, I had found that greatest of connections, one just as rare and precious as true love itself: I had discovered my favorite writer.  My own mind was opened- new and vital potentials unlocked and the purpose of my existence now set on its ultimate course.
I followed Harlan through all of those dream corridors: the metaphor laden psychodrama of I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream, the dystopian futurism of “Repent Harlequin!” Said the Tick Tock Man, the childhood imprisonment of Jefty is Five, the savage passion play of A Boy and His Dog, the psychological cat-and-mouse of Mephisto in Onyx, the bittersweet absolution of Paladin of the Lost Hour, the piercing morality tale that was Shatterday, and so on- and on, and on, and on.
The first book of Harlan’s I read clear through was Deathbird Stories and each of those macabre tales shook me to my foundation- living in the tornado bait anus of the Bible Belt I was surrounded by people who made Heaven seem a lot worse than Hell and in that collection- and that book, which deconstructed the psychological underpinnings of religion, faith and mythology, was an affirmation that I was not alone in feeling like I was surrounded by insanity. The title story, the Deathbird, was a fantasy-science fiction epic that told of the last man in existence being summoned from cryogenic sleep by Dira, the serpent from the Garden of Eden, to go and administer a lethal injection to god.  That story, like so many of his, stayed in my thoughts and rewired my brain for years afterward.
I could go on and on analyzing and celebrating his stories- there are literally thousands- but it could never do justice to the writing itself. Go read it- you’ll come back and thank me.  All the science fiction you enjoy today stems from Harlan’s launching of the New Wave of science fiction- a movement spearheaded Dangerous Visions, the compilation of writers which Ellison brought together under one directive: write science fiction that crosses boundaries, goes where everyone else is scared to go, and moreover proves that Science Fiction is a serious literary medium.
Years after discovering Ellison I found myself hitting a wall with some of my own writing and I tried something I’d never done before: I looked him up in the phone book and gave him a call. I had no idea what to expect and remembered all too late that there’s a three hour time difference between Atlanta and Los Angeles. Needless to say, his wife Susan was less than thrilled to be hearing from me and her British accent perfectly articulated the lofty irritation in her voice. Then Ellison came on the line and said “yeah?” I stumbled through the blithering idiocy of the question I’d had in mind and he subjected me to several seconds of well deserved verbal abuse before hanging up on me.  By that time I was well aware of Harlan’s no-holds-barred approach to dealing with fans that crossed the line and despite being red-in-the-cheeks embarrassed I was more so elated to have been subjected to a moment of personalized Ellison invective.
I didn’t give up, however, and became a regular contributor to the forums on HarlanEllison.com where Harlan, begrudgingly at first, did give me advice on my writing and eventually invited me out to his house- the Lost Aztec Temple on Mars as its called. I was never able to make that visit, unfortunately, and the one time since then that I was out in LA Harlan was unavailable but he and I did talk on the phone through the years and had some wonderful conversations.  He was not a metal fan but still impressed me with his connections- everyone from Gene Simmons to Otep were personal friends.
I did, however, achieve one of my life long goals before Ellison passed: we collaborated.  In 2012 I was stabbed in the back by someone I thought was a friend and I wrote a song about it called “Dead to Me,” which was performed and recorded by Leaving Babylon, my band at the time.  During the writing process a piece of Ellison’s writing lingered in my thoughts: it’s a short piece from Mind Fields, his collaboration with surrealist painter Jacek Yerka, called The Silence and goes as follows:
This is the cathedral in which your cowardice has been enshrined. The silence of the pulpit is the silence we heard when you did not answer cries for help.  In the eves of this holy place are the festooned remnants of the friends you did not come to assist. In the darkened rooms of rotting staircases are the tattered faces of lovers you betrayed- here your mother, there your father, both gone now and neither with any degree of calm or joy. Here is the sanctuary of your lost chances- there is no pastor, no choir, no stewards, and no supplicants. It is a congregation of one. You will worship here all the remaining days of your life and at night your spirit will kneel on broken glass in the pews.
In my mind, there can be no greater summation, no more brutally accurate articulation of the pain and anguish of betrayal, so I called Ellison and asked if I could read it as an intro to “Dead to Me.” I was floored when Harlan offered to perform the reading himself. A few days later I recorded him doing the reading over the phone and took it to Ledbelly Sound where we were recording the album. It fit perfectly and I achieved one of my lifelong goals: collaborating with Harlan Ellison.
When I left that band last year- with all the irritation and contempt with which one normally leaves a band- I was initially furious with myself for using my one shot with Harlan on a track for a band that didn’t work out. Now, in light of his passing, I’m glad I took the opportunity when I did.  No matter whose album it’s on, I will always take pleasure in knowing that I accomplished that and will forever be grateful to Harlan for the kind gesture. After the album came out I sent him a copy and he replied with a beautiful, typewriter crafted letter what I have framed in my office at home to this very day. It is, arguably, my prize possession.
In closing, I am reminded of Ellison’s short story collection “Angry Candy,” which dealt with death not in the melancholy but in the passionate- the kind of fury that drove Hawkeye Pierce to scream “don’t let the bastard win” as he fought to save a patient in the midst of meatball surgery.  That frustration- encapsulated perfectly in the title I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream captured our shared anguish with the nature of existence: that no matter the degree to which we achieve and thrive in this life we remain bound by the immobile constraints of its temporal existence. We all will die. But more penetrating is the truth that all our loved ones will die, both our personal connections and our great heroes all will pass. I was fortunate enough to count one of the former among the latter.
It seems like the greats are all dying off lately. As Maynard James Keenan put it in a recent Perfect Circle song, “Now Willy Wonka, Major Tom, Ali and Leia have moved on. Signal the final call in all its atomic pageantry.” It feels like that- it feels like it’s about time for humanity to go the way of the dinosaurs. It feels like the bloodthirsty stupidity of the world is finally collapsing in on itself and all of those symbols of the end of days- nuclear war, a giant meteor, or the robot uprising, should be close at hand. But in this darkest hour of humanity we, like the five damned souls trapped inside the Allied Mastercomputer in I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream have a choice: we can capitulate to that creeping sense of nothingness- like Artax sinking in the swamp in the Neverending Story- or we can die comforted in having lived up to the final lines of the I Have No Mouth game’s good ending, thinking “we were all heroes, in spite of ourselves.”
Dylan Thomas may have written an iconic poem that urged us to rage, rage against the dying of the light but Ellison wrote thousands of stories with that passionate undercurrent. So let us not fall into despair at the deaths of the greats and instead aspire in our own work and lives to become worthy of setting foot in their pantheon. Let us all be, as Harlan Ellison so perfectly described it, the Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of The World.

Amen.

Tuesday, April 17, 2018


3 Years of Butthurt: The CuckenJohnson/KingofPol/ExceptionalDetective drama
By Jordan Owen


In the three years since my ultimate falling out with my former business partner, I’ve been spending a lot of time on myself.  I’ve lost a ton of weight, started doing Crossfit, and done a tremendous amount of introspection, all with the goal of growing past the person I was and get back on a course in my life that I could be happy with.  An important part of that has been the decision to avoid any and all public discussion of the behind the scenes drama that had come to define my life throughout 2015.

One of the unfortunate side effects of this is that the “other side” of said drama has gotten to run hog wild proclaiming their version of events without any proper challenge.  While I do have a legally binding agreement with my former partner stating how we are supposed to conduct ourselves in the aftermath of the ending of our partnership, my former partner has, since the signing of the document, violated nearly all of the terms to such a degree that one would be hard pressed to consider what I’m about to discuss an act of bad faith on my part. Indeed, much of the confusion I am about to address comes as a result of misinformation spread by my former associate after the terms of the contract were agreed to.  I bring this up because 1. I cannot address this current matter without discussing, to some extent, the circumstances of the falling out with my former associate and 2. the actions of the person I am about to address in this blogpost were set in motion by bad faith actions taken by my former associate during contract negotiations and after its eventual signing.  Given the wide reaching and heinous nature of my former associate’s actions, I feel I am justified in discussing these matters openly.

Anyway...

Some Background

In the later months of 2015, the eventual end-result product of my attempt to make an anti-Sarkeesian documentary was published and made available on Vimeo for rent or purchase. In the days after its release, a podcaster called “CuckenJohnson” and “KingofPol” announced on Twitter that he would be live streaming the documentary for all to see. I informed him that I would take legal action against him if he did this. Amazingly, he remains butthurt about it to this day and regularly rails about it.  Most recently, he has re-emerged as “The Exceptional Detective” and put up a video containing incredibly slanderous statements about me and my work. I would like to address some of them here. Though I know this individual’s actual name, I will refer to him as “pol” (pronounced “paul” I think) since that is his most commonly referenced screen name.

After being threatened with legal action, “pol” hosted a podcast featuring my former associate in the making of the Sarkeesian Effect.  While the legally binding contract between my former associate and myself had not yet been signed at this point, said former associate had confirmed through his attorney that he had agreed to honor the non-disclosure agreement contained therein. When he appeared with “pol” on the “CuckenJohnson” podcast, he made numerous statements that were in violation of the terms of said agreement, actions which he would later and flagrantly repeat after its eventual signing.

The Video

The video in question can be seen on YouTube.  Here’s my responses to the claims made:

-First of all, your sources. Dude, did you really use Encyclopedia Dramatica as a citation source? I mean, part of me thinks sounds like you meant this whole thing as a joke but you seem fairly serious. Most of your sources are videos by HBomberGuy, an SJW shitheel that went out of his want to slander everyone involved in GamerGate in any public capacity.  You, who are apparently on my side as far as Sarkeesian & Co. are concerned, are going to cite H as one of your sources? Christ...

-I never said the words “I am a con man” in the context in which you are using it. You cut that out of a different context and you know it.

-I do not advocate for Men’s Right’s Activism, in fact I’ve been very critical of the movement at times in the past. Being “Anti-SJW” does not make you an MRA. This was a distinction that GamerGate- a movement which you were a part of- worked hard to impress upon the public at large. Now you are throwing that out the window when it suits you.

-You reiterate the claims of my former associate that he was being “legally harassed” by me. When I hired an attorney attempted to control his behavior he had already:

1. Told the public at large I was stealing money from the filming budget because I was planning to murder Roosh V.  This is not true- what I actually said was that women ought to carry handguns to protect themselves from scumbags like Roosh.  I also was not “stealing money,” I simply wanted to finish the project without him, which I did.

2. Told the public that I was a “sexual psychopath” that was imminently going to go on an Elliot Roger style killing spree. This despite the fact that only a few months prior I had helped the FBI track down and arrest a man who actually was planning such a killing spree.

3. Told the public that I was on board with a new fundraising venture he had launched despite my having no knowledge of it.

4. Told the public that I was contractually bound to go along with said fundraising venture when I was not.

5. Told the public that he would be ccompleting “the actual film” and that my work was not the actual product.

6. Told the public a wild fabrication about health issues I do not have.

7. Had threatened me directly with extortion. And disclosed that he had multiple bloggers set up to run a massive smear campaign on me if I did not go along with his wishes.

This was what I was dealing with and what prompted me to seek a legal remedy. It was not, as has been suggested, frivolous actions taken to pester a better man out of petty jealousy.

Moving on...

-You seem to think that Eros Empire was written to “dismantle” the porn industry... are you also of the belief that Abraham Lincoln shot John Wilkes Booth???

-Yes, I did some videos from my bathtub and yes, looking back, I am embarrassed by them. And I always will be. You got me. Enjoy it.  That said, I figure if the Amazing Atheist can get over that whole banana masturbation video I can be a good sport about being the “bathtub guy.”

-Not that it really matters, but I was watching La Blue Girl vol. 1. Your clip is from Volume 6.

-Yes, my former associate and I took steps to remove a great deal of the backstage drama from public record. Why are you, who are clearly on his side, trying to dredge this up now?

-You really need to rewatch Thunderf00t’s video. Sure, I got roasted, but he put the failure of the project on my former associates shoulders. That’s why my former associate is still at odds with him to this very day.

-That original pitch video was cringy AF. You are right about that.

-We did not get $15k a month on Patreon. That was our goal but at the highest we got a little over 9k.

-We did not go into production with a formal contract in place between us. Of all the “should haves” in regards to this debacle, this is right at the top, second only to “I should have never started a YouTube channel to begin with.”

-We were not accused by our backers of pocketing the money. That was only the naysayers as far as I know.

-I did not threaten any of the backers with legal action. And the clip you showed was of me discussing my botched plans to sue a journalist who had accused me of working a scam with my second film. This is not only dishonest but doesn't even fit the timeline correctly.

-Roosh was never a "top backer" or even a backer of the film at all. Our efforts were initially covered positively on his various websites but he never gave us any money.

-My contempt for Roosh came about because during the production cycle of the Sarkeesian Effect I was being considered as a possible writer for his then active video game website Reaxxion. Because this was an appealing possibility I did a great deal of reading up on Roosh to try and decide if he was someone I wanted to be associated with.  I read his book "Bang" as well as numerous articles and samples of his other books.  I found someone whose approach to women was blatantly and proudly predatory to a very revolting extreme. By the time he published his infamous article advocating for the legalization of rape, I was already aware of his earnest views that women should be made the legal property of men as well as his deeply disturbing approach to seduction and I decided I had had enough- not only would I not consider writing for him but I would not have him associated with the project even tangentially.

-Roosh and I have never spoken directly and he has never given me advice directly. Also I never threatened him with legal action nor do I have any reason to that I'm aware of.

-I did not breach any contract when I initially severed ties with my former associate because there wasn't one. Additionally, I ultimately finished the film within the time frame we had originally allotted ourselves.

-I did not erase any mention of my former associate from the credits of the film on IMDB.com. Was clicking on “full cast and crew” just too difficult for you?

-You cut in a later video of my trying to raise money for my personal vlogging efforts that is actually from after the Sarkeesian Effect was finished. Again, you are dishonest. Not that you care.

-I did not reach out to the backers to, as you put it, raise additional funds despite already having the money to finish it.  That was what my former associate did and what prompted me to part ways a second time.

-The video response I did to Metokur was in response to his complaint that people were trying to profit off of GamerGate. My argument was that if we wanted to the movement to succeed we needed to show that we had market value as a demographic. This was ultimately what made the SJW attempt to colonize gaming a failure- they demonstrated that they had no ability to shift the market one way or the other.  GamerGate, on the other hand, had extraordinary market value as demonstrated by the dramatically increased sales of GamerGate approved products on Steam.  As someone who is proudly pro-capitalism, I believe that this is a crucial part of any major social shift.

-No person who contributed money to the project was charged to watch the film. Every backer of the film was made able to see it for free. It was only those persons who had not contributed to the crowdfunding campaign that were expected to pay to see it.

-Contrary to your claims, there was not widespread anger from the public at large at having to pay to see the finished product. Most people understand the very simple and basic concept of value-for-value exchange that fuels our modern first-world society.  It was only your buddy "KingofPol" who got butthurt at not being able to make it free to everyone.

-I never "made my money back" on the Sarkeesian Effect. Ultimately I saw ~$2,000 in return on a $54,000.

-I was not forced to make the film available for free as a response to negative backlash. I made it available for free because I had a 2 year subscription to Vimeo Pro, which was what allowed me to sell the movie, and by the end of two years I hadn't had any sales in months so I opted out of renewing the subscription and made it available for free. Again, you're manipulating the timeline.

-I did not "steal" my former associate's "rights to the film" and he was not being "held hostage by lawyers." And I only had one lawyer, not this vast legal team you imply. We were in legal negotiations to determine who, in absence of a preexisting contract, had the rights to what elements of the production materials and both of our attorney's requested- as a mutual show of good faith- that we not discuss these matters publicly.  This is fairly standard procedure in these matters. During this time my only public comment on the matter was one made with the approval of my attorney after my former associate had gone public with more wild claims, including those about my personal health, that he had already assured us he would not do during negotiations. I made no other public discussion of the matter during this time while my former associate lashed out publicly to such a degree that stiff penalties were imposed in our negotiated contract for further breaches.

-Wait... you think that I lied about my associate and I being partners again under a mediator? He lavished praise on our mediator throughout the whole process! Also... the legal negotiations didn't start until after we'd severed ties the second time. You know, if you're going to call yourself the "Exceptional Detective," you really need to be able to construct a working timeline.

-I did not claim all funding under my own banner.  My former associate launched a fundraising campaign without my consent that routed new funding directly into his own pocket.

-Okay... wow... more timeline failure.  Thunderf00t's video did not prompt me to quit vlogging. That decision came months later after it became clear my planned Sierra doc was kaput. Also, I did not reemerge "years later." The Sierra doc was announced two months after the Sarkeesian Effect came out.

-Corey Cole did not already know who I was when the Sierra doc was announced.  Also, you used "ironically" incorrectly.

-I did not threaten Corey Cole with legal action.  He and I corresponded privately and buried the hatchet quietly on polite terms.

So... that wraps up the claims in your video.  One lie after another.

On Encopresis

While this is not mentioned in this video, my former associate likes to claim that during a conversation that included himself and our mediator I admitted to having "encopresis," a condition which he claims results in a person loosing control of their bowels when having a panic attack.  Okay, three things:

1. I said no such thing. The word I used was "emetophobic," a reference to the fact that becoming sick at my stomach causes me anxiety where many people aren't phased by vomiting at all. Now, I know that timelines don't quite work for you, so let me simplify what I just said: feeling nauseous causes me anxiety. NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. Put that on some flash cards for handy reference during your next batch of photoshoppings.

2. "Encopresis" does not describe the condition that he is referring to. Go look it up- it's a condition very young children get when they refuse to use the toilet and become so constipated that they eventually lose control of their bowels. Encopresis is virtually unheard of among adults because they're generally, you know, willing to use the toilet.

3. Do you really think I'm so stupid that I would admit something like that to the person who just a few weeks prior was telling people I was about to go on a killing spree????

In Conclusion

Look, I know all of this stems from my refusal to allow "pol" to stream the documentary and, tangentially, refusing to appear on his podcast. I understand being angry about that in the moment but my god man... it's been THREE YEARS and you're still going like this happened yesterday. I mean Jesus Louiseus... don't you have ANYTHING better to do?  Do you have any idea how much garbage I've had to let go of in the last three years???

Whatever... I have a headache.

-Jordan