trevanian
Rear Admiral
Not sure how many of you hold Harlan Ellison's views in the same high esteem I do, but regardless ...
following snipped off the Ellison site:
I HAVE LET YOU DOWN
Friday night, Susan and I, in company with Josh and Chef Vanessa, went to a live theatrical production. It had one more night to run, before it closed last night, the 19th.
I have spent the greater part of my life, from being a kid actor at age nine to whatever, and even actually singing in old-time Minstrel Revues, to community theatre, to repertory, to Summer Stock, to the Borscht Belt, to Broadway, off-Broadway, to films and movies and television, as actor, director, writer, editor, stagehand, roadie, curtain puller, janitor ...
Whatever "theater," I think I've done a stint at it.
I have been there at Great Moments: Alfred Drake and Dolores Grey in the original KISMET, Jose Ferrer in THE SHRIKE, Gwen Verdon in DAMN YANKEES, even the weeknight when every single theater on Broadway went dark so the whole thespic community could go see the final performance (after oh maybe a week's run
and criminally negative reviews) of Christopher Plummer as ARTURO UI. I was at the West End for Gielgud and Richardson doing Pinter's NO MAN'S LAND; opening night of Stoppard; and on and on and on.
Friday night certainly in the top six--at most--of unbelievable, once-in-a-lifetime, one can NEVER lose the memory of it, nights in my 75 years of being, and being IN, the theater. And I failed you, my friends. I have done you, any one of you within even 100 miles of Los Angeles, a disservice I cannot, now, undo.
Jeffrey Combs in NEVERMORE: An Evening with Edgar Allan Poe.
It was a measly twenty buck to see Jeffrey Combs, the IMPERIAL Jeff Combs, unleash the life and tragedy of the first great American fantasist of worldwide stature. Jeffrey Combs WAS Edgar Allan Poe. The Steve Allen Theater on Sunset Boulevard was mesmerized. This was not some "ego evening" as most of these cobbled-up attention-grabs turn out to be, where the "name" is the franchise, squeezed out of tubes of dramatic or comedic lard for some inane tv whelp to batten on. THIS was a night only a Poe could have described.
And we rushed back here after the curtains closed, and I tried for three hours, midst fools overloading this blathermouth medium with orders for iphones and tvs and other crap devices of delivery that probably NEVER NEVER NEVER in the best nanosecond of their existences, will broadcast to you anything as imperial, as magnificent, as tragic and glorious as the remarkable Mr. Combs, Mr. Poe, telling of his times, and reciting his work.
Three hours, may I be struck dead if that is hyperbole...THREE HOURS trying to put up, right here, THAT MESSAGE, so you could still have time to break your dinner dates, skip your shopping, blow off your friends and family, sell your children into slavery, do WHATEVER you had to do, to get to Los Angeles, to the Theater, to bear with you for the rest of your days the special unparalleled memory of a night spent in genuine awe and bedazzlement as (what I now realize is) one of the premier actors of our time giving a sterling, a spectacular, a stunningly imperial and unique performance.
Three hours. And nothing.
Jeffrey Combs.
Mr. Poe went away last night, and you did not encounter him. My fault, and I am genuinely bitter about it. I called a few close friends and BEGGED them to blow-off whatever (by noblest comparison) plans they had for last night. Not one of them seemed to understand what I was BEGGING them to do. Not even those in the theater. "I have dinner plans..." etcetera. "No, you don't get it!" I implored, "You can have dinner earlier, later, the next day, never! This is once in your lifetime."
Just this once.
I cannot apologize to THEM, because they chose lesser pursuits voluntarily. Prisoners of their own schedules. They may be my oldest friends, but fuck'm. They cut their own throats for comparative pyrites, when a mountain of gold was offered them.
But you...
I failed YOU, however many three or five might have been within reach. You might have heard the imperative... I could not get through to you on the one occasion I truly and desperately needed this despicable instrument to serve its donkey worth.
Mr. Combs will appear in NEVERMORE on Poe's birthday next month, January, in Baltimore, in the small church next to the graveyard where the great Poe lies buried. If you are on the East Coast, ANYWHERE on the East Coast, I promise you that your attendance at THAT venue will engolden your every night thereafter. I cannot begin to convey the effulgence of such a night, such a performance.
I have failed some of you...I have at least informed a few other of you...but Friday night last, in the light and shadow of Jeffrey Combs, I put a glorious cap on at least one aspect of my life.
Jeffrey Combs in NEVERMORE. Thank you, Mr.Combs.
And good night, Mr. Poe.
Harlan Ellison
following snipped off the Ellison site:
I HAVE LET YOU DOWN
Friday night, Susan and I, in company with Josh and Chef Vanessa, went to a live theatrical production. It had one more night to run, before it closed last night, the 19th.
I have spent the greater part of my life, from being a kid actor at age nine to whatever, and even actually singing in old-time Minstrel Revues, to community theatre, to repertory, to Summer Stock, to the Borscht Belt, to Broadway, off-Broadway, to films and movies and television, as actor, director, writer, editor, stagehand, roadie, curtain puller, janitor ...
Whatever "theater," I think I've done a stint at it.
I have been there at Great Moments: Alfred Drake and Dolores Grey in the original KISMET, Jose Ferrer in THE SHRIKE, Gwen Verdon in DAMN YANKEES, even the weeknight when every single theater on Broadway went dark so the whole thespic community could go see the final performance (after oh maybe a week's run
and criminally negative reviews) of Christopher Plummer as ARTURO UI. I was at the West End for Gielgud and Richardson doing Pinter's NO MAN'S LAND; opening night of Stoppard; and on and on and on.
Friday night certainly in the top six--at most--of unbelievable, once-in-a-lifetime, one can NEVER lose the memory of it, nights in my 75 years of being, and being IN, the theater. And I failed you, my friends. I have done you, any one of you within even 100 miles of Los Angeles, a disservice I cannot, now, undo.
Jeffrey Combs in NEVERMORE: An Evening with Edgar Allan Poe.
It was a measly twenty buck to see Jeffrey Combs, the IMPERIAL Jeff Combs, unleash the life and tragedy of the first great American fantasist of worldwide stature. Jeffrey Combs WAS Edgar Allan Poe. The Steve Allen Theater on Sunset Boulevard was mesmerized. This was not some "ego evening" as most of these cobbled-up attention-grabs turn out to be, where the "name" is the franchise, squeezed out of tubes of dramatic or comedic lard for some inane tv whelp to batten on. THIS was a night only a Poe could have described.
And we rushed back here after the curtains closed, and I tried for three hours, midst fools overloading this blathermouth medium with orders for iphones and tvs and other crap devices of delivery that probably NEVER NEVER NEVER in the best nanosecond of their existences, will broadcast to you anything as imperial, as magnificent, as tragic and glorious as the remarkable Mr. Combs, Mr. Poe, telling of his times, and reciting his work.
Three hours, may I be struck dead if that is hyperbole...THREE HOURS trying to put up, right here, THAT MESSAGE, so you could still have time to break your dinner dates, skip your shopping, blow off your friends and family, sell your children into slavery, do WHATEVER you had to do, to get to Los Angeles, to the Theater, to bear with you for the rest of your days the special unparalleled memory of a night spent in genuine awe and bedazzlement as (what I now realize is) one of the premier actors of our time giving a sterling, a spectacular, a stunningly imperial and unique performance.
Three hours. And nothing.
Jeffrey Combs.
Mr. Poe went away last night, and you did not encounter him. My fault, and I am genuinely bitter about it. I called a few close friends and BEGGED them to blow-off whatever (by noblest comparison) plans they had for last night. Not one of them seemed to understand what I was BEGGING them to do. Not even those in the theater. "I have dinner plans..." etcetera. "No, you don't get it!" I implored, "You can have dinner earlier, later, the next day, never! This is once in your lifetime."
Just this once.
I cannot apologize to THEM, because they chose lesser pursuits voluntarily. Prisoners of their own schedules. They may be my oldest friends, but fuck'm. They cut their own throats for comparative pyrites, when a mountain of gold was offered them.
But you...
I failed YOU, however many three or five might have been within reach. You might have heard the imperative... I could not get through to you on the one occasion I truly and desperately needed this despicable instrument to serve its donkey worth.
Mr. Combs will appear in NEVERMORE on Poe's birthday next month, January, in Baltimore, in the small church next to the graveyard where the great Poe lies buried. If you are on the East Coast, ANYWHERE on the East Coast, I promise you that your attendance at THAT venue will engolden your every night thereafter. I cannot begin to convey the effulgence of such a night, such a performance.
I have failed some of you...I have at least informed a few other of you...but Friday night last, in the light and shadow of Jeffrey Combs, I put a glorious cap on at least one aspect of my life.
Jeffrey Combs in NEVERMORE. Thank you, Mr.Combs.
And good night, Mr. Poe.
Harlan Ellison
