In which a 70+ year old man makes things better
OK, much less crankypants for two reasons:
1) Less than an hour before I leave
2) Just had an amazing chat with Harlan Ellison. He's the subject of a new documentary called "Dreams With Sharp Teeth," which will screen at South By Southwest (SXSW) where I'll be in early March.
Here is the knock-knock joke he told me within seconds of getting on the phone:
HE: Knock-Knock
ME: Who's there?
HE: Objective Case.
ME: Objective Case who?
HE: No, that would be "Objective Case Whom"!
And so it went….
Squee!
[this is good] I am not given to hero worship much but Harlan Ellison? Oh yes yes yes indeed!
I love the joke 🙂
[this is good]
I saw him speak at MIT a few years ago with Neil Gaiman and Peter David; they’re all buds. Some doofus in the audience started spouting out about copyright, and Harlan took over the stage and rent forth his most vitriolic bile at this skinny little undergrad nerdlet.
He is quite the surly curmudgeon, but he’s a fascinating guy.
He’s incredibly curmudgeonly, and delightful at it. He says when he gives speeches he ends with something like “and if I haven’t offended your race, creed, nationality, etc. by now, please stand up.” And he added there’s always someone who *does* and says something like “Well, I’m Swiss, and you haven’t offended me,” so then Ellison says he’ll say something like “oh, so you’re Swiss? You all pretended to be neutral during WWII and instead you were all secretly Nazis!”
I have no idea who Harlan is but I loved the joke!
If you appreciate such classy humor 😀 as I do, then read up on Harlan!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_Ellison