The Harlan Ellison Hornbook

by Harlan Ellison

  INSTALLMENT 7 | 14 DECEMBER 72

  WITH BLOCH AND BORMANN IN BRAZIL

  One of these days, as I’ve been saying for the last year or two, I’m going to pick up my ass and move to Scotland. My friends refuse to accept the statement at face value. They live in a universe where the natural forces don’t change. It has held me in it, since the dawn of memory, and they seem unable to conceive of it without me. They are wrong. I will go. And soon.

  Don’t ask why Scotland, I can’t give you rational answers. I know Ireland will admit me, as a writer, free of taxes, and that is a situation greatly to be admired, but something in my blood and bones draws me to Scotland. I’ve never been there, but I’ve read about it, and it sounds like precisely what I’m looking for: a country of the mind that is quiet, far, free of complications, chill and distant. In my fantasy-eye I see myself sitting before a fireplace, smoking my pipe and reading one of the millions of books I’ve never had the time to read. In that wonderful eye I’m wearing a turtleneck sweater and there’s a shaggy dog lying somewhere nearby. Of late, sadly, since the death of my dog Ahbhu, the vision grows misty at that part. Maybe I won’t have a dog. But it’s Scotland, I’m in no doubt about that. Somewhere far North, near the Lochs, where no one will erect a missile base, or carve out a freeway; somewhere devoid of McDonald’s greaseburgers and lacquered ladies; somewhere out of touch where phones won’t ring with offers I can’t refuse; a place where letters will be slow in arriving, bearing their nickel-and-dime messages of involvement and emotional need (see last week’s diatribe in this space); a place where I can sit at my typewriter and put down all the stories that movies and television prevent me from writing now.

  Dreams. How we live in them. How they make the days of keeping appointments and spending time in the company of people who say things we’ve heard in just those same words a thousand times…just a little more bearable. Without them, what an utter desolation of predictability and frustration. Even for the best of us. Even for the most unstructured of us, the freest of us. Dreams. Without them, the suicide statistics would be catastrophic.

  And yet, the best dreams of all are not the ones we carry with us for years or the ones we realize or the ones we never turn into reality. The best dreams are the ones that come upon us suddenly, startling us like fauns in a forest. The ones we never knew we had, till we were living them.

  I’ll tell you one that happened to me.

  Despite my hunger to live in Scotland, I’m not much of a world traveler. I’ve been all over the United States, god knows, but I’ve never been to Europe. The farthest I’ve been is to Brazil.

  In 1969 I was invited—along with such luminaries as Roger Corman, Josef von Sternberg, Roman Polanski, Diane Varsi plus a gaggle of science fiction writers including Heinlein, Bester, Harrison, Sheckley, Van Vogt and Farmer—to be a guest of the 2nd International Film Festival of Rio de Janeiro. In company with a redheaded screenwriter named Leigh Chapman, I made the trip, and was rather thoroughly depressed. The gap between wealthy and poor in Brazil is even more marked and cataclysmic than here in the States. I’ve written about it elsewhere, and it has nothing to do with the dream that came to me while in Rio. But it was the overlying patina of awfulness that marked the journey.

  The dream came to me in this way:

  As “notables,” we received invitations to endless embassy receptions. Rio went bananas over the film/sf folk. Everywhere we went, we were cheered as though we had somehow contributed to the advancement of Western Society, when, in point of fact, we were only a divertissement for the Leblon billionaires; the twentieth-century version of bread and circuses.

  After the first couple such social orgies, staged with incredible opulence in settings of art and grandeur (and so painful to me personally, when matched against the sights that had been burned into my mind: the peons, in their hillside favellas, feeding a dozen family members, children, animals, from one big kettle in the front “yard” of their tin-roofed hovels…going without food so they could buy candles to burn on the steps of the glorious Catholic churches…the women wearing themselves down working in the factories so their shark-thin young men could hustle wealthy American and German widows on the Copacabana beach), I could attend no others.

  Yet my hideous sense of gallows humor urged me to make one special reception. We received an invitation to the Polish Embassy’s shindig.

  I confess to an ugliness of nature that demanded I see what the Polish Embassy was like.

  We were advised it was black tie, and that we should be assembled in front of our hotel at 5:00 to be transported by limousines. It was 120° in Rio that summer, and even the air conditioning in the hotel was gasping. So at quarter to five we found ourselves decked out in elegance, standing on the restaurant patio, waiting for the limousines that were promised.

  In Rio, time comes slathered with molasses. When they say 5:00 they mean 5:30 if you’re lucky, 6:00 if they’re on time, 6:30 if they’re running true to form, and 7:00 if they’re a little late. At 7:30 we were all wilted and swimming in our tuxedos. And finally, the “limousines” arrived: four old buses. We were sogged aboard and driven to the Polish Embassy.

  Understand this: in Rio, the embassies outdo one another for sumptuousness. The Spanish Embassy is in a renovated villa, festooned with ancient tapestries, stained-glass windows, antiques, reeking of history. Harry Harrison told me about it. He went, I didn’t. The American reception was held in an art museum, with three rock bands, light shows and old movies being flashed across the walls, champagne flowing, all free-form and glass walls. One could expect no less from the Polish Embassy. Unless one had a gallows sense of humor.

  The Polish Embassy was like a bad Polack joke. It was on the third floor of an apartment building, a huge empty series of rooms devoid of furniture. No air conditioning. No music. The refreshments consisted of cornucopial flowings of slivovitz and a species of vodka Brian Aldiss assured me could be used to launch a Soyuz rocket into Lunar orbit. (Not being a drinker, I have to rely on the opinions of experts in these matters.)

  The Polish attachés were sensational. To a man they were all short, round, cherubic and clothed in heavy wool suits that were fashionable around 1938. Miraculously, even in the humid, dripping atmosphere of the apartment, suddenly jammed with several hundred sweating aliens, all babbling in various tongues, with droplets of moisture condensing on the walls, even in their wool suits, none of them perspired. Maybe that’s why the Soviets do so well in the Cold War. Sorry about that.

  I wandered around with Robert Bloch (the novelist who wrote, among other things, PSYCHO; the scenarist who wrote, among other things, Asylum) while the Poles had their picture taken with the stunning Leigh Chapman, who could not convince them she wasn’t a movie star. On one wall in what we took to be the living room of the empty apartment, we found a painting. Bob and I looked at it, then looked at each other. A chill ran up our spines. “Does that look to you like what it looks like to me?” I asked. He nodded.

  The painting was a hideous green and yellow smash of disturbing alienness. It looked like something straight out of a Lovecraft story: the unnamable and unspeakable Elder God named Yog-Sothoth, or maybe Yig, or a close relative. We shuddered and walked away, and neither of us went back into that room throughout the reception. We pressed our way into the farthest corner of the “dining room,” trying with equal vigor to get as far away from that painting as possible and to get next to the one open window in the place.

  And here’s where I fell into the dream.

  Or maybe it was a nightmare.

  I tell it precisely as it happened, without comment. It is true. You can ask Robert Bloch, a man who does not lie.

  I was looking out the window, frankly bored, when my eyes traveled across the narrow street to the apartment building across from us. One floor above us, across the way, the curtains were parted, revealing the interior of an apartment. I stared into that apartment for several seconds before my mind would accept what I was see
ing:

  On the wall was an enormous red flag with the Nazi swastika emblazoned in the center. The flag was torn and frayed at the edges, as though it had been ripped suddenly from the wall of a building going up in flames. But perhaps I dramatize. It may just have been old and weathered.

  On another wall, there was a huge framed photograph of Adolf Hitler.

  And marching back and forth in front of the window was a gentleman whose face I could not see, dressed in the black leather and livery of an SS officer. He was marching stiffly, in what newsreels have always advised me was a “goose-step.”

  I stared, dumbfounded, for a minute or two. Then I nudged Bob Bloch. “Take a look out the window,” I said, softly, fearing for my sanity. “Into that apartment across the street. And tell me if I see what I see.”

  Bob bent around me and looked. He was silent for some time. Then he looked around at me and tried to say something several times. When he finally got it out, it was a breathy kind of, “Oh, my God.”

  We called several other people’s attention to it, and they all seemed chilled by the sight. But they all saw it. After a few minutes, the fellow in the other apartment saw us staring, and he pulled the curtains.

  Further, deponent sayeth not, save to comment that Ladislas Farago and his stories of Martin Bormann being in Argentina may be accurate, and that at moments like that, sweltering in a sudden dream, one realizes how much closer to reality fantasy is than we would like to believe.

  INSTALLMENT 8 |

  Interim Memo

  The column, appearing weekly in an influential Los Angeles newspaper, provided a fine dodge for cadging free meals. At least, that was my despicable intention. But I discovered, when I had dinnier on “professional courtesy” at a joint that damned near poisoned me, that if I was to retain my integrity I had to pay for the meals, and even go for a look-see incognito.

  From this reevaluation of my purposes, I came to the belief that there is no point in acquiring power, position, vast wealth or influence unless one can use it for self-serving ends. Having those things is a genuine pain in the ass. Takes a lot of time, makes people try to bump you off, narrows your choices and surrounds you with people you can’t trust. So if you plan to be the next Kingfish or Supreme Ruler, you’d better get started right now corrupting yourself. Otherwise, shine it on.

  Oh, and sadly, El Palenque is long gone.

  Last I heard, the Bambi Bakery was doing nicely with Roberto’s brother Rudy still at the helm; but Roberto Rivera—a sweet man—was managing something called Myron’s Discotheque. That was three years ago. Damn! He ran a swell eatery!

  INSTALLMENT 8 | 21 DECEMBER 72

  THE FIRST OF 3 CULINARY COMMENTS

  The adage goes, “Americans eat to live; the French live to eat.” Somehow, I don’t think that’s either entirely accurate or all-encompassing; but as one who was a gourmet reporter for a number of years, I’ve come to appreciate the joys of good dining. Granted, in this land of McDonald Shitburgers and the revolving fans atop Kentucky Colonel Chicken Cesspools blowing the ghastly stench of rancid cooking fat across the freeways and for miles thereabout, it is more and more difficult to get a meal that doesn’t leave one with a case of Montezuma’s Revenge…even so it behooves me, as a man of conscience, to refer you to an incredibly fine restaurant here in Los Angeles: one that serves exemplary food, charges reasonably, offers a pleasant ambience and whose owner treats his customers with respect and affection. As opposed to the hordes of subdued-lighting, plastichromed, expense-account-writeoff lunch counters that have developed terminal cases of acromegaly-cum-pomposity and stiff you a week’s wages for food a lemming would rather dive over a cliff than eat.

  (Actually, the realities of dining in Los Angeles are only reflective of the freeway/Howard Johnson/Taco Bell/Jack inna Box/Co’Cola/frozen french fries idiom into which all Amurrica has been lured over the past thirty-five years. To my certain knowledge there are people between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five who have never tasted real food. From their lips, Trilby-like, the phrase, “Gimme a jumboburger an’ frenchfries anna coke,” leaps unbidden whenever their stomachs toll trough-time. For those miserable unfortunates no uplift or enrichment, such as one derives from the zucchini florentine at Musso & Frank’s Grill, the beefsteak tomatoes and onion slathered with real chunky Roquefort at the Pacific Dining Car, the hot dogs at Pink’s, the moussaka at Greektown…for them only the dark tunnel of heartburn and pseudo-beef patties immolated in yak butter, or whatever it is Pup’n’Taco uses. And it’s their own fault, of course. As Jefferson said, “People get pretty much the kind of government they deserve.” Which explains Nixon, Reagan and, by extension, the kind of food they permit to be shoved at them. Again, by extension, the dining scene runs a parallel to the situation with hookers in L.A. as opposed to the rest of the country. A young lady of my acquaintance, a professional woman in the field of amour, came out here from New York and was both delighted and amazed at the parameters of prostitution. She commented that the johns out here are so timorous and corrupted by Angeleno life that all they expect for their money is a blowjob. In Manhattan, she mused, a hooker wouldn’t last a day with that kind of sole stock in trade. She settled down in Laurel Canyon, happy as an Australian cuscus; the working hours were better, the pay higher, and the wear and tear on her private parts infinitely less. But…I digress.)

  So in what will probably be a vainglorious attempt to wrench your culinary habits out of the slough of despond into which they have sunk, let me tell you about El Palenque.

  To begin with, it’s an Argentinian restaurant.

  In the best traditions of that special kind of cooking.

  Where Mexican cooking is spicy and aggressive, Argentinian food is solid and masterful without reaming your sinuses. It is primarily meats…steaks and sausages and other proteins that fill your belly with substance and your mouth with heavenly tastes. Side dishes are similarly unfrightening, but bold.

  El Palenque (pronounced puh-lenk-ay) means “the hitching post.” It can be found at 660 N. Larchmont, on the corner of Melrose Avenue; one block west of Gower, well within spitting distance of Paramount Studios.

  It’s a small place. If you worked at it, you could probably cram in about half-a-dozen automobiles…about that size. There’s a bar, though beer and wines are all you can get; if it’s booze you want, go to the Luau. Food is what El Palenque offers, in abundance, and at prices that will gladden your heart.

  The owner is Roberto Rivera, round and pleasant, and possessed of a mild Latin charm that is happily light-years away from the cloying toadiness of most maître d’s on Restaurant Row. If pressed, Mr. Rivera will tell you he is from Honduras and, with his brother Rudy, opened the Bambi Bakery on Santa Monica in 1964. (It is from Brother Rudy’s bakery that El Palenque gets the amazingly delicious bread it serves; it comes in small rolls the size of your hand, and is served at table warm enough to melt the butter without great clots falling in your lap.) Because of Mr. Rivera’s peripatetic background, the menu is not strictly Argentinian, though all the favorite gaucho dishes can be found therein. Lynda tried the Lomito Saltado the other night ($2.35 à la carte, $2.75 on the full dinner), and I won’t say she raved about it, but when she had eaten all there was on the plate, she began to whimper. When I asked her why, she told me that she was sad there was no more to eat. When I offered to get her another order she added that she was stuffed full—there’d been more than enough to bulge the sexy space where her top and slacks left naked belly—but she was distraught to think there was no more of that goodness to be force-fed. Lomito Saltado, for the two or three of you out there who don’t know it, is a Peruvian wonder containing chunks of sirloin steak, cooked with tomato and onions, mixed with golden brown french fries and served with rice.

  Argentinian, Peruvian…and the side orders of Platano Fritos are Cuban. Again, for the uninitiated, platanos are the exquisite green bananas called plantains, fried till they assume the color of Spanish doubloons. They are
served in a heaping jumble with sour cream. I can assure the gourmets in the audience that I have not tasted such well-prepared and oil-free plantains since one remarkable dining experience in the Irish Channel in New Orleans several years ago.

  Preparation of these Central and South American dishes is effected by two stalwarts: Vidal, the night chef (with a sure assist from Roberto), and “Toyi,” who has been with the Rivera family for more years than they can count. “Toyi” prepares most of the dishes earlier in the day, setting them up in such a way that Luis, the waiter, can hustle them to your table steaming hot from the kitchen. Luis, by the way, is one helluva waiter. Though I can’t swear to it, I’m sure he must have tiny wings on his feet…for the service at El Palenque is not merely fast, it is virtually instantaneous.

  And when it comes, ah! What happiness. Let me give you a suggestion for a typical dinner:

  Begin with either a Chi-Chi cocktail or a margarita. Then a small salad, crunchy and fresh and nicely accoutered with bleu cheese dressing. It isn’t a big, or even an elaborate salad, the usual staples, but it rests lightly in the stomach and doesn’t cloud the main issues, yet to come.

  For the appetizer course, try the meat turnovers, the empanadas. They’re akin to kreplach, but the pastry shell is crisp and brown, and the meat inside is handsomely spiced, but not hellish.

  The main course ranges from familiar dishes like soft beef tacos (for those who venture into unknown lands toe-first) and traditional T-Bone and New York steaks; to the full gaucho dinner, the parrilla mixta, which includes ribs, skirt steak, sweetbreads, kidneys, plain and black sausages, and comes served crackling on its own hibachi. The mixta, I must warn you, is a big meal. Though I’ve seen one person almost finish the selection, he had not eaten all day and was ravenous…and even so, he had to have help to the car afterward. But despite his bloated appearance, he wore a beatific smile.