Harlan Ellison's Watching (80 page)

It provides an answer, of sorts.

The Rolling Stones are singing "Ruby Tuesday" on the London label.

"Sally and I feel this: The time when an individual in our culture can be sustained merely by communication between himself and his mate is past. We find ourselves living in a time when religion, social contacts, the family unit, all of them have undergone a metamorphosis. Inhabitants of almost every social strata have places to go where they can meet with people of similar backgrounds and tastes, to express themselves, to release their tensions and feel they belong. We looked around and were surprised to see that many of the people we considered valuable and interesting had no such place. So we conceived The Daisy. We never thought for a moment it wouldn't succeed, but making money was the smallest part of the original conception."

(
Vignette The Third:
The Daisy will be two years old on October 15th. When the first invitations went out, to anyone the Hansons thought would fit into their world view of The Beautiful People, the cost was $200 plus $40 Federal tax, merely for membership plus $10 per month dues plus $2 Federal tax plus the bar bill per visit. Drinks are $1.50 each. For the first two months after mailing, they had only one member—and he lived in New York. Jack Hanson, dressed in tennis sweater, white ducks and sneakers, walks up Beverly Drive, on his way to lunch at La Scala Boutique. A multimillionaire contractor leans out of his Imperial's window, paused at the stoplight on the corner of Santa Monica. "Hey, Jack!" he yells. "How's it going with the Daisy?" Hanson grins his infectious, ageless grin "Terrific!" he yells back. "We're going to have to close off membership in about two weeks, we've got almost four hundred now." He waves and jogs on toward lunch. The contractor in the Imperial sits at the light, lips pursed. The cars behind him honk angrily. He takes off in a hurry. That night he returns his membership blank, with a check.)

Even knowing that Hollywood folk are legendary for not wanting to be associated with a flop (as in the expression "flop house"), Hanson had invested another hundred thousand dollars to remodel the old Romanoff's. Black and rust walls, fireplace in the main room, heavy liquor stock, because he was also aware that these same tippy-toe types from the Land of Trepidation are petrified
not
to be associated with success.

While he only had four members, he was announcing he had four hundred. And soon, myth became reality. Open from nine to two, seven nights a week, even at prices only the leisure class would consider reasonable, The Daisy's membership is now relatively sealed up. It now costs $500 to join, though the Federal taxes have been removed. Uh, sealed up, that is, unless you happen to be Julie Andrews, who recently became a member. Says Hanson, "There are some people you have to let join, even if you're booked solid. The other members like to be around them, to be where the famous hang out." And if you happen to be a Mrs. Stockmeier the polite reply is, "We have over three hundred people waiting to join." Polite, but firm.

The Beatles are singing "Penny Lane" on the Capitol label. Harper's Bizarre is singing "Feelin' Groovy" on the Warner Bros. label. Billie Holiday is singing "Night and Day" on the Vocalion label. (Who??)

But when one talks at greater length with the Hansons, one realizes that what they are postulating is not merely a village cracker barrel scene for the very rich, but a totality—an empire of many-dimensioned sensuality; a pleasure dome that reaches The Beautiful People on many levels. They sell the special Jax clothes to a certain kind of woman, with the accent on the legs and backside. And those Beautiful Women wear those Jax clothes to The Daisy where they build their social scene and talk about Daisy-oriented topics. And they read
Cinema
magazine (a recent Hanson acquisition, a Hanson "hobby") where they find the Daisy-oriented things to talk about. And they play softball on Sunday at Barrington Plaza Park with Hanson, where they can look at the women who wear Jax clothes sitting in the bleachers, and think about getting invited to the Hansons' after-hours sessions at the big house in Beverly Hills where they'll play "sardines" and "kick the can."

The Daisy is the future of the leisure class in microcosm, as the Hansons see it. "Everybody lovely, everybody rich."

The Electric Prunes are singing "I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night" on the Warner Bros. label.

(
Vignette The Fourth:
Two of the Beautiful People, Peter O'Toole and Jason Robards, Jr. come staggering into The Daisy after 2 AM when the fountains stop flowing. They demand liquor. They are refused. They get ugly. They are bounced. They are excluded from The Daisy. "Creative people are often hostile," says Jack Hanson, "and The Daisy is filled with, and caters to, creative people.")

A nightmare night at The Daisy. All the self-conscious cliques finding their strength in numbers, sitting in their corners, looking beautiful. It's jammed. Bodies pressed on bodies. A studio head, deep in his cups, does the watusi on the toes of a man beside him. He is asked to stop it. He gets surly, tells the other man to pack his bags, he'll never work in Hollywood again. A business executive of a smaller television studio comes through the door with his mistress. The night before he was in attendance with his wife. His ego needs the boost so much, he doesn't really care if word gets back through the jungle telegraph to his wife. He plays pool as though his life depended on it; his mistress watches, bemused. Hoagy Carmichael orders another Highland Queen Scotch mist. Donovan sings "Mellow Yellow" on the Epic label.

A conversation is overheard: "We saw Britt Ekland in the new Peter Sellers film." "How did she look?" "Gorgeous." "We saw her on several magazine covers in London, she was on
Vogue
." "How old is she?" "Twenty-one." "Not quite over the hill yet." The favorite customers of The Daisy move in and out, around and about . . . the Peter Brens; Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and their children; Ronnie Buck who owns the 9000 Building on Sunset and now wants to be known as a film producer; Jack Haley, Jr.; Tom Mankiewicz; Alan Ladd, Jr.; Richard Pryor, the comic; Mike Brown, sitting quietly at the bar, then asking the bartender, Rich, how many boys are working that night, and when told, leaving a heavy sugar tip to be split among them.

And the women. All the long-legged, pale women with their hungry eyes. The movement of the highest-priced pelvises in the world, the swirl of long flat blonde hair, the arch of eyebrows, the salivation of men tied to wives who know they cheat. "Anyone who doesn't have a strong marriage shouldn't come into The Daisy," Jack Hanson says, and he says it soberly. A man could go mad here. The sheer, overwhelming bulk of beauty is gagging. A starving child turned loose in a candy store. The famous, the elegant, the sinewy, they all parade naked to the eyes. Doug McClure dances in the very center of the floor with a small girl wearing a white leather Beatle cap. He is the very epitome of a high school girl's image of what a "hero" should be. He is absolutely perfect, formed and molded out of all the perfection dreams of a society that worships beauty. And finally magic becomes reality . . .

(
Vignette The Last:
Dancing together, there amidst the flotsam and jetsam of Hollywood's glory, is the perfect jewel of meaning that explains what The Daisy is all about.

(A couple. A boy and a girl. Elegant. Poised. They dance in each other's arms. They are Betty Anderson from the little New England village called Peyton Place, and her escort, Batman.

(Barbara Parkins and Adam West are dancing. There in the dimness of a building that was, is, and will always be the very apotheosis of the magic dreams the Beautiful People need to sustain them in a world where tragedy can be as simple as a crow's-foot alongside a dimming eye.)

It becomes clear to all but those hip-deep in the scene that the constitution needed to sustain a life like this, is a rare and remarkable one indeed. Jack Hanson thus assumes the proportions of a man imbued with great kindness, deep perceptivity. He is the keeper of the madhouse. He manages to contain in a red velvet ghetto all the electric insecurities and hostilities of an entire social strata that might otherwise be loosed unsuspecting on the common folk in their dreary streets.

Movement continues in The Daisy as the nights grow inexorably toward their tomorrows. All the tomorrows in which careers will crumble like castles of spiderwebs and the owners of those careers—which are, in fact, their lives—will hesitate to come into The Daisy, for fear they will not be in the coterie, laughing and scratching in the proper corner.

And Petula Clark sings "I Couldn't Live Without Your Love" on the Warner Bros. label making you suddenly aware that of all the words used about The Daisy and its customers, not once has anyone but the amplified singer mentioned the word love.

Who, then, are the real Mrs. Stockmeiers?

Los Angeles
/ September 1966

PREFACE

by Leonard Maltin

FOREWORD

by George Kirgo

INTRODUCTION
Crying "Water!" In A Crowded Theater
DARKNESS IN MAGIC CAVERNS:
A nostalgic appreciation of moviegoing
CINEMA [1965–68]

THE TRAIN
VON RYAN'S EXPRESS
MASQUERADE
MICKEY ONE
THE WAR LORD
THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE
JULIET OF THE SPIRITS
YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOW!
BEAU GESTE
UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE
ROSEMARY'S BABY
LES CARABINIERS

DIVERS PUBLICATIONS

HARD CONTRACT
HARLAN ELLISON'S HANDY GUIDE TO
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
JOE
SILENT RUNNING

HARLAN ELLISON: SCREENING ROOM [1973]

1st INSTALLMENT
2nd INSTALLMENT
A SORT OF AN INTERVIEW WITH PETER BOYLE
3rd INSTALLMENT
4th INSTALLMENT

HARLAN ELLISON'S WATCHING [FIRST SERIES, 1977–'78]

1st INSTALLMENT
STAR TREK—THE MOTIONLESS PICTURE

HARLAN ELLISON'S WATCHING [SECOND SERIES, 1984–]

INSTALLMENT 1:
In Which We Begin Our Journey
INSTALLMENT 2:
In Which Sublime And Ridiculous Pass Like Ships In The Night
INSTALLMENT 3:
In Which We Scuffle Through The Embers
INSTALLMENT 4:
In Which We Discover Why The Children Don't Look Like Their Parents
INSTALLMENT 5:
In Which The Left Hand Giveth Praise And The Right Hand Sprayeth For Worms Of Evil
INSTALLMENT 6:
In Which We Learn What Is Worse Than Finding A Worm of Evil In The Apple
INSTALLMENT 7:
In Which An Attempt Is Made To Have One's Cake And Eat It, Too
INSTALLMENT 8:
In Which Some Shrift Is Given Shortly, Some Longly, And The Critic's Laundry Is Reluctantly Aired
INSTALLMENT 9:
In Which The Fortunate Reader Gets To Peek Inside The Fabled Black Tower
INSTALLMENT 10:
In Which The Fabled Black Tower Meets Dune With As Much Affection As Godzilla Met Ghidrah
INSTALLMENT 11:
In Which Nothing Terribly Profound Occurs
INSTALLMENT 12:
In Which Several Things Are Held Up To The Light . . . Not A Brain In Sight
INSTALLMENT 13:
In Which Numerous Ends (Loose) Are Tied Up; Some In The Configuration Of A Noose (Hangman's)
INSTALLMENT 14:
In Which We Sail To The Edge Of The World And Confront The Abyss, Having Run Out Of Steam
INSTALLMENT 14 ½:
In Which The Unheard-Of Is Heard, Kind Of
INSTALLMENT 15:
In Which A Gourmet Feast Is Prepared Of Words A Mere Two Months Old
INSTALLMENT 16:
In Which A Forest Is Analyzed Without Recourse To Any Description Of A Tree
INSTALLMENT 17:
In Which We Unflinchingly Look A Gift Horse In The Choppers
INSTALLMENT 18:
In Which Youth Goeth Before A Fall
INSTALLMENT 19:
In Which We Long For The Stillness Of The Lake, The Smooth Swell Of The Lea
INSTALLMENT 20:
In Which Manifestations Of Arrested Adolescence Are Shown To Be Symptoms Of A Noncommunicable Dopiness, Thank Goodness
INSTALLMENT 21:
In Which You And A Large Group Of Total Strangers Are Flipped The Finger By The Mad Masters Of Anthropomorphism
INSTALLMENT 22:
In Which The Land Echoes To The Sound Of An Ox Of A Different Color Being Gored
INSTALLMENT 23:
In Which Premonitions Of The Future Lie In Wait To Swallow Shadows Of The Past
INSTALLMENT 24:
In Which Flora And Fauna Come To A Last Minute Rescue, Thereby Preventing The Forlorn From Handing It All Over To The Cockroaches
INSTALLMENT 25:
In Which The Specter At The Banquet Takes A Healthy Swig From The Flagon With The Dragon, Or Maybe The Chalice From The Palace
INSTALLMENT 26:
In Which A Good Time Was Had By All And An Irrelevant Name-Dropping Of Fritz Leiber Occurs For No Better Reason Than To Remind Him How Much We Love And Admire Him
INSTALLMENT 27:
In Which The Fur Is Picked Clean of Nits, Gnats, Nuts, Naggers And Nuhdzes
INSTALLMENT 28:
In Which, With Wiles And Winces, We Waft Words Warranting, To Wit, Wonderful Wit
INSTALLMENT 29:
In Which Li'l White Lies Are Revealed To Be At Least Tattletale Gray
INSTALLMENT 30 ½:
In Which 3 Cinematic Variations On "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs" Are Presented
INSTALLMENT 30:
In Which The LI'l White Lies Thesis (Part Two) Takes Us By The Snout And Drags Us Unwillingly Toward A Door We Fear To Open
INSTALLMENT 31:
In Which The LI'l White Lies Thesis (Part Three) Approaches A Nascent State, Approaches The Dreadful Door, And En Route Questions Meat Idolatry
INSTALLMENT 32:
In Which The Switch Is Thrown
INSTALLMENT 33:
In Which The Canine Of Vacuity Is Wagged By The Far More Interesting Tale Of O'Bannon
INSTALLMENT 34:
In Which We Praise Those Whose Pants're On Fire, Noses Long As A Telephone Wire
APPENDIX A
Twentieth Century Fox Film Has Science Fiction Theme
APPENDIX B
Nightmare Nights At The Daisy
As referenced on page LII of the Introduction.