The last time | saw him was in 1987 on a Saturday evening at the Hollywood Press Club, where we were both participants at a roast for Harlan Ellison, the prolific author of fantasy, science-fiction and speculative- fiction, his work including 1,700 short stories. He also had a reputation for angry ranting with literary style. My wife Nancy said, “He has a black belt in Mouth.” The roast was supposedly a fundraiser for his defense in a frivolous libel lawsuit. Although the auditorium was filled at $25 a head, the plaintiff, Michael Fleischer, was suing Ellison for a million dollars. In a 1980 issue of Comics Journal, in a review of Fleischer’ s comic-book-novel, Ellison called him “crazy” like H.P. Lovecraft and other renowned writers. Ironically, Harlan had intended it to be a compliment. Screenwriter David Gerrold remarked, “The fact that Ellison is a self- made man relieves God of a great responsibility. I' ve been Harlan’ s friend for six years. Of course, I’ ve known him for eighteen years.” The moderator of the roast, film critic Digby Diehl, read a telegram from Isaac Asimov, which concluded, “Kick him in the balls—signed, Frank Sinatra.” Onstage, Asimov’ s_ fellow science-fiction writer Robert Silverberg announced that “Harlan Ellison is so short that he goes up on HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015384