According to the guys at Penny Arcade, Harlan Ellison still doesn’t know how to play nice with others. They were co-guest of honor at the latest Foolscap Con, and apparently Ellison had a public hissy fit while sharing the stage with PA. It’s not a long story, but it is a funny one and one that I tend to believe to be fairly factual considering Gabe and Tycho aren’t afraid to publically admit when they’ve been humiliated.

So Tycho and I are up in front of the audience with Harlen, and Hank (the con organizer) presents us with some jester hats (“Fool’s caps”). Tycho and I put ours on because we are polite, but Harlen - who is apparently too cool for school - refuses to wear his. I turn to him and say, “Don’t you want your hat?” and he tells me to fuck off. This caught me off guard, I mean I have no clue who this fucking coot is. Then he points to a pad of paper he has and asks if I’m aware that his paper is also called foolscap. Now, I’ve never heard that term before, I pretty much just call it paper so I shake my head “no.” This really isn’t a fair question. I mean, it would be like me asking him about Photoshop or if he can remember what he had for lunch. The guy was essentially setting me up to look stupid in front of all these people. So then he asks me if I even attended college and I say “No, I did not.” Then, he says “did you at least finish high school?”

I said that I had, but you couldn’t really hear me because the audience is laughing at me along with Harlen. So once they stop, I turn to him and I say, “While I’ve got you here I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the Star Wars stuff you wrote.”

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