Other Glass Teat

by Harlan Ellison

  All that, just from the name change.

  Can you imagine what is to follow?!

  Lincoln, indeed. What a phony. Who ever heard of anybody with a name like Lincoln!

  Anyhow, soon after the Dial Hot Line film was aired, I received a rather impassioned letter from Ms. Martha Rosen of the Youth Emergency Service, a hot line in Minneapolis. She was terribly upset by what she had seen in the two-hour version, and she wrote enlisting our aid ante bellum, ante omnia, in retaliation—before the fact—against the horrors she saw forthcoming on the weekly series. I’ll quote Ms. Rosen at some length, to give you her thoughts.

  “The organization for which I work, YES, is a telephone-counseling-and-referral service for young people, what is commonly called a hotline. There are between 150 and 200 hotlines and switchboards (the difference, at its simplest, is that switchboards include walk-in facilities) in this country as well as several in Canada. There are quite a number in the Los Angeles area; you can find ads for several in the Freep.

  “Phone services are mainly volunteer organizations. All kinds of people are involved: college students, drop-outs, ministers, teachers, entire communes, social workers, hippies…anything you can name, although very few (if any) are staffed by policemen. They work on the theory that young people can benefit by free anonymous help. Services offered by most include general counseling, legal and medical referrals and general information. Also, a lot of drug counseling and/or advice, including bad-trip help, is done. Some services have housing, bail funds and mail drops also. YES is receiving 90 calls a day. The need is really there for these services.

  “Matt Lincoln, presuming it follows the outline of the movie, purports to be about a hotline in Los Angeles. The title character, played by Vince Edwards, is Ben-Casey-as-social-worker: a hairy-chested, impatient, downright nasty (but ‘hip’) psychiatrist running a ‘hotline.’ (The character makes me think of your essay in ‘The Glass Teat’ about tv ‘heroes.’ He is not a true representative of either social workers or the sort of people—by and large—who are involved with hotlines. Hollywood has failed to learn the lesson of East Side, West Side.)

  “To give you an example of the sort of ‘hotline’ Matt Lincoln runs (totalitarianly): a young man calls who has just been arrested for failure to report for induction. (It is significant to note that he is not resisting out of principle; he says something like, ‘I just flipped out.’) So who do they turn him over to for advice? The AFSC? A draft counseling service? A lawyer? Wrong! They turn him over to a cop, who is, god save us, one of the volunteers.

  “Further evidence against this mess: Matt Lincoln at one point delivers a monologue explaining what he sees as his service’s purpose (this is not a word-for-word quote, but I believe it is an accurate paraphrase): ‘I don’t want people on this phone who have never taken drugs or had abortions; I want people who have had abortions and can tell other people why they are wrong.’ (In one week last month, YES referred 9 girls to Planned Parenthood for pills, 16 to an abortion information service and 36 for pregnancy tests.)

  “I really believe that this show, if it continues as it has started, could do terrible things. It could ruin the credibility phone services like ours have built up with young people. It could make parents and other Establishment members expect the wrong things of us. It could turn the kids off phone services so they would never seek our help.

  “A national conference of hotlines held in Los Angeles last April condemned the show. I realize this is not on the same level of importance as the War, CBW warfare, or racism. But too often, we are the only friends some of these kids have. I don’t want Hollywood’s idea of reality to screw that up.”

  Well, that is pretty cogent, and pretty direct. So I watched the rerun of Dial Hot Line, and though the script was tense and well written—and the direction needlessly artsy-craftsy in the Richard Lester vein—what Ms. Rosen said was quite true. There was a young cop on the service; in fact, Vince Edwards spent a considerable portion of his time trying to get the cop to come back to work on the hot line after an unfortunate (and methodologically imbecilic) suicide which the cop’s ineptitude precipitated. There were more crises per intracommercial segment than a daytime soap opera, Vince Edwards was several megawatts crankier than his most unpleasant Ben Casey incarnation ever permitted, and the telephone answerers seemed to me as muddled and maladroit a crew as could have been assembled this side of the Menninger Clinic. Yet I would forgive all of these gaffes (excluding the cop, which seems to me a needless concession to middleclass thinking and an error in judgment which, if it occurred in real life, would make the concept of hot-line “privileged communication” highly suspect to any aware kid) in the name of interior dramatic tension were the consequences of such blatancy of error not so serious.

  Ms. Rosen is precisely on target when she speaks of the thin tie that binds the callers to the called. Credibility. It is so rare these days, so easily ripped apart, one fucks with it at one’s own risk. And were it only for ourselves, it wouldn’t be so bad. But a Matt Lincoln, done wrong, can tear it for hundreds, perhaps thousands of young people whose only help might come from that last important phone call to a hot line. (Hell, a reader named Neil Greenberg in Philadelphia lost his credibility in me because of my July 17 column about “safe dissent” on tv; apparently I wasn’t radical enough for him. And that, after I bust my ass to get all the facts, deal fairly with as many sides of the problems as I can locate, and set it all down straight. Is there no god?! Is there no justice?! Ah, well: as Vonnegut says, “And so it goes.”)

  In an effort to allay Ms. Rosen’s fears about the series’ impending debut, I contacted Irving Elman and quoted some of the letter you’ve just read. Mr. Elman was polite, if a trifle cool, and I have at hand his response to my hectoring. Equal time, as the FCC demands:

  “Dear Harlan:

  “As I told you on the phone this morning I won’t attempt to defend the ‘Dial Hot Line’ pilot against the charge of inaccuracies as all of us here are now aware of them and hope not to repeat them in the series.”

  Ellison again. It should be pointed out that Mr. Elman had nothing to do with the two-hour pilot. Onward.

  “As I also pointed out, there has been a change of direction since the pilot, which is the reason for the change of title from Dial Hot Line to Matt Lincoln. The hot line is now only a fractional element in the series which will be focused mainly on the person and professional activities of Matt Lincoln, community psychiatrist. The hot line is only one of the many projects with which Dr. Lincoln is involved. He also directs a psychiatric walk-in clinic at the hospital, teaches at the medical school, and under the aegis of the ‘Community Mental Health Center’ serves as consultant to many public agencies: educational, child welfare, legal aid, police, and so on.

  “I am attaching herewith a brief description entitled, ‘What is a Matt Lincoln?’ which should give you some idea of the man and how he operates.

  “D. F. Muhich, M.D., who is himself a community psychiatrist, is now our technical advisor and should be able to help us avoid any future errors.

  “I hope this will help clarify some of the confusion and concern as to what we are about.

  “Sincerely, Irving Elman.”

  That, in its entirety, was Mr. Elman’s response. As to confusion, I think there is none. As to concern, I don’t think the letter will serve overmuch. The series précis, “What is a Matt Lincoln?” I will not quote in full; there isn’t space. But I’ll chomp out a few phrases that will, I hope, serve fairly to convey the tone of said document:

  “Matt Lincoln, M.D., is a community psychiatrist. That says, almost, everything about him. He is of the new breed, oriented to serving the many, rather than the few…He is principally concerned with ‘crisis intervention.’…Accordingly, most of his activities are channeled into crisis-handling agencies. The first of these is the hotline, which he directs…. The second is the Walk-In Clinic, which he also heads. Here, for those who need it, and who can’
t afford private therapy or counseling, is the professional help of a psychiatrist—Matt Lincoln—and whatever others of the hospital staff who may be required…A third area of operations is his private practice, which he limits to 10 hours a week—just enough, he says, to supply the bread he needs to live on, since the rest of his activities pay little or nothing. He is also called on, from time to time, to serve as court psychiatrist by a judge or lawyer, either to testify as witness, or make a psychiatric investigation of someone in custody. He is also a member of the hospital’s teaching staff. Spread too thin? Not at all. He is only typical of the way this new breed operates. (Our technical advisor is a prime example and in fact our model!) His personal style in dress and manner is relaxed to the point of complete informality…For transportation he drives a Mustang…For living—and fun—he has an apartment at the Marina, where he keeps a small sailboat…”

  I can go no further.

  Shunting aside, for the moment, that this sort of prospectus is calculated bullshit, handed out to writers bellying up to write segments of the series, I find in that welter of stock clichés reason for more of the concern felt by Ms. Rosen. First, I find it inconceivable that Vincent Edwards, with a career built on thespic surliness, could be “relaxed to the point of informality,” whether he was dressed in sports clothes or mukluks, a caftan and scuba gear. His character’s list of accomplishments and interests may well be logical—I don’t know Dr. Muhich or how accelerated is his nervous system—but if Matt Lincoln is, indeed, based on this living model, I submit we have in our midst either a man who has discovered the 37-hour day or who moves only slightly slower than The Flash. On the other hand, maybe he just does all of those jobs badly. At least sloppily.

  The giveaway, I think—and this goes back to the name change from Leopold to Lincoln—is the dichotomy between Matt Lincoln’s professional pursuits, dealing with the broken, the twisted, the poor, and the deprived, and his status symbols of the Establishment. Mustang, indeed! Marina apartment, my ass! Sailboat, are you kidding!

  The same essential flaw that presented itself in the two-hour film—old people trying to think like young people—is present in the projected series. Matt Lincoln is a ridiculous samaritan festooned with physical possessions and dabbling in good works for god only knows what sick needs. He is that moronic figment, that artificial construct of bad television, the all-purpose hero. He is doctor, wizard, guru, playboy, adventurer, idiot savant, and figurehead of a breed that is hardly new or daring. He is merely Paladin in sports clothes. It does not bode well for the series, in terms of the fears Ms. Rosen expresses. It merely widens the scope so that now Matt Lincoln can cast his shadow on walk-in clinics, community social workers, legal aid, child-care centers and—hot lines, as before.

  When I spoke to Mr. Elman, I asked him if it might be possible to preview a couple of segments of the show to present more accurately the “new direction” of the series, the film version having aroused such disquiet. I was informed, most politely, that ABC would not allow such a thing. I don’t understand that. Perhaps you do.

  In any case, this column has presented the concern, the replies, the prospectuses, and some obviously slanted conclusions on my part (albeit culled entirely from what Universal threw up on the tube and what the producer sent me, hardly from whole cloth). At this point, my gentle readers, you have all the facts to date.

  Mr. Elman noted that the film of Dial Hot Line was researched with psychiatrists, doctors, and Los Angeles-based hot lines before its production. If this was the case, and the final product became something Mr. Elman will not even defend, then I wonder just how much hope we can hold out for a weekly dose of Vince Edwards as Super Shrink, with only the superfast assistance of D. F. Muhich, M.D.

  But we’ll be watching, won’t we, gang? We’ll be right there on debut night, in September, Thursday, ABC, and we’ll let you know as soon as we can, Mr. Elman, and Vince tatelah, whether Martha Rosen was wrong in her fears, or whether she had you prognosticated accurately, and that you have messed with the minds and the trust of those who have too few ways to turn.

  Let’s hope you-all consider your responsibilities as carefully as we-all consider the hideous consequences if you dial a wrong number.

  75: 14 AUGUST 70

  THE DAY OF THE YAHOO: PART ONE

  It is the last day of July 1970 as I write this, and I am sitting here, and it is nine minutes after midnight (which I guess makes it Saturday, August 1, technically) and I want to capture the date and moment exactly because so help me god I have just witnessed the lowest possible point of bad taste possible to the species Homo Sapiens.

  I am watching the Merv Griffin Show on CBS and Jacqueline Susann has just finished talking about her reaction to the death of her dog, Josephine (the one about which she wrote her first book, before she discovered that sex and drugs and gossip sold better than stories about canines), and she has compared the way she took the dog’s death to the way Ethel Kennedy and the other Jackie reacted to the death of John F. Kennedy.

  Let me make this perfectly clear: Jacqueline Susann, the authoress of Valley of the Dolls and The Love Machine, has just compared the death of her dog with the death of JFK.

  Were Merv Griffin something nobler than a simpering, posturing nitwit, more intent on hyping his round-the-corner-from-the-theater pub, Pip’s (named after Arthur Treacher, the usually potted truckler whose effete presence, gray eminence at best, can be found lounging beside Griffin every show), than in promulgating a little sanity on the enormous amount of air time given to him, he would have shied back, appalled, poked her in her snout, and hurled her tackily dressed body off the stage for grossness above and beyond the buoyancy of gorges.

  (Perhaps I’m being unfair about Treacher. He’s a thundering bore, to be sure, but at least he’s more urbane than the lumpen Ed McMahon, toady to Carson, or any of the other superbland second bananas that have festooned talk-show emcees since Morey Amsterdam or Jerry Lester of the old 1950s Broadway Open House. They serve, it seems to me, the purpose of producing in video terms the familial equivalent of the boring, but occasionally ridiculously amusing idiot uncle who comes to visit in August. Once a year, for ten days, it can be stomached; but every night year in and year out is considerably more than a bit much.)

  Understand something: Mrs. Irving Mansfield was quite serious. It was not a put-on. She actually and literally equated the death of a pet with the death of a man who, for all his flaws, has become as close to a myth figure as anything we’ve had in this country in many decades. It never occurred to her that she was in monstrous bad taste, gauche to the point of the bizarre. Nor, apparently, did it strike Griffin that way.

  I can understand her not recognizing the nadir of misshapen values to which she had descended: her books are indicative of the unbeautiful way her mind works and the level of grossness on which she operates. (I find it troubling to speak so of a lady who has commended my work: I was the first writer employed to bring that most illiterate of best sellers, Valley of the Dolls, to the screen, and though my work was passed over for that of subsequent scenarists, Ms. Susann confided to friends that, had my screen treatment been used, the film would not have been the horrendous disaster so well-remembered and easily forgotten. Nonetheless, my pride as a writer compels me to point out that it is this selfsame “writer” who, when being queried on the David Frost Show, when asked if she thought she was writing great literature, replied, “Do you consider the work of Irving Wallace or Leon Uris or Harold Robbins great? I write with the same sort of greatness.” And since I consider that trio of slovenly hacks outright disgraces to the auctorial art, it tells me not only where Ms. Susann keeps her head, but to what degree her personal debasement may be gauged. My heart dies in me a little bit every time I see some slack-jawed straphanger, or salesgirl, or cement worker, on a public conveyance, pawing a well-thumbed copy of some entry in the Susann canon. They dull their senses of what is graceful and meaningful by dumping the swill of brutalized fiction in
their intellectual brainstreams, but if one has read Ms. Susann, one can well understand that her comparison of the death of Josephine with that of Kennedy is in keeping. And so, it is not surprising that she was unaware of her grossness.)

  Nor is it out of line to expect Griffin to be insensitive to the horror. Dealing as he does, for endless hours, with flash and filigree (as Terry Southern would term it), he encounters so much of the corrupt spirit that his sensitivities must be as well-honed as a stone ax.