In the min-1970's, I was a young, aspiring writer living in L.A., working
on a Sci-Fi project with a friend named Tim Bruckner (who is now a
well-known sculptor of super hero and fantasy figures). The story was about a
dream-eating deity called "The Enicol". To make a long story short, both Tim
and I were quite excited about the strange tale we'd come up with and
decided to try to contact as many well-known writers in the Sci-Fi genre as we
could. Believe it or not, back in 1974 Harlan Ellison's home phone number
was listed in the San Fernando Valley white pages, so...after staring at it
for a day or two, I dialed the number and Harlan Ellison did indeed answer
my call. I got as far as saying something to the effect of "Hello, Mr.
Ellison, my name's Rick Ryan and I've always been a huge admirer of your
work..." That's as far as I got before Harlan seemed to go totally berserk,
angrily screaming at me about bothering him with my call, demanding that I
promise never, EVER to call him again! Of course, I quietly did as he asked
and immediately hung up the phone.
Within the following month or so, someone had told me that Ray Bradbury
had an office in Beverly Hills (I'm pretty sure that's where it was---if
not, it was very close to Beverly Hills). Anyway, early one afternoon, I
entered the building where Mr. Bradbury's office was supposed to be and. lo
and behold, on the second floor at the end of the hallway was a door that had
"Ray Bradbury" on it in some fashion or another. Unfortunately, the door
also had a very large sign on it saying something like: "WARNING! Please
Do Not Disturb! I Am a Working Author and WILL NOT RESPOND! If you wish to
contact me for any reason, call: 555-6238" (Of course the wording on the
sign and the telephone number were different, but you get the idea...). So.
for the next 2 or 3 days I called and called that number and no one ever
answered.
Back then, they didn't have answering machines and Ray Bradbury wasn't the
kind of guy to have one anyway---hey, he never drove a car, so why would he
want an annoying answering machine. Anyway,
after dialing that number for what seemed like 100 times, on the 101st
attempt, a voice answered on the other end of the line. It was Ray Bradbury.
In contrast to Mr. Ellison, Mr. Bradbury talked to me for at least a half
an hour about everything from the craft of writing to his experience working
with John Huston on the set
while they were filming Moby Dick (for which he wrote the screenplay).
After all this time, I don't remember all the incidentals of the
conversation. What I do remember is what a kind, warm and welcoming gentleman
the
legendary literary giant Ray Bradbury was when he talked on the phone to some
young, naive
kid who was callling him with some crazy Sci-Fi idea. I also remember his
closing words in our conversation were "God bless you, son". What a
wonderful human being. It's one of the great honors of my life to have had
that
experience over 35 years ago....
Rick Ryan
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