A CONNECTION WITH RAY BRADBURY I NEVER KNEW I HAD

Most of my friends and some of my readers know that the writings of Ray Bradbury were an early influence on me as a writer; that the man Ray Bradbury became a colleague in the film industry; that the author Ray Bradbury was wonderfully generous toward me—and a plethora of other writers—and that during his 90th year I was able to arrange a week-long series of events in Los Angeles to honor him during his birthday week.

All of which I, of course, hold dear. But now, in Ray’s 100th year, I have discovered a connection with Ray that I was never aware of, and couldn’t even have imagined.

That discovery is due to the scholarship of Jonathan R. Eller, Chancellor's Professor of English and Director of the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies at the Indiana University School of Liberal Arts. 

Jon is also the author of the best biography of Ray that I know of. In three volumes—Becoming Ray Bradbury, Ray Bradbury Unbound, and to be released later this year, Bradbury Beyond Apollo—Jon has written, as he calls it, “a biography of the mind.” It is certainly not a misnomer. Jon gets to the essence of Ray as a creative mind producing unique prose fiction of a high order. If you want to understand Bradbury the author you must read these books.

But let us get to the discovery. Recently, in preparing to be on the SOMETHING WONDERFUL THIS WAY CAME: 100 YEARS OF RAY BRADBURY panel at the 53rd California International Antiquarian Book Fair in Pasadena I contacted Jon for some information on Ray’s feeling about the “science fiction writer” label he lived with, not always happily so. Jon got back to me and told me a story that will be in Bradbury Beyond Apollo about a short poem Ray wrote in 1971 that gave some indication of what writer designation Ray preferred. At least at that moment. 

I won’t tell you that whole story, as I encourage you all to read it when Bradbury Beyond Apollo is published. But I do want to mention the details that were pertinent to my discovery. 

In 1971 Ray had a speaking engagement at Citrus College in Glendora, California. Although at the time it was considered to be in Azusa-Glendora as it sat between those two cities.

The night before the engagement Ray wrote the short poem mentioned above, which I think we can assume he read to the audience during his speech as it was later published in the June 4, 1971 issue of the Citrus College Clarion. 

Those are the bare facts. But what’s the connection to me?

I grew up in Azusa. I attended Citrus College, graduating in early 1970.

I wrote a weekly column for the Citrus College Clarion.

The place that I’m pretty sure Ray would have spoken at on campus was the recently built performing arts center, now known as the Haugh Performing Arts Center.

I was at the groundbreaking for that performing arts center a few years before.

While I was at the groundbreaking for the performing arts center a mob of students was at the firepit in front of the student center putting to the flame stacks of that day’s issue of the Citrus College Clarion.

The mob of students was burning stacks of that day’s issue of the Citrus College Clarion because of a column I wrote.

It was a column of satire purporting to be the verbatim account of a meeting of the White Backlashers Union in which the members discussed ways to take care of the “blacks” problem in America. What they came up with were not, shall we say, nice ways. I was, of course, mocking crude, ignorant, hateful racism.

It was not the first time irony had been misunderstood (right, Dean Swift?). 

The students, especially those in the Black Students Union, several of whom were my friends, took the piece a bit too literally, assuming I was putting out serious solutions to something I did not see as a problem at all.

Part of the misunderstanding may have come not so much from my writing as from the headline to the column which was, I believe, THE WBU, THE BSU, YOU AND I. I did not write the headline, as no journalist does. And I did not mention the Black Students Union (BSU) in the piece.

Nevertheless, despite offense not intended; offense was taken, mob psychology took over, and my words on paper suffered the fate of being exposed to 451 degrees Fahrenheit.

I was gobsmacked (lovely word, that) when I learned all this just a week or so ago.

I now feel a wholly different kind of connection with Ray. A connection I’m not sure I can put into words. Which is ironic on several levels.

But I can feel it. 

And feel it I do. Deeply.

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You can check out and purchase Jon Ellers’s books on Ray Bradbury on Amazon.

You might also want to check out the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies and the wonderful being done there under Jon’s leadership.

You can take a gander at my novels on the MY BOOKS page on this blog or on my Author’s Page on Amazon where you can also, of course, purchase.

And may I also recommend my short book of essays, Searching for Ray Bradbury: Writings about the Writer and the Man.

FINDING ERIC GARCETTI: On the Mayor-elect of Los Angeles, that Great Angeleno Ray Bradbury, and Me

My wife Amanda and I attended and participated in one of Los Angeles Mayor-elect Eric Garcetti’s “Back to Basics” listening tour events this past Saturday. It was a great opportunity to contribute to the ideas that are fermenting among Garcetti and his advisors on how to make L.A. a better city in regard to economic and job growth, our individual neighborhoods, and the effectiveness of City Hall.

The several hundred Angelenos who met at the at the Windward School in Mar Vista were divided into small workshops to discuss and present as many solutions in these areas as they could come up with.  After the workshops the Mayor-elect arrived to address the assembled, to thank us for our time and ideas and to share his goal as Mayor to make Los Angeles not only a big city but a great city. 

The key to that for him—and I assume most of the assembled—is to make Los Angeles more and more a livable city.

I first met Eric Garcetti during the last Writers Guild strike when he was president of the City Council and gave much support to the idea that the Guild should get a fair deal from the producers. 

Myself and other WGA members with then President of the City Council Garcetti at City Hall in 2007

I represented the Guild in front of the City Council and was greatly impressed by how he handled himself and his obvious sincerity in wanting to see a healthy Hollywood, not just for the writers, but for the industry itself.

Because of that connection I was later able to solicit his aid in celebrating the 90th birthday of Ray Bradbury in 2010. At my suggestion he proposed to the City Council that the city declare August 22 through 28 of that year Ray Bradbury Week, having quickly and enthusiastically agreed with me that Ray was too big for just a day. The City Council unanimously agreed as well. 

Garcetti presenting the Ray Bradbury Week city proclamation to Ray as I look on.

This action by Garcetti set off a series of events and efforts on my part that has culminated in my new book, Searching for Ray Bradbury: Writings about the Writer and the Man.

I was happy to be able to present him a copy of my book last Saturday—he figures, of course, into my essay on Ray Bradbury Week—and to thank him again for his support.

I have great confidence in the Mayor-elect. Not just because of big city, urban issues of jobs and growth and crime and potholes, but because I think he’s a man who not only likes and is nourished by the arts, but has an artistic nature himself. If I am correct in this, I hope it gives him a creative, elastic, possibly even an improvisational bent to his mind (See my Huffington Post blog, Does Eric Garcetti Have the Aesthetic Chops to be Mayor of L.A.? from last February), which now must be engaged in many difficult issues on the road to making a more livable Los Angeles.

I inscribed in the copy of Searching for Ray Bradbury that I gave to the Mayor-elect a note saying that I thought Ray, a great Angeleno, would like the L.A. Garcetti envisions and has committed himself to work toward. It’s pleasing to think of Ray in the future sitting up there—somewhere on Mars—looking to the Earth, focusing in on Los Angeles—and smiling.

THE LAUNCH OF "SEARCHING FOR RAY BRADBURY"

The launching of a book is not quite the same as the launching of a ship. 

Although there can be champagne, no one smashes the bottle against anything. Unless, of course, a fight breaks out.  At the launch of my new book, Searching for Ray Bradbury, there was neither champagne nor fights, and neither were missed. But there was birthday cake (and a really nice one in the shape of an open book -- see above)  as the day coincided with the anniversary my birth. And there was the welcoming atmosphere of a great independent bookshop; 

a gathering of old friends of the author’s and of the author’s subject; of new friends; of readers previously unknown to the author who he hopes become friends of his book.  There was a standing room only crowd, albeit not in a great hall, but in a room so infused with the particular calm excitement of books to be discovered that it felt like a great hall. There was a fine, dramatic reading of Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Pedestrian.” And there was the opportunity for me to speak of Ray and read some of what I wrote about him in my book.

The venue was the loft of Mystery & Imagination Bookshop in Glendale. 

The author awaits

Ray introduced me to Malcolm and Christine Bell’s fine establishment in 2002, 

Ray and me in 2002 on the day he introduced me to Mystery & Imagination Bookshop

and it was, in his late years, his favorite bookshop. 

I’ve recently written about this bookshop in a blog on the Huffington Post -- Ray Bradbury’s Favorite Bookshop -- that, I’m pleased to say has racked up, as of this writing, 523 Facebook LIKES and 165 Facebook SHARES.

The pleasure comes not just from finding readers for my words -- that always pleases a writer -- but because it points out people's interest in independent bookshops that continue to exist in an economy that is not all that conducive to their survival. However, if they can survive I believe independent, neighborhood bookshops can become the bookshops of the future, offering a personalized service, and a love and caring for books and book lovers that set them apart from both the digital sales and digital delivery of books, neither of which I am against, in fact I publish digitally and buy digitally. Let's face it, the digital is here to stay. But independent bookshops offer an alternative to a trade that neither the digital nor the big box, big corporate book stores can offer. They are now very much needed cultural institutions. With support from readers that appreciate one-on-one service and like minds to communicate with on not just the physical book but the art of writing within, independent bookshops will become in the future essential and honored cultural fixtures.

Besides, launching a book in a virtual world is just not the same.

So thank you Malcolm and Christine Bell. Thank you Dave Doody, my publisher, for hosting the event and being such a charming master of ceremonies. Thank you John King Tarpinian, friend of Mystery & Imagination, good friend of Ray and such a great help to him in his late years, for helping to organize the event. Thank you Silvia Mancini, also a friend of Mystery & Imagination, for making a lovely birthday cake. Thank you Walter Ritter of the Write Out Loud theater company for your reading of “The Pedestrian,” performing both the beauty of Ray’s language and the humor of his story.

And thank you to everyone that came to help Dave and I launch the book and to celebrate my birthday.  I would like to have put a group picture of all of you here - but no one took a photo of you all. I was planning but I forgot. Sorry.

But other pictures were taken, and here they are:

Dave Doody, Bluroof Press Publisher and our host and me

Dave welcomes everyone

Walter Ritter of Write Out Loud reading Ray Bradbury's "The Pedestrian"

I enjoy Walter's fine performance

A shot from the audience taken by my son-in-law, Rick Burdick III

I talk about the great illustration of Ray by Lou Romano that graces the cover of "Searching for Ray Bradbury"

I begin to read

And read I do

After the reading M&I co-ownner Christine Bell get silly

You can't hug Christine enough

Sillier still we be

The dedicatee of "Searching for Ray Bradbury," my best friend, Peter Lonsdale, with his best friend, Gabrielle Davis

With Robert Kerr a member of Ray theater company, and good friend to Ray

Good friend and one of my favorite people, Eric Norwitz

After the reading I speak with Bill Goodwin, fellow writer and good friend of Ray's, along with his good friend, Brenda Cox Giguere. Old friend from my animation days, Guy Vasilovich, a artist and director and author of children's books. Seated is fellow Bluroof author Mitch Scaff

With John King Tarpinian - such a good and helpful friend to Ray; such a good and helpful friend to Mystery & Imagination and to the authors that do events there

My daughter, Miranda, knowing what a Superman fan I am, surprised me with a special candle to blow out.
I did good, I didn't blow it -- or, of course I did

If you would like an autographed copy of Searching for Ray Bradbury just call Malcolm or Christine at 818-545-0121 to order a copy. Or go on the Mystery & Imagination Facebook page and leave them a message.  Or, of course, the book is available at Amazon.com.