The main thing about Bob. It was the laughs. How' could somebody
with such a goony cartoony stutter be able to constantly blurt out
such erudite philosophical paradoxical punchlines? I'm telling you,
this guy was killer. An old witty, love-to-laugh mensch is what he
was.
It was like this--if you were secretly on the same wavelength as
Bob, you could meet for the first time, and in two minutes you'd be
in a corner with him howling and screaming laughing. He was that
funny, that ready to laugh. Like a giggly kid.
Mainly it was the late night writing sessions, binging in his
ramshackle office in Portland on smokes, weed, beer and music. We
co-wrote a movie of Dimension and a 300 page cyberpunk video game.
The video game sold but was shelved. Dimension is still making the
rounds, but Hitchhiker pretty much killed it.
The music. He adored The Doors and Mozart. He hated "breathless"
romantic writing, disliked Beethoven yet he was nuts for Debussy.
Nutty.
Then the concordance about books. Lots of book talk. He loved
Rilke. We both had the same rare and obscure editions of Chuang Tzu
and knew sections by heart. Which was weird. We both loved James
Branch Cabell and Burroughs (Edgar). He blew my mind telling me
Jurgen was the basis for Dimension of Miracles! And when I was
furious about Douglas Adams, Sheckley didn't even want to go there.
He was too broke and Adams was rolling in it and Sheckley didn't
want bitterness anywhere in his system.
He was just a golden, Golden Guy.
We were friends because we were both a comedy writers. I was best
man at his wedding to Gail, a perfect match, brilliant, beautiful
and a peach. He loved her dearly, but felt unworthy. Typical
Sheckley. He was always suspicious of happiness, it drove him
nuts.
Another thing. He loved his friend Harlan Ellison. He admired him
no end. But cringed at the intro Ellison wrote for one of the
volumes of his Collected Works, the one in which Ellison enumerates
and catalogues all of Sheckley's ex-wives. I thought it was
hilarious albeit harsh. But I forgot that Sheckley was thinking of
Gail reading it.
I'll end with the best thing this craggy Jewish leprechaun ever
said to me. He said all of his stories started with the same
premise: Sympathy With All Things. In a universe in which a god and
an apple have the same signficance, no more, no less, the most
terrifying monsters have their personal problems, and gods get
self-absorbed and annoying just like the rest of us. Therefore
there really are no monsters, no gods. We're all the same, stuffed
in different sausage-casings, connecting when we have Sympathy with
one another. Bob's simple message, packaged with paradox. Served
with his delicious, ruthless wit. And always with a whimsical
kindness and forgiveness for his characters, who were always in
need of money, food and sex. Like the Man of a Thousand Disguises
in Options, and the Gods in Dimension, they were all, blatantly,
Himself.
Speaking of self-absorbed, sorry this is so long.
I'll close with a poem he read to me one night. It says it all
about Sheckley.
My dear friend. Whom I wish was still alive and whom I miss so very
much.
Please Call Me by My True Name
by Thich Nhat Hahn
Do not say that I will depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive
Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch
to be a tiny bird, with wings still so fragile
learning to sing in my new nest
to be a caterpillar in the heart of flower
to be a jewel hiding itself in stone
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope,
the rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that are
alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time to eat
the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily in the clear water of the pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who,
approaching in silence, feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the 12 year old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea
pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and
loving
I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my
hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to my
people,
dying slowly in a forced labour camp.
My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all walks
of life.
My pain is like a river of tears, so full it fills up the four
oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.
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