I've spent time pondering on Harlan the raconteur vs Harlan the jerk (what kept popping to mind was Ellison groping Connie Willis's breast onstage at the 2006 Hugo Awards ceremony). In the late 1970s (and maybe beyond), he did the university circuit. I saw him two years in a row, I think, at MIT. We still use the expression "'stinct species" based on his story about a little kid at LaBrea. I remember a woman getting up and walking out due to foul language and meanness in one of his stories. He ran down the aisle after her, offering a dollar (what we paid to get in). But the audiences were mostly lapping it up, and returning unkindness as well - it was known that he would reliably tear up, every time, at the thought of his boyhood dog, so during the reading request time, "A boy and his dog" was pretty much the default nationwide.

You might like this, one of the co-written stories from "Partners in Wonder," I think. Roger Zelazny is the named co-author, but in a sense, so is Pablo Neruda.
http://you-books.com/book/H-Ellison/Come-to-Me-Not-in-Winters-White