Jeff Ellis: It's Impossible To Start A Fire If You Have No Desire To Burn

Paul Harvey, R.I.P.

Long-time radio broadcaster Paul Harvey has died.  He was 90 years old.

For three years, I worked a night shift.  When my shift ended each morning, I would attempt to drive myself home without falling asleep behind the wheel.  It was a 30 minute drive in rush hour traffic.  Most mornings, Paul Harvey's latest broadcast would start to come across my radio about fifteen minuites after I left work.  There was always something rather comforting about knowing that Paul Harvey would be there to let me know that I was halfway home.

Paul Harvey, R.I.P.

The Obama Machine Releases A Budget

As you have no doubt heard, President Barack Obama has released his proposed national budget plan for the upcoming year.

The budget is ambitious, grandiosque, and ultimately unworkable.  Those qualities alone make it typical of what we've seen so far of Obama's approach to the presidency.  I imagine that, in the days to come, the American people will see a lot more clips of President Obama holding town hall meetings where he answers pre-screened questions and replies with whatever answer will win him the most applause.  I imagine that, as analysts on both side of the political divide continue to question the wisdom of Obama's approach, we will be subjected to more of Barack Obama's trademark prophecies of doom.  And, in the days before the U.S. Congress votes on this budget, I have a feeling that Obama will talk about how important it is to change the culture of Washington.

Apparently, back on the campaign trail, "culture of Washington" was just another way of saying "failing to rubberstamp anything and everything that Barack Obama wants."

Obama's budget, much like the stimulus bill, will mostly serve to increase the size of the national government.  While Obama ran as something of an advocate for small government back in 2008, his subsequent enthusiasm for government growth should not be surprising.

After all, before he became a messiah, Barack Obama was just another hack poltician from Chicago, a product of the same machine that gave us the original Richard Daley, Dan Rostenkowski, and Rod Blagojevich.  Historically, that Machine has managed to stay in power through patronage.  Like most urban political machines, the Chicago Democrats devoted a lot of time to creating jobs on the public payroll which would then be handed out to people who were already supporters or to potential enemies that the Machine decided to head off.  The Machine got you a job and you, in return, made sure that you supported the Machine in the next election.

Whether he's "stimulating" the economy or claiming that he's reforming health care, what Barack Obama is essentially doing is dispensing patronage jobs to the people that he hopes will reelect him in 2012.  After all, if everyone's working for the government, then they're going to have far less incentive to support any candidate who truly wants to limit the growth of federal power.

Of course, the downside of this (as also illustrated by the history of the Chicago Machine) is that dependency is almost always followed by stagnation.  As Obama's public life would seem to indicate that he has absolutely no idea what it's like to actually have to work for a living, it is perhaps understandable that he fails to comprehend this.

Looking over Obama's budget, the natural question is "Just who exactly is going to pay for this?"

We are.

Philip Jose' Farmer, R.I.P.

Writer Philip Jose' Farmer died on February 25th.  He was 91 years old.  It should be noted that, in recent years, Farmer's death was prematurely announced quite a few times and, in fact, I even once referred to Farmer online as being "the late writer, Philip Jose Farmer."  I received an e-mail that same day from Win Eckert, one of the leading students of Farmer's Wold Newton Universe, correcting my error.  Unfortunately, I feTarzan Alive ar that I shall not be receiving a similar e-mail after posting this.

Over the course of his long career, Farmer was often pigeon-holed as a "science fiction" or "fantasy" author.  And indeed, he was an author who not embraced so-called "genre" fiction but celebrated it as well.  However, a rather sly and subversive sense of humor also ran through everything Farmer wrote and he was that rare writer of "popular" fiction who not only understood what made the conventions of a genre work but also knew how to subvert those conventions without scaring off the reader.  As a result, his books can even be enjoyed by someone like me who, typically, tends to have a toxic reaction to anything labeled "science fiction."

Farmer was probably best known, to the general reader, for the River World series.  Clever as those books are, I think they actually pale in comparison to some of Farmer's lesser known works.  In particular, his taboo-breaking Image of the Beast is just as shocking today as when it was first published four decades ago. 

However, to many, Farmer will always be best known as the man who wrote two highly accomplished and very entertaining biographies of two fictional characters. Tarzan Alive (1971) and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life (1973) both served to give new life to two classic pulp characters who were in danger of being forgotten. 

After decades of Tarzan being turned into a parody in cheap movies and a campy television show, Tarzan Alive reminded readers of why the original, literary Tarzan had captured the public's imagination in the first place.

Doc Savage, meanwhile, served as my first introduction to this legendary figure and it inspired me to start collecting not only the 60s era, paperback Bantam reprints of Doc Savage's adventures but to start reading the original adventures of several of the other fictional characters that Farmer mentioned while telling Savage's life story. 

Indeed, I owe  the two things that have brought my the most happiness over the past few years -- my love of pulp fiction and my hobby of collecting old books -- to Philip Jose Farmer.

One of my prize possessions is a hardback, first edition of Tarzan Alive.*

Philip Jose Farmer, R.I.P.

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* What I do not have, and desperately want, is a copy of Doc Savage: An Apocalyptic Life.  Considering how much that book really has affected my life, it's a bit strange that I've never actually owned a copy of it.  Instead, I would just check it out from the Richardson Public Library.  Unfortunately, during the ten years I was living in Denton, Texas, something happened to the library's copy and I haven't been able to find it in the seven years since I first moved back to Richardson.  So, if anyone out there has a copy that they might be willing to sell, please feel free to e-mail me at jeff_p_ellis@hotmail.com.

Another Lost Post

Needless to say, tonight's episode of Lost (in which John Locke found himself off the island, using the name Jeremy Bentham, working for Charles Widmore, getting strangled to death by Ben, and then finding himself resurrected on the Island) was absolutely brilliant.

It's been said before (here and elsewhere) but it deserves to be repeated: Terry O'Quinn and Michael Emerson are, quite possibly, the two best actors on television right now.  Whenever they're on screen together, they manage to transcend the artificial confines that define the average television program.

They are the reason why, regardless of how few people are apparently watching it, Lost is the best show on television right now.

Obama or Anime?

President Barack Obama gave a speech tonight.  Originally, several media outlets were referring to it as Obama's 1st "state-of-the-union" address.  The Obama White House corrected them, saying that this was instead simply a chance for Obama to "explain" his political philosophy or thinking or whatever you might want to call it.  In short, this was a "State-of-Obama" address.

At least, that is what I have heard.

After a lot of thought (well, two minutes worth), I decided not to sit through it.  I may came from a Catholic background but that doesn't mean that I see any appeal in self-flagellation.

Instead, I watched the "special edition" DVD of Mamoru Oshii's ground-breaking anime Ghost in the Shell.

What can I say?

It's a good movie.

The Oscars -- In Conclusion

10:26 pm -- Finally, we have moved on to Best Actress.  Our five presenters are Sophia Loren, Shirley MacClaine, Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman, and Marion Cotillard.  (I'm tired and I'm getting lazy.)  MacClaine is praising Anne Hathaway.  Cotillard praised Kate Winslet.  Berry is praising Melissa Leo (who looks beautiful out in the audience tonight and makes me miss Homicide: Life On The Streets all the more) and Loren, the sexiest of all the great actresses, is praised a great actress with absolutely zero sex appeal, Meryl Streep.  Kidman concludes by praising Angelina Jolie. 

10:32 -- The Oscar, to nobody's surprise, goes to one of my favorite actresses, Kate Winslet.  It should have gone to either Anne Hathaway or Sally Hawkins (who was amazingly not even nominated for Happy-Go-Lucky).

10:33 -- Most overrated Oscar speech of all time?  Julia Roberts' acceptance speech when she won for Erin Brockovich.

10:35 -- I love Kate Winslet. 

10:36 -- Now, we're watching a montage of best actor acceptance speeches.  We just saw Tom Hanks doing his little Philadelphia routine.  Anyway, our five presenters are Robert De Niro, Adrien Brody, Ben Kingsley, Anthony Hopkins, and Michael Douglsas.  I wonder who De Niro is going to praise -- oh wait, it's obvious.  He'll praise Mickey Rourke.  What isn't obvious is why the theme from Bonanza is playing in the background.

10:38 -- Douglas is praising Frank Langella.  And De Niro is praising Sean Penn and not Mickey Rourke.  I guess it's a method thing.  And, listening to the audience, I'm having flashbacks to the cheers that greeted Robin Williams' name back when he beat a more deserving Burt Reynoldds for best supporting actor.  Could this be Penn's second Oscar?

10:40 -- Adrien Brody -- who might want to cut his hair -- is praising Richard Jenkins.  Hopkins is praising Brad Pitt.  So, I guess Ben Kingsley is stuck with Mickey Rourke.  How the Hell did Kingsley get linked up with Rourke? 

10:42 -- I should add that I would give the Oscar to Richard Jenkins.

10:43 -- And the Oscar goes to -- Sean Penn for Milk.  Penn's speech starts out with a vaguely political comment and it immediately makes me start to think about that episode of South Park where George Clooney's Oscar acceptance speech produces a huge cloud of "smug" that threatens to destroy the world.

10:46 -- Penn says that those who voted against gay marriage will live in shame.  And now, he's talking about Barack Obama.  YAWN.  Yet even after sounding like a political jackass, Penn redeems himself by paying tribute to Mickey Rourke.  Goddamn, Penn, are you a smug asshole or are you a gracious artist?  MAKE UP YOUR MIND!

(Couldn't he be both like the late Earl Warren?  The Simpsons used to be a really great show.)

10:47 -- Here comes Steven Spielberg.  I guess he's here to give the Best Picture Oscar.  When did this exclusively become his job?

10:52 -- And the Oscar goes to ... Slumdog Millionaire.  Spielberg, I'm sure, is annoyed that he won't be able to brag of his close friendship with the producer-and-or-director of this year's winner.

10:54 -- Then again, maybe Spielberg and Boyle are buddy-buddy.  I mean, there's no reason why they couldn't be.

10:55 -- In the end, I guess I just like needling Steven Spielberg.

And on that note, good night!

Oscars -- Part Seven (Or is it Six? I've lost track.)

9:41 pm -- Eddie Murphy is out on stage now and he's apparently going to present the Hersholt Award to Jerry Lewis.  I'm going to take this oppurtunity to check my e-mail, make some popcorn, drink a coke, and maybe learn a new dance.

9:45 -- Jerry Lewis is accepting his award.  And he actually have a good speech so I owe him an apology.  Well, no, not really.  If anything, Lewis owes me an apology for not acting like the stereotypical Jerry Lewis that we've all come to know and love.

9:53 -- Zac Efron and Alicia Keyes are giving the Oscar for best original score.  The Oscar goes to Slumdog Millionaire.  The composer is A.R. Rahman, an Indian.  He is the second of Slumdog's winners to actually be from India.  He also gets Slumdog's first standing ovation.

9:55 -- Now, Efron and Keyes are moving on to Best Original song.  Efron looks painfully awkward standing next to Keyes.

9:56 -- Bruce Springsteen was not nominated this year for The Wrestler.  That still surprises me.

10:01 -- Slumdog Millionaire just won for best original song and it gets another standing ovation. I'm happy to see Slumdog winning so much but there is a part of me that's hoping that we get at least one upset winner before this show ends.  Either David Fincher or Gus Van Sant winning best director or Frank Langella taking best actor or something like that.  Otherwise, this is going to go down as one of the less interesting ceremonies in Oscar history.

10:06 -- The lovely Freida Pinto is co-presenting the award for Best Foreign Language Film.  Departures, a Japanese film, wins. 

10:08 -- I suppose that was a bit of an upset but not enough to redeem the entire evening.  No, we need an upset along the lines of Crash beating Brokeback Mountain.

10:10 -- Queen Latifah is introducing the annual montage of the recently dead.  Let's see if Robert Quarry, the star of the Count Yorga films, is included.

10:12 -- Among those I spotted: Cyd Charisse, Bernie Mac, Van Johnson, Michael Crichton, Nina Foch, Pat Hingle, Harold Pinter, Charles Joffe, Abby Mann, Roy Scheider, Robret Mulligan, Evelyn Keyes, Richard Widmark, Claude Berri, Maila Nurmi, Isaac Hayes, Ricardo Montalban, Manny Farber, Robert DoQui, Jules Dassin, Paul Scofield, Stan Winston, Ned Tanen, James Whitmore, Charlton Heston, Anthony Minghella, Sydney Pollack, and Paul Newman.  Jesus, a lot of talented people died last year.  Newman, as might be expected, got the most applause.  He was closely followed by Pollack and Hayes.  (Perhaps the audience is full of Scientologists...)

10:16 -- I wonder if anyone booed Heston.  They certainly didn't give him the type of applause you would expect to be given to someone who made as much money for the film industry as Heston did over his career.

10:17 -- Robert DoQui deserved more applause.

10:18 -- And no, Robert Quarry was not remembered.

10:19 -- Reese Whitherspoon is out on stage, looking as lovely as always.  She is giving the award for best director.  It seems pretty obvious that the award will go to Danny Boyle but I still think there could be an upset here. 

10:21 -- And there is not as Danny Boyle wins the award that he deserves.  David Fincher -- who looks quite a bit older than I expected -- looks annoyed.  Gus Van Sant looks depressed.  Boyle is giving his speech.  He just used the term "bloody."  Let's see if he drops the F-bomb.

10:22 -- C'mon, Danny, do it!

10:23 -- It's funny.  Danny Boyle looks exactly like how I would have imagined him to look if I was forming an image based solely on films like Slumdog and Trainspotting.  Fincher, meanwhile, looks nothing like how I imagined the director Zodiac, Seven, and Fight Club would look.

10:25 -- Okay, I'm going to post this and I assume my next post will be my final one of the night.

Oscars -- Part Five

9:22 pm -- Nearly two hours in and we've still got to sit through Jerry Lewis getting the Hersholt Award.

9:25 -- Will Smith is presenting the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.  I imagine the winner here will be The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

9:26 -- And I was right,

9:30 -- The Dark Knight just picked up the award for sound editing.

9:31 -- Will Smith is now presenting the award for Best Sound Mixing.  The nominees are The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The  Dark Knight, Slumdog Millionaire, Wall-E, and Wanted.  And the award goes to Slumdog Millionaire. 

9:33 -- Apparently, it was a big year for sound. 

9:34 -- Slumdog Millionaire seems to have the momentum but nobody in the audience -- except for Danny Boyle -- appears to be very happy about it.

9:35 -- Will Smith is presenting the Editing Oscar now.  And the Oscar goes to Slumdog Millionaire and Hollywood watches in horror as yet another stranger with a foreign accent takes the stage.

9:36 -- The camera cuts, again, to Danny Boyle in the audience.  He looks like he's having the time of his life.  Everyone else, however, looks like they're on the verge of joining the Minutemen and setting up barricades along the border.

9:38 -- And we got to commercial with the promise that a tribute to Jerry Lewis is coming right up.

9:39 -- Shudder.

The Oscars -- Part Four

8:52 pm -- We're back and Hugh Jackman's doing another musical number.  God, I hate musical numbers.

8:54 -- I'm sure that these musical numbers will be widely acclaimed tomorrow but it's actually rather tedious. 

8:56 -- Uhmmm, it's not over yet.

8:57 -- Will it ever end?  This is like the musical number that would not end.  It's a bit like watching one of those old episodes of One Day At A Time where Bonnie Franklin and her children and her neighbors and her building's super would put on some show at the retirement home.

8:58 -- Finally, it's over and we've gone to commercial.  Jackman's partner in that musical number was Beyonce Knowles.  People tend to get excited about Beyonce for the same reason that those dogs used to salivate whenever Pavlov rang that bell.

9:00 -- I love this new, rather morbid Jack In The Box ad campaign.  Will Jack live or will he die?  I was one of the kids traumatized when they blew him up back in the early 80s.

9:01 -- We're back and I guess we're giving the best supporting award as we've just seen a montage of George Burns, Christopher Walken, Tommy Lee Jones, Robin Williams, and Morgan Freeman giving their acceptance speeches. 

9:02 -- And our presenters for this award are former winners Christopher Walken, Kevin Kline, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Joel Grey, and Alan Arkin.  Is anyone else breathing a sigh of relief that Robin Williams didn't come out on stage?

9:04 -- Arkin is honoring Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is nominated for playing a priest in Doubt.  Grey is honoring Josh Brolin, nominated for Milk.  Gooding, Jr. is paying tribute to Robert Downey, Jr. and it turns out we didn't need Robin Williams.  Walken talks about Michael Shannon's performance in Revolutionary Road.  I wonder if he resents having to always talk about how well an actor plays insane.  Lastly, Kevin Kline is paying tribute to Heath Ledger's performance in The Dark Knight.

9:08 -- To no one's surprise, Heath Ledger becomes the first actor since Peter Finch to win an Oscar despite being dead.  And I can't really complain about the decision.  Whereas Finch's death led to him winning a leading oscar for supporting role in Network, Ledger gave one of the best supporting performances of 2008.  Still, I wonder if anyone would have realized just how good Ledger was if not for the fact of his tragic death.  Intellectually, I was rooting for Robert Downey, Jr. but emotionally, the Ledger victory feels right.

9:12 -- Ledger's Oscar was accepted by his father, mother, and daughter.  Michelle Williams was not mentioned.

9:13 -- Ah shit.  Bill Maher just came out on stage.  I guess he's giving the documentary award.

9:14 -- Maher's doing the whole "I didn't get nominated but I'm not bitter" routine.  Maher has truly become one of the most repulsive characters on the planet.  Every time I see him, he seems to have transformed just a little bit more into Alan Alda's character from Crimes and Misdemeanors.

9:16 -- The German documentary winners take the time to do a few magic tricks on stage and to utter a few jabs at Werner Herzog.  Maher stares on in confusion as one of the Germans balances the Oscar on his chin.

9:18 -- The winner for Documetary Short Subject, however, is not only an American but an American woman.  What this means is that her speech isn't all that interesting or entertaining.  However, it is dreadfully earnest and tedious.

9:20 -- Yeah, you read that right.

Oscars -- Part 3

8:30 -- We're on another commercial break right now.  It just occured to me that we're an hour into the Oscars and nobody's mentioned Barack Obama.

8:31 -- Tonight's theme is that the awards are being presented "in the order" that it takes to make a movie.  It's actually a pretty neat concept. 

8:32 -- Future Oscar host Ben Stiller is out on stage now with Natalie Portman.  He's wearing a fake beard and acting like he's stoned.  Portman just told him that he looks like he works at a "meth lab."  There's something very strange about hearing Natlie Portman use the term "meth lab."  Stiller actually appears to be chanelling Brian Wilson.

8:34 -- Stiller and Portman give the award for Best Cinematography to Slumdog Millionaire.  The Slumdog winners all seem to be quite a bit more likable than the Benjamin Button winners.

8:38 -- Jessica Biel is out on stage now.  She just mentioned Jerry Lewis which serves as a reminder that Lewis is going to get the Hersholt Award later tonight.  I wonder how many people are actually looking forward to sitting through Lewis's speech.

8:40 -- Now that I type that, I'm sure that Lewis will respond by giving one of the most eloquent speeches in the history of eloquent speeches.  This main result of this, of course, will be to make me look like a total ass.  That seems to be the pattern.

8:41 -- We're on commercial now.  I'm going to call my mom and find out who came in last on the Amazing Race.

8:42 -- Whoops!  I didn't move quickly enough.  We're back and I'm watching a short film about the comedies of 2008.  It stars Seth Rogen and James Franco and Franco just mentioned Barack Obama!  It took 72 minutes for us to hear the name "Barack Obama" uttered on the Academy Awards.

8:44 -- However, I take some solace from the fact that Ronald Reagan was mentioned at the same time.

8:46 -- Franco, Rogen, and a fellow with a name that I do not want to misspell are on stage to give the award for Best Live Action Short.  The Oscar goes to a German film that, from the preview shown, appeared to deal with the Holocaust.  Franco cracks up as he tries to the read the name.

8:47 -- The short's director (who resembles the great Italian actor Giovanni Lombardo Radice) just gave the best speech of the ceremony so far. 

8:48 -- And we go to commercial with our announcer promising us that the award for best supporting actor is right around the corner...