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

The 2008 Emmys, Part Four

9:03 -- The producers of John Adams, during their acceptance speech, couldn't help but say that the election of Jefferson Vs. Adams was full of "lies, innuendo, and partisan something-or-another."  "How great," he added, "that we've come so far since then..."  Oh, fuck off.  Believe it or not, I try to limit the profanity on this blog but seriously, dude -- fuck off. 

9:10 -- Neil Patrick Harris and Kristen Chenoweth (I'm butchering her last name, I know) are presenting the award for Best Host Of A Variety Special.  I'm hoping that Jon Stewart wins for the Academy Awards...

9:11 -- So, of course, Don Rickles ends up winning for Mr. Warmth.  Which is good because I like Don Rickles.

9:12 -- And, as Rickles gives his acceptance speech, I am looking over the other installments of my Emmy coverage.  First off, let me apologize for the lack of polish.  That's live blogging for ya!  Secondly, allow me to say "Thanks, Debbie."

9:16 -- Also, I should correct something I said in my first installment of my Emmy coverage.  Zeljko Ivanek did not play Gov. Devlin on Lost.  He played Gov. Devlin on Oz.  There's a big difference between Lost and Oz.

9:20 -- I wonder how the Cowboys are doing up in Wisconsin.  I hope they're doing better than my virtual football team -- the Ardglass Beerbroks -- are doing over on the Goal Line Blitz MMORPG.  The Beerbroks have played two games so far.  They lost the first one by a score of 0-64.  They followed this up by losing their next game by a score of 0-147.  You read that  right.  0 to 147.  We play again tomorrow.  Hopefully, the Beerbroks will manage to actually get into field goal range at some point during the game.  I'm not asking that they actually make the field goal.  Just get into range, guys.  Seriously, give me something here!

9:25 -- While I was writing all that, Paul Giamitti won Best Actor in a Miniseries for John Adams.  Giamitti should have won an Oscar for both American Splendor and Sideways.

9:26 -- Alec Baldwin just won for Best Actor in a Comedy.  He defeated Steve Carrell.  Boo!  Baldwin just called Tina Fey the "Elaine May of her generation."  Does that mean that Fey is going to direct her generation's version of Ishtar?

9:28 -- They appear to be attempting to speed things up as Glenn Close was named Best Actress in a Drama even as Alec Baldwin was still stepping off the stage.  Anyway, every award ceremony has to have a "Give-More-Role-To-Old-Women" speeches and apparently, this was Close's year to do it.

9:30 -- Now, they're showing the montage of the dead.  William F. Buckley, Charlton Heston, Mel Ferrer, Joey Bishop, Sydney Pollack, Estelle Getty, Bernie Mac, Suzanne Pleshette, Abby Mann, Harvey Korman, Jim McKay (who is seen announcing the deaths of the Israeli athletes at the '72 Olympics -- "They're all gone."  Heartbreaking.), and so many others.

On that note, let's end this installment.

The Day I Was Chopped In Half By A Shadow Servant In The Swamps Outside of Riverhaven

You'll have to excuse me if I seem a bit depressed.

A little over a month ago, I was doing research for a vague idea I had for a novel.  As a part of that research, I joined up with an MMORG.  An MMORG is a Massive Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game.  For those of you who were born before 1960, there are literally thousands of these to be found throughout cyberspace.  They range from being very basic to very extravagant.  Some are played in real time while others are done on a turn-based system.  Quite a few feature some very complex, occasionally breathtaking graphics.  However, myself, I prefer the games that are text-based.  Perhaps this is because I grew up playing those classic Infocom games like Zork, Planetfall, the hilarious game-version of Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, Wishmaster, The Suspect, and Deadline (my personal favorite all the old-school text-based games).

In the past, I had largely avoided the whole MMORG community.  A lot of this was because so many of these MMORGs were fantasy-based and, with a few notable exceptions, fantasy and science fiction have just never held that much of an interest to me.  Time was another huge factor.  And, quite frankly, the best MMORGs usually feature a lot of social interaction and I tend to be just as shy online as I am in the real world.  Still, despite not being a part of it, the whole MMORG community continued to fascinate me.  The whole idea of creating a totally imaginary (and, arguably, vastly superior) reality with a lot of other strangers (and especially the fact that this whole imaginary world becomes a bit of a collaborative effort among people who will never actually meet face-to-face) is a theme that shows up in much of my writing.

So, as I mentioned earlier, I finally took the plunge and signed up for several different MMORGS.  Though I dabbled around in several different games (and I especially enjoyed the brief time I spent playing Urban Dead), the majority of my attention was captured by Dragonrealms.

Dragonrealms takes place in the fictional world of Elanthia.  As you can probably guess, this is a fantasy setting.  Players can be one of several different races (Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, ect.) and join several different guilds (Moon Mage, Cleric, Warrior Mage, Paladin, Bard, and several others).  It may sound like just another online version of Dungeons and Dragons but what sets Dragonrealms apart from other fantasy games is the truly amazing amount of detail that has been put into creating both the world of Elanthia and the various cities that can be found within.  Add to this the fact that the majority of the players on Dragonrealms are remarkably tolerant of novices like me and the end result is a truly addictive experience.

How addictive?

So addictive that even after I had forgotten the exact details of why I was researching MMORGs in the first place, I still found myself enjoying spending an hour or two exploring the world of Elanthia.

Who was I in this fantasy world?  I was an Elf.  I was a Moon Mage.  I was someone who thought he would feel like a complete loser playing an MMORG yet I never did.  Why?  Because it was (and is) a lot of fun and, as we all know, losers rarely have much fun.

Unfortunately, yesterday, I made the mistake of exploring the swamps around the the city of Riverhaven.  I am sad to report that my proud Elven Moon Mage was ambushed by something called a "shadow servant."  After my character -- already wounded from a previous battle -- vainly tried to swim in the other direction, this shadow servant proceeded to literally rip my character to pieces. 

Dragonrealms, it should be noted, is widely praised for having an incredibly detailed combat system and never was that more obvious than when I sat there, in front of my computer screen, and read about my character's demise:

"The Shadow Servant," I read, "hurls a jagged rock at you.  Failing miserably, you try to dodge but end up taking the full blow instead.  The jagged rock lodges into you throat, causing blood to gush everywhere, and severely stunning you."

Desperately, I typed, "Flee."

(Flee is a last resort command that can be used when you're being clearly overwhelmed in a fight.  The good thing about it is that it allows you to escape regardless of how close your opponent is too you.  The bad thing about it is that you don't have much control of where you end up running to.)

"You are stunned," the game replied.

Powerless, I sat there as more text rolled up the screen.

"The Shadow Servant moves into melee range of you."

"The Shadow Servant laughs."

"The last of the clouds move out of the way, revealing a night sky full of twinkling stars."

"The Shadow Servant scratches himself."

"You fell a definite increase in lunar mana."

Finally, my character snapped out of his stunned state and, again, I typed "Flee."

As if it was mocking me, the game actually seemed to pause a minute before replying, "You have to be standing to do that."

What!?  I wasn't standing up!?  I looked down at my character's status box and discovered that, yes, I was indeed lying down.  Crap!

Even as I was typing out the word "Stand," the following text scrolled up the screen: "The Shadow Servant slices a Shadowy Blade at you.  You try to evade, failing miserably.  The Shadowy Blade slashes into you abdomen, cleanly cutting you in half."

So much for standing.

The game then informed me: "You feel like you're dying!"

Well, yeah, I imagine I would seeing as how I've apparently just been chopped in half...

A good deal more text scrolled up the screen but it could all be boiled down to one thing.  I was dead.

At first, as I sat there staring at my computer screen.  At first, I hoped that one of the 13 Gods who ruled Elanthia would be kind enough to resurrect me as soon as I arrived at the afterlife.  After all, this is what they had done the previous 10 times I had been killed over the course of the game.

Instead, what I got went something like this: "A meteorite streaks across the sky as your soul departs to walk the Starry Path forever..."

I actually had to read those words three time before it totally sunk in.

I was dead.

My journey was over.

I would never be a hundredth circle Moon Mage.

I would learn no more spells. 

I would slay no more river rats or goblins.

Instead, I was now going to walk the starry path forever.

Now, the good thing about something like Dragonrealms is that, if you die or get bored with the life you're living, you can always just reroll your character and start all over again.

And, in a few days, I may do just that.

But, for now, allow me to mourn.

Nightmares of 1983

Here's a blast from the past: Right now, as I type this, the TV is on behind me.  And what's currently on television?

Why, it's Nightmares!

The Nightmares in question is a horror anthology film from 1983.  It was originally made as a TV movie but was apparently deemed "too strong" for network television.  Hence, it got a theatrical release.  Watching it now, it's amazing to consider just what exactly was considered to be "too strong" by the standards of network television a mere 25 years ago.  True, the various deaths involved in the film are bloody but they're nothing compared to what you can see on any of the various CSIs.  And yes, the film is fairly violent but there's nothing in here that comes close to what we've seen over the course of past seasons of 24. 

In Nightmares, a cop gets stabbed to death (largely off camera), Richard Masur battles a giant rat (which he should have been used to seeing as how he started off as a cast member of One Day At A Time), and Emilio Estevez battles an angry video game.  Last season, on 24, a running drill was inserted into Morris O'Bryan's shoulder blade.

On camera.

In close up.

Some people might be inclined to see this as evidence of the decline of Western Civilization.  Still, it should be remembered that 24 and the CSIs are actually good and enjoyable works of entertainment.

Whereas Nightmares really ... is not.

As stated previously, Nightmares is an anthology film.  There have been literally hundreds of horror anthology films made since the beginning of moviemaking.  A handful have been good (Creepshow was probably the last good one and even that film was dreadfully uneven) and the rest have been like Nightmares.  For whatever reason, there is something about the whole anthology format that simply does not work when it comes to horror.  Too often, suspense and atmosphere are sacrificed to the need to fit four separate and complete stories into one 120-minute film.

Nightmares tells four stories.  The first, and blandest, features Christina Raines (a lovely actress who never quite had the career that she deserved) as a smoker who runs afoul an escape convict.  The third features Lance Henriksen as a priest who finds himself trapped in a bunch of outtakes from Duel.  In the fourth, Masur and family are menaced by a big rat.

It's the second story, though, that has given Nightmares whatever notoriety that it may have.  This is the segment where Emilio Estevez plays a teenage video game "hustler" who gets addicted to a game known as the Bishop of Battle.  Sneaking into the local arcade after closing time, Estevez manages to get to "Level 13."  Level 13, of course, is the point where the video game explodes and Estevez finds himself being chased around by angry day-glow spaceships.  The closest I can get to a modern equivalent would be if all of my dead Sims were resurrected as zombies and crawled out of the screen of my laptop like the little black-and-white video tape girl in the Ring.

Come to think of it, that would probably have been made a better movie than The Bishop of Battle.  But, I digress...

While the whole film is obviously a product of the '80s, this second story is the most obvious culprit.  Everything from the casting of Estevez to the punk rock soundtrack to the colorful sleeveless t-shirts worn by most of the characters serves to date this section of the film.  For this reason -- and pretty much this reason alone -- the Bishop of Battle remains entertaining despite itself.  (I nearly used the term "campy" but that's a word I've been using far too much as of late.)  It's especially amusing and interesting to see what we (myself very much included) through was cool back in '83.  As hard as it is to believe, there was a time when Pac-Man was cutting edge and Space Invaders was the most addictive game around.

I still miss those days.

The Eagles are losing and all is right with the world

As I've stated before, I'm not really a big football guy.  On the whole, I've probably spent more time watching various Madden games than I have spent watching actual, real-life games.

That said, I'm currently watching the Dallas Cowboys playing against the Philadelphia Eagles.  They're in the 3rd Quarter of play and the score is Cowboys -- 28, Eagles -- 10.

Again, I'm not a big football guy and I don't make any pretense towards being an expert.

Still, there is always something so very satisfying about watching Philadelphia lose.  I guess even the nonsports fan has to have at least one team that he or she loves to hate.  For me, that team would have to be the Philadelphia Eagles.

(And for far many more people, that team is probably the Dallas Cowboys but we won't go into that right now...)

Football and politics

Is Barack Obama the Donavon McNabb of 2008 Presidential candidates?  This post makes a fairly convincing argument that he may well be.

Reading this post got me thinking about what current and former NFL quarterbacks that the other presidential contenders might resemble.  This probably would have been easier if I knew anything about football beyond what I've picked up from playing various editions of Madden.

Considering my ignorance on the topic, I can't really claim to be surprised that this line of thought was not as productive as I would have hoped.  Still, I did figure out four things.

1) Joe Biden is the Vinny Testaverde of 2008 Presidential candidates in that he simply refuses to accept that his time has passed.

2) Hillary Rodham Clinton is the Michael Vick of 2008 Presidential candidates for obvious reasons.

3) John Edwards is the David Carr of 2008 Presidential candidates in that he'll probably win one contest and end spending the rest of the primary season getting sacked.

4) Fred Thompson, if he doesn't get his act together soon, is running the risk of becoming the Ryan Leaf of 2008 Presidential candidates.

I've been memed....

Both Throwing Bullets and A Strange Life have hit me with this meme so I guess I probably should go ahead and answer it.

First the rules:

Well, I can't find the rules so I'm just going to paraphrase them.  Basically, you list eight things about yourself.  Simple, huh?  I'll try to list eight things that I haven't already talked about this on the blog.  That's right -- it's eight new sides of Jeff!  Anyway, this being a meme, you're supposed to then send it onto eight different bloggers.  Unfortunately, every blogger I know has sent me this particular meme so I'm going to hold off on meeting that little requirement.

(Sometimes, you got gotta break the rule.  Remember when that was Burger King's advertising slogan?)

Anyway, here we go.  In addition to being a chain-smoking, anti-death penalty Libertarian and writer, here are eight other facts that can be used to identify me if you should ever happen to wander across me in the wilderness:

1) I may be the only person in the world who absolutely hates the song Amazing Grace.  Why do I hate this song?  Overexposure, I suppose.  I mean, it is one of those songs that films and television just tend to toss in anytime that a cheap emotional reaction is needed.  I've always kind of resented how I'm automatically expected to be emotionally moved simply by the fact that this song is playing.  Instead, every time I hear Amazing Grace, I just feel manipulated.

2) When I was a kid, I had a severe stutter.  At times, it was literally impossible for me to get even one word out of my mouth.  Well, we all know how nice and accepting other children are when it comes to speech impediments.  As a result, I spent most of my youth painfully shy and withdrawn and I'm still not all that comfortable having one-on-one conversations with people.  However, in the end, it was for the best because, since I felt I couldn't make myself known verbally, I started writing.  It was the only way I felt comfortable communicating my thoughts and my feelings.  To a large extent, that's still true even though, for the most part, my stutter diminished as I grew up.  I still stammer occasionally but now it's more of a nervous habit (a la Woody Allen) than anything else. 

3) Despite being shy, I'm happiest when I'm the center of attention.  If there's anything that I miss, it's having time to appear in plays.  I started acting in high school, ran my own theater group in college, and I've been involved with various community theaters over the past couple of years.  Don't get me wrong; I'm not claiming to be a very good actor.  Basically, my acting talents are limited to playing one rather over-the-top, sardonic character.  (An exaggeration of myself, basically.)  Still, I play the one character very well.  Regardless of the play or the role, there was just something incredibly exhilarating about standing out on that stage and knowing that you've got the attention of every single person sitting out in that audience.  I miss it.  (Then again, an argument could be made that blogging is now my community theater stage...)

4) I am scared of the following things: dogs (I was attacked by one when I was three), drowning (I fell into a pool when I was nine and I've never gotten in one since), heights (well, who isn't?), and irons.  Okay, about those irons: I have no memory of this but I've been told that this happened.  Apparently, when I was three (which, considering I also got mauled by a dog at this age, must have been a traumatic year for me), I bumped into an ironing board.  The iron -- which was on -- toppled off and, for whatever reason, I reached out to grab it before it hit the floor.  And grab it I did, severely burning my finger tips in the process.  Anyway, I've now reached a point where I can bring myself to actually iron my clothes but I break out into a cold sweat and my heart's racing the entire time.

5) I was once "homeless" for three months.  This was when I was still living in Denton, Texas.  I had withdrawn from the University of North Texas (long, long story) and, for that reason, I was kicked out of my dorm room.  (Yeah, for whatever reason, it didn't occur to me that would probably be a consequence of dropping all of my class's that semester.)  As was my habit back then, I hadn't really bothered to come up with any Plan B beyond staying in the dorm.  So, I stored all of my possession at various friend's residences (all of my friends had roommates or else lived in the forbidden dorms which is why I didn't stay with them) and then I set about trying to find an apartment.  That took me three months.  Back then, my credit wasn't as good as it is now and, in order to get a lease, I would either have to get a cosigner or pay two months rent in advance.  Denton, being a college town, was not a cheap town to rent in and I really didn't have anyone to cosign for me except for my parents who I was "rebelling" against.  And yes, I was an idiot back then.  Anyway, for three months, I basically stayed up all night (IHOP, luckily, was open 24 hours) and spent the days crashing at various buildings across campus.  At the time, I felt quite tough and proud of myself for surviving but, in retrospect, it's obvious that 1) my situation was largely the result of my own stupidity and 2) my "homelessness" can in no way be compared to people out there who find themselves with no other option but to living on the streets.  Even if I didn't want to admit it at the time, I knew I could always call up my parents if things got too bad.  I knew that I could escape anytime I wanted so I was really just a guy pretending to be in a desperate situation.  I was playing a role so to speak.  That's obvious now but, of course, back then I thought I was such a badass.  Now, I can see that I was just an idiot.   

6) I have a lot of family up in Arkansas.  I don't see them a lot and I really don't have much in common with them.  Quite a few of them hold attitudes that can only be described as racist and, as such, I'm always kind of uncomfortable talking to them.  I can honestly say that I've never used the "n-word" in my life but I certainly have heard it a lot.  Luckily, I was raised better than that.

7) I cannot carry a tune.  Despite this, I often spend my time at work loudly singing off-tune.  It helps me concentrate and it seems to amuse (or perhaps annoy) my coworkers so I guess it's all good.  I tend to get songs stuck in my head for weeks at a time.  Right now, at work, I find myself singing Always On My Mind quite a bit.  Before that, I was singing one of the songs from the Planet of the Apes musical that was featured on an old episode of the Simpsons: I Hate Every Ape I See/From Chimpanzee/To ChimpanA/No, you'll never make a monkey/You'll never make a monkey/Out Of Me...

8) I wish I lived in Italy.  I first went there the summer after I graduated high school.  Rome, of course, was great (I spent a week living in a cheap hotel a few blocks away from Vatican City) and Venice was beautiful, if overrun by tourists.  Florence -- Jesus Christ, how to describe Florence?  Florence was overwhelming.  Every where you turned, you saw something else that you never thought you'd actually see in your lifetime.  However, my favorite city was Naples.  Why?  Who knows?  It was an ugly, crowded, polluted city.  But I loved it, nonetheless.

And there you go.

How Hell's Kitchen Improved My Luck (featuring unsolicited commentary from Lisa Bowman)

I'm often been asked to explain why I, a dedicated writer of fiction, love reality television -- as shallow and silly as it often is -- so much.  Tonight, thanks to Hell's Kitchen and Gordon Ramsey, I have a perfect answer to that question.

Before I go into the full details, it should be understood that I am notoriously unlucky when it comes to gambling.  Indeed, when I was a student at the University of North Texas, I had the well-deserved reputation of being absolutely the worst poker player in Denton, Texas.  Over the course of many nights filled with booze, cigarettes, and cards, I can claim to have maybe one out of close to a thousands hands of poker.

It's not that I couldn't be a good poker player.  I actually have quite a good poker face.  Unfortunately, I also have an attention span that, on a good night, can be stretched to a good two minutes.  Hence, if everyone folded in the first two minutes, I had a good chance of winning the hand.  However, if they held out for two minutes and one second than I would inevitably end up getting distracted and let my guard down.

Never a good thing when you're trying to manipulate chance.

However, tonight, my luck changed.  Minutes before the latest episode of Hell's Kitchen started tonight, I made a $100 bet with my good friend, the lovely and talented Lisa Bowman.

The bet was that 1) Eddie (the short guy with the bad kidney) would be eliminated on tonight's episode and that 2) after kicking him out of the kitchen, Ramsey would comment that Eddie "had a big heart."  In order for me to win, both of these things had to happen.  If Eddie had simply gotten kicked off without being described as "having a big heart," I would have lost the bet.  If Ramsey had commented that Eddie had a "big heart" and then kicked someone else (Aaron, for instance) off the show, I would have lost the bet.

(Hi, Lisa here.  I'd just like to clarify that this alleged "bet" boils down to Jeff, out of nowhere, going "Hundred bucks that the little guy goes tonight and Chef Ramsey says he has a big heart!"  At no point did I agree to pay anything.) 

For a while, I have to admit that things looked a bit iffy.  Even though Eddie was having a bad night, Aaron was having an even worse night.  Actually, all the male competitors had a pretty bad night on this latest episode and as the show came to a close, I was already making sure I had my ATM card with me so  that I could pay up as soon as the credits started to roll.

And then -- a glimmer of hope.  Ramsey announced that he was kicking Eddie off the show.

We were halfway there.

As Eddie walked off the set, we were treated to several talking head interviews with the other chefs.  As the other chefs swore that they were going to make it to the end and talked about how everyone else was out to get them, my own big heart started to sink.  Eddie was gone and Ramsey had yet to say--

Then, 30 seconds before the show ended, I heard it.  Ramsey, with his permanently stressed English accented voice, said, "Eddie had a big heart...!"

I shouted, "THAT'S RIGHT, BABY!"

(Yes, Jeff actually did do this. *SIGH* -- Lisa)

Finally, I can claim to have won a bet.

How did I win both parts of this bet? 

How did I know that Ramsey would refer to Eddie as having "a big heart?"  One of the first things you discover after watching enough reality television is that any participant with a physical disability -- especially if the result of said disability is a small stature -- will be said to have "a big heart."  It's what one says when one can't think of anything good to say about someone that, for whatever reason, they're not comfortable criticizing personally.  It was true for Charla in the Amazing Race and it was true for Eddie tonight on Hell's Kitchen.

How did I know Eddie would be the one to be eliminated?

That was pure, dumb luck.

Sometimes, things just work out.

(Love ya but there's no way I'm giving you a hundred dollars.)