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Gaming Serious Stuff

Pick An Easy, Slow-Moving Target

So here we are, perhaps not surprisingly, with George W. Bush and Al Gore riding that media violence horse as hard as they can. And why shouldn’t they? Can we deny that it’s a real problem? Perhaps not. But can we also deny that this issue is an easy, slow-moving target which spells easy pickings for candidates who are trying to ply voters with the “family values” ticket?
The video game ratings system is a recent invention. And, to be fair, let’s not kid ourselves – the self-imposed ratings, assigned not by a third party but by each individual company to its own products, do not work. I’ve seen stuff given “E” or “KA” ratings that I would’ve placed much higher on the scale. The ratings are a joke.
And parents, not yet accustomed to the rating system, aren’t paying attention to the ratings. What the kids want is what the kids get. The parents do have the right to say no. Even if the ratings were administered by a third party, they’d do little good if ignored as often as they are today. And the obvious ineffectiveness of the ratings system as it is now has probably prompted consumers to ignore most of the ratings on game packaging. It becomes a vicious circle.
So, are there problems? You bet there are. But is this a make-or-break election issue? Not by a long shot. Will Bush and Gore try to make it such an issue? Almost certainly.
Then again, these are the same two candidates who can lock horns for a full day of their campaign over allegations of subliminal advertising.
The violence issue spreads far beyond video games. Movies (why is it that clips of The Matrix seem to be most prevalent in TV reports on this issue?), music, and television are also included.
And if, somehow, someone on Capitol Hill rubbed their magic lamp and solved all of this, they would not solve the problem, for the values reflected in these media are the values of our society, not vice versa. I don’t dispute that the media can influence impressionable individuals, but a society and its values exist before a media infrastructure exists. Spousal abuse is rampant in this country, especially in the southern midwest, which I sometimes reluctantly admit is my home. Is this because we have video game or television characters who beat the hell out of their wives and kids with no apparent consequences? Nope. The state in which I live has the nation’s highest number of home-brewed methamphetamine labs per capita. Do we have meth-smoking video game characters who get away with their drug use scot-free? Nyet.
A society creates its media. And those media cater to what that society wants. We live in a testosterone-soaked culture that glorifies and rewards violent behavior, as much as we like to condemn it verbally. Personally, I’ve blown away many an enemy ship, or even enemies on foot, from the safety of my television screen and joystick, for over half of my life. But do I go and behave this way toward the world around me? Do I beat up, threaten, or kill people outside the door of my cozy little electronic world?
No. Because my parents taught me better than that. These days, your average couple with kids is working frightful hours, probably to maintain a lifestyle that’s a little too rich for their blood to begin with. Some of that may be because the kids keep getting whatever they want.
I spent a lot of time playing Odyssey 2 games with my mother, who found them hysterically funny and a hell of a lot of fun. In later years, I spent a lot of time flying solo on the Atari (and later, various computer platforms). Still fun, but not as much fun as impressing another real live person with your skills, or ribbing them for their lack thereof. I know which I preferred. Break out that second joystick anytime for me. Families can play these things together, and if Mom or Dad is there, even if you’re sitting around the Nintendo playing Perfect Dark, they are in a position to explain the differences between fantasy and reality. Between right and wrong. Between justified and unjustified violence. The same goes for movies, TV and even music, though I realize that Mom and Dad may not be quite ready to sit through an hour of Marilyn Manson or Nine Inch Nails.
Perhaps, before the Democratic and Republican campaigns seize upon video games and other forms of entertainment as their latest demon to be exorcised from the wholesome heartland of America, and before they praise family-friendly sponsors for pulling their advertising from violent television programming… perhaps those same parties, and their candidates of choice (we’re just six weeks away from the election, and you’re telling me that these two goobers represent a choice?), should think twice about having, oh, say, The Rock of WWF fame appear at their conventions.
Getting the vote is all about giving people what they want, while sometimes saying something entirely contrary to one’s actions. But sadly, one of these two nitwits running for the highest office in the land will almost certainly be sworn into that office in five months. And they’ll continue waging their token war on such easy, slow-moving targets as the media.
But they’ll continue ignoring the real question: what can be done to solve the root problem (the violence), and not the symptom (the media’s portrayal of it)? And if you actually believe that Al Gore or George W. Bush will have the answer to that question any time in the next four to eight years, I have a fantastic deal for you on some very cheap vintage games. You see, there’s this landfill in New Mexico…and I’ll even give you the shovel…… Read more

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Serious Stuff

Class of ’90 Reunion: Full Rest

My apologies to those who keep checking back to see if I’ve added any more photos. I was so busy catching up with everyone that my camera sat idle most of the time – Jan wound up working the room and taking a bunch of pictures for me! Plus, my wedding is only a couple of days away, so I can safely say that it will probably be mid-July before I update my reunion pages again. Sorry about that – but I’m sure you’ll agree that I’ve got some incredibly important events demanding my attention right now. 🙂
That said…I had an absolute blast at the reunion. I’m two days away from getting married, so it’s hard for me to fathom the people with whom I went to Northside having kids (and quite a few of ’em!). But then, it’s probably hard for everyone else to fathom me getting married, so who’s to say? I just wish I’d had a little more sleep that weekend – I probably looked like the walking dead. (Again, nothing new to my former classmates.)
I’m all for a fifteen-year reunion. Does it really have to be twenty before we do this again?
I will keep updating this page once things settle down – and yes, by popular demand (and you know who you are), I will probably post some more of the ever-famous Fenter cartoons in the future, along with other relics (including a little tribute to my co-stars in the drama department). Watch this space!… Read more

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Funny Stuff

Class of ’90 Reunion: Now

Benched!
Benched!
Left to right: Odis Pilgrim, Carl Martinous and myself staked out our old haunt – sitting on the attendance office bench, waiting for Mr. Fenter to exact his unique brand of justice. Oddly enough, Glen never showed up. Odis and I would’ve gotten detention for losing all our hair. (And before anyone says I never wound up on this bench…think again! And think back to a little incident with Odis, me, and a morning announcement for the interminable journalism candy sales…)
Odis is down with DSC
Since Fenter didn’t show, Odis went to DSC anyway.
Oh, yeah, riiiight!
Yeah, right!
Left to right: Stacey Irish, Odis Pilgrim and Carl Martinous in the attendance office. Seem a little unlikely? Think again – note Stacey’s not on “the bench!”
Something you don't see every day
Another unlikely sight – Stacey Irish and Jason Campbell…in DSC!?
Roof, roof, oh roof.
Three…hey, isn’t that a mystic number?
Left to right: Ajay Patel, myself and Jason Campbell – the only survivors of Pat Werner’s AP English class to make it to the final reunion event. I’m sure there’s some significance to that number…Read more

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Funny Stuff

Class of ’90 Reunion: Then

Newspaper class 1990 yearbook photo
Left to right: Robert Heyman (newspaper editor), Lisa Crouch (writer), me (layout editor/writer, looking particularly demented in the background), D. Hays (instructor), James Riddle (writer), and Bethany Anderson (editor-in-training). If I recall correctly, Robert was holding the candy bar to protest the fact that after a stellar junior year chock-full of excellent newspapers, the journalism department was broke in our senior year and we only managed to barf up three or four less-than-spectacular issues. Most of journalism’s activities in the ’89-’90 school year involved candy sales. Not seen here because they were hiding in the darkroom: photographers Jason Campbell and Mike Hofrichter.
Earl at the Hawk's Nest, 1988
That’s me at the Hawk’s Nest, near Port Jervis, New Jersey, with a video camera glued to my shoulder, August 1988 (photo by Edward L. Harvey).
Earl at Fox 46, 1996
In the production room I built at Fox 46, April 1997 (photo by Craig Smith).
Drama Club Dinner Theater, 1989
Drama Club Dinner Theater – 1989
Left to right: Jennifer Threadgill, Stacey Irish, Joey Ness (class of ’89), Robin Bolton (class of ’89), Sylvia McDade, Kerstin (I don’t even remember how to spell her last name!), Joel Baker (class of ’89). Attempting to make bunny ears over Joel’s head: Chad Thomas (class of ’89). I was actually in the Dinner Theater that year as well, but I don’t think I was there for the picture.
Pat Werner's Surf 'n' Turf Band!
Fame! – 1989
Left to right: me (looking rather sleepy) and English teacher Pat Werner. Together with a couple of former Northside students, we were the “house band” for the drama department’s production of “Fame” in 1989. God bless her, Pat looks like she could use a nap too in this picture. I liked being in the band – especially since being in the play and the rehearsals was, unlike most other drama productions, a torturous experience that no one could ever pay me to go through again. Oh, wait a minute – I work in television. That sort of crap goes on all the time. Never mind.… Read more

Categories
Funny Stuff

Class of ’90 Reunion: FenterToons

While I’m sure everyone remembers “RoboFenter,” one of many comics I drew in honor of our illustrious vice principal, this first cartoon – which actually pre-dated “RoboFenter” – may require some explanation for those who have forgotten. (Hell, I had to think real hard to remember the circumstances.) Sometime in the ’88-’89 school year, an enterprising art student who shall remain nameless (it wasn’t me, I was never even in the art department!) distributed photocopies of an enlightening message to everyone’s locker: “Question authority.” It’s just possible that this enlightened message was overshadowed by the picture of the naked woman which was photocopied behind it. Mr. Fenter, bless his paranoid little soul, decided that since journalism had the only photocopier in the school outside of his office, our newspaper editor, then-senior Joel Baker, must have been responsible for the flyers. (After all, we junior plebes didn’t have no sense anyhow, so we didn’t know how to operate no fancy-shmancy photocopier thing.) He proceeded to march into the journalism room and yelled “Joel Baker, my office, now!” I seem to recall Joel being in his office for the better part of that day. What a trip. (The malotov cocktail joke is another vintage Northside reference. Do you remember who it was about?)
A Lewd Publication
Now that that’s out of the way, I’m sure the next cartoon will need no introduction…
RoboFenterRead more

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Serious Stuff

Class of ’90 Reunion: “Preview”

A tiny fraction of you visiting this site may have done so because we used to go to school together. With the Northside High School class of ’90 reunion just a month away, I’m sure one or two classmates will wander this way, trying to figure out what the hell I’ve been up to for the past decade. Hey, admit it, you’ve tried it too – surely I’m not the only one who was geeky enough to go look at some of the web addresses on the mailing list which weren’t obviously ISPs or AOL-ish services.
The old senior year ID card.So what have I been doing? I’ve been writing a lot (I do that for a living now, amazingly), working in television, raising cats, making music, falling in love, and chilling out a great deal compared to the basket case I was in my late teens. It wasn’t for about three or four years that I finally began to look back and realize how disturbed – and disturbing – I must have seemed way back when.
Things weren’t great during that very dark time of my life called senior year. Things weren’t good at home, and as a result, I was almost physically incapable of giving even the tiniest fraction of a crap about school, socializing, and so forth. And yet I managed to conjure up this darkness without the usual means – I wasn’t drinking, doing drugs, or anything like that. The good old 1989-90 school year was, for me, one long cry for help. I’m just sorry that, looking back, I dragged so many people through that with me.
If I could, as I am now, go back in time and talk to myself, I’d tell that guy with the long hair to chill the hell out, enjoy life, and stop letting his own miseries spill over into the laps of others – they had plenty. I’m stunned at how much invented angst we all created for ourselves back then. It’s nothing compared to trying to make it in the real world. When you’ve been tapped on the shoulder by a tornado, built a career in a fractious and back-stabbing industry, had your life forever changed by one screwed-up surgical procedure, struggled mightily to come up with the money to keep a roof over your head and food on the table, and met the one person you want to spend the rest of your life with…it becomes incredibly irrelevant who was going steady with whom, or who thought what of whom, in those three years of high school.
The almost-useless journalism department Press Pass card.I’m forever grateful for those who actually had the stomach to stick by me the whole time. Of all of them, I think I’ve only stayed in touch with Robert Heyman and Chris Bray. It’ll be nice to see some of the others. I really wish some of the teachers were invited. It don’t think it’d be an exaggeration to say that some of them, like Mattie McCray and Pat Werner, probably literally saved my life. With all of the hell I was going through at home, it helped to know that both my peers and my teachers actually cared, regardless of how much of an ass I was trying to be to push them away. All I can offer in return is that I have tried to live the life, and find the potential, that they knew I had waiting for me from the start.
And I’m sure some of you will be noting, with either amusement or alarm, that the vast majority of my home-brewed web site is the same kind of Star Trek stuff I was so “into” way back when. Well, yeah, you’ve got a point. But I offer you this: (A) it’s still just a hobby, (B) I actually make decent money off of this thing, believe it or not. Not a living by any means, but a more-than-welcome boost to my usual income. (You may have a hard time believing this, but writing and producing local television does not pay well. When she’s scheduled to work a single six-day week, my fianceè brings home nearly twice what I do in two weeks.)
Other than that, I spend a lot of time at home with the love of my life (we’re getting married exactly one week after the reunion – do I know how to fill my schedule or what?), play with my cats and my horse, read a lot, write a lot, listen to a lot of music, make a slightly smaller amount of music, and generally try to kick back, relax, and enjoy each day as it comes to me. Life is too fleeting and precious to do anything else. Some people I work with think I’m just not taking life seriously. Au contraire – I simply insist on having a blast.
Congratulations on your congraduations.What do I have now that I didn’t have then? Love, compassion, and humor.
What did I have then that I don’t have now? Hair on top of my head. Good God, the long-haired guy has gone bald. Isn’t it ironic (don’tcha think)?
See you in just a couple of weeks!… Read more

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Serious Stuff

Slow going

This is just a little note to apologize for the apparent sudden slowing-down of the site lately. A new, news-oriented TV job tends to suck one’s time dry during those all-important sweeps months of November, February, May and July (in that order), and this one is no exception. I’ve been seriously lacking in time to sit down and generate new material for the site. Hopefully the episode guide updates and other new items you’re seeing this week make up for that.
A few random thoughts have occurred to me lately that really don’t have any bearing on anything…so naturally, it further occurred to me that these thoughts needed to be foisted upon you, the public. You may exhibit the appropriate reaction – be it glee, annoyance, or indifference – now.

  • Rest in peace, Charles M. Schultz.
    The cruel irony of the timing of this man’s death is breathtaking. Goodbye, Charles Schultz…the world now seems just a little less kid-friendly without you. I don’t know if the children of the 90’s and the early 21st century will notice the difference, but those of us who grew up reading Peanuts will miss you.
  • Vote for me! Not for him! ME!!!
    Is anyone else getting really annoyed by the 2000 presidential race’s early descent into mudslinging? I’m thinking particularly here of the Bush/McCain thing. Early on in the political proceedings, I was actually leaning toward McCain…but this does change things. It’s clear that virtually all of our candidates are vying not for the power to do right by their constituents, but for the power to exercise on their own behalf. I know – nothing new there, oldest story in the world. But it’s still disappointing when I can’t even be vaguely, remotely idealistic.
  • Hack Attacks.
    eBay, Amazon.com, Yahoo!, CNN.com…who’s next? And what’s the point? Part of me sides with the FBI in thinking that there’s a serious problem on the horizon with such incidents. Another part of me thinks this may be the work of a handful of geeks who are just trying to show off – a la the movie WarGames. Just leave Amazon alone, guys…I like people to be able to support my web site!
  • When Pro Football Players Attack.
    It sounds like a Fox sweeps special…or actual headlines. Some researchers think that there’s a link between the ultra-macho world of full-contact sports and a tendency toward violence…and they may not be far from the mark. I just hope that the NFL will begin to act responsibly and start treating violent offenders within its ranks with more decisive action. Actually, that goes for all major sports leagues…hell, even minor ones. Kids look up to these self-appointed gladiators as role models and heroes. Let’s make sure they have role models and heroes worthy of that admiration. It’s sweet of the NFL to provide counseling for its players, and perhaps that is a giant leap toward pre-empting such incidents as the one in which Ray Lewis is involved …but there also needs to be a swift reckoning when someone crosses the line that Lewis did. What kind of message do kids receive – and, for that matter, impressionable minds everywhere – when the governing officials of pro sports waffle uneasily when a player commits a criminal offense?
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