My Point ... And I Do Have One (7 page)

Well, we’re in Alaska and I’ll tell you something, it’s
cold
. It’s so cold it’s snowing—looks like it has been for a while. The dogs are not taking to the snow the way I’d hoped they would. Muffin, the smaller one, is being downright stubborn, refusing to step foot (or paw) in the snow. I can’t really blame her—she sinks into it so far, her ears are barely sticking out.

I feel we are in trouble with both dogs pulling—and there’s no way to try with only Bootsie. Also, Bootsie has, it seems—and this is terrible timing—just gone into heat. I was debating whether I should neuter her before the race and then I totally forgot. You can imagine the scene she’s causing. I’ve never seen her act this way. I keep apologizing to all of the other contestants.

So far, no one is talking to me. They’re kind of snobbish folks. And real serious about this race. I think some are cheating, too. Some have as many as eight dogs. They must all know each other—all of the dogs look alike and are well-behaved. They look at my dogs a lot—probably very curious about the breed. It’s hard to tell what they are with their little sweaters on,

Uh-oh, I hear a ruckus outside. Sounds like Bootsie is into some trouble with other dogs. I’ll sign off for now. The big day is soon upon us.

J
OURNAL
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NTRY

Anchorage, Alaska. Five
A.M
.

I haven’t been sleeping well. I’m very worried about the race. It starts tomorrow, and since arriving here I’ve learned a lot more about this event. For instance, you’re supposed to have somewhere between fourteen and twenty dogs per sled. Wow! That’s crazy. I mean—where do all of these people live that they’re allowed to own that many dogs? I know for my own neighborhood there is a zoning law that prohibits a person from having any more than three dogs. Nevertheless, I must adapt to the circumstances and move forward. I will go to the local animal shelter today and get more dogs. Since Bootsie and Muffin are somewhat familiar with the routine, I won’t need the full twenty dogs. I’ll just get fifteen. A nice seventeen will do just fine. I figure these dogs will be so grateful to be adopted they’ll do anything I ask of them. After the race I’ll simply find good, loving homes for them.

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Uh-oh. I think I’m in trouble. For some reason the shelter didn’t have that many dogs. I got seven—that’s all they had—and eight cats (I was desperate). I see no reason why I can’t train the cats to pull. I’ve seen movies and TV shows where they use cats (for what exactly I don’t remember). Besides, with the nine dogs total, they should be able to get it going, and once we have momentum it should be easy pulling for the cats (well, kittens—they’re ten weeks old). Maybe I’ll just keep the kittens in the sled with me. They can’t add any weight. I wonder if I can push the sled in addition to the dogs pulling or at least just run alongside. I’ve picked up a pamphlet on the race—hopefully I will get a little more insight on this Iditarod

Bye for now.

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Oh my—Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I’m afraid I’m not as prepared as I would like to be. My intentions were good, but Bootsie is having a problem with the kitties. I’ve tried to introduce them slowly so as to avoid the problem we had the first day. I’ve never seen Bootsie so aggressive. Luckily, I got there in time to stop her violent charges at the poor kitties. I can’t imagine why she hates them so!

The race started yesterday. I hope I can catch up. It shouldn’t be that hard. I’ve attached a small motor to my sled, which should help matters somewhat. I plan on leaving tonight.

Over and out.

J
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Things have gotten worse and worse. All the other racers are two days ahead of me. I hate them. They are a distasteful group whose juvenile jeering made me yearn for the taunts of my neighborhood children. I dream of wiping the smiles off their smug, pudgy faces. How dare they call me a Sheila Disco Musher?

But I fear that my dreams of revenge will just be dreams. The motor on my sled didn’t work, probably because it wasn’t attached to anything. AH it did was make a lot of noise, weigh down the sled, and scare the cats.

I must keep my spirits up. Not so much for myself as for my team. I must not give up hope. If we do not feel like winners, we cannot win. To that end I will head to downtown Anchorage today to get the three poodles on my team pedicures.

Whenever I ask myself, “Why go on?” I must answer, “Why not.” Miracles do happen.

Icanarod, Iwillarod, Iwinarod, Iditarod.

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I won! I won! They say I didn’t. They say I cheated. They say I’ve been disqualified. All I know is I finished first. My team and I were the first ones to get from Anchorage to Nome.

They can bitch and moan as much as they please. Nowhere in the rules does it say you can’t use a Winnebago. It was a stroke of genius and a bit of luck. Who would have guessed that there was an auto dealership across the street from the dog groomer? With the sled and dogs and cats in the back, we just took off down the freeway. We beat the nearest racer by two days and we rarely went over fifty-five miles an hour, mainly because Muffin gets nauseous if I drive any faster.

As for the other Iditaroders, I have never seen such a group of sore losers in my life. But I pity them more than hate them. They’re just jealous.

I can’t get rid of my posse (that’s what I’ve started calling my team). To hell with neighborhood rules, I’m keeping them all. Maybe I’ll return to defend my title next year. Back to back!

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Life has no meaning again. I gaze into the abysmal void that is my soul and all that is reflected back is my own emptiness. I am bored and restless. The high of being the Iditarod champion did not last long. I need a new challenge. But what?

My posse, my team, my cats and dogs: They’re listless as well. I try to maintain a happy exterior for their sake, but they’re not fooled.

Once again I’m watching
Regis and Kathie Lee
. Even Kathie Lee’s stories about Cody fail to cheer me up. Before I turn off the set and do God knows what, I see an image: a boat skating across the sea. A woman mentions the America’s Cup, the world’s premier yacht race. Yes!!!!

I bet there are no rules about having pets as part of your crew. Me and my posse start training tomorrow. Until I get a yacht, we’ll just use an inflatable raft in my pool.

The dream lives.

ellenvision

I
feel extremely lucky to have my own TV show. Every day I pinch myself because I’m sure I must be dreaming. Actually, I don’t pinch myself. It’s one of my manager’s jobs to pinch me and say, “You ain’t dreamin’, kid!” Then I pinch him, he pinches me back, and it usually ends up in a slap fight. Sometimes the slap fight lasts until midnight. Then we call it a day, go to sleep, and repeat it all again the next morning.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m so happy that my show is as good, and as based in reality, as it is. You wouldn’t believe some of the shows that were offered me by network executives before I accepted
Ellen
(which, by the way, is named for Ellen Burstyn).

In one show presented to me, I was going to be a single news producer for a small TV station in Minneapolis. I said, “That sounds an awful lot like
Mary Tyler Moore.
” They replied, “Who’s going to remember?”

Other shows I was offered included
Hello Ellen
(with MacLean Stevenson),
Ellen the Chimp Lady
, and a sitcom version of
The Piano
—I was going to play the Holly Hunter part, and either Siegfried or Roy was going to play the Harvey Keitel role.

I think the worst idea I was subjected to was a show called
Inky Dinky Do. “Inky Dinky Do,”
I said, “what’s it about?” The network executive said, “We don’t know yet. All we’ve come up with is the title.”

I don’t mean to imply that I haven’t gotten weird notes from the network about my show now. They’d like me to develop some magic powers, like the ability to see through lead or bend spoons with my mind. But no matter how weird my show—
Ellen
—might get, nothing compares to how weird TV was during the sixties.

Not that there aren’t bad shows on now, but at least they kind of have a base in reality. Well, okay,
Melrose Place
doesn’t.

The sixties were when hallucinogenic drugs were becoming really, really big. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we had the type of shows that we had then, like
The Flying Nun
.

If you think about it, nuns were very popular in the sixties. They must have had a good publicist then. They had
The Sound of Music
, about a nun. They had
The Singing Nun
—remember her? “Dominique a nique a nique a Dominique …” So they figure, “Hey, the nuns are popular, let’s do a TV show.” But I think it was just about nuns until they got the Network Notes. “Nuns are good. People will watch. But, couldn’t they fly or something? People like flying.”

I’m just surprised there were no copycat shows, like
The Swimming Rabbi
or
The Leaping Episcopalian
. Because, no matter how bizarre a show is, if it’s popular, someone is going to try to imitate it.
Bewitched
came on and one year later it was
I Dream of Jeannie
. “No, they’re different. On one she twitches her nose, on the other she blinks. But the most important thing is, one’s a witch and the other’s a genie. It’s so different it’s not even funny.”

Other similar shows were
The Addams Family
and
The Munsters; Gilligan’s Island
and
Lost in Space; Mr. Ed
and
My Mother the Car
(one is a talking horse, the other a talking car—they’re both transportation);
Gunsmoke
and
60
Minutes
(well, they both have a bunch of guys and one girl).

My Mother the Car
has to be the weirdest show ever. It even tops
The Flying Nun. A
man’s mother dies and is reincarnated as a car. It
could
happen. I mean, a talking toaster or talking can opener, an ironing board or a Ping-Pong table—
those
would be ridiculous. But a talking car? That’s much more likely.

Somewhere along the way to putting this show on the air, drugs had to be involved. It was the sixties. To me it sounds like the last idea you have, and you mention it, kind of embarrassed, after all your other ideas have been rejected. “I came up with this one at 3:00 in the morning. I don’t know … Well, it’s a talking car—you know, like they have—and it’s this guy’s mother … I guess.”

Now he might not have been zoned out on boo or goofballs, but the network guy who bought it, man,
he
had to be on something. “Right, it talks. Just like a person talks. I dig it. Write it up. I’ll give you more notes after I tie-dye my shirt and drive up to San Francisco to see the Grateful Dead. Wow. Look at my fingers. They’re funny.”

I saw Jerry Van Dyke, the star of
My Mother the Car
, in person around the time that show was on the air, but it’s kind of embarrassing how I saw him. The only major trip that my family ever took was to Los Angeles, Disneyland, and Anaheim. We took a train and that was kind of fun. My parents told my brother and me that it was an airplane, but we figured out after the first thousand miles that they were lying. We went to Hollywood and saw the set where
Gillian’s Island
was shot. That was every bit as exciting as you could imagine.