Veal Oscar

I love the Oscars. I love movies. I am completely unoriginal.

And being a Hollywood person, of sorts, I know some of the people in the audience, and some of the people working there, too. All of it. So it feels like the yearly homecoming, though I admit that is a stretch.

But this year, we watched the broadcast in NEW JERSEY! The damn thing wasn’t over until midnight! How can this be?!

I have memories of my younger days (when they called me Delta Dawn?)—I remember not making it to the end, the best part. You would hear about the winners the next morning. Of course, this was on the east coast, too.

Or is it East Coast?

I have a bit of a German take on Nouns and their Modifiers.

But back to the Oscars. The title of this piece is Veal Oscar because it’s a little bit fun, a non sequitur, certainly (an homage to Steve Martin’s quick wit) and I do eat veal. Sorry, I eat veal, I just do. It’s wrong, but I do it.

Oscars: I don’t care about dresses and things like that. But this event is our American pomp and glamour. It’s our yearly parade of some sort of Royalty. People crave it—something to do with the pecking order. Most of us are Beta dogs and we need the Alphas out there. And in these modern times, since machines are doing most of the work, our Alphas are the graceful, pretty animals who look good doing things. It’s Biology (stop judging it as vapid, you New York Times, you!)—we are doggies.

I do not watch the Grammys or the Emmys. I sometimes catch the Tonys because I like how homespun they are.

But I would never miss the Oscars.

The worst one was when poor Chris Rock hosted a Survivor-style show in 2005, with “contestants” standing on strange far flung platforms and they were basically voted off. Grotesque.

I liked the Oscar shows when they were hosted by Steve Martin, alone, the most.

But tonight, overall, was a fine one. No surprises, really. That strange red-headed producer woman, Elinor Burkett, was a sad case of horrible manners, interrupting the director of the best documentary short. Meds? Low on Meds? Or just plain rough and tumble?

Sandra Bullock, we went to the same acting school, though I think she is a better actor than I ever was. Don’t you? She gave a funny, smart speech. I would give her the award for, “Really a fantastic performance in a movie I don’t think I would ever naturally see unless I was tied down with toothpicks in my eyelids while someone rolled the DVD---unless I had heard how great she was in it and she was and so the Veal Oscar happily goes to spunky, right-on Sandra.”

Oscars---can’t wait ‘til next year.