It’s our party, and we’ll snooze if we want to
Our Oscar parties invariably go like this:
First hour: Rapt attention. We are like the front pew at Easter, hanging on every word, nodding at the appropriate moment. Happy to be in God’s lap.
Second hour: Digestion kicks in. Comments grow increasingly snarky. Meanwhile, the dog is on the coffee table, licking at the shrimp plate. Who cares?
Third hour: Everyone is asleep
Fourth hour: Some in-law calls to find out what the kids want for Christmas. “IT’S BARELY MARCH, MOM!!!” my wife shouts and goes back to sleep.
Anyway, this is a tradition for us, the home Oscar party. Like the real event, we pull out all the stops. We have seat fillers, for instance. That’s right, seat fillers. Get up to go to the loo -- or to Heimlich a little weenie -- and several contract employees rush to fill your seat. Like the real show, we prefer that the seats appear to be filled at all times. Like the real show, we’d like to fool the world into thinking we are amazing super-people who never need to pee.
And obviously we are.
I once held a lottery to determine who could come to our Oscar party. Only three people applied for the six available seats. So my wife and I immediately had three more kids. In hindsight, we probably should’ve just sold the three extra chairs. Live and learn, that’s us.
By the way, know what would be a funny bit at the Oscars? Steve Carell as a roving backstage reporter. I just have a feeling that would work.
Also, penguins dressed in gossamer gowns -- that would work. To me, penguins dressed like people are always funny. I like the way they slide joyously out of a limousine, their stubby wings flapping. Ever met an out-of-work penguin? Not me.
Know what wouldn’t work? Two hosts. Two hosts is like having two prom dates. Who gets the corsage? Who gets the hickey? You get the idea. When it comes to Oscar hosts, the more the scarier.
Take solace. I’ve been wrong before (see all of the above).
Besides, when you think about it, the Oscars are doomed to fail. You take 3,000 very ADD people and you make them sit extremely still for three hours. It’s like a big celebrity timeout. Which, frankly, isn’t the worst use of a timeout.
Each year, the Oscars are the same. Gradually, all the oxygen is removed from the Kodak Theatre. Eyelids get heavy. Just when things can’t get any bleaker, those goons from PriceWaterhouse show up. It becomes like a bad Cabinet meeting from the Ford administration. Next item on the agenda: tort reform.
Still, I don’t think we’ve missed an Oscar telecast since we had kids and couldn’t afford to leave the house anymore. It’s the perfect antidote to a rather bleak and joyless winter: a bunch of very talented rich people fumbling their note cards and looking at the camera as if it’s a bazooka.
The speeches are excruciating -- that’s another tradition. I’ve always thought the Oscars should have a game clock, like the NBA. Also, the hosts should carry guns. Baldwin . . . I’ll bet he’d shoot someone -- probably himself.
At our Oscar party, we take turns during commercials giving our own acceptance speeches.
I’d also like to thank . . .
-- My golf pro.
-- The amazing men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard.
-- And finally, the young nurse with the “happy hands” who works at my adult day-care facility.
No, I have no idea what that means either. But I’d like to thank her just the same.
I’d also like to thank James Cameron in advance. He is even-money to give an acceptance speech this year, and I wouldn’t miss such a moment for all the tea on the Titanic.
Cameron is an oddly gifted man who doesn’t speak particularly well or make much sense when he does. He’s sort of like Spielberg, only he looks like he’s never been in the sun, not even once. At the Golden Globes, Cameron looked like a marshmallow with a bad haircut.
Strange how a place as self-conscious as Hollywood prefers its geniuses to be rather bumbling and uncertain. The last genius with any stage presence was the great Orson Welles.
Now, that was a director -- maybe two. Oh, the things he would’ve done with penguins. . . .
