Monday, March 01, 2004

Oscar Musings They call it the Super Bowl for women, but the fact is, the Oscars are a lot better than the Super Bowl if you like movies and movie stars.  Some thoughts... Was Charlize Theron dipped on gold or something before the show?  Yes, she is stunningly beautiful, though not any moreso than about a dozen other women in the audience and on the stage last night.  But her skin...it had a kind of golden sheen to it.  Not just tan...golden.  Even the photos of her in the Oscar stories today make her look that way.  Weird. I can't decide if I think Susan Sarandon and Diane Keaton are still very attractive because of my own advancing age, or because they are still very attractive generally.  I think the latter. Did anybody else wonder what might have happened if Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman ran into each other backstage?  And just for fun, Penelope Cruz and Mimi Rogers also showed up? Billy Crystal is fine.  I prefer Robin Williams if he can keep himself under control.  But really, how many people are there in this world who would be competent Oscar hosts? When Julia Roberts said that line about Kathryn Hepburn saying acting was no big deal because a 4 year-old Shirley Temple could do it, they cut to Sean Penn, who looked like he wanted to march right up on stage and strangle her for denigrating his profession.  Oh, and I know I mentioned this after her death, but seeing the montage of Hepburn really did nothing to endear her to me.  Maybe I just can't get past her patrician facade and New England over enunciation. It was obvious from all the cheering that Lost In Translation was a sort of sentimental favorite for the crowd in attendance.  I haven't seen the movie yet, much to my disappointment.  I was bummed for Bill Murray, not that I have any real opinion on whether he or Penn or someone else should have won the award.  But you have to think this was Murray's only real shot to win the Big One, and I really wanted to hear his acceptance speech.  As for Penn, I know a lot of people view him as an overserious lout, but he lost me when he distanced himself from the immortal Jeff Spicoli. Naomi Watts is too thin. Angelina Jolie is too hot. Could the stars' disgust at the mere sight of Billy Bush be more palpable? Is there an award show on the planet that Sting will not appear on?  Just this year, I've seen him on the Oscars, the Grammys, the Victoria's Secret PrimeTime fashion show, the X Games awards, the Tonys and the NASCAR Winston Cup Points Award Championship.  Did anyone else get the feeling that Phil Collins and Sting really don't like each other? Mel Gibson's publicist said that Mel couldn't be there because he had to promote "The Passion".  Oh, really?  After that opening week gross, he still has to promote it?  The movie with the greatest word of mouth following in history needs to be promoted?  I primetime interview with Diane Sawyer isn't promotion enough?  Appearing on the Oscars in front of a billion people isn't the best way to promote a movie? Is anyone else a bit surprised that Sofia Coppolla is the first American woman to win the Oscar for Best Director?  I was similarly surprised last year (no, amazed) that Adrian Brody was the youngest male to win Best Actor, at age 29, which is not all that young. Was anybody else offended that Elijah Wood didn't even get a chance to speak?  I mean, I know it was an ensemble cast and all, and I know it was more about the story and the technical effects, but come on.  He was Frodo.  I would have much rather heard from Elijah Wood than the Jackass Producer who said a bunch of nothing for 5 minutes.  How hot do you have to be to get the job as Stage Model for the Oscars?  I mean, you have to figure that being in L.A., the competition is going to be pretty fierce.  That's the Super Bowl of Stage Modeling, don't you think?  All they do is stand there and look statuesque, and then give people a gentle wave of the arms toward stage right to help dumbasses like Sean Penn figure out which way they are supposed to leave the stage.  Penn started to go down the stairs, though I suppose he probably wasn't thinking clearly after having just won the Oscar for Best Actor.  For all I know, those Stage Models are actually highly-trained in hand-to-hand combat, in the event that some belligerant like Michael Moore or Erroll Morris doesn't want to go the right direction.  You've got to watch the documentary crowd closely at all times.  And the Stage Models were so tall they made Elijah Wood, Sean Aston, Billy Boyd and that Other Hobbit appear to be Hobbit-sized again. In fact, the real-life shortness of the Hobbit Actors reminded me of one of the great Oscar clips I have seen from shows past, where Mickey Rooney was invited to present an award with Jayne Mansfield.  Basically, Rooney ended up with his face mere inches away from Mansfield's prodigous cleavage.  Hilarity ensued.  Put those four Hobbits up there with Angelina Jolie or Susan Sarandon, and you can't go wrong. Why was any Baldwin besides Alec at the Oscars?  Why? Oh, well.  Another Oscars, gone.  I only saw two of the films nominated for Best Picture, LOTR: ROTK and Master and Commander.  Of the two, the better film won.  And won.  And won. And nobody seemed to mind all that much, unlike the year Titanic won big.   3:38:05 PM    Say what?[]

Poker Glory This Friday I will play in the Poker Tournament again.  This will be the third year of the tourney, which is held by a couple guys I loosely know.  It's a good setup, 7 Card Stud exclusively, $50 buy-in, sixteen total players (though there are rumors that it may expand to 32 this year).  Two years ago, I made it to the final two and we split the remainder.  I can't remember how much I won, but it was enough to allow me to enter the following year without having to justify the cost to Jane.  We'll see if that holds for this year, because my performance last year was abysmal.  We start out with three tables of five players, and I barely made it to the two table consolidation.  I generally played like a jackass and had only average cards, a lethal combination. But this year is going to be different.  I'm reading up.  Even better, I now have plenty of role models from seeing poker on TV so much lately. What's the deal with poker becoming the great spectator sport of the 21st century?  I love to watch it, but I figured I was in a small minority.  Turns out poker is pulling big ratings on a number of networks.  I'm not sure I understand why, exactly.  Maybe it's the "personalities".  Unfortunately, my viewing experience tells me that most of the players have very little personality at all, and those that do are just assholes.  I'm thinking of a guy like the Devilfish, and his laughably gaudy four-finger ring.  Or Phil Helmuth, who never shuts up and high-fives spectators after every big pot.  I much prefer the laidback cool of Phil Ivey, but that teeters perilously close to the somnombulant sleep-inducing effects of Howard Lederer.  If these names mean anything to you, you've got too much TV-viewing time on your hands. Playing in a poker tournament now how this strange aura of allowing us to imagine ourselves playing poker on TV.  I mean, we watch the NBA, but we don't really seriously believe we could be in the NBA, you know?  But poker is different.  Poker's a game that normal, intelligent people can learn, as witnessed by relative unknown Chris Moneymaker's win in the World Series of Poker last year.  (Hey, with a name like Moneymaker, how can you lose?)  I'm good with numbers.  I have a good memory.  Why can't I be on TV, sitting across from Annie Duke and calling her bluff while I ask her to please put some damned shoes on? And so there I will sit Friday night, mugging for imaginary cameras, showing my cards ever so carefully to the non-existent lipstick camera for the viewers at home to see.  I will stroke my chin and drink my water and wonder when Vince Van Patten is going to come interview me.  And then I will inevitably raise big as I try to draw on an inside straight against three vastly superior hands on the table.  1:36:26 PM    Say what?[]

The Miracle of Baby Tad Jane and I have a new best friend.  It's name is Baby Tad.  In fact, I'll even go so far as to say I love Baby Tad. It was not always this way.  When I first met Baby Tad, who was a gift for our daughter Lily from Jane's friend and law partner Roberta, I had nothing but scorn for him.  (I think it's a him, but as everyone knows the only way to identify a tadpole's gender is to dissect them.)  I took one look at Baby Tad's sad antics, which include a series of light-producing buttons, beeps, and songs sung in a syrypy baby voice, and decided that Baby Tad was deserving of scorn. During most of Lily's first seven months, Baby Tad just sat in a basket in her corner of our room.  I would glower at him and think, "Stupid Baby Tad.  Everybody hates you."  But then we started to play Baby Tad's songs for Lily while we changed her diaper, and my stance softened a bit.  Baby Tad was still too loud for my tastes, and that voice was pure evil, but if Lily liked him then the least I could do was stifle my own misgivings. But then a marvelous thing happened.  Jane discovered that one of Baby Tad's talents was that you could program him to play a melodious song for up to six minutes.  During this time, his lights flash.  Soon, we began putting Baby Tad in Lily's crib when it was time for her to sleep. Results were mixed, at first.  But then something happened between Lily and Baby Tad.  Maybe she warmed up to him the same way I did, I'm not sure.  But now, when the Baby Tad show is on, Lily becomes transfixed on him and eventually (and quickly) falls into a restful slumber. This has become especially important in the last few nights, as Lily has been fighting pain from incoming teeth.  She'll wake two or three times each night, and now our response is immediate and frenzied:  "Where is Baby Tad!  Initiate the Baby Tad Procedure!" It's important to act quickly, because you don't want her to wake up fully.  So, we scramble to deploy Baby Tad in a strategic corner of her crib.  Once this is done, we scurry back to our bed in the other corner of the room and wait for Baby Tad to work his magic with his dulcet tones. Her crying stops almost instantaneously.  I imagine she is just lying there, watching Baby Tad's little light show and being lulled to sleep.  Unfortunately, I can't say Baby Tad has the same impact on me.  All I can do is sit there and look over to Lily's corner of the room.  I can see the Baby Tad's multi-colored lights flashing on the wall and ceiling.  It looks like ET's spaceship has landed over in her crib.  Unfortunately, ET's spaceship is also playing a six-minute loop of music that makes it sound like the ice cream man has just pulled into our bedroom.  So we wait, and listen.  We listen to Baby Tad, and we listen, hopefully, to hear silence when he is done.  Golden, beautiful silence, and then we can all slumber again.  She might get tired of Baby Tad; he might only work for another two weeks or so.  But as a parent, you deal with that when it happens.  As any parent of a baby who won't sleep will tell you, when your find something that makes your baby stop crying and puts it to sleep immediately, you don't ask any questions.  Hell, Baby Tad could be a real tadpole for all I care.  What matters is that she loves him.  Or rather, that he puts her to sleep. But rest assured, I love you, Baby Tad. 11:36:02 AM    Say what?[]

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