...THE GROUCH

I like starting my week off by defying expectations. I find it adds a certain measure of uncertainty to what is otherwise a tedious and repetitive slog. Granted, in this case, your expectations were the result of my telling you today's column would be a 'Top Five Things That Bother Me', so in actuality it's more like starting the week out with a lie, but that's close, and as they say at Congressional hearings; if you can call it something other than a lie there's a chance you won't go to jail for perjury.

That being said, today's column will be a bit of a catch-all, a rambling rant on the Oscar's. Yes, I'm counting the Oscar's as current events, I, and every other person between the ages of 30 and 15 count anything with John Stewart as current events.

So let me tell you what bothers me about awards shows. No, I don't care, I'm gonna tell you anyway. What bothers me about award shows is the underlying lie. What lie you ask? Good question, see I told you you'd get into it. Normally, an award is the result of some demonstrable achievement, you ran the fastest race, you scored the highest mark, you slept with the most men, whatever. And so, the anticipation, the tension that precedes the distribution of said award, is present not during the handing out of a medal, scholarship or big honkin bag of condoms, but in the revelation of the achievement itself. At the Oscar's there's no achievement, you don't get bonus points for knowing how to pronounce names of the directors of the foreign language animated short from Myanmar (Burma to those of you from the State Law and Order Restoration Council), you don't get a Best Supporting Actor for putting a misplaced boob back in a dress, you can't win anything at the Oscar's, you've already won or lost, you're just there to find out. And that's what pisses me off.

You know how long it would take to tell me who won in all the categories I care about? 13 seconds, no really, I timed it, 16 if your awards had 'No Country for Old Men' in the title. Yet for some reason they have a three and a half hour show. I know, I know, I can not watch, I can just read the award winners in the news the next day or online the day before. The thing is though, I can't, what they've done is turn this moronic 15 seconds of interest show into a cultural touchstone, a water cooler event that leaves the non-watcher nodding his head and laughing as someone repeats jokes he pretends to get. There's nothing in this country worse than being left out of the Monday morning coffee talk, it's what separates us from the machines and productive people. Sadly, I don't see a natural resolution to this dilemma, at least not until they start handing out big honkin bags of condoms at the Oscar's.