The 1936 film classic My Man Godfrey. I was reading a wonderful article by film writer Carley Johnson entitled My My Man Godfrey: The Unforgotten Man which brilliantly analyzes the screwball classic, and Ms. Johnson's writing made me ponder something that has always annoyed me about the William Powell/Carole Lombard starrer (one of my favorite movies). As my faithful readership already knows, I am obsessed with the Academy Awards and much of their history and trivia can be found throughout my website. My Man Godfrey's connection to the awards raises my nettles because it was highly regarded by the Academy that year, being nominated for Best Actor (Mr. Powell), Best Actress (Ms. Lombard), Best Supporting Actor (Mischa Auer), Best Supporting Actress (Alice Brady), Best Director (Gregory La Cava) and Best Screenplay (Eric Hatch and Morrie Ryskind) but not Best Picture, and this was a year when there were 10 nominees in the Best Picture category. Instead of giving My Man Godfrey a Best Picture nod to go along with its nominations in every other major classification (a feat which has only occurred 12 times since in the following 77 years, all by films which were also nominated for Best Picture), its place in that honor roll was taken up by Libeled Lady, another screwball comedy also starring William Powell but which failed to be nominated in any other category. So the Academy decreed that My Man Godfrey was among the five best of the year in directing, writing, and every acting designation it could come up with, but wasn't among the 10 best films of the year, while Libeled Lady was one of the best movies of the year despite not measuring up to My Man Godfrey's acting, writing or direction. Fortunately no further confusion ensued when neither film actually won any awards at the Oscar ceremony that year, with the Best Picture prize going to The Great Ziegfeld, which also starred William Powell and is generally considered to be among the worst movies to ever win the award. The Academy should have done themselves a favor and made My Man Godfrey the Best Picture that year. Their fetish for William Powell would have still been satisfied, a great and memorable movie would have won the award for a change, and the Oscars wouldn't have an idiotic paradox turding up 1936. It gets me so upset that I want to calm down by lying on the couch with a wet towel on my forehead and watch Libeled Lady. It wasn't much in the acting, directing or writing departments, but that was a good movie.
My nemesis Misty LaRue, who is taking a spa weekend to have her mouth stretched and massaged by experts to relieve the strain of its constant yammering. While she is on holiday, I have been assigned the chore of looking after her hellhound Violet. Those of you who read these pages on a weekly basis know that I already have a dog in my life; my beloved pug Winston. Winston and Violet have already spent many happy hours together, and it is clear to any outside observer that she is deeply in love with my little pug. Alas, Winston's most intimate feelings extend to what I dump in his food bowl twice a day, and therein lies the problem. Since Violet is trying to stay lean and attractive for her man, she isn't touching the food I put out for her twice a day. That means that after Winston devours his meals in a single gulp, he drags his fat ass in a bee line to the food I put out for Violet in order to gobble up that. I always manage to tackle him just before he makes it to the bowl as Violet looks on adoringly. I'm thinking they're planning a spring wedding. I only hope Violet starts eating by then or her gown won't be able to hang on her and Winston will need to be airlifted into the chapel because he won't be able to move his girth from all the extra meals he's been stealing. Such are the dilemmas of true love.
Enemies List favorite Mara Marini, who disclosed "Cop pulled up to me & told me if I need to text, to pull over or else I'll get a ticket. Thank you, Mr. Nice-Cop-Man!" What Ms. Marini fails to appreciate is that "Mr. Nice-Cop-Man "is only stationed in the Hot Chick Universe. That's why he wasn't see wailing on Rodney King or becoming a secret Gang Lord in LAPD's Rampart Division. Mr. Nice-Cop-Man only turns up when hot chicks like Ms. Marini become scofflaws so that he can cluck his tongue and gently admonish them in his best Father Knows Best demeanor with just a mild sprinkling of Sexual Predator thrown on top. This last part is what Ms. Marini needs to beware since some of her Facebook pals scolded her for driving while texting and she replied "in my defense, I wasn't texting!! I was clicking 'Next' on Pandora. It'd be the same as me changing the radio station. And it was a red light!" What Ms. Marini fails to realize is that Mr. Nice-Cop-Man doesn't need a legal reason to pull a woman over in Hot Chick Universe. He just needs to get their attention long enough to get them to believe that he is Mr. Nice-Cop-Man. He hopes that this will lead to a later assignation when he can change into his civvies where he can meet her as his true self, Mr. Evil-Penis-Man. The strange thing is that while Mr. Nice-Cop-Man only inhabits the Hot Chick Universe, his alter ego Mr. Evil-Penis-Man can be found everywhere, and in any occupation. Of course, if Mr. Evil-Penis-Man causes Ms. Marini any trouble, she can just blow her rape whistle and Mr. Nice-Cop-Man will come a'running. It won't do her any good when she finds out that he's on the take to Mr. Evil-Penis-Man, but she'll still get better treatment from the cops than if she was an average-looking person of color living in our universe. At least the handcuffs used in her dimension are fur-lined and come from adult novelty stores.
Consuelo Brennan, who posted a link to an online article titled 16 Things Only People With Unique Names Will Understand. I don't have a particularly unique name but I was struck by listing number three, "You still get birthday cards from your extended family with your name spelled wrong."My given name is Jonathan George Mullich, and I am known to my friends as "Jon" or (in a few intimate cases), "Jonny." My name is not "Marmaduke," "Johasephat,"or "\¯Winslow." Nor, for that matter, is it "John." Yet I continue to receive correspondence (sometimes from people who have known me for decades) for someone named "John,"even in e-mail form despite the fact that my name (which is to say "Jon"¯) is part of my e-mail address so it's not like they don't have any guidance if their message somehow applies to me and not "John." I don't know much about this "John" character but everyone who writes to him treats him like a real douchebag. It's probably just as well that we've never met.
Jonny Award winner Jesse Merlin, whose army of Facebook pals have been posting variations of this photo on the social network of their idol made up at someone called The Black Guardian from the long-running BBC geek show Dr. Who so that my newsfeed has been saturated with it. I have seen very little of Dr. Who and know nothing of this Black Guardian character so the photo is something of a mystery to me. About it I can discern only two things: It is by far the definitive image of Mr. Merlin that I have yet seen, capturing his dark psyche to its very essence. It is also by far the most irritating photo that I have ever seen which is proof positive that it is a mirror image of his very soul. Those of you who have not had the misfortune to meet Mr. Merlin in person should gauge the feeling of their stomach acid churning at the sight of this alarming picture and multiply it by a million, and you'll have a vague idea of the torture that it is to be in his presence. The photo did prompt me to study The Black Guardian in my favorite research facility, Wikipedia, where I learned that "The Black Guardian is an anthropomorphic personification of the forces of entropy and chaos, the counterpart of the White Guardian, a personification of order. The two Guardians balance out the forces in the universe, although the Black Guardian seems to desire to upset the balance in favor of chaos and evil while the White Guardian prefers to maintain the status quo." That sounds like Mr. Merlin to a tee. Now I just have to discover who the white yin is to his ebony yang. He's got to be the polar opposite of Mr. Merlin, with completely different values and objectives and a drive to have everyone conform to his narrow point of view. I wonder what Rick Santorum is up to these days?
The 1936 film classic My Man Godfrey. I was reading a wonderful article by film writer Carley Johnson entitled 
My nemesis Misty LaRue, who is taking a spa weekend to have her mouth stretched and massaged by experts to relieve the strain of its constant yammering. While she is on holiday, I have been assigned the chore of looking after her hellhound Violet. Those of you who read these pages on a weekly basis know that I already have a dog in my life; my beloved pug Winston. Winston and Violet have already spent many happy hours together, and it is clear to any outside observer that she is deeply in love with my little pug. Alas, Winston's most intimate feelings extend to what I dump in his food bowl twice a day, and therein lies the problem. Since Violet is trying to stay lean and attractive for her man, she isn't touching the food I put out for her twice a day. That means that after Winston devours his meals in a single gulp, he drags his fat ass in a bee line to the food I put out for Violet in order to gobble up that. I always manage to tackle him just before he makes it to the bowl as Violet looks on adoringly. I'm thinking they're planning a spring wedding. I only hope Violet starts eating by then or her gown won't be able to hang on her and Winston will need to be airlifted into the chapel because he won't be able to move his girth from all the extra meals he's been stealing. Such are the dilemmas of true love.
Enemies List favorite Mara Marini, who disclosed "Cop pulled up to me & told me if I need to text, to pull over or else I'll get a ticket. Thank you, Mr. Nice-Cop-Man!" What Ms. Marini fails to appreciate is that "Mr. Nice-Cop-Man "is only stationed in the Hot Chick Universe. That's why he wasn't see wailing on Rodney King or becoming a secret Gang Lord in LAPD's Rampart Division. Mr. Nice-Cop-Man only turns up when hot chicks like Ms. Marini become scofflaws so that he can cluck his tongue and gently admonish them in his best Father Knows Best demeanor with just a mild sprinkling of Sexual Predator thrown on top. This last part is what Ms. Marini needs to beware since some of her Facebook pals scolded her for driving while texting and she replied "in my defense, I wasn't texting!! I was clicking 'Next' on Pandora. It'd be the same as me changing the radio station. And it was a red light!" What Ms. Marini fails to realize is that Mr. Nice-Cop-Man doesn't need a legal reason to pull a woman over in Hot Chick Universe. He just needs to get their attention long enough to get them to believe that he is Mr. Nice-Cop-Man. He hopes that this will lead to a later assignation when he can change into his civvies where he can meet her as his true self, Mr. Evil-Penis-Man. The strange thing is that while Mr. Nice-Cop-Man only inhabits the Hot Chick Universe, his alter ego Mr. Evil-Penis-Man can be found everywhere, and in any occupation. Of course, if Mr. Evil-Penis-Man causes Ms. Marini any trouble, she can just blow her rape whistle and Mr. Nice-Cop-Man will come a'running. It won't do her any good when she finds out that he's on the take to Mr. Evil-Penis-Man, but she'll still get better treatment from the cops than if she was an average-looking person of color living in our universe. At least the handcuffs used in her dimension are fur-lined and come from adult novelty stores. 
Consuelo Brennan, who posted a link to an online article titled 
Jonny Award winner Jesse Merlin, whose army of Facebook pals have been posting variations of this photo on the social network of their idol made up at someone called The Black Guardian from the long-running BBC geek show Dr. Who so that my newsfeed has been saturated with it. I have seen very little of Dr. Who and know nothing of this Black Guardian character so the photo is something of a mystery to me. About it I can discern only two things: It is by far the definitive image of Mr. Merlin that I have yet seen, capturing his dark psyche to its very essence. It is also by far the most irritating photo that I have ever seen which is proof positive that it is a mirror image of his very soul. Those of you who have not had the misfortune to meet Mr. Merlin in person should gauge the feeling of their stomach acid churning at the sight of this alarming picture and multiply it by a million, and you'll have a vague idea of the torture that it is to be in his presence. The photo did prompt me to study The Black Guardian in my favorite research facility, Wikipedia, where I learned that "The Black Guardian is an anthropomorphic personification of the forces of entropy and chaos, the counterpart of the White Guardian, a personification of order. The two Guardians balance out the forces in the universe, although the Black Guardian seems to desire to upset the balance in favor of chaos and evil while the White Guardian prefers to maintain the status quo." That sounds like Mr. Merlin to a tee. Now I just have to discover who the white yin is to his ebony yang. He's got to be the polar opposite of Mr. Merlin, with completely different values and objectives and a drive to have everyone conform to his narrow point of view. I wonder what Rick Santorum is up to these days?