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Bad Loser
La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz, who was made an unwitting part of the biggest screw-up in Oscar history when he was forced to hand over the Best Picture award he thought he'd won to the producers of Moonlight after it was discovered that presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were given the wrong envelope. Mr. Horowitz responded to the news with class, by praising the actual choice and embracing rightful winner Barry Jenkins, which is not the kind of behavior I watch the Oscars to see. When I tune into awards shows, my favorite part is that fraction of a second when the four losers hear someone else's name being called and they pretend to burst into enthusiastic applause while their faces become a mask of disappointed rage which, as soon as the cameras are off them, will be firing everyone on the list of people they were planning to thank if they'd won. Mr. Horowitz had the opportunity to throw the biggest diva tantrum of them all in front of an audience of a billion people, and instead chose to behave like a gracious grown-up. That kind of behavior doesn't get you ahead in Hollywood.
It became known after the ceremony that my beloved pug Winston and I were in charge of giving the envelopes to the presenters just before they went onstage. I had been on the verge of handing out the wrong ones all night but Winston always stopped me and replaced it with the correct one at the last second. When it came time to give the envelope to Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, Winston happened to be in conversation with the great Frederick Douglass, allowing me to hand out one envelope unsupervised (see the image below). If I'd had any idea that Mr. Horowitz would have wasted the glorious opportunity I'd given him, I would have screwed up on the music awards instead. I'd pay a lot of money to see Best Song presenter Scarlett Johansson bitch slap Lin-Manuel Miranda while trying to pull the statuette out of his hands. Or maybe I imagined that last paragraph (my drinking binges prior to my heart attack have made reality a sketchy proposition for me). The point is that I'm bitter that I didn't win an Academy Award and I want Jordan Horowitz to be bitter too. If he can't manage that, I'll thank him to stay the hell off of my television set. That honor is reserved for people who know enough to be bad losers and female wrestlers who look like Scarlett Johansson that bitch slap their opponents into submission. I may not know art, but I know what I like.
Speaking of awards, President Donald J. Trump, who said in his speech to both houses of Congress that slain Navy SEAL William "Ryan" Owens " is looking down right now, and he’s very happy because, I think, he just broke a record " at the extended applause given to the memory. Chief Special Warfare Operator Owens' heroic sacrifice to his country deserved every second of the ovation he received but speaking for myself, if I was killed in a military raid I wouldn't look down from heaven with a smile if the dude who approved it and then had dinner while it was taking place and then denied responsibility for it was then trying to milk it for sentimental capital, no matter how many goddamned records it set. The rest of Mr. Trump's speech was the typical yankfest of making outrageous (and frequently self-contradictory) promises that he'll never keep in a million years, let alone four, which was then over-praised in the media because he sounded more or less like a reasonable human being and not his typical insane ape. My only hope is that someone hands Mr. Trump a trophy for setting the record for shortest presidential term. I know that I'm dreaming and it's already too late for Mr. Trump to top the unassailable mark of 30 days set by William Henry Harrison, but he's such a fuck-up that I feel like it's not impossible that Congress could make his impeachment retroactive to early February if things keep going as they are. If Mr. Trump could find a way of taking the record, I can't help but think that William "Ryan" Owens would look down and be very happy.
My old nemesis Rob Vestal for whom I took part in an informal reading of a play he's in the process of writing. The script was excellent but before the proceeding I felt the uncomfortable obligation to have a conversation with Mr. Vestal, who told me that he would soon be jetting to Alaska to direct an anti-suicide play. This news took me by surprise since I have done two productions with Mr. Vestal and both experiences made me want to kill myself. I can only assume that the Eskimos he's staging the play for have been so hardened by the frozen tundra that they've already given up all hope so that extended contact with Mr. Vestal can't make them feel any gloomier than they already do. I will say that seeing Mr. Vestal did make me want to embrace living since walking away from him made me realize that things could only get better from there, so he might be just the person to make the people of Alaska choose life. Once he's out of there, they'll realize just how much they have to live for.
The increasingly irritating Robin Greenspan and Lacie Harmon, who in their latest Ask a Lesbian Couple video were posed the question "do you ever stop being attracted to straight, married women?" Speaking as a heterosexual dude, I can safely answer "no," since I am frequently attracted to married lesbian women: Kate McKinnon, Sara Gilbert and Cynthia Nixon are regulars in my fantasy masturbation rotation; and while I'm being completely honest about it, that goes for Robin Greenspan and Lacie Harmon (who I think are both smokin' hot). I have never had an issue with my lust for lesbian flesh (married or not) because I've accepted the reality that I'm no more attractive to gay women than I am to heterosexual women, so it really doesn't matter who I'm befouling in my mind because they want nothing to do with me in reality. I can even throw the occasional dude into the fantasy mix if I wish to, because over the years I've found myself to be just as repellent to men as I am to women. All I'm saying is that if anyone finds themselves attracted to someone who is seemingly unavailable, they should dip their toe in the water to see if appearances are faulty and if they're not (and let's face it; they're probably not), they should move on to find someone who can stand to put up with them and their disgusting sexual peculiarities. But always keep a mental file of everyone who's ever turned you on (if only for a fleeting second) for when your spouse leaves the house for twenty minutes to pick up stool softener at the corner CVS. Today's humiliating rejection is tomorrow's fantasy five-way.
Lisa Glass, who said "I kind of love that my Ralphs doesn't even bother stocking the small Coffee Mate flavored creamers and just goes for the straight up Econo Mainline size." I gave up drinking coffee after my heart attack but when I had the caffeinated monkey on my back, I could relate to Ms. Glass' assertion. Before I kicked my habit, no amount of mocha java was enough to get me through the morning. It started out innocently enough, with an occasional stop at Dunkin' Doughnuts for an innocent cup o' joe and a bear claw. Soon I was on the hard stuff: cups of espresso or cappuccino that I began pounding at six o'clock in the morning and continuing on through late afternoon. By the end, I was selling my body in the alley behind Starbucks for Venti Iced Caffe Americanos. It was only when my heart gave out on me that I realized this madness had to stop, and I went for a cure of herbal tea at the Betty Ford Clinic. I only pray that Ms. Glass doesn't wait as long as I did before she gets help for her addiction. She may feel under control sipping sixteen cups of Folgers with Coffee Mate hazelnut creamer now but before she knows it, she'll be free-basing Nespresso Coffee Capsules just to keep her high going. And Ralphs doesn't stock those in Econo Mainline size. Trust me, I know. And so does the black-bearded foreigner in the alley behind Starbucks.
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