No country for young men

I’ve been watching the Academy Awards for over forty years and in that span it was the rarest of years when I didn’t finish the show by uttering these words: 

Worst Oscars ever. 

This year was no exception.  The Academy tried to appeal to a younger demographic by tapping James Franco and Anne Hathaway to host, but they ended up with a humorless show that self-conscious and contrived.  

I was fortunate in that I had to pick up the family at the airport and ended up taping the broadcast.  I fast-forwaded through all the songs, technical awards, and boring speeches, which was practically every one.  Colin Firth….give me a break!   And those hosts…I wanted to slap them, especially Franco.  What was he on?  Then they bring out Billy Crystal for five minutes and he killed.  I would have preferred a holographic Bob Hope as my host.  At least *he’s* funny.  Even ninety-four year old Kirk Douglas had a cute bit as he teased and stalled his way to announcing the winner of the best supporting actress category.

It was difficult to tell whether Franco was stoned or if he was simply too cool for the Oscars.  He had a detached, wooden air about him, and at times he resembled a deer-in-headlights.  Hathaway did her best to inject some life into the broadcast, but let’s face it, Lucille Ball she aint.

Here is my suggestion to the Academy:  Forget the young demographic —   they’re not watching television anyway — and find yourself a senior citizen to host the show.  When the generations that were born in the 1930’s through the ’50s dies off you’ll be left with a humorless bunch of dime store hipsters that mistake cynical irony for comedy.   

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With the close of this year’s awards season I would like to recap some of the lesser known awards shows.

This year the Spammy Award went to Amir Gtkondo of the Security and Safe Deposit company in Ghana, for his generous offer to make me a partner in his inheritance.

The Jammy award was given to bassist Chris Amberger, Bay Area bassist extraordinaire, who sat in on a breakneck-tempoed Giant Steps with a pianist and bassist who had no interest in laying down any discernible time.

Finally, this year’s Traffy Award was awarded to the Long Island Expressway, for a record 60th straight year!    

Let’s talk turkey

I spent Thanksgiving with my father in Las Vegas.   We had our “dinner” at 1 in the afternoon, which I initially thought to be way too early of a starting time.  In effect, however, it dovetailed perfectly with the NFL schedule allowing us to see most, if not all of the three games. 

The Lions were blown out in the early game but they did us the favour of jumping out to a big lead.  True, they gave us false hope of an improbable upset over Bill Belichick and the hated Patriots, but hey, they kept it close until the 4th quarter thereby giving us more joy than we had a right to expect from this ill begotten team.

We were finished with “dinner” by 2:30 which allowed us to repair to the living room for the  Dallas-New Orleans contest.  By the time we got to it the score was 17-0 Saints leading us to believe we were in for a long afternoon.  Not that either of us are Dallas fans — far from it — we just craved a competitive matchup while we digested our food.

Lo and behold the game turned around and Dallas actually went in front 27-23 late in the 4th and had the ball to boot.   When Roy Williams caught a breakaway pass late in the period it looked as if they would ice the game, but all of a sudden a defender, Malcolm Jenkins, snatched the ball away from for the turnover.  The Saints then drove 89 yards for the go-ahead score.  The game was not over, though, and Dallas actually got into position for a tieing 59 yard field goal.  The kick had the distance but went wide left.  Ballgame. 

The announcers couldn’t get over the brilliance of Jenkin’s takeaway.  To these amateur eyes, however, it looked like Williams could have covered the ball up more than he did. He has to know that even if he doesn’t score, as long as he keeps possetion, the game is probably over.   At worst it would have ended up tied going into overtime, allowing for more Thanksgiving day football!

Full disclosure:  We didn’t watch most of the Jets game.  The Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster film, Seven Days in May came on TCM and once we flipped to it during a break in the Jets game we couldn’t turn away.  It’s a tense, political thriller that seems just as relevant to today as it did in the cold war ’60s.

So there you have it.  I heartedly recommend the early Thanksgiving dinner.  It is the sports fan’s best friend.