San Francisco Chronicle - Live! Rude! Girl!
Pretty. Witty. And probably Gay.Neva Chonin
"I really don’t have that much interest in stardom."
-- Tom Verlaine
Academy Awards, piffle. So boring and disappointing. Such a farce and an embarrassment. Of course, I watch them. What else have I got to do?
* snip *
There's little left to say about the brouhaha surrounding the Academy Awards' decision to go green -- inspired, I guess, by Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth" -- except, you know, way to be funny, Hollywood. But even as I mock, I must tip my metaphorical hat to Leonardo DiCaprio and all the celebrities who use their fame to promote good causes. What else is fame good for? It's neither my place nor yours to suggest that an individual's fame makes his or her opinions less informed. They're just as stupid as we are. Let them speak.
Especially when they're feting Al Gore. How much did I enjoy Al's triumph at this year's Oscar ceremony? Whoa, a lot. Oh, Al, of the perfect eyebrows and wooden speech. Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Leo DiCaprio was devouring you with his pretty blue eyes, did you notice? Even George Clooney cast you approving glances. Please be our president. We know that you, unlike most Democrats, have a spine. A very stiff spine, true, but nothing that a few months of Pilates couldn't fix. Come back to the five and dime, Al Gore, Al Gore. Save the Democrats from themselves. Save us all from Hillary's grotesque attempts to be likable. Save us from seeing Barack Obama dragged through the mud by the rabid neocons. Most of all, save us from four years of hearing about Rudy Giuliani's sex life. For all we know, he's Anna Nicole Smith's baby daddy, and I, for one, don't wanna listen to the details.OK, Al. I know, I know. You won't do it, and I understand. The Drudge Report is already nipping at your heels because your mansion uses a lot of energy, which supposedly makes your championing a green world an exercise in hypocrisy. Yeah, right. Who among us doesn't lead a flawed life, from those anti-globalization protesters I caught scarfing Big Macs between marches to the organic-food fanatics who buy produce trucked vast, carbon-belching distances to their local Whole Foods market to people who agitate for free-range cattle without considering that those cattle will probably graze free on the ruins of a rain forest. As for the conservatives, their sundry hypocrisies ... well, don't get me started. The vice president whose lesbian daughter is having a child with her partner even as her father promotes policies that would criminalize her nontraditional little family, or the right-wing evangelist who ... oh, bugger it.
Look, all I want is something I can believe in. This shouldn't be a large request. I want a Democratic candidate who doesn't cower and fumble and who understands that being progressive doesn't preclude talking tough. I'd like to see a Republican candidate who doesn't equate fiscal conservatism with religious fanaticism, one who isn't anti-everything that isn't white, male and in the missionary position.
In other words, I want something I can find only in a fictional universe, splayed across a screen and festooned with Clooney's steamy, smarter-than-thou smirk. I want delusion. Hooray for Hollywood, man.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/04/PKGRJN88UJ1.DTL