... AND THE BOTTLE, PLEASE

For many years, we've had a tradition at the Ol' Fish-Eye homestead. While we munch on my legendary, lovingly-prepared cheeseburgers, my wife and daughter critique the dresses, jewelry and make-up sported by the actresses on the red carpet leading up to the Academy Award broadcast. 

This is far more important than the awards themselves. For a while, whenever I informed my daughter that a particular awards show was airing, her first question was always, "Does it have a red carpet?" It tended to be spoken in the same breathless tones I would imagine Leon Panetta had when asking operatives if they were sure they located Osama bin-Laden watching porn videos in Pakistan. Not once, by the way, have we ever made it through an entire Oscar® ceremonies. I always want to shut it off at the two hour mark, but the girls always insist on keeping it on an extra 30 minutes. If we lived on the West Coast, where it begins at 5:30, we'd probably have no choice but to watch the whole damn thing, which makes living through Northeast winters worth it.

This year, though, is to be different. No, we're not going to watch the whole thing -- that would be a vesper horribilis. Rather, my daughter will be out with friends while my wife is away for the week. This will leave me in the peculiar position of making good on my annual pronouncement: "If it wasn't for you two, I wouldn't be watching this crap." Well, big boy, whaddaya got to say now?

If I do give in to my weaker self -- something I've been mighty good at for, oh, 58 years now -- I figured I might as well make it that much easier by playing my Oscar® Drinking Game. In fact, you might want to try it yourself. If history is any guide, you should be passed out by the time they get to best Special Effects. So drink a shot for the following:

During the pre-monologue segment, Ellen DeGeneres puts herself into a scene from Gravity. An extra shot if she's joined by an actor other than George Clooney. 


DeGeneres puts herself into a scene from Wolf of Wall Street -- specifically, getting hundred-dollar bills glued onto her. 

DeGeneres puts herself into the "I'm the captain now" scene from Captain Phillips.

DeGeneres puts her voice into a scene from Her.


Random jokes about the California drought, California floods, Alec Baldwin, the polar vortex, shutting down the government, Martin Scorsese, the hairstyles in American Hustle, Meryl Streep's 18 Oscar® nominations over the years, Obamacare and Arizona's "religious freedom" law vetoed by Gov. Brewer.

The orchestra plays "wacky" music during the Best Animated Short segment. 

Standing ovations for presenters Angelina Jolie, Sidney Poitier and Kim Novak.

Oscars® for documentaries about crippled kids and/or the Holocaust.

Inappropriate cutaways during the "In Memoriam" segment. Bette Midler is going to be on the show, so another shot if she sings "Wind Beneath My Wings" during this portion. And although the segment is supposed to be for those who died in 2013, extra shots if they pay tribute to Shirley Temple, Harold Ramis and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Two more shots if Hoffman's image appears last to the biggest applause of the evening.  

Lowly winners getting shooed off the stage after 30 seconds while the big guns (actor, actress, director) get all the time in the world to yammer.

Agents thanked before loved ones.

Standing ovations for any winner of 12 Years a Slave, which makes the white people in the audience feel good about themselves before they return to their gated communities that night, and to work the following morning at the studios run by white males.

(Post-Oscar update: Went to bed at 10:30. I called the jokes about rain in California, Streep and Scorcese; "Wind Beneath My Wings"; Phillip Seymour Hoffman; the lowly winners vs the big guns; agents thanked before loved ones; documentary category; and the standing ovations for 12 Years a Slave. Haven't read anything about a standing ovation for Sidney Poitier and Angelina Jolie, however, but it must have happened.)

 

 

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SNOWARD BOUND

I had no idea the school mascot
was a werewolf.

We spent last weekend looking over the University of Pittsburgh, one of the five schools my daughter has been accepted to so far. Yes, we're proud of our little girl. But the question that needs to be asked is, How do I make this story wholly about myself?

That's easy enough. While my mother-in-law winters in Florida, we have access to her car, allowing us to drive to The City With A Smile On Its Face (as Pittsburgh's old slogan put it) for free. I mean, free not including hotel, gas and meals. All I had to do to was take a bus to her apartment in Hackensack, the town memorialized in Steely Dan's "Katy Lied": Driving like a fool out to Hackensack/Drinking his dinner from a paper sack. It's also the birthplace of Debby "You Light Up My Life" Boone and the home of the Bergen County Jail. That's some kind of history, boy.

Now last week, the New York/New Jersey area had some rain and almost got kind of warm; the better, I hoped, to get rid of the snow that piled up in the parking lot where the car is kept. But even if the snow was cleared, there was the chance that sitting idle in the subfreezing weather for over a month might have made it impossible to turn on the ignition. However, being a member of the AAA -- just in case this kind of thing happened -- allows me to get a jump with just a free call. Unfortunately, my cell phone had disappeared sometime from when I woke up that morning to when I was walking out the door after lunch. Usually, all's it takes is a call from the landline to hear the familiar ringtone -- Edvard Grieg's "Hall of the Mountain King" -- drifting from, say, the inside of my bureau drawer or atop the refrigerator. Not now, however. You know how your parents would have said something like, "Well, it didn't get up and just walk away!" Well, apparently this time it did.

Where do Hackensack dumptrucks dump snow?
In the middle of Main Street, where else?

So I got off the bus in Hackensack with even more trepidation than most people do. As I walked the several blocks to my mother-in-law's building, I couldn't help but notice that the accumulated snow on the lawns went past my knee. This is never a good sign when you need to move a car from a parking lot. My spirits briefly lifted when I walked onto the property and saw every space free of snow... except one. And I don't need to tell you whose. Not only was the space unshoveled, someone had plowed shin-deep snow in front of it. Thank you, sir, may I have some more?

By now, the temperature was around 50, so some melting was going on. But the snow and ice were so thick that I soon realized that just picking up the soot-covered muck and tossing it aside would take the lifetime of a fruit-fly -- which suddenly seemed awfully long. Tenants came and went with a cheery "Hello," as if it was perfectly normal to clear out filthy ice-snow with your hands. It took a guardian angel -- snow angel? -- of sorts to actually provide some help. The people who owned this particular building, she informed me, owned one down the street, where the plow guy hangs out. She was kind enough to give me a lift to the manager's office a few blocks away. 

I told the manager the story I just told you, and initially she didn't appear to care about it, either. Still, she gave a call to the snowplow guy, who unfortunately wasn't picking up. Nor was she able to provide anyone to shovel out the car because, well, that's the tenant's job. That I wasn't a tenant made no difference.

"Can I borrow a shovel?" I asked politely.
The manager sized me up. "Well..."
"What if I put down a deposit?"
"How much have you got?"
I fished out my wallet. Damn, I hadn't gone to the ATM yet! "Uh... how's $20?"
She studied the color of my money. "OK."

Something like this.

A few minutes later, I was shoveling a car out of a parking lot for the first time in my life. And as I did so, a thought came to me: Now I know why guys my age keel over from shoveling. This stuff was heavy. It took about 20 minutes but I finally got the job done without a hint of a coronary. Even better, the engine turned over immediately. (The wheels spun in place for a bit as I rocked back and forth, almost creating the unfortunate scenario of getting out of the icy patch unexpectedly and smashing into the apartment building.) Having noticed that non-tenants weren't allowed to park at the building where I got the shovel, I moved the car to a clear spot before walking to manager's office, retrieving my double sawbuck and walking back to the car. 

I had gotten more exercise that afternoon than the entire winter thus far. Damn, did I feel -- dare I say it -- manly. It actually felt good to shovel out the car, despite the possible fatal consequences. But by the time I returned for the car, the snowplow guy had finally shown up at the parking lot to further clear the space I had vacated, only to get stuck himself. "Get a shovel!" I didn't chortle at him, for he was half my age, twice my size and appeared to lack a sense of humor. He also looked at me as if thinking, Are you the idiot I got stuck for? Manly I might have been, but not stupid.

Yes, yes, that's all very well and good, I hear you saying, but what about your missing cell phone? That's easily explained. While I was in Hackensack, my wife called me... only to have the spooky tones of "The Hall of the Mountain King" drift from her purse. So yes, it did just get up and walk away.

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RIOT IN THE STREETS

Yesterday's release of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina, two members Pussy Riot, from a Sochi prison was considered a blow for freedom by American news executives.

"At last, we feel free to say the name 'Pussy Riot' instead of 'a controversial Russian punk band'," said NBC News president Deborah Turness. "It was a little embarrassing to see Mika Brzezinski turn fifty shades of red while Joe Scarborough and those other pigs on Morning Joe taunted her for censoring herself. Now she can say 'Pussy Riot' with the best of them, so she can now concentrate on more important matters, like bragging about her daughter getting accepted to Temple University and telling viewers not to consume the foods and drinks she herself can't enjoy."

Jeff Zucker, president of CNN News, was equally pleased. "For the longest time, only Anderson Cooper dared to say 'Pussy Riot', but that's because he isn't really a journalist. But the others, like Wolf Blitzer and Kate Bolduan, tried to keep up to the CNN standards of never taking chances. Do you know how many times we had to spell 'Pussy' with asterisks in those news ticker headlines at the bottom of the screen? And it took three weeks for our people to figure out it had five letters, not four. Live and learn!"

Meanwhile Geraldo Rivera promised to cram "Pussy Riot" in every news item. "I'm 70 years old with a weekend talk show on Fox News," he shrugged. "What the hell else can I do to get attention? Keep running 40-year old undercover footage of the Willowbrook mental hospital? I'm gonna ride Pussy Riot into the sunset," he admitted, before throwing a fist of solidarity in the air and shouting, "Pussy Riot, Pussy Riot, Pussy Riot!" Rivera smiled proudly. "They say sunshine is the best disinfectant, but give me Pussy Riot every time."

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EMBRACEABLE, BILLABLE YOU

I'm in the wrong business. That is to say, I've spent my life trying to make an honest buck when there are brain-addled citizens all around who are damn near begging to shovel piles of dough my way if I offer them a service they can get for free elsewhere. Last week, I saw a news report about therapists -- licensed or otherwise -- who give their clients hugs. 

That's it. Hugs. Not conversation or advice like your average shrink. Just... hugs. Apparently, there are a lot of people out there who are in need of that kind of comfort which they can't get anywhere else, even if they're in relationships. The fee for these 90-minute hugathons is only $125.

What kindness. What thoughtfulness. What a racket.

Maybe if Dean & Jerry had
hugged like this a little more
often, they'd never have
broken up.

For 125 bucks, these aren't ordinary hugs. No sir, there are many poses, including one called the tandem bicycle. No chains are involved, much to my disappointment. But what they all have in common is that the hugger and huggee lie down on a couch or bed. It used to take me three dates at least for that kind of action, and these guys get it immediately. 

To the best of my knowledge, there's no Doctorate of Huggery, so these quacks can't claim they're charging for what they learned in grad school. No, they picked an outrageous number out of the air because they knew saps would think these hugs were the real deal. In fact, someone did a study that proved people would rather pay a stranger two dollars for a hug instead of getting one for free simply because it had to be better. If my wife finds out about this, I'm cooked.

I considered getting into this hugging business, but had no idea how to promote my talents. It's unlikely that anyone would respond to a photocopied ad reading THERAPEUTIC HUGS -- $125 -- YOUR PLACE OR MINE that's been taped to a streetlight pole. There's always the Yellow Pages, but it would probably wind up in the "Escorts" section. To further justify my fee, I'd have be a specialist. That is, specializing in women under the age of 35 and of runway-quality looks. Trust me, any objection from my wife would be nullified once I start cashing those checks.

Note the credit under the title. Imagine how much the
Beatles could have charged if they hadn't changed the
name to "Help!"

You see, I learned from that news report to practice by the professional huggers' credo: the moment any sexual tension is felt by either person, the session has to stop. As I think back to my single days, that was never a problem. In fact, girls  preferred we stop. Better yet, they thought it best to keep a safe distance from me, like across state lines. Now if I had charged them for a hug, brother, I'd have made out like a bandit and made their cold-fish boyfriends jealous, too.


Although both sexes are in the hugging business, the only clients I saw were women, which makes total sense. Women are forever in need of emotional reassurance, while if men need to hug anything, it's a cold beer. It's our dirty little secret that when women fall blissfully asleep on men's shoulders after they've done the deed, we count the minutes until we can gracefully slip our gradually-numbing arm out from underneath their heads. 

Now if the female therapists want to make a buck off us, they should seriously consider charging guys $125 for the thrill of watching two good-looking women hugging in bed for an hour and a half. They'd make a fortune without having to touch us.

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