Crash? Really?

No, like, this is serious?

Look, I'm not saying racism isn't still a huge social evil. In those moments where it's not overt, it's still a festering undercurrent. It deserves to be explored in film.

But that's exactly why I hated Crash. If I wanted to open my 8th-grade textbook to chapter five and learn all about "Racism," I'd give good ol' Ms. Danielski a call. I guess I didn't appreciate the movie's preachiness. That's not what movies are for - the best ones hit you over the head with the moral sledgehammer when you least expect it. Crash announces its intent from scene one and nags like a bad girlfriend on her period until the credits roll.

If I'm rambling, it's cause I just got off a ten-hour Sunday shift that took me all over the valley, covering some of the area's notable Oscar parties. Actually, I can think of no better way to rack up overtime - except that I had to pass up far too much free booze than I'm comfortable with. If I had a dollar for every time somebody asked, "Can I get you a drink?" I would have made double the OT.

The first party involved about thirty women gathered in formal evening wear. (yay!)

...The youngest was 50 on a good day. (noo!)

I swear, I bump into that wall every time out here. They were nice - 'kept demanding I eat something until I felt it a major faux pas to not at least try the potatoes au gratin. But after an hour I was creeped out - I think one of them had telekinetic powers and was replaying "Son, if I was forty years younger..." in my brain. Just too many strange looks, I guess.

The second party, over in Palm Springs, was the place to be tonight. You walk in, and you wonder if you're actually in the latest hot spot off La Cienega and not a residence. Oozing with money. A ten-foot Oscar statue replica. A 9x12-foot projection screen over the pool, revealing every mole, blemish and pock mark in Jon Stewart's smirking face. Hors d'oerves everywhere. Ridiculously black-tie swank, but not in that stuffy way: Everyone was seriously hammered by the time I showed up and my heart cried out to join them. Alas! But I got some great soundbytes, mostly along the lines of "Who gives a fuck about the Oscars? This is just an excuse to dress up and get wasted!!" I'm really curious to see what the paper runs with, if anything.

They'd given me one of those cool wireless laptops that picks up a signal anywhere, so I could remote file quotes and happenings. I set up shop in this back room of a house I couldn't afford even with a mortgage over four lifetimes, and tried to type while one of the hosts offered me some interesting viewpoints on the state of gay marriage. He's been with his partner for 35 years.

Thirty five years! I can't fathom being with someone for five. And that's the true argument against gay marriage here. Gays who commit are more adept at monogamy and making lifelong relationships last. Can't they just divorce after a couple of years, enjoying multiple partners like the rest of us? Don't they realize that's what marriage is all about? Until they get that fundamental principle, well I say they're not privileged to the sanctimonious institution of marriage, goddammit.

As we were talking, they announced "Crash" as Best Picture in the main room. The wind sucked out of that place so fast, you would've thought we were in Indianapolis and Vanderjagt just missed wide-right against Pittsburgh. I was doubly floored: Not only did Crash win, but they just gave the Best Picture Oscar and I'm only at party #2! Crappers!

Party #3 was cleared by the time I arrived - the paper had hoped to capture the moment as members of a gay and lesbian senior center - one of three in the nation - watched "Brokeback" take Best Picture. Instead, I found a disheartened administrator wearing cowboy jeans, boots, and sad eyes. But he managed to take the glass-full approach, pointing out that Brokeback had grossed more than any of the other nominees and still got Best Director and Adapted Screenplay, yaddy yaddy.

Anyhow, what I'm trying to say with all this is I worked 10 hours straight tonight and I talked to a lot of gay people and I'm fucking tired. Good night, and good luck.


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Oh, and one more thing: If you have 75 spare hours, check out last week's amazing 350,000-word epic obit for Otis Chandler, the last Lion of Journalism - the man who took the God's Country Times and transformed it from a Washington Times-esque joke into the respectable rag we know today.

I joke about the length, but it's really an amazing story. So read and then ask yourself: I'm stuck on the African savannah and a pack of angry rhinos are charging me. Who would I rather have standing next to me? Big-wave-surfing big-game-hunting stare-death-in-the-motherfucking-face Otis, or one of those pussy NY Times editors? That's what I thought.

(You went with New York. Douchebags.)