The Wake

Breast-bearing singers and zealous right wingers: that’s what this year’s Oscars are made of. Or at least, that’s what I thought — until I actually watched the prestigious award show a few Sundays back.

Here’s how it all went down: we were blind-drunk, off Mescal. We’d started drinking sometime in the middle of Billy Crystal’s epic, revivalist introduction; neither of us remembers exactly. But the truth is this: that my partner-in-cinematic crime, Dr. Lane, and I were readily enjoying what we were seeing on our 8″ Sony portable television. Somehow, we’d managed to unwittingly engage the Spanish translator on the television. “Hola, bienvenidos!,” it would say; followed in split-second delay by: “Welcome to the fabulous Oscars!” I probably lost something in the translation. Regardless, this multi-lingual broadcasting was truly captivating.

This may have been the reason why we began to observe, with great vigilance, the evening’s proceedings. Ordinarily, we may have let the over-hyped event pass. But tonight! Yes . . . tonight it was all there: the glitz, the glamour, the girls, and most importantly, the gold-glazed statuette. And this left us feeling all warm and fuzzy and American inside. We needed to . . . no: we had to keep watching.

And it’s a damn good thing we did, too. Because in the short time it took our minds to dictate that drunken Oscar viewing is the hippest thing this side of an Urban Outfitters screen-print t-shirt, The Lord of the Rings had already begun to strip-mine this Hollywood fiesta of all its seemingly inexhaustible excitement. Sitting in our overstuffed armchairs, we began to witness what would become a historical event!

“This is history here, man,” I probably said to Dr. Lane.

Regardless, it became apparent that such historical significance was not going to keep this fun-float on-top of the metaphorical water for long. We were drunk, trashed, hammered, floored, wasted; call it what you will. We needed change, and we weren’t going to find it this side of Middle-Earth: “We must have inspiration here, damn it!” I muttered in slurred syllabic succession. We needed a break from this never-ending parade of hobbits, wizards, and Elijah Woods.

So thank God for Annie Lennox. You see, when this balding vestige of 1980s technology-rock appeared on our fuzzy Japanese-manufactured screen, wailing away some watered-down, faux-Portishead jazz, we regained what had been our fleeting interest in the show. We began to take interest in the best song category — speaking of which; (and I said this all to my accomplice, Dr. Lane; and I remember it clearly; I said: “Damn it man, what the hell is Sting playing?” You see, the tantric-tunesmith himself, Sting, was performing on-stage with some buttressed medieval instrument . . . anyways, Dr. Lane informed me that it was a lute).

What the hell is a lute anyways? (By this point, the Mescal was running undesirably thin through our bloodstreams) Regardless, the performance by Sting shocked me into having an epiphany of situational-recognition. Whether it was the lute, or the fact that the bleached-blonde Brit was performing in the sanctity of my apartment-dwelling, something — whatever it was — implored me to ask myself:

“Why the hell am I watching this boring show?”

“I have no idea,” said I. (Dr. Lane actually responded this same way; I asked him out loud, though.)

With that, the two of us picked up the 8″ Sony black and white, Spanish-spewing portable television, and, tossing it through the 5th story window of our apartment, bade a Led Zeppelin-farewell to the 37th annual Academy Awards.