The Academy Awards are later this afternoon. How do I know? Because much of Hollywood is impenetrable — barricaded from traffic — and has been for days and I’ve stayed well clear. If I’m not having much fun driving around when it isn’t blockaded, imagine what it would have been like the past week.
Here’s something you don’t hear much in these parts:  I don’t care about the Oscars. I don’t go to Oscar parties, and I don’t watch the telecast. It eludes me why I should care. If I were attending, or knew someone nominated, or had worked on one of these projects, or was employed in some way by one of these studios or creative teams… sure. But otherwise I don’t know why I should care or, God forbid, devote three-and-a-half hours to watching it.

But won’t I miss the “highlights”? What if “An Inconvenient Truth” wins (a near-certainty) and Al Gore gets up and says something clever and notable? Well, then I’m sure it’ll wind up on Youtube in about 18 seconds. And I’ll get to see it, while saving three-and-a-half hours in the bargain.

I don’t have anything against The Academy Awards — and I’m not saying you shouldn’t watch it — I just have to note that in Los Angeles when I tell people I don’t care and don’t watch it they look at me like I’m a terrorist.

I’ve always felt the same way about professional sports. Mind you, I always liked playing basketball or baseball or football; I just couldn’t imagine sitting around the television watching other people watch it. Or, worse, going to a stadium with thousands of other people and sitting around to watch it. My father felt the same way, which might be why I don’t have the game-watching gene — and neither do our kids. A couple of weeks ago my 15-year-old and I were wondering whether or not the Superbowl had already happened; we weren’t sure if it was on that day or not (turned out it wasn’t). I’m still not sure exactly when it was, although I do remember in passing from the news that it’s now over and I couldn’t tell you who won.

And that’s pretty much going to be my recollection with the Oscars in a few days’ time.

Who won last year? I have no idea.

I’ve never been impressed with Conan O’Brien — didn’t think he was clever, let alone funny — and so I haven’t watched his show in probably 10 years or more. Based on this clip, he’s gotten much better, because this bit with a sex-obsessed “professor of bread” is hilarious.

I find this video absolutely gripping. Where I grew up (out in the woods), I had numerous encounters somewhat like this one. Watch this clip all the way to the end — about 4 minutes — and then tell me two things:

1. Is this real? (Or fiction, as with, say, a guerrilla marketing campaign of some sort.)
2. How do you feel about the actions of the guy in the BMW at the end?

Maybe We Deserve to Be Ripped Off By Bush’s Billionaires

While America obsessed about Brittany’s shaved head, Bush offered a budget that offers $32.7 billion in tax cuts to the Wal-Mart family alone, while cutting $28 billion from Medicaid.

“Now, after she shaved her head in a bizarre episode that culminates a months-long saga of controversial behavior, it’s the question being asked by her fans, her foes and the general public: What was she thinking?”– Bald and Broken: Inside Britney’s Shaved Head, Sheila Marikar, ABC.com, Feb. 19

What was she thinking? How about nothing? How about who gives a shit? How’s that for an answer, Sheila Marikar of ABC news, you pinhead?

Click here for the rest.

For the record, I’m not in favor of higher taxes. I’m in favor of fair taxes. And I’m all for cutting government waste. If the government is taking my money away from my family, I want to know that it’s being invested in a greater good for the community that, supposedly, we all share. I like investing in things like roads and bridges, schools, police, firefighters, hospitals, a strong national defense, meat inspectors, prosecutors, defense attorneys, civic plazas and such. I don’t want my taxes funding bridges to nowhere, third-party war contractors who bilk the treasury and endanger our troops, or “museums” such as the Coca Cola museum that should be funded by the owners of the trademark. (And that’s just for starters.)

I feel similarly about my media. I don’t mind a little coverage about Britney Spears’ latest hair-scapade, but I don’t want it at the expense of news.

So today Hillary and Obama got into it, through their surrogates. Billionaire David Geffen was once a FOB(AH) (Friend of Bill and Hillary), but no more. He held a fundraiser for Obama and said some unkind things about the Clintons. The Clinton camp shot back at Obama that this amounted to “going negative,” which Obama had sworn off, and therefore Obama (who hadn’t said anything) should apologize and — my favorite part — return the money raised. Obama’s flak returned fire that the Clintons didn’t seem to mind Mr. Geffen when he was writing checks to them and camping out in the Lincoln bedroom.

To me this all seemed very familiar. In fact, I hear a variation of this exchange just about every morning, between my 4-year-old and his 8-year-old sister. It’s usually about who poked whom first, who did or didn’t say a bad word and then who did or didn’t respond, whose turn it was to pick a TV show and so on.

This sort of back and forth isn’t confined strictly to my kids or the Democratic contenders who have been designated by the media as “the frontrunners” — whatever that means at this stage, given that the first caucus is a year from now. This morning the quote unquote vice-president was slinging hash on John McCain; McCain yesterday called the veep’s good friend Donald Rumsfeld “the worst secretary of defense in history.” Cheney’s response was a good one: that just recently McCain had said some unpleasant things about Cheney himself, and then rushed over to apologize — and perhaps he would be rushing over to apologize again. (My heartbroken feelings about Mr. McCain’s long slow slide from respect were expressed poetically here.)

All of this fills me with a sort of sadness. I’m not naive; I do understand the motivations of all involved — Hillary to show she ain’t takin’ no guff, Obama to show he’s tuff enuff, McCain to distance himself from the wrack of Iraq, Cheney to suffer no fools, and the media to somehow justify more than two years’ of expense accounts for covering these little snits. But that doesn’t make any of it taste any better.

To put it in perspective:

• 1/6 of the people on this planet can’t get a drink of clean water.
• Many double-income households (sometimes with two parents working more than five jobs) can’t afford a mortgage (especially in places like greater Los Angeles).
• The Middle East seems more unstable every day — especially, in some ways, Saudi Arabia, which is funding terrorism in an effort to appease its internal radical element — and that’s where most of our energy comes from.
• For most of us, traffic is impenetrable.
• Meanwhile whole sections of middle America are dying out, major industries having pulled up stakes,

and on and on.

And against all that, the major stories of the past two days were: Clinton and Obama’s meaningless dustup, and Britney Spears’ self-induced head shaving.

I realize I risk sounding like a relic, but I’m waiting for a candidate who will seriously address real issues. Even if it means standing up for something. And even if it risks the media not reporting it because it isn’t entertaining.

Turns out I wasn’t alone in my outrage over Merck’s lobbying efforts to mandate STD shots (using their own drug, naturally) for kids, a marketing putsch I frothed over here, and here, and here. Bowing to pressure from parents, the company is immediately suspending this effort, as reported by Associated Press.

Don’t let anyone convince you that you can’t make a difference.

Drugmaker stops lobbying efforts for STD shots

Merck criticized by parents and doctors for pushing cervical cancer vaccine

TRENTON, N.J. – Merck & Co., bowing to pressure from parents and medical groups, is immediately suspending its lobbying campaign to persuade state legislatures to mandate that adolescent girls get the company’s new vaccine against cervical cancer as a requirement for school attendance.

The drug maker, which announced the change Tuesday, had been criticized for quietly funding the campaign, via a third party, to require 11- and 12-year-old girls get the three-dose vaccine in order to attend school.

Last night I saw Michael Crichton on Charlie Rose’s show and was surprised to hear, for once, I talk-show guest who was careful to stick to the facts as he knows them.

I don’t share Mr. Crichton’s view on global warming (he doesn’t believe in it; this snotty speech will give you the overview), but honestly I’m not in a position to evaluate all the data and reach a scientific conclusion. What I do have is the evidence of my senses: increased storm activity, melting polar ice, and the vast expenditure of money by insurance companies in arming themselves against future financial effects. My experience of insurance companies is that they do nothing for the good of anyone but insurance companies, so if they believe in global warming, I believe in it.

What was refreshing about Mr. Crichton was his allegiance to the facts as he knows them. Unlike Jane Smiley, he didn’t purport to be able to read the mind of George W. Bush or to channel past events involving the quote unquote president. He parsed administration actions, like the partial ban on stem-cell research, for both the upside and the downside. When Charlie Rose tried to paraphrase Crichton’s words, the latter would gently but firmly correct him because the paraphrase wasn’t right. At other times, Crichton said, “I don’t know.” And why didn’t he know? Because he isn’t a mind reader, hadn’t been at the event, didn’t have empirical evidence, wasn’t presented with the data — and so, he couldn’t know.

Contrast this with the bulging-eye, popping-vein school of commentary on Fox News or MSNBC or, really, anywhere else. In media terms, Crichton was cool, and so much commentary has become hot that he almost seemed as though he didn’t belong on TV. An adherence to the facts as one knows them? Why would we expect that? And, given their personal interest, how many people in entrenched political camps want that?

What does the “E” in Wile E. Coyote stand for? Mark Evanier says the answer isn’t definitive, but he can clarify the origin of the name.

Here’s a recent New York Times piece about Robert and Aline Crumb, their new book, and their open marriage. By the way, I used to know one of Aline’s “second husbands” (who admitted that he hung out with her to get to Crumb himself).

Weird dream from early morning (3 a.m.?) of July 21, 2004:

I’m on what seems to be a campaign bus for George W. Bush. Everyone on board hates him, especially in the back where I am. A woman comes to get me and says I’m to see him personally, that I’ve been granted special time. I’m taken off the bus and go to sit with him in a dentist’s office he’s using. He has me sit down across from him and I take a good look at him. He’s wearing a white doctor’s uniform, has a stethoscope around his neck, and seems absolutely out of his mind. His hair is wild and his eyes are darting. He inserts a probe into the palm of my right hand – I ask him if this is absolutely necessary and he says it is. The probe is attached to a long catheter tube, and when he’s got it fully inserted, he starts to pump with a foot pedal and his large purple balloon rises from inside my palm. I’m amazed by this. He looks it over approvingly and says to the woman that this one seems just fine. I’m speaking with him sympathetically – he just can’t seem to get a break, I know he had good intentions in Iraq, it’s a shame no one likes him – while he performs the same procedure to the other palm. He’s surprised by my sympathy – and so am I! I’m wondering how much of a weasel I am; am I sympathetic because now, confronted with the man behind the headlines, I feel for him, or because he’s the president and I’m a sheep? I’m led back onto the bus and the woman announces to everyone that my procedure was a great success. I hold up my palms for all to see. They jeer at me for being friendly to Bush and saying nice things.

After a bit, Bush comes onto the bus and sits down next to me. I must be his only friend. I don’t think I’m his friend at all, so I’m confused by my own reactions, because now I’m feeling truly sorry for him if he has confused me for a friend when my only idea was to be polite. Now thrilled by our budding friendship, he has offered to detour the bus so he personally can drive me home. I give him directions. At some point the bus becomes a large stakebody truck in which we’re all sitting in the back. We pull up to my home – which is more like an apartment complex with a large parking lot. We pull in and I jump out excitedly to show everyone who I’ve got with me – I may not be entirely crazy about him, but hey, he’s hanging out with me, so this shows a new level of power and influence for me. I say, “Mr. President, can you wait 30 seconds? Please? I’d really like to get a picture.” I can’t believe I called him “Mr. President” because I know damn well he wasn’t elected – now I’m really feeling like a weasel, but I’m excited by the prospect of my having a photo of the two of us together that I can use on the website. He says, “You really mean two minutes” and says it to mean that I have only two minutes.

The front door is locked, so I try to scramble in from an upstairs window, except they have large wooden barriers from the inside. Meanwhile, my neighbors and guests, specifically including my friend Elaine, start to flood out to check on all the excitement. My wife hands me the camera very reluctantly – she hates Bush and can’t imagine why I’m hanging out with him and, worse, am excited about it! – but I grab it and run back to have the assistant woman take my picture. Bush poses with me and I’m wondering just how useful this picture will be given that everyone hates him and he’s lost his mind and looks it. Bush shakes Elaine’s hand, but while everyone else is impressed to see him in my parking lot, no one else is eager to shake his hand. He scowls and climbs back into the stakebody truck. I run after him and ask if please I can get him to go to meet my son Lex’s friend Brandon, because the boy idolizes Bush.

This is just the tonic Bush needs, so we’re off again.