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This wasn't a bad year for movies, but the biggest movies were a little underwhelming, which may be why I just haven't really been all that interested in the Oscars. But, yeah, I'm watching while I work.

Maybe I was distracted by Renee Zellweger's striking resemblance to Olive Oyl, but I got the sense Chris Rock's monologue didn't quite get the boffo response for which it was designed- the Bush bashing got some appreciative applause, as you'd expect, but the "Soul Plane" material got murmurs rather than laughs, and some of the audience reaction shots showed the stars nodding and clapping and even grimacing rather than dissolving into tears.

Morgan Freeman won a Lifetime Achievement Award- er, Best Supporting Actor for playing pretty much the same role he's played before, but the shame is how his greatest work has gone unrewarded. And by that, I refer, of course to "The Electric Company."

Robin Williams resorting to an Elmer Fudd impression? He's run out of material.

"The Incredibles" deserved it. They should go back and give Brad Bird one for "The Iron Giant," too.

This thing where the tech awards are given out at their seats or with all of them already on stage- obviously a time-saving attempt- is just plain weird. I'm waiting for them to hand out an award in the men's room.

Oh, no, here comes the first Best Original Song nominee. Beyonce singing in French with a boy's choir. Um, no, no thanks, not now.

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Now there's a taped bit where Chris Rock goes down to the Magic Johnson Theaters and asks people what their favorite movies of the year were, which appears to be a make-fun-of-regular-people schtick. It's amusing enough, if condescending.

Scarlett Johanssen's hair appears to be made out of some sort of cotton-rayon blend.

Hey, kids, it's the Sci-Tech awards part where they ram through edited acceptance speeches- time to hit the rest rooms for a smoke and some blow!

Pierce Brosnan has apparently morphed into Alec Baldwin, and he's sharing the stage with animated Edna Mode. The whole live action-animation hybrid never works. This is no exception.

Really, they ought to just distill this to a one-hour deal, hand out just the biggies- actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, Best Picture, Best Director. Be done with it, mail out the rest, get to the parties faster.

Ah, Supporting Actress. Evidently, the category is really Best Impression, because Cate Blanchett really only did a Katherine Hepburn imitation. It was hardly acting. I think the voters thought this would be an honor to the real Katherine Hepburn.

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While they do the Carson tribute with the inexplicable taped interjections of Whoopi Goldberg...

One thing that strikes me- of all this year's movies, which ones will we remember a few years from now? Which ones will we revisit? Which were this year's "Raging Bull," "Casablanca," "Chinatown"? It's an interesting thing to ponder when you realize that the Best Picture nominees may not be in that category. Will anyone be looking back at the artistry of "The Aviator"? "Ray"? Doubt it. "Sideways," maybe, and I didn't see the other two. But I did see "The Aviator" and "Ray," and they were standard Hollywood biopics, nothing special, nothing I'd ever want to see again. Of the year's movies, my strongest memories were of "Sideways," "Kill Bill" (both), "The Incredibles," "Shrek 2" (!), "Shaun of the Dead" (!!!), "I (Heart) Huckabees" (not because it was all that good), "Garden State." That's not to say that they were the best of the year, and I didn't see several of the more highly regarded flicks, but I know that "The Aviator" and "Ray" were overrated. Although maybe "Ray" gets points for featuring Booger, with a bizarrely shaven head, in a major supporting role.

Did Kirsten Dunst's head get even bigger? Has she been hanging out with Jose Canseco lately? Jeez.

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Man, Mike Myers is looking mottled.

Another original song. OH, MY LORD, LOOK AT ADAM DURITZ' HAIR! Does he realize how ridiculous he looks? He's gotten chubbier and balder and now looks like an accountant on a weekend bar-hop, except for a string mop of dreads plunked atop his head in an unnatural clump. Someone buy him a mirror. And maybe a song that doesn't sound like every other Counting Crows song.

They just showed the upper tiers of the Kodak Theater- empty seats galore. They don't use seat fillers up there, and it looks like Adam and his Crows cleared everyone into the lobby. Can you blame them?

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Here's a little schtick between Adam Sandler and Chris Rock with Rock reading the lines of the "missing" Catherine Zeta-Jones. Not funny at all.

Best adapted screenplay? "Sideways." Deserving. It had to win something.

How did the star of "Bubble Boy" become a star big enough to be a presenter at the Oscars? HE WAS "BUBBLE BOY!" In a movie co-starring Beetlejuice from Howard Stern's show!

What does it say that when they dedicated the show to the troops, not a single person stood up?

Whoops, here comes the Sidney Lumet tribute. Time to bail for a few minutes.

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Beyonce is singing again? They couldn't find someone else to sing?

The live-action short winner actually said "the dog's bollocks"! Think the people manning the delay even know what bollocks are?

Chris Rock made a very old, very lame breast joke about Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz. Then they come out and Penelope Cruz' outfit pretty much justifies the joke.

Penelope Cruz just called Che Guevara an "idealist." Is that what the kids are calling totalitarian pro-Soviet, anti-freedom warriors fond of executing prisoners without trial when he wasn't putting them in forced labor camps these days? The same people who railed against Bush for Abu Ghraib probably LOVED "The Motorcycle Diaries." But nobody said Hollywood folks know their history.

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The "in memoriam" parade started with Reagan, who got less of an ovation than Jerry Orbach or Janet Leigh or Paul Winfield or Elmer Bernstein. Brando got the biggest, Rodney Dangerfield very little. The crowd's strangely subdued tonight- I wonder if it's by design, whether they were told to keep the ovations to a minimum, or whether the sound engineering is cutting back on the volume. It's been like that all night. Or maybe everyone's still depressed over the election. Or maybe the show's boring. Hmm, that could be it.

Aw, geez, Puffy? Why? What did we do to deserve this? And Beyonce AGAIN? With Josh Groban? This will be Vegas in ten years- the Beyonce and Groban Theater at the Bellagio. How much did Beyonce's people pay to get her this exposure?

It's been a while since any major awards have been given out. There's about an hour left before overtime- it can't go by fast enough. For an allegedly "edgy" show with an "edgy" host, this has so far been as lame as it gets.

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Prince showed up in purple, but all he did was read off the prompter. Why couldn't they have HIM perform? I don't care if he hasn't done anything worth hearing in about 20 years, just let him do a song or two.

OK, the guy from "Motorcycle Diaries" sang his acceptance speech. At least it was short.

Sean Penn came out disheveled and for some reason felt the need to defend Jude Law from Chris Rock's jokes. Sean Penn may be the most humorless human being on Earth. Mrs. Chad Lowe won Best Actress, which gave everyone the opportunity to see her spectacularly low-backed gown. She doesn't do anything for me- the accent in this movie seems forced/fakey, can't say I care for her looks- but I'm obviously wrong, because she keeps winning. Whatever. I didn't see any of the movies in this category, so I know nothing.

You didn't need me to tell you that.

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"Eternal Sunshine" won best original screenplay- I really do have to rent that thing. (We actually DID rent it once but didn't have time to actually WATCH it...) Charlie Kaufman showed why you have to be prepared with a speech on index cards- he was endearingly thrown by the clock, but, dude, next time- and there very well could be a next time- write it all out.

Best actor: Wanda the Ugly Woman. Somewhere, Keenen Ivory Wayans is thinking "Carrey, J. Lo, my brothers, now this- how did THIS happen? Where's MY reward?"

Best director: Dirty Harry. His mother's there! His mother!

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Best Picture: no surprise. Didn't see it. Guess I hafta now.

Boy, was that a boring show. "Ever get the feeling you've been had?..."

Yep.

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I was all set to write something else when I made the mistake of checking Drudge and finding this headline:

PAPER: JACKO'S CHIMP TO TESTIFY... DEVELOPING...

The link doesn't go anywhere, but it doesn't have to. I am now officially overloaded. Thank you, Mr. Drudge and Mr. Breitbart. I'm now turning off the computer and going to rinse out my brain.

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And again.

Sen, Ted Stevens (R-AK) gave a speech today saying he wants to extend indecency regulation to cable and even satellite radio, and that's not what bothered me the most. Sure, it's wrongheaded and ridiculous, and sure, it might cause damage if it makes its way out of his committee, but that's not the part that bothered me. The bad part was the reaction.

The audience cheered.

The audience was composed of broadcasters.

And that should be a lesson, yet again, to the creative community: broadcast station owners have no respect for you. You're interchangeable, replaceable, irrelevant. What matters to them is that, threatened by the free media of satellite and cable, they can knock those competitors down to their level. Stand up for broadcasters' First Amendment rights? Never. That would mean acknowledging the need for creativity, the freedom to try new things. Screw that. No, it's easier, faced with an unfair and possibly unconstitutional law, to cheer when others are forced to live by it as well. "I'm being beaten to death," they reason, "but at least the other guy's bloody, too." Fighting back never occurs to them as an option.

Reuters quotes Stevens:

"There has to be some standard of decency," he said. But he also cautioned that "No one wants censorship."

It IS censorship- government regulation preventing free speech by its citizens. And the broadcasters are taking it. They're CHEERING it. The NAB isn't bothering to fight. Mustn't give Wall Street anything to worry about.

The one consolation is this: there's practically nothing they can do to regulate streaming on the Net. And all the NAB is doing by trying to stifle competition from cable and satellite is to delay the inevitable. Whether it's cable or satellite or the Net or podcasting, the audience will seek out the programming it wants. Let the NAB and Sen. Stevens pat each other on the back. Maybe Eddie Fritts can take Stevens into the back room for some "special attention." They can have their fun now, but they can't ban the future.

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In the midst of a raging, I've-had-it-up-to-here blue funk that just won't quit, I got some very good news.

The Regular Guys are coming back to the radio. There is a God.

March 21, 8 am-Noon ET, WGST Atlanta. Yes, the same company- Clear Channel- that fired their sorry asses is hiring their sorry asses right back.

And they stream, too. Right here.

There's hope. At least, until the next indignity gets me grumbling again.

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Yeah, I think that article in the L.A. Times this morning interviewing some North Korean lackey was beyond astonishing, pretty much a whitewash of a brutal, terrible dictatorship. Hewitt's all over it, and he's right. The Times will print anything these days.

And there's other stuff, too. Jarvis has a rundown on the FEC vs. Bloggers thing- McCain-Feingold being taken to its extreme, everyone unsure if this is real or a false alarm. (Assume it's real- Ed Morrissey is- and hope it's a passing thing) The Elder at Fraters briefly and accurately notes how annoying that Burger King commercial is- you know the one. (Mitch Berg disagrees, a little) And meanwhile, preparing for the Elvis-'68-like comeback show, Larry Wachs has a FAQ answering Regular Guys fans' questions in advance. Go read all of it.

Why? Because I got nothin', and they all have somethin'. I'll let them do it.

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Bought a suit today. A suit, and a sports jacket, and a trendy shirt and some belts. This was a major task, an accomplishment, because I am a guy and guys just don't do clothes shopping that well, not if they aren't what's become known as metrosexual. It's a stereotype, sure, but it fits.

So did the suit. I need to explain the suit. I don't wear suits to work, because I don't really have to wear anything to work. I can wear whatever I want, or even nothing at all, because I work in a home office. (I do work while clothed, because otherwise I would stick to the office chair, and that wouldn't be desirable) ANd when I leave the house for whatever reason, even for work reasons, I dress in what some might charitably call "casual" and others might call the full Oscar Madison- jeans, very worn high-top Chucks, whatever shirt happens to be closest to my hand when I reach into the closet. It's not a lot different from my college wardrobe, and it's been a long time since college.

And that's where the suit came in. I have several conventions coming up, and I usually stick out at conventions, because I steadfastly refuse to dress in the suit-and-tie uniform everyone else assumes. I'm a creative guy, not a CEO or a saleman. Creative guys wear whatever they want. But I'm not Young Creative Whiz anymore. And I can't dress too young. While shopping this evening, I realized that most of the casual clothes in the store were hip-hop style, like Sean John and Ecko Unlimited and that sort of thing, and guys my age look ridiculous in that. I'd like to think I could dress young, but I could when "young" meant "surf dude." When Massimo and Stussy and Quiksilver and Billabong were hot, I could get away with that- I carried the "former surf dude gone to seed" aura well. But then, suddenly, it was clownishly huge pants and garish sweatsuits with logos and lettering all over them and tracksuits, and, no, I can't carry that off. I know my limitations.

So, what's left for a guy like me? I was leaning more towards the sports-jacket-and-jeans look, which works for me, and I did find a new jacket to replace my old, ratty one, but as we were rattling around the men's department, we saw a nice suit, well-known designer, and I said what the hell, I'll try it on, and I did, I looked in the mirror and... and I saw a man, a professional, adult, serious man. Not a kid, not a goofball delaying adulthood. A man.

Me.

Amazing.

Sold.

The right suit turns you into someone, something different- there's an intimidation factor, a seriousness. I'm not used to it- I wore suits every day 20 years ago, but not since then, and I think it's about time to bring them back. EVen in casual Hollywood, a good suit says you're to be taken seriously. A bad suit says you sell radio time or used cars. My usual attire says I either work from home or operate a forklift. I can get away with that most days, but I want more. I need to Dress for Success.

So I bought the suit, and the shirt, and some belts, and now I'm hooked. I want more. I want another suit, and another. I want a closet full of designer suits and shirts and sports jackets, all spotless and pressed. I want shiny shoes and eye-catching ties and belts that don't have sags where the back pants loops go. I want to walk into any meeting in a perfectly fitted suit and a crisp shirt and a dazzling white smile and a firm handshake and look and act like a trillion bucks.

What is wrong with me? Who kidnapped me and replaced me with Gordon Gekko?

Okay, so I'll still mostly wear jeans and sneakers and look more like a forklift operator than a Wall Street titan. But every once in a while, I want to see my reflection in the mirror and instead of revulsion or "aah, that's good enough," I want to think, man, I'm looking good. Is that so wrong?

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The main talk station here had a guy on talking about... well, I don't know WHAT he was talking about except that he was absolutely sure "we" were right. By "we," he meant conservative Republicans. Er, next.

On another talk station, as soon as I hit the button to go there, a syndicated host said "and that's why I hate Bill Clinton so much. You wanna know why I hate Bill Clinton?"

No. Next.

On the "progressive talk" station, a host was talking to an unidentified guest about protest music, and the guest began talking about a "disconnect" between...

Click.

There's incredible opportunity in talk radio, but not if this is what we're gonna hear. Any talk station that goes out and hires some of the smarter, more well-spoken bloggers on either side of the political spectrum will do better than they're doing now. Put on people who talk not about dry political crap but stuff about which people actually CARE, and... and...

Never happen. It's too easy to put the usual suspects on to do the usual thing. If I were back programming a talk station... but I'm not, I won't, and I guess I'll have to listen to music or sports.

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