Some thoughts on the Oscars

I don't really watch award shows (that's what all the avant-garde types say, right?) but this I kept a casual eye to the Oscars because, incredibly enough, I had seen five of the ten best picture nominees. All five are very good films and I highly highly recommend them (as if my recommendation meant anything in the first place, but we all like to humor ourselves sometimes with delusions of importance).

Here they are:

Inception (a dream within a dream within a dream?)
Social Network (the perfect story that captures the current internet generation)
True Grit (a damn good western. Plus Jeff "El Duderino" Bridges is in it. Oh and Hailee Steinfeld is outstanding).
King's Speech (who knew a movie about speech therapy for monarchs would be so riveting?)
Toy Story 3 (Buzz speaks in Spanish. I am sold!)

If you don't know, King's Speech won best picture AND best director AND best actor. The triple crown. The Social Network, an early favorite, got left out in the pouring rain (or the snow, judging by the bizarre weekend weather). That's a bit of a shame because I was convinced SN would win it. The Academy likes topical stuff (e.g. Hurt Locker), and this film basically speaks well for today's culture. Not to say KS wasn't a worthy film, of course. Very well-deserved Oscar nonetheless.

• Kirk Douglas should host next year's show. At 94, the man seemed to exude more youth than the presenters themselves.
• Christian Bale was surprisingly humble and modest during his speech.
• I kinda want to see best documentary winner Inside Job now. 
• Steinfeld didn't win best supporting actress? Shame. Such a huge shame.

I am feeling a bit lazy today...

...so I will let Dick Cavett take over for me:



Please watch the whole thing to the end (in fact, everything after 2:41 provides the best entertainment) and pay attention to the last two comments Cavett makes to Mailer.

Some notes to guide you through these epic three minutes:

• Cavett is a legendary TV talk show host from the 60's who always managed to snag some of the biggest personalities. People like John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison, Janis Joplin and Marlon Brando appeared on his show.

• Norman Mailer (the guy with the horrible hair-do in the video above) was a twice pulitzer-winning American author of works like The naked and the dead (about a bunch of seamen in the pacific theater in WWII). And yes he actually did stab his wife. Somewhat of a brute.

• Gore Vidal was a leading public intellectual of his time (and a bit of a snob). The reason he is fighting with Mailer is he wrote an uncomplimentary review of Mailer's work in a magazine. 

• Janet Flanner (the one with white gloves, in case you didn't notice it) was a journalist for the New Yorker. Mind you, she just won't have it! 

Finally, "Why don't you fold it five ways and stick it where the moon don't shine" has got to be one of the best insults in the entire universe of insults. Of course, "Perhaps you would like two more chairs to contain your giant intellect" is a close second.

For the intrepid, here are a few additional links that act as further research to this very intriguing sparring:


Noted stabber, verbal abuser and brawler Norman Mailer .

Suave, nasally and bossy Gore Vidal .

Dedicated Francophile Janet Flanner .

The wizard of witty one-liners Dick Cavett .

And here is Cavett joyfully reminiscing about this memorable event: Cavett's blog .

Charlie Sheen overdose

I am currently suffering from an accidental overdose of Charlie Sheen.

I am sure that, by now, anyone with internet knows that the man originally born as Carlos Irwin Estevez has been phoning in some seriously crazy interviews to loonies on the radio circuit attacking his own TV show "Two and Half laughs men" and its creator Chuck Lorre.


By now, Lorre has been called "Haim Levine", "a Nazi", "punk" and a creator of 177 dumb shows by Sheen, who proudly declared he was clean because he is mentally tough. The actor also challenged anyone to give him a drug test on-screen because he is sure he will ace that thing.

Lorre and CBS accepted the gauntlet and canceled TV's #1 comedy a mere hours after the highly entertaining Sheenfest. Undaunted, Sheen called in a few more interviews today, hollering at the crew to join him in a war against CBS and Lorre. You heard him guys, Uncle Charlie wants you!

Now as if this much exposure to Sheen wasn't enough, I got to see him in Wall Street 2 as well. Almost on a whim, I rented the movie from redbox at my local Ralph's. Friday night, rain, the whole apartment to myself - what better way to spend it than watch a poorly reviewed sequel, right? The movie is predictably droll and although the acting is good (for the most part), the writing is just downright shoddy.

Anyway, Sheen has a brief cameo in the sequel. If you saw the first one, you would know that he played the cutthroat protege in that one, who was ultimately responsible for turning in Michael Douglas' Gordon Gekko.
So here I was, watching this film and they are showing some glitzy charity ball. Gekko is doing the rounds, trying to rehabilitate his image among the snobs and voila! he runs into Sheen's character. True to form, Mr. Sheen is flanked by two ladies, his face bearing his trademark obnoxious smirk. What joy! I burst out laughing and savored that moment for the rest of the film.

And now I am paying the consequences for that overdose.

UG Sports - 13: Weekly roundup of the cricket world cup

Hokay so...the last two sports posts dealt with the ins and outs of the good sport of cricket. I mentioned too that the cricket world cup is currently being held in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Now let's do a roundup of significant events from last week. In order to minimize the actual amount of cricket you need to know to understand these posts, I am going to deal with the juicy parts:

• Kenya, Zimbabwe and Canada showed, yet again, why they are constantly referred to as the minnows of world cricket. All three of them lost in a spectacular fashion, their teams folding and crashing like a cheap and completely unstable house of cards. Compared to this terrible trio, the Cavs are magnificent winners. There, that should put things in perspective.

• A historic crowd turned out to watch Bangladesh take on India in the opener. In the recent years, Bangladesh has gone from sucking terribly to sucking slightly less terribly. The team went in with oversized expectations thrust upon their shoulders. And they lost. Quite badly. Sucks for the jubilant home crowd.

• England bowler Graeme Swann took a brief paternity leave to witness the birth of his son and then promptly flew back to join his team's "crucial" match against part-time cricketers Holland. When asked about the reaction of his son years from now, he quipped that he will tell Swann Jr. that he had to beat Holland. Good luck feeding him that pill, guvnah.

• You'd think that when Australia conveniently crushed Zimbabwe last week, their captain would be all smiles and hugs and tears. Nope. Big man Ricky Ponting got out in a poor fashion and was seen exiting the stadium muttering to himself. The next thing we know is that he went mental in the locker room and smashed a brand-new LCD TV with his bat. RIP Sony Bravia. You are a martyr to your brethren. Ricky, may I suggest anger management?

That's it for this week. More matches this weekend, meaning more tidbits next week.

A memorable losing streak comes to an end

What do you call a school that boasts a staggeringly shitty 310-game losing streak? Caltech, of course. Last time these techno-geeks won anything in basketball was in 1985, when the Gipper was still president and Americans everywhere were mortified about impending Japanese takeovers (that never materialized).

Our good friends at Yahoo couldn't resist themselves.

"The victory touched off a wild celebration on a campus where students typically only rejoice like that after acing a midterm."

Hardy har har. Hey guys, since we are talking about Caltech, let's sneak in a lame joke about what legendary nerds they are!

Anyway, you go Caltech.

Good job!

The fifth Beatle?

1964 was one hell of a time to be a Beatle. Beatlemania was raging across the world like wildfire, mop top was astronomically hip, and a seemingly endless supply of teens swooned at the merest glimpse of anything Beatle. Amidst this hubbub, the Fab four planned an extensive international tour, stretching from Denmark to Australia.

As June arrived, they began preparing for this tour in earnestness.

When one oh-so slight snag hit them smack in the faces. Or in the tonsils. Ringo got struck down with tonsilitis.

Uh-oh. Ringo was never that prominent in the vocal department (at least back in those days), but he did get by with a little help from his friends (sorry, I had to use that. There is an obligatory bad pun rule when discussing anything about the Beatles).

In any event, our heroes had two gut-wrenching choices: cancel the extravaganza or leave Ringo behind and find a replacement. Ever the supreme perfectionists, the band initially pondered calling the whole thing off. Enter manager Brian Epstein.

The mercurial Epstein (sometimes called the fifth beatle) had taken control of the band from the very early days and he firmly believed that the show must go on. If that meant overriding the most brilliant musical minds of the 20th century, the hell with it. Epstein summoned all his skills to conjure up an eleventh-hour replacement.

The replacement drummer was a chap called Jimmie Nicol. He literally packed a couple bags and hopped on a plane. The next day, a dazed Nicol played in Copenhagen. He was given a crude mop top haircut, and he even wore Ringo's suits (leading one of the Beatles to telegram - yes they still existed then - Ringo that Nicol was going to wear his suits out if he didn't get better soon).

Over the span of two weeks or so, Nicol found out what it feels to be a rocket. He went from dirt to stratosphere at a dizzying pace. Soaring above, he got a glimpse of the good life. Romping in the Amsterdam red light district with Lennon, sight-seeing in Hongkong, reveling with screaming fans....

John, Paul, George and...Jimmie?[beatlesagain.com]

And it all ended. Ringo got better and flew out to join the band in Australia. A platoon of policemen were deployed to guard their motorcade. That night the Beatles threw one of their legendary parties that lasted till 4 am. Nicol wasn't invited. In the morning, Epstein drove him to the airport. He didn't say goodbye to his "bandmates" because he didn't want to wake them up. At the airport, he was given 500 pounds and a gold watch. His name was spelled wrong. "Thank you Jimmy", it read.

One would think some of that magic dust would have worn off and he would find huge success in his later ventures. Instead, his life took an inexplicable wrong turn. He floundered from band to band, rarely finding any stability or success. Less than a year after his stint in the stratosphere, he declared bankruptcy.

Nicol withdrew into his shell and despite rumors of his death, a Brit newspaper tracked him down in 2005. He lives in a tiny apartment and doesn't talk to anyone - including his own son, who is now a sound engineer himself. Apparently, Paul offered Nicol some money to be in a Beatles documentary in the 90's but he refused.

Jimmie Nicol in 2005 [pmouse.nl]

Thus endeth the ballad of Jimmie Nicol. Fame is fickle, folks.

New webcomic blog!

Hey folks, as I mentioned here and here, I am a huge fan of comics. Recently, under the good influence of my artistically endowed roommate, I took up trying to sketch comic strips of my own.

By and by, we decided to collaborate on a webcomic and finally we have everything in place.

*Drum Roll* *Drum Roll* *Drum Roll*

I am very pleased to announce the launch of our new webcomic blog, which you can find right here: On Bogosity .

Currently, we plan to upload new comics Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Enjoy and don't hesitate to hit the comments!