Oscar time you don’t want to live in my ‘hood – a mile or so directly up hill of the Kodak Theatre where they give the Academy Awards. Normally a quiet family redoubt in the Hollywood Hills (okay, a bit on the showbiz side, but sedate nevertheless), it has been turned into ground zero for the tragically-hip-public-relations-party-on set replete with non-stop bands from country to alternative. My street, which normally gets about one car every five minutes, is in a permanent state of gridlock with parking valets frantically running up and down the sidewalk, dodging the stares of the traffic control police who are being constantly importuned by my neighbors (and me) to take this moving torture chamber and ship the whole crowd to the New Orleans coliseum. Two nights ago we were kept up until dawn by a non-stop party for Best Actor nominee Joaquin Phoenix – and he was in New York at the time. The following morning it was impossible to get to work because of the catering trucks blocking the road. And this hijinks is supposed to go on until Monday.
And for what reason have the good people of my street been singled out for this treatment? Some cash-rich lowlife – allegedly (though I am not certain) one of the contractors of that mega-boondoggle bordering on theft of public funds known as the LA Metro -for the last several years has been building the most hideous spec house this side of Riyadh about fifty yards up hill of me. If you were going to do a parody of a bad taste neo-Renaissance McMansion (up to the mammoth gaudy pseudo-Venetian chandeliers and the mosaic of Neptune and some sea nymphs at the bottom of the Olympic-sized pool), this would be the place. Upon completion, he put a price on it so steep not even David Geffen could move in. Naturally, the monstrosity didn’t sell. So the guy had to rent it, first to porno filmmakers who were probably using it as a double for Hef’s mansion. But that didn’t last because next door neighbors complained that the nightly climax oohing and aahing was keeping their children up. (One woman told me she broke in on them en flagrante delicto and yelled at the crew to stop. They did.) The owner had to give up that rental. So now he is exacting retribution on all of us –seven days and seven nights of Oscar parties.
Actually there is something funny about us aging hipsters dodging empty boxes of Patron tequila (Hunter Thompson, where are you?) and complaining about the same things our parents did. Still, they didn’t have porno rentals to worry about.
UPDATE: While on the subject of the awards, at least tangentially, I urge you to read Terry Teachout’s analysis of Good Night, and Good Luck in Commentary. (via Powerline)
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18 Comments
1. promoguy:That’s what you get for being rich and living in the hills.
Come out here and live the barrio of Van Nuys and you won’t have any problems with catering trucks or valet parking.
Mar 4, 2006 - 3:56 pm 2. Roger:You’ve got a complee point
Mar 4, 2006 - 4:16 pm 3. Charlie (Colorado):Actually there is something funny about us aging hipsters dodging empty boxes of Patron tequila (Hunter Thompson, where are you?) and complaining about the same things our parents did. Still, they didn’t have porno rentals to worry about.
They had to buy it and have it delivered in plain brown wrappers, like God inten–
Oh.
Never mind.
Mar 4, 2006 - 4:33 pm 4. David:Hi Roger, I have a question if you will, a friend of ours was a named member of a crew that got an Emmy (Sportsline, ESPN). Will he get anything physical for that or does only ESPN get something. We would ask him but he is on vacation.
Mar 4, 2006 - 4:35 pm 5. Roger:Sorry, David, I have no idea of the rules on that one. Congrats to your friend, however.
Mar 4, 2006 - 5:09 pm 6. Orson2:Thank you, Roger – how rich! How droll!
You remind those of us in fly-over country (Colorado, in my case), why people go to zoos – to look at the animals.
Great story.
Mar 4, 2006 - 8:10 pm 7. Alexandra von Maltzan:All Things Beautiful TrackBack Oscar Prepare To Be Blogged
“Today is a Holy Day in Los Angeles. Oscar Sunday of course, and in the absence of any pressing news these days – other than Iran’s nuclear weapons development crisis [don't miss my groundbreaking story via Powerline today], the election of Hamas terrorists in Palestine, ongoing worldwide Muslim riots and killing in reaction to a cartoon….
In other words, the day to keep an eye out for the must read Roger L. Simon blog. Roger is a member of the Academy, and to my knowledge the only blogger who has that unfortunate honor. I say unfortunate, as it comes with the onerous duty of being obliged to watch every mitigating cinematic disaster that is forced his way. Including of course having to put up with the turmoil that hits Tinseltown today, more resembling the streets of Riyadh. The fun parties make up for it though, don’t they Roger?”
Mar 5, 2006 - 8:35 am 8. hargrove1967:Roger,
For my reference, where (what) is the New Orleans coliseum. I grew up in New Orleans and it does not ring a bell. Or is it a building in LA.
Thanks,
Hargrove
Mar 5, 2006 - 9:17 am 9. Roger:Hargrove, that’s an early version of the Superdome uncovered in the Katrina wreckage.
Mar 5, 2006 - 9:32 am 10. Bill Schumm:If there was an obnoxious, unsalable eyesore creating those kinds of problems in my neighborhood….I think I would pick a night between rentals and torch it.
Mar 5, 2006 - 3:45 pm 11. Sandy P:My husband is forcing me to watch the opening cos he likes Stewart.
Roger, Bette Midler should host this thing, that would be really entertaining.
Mar 5, 2006 - 5:09 pm 12. Sandy P:I’m reading the blow-by-blow at PJM.
Is Peter Fonda really posting there?
They’re making me laugh.
Mar 5, 2006 - 6:31 pm 13. Ric Locke:There’s a great line in an old H. Beam Piper story where the protag is describing somebody very like your neighbor:
“If he’d ever seen Versailles, he’d have gone home and ordered one twice as big, because he couldn’t possibly have gotten one twice as flashy or in twice as bad taste.”
That about fit?
Regards,
Mar 5, 2006 - 6:33 pm 14. Sandy P:Ric
Hi, I’m Peg.
This costs more than the original.
Mar 5, 2006 - 8:38 pm 15. Wildezword:Back when I was a USC student, whenever they would hold an awards event close to campus, they’d hang “Temporary Towaway Zone” signs on all the side streets the very night of the event. Then, they’d tow away all the parked cars (at the owner’s expense, of course).
Mar 5, 2006 - 10:00 pm 16. Parvus:Dear Ric: just for the record the quote from H Beam Piper was about Napoleons throne room.& the guy would,ve have been so impressed was Al Capone. Its in Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen.
Mar 6, 2006 - 9:29 am 17. Oyster:I took your advice and read Teachout’s article. Excellent. Clooney really is quite clueless and never fails to prove it. The “question authority” mantra has honorable beginnings, but leave it to him (and others) to bastardize its true meaning. Using Murrow to push that mantra was a horrible choice. Questioning authority is great, but don’t you have to be right about it at least once in a while to be taken seriously?
Looks like Clooney’s overtly vying for Moore’s place in “documentary” production.
Mar 6, 2006 - 11:03 am 18. Buddy Larsen:Thanks for that Teachout pointer, Roger. Great piece. Clooney’s film’s dishonesty is well described. Teachout never wastes a word. He might’ve added, too, re “Capote”, that the 1967 film “In Cold Blood” starred Robert Blake as one of the killers.
Mar 6, 2006 - 4:42 pm