it startd when I was a kid. Mom let me take a nap after school so I cd stay up to watch Judy Garland win the Academy Award at the 1955 ceremony. she lost. that shd've told me something. but I was too young & didn't understand politics & commerce & the other things that shape awards. I was so young I thot they were abt art & talent.
in the ensuing decades I watchd every award show on tv. I went to the Tonys twice & the Grammys twice. & in 1981 I walkd the red carpet at Dorothy Chandler Pavillion & was there when Spacek & DeNiro took home the gold.
I can't pinpoint when I began to sour abt awards. I suspect it's all part of aging. we look deep & feel deeper. things that were important become less so. & things we take for grantd become precious.
along the way I had to wonder why the academy faild to give its best director statuette to Hitchcock or Altman why the Pulitzer people bypassd Frank O'Hara why the Nobel never went to Tennessee Williams.
I admit I still reluctantly tune in to several award broadcasts. am I looking for cheap entertainment or a return to my youth? for the most part they turn my stomach. even after I dismissd the Oscars as the crap they are I felt the Independent Spirit Awards had some integrity & a fun presentation. yesterday's broadcast was so dismal. a bunch of drunks in a room saying whatever tumbld from their caws.
yes I'll watch the Oscars tomorrow. it's like a train wreck. but the academy's decision to increase the best picture noms to 10 was such a blatant move to make more money. however one must reflect that these awards were inventd to boost box office. they have never been abt art or talent. just ask Judy Garland or Hitchcock or Altman.
& yes I'm getting older. awards in any field have no consequence for me anymore.
2 comments:
I have yet to get off the award show boat... I am impressed with how good you look with that 13'' man in your hand.
Bill Berger took that picture of me a couple of years ago in Palm Springs. the Oscar was Frank Capra's.
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