“As kids, we robbed banks!
As elders, we rob Best Picture nominees!”
We Rob Best Picture Nominees
After watching Hollywood “mis-give” their Best Picture Oscar last night to LaLa Land, via presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunnaway, with a little help from the Price, Waterhouse, Cooper folks who set the whole thing in motion by handing the wrong envelope to the almost 80-year-old, Beatty before the couple made their presentational entry. The once-so-physically-competent-looking half-century-ago portrayals of Bonnie and Clyde were little more than a memory as the two aging actors stepped carefully across the stage last night, preparing to accidentally commit their biggest robbery of all time before the eyes of the digital television world at the Academy Awards 2017 presentation ceremony.
You know the gist of it by now. Beatty mistakenly had been handed – either the copy of the envelope used to announce Emma Stone as Best Actress for La La Land – or one like it – (she says she still had that card in her possession at the time the shocking error was belatedly and awkwardly corrected) – and things simply went from there to fizzle and close with a big stink-moment inserted as the close of another mind-numbing four-hour exposure to more “thank you” smiles and statements than any two eyes or ears would ever want to see or hear.
Moonlight was the actual winner of the Best Picture Oscar, although that wasn’t made totally clear to the world while the people from both films still occupied the stage at sign-off in a mixture base of anxious smiles and shaking heads.
The Breath of Present Politics Took Over Social Media in Response.
Both sides of the current spiritual trench war in Washington went to town on this one, and neither were we rendered from the infection of innocuous comment ourselves. Here are some of the favorites that abounded in repetitious variant form, both in social media and the darkly humorous chambers of our own minds on this one. No geniuses appeared. The Oscar Boo Boo was a fat pitch down the middle for anyone who cared to pick up a bat. And here are a few examples:
- The announcement of La La Land as Best Picture of the Year simply was the Sunday late edition of “fake news” from Hollywood.
- Putin and Trump Strike Again! – Will we ever see the end of their attempts to interfere with the sacred American electoral process?
- How did this happen? La La Land won the popular vote, but Moonlight played even bigger in the Electoral College.
- How deep is Putin’s intelligence on American culture? It’s deep enough to have taught him that sad songs about lost loves are strong enough to produce a major impact on American individual spending of their discretionary money – and, sometimes, far beyond their variably approved lines of credit. Want proof? Take a look at this brief YouTube number. That’s actually Vladimir Putin singing “Blueberry Hill.”
Putin Singer Note
Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell seem to be really into the Ruski-Crooner’s rendition of the Old Fats Domino hit. Does that mean that Congress should bring back their House Un-American Activities Committee and have them investigated and possibly placed upon a new Hollywood blacklist? – Geez.
How Could Baseball Top The Oscar Boo Boo?
The case could be made that the Boo Boo Question is already answered. It’s been set to hatch this summer from the recent moment in which former MLB Commissioner Bud Selig was selected for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Here’s a clear way to avoid the Selig Boo Boo at the Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony this coming July 30, 2017, but this move too would be perceived by some as an even greater Boo Boo – and a move base upon “fake news.”
Here’s the pitch. – Even if does slightly ooze from the scent of “fake news”.
Let’s have Commissioner Rob Manfred take the podium microphone immediately prior to the induction processing of former Commissioner Bud Selig and make this announcement:
“Administrators and Members of the Hall if Fame, Worthy Candidates, People of Cooperstown, Fans of Baseball Here and Everywhere, and Mr. Selig:
“With apologies to Mr. Bud Selig for this late notice, it is still incumbent upon me to make this announcement. The Gods of Baseball visited me in my dreams last night and they have directed me to make the following changes in today’s induction program:
“(1) Mr. Bud Selig shall be withdrawn from today’s induction list, with all other selected candidates going forward into The Hall today, as planned. Mr. Selig will remain eligible for consideration at a later time, but only in relation to his perceived greater worth than others on the list of possibility.
“(2) In Mr. Selig’s place, the Hall of Fame shall today induct Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, and Roger Clemens as living inductees, along with Shoeless Joe Jackson as our long overdue posthumous choice for the Baseball Hall of Fame.
“When I awoke this morning, I briefly flirted with the idea that it had been only a dream, but that illusion passed quickly when I went the hotel cafe for breakfast and was immediately escorted to a private table.
“Rose, Bonds, and Clemens were all there – waiting for me, and dressed for induction to the nines, smiling, and apparently quite glad to see me. Rose even had a bat signed “Black Betsy” that he handed me. “Joe couldn’t be here in person, you know,” said Pete Rose, “but he wanted you to have this bat as a souvenir of his appreciation, Mr. Commissioner. – Look! He even signed it for you!
“(3) Now let’s get on with the adjusted new business at hand! And,
“(4) Praise the Lord for Our Guiding Gods of Baseball!”
~ Rob Manfred, Commissioner of Baseball
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Wishful Thinking
Now, doesn’t that last story make almost everybody wish that – sometimes – “fake news” were really true? The Cooperstown 2017 Adjustment story sure works for those us here at The Pecan Park Eagle – even if it is seared as a Boo Boo move by those who preferably enjoy the plan to install Selig into the HOF in real time this summer.
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Publisher, Editor, Writer
The Pecan Park Eagle
Houston, Texas
The Pecan Park Eagle 
February 27, 2017 at 7:22 pm |
The only thing missing from your scenario is Rob Manfred tendering his resignation as commissioner of baseball effective immediately.
For tampering with the integrity of the game, speaking in corporate gobbledygook, and inducting into the HOF, the man responsible for moving Houston to the junior circuit, Mr. Manfred should be cast into outer darkness.
February 27, 2017 at 8:00 pm |
One of the most famous, but apparently error prone national sportscasters of all time, Bill Stern, was known for finding the right ball carrier in football games by having a play occur that really didn’t. He was on radio and the transistor hadn’t even been invented yet so who would know? One time when Don Dunphy was honored as being the top horse racing announcer he was on a program hosted by Stern who was effusive with his praise. Dunphy accepted the glowing introduction then simply said, “You have to be very accurate in calling a horse race, Bill, because you can’t lateral a race horse.”
No one want to make a mistake on the “big play”. And in defense of Beatty and Dunaway he seemed a bit in wonder when he looked in the envelope…that may have been why he looked again and not to increase the drama. But it was someone else’s mistake that gave them the wrong one. As actors they just read the lines. They have no one to lateral to.
February 28, 2017 at 8:28 pm |
Someone suggested, maybe it was Kimmel, that “Clyde” lateraled the problem by handing the envelope to “Bonnie” – in a way that also sort of threw her under the bus by allowing her to speak aloud the name of the wrong movie for the best picture Oscar. – You gotta watch out for these nearly 80 year old guys who aren’t wearing their glasses and may even be drinking late at night to read their lines correctly, but it was pretty obvious that Beatty knew he had the wrong envelope, if he could read the contents script. He simply didn’t have the snap to raise his hand and say something loud like, “Price Waterhouse, we have a problem over here at the live awards mike!”