The Pecan Park Eagle

“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:

1. The announcement of La La Land as Best Picture of the Year simply was the Sunday late edition of “fake news” from Hollywood.
2. Putin and Trump Strike Again! – Will we ever see the end of their attempts to interfere with the sacred American electoral process?
3. How did this happen? La La Land won the popular vote, but Moonlight played even bigger in the Electoral College.
4. 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

____________________

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.

____________________

 Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas