Some Oscar thoughts.

Steve Martin was pretty funny except for a couple of dumb jokes, like the France/Germany is against me, or whatever it was. Timely, kind of. Funny, no. And then there was that Afghanistan camel joke. What the hell was that? Do people still make Middle East camel jokes? I didn't realize that. Those two jokes smelled like Bruce Vilanch.

I'm glad Chris Cooper won. He was damn good in Adaptation. And his little call for peace was nice. It wasn't a "republicans are baddies!" statement and not ridiculously self-important. A good guy who likes peace. Fine by me.

Speaking of self-important, Michael Moore's speech was funny. Ridiculous, but it was funny. It will be remembered. He is still complaining about the 2000 election. Come on. Al Gore got over it, so should you. Unfortunately, his funniest line was drowned out by the music and boos, when he said, "When the Pope and the Dixie Chicks are against you, your days are numbered."

When Catherine Zeta-Jones won, I was completely hypnotized by her jiggly pregnant boobs. They were like two big Welsh lava lamps.

Renee Zellweger is freaky looking. She looks like a bobblehead doll. Her head is too big for her body. She needs more Bridget Jones, less Roxy Hart. They sat her really close to Calista Flockhart. It looked like they were having a bone contest.

I was hoping that the guy who won for the short animation film award, "The ChubbChubbs", would make the biggest anti-war statement of the night. Didn't happen. That would have been funny. For years people would talk about the guy they never heard of that made the movie about the fat chickens who ranted about the horrors of war.

I forget what the guy won for, but I felt bad for the guy with the stutter. I think he might have made that stutter up so he could talk for longer than the 30 second limit on acceptance speeches. You know that no one with a good conscience will cut off a guy with a stutter who's trying to thank his mom and his speech therapist.

When Roman Polanski won, the presenter should have said, "Roman couldn't be with us tonight because he had sex with a 13 year old back when he was 43 and he'll get arrested if he steps foot in this country. Roman Polanski ladies and gentleman! Good guy. He's a good man. Once had sex with a 13 year old girl, but he makes fine films. I will accept this award on his old, perverted behalf. By the way, he was 43 when it happened. He was 30 years older than the girl. But how about that movie he made, huh? With the guy and the piano and all that? Good stuff. Hey Martin Scorsese... on average, how many teenage girls do you sleep with? None, huh? Maybe you should start."

I am glad they pronounced "Pianist" the correct way (sounds like "penis"), rather than they did on the commercials for the movie, where they said "Pee-Yanist" so the public wouldn't giggle at the real pronunciation.

There are a lot of movies about pianos and those who play pianos. The Pianist. The Piano Teacher. The Piano. The Piano Bench. The Piano Key. Big. Piano Piano! I Know My First Name is Piano. Billy Joel: The E! True Hollywood Story. Don't Tell Mom, The Piano Teacher's Dead. Stop! Or My Piano Will Shoot. How Stella Got Her Piano Back. The Shawshank Piano. That Piano Player is so Good That People Want to Fuck Him a Lot. Has Anyone Seen My Piano? It's Black and Has Roughly 88 Keys. If You Find it, Could You Let Me Know? Thanks. The Piano of the Apes. Shine.

The most disturbing image of the night (war not included) had to be the commercial that had Sharon Stone apparently having sex with the little yellow AOL guy. What was that? AOL is "sexier" now? Why on earth would you want to have your advertising icon associated with banging Sharon Stone? Maybe if it was 10 years ago when she was someone that people actually gave a crap about, and your product was somehow related to sex.

Hopefully this won't start a trend of harmless, family-safe advertising icons having sex with celebrities. Can you imagine the Snuggle Bear in the sack with J.Lo? Or the M&M guys in an orgy with Courtney Cox and David Arquette? Maybe the Keebler Elf and Christina Aguilera. Actually, that one makes perfect sense.

It's weird watching something as meaningless as the Oscars or the NCAA tournament while the war is going on. Dan Rather seems pissed that CBS is showing basketball. He was doing the normal half hour update or halftime update or whatever it was, and at the end of it he said, "And just so you know, we will interrupt basketball as events warrant it." The way he said it was great. He was very sarcastic the way he said "basketball." And it was also kind of threatening. He wanted to say, "We will interrupt your little fantasy world of office pools and Cinderella stories with news of Americans dying, Americans by the way, who are the same age as these kids playing basketball right now."

I like Dan Rather. He's a good guy and he's a crazy old coot.