I sat tonight watching the Oscars, sitting for the first time ever resisting the urge to change the channel. There was no host – well, there was Hugh Jackman, best known as Wolverine – so like I said, no host. Growing up in the years that Johnny Carson hosted the show, all of my contemporaries – except for Billy Crystal – fall short at best. For the first time in years I hadn’t seen any of the nominated films – with the exception of the one animated short I saw this morning – thanks to entertainment backwater I now find myself in. I sat through the over indulgence of Hollywood (and other) talent, thinking – to paraphrase Gloria Swanson – “it’s the actors that have gotten smaller.” It broke my heart to see an aging Jerry Lewis on the same stage with those drowning into today’s talent pool. For years, I would get up at 5:00 am to wait for the nomination announcements live – I even had the pleasure once of calling a friend who had just been nominated and telling him before anyone else. And tonight for the first time in my life, I realized I’m never going to win one - short film, screenplay, directing - nothing. Maybe if they create a lifetime achievement for leaving. It’s funny where the road less taken deposits you. Oh well, just as well, I'm shitty at keeping the mantle dusted.

I had written this a week or so ago and forgot to post it, now much of the attention has died down, a penalty has been issued and no other charges will be sought, but my point remains the same -

Olympic athletes are people who gave up their adolescence - hell, gave up everything to compete on an international level, to be the best in their sport. They did not train to be role models. Athletes, actors, and musicians are not role models - their achievements can be admired, but save the God-like adulation for parents, teachers, coaches, and mentors, etc. Fro two weeks, every four years – well, two years if you are seasonally inclined – they gather to compete for a shiny little medal. That’s what it is about; not politics; not what they do the two hundred and six weeks between. They strive to be the best and when they are the press – who today, seem to possess more opinion than talent - hold them aloft for one purpose, to tear them down when they stumble.

In 1980, it was the press who started voicing their opinion and athletes who were in the best shape of their careers were forced to boycott a chance of a lifetime. Now I am the last person in the world who wants to side with Michael Phelps, I think he’s an idiot savant capable of causing irreparable damage to the sport of swimming – but not because he hits a bong now and again. When the Olympic committee allowed snow borders into the game, they also allowed the marijuana. Anyone who has ever inhaled can tell you it does not fall into the category of performance enhancement – nor should the committee equate it with the potential use of steroids. It was a regrettable incident, nothing more and Phelps like many before him apologized for the incident – not smoking, but getting caught. Sound familiar.