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.