I didn’t write an Oscar column this year for a few reasons: A) I didn’t feel strongly really about any of the movies, with the exception of the silly dogshit that was Brokeback Mountain; and B) I’m lazy. But you know what else? I’m sick of the Oscars. They’re bullshit.
I’ve noticed this the last couple of years when movies I really enjoyed and felt were deserving of a number of awards were not only getting passed over for the major awards, but were being completely shut out. Take 2002's Minority Report, only one of the most intelligent, thoughtful and entertaining films in years (and I like sci-fi movies like Lindsay Lohan likes not being a nasty, talentless skank) Anyway, Minority Report somehow won exactly one nomination: sound editing. Meanwhile effeminate tripe like Chicago is the hit of the night. So honestly, if a cutting-edge, exciting film that everyone loves isn’t the best picture, why even have the Oscars?
“I realize you probably haven’t heard of any of these guys, but that’s why they’re sleepers, and that’s why they’ll be getting some poon.”
If a ridiculous musical of which not one heterosexual male friend of mine enjoyed is a best picture, why have the Oscars?
And if 2005 saw the release of the sharpest, funniest comedy in ten years, but doesn’t even get nominated for a single Oscar apparently reserved for gay cowboy movies and contrived diatribes on race relations, why the bloody hell have the Oscars?
Make no mistake, the best film of 2005 wasn’t Crash. It wasn’t Capote. It sure as shit wasn’t Brokeback. It was The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Don’t bother arguing. I shan’t be swayed. If you’ve only seen it once, you might disagree. If you haven’t seen it all, you probably think I’m an idiot. If you own the DVD, you know exactly what I mean.
The 40-Year-Old Virgin is as perfect a comedy can be really, a flawless blend of the right actors, the right screenplay, the right idea, the right everything. I guarantee if you showed 100 people Brokeback Mountain and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, 99 would say they enjoyed Virgin more. And the 100th would be Heath Ledger, staring at the ground mumbling incoherent Southern jibberish. If that’s not cause for a Best Picture nomination, what is? And by the way, I’m being completely serious here.
Anyway, I’ve decided Virgin, my favorite movie of last year, is the perfect segue to my favorite time of year, the start of the 2006 baseball season. So below I have 12 quotes from the movie awarded to the top players, teams and storylines or the upcoming season.
By the way, as I’ve mentioned in my Super Troopers and Old School columns, I’m patently aware that Bill Simmons does this exact same thing. So don’t bother emailing me with “ripoff!” I understand. Okay? Can we let it go?
1. Andy Stitzer: Wow, this place is crowded.
David: Yeah, well you know, nine dollar beer night.
To the Boston Red Sox, and, as a fan my entire life, I feel like a mook saying this, but part of me hopes the Sox have a couple of awful seasons, just to thin out the bandwagon. This is fucking ridiculous. In 2001, I went to a Sox game for nine bucks. Last year, some jackoff scalper tried to bilk me into dropping $200 for grandstand seats at a Sox-Yankees affair. $200 for a fucking grandstand seat! That’s retarded. For those of you who’ve never been to Fenway, it’s not exactly the lap of luxury. I’ve had rectal exams that were more comfortable than a seat at Fenway.
Listen, I’m thrilled the Sox are relevant every year and still fresh from the great 2004 season, but honestly, this has got to stop. There’s no way there were this many Red Sox fans a few years ago. And the way I see it, shouldn’t the fans who suffered through Scott Cooper and Tim Naehring (my favorite bad Red Sox until Curt Leskanic came along) and Aaron Sele and Jose Offerman get some kind of priority now that the team is good? I think so, and I’ve gone one step further, producing some criteria to determine if you’re a real Red Sox fan or if you’re a piece of shit:
1. You’ve ever used the phrase “Cowboy up.”
2. You own one of those Yankee hater hats or t-shirts college kids sell outside of Fenway that say shit like A-Rod Sucks Randy’s Johnson.
3. You paid $25 for your official Red Sox Nation membership card.
4. You own a Johnny Damon jersey.
5. You think Schilling is better than Pedro.
6. You were born in New York. Period.
If you meet any of those six criteria, step aside and let the real fans through. Go watch a fucking Celtics game or something.
2. David: You know how I know that you're gay?
Cal: How?
David: You have a rainbow bumper sticker on your car that says ” I love it when balls are in my face.”
Cal: That's gay?
To Johnny Damon. Listen, I don’t consider him a Benedict Arnold or worse, Roger Clemens, for going to the Yankees. He went to the highest bidder, that’s all. Happens all the time. Remember, Damon boned over both the Royals and Athletics to sign with the Red Sox back in 2001. Why? Not because he wanted to play for a contender or win the World Series or play for a ravenous fan base. Because the Sox paid him a few extra dollars. We knew what kind of guy he was going in.
What gets me, though, is that bullshit Damon said about the Red Sox not respecting him. As I recall, the Sox offered him a 4-year, $10 million contract. $40 million for a 31-year-old with a famously puss shoulder, overrated speed, and streaky contact hitting. Maybe I have a skewed concept of self-worth but if you’re being offered that much money and only one team is willing to overpay for you (the same team who famously overpays for everybody) then the first team didn’t disrespect you. You took the money and ran. Good for you. Now shut the fuck up you long haired-traitor cretin asshole.
(Oh yeah, and going back to the quote. What’s your favorite scene of Virgin? A lot of people swear by the chest-waxing scene, made even funnier when you learn Steve Carell allowed them to actually wax his chest without trick photography or makeup. Some people like Andy’s drunk date and her shellfish breath. Personally, I love the “know how I know you’re gay” interplay between David and Cal while playing Mortal Kombat. And if you like the scene, just trust me, watch the extended version on the DVD. Fall down hilarious. Again, you just have to trust me.)
3. Mooj: Hey Andy, don't let him bother you. It's okay not to have sex. Not eveybody's a pussy magnet. You, uh, what are you 25?
Andy Stitzer: I'm 40.
Mooj: Holy shit, man you got to get on that.
To the Chicago Cubs. Man, I didn’t think anything could be worse for Cubs fans than watching Henry Rowengartner show off his Cubs World Series ring with Gary Busey as the ace and Daniel Stern the pitching coach. But first, the Red Sox win a title. Then, the White Sox win a title. Isn’t anything possible at this point? Peyton Manning winning a Super Bowl ring? Ben Affleck starring in a good movie? FOX not over-advertising the next piece of shit reality show like Unanimous?
(You know what else I love about Virgin? Every single character in the movie works. Mooj? Hilarious. Paula the boss? Hilarious. EvenTrish's teenage daughter, who could have and should have tanked the movie, was effective.)
4. Cal: I hired a 90-lb girl to work in the stock room at Smart Tech for you, okay? I should've hired a 300-lb guy to lift the 60-inch flat screen, but instead I hired a hot girl who can't lift an iPod to bring you out of your funk.
To the stupid moves of the 2005 off-season, and where do we begin? $13 million for Rafael Furcal? $12 million for Kevin Millwood? $13 million for Johnny Damon? $9 million for B.J. Ryan? Any form of American currency for Kevin Millar? Wasn’t this totally the year of the overrated player? I’m fairly certain if I called the Mets and told them I was a 22-year-old left-handed specialist, they’d give me $4 million. In fact, maybe I will.
(By the way, if there’s any justice in the world, Seth Rogen, who played Cal, will be the next great comic actor. The guy absolutely slayed me in Virgin. Slayed me! Between the one-liners about watching Gandhi high and his game with Excedrin PMs, I haven’t seen such a comic tour de force since Squints in The Sandlot. Naturally, he doesn’t get even an ounce of Oscar buzz, but George Clooney makes a completely incomprehensible movie about oil trading and he gets a statue. I fucking hate Hollywood.)
Speaking of Cal:
5. Cal: We went to Tijuana, Mexico, you know? And we thought it would be fun, you know, to go to a show. Everybody says you gotta check out one of these shows. And…it's a woman fuckin' a horse. We get there and we think it's gonna be awesome and… it is not as cool as it sounds like it's gonna be. It's kinda gross.
Andy Stitzer: Yeah.
Cal: You think ” A woman fuckin' a horse” and you get there and… it's a woman fucking a horse.
Andy Stitzer: Yeah.
Cal: It was really giving it to her. And you know what? To be honest I just felt bad for her, we all just felt bad for her.
Andy Stitzer: Yeah.
Cal: I kinda felt bad for the horse!
To the potential disappointments of 2006 and my money’s on the Toronto Blue Jays. Here’s what I don’t get, the Jays sign a pitcher with a career sub-.500 record, a third basemen who hits .240, a closer who only has one season under his belt in the role AND can’t pitch to the Boston or the Yankees, and everyone’s picking them to be better than the Red Sox?
The Blue Jays suck donkey dick. And yes, I’m writing all this deliberately to provoke my roommate Mark, a Toronto fan. But it'strue.
6. David: I dated this girl for four months, and it was the best thing in my life! Until she went down on this guy in…an Escalade, I think.
Andy Stitzer: Where is she now?
David: Oh she's dating some pot dealer which is a stupid horrible decision, but hey, that's her journey. If she wants to be a fucking immature bitch and blow everybody… But that's love, man.
To Frank Thomas, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro. Man, doesn’t seeing them now make you feel old? Thomas is a fucking Athletic, andnobody (not even the Mets!) are willing to sign the other two. When I was in high school, Sammy Sosa was the biggest baseball player in the country, now he's getting chump change offers from the Nationals. I’m getting depressed just thinking about it.
7. Smart Tech Customer: Alright, now I'm also gonna need the extended warranty on this for the price of… on the house.
Jay: That I can't do.
To Barry Bonds. (I know I know.) And you know I hate the guy. He’s a racist. He’s incoherent. He shamelessly exploited his own child to prove a point. But you have to feel bad when a pair of journalists are essentially writing a book with the sole intention of destroying him. I mean that’s harsh. Has anybody written a book like this about Osama bin Laden? Or Saddam Hussein? Or Tom Cruise? And it’s all because he’s black. What a damn shame.
8. David: I gotta tell you something. I'm really excited about it. Uh, for the first time, today, I woke up, I came to the store, and I…Ifeel confident to say to you that if you don't take this Michael McDonald DVD that you've been playing for two years straight off, I'm going to kill everyone in the store and put a bullet in my brain!
Paula: David, what do you suggest we play?
David: I don't care. Anything! I would rather…I would rather watch ” Beautician And The Beast.” I would rather listen to Fran Drescher for eight hours than have to listen to Michael McDonald. Nothin' against him, but if I hear ” Yah Mo B There” one more time, I'm going to Yah Mo Burn This Place To The Ground.
To the St. Louis Cardinals, and I know Red Birds fan Nate Degraaf will agree with me here, but how much must it suck to have a truly excellent baseball team and Tony LaRussa running the show? Why do people think he’s a great coach? Are these the same people who think Brendan Fraser is a good actor or Jack Johnson shouldn’t burn in musical hell?
The great thing about LaRussa, he’s not really classically incompetent like Dusty Baker or Bobby Valentine. He seems like he knows what he’s doing, bringing a lefty with Crone’s disease to face a hitter who’s left leg is slightly shorter than his right leg. Can you imagine watching this guy try to order a meal at a restaurant? Is he like, “Okay, I’ll eat a piece of bread now, but avoid the salad, or use the salad but put light vinaigrette on it, then order something light like chicken, but substitute potatoes for green beans, drink water early on, then switch to wine when the entree comes out. No dessert, although the cheese cake looks good. Okay, I’ll have a piece of cheese cake but no wine. Two pieces of bread. Ranch dressing. Pork instead of chicken.”
Speaking of bad coaches:
9. Andy (looking at a model of a vagina): Where do you put the penis?
To Grady Little, the new coach of the Los Angeles Dodgers. I know everyone hates on the guy for what happened in the 2003 ALCS, when he left Pedro in to pitch the eighth even though Pedro looked like Al Pacino at the end of Insomnia. But when I see sports personalities (if Skip Bayless can ever be described as a “personality”) talking about how Grady got a raw deal in Boston, it makes me want to throw a shoe at the screen. This is ten times worse than Mike Wilbon saying he doesn’t want to talk about the Yankees and Red Sox in May, but gleefully leads off PTI with horseshit about a Pistons-Heat matchup in November.
Grady Little was an awful coach, the kind of guy who would drink Bud Lights at a bar all night then randomly switch to tequila shots. There's no argument. Grady Little wasn't fired because he fucked up in the playoffs. He was fired because everyone expected him to fuck up in the playoffs. Ladies and gentlemen, your 2006 Los Angeles Dodgers!
10. Andy Stitzer: I need some poon! I need genital to genital connections!
To the sleepers of the 2006 season, and while everyone picks the overrated Blue Jays, I’m going with Milwaukee. Think about it, they’ve got a stud ace (Ben Sheets), two other solid pitchers (Doug Davis and Chris Capuano), a closer (Derrick Turnbow) and a decent lineup (including Carlos Lee, Bill Hall and my boy, Brady Clark, currently starring for my fantasy baseball team, Schipoopi!) I realize you probably haven’t heard of any of these guys, but that’s why they’re sleepers, and that’s why, come October, they’ll be getting some. Some genital to genital connections.
11. Jay: You’re putting the vagina on a pedestal.
To the 2006 World Series Champions, the Oakland Athletics. The perfect blend of pitching (Zito, Haren, Loaiza, Blanton), bullpen (Duscherer and Street), young guys (Crosby, Dan Johnson), older guys (Big Hurt, Milton Bradley, even though he’s a fucking case). The National League is pretty wide open, though I like San Diego and the aforementioned Brewers, but the A's are the class of the AL. Then again, the Yankees signed a center fielder with a dead arm and nobody to improve their pitching staff, currently depending on a 42-year-old, a 38-year-old and someone named Aaron Small. So maybe I’m wrong about this pick. But I’m not.
And with that said, let's start the season already. As much I love March Madness, to paraphrase Paul Rudd: ” I just want to get drunk, FUCKED UP, and watch some baseball!”