the nomness

I have a severe, painful, beyond the 4-hour mark, time to alert the doctor, pre AND post-pubescent HARD ON for the Oscars. I wake up early the morning the nominations are announced, after staying up late the night before in order to avoid having to wait for 8:30 to roll around. I capitalize Oscar AT ALL TIMES, because he is a fully sentient being and not a masturbatory illusion of what the film industry used to mean. I make a point of seeing as many nominated films as I can in the month between the nominations and the ceremony. I refer to Oscar as a real person and say things like, “Oscar loves a good war story,” or “Oscar loves monkeys,” as I just said to my Oscar buddy. I HAVE an Oscar buddy (OB), and the morning of the nominations we are enraptured by our own delicious repartee concerning each and every category. Vilanch hasn’t seen such wit in many a decade. I know who Vilanch is FFS, and OB and I are each secretly hoping he’s monitoring our quips and will someday pull us off the bench for the big night. I cry like a five-year-old girl in a pink party dress at least seven times during the actual ceremony. I’ve yet to find anyone I can actually watch the ceremony with so I will always choose to watch it alone. I’ve been to parties or bars before and I can’t hear a goddamn thing and people keep trying to talk to me or some such nonsense and it seems I’m the only one actually interested in the foreign films and the goddamn, the goddamn stilted reading of names and categories by supposed professionals, and the silly edited pieces of past nominees and winners for best sound editing or whatever it is. The death edit makes me cry Real Tears Of Sadness.

And all of this happens every single year, even when I’m dead sober. Add a bottle of wine and I’m a sloppy, Behind The Music, MESS of a girl on the couch in the fetal position because Colin Firth just got a standing O because everyone actually WANTED him to win and he did, and he did so with such grace. This is what happens. This is what happens to me during the season of Oscar. And the season of Oscar began two hours ago.

Ok, let’s get down to it because there’s shit to talk about and I’ve only got 33 more days to cover it all.

To begin with, Jonah Hill. JONAH HILL. Jonah Goddamn Hill. Kraut fucking X, you have GOT to be kidding me. Oscar…OSCAR, wake-up, I TOLD you to lay off that fifth martini you lousy lush, now you’ve gone and nominated fucking Jonah Hill. You remember that creepy asshole in The 40-year-old Virgin who wanted to buy the goldfish platforms? Yeah, HIM. And now I’ve got to watch his creepy ill-thin Alton Brown face? Fuck you, Oscar, we’re having words about this when your father gets home (father played by biblical Charlton Heston) (and yes I cast my Oscar fantasies, fuck you).

Jonah Hill took the seat saved for Alan Rickman. That seat was lined in a deep evergreen velvet with sparkling platinum corded ropes dripping off the armrests, with the added bonus of a footrest made from MY MOUTH. That seat was NOT reserved for dragon training, it was not reserved for Michael Cera’s buttmonkey, and it was for goddamned sure not reserved for FUCKING JONAH HILL.

Also, Nick Nolte? Srsly WTF LOL.

My money’s on Kenneth Branagh. OB made the brilliant point that, with The Artist having picked up so many nominations, this is the year of Oscar patting itself on the back. Oscar has acknowledged and awarded a myriad of overlooked groups in the past 10-15 years, but when was the last time Oscar took a hard look in the mirror only to give a chummy fist to its own chin in congratulations. Kenneth Branagh plays Lawrence Olivier. If you don’t know who Olivier is, just take a quick five minutes to go fuck yourself. I honestly can’t think of a better way for Oscar to pat itself on the back than by awarding Branagh for playing Olivier, unless Tom Hanks comes back from the dead to try to be Spencer Tracy again. Oh wait, Hanks isn’t dead? …you’re sure? Right, well, this is how Oscar shows self love; it’s either this or three and a half hours of Billy Crystal masturbating while making jokes about how the show’s running long, and I think I know what number my money’s on.

Best Picture and Best Directing are a study in the classics. Scorsese, Allen, Spielberg. Hell, even Rudin for producing. Midnight In Paris brought the best reviews and box office Woody Allen has seen in a minute, and Hugo was just magic. Like, Harry Potter magic but without the noseless creeper. Moneyball? Give me a break, I thought that went straight to video (and yes, that’s how old I am). War Horse? Sorry dude, his own mother didn’t even see that movie. The Descendants? Ehh…maybe, but let’s give Clooney a rest. Yes, he’s the modern-day Cary Grant (and see aforementioned Olivier if you…oh, nevermind), but come on. He could take some tips from Nolte and Mickey Rourke on how to not be seen for a hot minute (and he should then pass those tips along to Gosling, but that’s another post for another time).

And here’s where we come to the real test of Oscar’s self-love. Do we award the masters in the field for doing the damn thing better than anyone out there, or do we award a film that reminds us all how great the industry used to be? In an industry obsessed with youth and its own self-worth, you’ve gotta give it to The Artist. It’s a Cinderella story of production (and Oscar loves a fairy tale), and the film is so. god. damned. beautiful (and please to imagine His Beatific And Most Stylish Master of Comedy, Mr. Greg Proops, reading that last bit). And it’s effervescent and there’s *gasp* a STORY with *eek* PLOT PROGRESSION concerning *zounds* CHARACTERS ABOUT WHOM FUCKS ARE GIVEN. It’s magic. Like, Harry Potter magic but without the foolish wand-waving and silly incantations.

The Artist, hands down, and in as many categories as possible.

Now. Let’s talk a little bit about something I like to call the radiant hotness of the brunette over the blonde. Every single blond/e I’ve ever seen looks like thoughts are escaping out of their heads at all times. Even when they’re wearing a hat. Every blonde. EVERY blonde (except for Ryan Phillippe). Something is required to ground a body to the earth, and that something is called dark hair. I don’t even see blondes in real life, just human-shaped wavering mirages that I presume to be bodies beneath invisibility cloaks. The Facebook movie? Yeah, something about Michael Cera’s brother sitting at a table, having a conversation with himself about nothing. I didn’t see anyone sitting with him, did you? You know why she didn’t friend him back? Because she was NEVER THERE.

BUT.

Change her hair and poke a few more holes in her? Hel-LOOO nurse, how YOU doin’, and DAMN you can act like a sonuvabitch. Rooney Mara stole that movie. Stole it. Stole scenes she wasn’t even IN. She stole pages out of the book I was still reading, and I’m all, “hey, come back here with those pages, I haven’t finished them yet, I want to see what happens after you,” and she’s all, “Look at me, look into my crazy eyes, look at my bangs for fuck’s sake, what happens is whatever you want to happen because THAT’S HOW FUCKING AMAZING I AM.” And then she’s gone into the night and I’m left with my hardcover of Book 3 with pages missing and you KNOW B&N won’t accept that shit for return. So, Miss Mara, you owe me $12.95, but DAMN you made that film so fucking incredible. Meryl Thatcher and Yentl Close ain’t got nothing on Miss Mara.

And with that, I wind down today’s Oscar talk. Fear not, gentle reader…there’s 33 more days left, plenty of time to talk about the fact that we only get two Best Song nominations? Fucking NINE Best Picture nominations? And seriously, JONAH HILL?!

I dreamed I met a Gallifreyian
A most amazing man
He had that look
You very rarely find
The haunting hunted kind

I asked him
To say what had happened
How it all began
I asked again
He never said a word
As if he hadn’t heard

And next the room was full
Of wild and angry men
They seemed to hate this man
They fell on him and then disappeared

Then I saw thousands of millions
Crying for this man
And then I heard them mentioning my name
And leaving me the blame

I have a feeling I may have just outed myself on this site to a certain gentleman with whom I hope to share extraordinarily achy muscles in just under three weeks. Ah well. If so….enjoy? For everyone else…..seriously, I haven’t posted in forever and I STILL haven’t even BEGUN to deal with Dylan Moran. And fuck Effbit who’s all “busy” and “sleepy” and “trying to sell”. Whatever, I need a nom fix hard so I’m taking it upon myself.

Hmm. Ok, so I was planning to launch the visual tribute to Mr Moran and his hair and dimples and voice and hair but apparently it’s all on my other machine? Which is the lamest AND nerdiest thing I could possibly attribute to myself, at least at this moment. Fuck. Ok, so….rest assured, there will be adorableness forthcoming (hopefully to NYC next year on the Yeah Yeah tour) (fucker better be coming to visit, Effbit SWEARS he always plays NY when on tour). Also, I’m torn between hoping that The Ladykillers makes it to Broadway with THE ORIGINAL CAST (Professor Marcus FUCKING TUCKER) and absolutely gagging for another season of The Thick Of It. I suppose it’s all a win-win.

Also Also? Seeing Rickman in 13 days. Second row, still in previews. BITCHES BE JEALOUS.

Oh dear. Right, so…there’s this gentleman I most recently referred to in post. Effbit has quite appropriately named him The Professor. He is, in fact, a professor; at my alma mater nonetheless but I didn’t know him then. But I likely would’ve had several highly inappropriate fantasies about him at the time, thus ending up with a less than impressive B- and nothing near the interest level from him that I’ve since garnered through sheer bloody hard work. Said hard work consists of leaking said crush to Effbit, who approved and then spread the word to appropriate parties in the neighborhood. I’m convinced it’s a combination of Effbit muscle and….well, ok, prolly just all that, but shit is so on like Donkey Kong and I am TEH WORST at Donkey Kong

And at this point I must OF COURSE reference the HP7p2. Because our professor is the fucking star. He’s finally revealed as the end-all be-all of the entire goddamn series. And I know the super fans have seen the Empire ad where Mr Rickman makes one of the very few references to playing a fictional wizard that he’s ever made over the course of the past 10 years. And it’s shattering, because of course now we all know what JKR told him, what she gave him as the one simple key to his character that NO ONE ELSE KNEW ABOUT. And this is why we love the Rickman. And fucking does, and unrequited love and FUCK YOU TWILIGHT.

So, yeah. There’s this other professor. And he’s from the motherland, and he’s older, and intelligent and #foxytome and shit is SO ON.

That is all.

I cannot beLIEVE I’ve yet to post about Dylan Moran. I teased it THREE AND ONE HALF GODDAMN MONTHS ago, and this is shameful. For this, I am asham-ed (that’s right, Shakespearean pronunciation, WHAT). And should be punish-ed. By Irish-es. My last post was so old, I was still living in Texas. My last post was so short & boring it put your elementary school librarian to sleep and you checked out more than 3 books. My last post was so rude it was, like, REALLY RUDE. So, yes, I owe a proper Dylan Moran post because I’m still living and breathing him (in the autoerotic sense rather than the physical real life world). I might also owe a proper post on Pringles because DAMN they tasty. I owe a post on the fact that I’M NO LONGER IN TEXAS and I definitely owe a post on the glories of the aural sense because fucking christ it’s amazing, but no. Not today. For today’s post is about a REAL LIFE CRUSH ON A REAL MAN WHO EXISTS FOR REAL. REALLY.

So this is a challenge because I can’t post any pics nor give any actual kind of information, but Effbit FULLY SUPPORTS this cause. Mr. Effbit FULLY SUPPORTS this cause (and I’m hoping it’s not just because he talks funny like them). Young Effbit the Lanky and Peanut FULLY SUPPORT this cause even though neither of them really knows what they’re supporting, and one can barely support his own damn self (i.e., CHEAP DATE). Now, obviously they support the cause because a) it’s been a non-fucking MINUTE and b) i’m running out of British programming over which to obsess and said obsessions detract from any possible fucking minutes and I’d rather prefer my plan to cover unlimited minutes and OHMYGOD HE LIKES MY FB STATUS. See, this is what I’m relegated to. Fuck. This. Life. That. Is. Mine.

Make no mistake, there has been no real communication. I mean, there has to an extent. He knows I exist, so point to me. We have mutual friends (point me). I’ve been to his house (point me, but it was a group poker night thingy and I was drinking for the first time in a little bit and it was raining and at this point I’m hoping I did one of those sexy rain unleashings when the hot chick arrives at said fella’s house and he’s all BAM but I’m sure it was more like a lot of dripping on his kitchen floor and a light spray when I had to shake my hair dry) (i.e. NOT HOT). So…yeah. That should bring you up to date.

And then he showed up at work today, completely unannounced and on his own. A brief note about work. I used to do a thing in Texas. I’m now doing a somewhat similar thing back home, but it’s not my own thing and it’s only for the summer so it’s PERFECT. And Fella walks in (***effbit, I need a name because certain casual male pronouns will obviously not work), sits out back and does his thing, says hey as he goes back and forth (I’m not saying where we were but he may have returned with another beer) (just sayin’…I have a very specific skill set) (TWSS). So all I’m doing is texting Effbit and angling myself so I can still work but maybe occasionally catch a look at legs in shorts, and I’m sure at this point I’m creeping out all flavors of Effbit but whatever – I’m a fan of Peanut and yet I’m aware of certain biological facts regarding a most unholy union, so yeah payback’s a bitch. Then Effbit shows up with Lanky & Peanut in tow. Lanky & I have a very detailed conversation regarding tomorrow’s epic game of Star Wars Monopoly, and Peanut gets the prime view of Fella. Now, I was honestly invested in the Lanky convo so I will have to assume Peanut was making my case for me. Hmm…we shall see. Perhaps it shall all hinge on SW Monopoly. As it is now I should rest up for the battle because I’m finally on the tail end of a two week spell working two jobs. One hopes men are impressed by multi-dork-tasking.

First things first: click HERE to see a Naval photograph of Paul Newman four days before his EIGHTEENTH birthday (courtesy of linkage from the greatest tumblr EVER, via attila-the-hunny). And I’m not even posting the pic but FORCING the clickthru because it is THAT fucking good. This picture kicks the hairless barely-legal ballsack off Taylor what’s-his-wolf.

Also, sidenote. I knew a guy in high school who looked like Paul Newman – fucking chiseled jaw, crisp short hair, ice eyes, casual, self-demeaning manner. And now is the time on Nomness when we define a few of those words. By “knew,” I mean we shared the same seat in consecutive art classes and I thought about carving notes to him in the desk. By “casual, self-demeaning manner,” I mean I don’t think he ever consciously acknowledged the fact that someone might’ve been thinking about him for an inordinate amount of time. Le sigh….goddamn he was pretty…

Second thing…I’m seriously mainlining Dylan Moran. Yes, it’s happening, the Dread Pirate Effbit has wished an Irishman on me and, lo, an Irishman has appeared to fill the void and give me hope that I may actually be attracted to a man born the same decade as myself. Shocking I know. It has happened in the past (IN REAL LIFE), but here’s hoping all future ones are actually available.

I don’t even know where to begin. There was the play itself, and the actual staging. The cornucopia of young trim Scotsmen in uniform. The marching. The SINGING.

I think I’ll start with Paul Higgins’ belly, because that’s the kind of site we’re running here and I have absolutely no problem with that. I totally saw it when he was quickly changing just offstage and it was adorable. And to confirm (like, just to me), he is about 5’10 – his height was referenced in an episode of The Thick Of It but I’m here to say it’s accurate. BECAUSEIWASTHISCLOSETOHIM. And godDAMN but he’s a skinny man. Like David Tennant skinny. I might have to PS his head onto that one nekkid Tennant pic I found a while back because, again, that’s the kind of site we’re running here and I’m perfectly ok with that. I don’t think I’ve ever fancied a skinny man before. Not sure what to make of that.

Ok, so the play itself. Outstanding, truly. The staging is such that, were you to imagine a junior high basketball game with bleacher seating either side, the play is staged on the court. It enhances the immediacy of the content but, again, given the nature of this site, I would choose to use the word intimate. It was an intimate stage and I snagged a seat in the front row. I had to move my legs when the boys marched by too closely. I had visions of tripping one of them and dragging him away, but they are all quite fit and would’ve taken me down in seconds.

Fuck, talk about a missed opportunity…

Paul Higgins (for I can only use his full name) (and really I only ever refer to him as Jamie but I’m making a halfass go at being semi-professional here) plays two roles – the Sergeant of the squad, and the writer who’s working on a piece about the entire squad after the play’s events take place. Time jumps back and forth quite seamlessly and it was during one of these jumps that the glorious belly was revealed, likely only to me because I could NOT take my eyes off the man. It was like Rickman in Borkman only knowing I wouldn’t have to fight Effbit for a go. There was an entire platoon of 8 young fit men at one end of the court as it were, and I was just staring in the other direction watching a thin man in a t-shirt & sweater vest take notes and make interested faces.

His hair kept getting mussed during the jumps as he was the only one who didn’t have the military buzzcut.

Let me make this perfectly clear: this did not detract from my enjoyment of the play IN ANY WAY.

The music was outstanding. I don’t know a damn thing about the Scottish military but as a fan of music, I wanted more. I would’ve bought the soundtrack if it had been for sale and I hadn’t already spent my money on a pre-show scotch (because OBVIOUSLY). The boys do some chanting and at one point Paul Higgins sings. He sings. Now, I don’t know if you’ve heard the man speak. If not, rectify this IMMEDIATELY:

Ok, that’s done and out of the way. Now, imagine this voice, the pristinely Scottish male voice of maleness, SINGING. Yeah. It was just like that, but better because it’s happening RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU. Jesus Christ, seriously. That’s a way to go right there. And then there was the marching. The last 10 minutes or so was coordinated marching, choreographed to include drills, a bagpipe, and support for when members of the platoon would stumble and fall while marching and the boys would be right there to pick them back up again. Coming at this play with zero military background, it was pretty moving. And it was moving pretty. And I don’t mean to discount the war & political angle of the whole piece, but I can honestly recommend it to anyone interested in war and/or pretty men moving in formation.

This is also the part where I talk about changing seats. When I first walked into the room, I just grabbed a seat. Didn’t think twice about it, just grabbed one and sat down. Turns out I was sitting right next to THE MOST ANNOYING FIDGETY GIRL EVER MADE EVER. You’re seating in bleacher seats, you don’t fucking bounce your leg. Let alone both of them. People in the row ahead of us were turning around and asking her to stop, which lasted all of 10 seconds before she saw a fucking butterfly or a starfish or something and started up again. But clever me spotted a seat across the court, a single seat between two couples. Because that’s how I roll. I switched to the new seat, which had the added benefit of being in the first row and not set aside for handicapped seating, and it turned out my new neighbor was not a leg bouncing twatbubble but a REAL LIVE SCOTSMAN. If I had stayed in my original seat, I would’ve seen Paul Higgins in all of his changing glory. There likely would have been leg. However, I would’ve missed all of it after having already been dragged out for first degree assault against a woman with her own leg.

I think I chose wisely.

And CHRIST his eyes are massive. Having seen him in person now I’m thinking they may seem larger than life because he’d possibly blow over in a stiff wind, but the fact remains. Big huge eyes. Perfect adam’s apple. Big…shoes…

And now I need to watch every single bit of Paul Higgins that I have in the house, and try not to think of the fact that the man is likely less than 5 miles from my home.

First it was Glen Hansard, and now this Dylan Moran has wormed his way in. Fuck. Effbit’ll never let me hear the end of it. It’s bad enough I had to find Dylan Moran BY MYSELF. JESUS, WOMAN, HOW DO YOU NOT TELL ME ABOUT A DRINKY SMOKEY GRUMPY COMEDIAN WHO RESEMBLES JOHN CUSACK? Rude.

And for full disclosure, here’s Glen, because the world needs more dancing Glen.

Once again, pinched from the greatest tumblr EVER:

Precision Engineered Comedy – Peter Capaldi from Chris Balmond on Vimeo.