Fashion

Here we are at the Academy Awards with the ghost of Joan and Melissa

We’re on the red carpet, asking all the same dumb questions

You know what they are. What are you wearing, Reese?

Reese, a snarky little thing, says Osh Gosh BeGosh and

They kick her off the carpet and work her over with brass knuckles

the commentators start a poll about who they think should win Best Picture

Forty-six percent say “American Sniper,” the ignorant louts

Once the real action starts, Patricia Arquette wins for “Boyhood,”

thanks her husband without whom she couldn’t have done it; she

even thanks her parents, actors one and all, but she doesn’t thank her

grandpa, Cliff, more commonly known as Charlie Weaver from Hollywood

Squares, real name, Cliff Arquette, maybe because he’s as dead as Joan

Then Patricia does something we didn’t expect; she’s not the Jane Fonda

type; she makes a little speech about women’s rights and gets a standing

O, from all the lefties in the crowd. Even Meryl shakes her fist in support

A gay boy wins for best script based on a previous work; he has

the tear jerker moment of the evening, says he tried to commit suicide

when he was sixteen, says he felt he just didn’t fit in; for some reason he

talks to the girls who might feel the same way and tells them that yes they

do count; they just need to hang in there and maybe some day they’ll win

an Oscar, too, or discover cold fusion; hey, Madame Curie discovered

radium, so why not? So what if it killed her! We all gotta go sometime.

Doogie Howser was the M.C. I must say he hasn’t changed a bit, but

he did mispronounce David Oyellow’s name, which to some was a mortal

sin. And if you’re wondering why Sean Penn called the Mexican director

a son of a bitch, it’s because they’re friends in real life. Almost forgot, last

year’s winner of best supporting actress was wearing a dress decorated

with real pearls; it must’ve weighed more than she did; she’s a little slip of

a thing.

Dave Schwinghammer's unconventional mystery, SOLDIER'S GAP, is available on Authorsden and at Amazon.com, new and used.             Mystery Writer