Academy Fucks Up commune Oscar Pool Something Awful

roving once and for all that you don't have to be white to win a token acting award, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences kissed it's own ass Sunday by awarding the Best Actor and Best Actress Oscars to known black people Denzel Washington and Halle Berry.

A move trumpeted as ground-breaking and courageous by Academy publicists and people trying to sell newspapers nation-wide, the Academy was deftly able to both punish Russell Crowe for acting like an asshole (and for doing an action movie in 2000, making them look bad for giving him his 1999 The Insider Oscar that year), and open the door to give Tom Hanks another Oscar the next year there's an outstanding black actor in a leading role. Unless, of course, Robert DeNiro or Sean Penn get really sick and the Academy has to hurry up and give them more awards before they die.

Washington received his Best Actor Oscar for his work in Malcolm X, which inconveniently came out ten years ago, in 1992, the year they gave Al Pacino the Best Actor Oscar for his work in The Godfather Part II, which came out in 1974. In 1974 the Best Actor Oscar went to Art Carney, because he likes puppies.

But the Academy is nothing if it's not just, at least on a 20-year scale, and the rest of the deserving 1974 field would get their kudos in time. Dustin Hoffman would go on to win his 1974 Lenny Oscar in 1979, while Jack Nicholson had to wait until 1983 to win his 1974 Oscar for Chinatown.

The developments in this year's awards have changed everything for black actors, and by that I mean Denzel and Morgan Freeman, who both now have a chance to be nominated again. Reaction on the street has been unanimous, with Americans from all walks of life joining together to say: "That's cool. But Training Day? I guess, whatever."

The reaction at the commune offices was much more passionate, as no one had counted on this being the Academy's year to pat itself on the back. As a result, the commune's annual Oscars office pool was won by Lil Duncan, who hadn't seen any of the nominated films and filled out her ballot with some help from an issue of People magazine. Ivan Nacutchacokov had the most to be upset about, as he had spent weeks developing a complex algorithm to determine the winners, but had left out the variable that among the front-runners, the blandest film always wins.

When Ron Howard was announced as the winner of the Best Director Oscar, Nacutchacokov laughed at first, then realized it wasn't a gag announcement and stormed off in a huff, requiring him to be tasered by security personnel. No one was entirely sure the tasering was completely necessary, but they weren't taking any chances since Ted Ted had thrown our original television set out the window in a rage during the ceremony's opening title sequence, and our TV set budget had been badly depleted during Australia's poor showing at the winter Olympics last month.

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So it turns out my sister's gay. Quite a big bomb-dropping, for a regular family, I guess. If you ask me it's just a ninth-inning attempt to reinvent herself like a third-rate Madonna, or a 1970s David Bowie. Anything to liven up her boring life and make herself more noticeable in a family spilling over the brim with shwat-a-veev—whatever it is the French call it.

Of course, she has her own story: That she's always been gay, that ugly dude she went to the prom with was actually a lesbian, and she told me this all before. I suppose it's possible I'd forget it, if I was watching TV or thinking about something else. When I get hungry I can't concentrate on nothing. But I still say she's making up this whole life as being gay just to be more interesting—backstory, that's the acting term we use.

She introduced me to her checkmate, or whatever the cool new term for it is, and we didn't get along very well. I didn't remember her name at all and kept calling her "Marcy," like that chick in the Peanuts cartoon. Like I'm the one who cut her hair into a bob and made her wear glasses. I tried to get along with her for my sister's sake, I really did, but the bitch was saying all kinds of stuff to bait me. Like she had never seen my show before and that it must have been tough being a child actress. I told her it must have been tough being a lesbian for her, and she took it like I was serious, instead of implying it was hard for her to find women to date her.

I'm taking all of this pretty cool, really. She invited me to her office for lunch and promised she wouldn't get mad if I made paperclip slingshots, so it was off to as good a start as we get. Then instead of a good old fashioned paperclip war I get this Very Special Episode of Ellen dropped on me, which I'm fine with, only to have her tell me my parents don't know and I can't tell them. She said they're so closed-minded and everything, but I would understand 'cause I'm more worldly. I almost knocked her out but her butch friend wrestled me to the floor. It may be true I've packed the pounds on my thighs a bit in the last few months, no reason to call me out on it, and I definitely don't see how it helps me be more understanding of lesbos.

In addition to keeping her secret that she's a sci-fi fan (I'm pretty sure Marcy was that dude dressed as the centaur at the convention, upon thinking about it) now I have to not tell everybody she's lesbo. I wouldn't mind keeping the lesbian secret, actually, if she'd just let me tell the sci-fi one. But no, she says mom and dad won't understand. I asked if she tried to talk to Toot but she said he only wants to talk about the Leader of Glorious Light, the one true prophet. Which leaves me alone to carry the new family secret.

The last thing I want to do, of course, is be the only secret-holder, 'cause then when it comes out to everyone they know it was me who let it slip. It's better when almost everyone knows because then they can't trace it back to me. So I told her mom and dad were down with lesbians, dad especially—they star in over half the tapes in his video collection. That only got macho Marcy to wrestle me to the floor again then, and don't tell anybody, but I'm afraid I'm starting to like it.

She gets all sobby on me then (sis, not Marcy, though Marcy did offer me a cigarette) and tells me I'm the only one left in the family she has any relationship with. I thought she was getting weird, but she meant "relationship" in the broad sense of the word. Or the sisterly, non-broad-on-broad sense. And she gives me a big hug and says she can trust me with her secret.

And I suppose she can. I mean, besides writing columns about it at the commune, but that's practically like keeping a secret. So we had a little bit of coffee, talked about my career, her career, the new gym her and Marcy are opening, and then I left without even getting any paperclips and rubberbands. But I did manage to get wrestled to the floor once more before I left.

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Every true conspiracy-buster like myself has one big, secret wish: A real inside source that can't stop talking.

To which I say: "Be careful what you wish for!"

Sir, I have such a source, and this guy simply can't shut up. I don't know if it's a psychological ailment or just a simple case of verbal diarrhea, but I've found the source that can't stop giving. It's like that duck that can't stop laying golden eggs, and if there isn't such a fairy tale, there should be. Honestly, I never thought there was anything worse than a source that stonewalls you, that gives you nothing (we in fact call these sources "non-sources"), but this blabbermouth has got the dirt on everybody and can't wait to share it.

It sounded like my fondest wish when a connection of mine, let's call him Scottie, because that would really offend his Scottish heritage, calls me up with what he calls "the greatest source in the world." I should have known something was wrong, because the last time I talked to this connection he was quite pissed off because I kept calling him "Scottie." But I've run cold on the trail of the Biggest Conspiracy of the World (or BCW, as us fans call it), so I was anxious for anything to start me up again.

I met with this guy, and first it was like that golden egg-laying duck, and I was like the duck's owner, and quite happy. This was last week, and with all that stuff in the media about the "real Deep Throat" going around, I thought it might be highly complimentary and something of an honor to call this guy "Deep Throat II." By the way, for those of you who don't know, that guy Mark Felt has also claimed to have flown from New York to Paris before Lindbergh and has also taken credit for carving Mount Rushmore. He's a bit of an attention hog, so don't believe the hype.

Back to my Deep Throat—this guy started talking faster than I could write it down. And as my hand cramped from taking long, life-endangering notes, I kept waiting for this guy to stop and tell me to "follow the money," or some such snappy, cryptic advice. No such luck. He had everything. He talked about Bush's involvement in the Illuminati in detail, showed me the "late" John F. Kennedy's tax records for the past 30 years, and even detailed who won last week's bi-election to select a new treasurer in the Illuminati's super-secret inner circle, which even the rest of the Illuminati doesn't know about. And I'm thinking, after a minute or two, "Shut up!" I mean, sir, do I or do I not have to have something to unravel myself?

There's a fine art to being a whistleblower. You give the whistle a low toot, a short, yet sweet and satisfying quick breath's worth. You don't keep blowing until everyone's eardrums are shattered and you've worn out your welcome. I tried, again and again, to subtly suggest to this guy maybe his life was in danger by giving me so much information at once, but he probably couldn't hear me over his outlining of the under-the-table deal with the U.N. to hand over the West Coast to the Serbian Empire. Fuck this, I thought, I can only take so much juicy information.

I told Deep Throat II I'd get back with him, and since then I've just tried to stay away from my phone. Does me no good—he keeps leaving bits about the New World Order on my answering machine. I'm like, take the hint, jackass! No wonder the real rulers of this world want him dead. He probably ruined every secret conspiracy he was ever invited into.

As for me, I think I'm just going to tear up all the notes I took from him and start back at square one. It might take me a lot longer, but at least there's some real game involved. Nobody likes having it all handed to you, am I right?

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