LIGHTS! CAMERA! SNACK-TION!The Academy Awards Are One Class Act
WORDS AND PHOTOS BY MELVIN SMACK
| Cameras are banned from the Oscars so the author took these in secret on his camera phone. That’s why they look like this. |
As I sat in the steam room at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles with a glass of cucumber water in my hand, pampering myself before the 81st Academy Awards, I wondered: What delights did the evening have in store for me?
I was in LA for the first time. A celebrity friend of mine, who shall remain unnamed, had been nominated for an Oscar. I went to give him moral support and soak up the splendor and glamour of Hollywood at the Governors Ball Oscars dinner, which is the meal served directly after the most important night in the calendar of all the douchebags who have ever made, starred in, or watched a movie.
As I walked into the ceremony, feeling nervous but also like a million dollars—like a nervous million dollars, then—I saw greats like Lethal Weapon 3 star Danny Glover and Sean Penn from Shanghai Surprise. Ferris Bueller’s wife Sarah Jessica Parker waltzed past with a guy holding up the back of her ball gown so it would not touch the red carpet. Her scent wafted onto me and it was lovely. From what I could tell, the dress-holder-upper stayed with her all night, forever vigilant against SJP receiving any dust speckles on the hem of her garment.
Our host for the evening, Hugh Jackman, star of something called X-Men Origins: Wolverine, jauntily bounded onstage and proceeded to crack us all up with hilarious anecdotes about Hollywood and its ins ’n’ outs. I chuckled knowingly even though I am from London and Tinseltown, to me, looks like a photograph of a painting Liberace might have made while high on acid. Jackman was followed by hours and hours and hours of brilliantly heartfelt speeches by Danny Boyle, which really made me think about the problems they go through in the slums of India. The less I could feel my ass, the more I cared about sad Indian kids.
To be honest, though, all this stuff was merely delaying my main reason for coming to the Oscars and to LA itself—namely, the Governors Ball and the food they serve there after everybody’s stopped crying about how amazing everybody is.
But first, a problem: Throughout the evening, if you got up to go out during the commercial break and missed the countdown to get back to the show, they locked all the doors until the next break, and a seat-filler would sit in your place so the show wouldn’t look dead to all the hillbillies watching at home on TV.
So I went out to get a glass of water and queued for 20 minutes, only to discover it wasn’t a free bar and I had no cash on me. For the first time in Oscar history, the public water fountain was put to good use. The stars and agents of stars all around looked at me as if I were standing there scooping shit out of my ass with my bare hand and drawing on the wall with it. And then I was locked out of the awards.
See all articles by this contributor Anonymous, on Oct 2, 2009 wrote:
lucckky. hugh jackman was adorable at the oscars. | | Anonymous, on Oct 2, 2009 wrote:
lox and caviar? rich people food is weird. pass me the big mac | | Anonymous, on Sep 30, 2009 wrote:
this is nasty lookin garbage. if this is what making it big is like then ill stick to being a looser. | | Anonymous, on Sep 30, 2009 wrote:
that coffee looks awful | | Anonymous, on Sep 28, 2009 wrote:
dammnn you had some pretty good seats | | Anonymous, on Sep 28, 2009 wrote:
camera phone vision makes the oscars look trashy! | | Anonymous, on Sep 28, 2009 wrote:
it seems like anybody who was supposed to cook "amazing food" at the osacars actually sucked. this bums me out cause people like my sister make amazing food. for real cheap too. | | Anonymous, on Sep 28, 2009 wrote:
omg blind item! who was the famous actor?? | | Anonymous, on Sep 22, 2009 wrote:
the oscars and VF have nothing to do with LA. LA is all about mexicans. | | Anonymous, on Sep 22, 2009 wrote:
give me a sack of white castles and a two liter and i’m happy. | | Anonymous, on Sep 22, 2009 wrote:
I never really got caviar. It’s okay but nothing special. Tastes like jizz capsules. | |
| turd to your mother, on Sep 22, 2009 wrote:
coffee pudding looks amazing right now. i’ll have some of that. | | Anonymous, on Sep 21, 2009 wrote:
feed me some | |
| rabies babies, on Sep 21, 2009 wrote:
i remember the hugh jackman opening. it’s weird. i never watch these things. he was pretty good and i was amazed at the amount of toe-twinkling he can turn on when he wants to. | | Anonymous, on Sep 21, 2009 wrote:
sheesh. if that’s what they get at the oscars i wonder what the emmy fuckers got last night. | | Anonymous, on Sep 21, 2009 wrote:
i second that motion LA is full of RTARDS | | Anonymous, on Sep 21, 2009 wrote:
i hate LA | | Anonymous, on Sep 21, 2009 wrote:
i kinda want the truffles under the golden globe mini man statue | |
| noiseZ13000, on Sep 21, 2009 wrote:
vanity fair, in and out burgers, dont even wanna contemplate the wanting to be hipness of it | | Anonymous, on Sep 21, 2009 wrote:
the salmon caviar is the only appetizing thing in this culinary fiasco. | | Anonymous, on Sep 18, 2009 wrote:
its funny how that shit is so hyped up and then its total crap | | Anonymous, on Sep 18, 2009 wrote:
its funny how that shit is so hyped up and then its total crap | |
| anonymouse, on Sep 15, 2009 wrote:
is that lox with caviar on top? how fucking salty do you need to have your snacks? why don’t you add jizz icing on top? sheesh. | | Anonymous, on Sep 14, 2009 wrote:
why would they try to ruin such a good thing like pizza? | |
| duck duck goose, on Sep 11, 2009 wrote:
all this made me think of party down! if you haven’t seen that show, drop whatever you’re doing and watch it. | | Anonymous, on Sep 11, 2009 wrote:
that caviar pizza looks foul | | Anonymous, on Sep 11, 2009 wrote:
yeah good point. the oscars not being open bar is pretty absurd | | Anonymous, on Sep 11, 2009 wrote:
whos your celebrity friend?! tell us!! | |
| crimewave, on Sep 10, 2009 wrote:
Why should the Oscar food be fancy? Those people don’t fuckin eat. | |
| kennyp, on Sep 10, 2009 wrote:
Thats the first bad thing I’ve ever heard about in and out burger. | | | Next 30 comments > |
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