I Me Mine, I Me Mine, I Me Mine

The world needs more badasses named Chris. We don't have enough badasses named Chris.

I know, I know, someone's gonna say "Chris Lambert!," but I maintain that his one true apex of badassedness was Highlander and his non-Highlander work...not so much. (I'm not a fan, the coolness and fun of Highlander notwithstanding.)

I won't be able to take up that mantle of badassedness, myself. I'm not genetically or tempermentally disposed towards being a badass. I accept this and go on. And leave that mantle for someone else.

Maybe he or she would be named Chris Thrustsword. Or something.

(Now I shall wait for the lightning bolt for my temerity in using that subject line...)

cleolinda, in her first two paragraphs here, says what I think I wanted to say leading up to this year's Oscars.

Me, I'm most interested in seeing how the strike affects this broadcast, particularly Jon Stewart's hosting approach (especially since I thought he wouldn't get invited back after his first show two years ago). But I don't have much of a stake in the nominees, at least not yet. Maybe once I actually see a few more of these films...

In the spirit of thinking about sickness, since about three-quarters of my circle of friends has had a bout of crud lately, I admit my secret sickness shame:

Back in April 1993, when I was a freshman at the University of Oregon, I finally had my bout of chicken pox. Yes, I took until age 19 to get it. (My older brother T.J. had gotten it while I was gestating, and Mom had hoped that that would've been enough exposure for me not to get it. It wasn't. Before that, I think my dad as a kid managed to get chicken pox twice. That, I'm sure, was worse...) Of course I got quarantined, in a corner suite of my dorm complex that had its own bathroom, and of course I had pox-immune people bring me food, and thank goodness I had my little black-and-white TV so I could watch stuff and have one more line of defense against getting bored out of my gourd. THAT was an...interesting week, one thankfully undocumented by photographic proof of how bad I looked and how wretched I felt. (On top of that, the morning of the day I got diagnosed and quarantined, when I was walking alone around campus feeling miserable and waiting for Student Health to open, what was on the front page of newspapers? The torching of the Branch Davidian compound, news which I'd been completely oblivious to. Not the news to learn while sick.) All that, of course, isn't the secret shame.

I'm really bad at acknowledging that I'm really sick. I tend to fight the thought that I'm coming down with anything. And during the weekend leading up to my getting diagnosed with chicken pox, I just told myself I was run down and I should take it easy. (By the night before I got quarantined, when freakin' bumps were erupting on my scalp, I knew that that, um, hadn't been enough.)

The Saturday before, I decided "taking it easy" meant taking myself to a movie.

What did I go see while unknowingly contagious with chicken pox? A kids' film. The Sandlot.

I kept expecting a news report that an outbreak of chicken pox had been traced to a Saturday, April 17th, 1993, showing of The Sandlot at Gateway Mall in Springfield, Oregon.

(This is not an entirely secret shame, my title hyperbole notwithstanding. Years later I mentioned it to my baseball-loving editor Michael J. Kane. His only response: "That was a good movie.")

A great moment blown by an annoying moment redeemed by a great moment.

Great moment: that lovely little song from Once (which everyone I've heard from who's seen it, from Rick Emerson to slipjig, has said YOU MUST SEE IT) wins Best Original Song.

Bad moment: the orchestra kicks in EXACTLY WHEN MARKETA IRGOLVA (I had to look up her name) IS ABOUT TO GIVE HER ACCEPTANCE SPEECH. Someone in the orchestra pit realized they'd jumped the gun, stopped the music, then restarted only seconds later, as her and Glen Hansard (who did get to speak) were already getting herded off stage.

Great moment: a commercial break later, when host Jon Stewart BRINGS IRGOLVA BACK TO SPEAK. And like Hansard, she gives a lovely, heartfelt speech.

I actually flailed on slipjig's behalf. Arms and legs. Noted for posterity, with this message: THANK YOU.