Bye Bye Oscar!

Now that the Oscars are over the residents of WeHo, BH and Hollywood can get back to normal. Gone are the traffic restrictions and road closures. No longer do choppers buzz constantly overhead (poised to catch all those extra special red carpet moments and after-party shenanigans). And it's possible for regular folks to get dinner reservations again (other than places like Denny's).

The 79th Annual Academy Awards ran long (quelle surprise, producer Laura Ziskin holds the record for longest Oscars ever with the 2002 broadcast which ran 4 hours and 28 minutes. Oh, you poor East Coast viewers!), drew bigger ratings than last year's Jon Stewart affair (but fewer than 2005's Chris Rock emceed event), and even offered a few surprises (Alan Arkin, Melissa Ethridge and Happy Feet anyone). But this annual event, which back in '96 I even stayed up through the night to watch (the first time it was broadcast in it's entirety in Britain), nowadays just plain bores me.

No, not because of Ellen's "comfy but often dull" hosting style, but simply because I now live in LA! and I've sadly become too accustomed to the "proximity of celebrity," as I previously mentioned in Repeat City. It's just a nuisance that Hollywood Boulevard (the true cross city shortcut) gets shut down for a week to lay the red carpet; that you can't find parking at the gym because of the Jimmy Kimmel shuttle buses; and that limos and Lincoln Town Cars pollute the already overcrowded vehicular landscape. Then, when you hear about all those behind-the-scenes atrocities and craziness, well, then you're really like "do these people have nothing better to do or spend their money on?"

No, they probably don't!