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GOT LOST IN THE MAIL  "HEY, C-H-U-C-K!! You're missin' a great party! TOO BAD YOU WEREN'T INVITED!" |
And I'd have done so well
at those fabulous events!
By CHUCK McFADDEN
of TheColumnists.com
I note they held the annual Gridiron Dinner in Washington a couple of nights ago. That’s where politicians and the reporters who cover them get dressed up in tuxedos, have a big dinner and a few belts and do a great deal of good-natured teasing of one another.
It’s a pretty funny evening. Everyone seems to have a good time.
I wasn’t invited.
I note as well that actors held an event down in Los Angeles earlier, where everyone got all dressed up and gave each other awards and then went to spiffy parties to congratulate one another.
I wasn’t invited.
Neither was I invited to the Screen Actors Guild Award ceremonies or the Golden Globes awards. As for the post-Oscar Vanity Fair party, forget it. No invitation for you, Chuckie.
Oh, sure, I could have come up with a big chunk of change and gone to one of those “Let’s All Have Nice Refreshments and Watch the Oscar Awards on TV” things they hold around the country. Usually they are benefits for one charity or another.
Losers.
If they weren’t losers, they’d be at the Oscar parties, scarfing up a free canapé or two with George Clooney, casting surreptitious glances at cleavage and saying something along the lines of “Well, it sure was surprising that ‘Brokeback Mountain” didn’t win Best Picture, wasn’t it?”
I mean, I could do that.
As for the Gridiron Dinner, my failure to receive an invitation was even more mystifying. After all, you’re dealing here with the man who has been photographed numerous times with none other than Ronald Reagan. The fact that Reagan had a faintly desperate look on his face shouldn’t count for anything if there was any justice in the world, which there is apparently not.
It’s not that I’m unfamiliar with awards ceremonies. My beloved Associated Press used to hold a really nice luncheon once a year and hand out awards to radio news people. I won a respectable number of those and they were framed and hung up on the wall at the radio station. I would have preferred gold-plated statuettes, but we mustn’t carp.
However, I don’t recall Variety doing heavy coverage of the event, even though I looked through its pages eagerly the next day. And we didn’t wear tuxedos, although The AP liked it if we wore neckties. (I don’t recall there being any female radio news people in those days.)
It’s just a darn shame. I would have wowed them at the Gridiron Dinner with a few jokes about George W. I found on the Internet, and I know I would have been a big Oscar Night hit with the Joan Rivers interview on the red carpet. Couple of blonde jokes, and away we go, right?
For sure, they’d be all over me to be the master of ceremonies the next year, instead of Jon or Billy or Whoopi.
Ah well. There’s always next year. The Academy Awards are in March, so I guess I’d better start looking in the mailbox right after Christmas.
I don’t suppose they send these invitations on e-mail, do they?
Or should I keep everyone off the phone, just in case?
©2006 by Charles M. McFadden. The McFadden caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. East, San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted March 27, 2006.
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