I don't watch much television, but I thought out of fairness to the blogosphere I would do my duty and attempt to live blog the Oscars. So, I turned on my television, only to discover that they were showing a long montage.... But then I saw that meanwhile, PBS station WHYY is doing a fundraising marathon! Normally, that wouldn't be exciting, except they're showing "The Grateful Dead" (available on DVD) -- a documentary film of a series of concerts I actually attended when the Grateful Dead played at Winterland in October of 1974. Lots of footage of the crowd outside the place (a former skating arena which used to be located at Post and Steiner in San Francisco), and I'm somewhere in the damned audience, and it's like really intensely nostalgic to watch even though I'm supposed to be live blogging the Oscars. . .

But they keep taking pledge breaks, so I can switch to the Oscars but they're just not as good as the Grateful Dead movie. (I just did, but they're now they're playing some sucky-ass music over at the Oscars.)

Try as I might, I can't just can't seem to do what I'm supposed to do. . .

Yeah!

UPDATE: More from the WHYY pledge break:

MORE (10:49 p.m.): No quarrel with Philip Seymour Hoffman winning best actor. I saw the film ("Capote") and thought his performance was great.

MORE: Judi Dench better win best actress, is all I can say...

-- But she didn't. No basis for evaluating Reese Witherspoon's performance, as I never saw "I walk the line." (She gave a nice acceptance speech.)

MORE (11:10 p.m.): "Brokeback Mountain" wins for best adapted screenplay. (Which means it probably won't take Best Picture, if my political antenna sense this correctly.)

MORE (11:14 p.m.): I can't believe "Crash" won a thing, as I thought it was God-awful!

AND MORE (11:17 p.m.): The Dead are doing a long spaced out set!

MORE (11:21 p.m.): It's Ang Lee for Brokeback!

And heeere's Jerry:

AANNNDDDD LAST (11:24 p.m.): Jack Nicholson presents.....

"Crash"????

Boooo!!!!

I'd have preferred "Brokeback Mountain." (And I didn't especially like "Brokeback Mountain," but "Crash" is left wing, anti-gun trash.)

With that I crash!

(All things considered, I'll sticking with the Dead. Even though the band is dead, they're more alive.)

In the interest of being fair to "both sides," heeeere's Jack -- announcing "Crash":

(I can't believe I really did this.)

MORE (11:40 p.m.): The Oscars are over but the Dead are still playing. I should do this more often.

UPDATE (03/06/06): The next day, I see that there was a distinct downside to dead-blogging the Oscars: I missed the best part: "frankj's triumphant moment in the sun. . ."

Oh the humanity! (Be still my heart!)