Dear Hollywood,

Thank you for your invitation to watch the Annual Academy Awards show this Sunday evening. It looks like it will be a lovely affair with all the fashion designers and plastic surgeons competing to have their latest creations displayed on the red carpet.

However, I must respectfully decline your invitation. I find myself less interested each year in sitting through self-righteous posturing and mouth-dropping stupidity. If you renamed the show “Celebrities Say The Darndest Things” and ran it every week, you might have a hit on your hands (even though you would have to pay something to the Art Linkletter estate).

So feel free to think I’m a bigoted homophobe since I won’t be watching your circleje…errrr… self-congratulatory festivity, complete with bromides and platitudes on peace, chill winds and the like. I'll also miss the great fashions, like Carlos Santana's Che shirt and crucifix last year, but it will be my loss (fortunately not like the loss of freedom and life that Christians suffered at Che's hands).

Best of luck to all, and thanks again for the invitation. Please feel free to forward it on to Theo Van Gogh’s family—you seemed to have forgotten to mention him last year.
Sincerely,
Chrees