Chessoid - Goes to the 2007 Oscars

In Hollywood, size, scale and keeping up with the technological Joneses over at NASA matter. Past, present and future are mined for movie miracles and there is no point in asking for a way to take politics out of Hollywood, Hollywood out of politics, much less a way to shield any part of Planet Hollywood from mind-boggling shifts in solar winds of change. You ask for a Hollywood climate that makes the play inside each play "fair and balanced? Dream on, little pawn. Hollywood is all about about spin and spin offs. Few can resist the inertia of its drive without getting flung to the four corners of the Universal back lot. Even Chaplin would openly admit that.

En passant, it seems that once upon a time it might have been easier coping with big box Hollywood escapism. Limited to theaters near you, Hollywood's deus ex-machina was a little like the old vizier in chess. Unlike the queen who replaced him, the vizier could not move across the chess board of virtual earth with the same kind of stealth. However the change from slow stepping vizier to high stepping Spanish chess queen occurred in chess, in Hollywood, the moment Glinda's bubble descended into Oz and put ruby slippers on Dorothy's feet, audiences everywhere knew they were in for a colourful and wild ride. Ancient Egyptians game players would have immediately recognized the spiral road to Oz as something very much akin to their wild and wooly game of mehen. Now, with trends pushing hyper-realism and hyper-escapism in two different directions at once, Munchkin tap dancing seems to have lept off the screen and into our lives.

Through te magic of Hollywood, the possibility for sedation and sedition has gotten insanely out of hand. If mehen is now mehem, it's not just because there are presently so many televised drummers and trumpeters barging into our livingrooms making a such ballyhoo about Hollywood these days. Publicity has always been a major fact of life in entertainment and politics. It's a grand old game and despite the noise level, it's never been easy knowing which movies are worth watching and which are not. Not only that, it doesn't seem to make much difference even when someone we actually know bellies up to the local wicket, lays down the cash and takes the risk. To participate in this game, we still have to taste the hootch, touch the hem, see the sights, hear the sounds and smell the popcorn for ourselves. Nothing new about that. You can't expect other people to watch your films, cast your ballot, or play your chess for you.

Unlike board games however, Hollywood and theatrics in general, entice us into accepting the buffet they have laid out for us in passive mode. Our only voluntary act is to choose to become part of a captive audience and with that choice, we also line up as sitting ducks for whatever projectiles Hollywood choses to launch from the executive screen behind the silver screen. Indeed, this tactical ability to distribute influence from afar is very much like the "Vizier's game" - and he who sits behind the curtain of appearances has, as ever, held a number of important trump cards. Only a critical view, such as the one Solon voiced to ancient Greek thespians, may be capable of holding Hollywood in check - and like Solon, those views are exceptionally rare voices crying out in a wilderness - a wasteland, as some have commented. Checked or unchecked, like it or not, the Hollywood machine is as capable of devouring and distorting the past as it is proficient in supplying the public with suggestive thoughts about where the future may be heading. The dangers involved in whatever facts Hollywood choses to suppress or amplify at any given moment lap at our feet and not all persons are equipped, as Solon was, to turn the tide.

Lions and Tigers and Bears
Stange to think that in some old board games, the water hazard was the most feared obstacle of pawns en route to Oz and the prospect of an illustrious promotion. How easy it is to plunge headlong in a reflective pool of illusion and how simple a matter to lose one's way in the vizier's labyrinth. Perhaps coping with the Hopes and Dreamgirls of chess or Hollywood was never as straightforward and innocent a pastime as the ideas of "entertainment" and "recreation" have led us to assume. Certainly, the morality projected through either Holywood or Cessolis' writings about chess as an "Innocent Morality" often take a back seat to culturally entrenched biases that are not so innocent. So, despite that critics are often chided for talking seriously about a supposed "virtual" world of pretend, that alone does nothing to negate the fact that when mixed with messages that appear to promote minority positions and democratic sentiment, the random infusion of seditious messaging becomes more difficult to detect and deflect. Mixed messages and the "massage" of public intellect were apparent again this Oscar year, as Ellen Degeneres played Bob for the audience, giving hope to a culturally suppressed minority, even as the steamroller of Hollywood's entertainment industry passed for politics and history as much as politics and history passed for entertainment.

Back and forth through the osmotic mirror we, the public, oscillate at an increasingly rapid, electronically charged rate. Meanwhile, over at the reality coat check, Oscar made more Oscar history and PC politics won more Oscars. Both Oscar and some of the messages that get tagged and checked at Oscar time are rather like the "pfander's" in gambling houses you can read about in M.C. Romero's article here at Goddesschess. Oscar and politics blend. They are true stakeholders in the modern game of Oscar night awards and we can love them or hate them, but we should never accept any of what Oscar represents at face value, much less take his background presence in the game for granted. Like the pfander's of medieval chess, he exists for a purpose that is anything but benign.

Sniffing at the profit motive, Roseanne Barr, a lady known for her sharp comedic tongue and a knack of saying what other people fear to say, considers Hollywood pfanders the true pimps of Hollywood pimp culture. Sad to say, as a woman who has gone though the Hollywood grind, she is probably right on the money. As usual, it takes articulate fools and little children to understand how the Hollywood mirror prefers to look narcissistically at itself through rose-coloured shades and does everything it can to encourage a positive perspective on itself and the game it produces. As surely as yesterday's "pfander" is today's FIDE, the corporate instincts that allowed chess wagering to move from the taverner's quarter's to Las vegas showrooms mimic the development of Hollywood's growth from music hall entertainment to the corporate big screen. Like those who currently thrive on chess, it is the job of all who enable Hollywood illusion to sell mirror images by the yard and so, on Oscar's night of nights, it's not uncommon to see kings and queens decked out in elaborate rented costumes and borrowed jewels. Of course, as every well heeled gambler and con artist knows, elegant appearances and mannerisms can go far in cloaking actual intentions from the public eye just long enough to separate the common man from his cash. To insiders who have played hard at the game, however, a naked Hollywood or a naked Fide are not exactly pretty sights to behold.

Hollywood Queens - Cheerful Pretenders, or the Real McCoy?
Hollywood thrives on illusion almost in the same way winning chess requires large doses of deception to realise repeated successes and it is a simple matter to conclude that illusions produced both on and off the chess board make for plenty of confusion in the minds of all but those who are adept at delivering it. This year's Oscar awards created a great confusion over queens - Queen Lateefa being perhaps the closest thing to a genuine queen Oscar night presented. At least her chosen Hollywood name was not contestable. Nothing to apologize for there, which gave "Lateefa I" secure entitlement of a kind that may have been harder accept when it came to this year's "gold star" Hollywood queen. This is understandable considering what and who "The Queen" was all about this year. To Helen Mirren's credit, she did all an actor could, both on screen and off, to have us suspend judgement for a crucial hour or two. Wooden queens? Somehow they manage very well in chess, but not in Hollywood.

While considering differences in quality, Liz Taylor's wooden "Cleopatra" comes quickly to mind and although costumes and special effects lent enchantment to one of the great Hollywood flops of all time, perhaps the only good thing one could say about Liz and Dick's sword and sandal disaster is that it cut plenty of slack for future epics. Helen's two Lizzies and Forest's Idi were tougher roles to play - by far. Historical distances were shorter between characters and actors, culture toes easier to step on and enchantments fewer. Both performances were Oscar worthy, only Helen's was all the more enchanting considering she starred in a studio gambit involving a living Queen Elisabeth II. We shoudl not be fooled into thhinking that "The Queen" did not necessitate a real life approach to number of actual scenarios requiring the greatest empathy, tact and diplomacy.

Indeed, Elizabeth II's response to "The Queen" appears guarded, as ever, although, while accepting an Oscar for her performance as a living legend, Mirren seemed to know exactly which "belles" to ring in the castle tower. Could that have been the result of sheer coincidence? I very much doubt that it was. In fact, Mirren's "gold star" metaphor appears to have been carefully calibrated towards sonorous exchange of a deeply symbolic message. To Elizabeth II and any other onlooker who might have detected the meaning implied by the actresses' use of "gold star" imagery, the implication of how grace under pressure may bring out the kings and queens in all of us is not purely a pat line. Laden as it is with equal amounts treasure and inhibition, it probably took some courage for Helen Mirren to draw the gold star from her collection of bon mots. If Solon had been around to comment on what this gold star actually symbolized, he probably would have had no problem pointing to several well known cultural artifacts of his day and age as evidence of either a rising Venus or, from the Egyptian perspective with which he was also acquainted, a Sothis, Hathor, or an even an Isis.

Somehow "grace" is in the cards and playbills dealing out a hand of chess to all of us. I suppose all I can say on these matters is that there appears to be a Bacon number connecting chess with Hollywood and the crowned heads of state, though, at this stage in my game of connect the crowns, I seem to notice a mixed bag of possibilties. I am not even sure I can make any kind of connection in animated short order. Small wonder, that - especially given all the distractions that occur on Oscar night. Even so, I could begin by mentioning how, like Elizabeth II's speaches and those given on Oscar night, chess games are often long and boring, or by making a quick leap by offering up the thought that Hollywood and Oscar might as well be chess, or even "not" chess. Either way, the invisible winds that blow behind the scenes of two or three very complicated kinds of games provide the scaffolding for whatever games we see being played out before our very eyes and ultimately, that scaffolding may be more important than the games themslves.

Living Large and Small Our Stage
It's no easy task comparing wooden chessmen to a Hollywood that plays living chess with real live pawns and avatars and yet, we know that living chess, pachisi and wei qi have provided moments of entertainment for players and audiences alike. And who exactly are these people - the entertainers and the entertained - if not willing groups of pawns underscored, though also overshadowed by a coterie of avatars and crowned heads? It seems this may be a prime question on any Hollywood drawing board and yet, I recall the enlightened French composer and chessmaster, Philidor, describing pawns as "the life of the game".

Pawns certainly are the initial point of contact where all the good juices and wicked poisons ebb and flow along the Martian canals of Planet Hollywood, around the Golden Globe or even on the chessboard. Seldom exhibiting either the aloofness or ennui of a hoi polloi, while totally ennervated by the prospect of participating in a grand victory or a successful promotion to higher rank, pawns must prove themselves in the fires of competition all other chessmen have apparently encountered with a certain diplomatic aplomb. The bowing, scraping and kow-towing of Holywood pawns? I am not certain if that is entertainment fit for kings, but it is all very stagey, somewhat comedic and, where we see the theme applied to Nick Bottom's role in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", obviously suited to curry favour without disturbing the decorum of any real kings or queens.

Unlike kings and their immediate confidants, unpromoted pawns are not anywhere as insulated or as insular as the inner court and its executive class, nor do they have the luxury of knowing what the king might know until the moment of promotion is struck and the pawn transforms into something more than just a pawn. The multiple ironies of Nick Bottom's character are not only laughter inducing, they are also highly symbolic of a successfully threaded chicane that can place laurels upon the heads of mere commoners. However, as we inspect traditional rules of the pawn's engagement, neither the journey nor the reward is spoken of except in oblique reference to such things as "gold stars" - or in other cases, "bright morning stars". Thus, if a promoted pawn should happen to glance in the mirror and see in it the reflection of a king or queen, they are probably not mistaken - nor would any king of quality deny that the malleable clay of pawns refects upon a past that is entirely foreign to his own intermediary experiences as dauphin, or with the actual moment of coronation.

Sentimentally attached to the rulers of all nations, pawn's are like the troubadors of old. If they do happen to appear solo in any engagement, a quick end can usually made of any overzealous approach to the far side of the board and with them, any concilliatory message they might be bearing. Of course, pawn in chess are not allowed the kind of diplomatic shades of grey reminiscent of the tragedy Octavian Augustus brought down upon the head of Cicero and yet, they are subject to the royal whims of their own masters and can be sacrificed or slaughtered for any number of reasons. So, via the message of tact, or tactlessness - as the case may be - you could say that chess and the ups and dowsn of Hollywood stars, are all about traditional societal rules of engagement. This also says a great deal about how te pawn must bear up stoically under the duress of hierarchic shifts in policy that offer little in the way of democratic appeal and much ado about absolute power and authority.

No doubt it was not a simple pawn who invented either chess, Hollywood, or the insitution of monarchy, but rather, a promoted one, or, more likely, a long series of them. It has long been a suspect issue in chess history that yesterday's unpromoted pawns bear a striking resemblance to tomorrow's bishops and viziers and as we look more closely into the combined religous and political aspects dealing directly with coronation rites, except under extraordinary conditions, the king is never allowed place the crown on his own head. Here again, the vizer or "mantri" as Persian chess defines him, becomes the religious power behind the throne and part of a great conspiratorial issue that made the ideas of theocracy and divine right so unpalatable to Enlightenment thinkers of the 18th Century and so dangerously volitile for all levels and appendages of the body politic, pawns, kings, queensm, knights and viziers included.

In practical day to day affairs, despite whatever appearance of bouyancy projects confidence in games or real life, a realistic sense of paranoia resonates across virtual and actual fields and cloaking becomes an important aspect of survival. Out of this very ancient dynamic, chess pawns entertain their own and their opposites' possibilties with forked tongues that may serve as saftey in the midst of a game where there is obviously much impending peril to their personal position on the board, just as easily as a wrong slip of the tongue can cause them to be swept off the board. For pawns and actors, it's who you know today and how well that counts and with the exception of suicidally mishandled chess pawns, for the most part we know who is who and what is what on the chessboard. In Hollywood, it is virtually impossible to say who or what some actors might become or where they will appear tomorrow. That general concept applies not only to their appearances as actors but also to the professional sense of how their careers may unfold And so, despite their varied roles and many facets, Hollywood actors are typically compelled by the desires of their handlers and do indeed behave very much like pawns both on and off the stage.

In Hollywood, it is quite normal for actors to envision what it might be like to act like royalty while retaining their Bacon connection to a humble past. The common touch... That is the secret of most successful rulers, politicians and celebrities, just as it is the birthright of all unpromoted and successfully promoted pawns in chess. So, when you think about it, beginning life as an ambitious, flexible pawn reflects upon not only the nature of ensemble acting in Hollywood but the nature of career destinies as well. Think again and it becomes possible to understand how, with so may sets of shaded circumstance pulling strings and sharpening stings from behind the cloak of pawns, Hollywood must be a Godfather's game - a "vizier's game" - a game filled on all counts with artfully crafted gambits weighted to elicit a maximum of consent. In such cases, manufacture of consensus leads to social agreements that, in turn, can become socializing agents which, in all cases, rely heavily upon public trust for their effectiveness.

Again, suspension of Solon's critical awareness can allow inroads into human consciousness that is almost indetectable except to master's of the game. The effect of a carefully implanted message supported by public "omerata" further amplifies critical disregard for incipient dangers, while leading us deep into the volcanic "Mordor" aspect of our alleged Emerald City. On either side of this mirror, unquestioned feudal obligation to seemingly authoritative dispatches leads to polarizations and bifurcations of many types. Ah yes, what would chess or Hollywood be without its "wizards", it's Godfathers or it's willing Munchkin and Hobbit pawns? Are things so purely black and white as chess, Hollywood, mass media and many heads of state insist they are? From my position in the silver inset adjoining two sides of an opposite facing mirror, like the sandwich cream inside an Oreo cookie, I am not so sure. I deliberate over the two faces of chess and Hollywood and the more I see of the many comings and goings the more I guided by the assumption that...

The play is the thing. So play it again Sam...

Achieving consensus in chess is one artful thing. Arriving at consensus in Hollywood may require the same skill sets, but the difference seems to be that in chess you know exactly who is wagging what. In Hollywood, it's hard to catch site of the tail wagging the dog and to be sure, some old Hollywood Godfathers slip back and forth between public stage, audience seat and a place behind the curtain with disturbing ease. It is not even stealthily done and all the moves are more or less "hidden in plain sight", which is how all the best kept secrets tend to operate in chess or on the public stage.

It was perhaps little different in Shakespeare's day. Stars are stars after all and the mesmerizing light they project on stage, off stage, or behind it has not really changed very much over the ages. Their glitter and glamour presents one good excuse for wearing sunglasses on Oscar night. But, there may be other reasons for wearing shades and motion picture sickness or even a voluntary sense of remaining blind to so much that does go on behind the scenes could have something to do with it.

Covering all the angles at once in Hollywood is not a job for everyone and unlike Shakespearean actors and Broadway stage types who can spend years learning and playing just a few choice roles, Hollywood pawns and avatars are seen constantly moving to and fro across the board in Tinsel Town, changing hats, rapidly morphing into new aspects of themselves and delivering new character portrayals that can blend from one thing to another right before our very eyes. On the great green screen, this has become habitual and maybe a little habit forming. No wonder this year, even the "I's" who played the part of the royal "we" appear almost as confused as the rest of us! Even so, they are well paid to act as though they are in command of their situation and ours. Such is the nature of all memorable "command" performances in Hollywood movies, at the Oscars, or in chess and in either medium the crucial difference between confusing fakery and polished mimicry is always hiding around the next corner.

And exactly which Hollywood egos truly represent the "we" part of the Hollywood picture? Reality is so plastic and elastic, how can we be sure that people who make a career out of bending it can be relied upon to say who and what they actually are, much less confirm what we, the audience, are encouraged to think they are. Since we all face the same problem of sincerity at some time or another in our lives, I suppose it is permissible to ask how much of them is really "us"? And, by the way, who do YOU think YOU are for entertaining any notion that actors might not be what and whom they say they think they are? Confusing isn't it? But what is worse, by asking that dreadful question I have given you the equally dreadful right to ask who I think I am, to which I might answer: Today I imagine myself a cat with nine lives, nodding, winking and saying all these things from a remote perch in a fantasy tree that only little girls who dream of becoming Hollywood queens can see. Not a very satisfactory answer to be sure - but at least it rhymes a bit and aside from being an Oreo cookie turned inside out, that's the best and only thing I can say for myself today.

Tomorrow? Tomorrow I might ask for new ears, a new tale and a new identity. Today, I am Donus Felinicus asking with might and mane - where, by Zeus, is Lewis Carroll when you absolutely need someone to decode virtual from actual Wonderland queens and Hollywood chess from actual chess? It seems to me they are all equally alive and present among us. And will I remain stuck inside this mirror forever? Maybe - maybe not. But for the time being, acting like a cat playing with a ball of fuzzy logic is fun enough and chances are I will revert back to being a human ass at some point in this show.

"Chances are, if I should wear a funny grin..."
Yes, right now, on our stage, all I will say about theatrical transformations is that, once upon a very long time ago, there arrived a mirror in Wonderland one could call upon to calm the many seas of doubt that gathered about the citidels of our most precious moral and intellectual musings. In times of great crises of decision regarding one's personal make-up, camouflage, comportment, this refelctive contraption seems to have melded with the hunter and huntress' restless quest for serenity and a brighter tomorrow. As a result, peoples of all times and places learned how to step through this mirror in order to endure and even overcome a magical world filled with cunning beasts, cunning people and other cunning paradoxes. That mirror still exits and for good or ill, people still set foot though it for all the same reasons. Although some might think that in today's much more complicated garden of wonders our magic mirror may have become tarnished and maybe a little out of hand. perhaps it always was a little out of hand for some and very much in hand for others. The only way to sure handed handling of this magic mirror solution? Experience, my friend, is always the best teacher and the courage to venture beyond our limits the greatest impetus for change. Like Hollywood, chess is one way of gaining a foothold on mirror symetries, assymetries, tesselations, sub atomic cracks in the great divide as well as bridges between virtual and real aspects of our universe that run through almost anything and anyone we can name.

How old is the tale I tell? Only recently, I read how China's immortal Yellow Emperor somehow learned to imprison evil djinn inside a magic mirror and that this activity led to the development of chess in China. I am also told that the great Egyptian god, Amun Ra, dreamed all his best dreams while thinking he was a cat. I like that dream very much. It was not even a very large cat - a yellow tom, by some accounts. Idi Amin? Amun Ra? Now exactly who did that Ugandan gold general think he was fooling when he tried to imprison an entire nation inside his political mirror?

And what am I thinking? Could there be a yellow tom - a cat in my hat - trying desperately to get out? Can I trade it in for a golden ass? Is the trade fair? I mean, could they be essentially the same gold star animal? Why yes, but for a few cosmetic differences, I do believe they are and what is more, that makes Queen Alice, Nick Bottom the Golden Ass, Neo, Frodo and Luke Skywalker and many others virtually the same character. Like the writers who give them life and perhaps also gifted people like Solon or Bobby Fischer, they fall into the mirror once and are not easily fooled by appearances thereafter. That is how gold stars come to be earned in this world and as some say, that is how they come to be recognized the next.

Behind The Media Matrix - Neural attack of the mainstream i-pods!
But, for a fact that can't in any way be objectively proven, when it comes to Hollywood, chess, awards, politicians, royalty and changeling pawns, my inquiring wind gathers up a storm even as flags go up and down, claws come out, eyes bug and ears stand at attention. When that happens, I understand I may be undergoing a half masted state of siege from some uncertain direction. Call it a paranormal state of synesthesia that waxes and wanes with the same instinctive caution that flies whenever one fool spies another coming through the "wry", a forest of pawns, or the talking mirror most homes have plugged into regular house current. So, when I say, it takes a fool to know one and to catch one in the act of being foolish, I am not just whistling Dixie Chicks. And no, it does not take a master of mirrors to spot the gambits Hollywood and mass media try to mask with little blinks, nods, smiles and code words. We are all born fools and actors. So, just who is fooling who, or trying to? Better still, why do some even bother?

Oscar time is a bit like Halloween with many masked fools appearing over the Hollywood horizon all doing their best to trick and treat us. Granted, with literally dozens of our favourite trick or treaters knocking on our TV screen all at once, some illegitimates are bound to sneak past the threshold virtually undetected. Love' em or hate 'em, on Oscar night, Hollywood bogeys stage an assault upon the senses fit for kings and queens, but primarily directed at "everyman". It's a barrage and a banquet too rich for the average person to deal with at a single sitting and so, with time, patience and our own capacity to freeze frames and reflect being the great advantage "we the people" have over Hollywood, I'd like to take a serene moment or two to shish-ka-bab a few of these little goblins now they have already passed though my soapbox screen. Most of the more pernicious are still hiding out in the pantry somewhere. So, perhaps we can begin skewering them after the fact, starting with Oscar himself, then maybe moving on to Liz and Idi - who are not to be mistaken for Steve and Edie, but probably will be anyway. Consider the rest of this essay similar to the methodical kind of algebraic notation used in chess post mortems. It's perhaps the only way to sort the tricksters from the treaters.

What The Devil does Oscar Wear?
So, first things first... What about that head pawn? What about this Oscar fellow? Fact is, this is one strange looking dude... icon? - ummm... idol?? Maybe he is a bit of all three and it may not matter very much in the final analysis since, in Hollywood, he is already known to be a little king unto his own country. Now, that in itself is very strange, because America is, after all, a democracy - or at least that's what we are told. Hollywood? Well, there are some who think of Hollywood as a kind of plutocracy and they may not be too far off the mark with this idea. Otherwise, the America we love and know is the very land where proof of our senses tells us that each and every time we step up to an electronic voting machine, democracy is happening. Some Ohio residents may argue the contrary and by any and all means, I am not entirely sure if Oscar even thinks democratically, or if the cashbox and the ticket wicket are not really what make him tick like Captain Hook's crocodile and the pfanders of old. But, in any case, we are told that he is a democratically elected award and it is very true that this year he actually did wind up in the hands of a former Democratic candidate for the presidency of these United States of America. Is that not some shade of the Tin Man receiving his heart from Oz? I wonder...

Like the Tin Man, I suppose I should be satisfied with a clockwork heart and take it on faith that Oscar knows reality, democracy, Kansas corn, Diebold and Kubrick as well as any statue. Then again, it does seem more than passing strange that an environmental champion would drive up to the Oscars in a motorcade of SUVs and limousines. On average, each one of these behemoths gets about the same gas mileage as an old Sherman tank. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I don't recall Dorothy dousing the Wicked Witch of the West with a bucket of gasoline, although I suppose we could give a fairy tale politician some benefit of the doubt. After all, when one wants to make a lasting impression in politics or the movies, limousines are useful props. So, in the face of convincing Oscar night protocols, it seems an excellent idea that if your are poised to accept a major award for a documentary film on global ecology, you should also be seen arriving in a phalanx of fuel guzzling white elephants.

But none of this adds up very well. Could I actually be processing a badly mixed message? Even now, almost 24 hours after my little alarm bell began ringing, I must wonder if, for a fleeting instant, I did not actually became one of the flesh and blood "I's" who met the "we's" of Hollywood politics head on in the virtual parking lot of TV life, only to be left ticketed, talked down to, blindsided by a tank and then told "I Need to Wake Up"?

Wake up from what? From which dream? Who's dream? And why was Melissa Etheridge pleading with herself, myself and everyone else within earshot to wake up to the moment, even though a patron of the cause, tank commander Al, will go down in Hollywood history as having cruised to Oscar's palace in a piston driven pachyderm that would put serious envy in the eyes of old King Porus? Don't they sell bikes or skateboards in Hollywood? Don't politicians and Hollywood stars come equipped with feet, or does being an actor, singer or a politician require feet to be placed squarely in the mouth at all times? I suppose that's why Al Gore needed to drag someone out of the orchestra pit to sing his own song for him. Talk about insularity! Or am I merely being cynical by pointing out something of "An Inconvenient Truth" about a hoof in mouth disease that dares not and cannot speak its name?

Although I am hardly what one might consider "political", I do wonder if growing public desire for a pocketbook friendly breed of mechanical ox has not been bodychecked, gored and conscripted into Big Al's rollerball pitch for popular consensus creation and media micro management. Environmental issues are not new and global weather change seems to have been around since Noah's time. On the other hand, America's automotive industry recession is a pressing problem and Big Al does have a few old Detroit connections hiding out in his garage. So, why, all of a sudden, is he making such a big fuss about selling me an old and badly used issue? Could it be he wants to sell me a new car instead?

By the scar tissue healing inside my media marinated brain, the timing and product placement aspects of gold star platitudes would seem more important than the "moral", so called "apolitical" part of Gore's Oscar acceptance speech. But of course, one must remember that in corporate sales, politics, media and show business, it is what you show that matters and the pitch often has absolutely nothing to do with what salesmen call the "fine print" of a legal document.

Above and beyond Gore's message, but fittng a pattern that can take any mind for a jarring ride, telegraphy of media-based gambits is an inevitable byproduct of some attempt to readjust popular perception by playing off what the "player" on the podium judges to be the recipient's perceptual advantages and disadvantages. So maybe politicans and media barons jangle our nerves in response to what nation wide polls telegraph to them with regard to public perceptions, weakesses - openings in our collective defences. Like the reciprocal aspect of chess, the general population is constantly being solicited, their collective consciousness scoped, evaluated and manipulated in accord with how much politicians and other spokespersons can risk tampering with "reality" before the gambit and the tampering "blowback" to become part of an overall issue that may require further adjustment in order to set the message into "checkmate" mode.

Anyone who understands how the mass media game is played knows that a good portion of it is rigged from the inside the naos of executive headquarters. It's not about giving little people credit for actually knowing something about something but rather, how well they can be hoodwinked into believing some expert with a lot of letters next to their name knows more and that the endorsement of celebrities actually adds any weight to their cause. In the gathering up of ephemeral currencies, control issues and chess board politics emerge once again as command performances and in the bitter end, it's all about what, how much and when politicians, salesmen and actors choose to "show" their case isn't it? Some games can take years to evolve and since checkmate in a single move is impossible, the message requires more than one stage and one scene before becoming embedded into the mass conscience. Hollywood provides but one of several sets required to alter opinion and perception.

Of course, we all know how show business begets big business and vice versa. So, if there's is one thing you can count on when blue chip issues appear on big or little screens, it's that seldom, if ever, do we get the full story about any issue at any one sitting. That is especially true for issues that need to be better known immediately. Politicians count upon a form of mental paralysis that often grips even the most experienced chess players but the fact is, if we wait for Oz, Al, Melissa and Oscar to give us all a brain or a social conscience on any pressing issue, we may wait forever, or, at best, we may see the moment for debate quickly passing over the event horizon. In that passive state we also up the odds of receiving some supplemental kind of Manchurian Munchkin Matrix transplant that fits the bill of sale but leaves large gaps and spaces under the hood. Some people call this "intelligent design". I call it "designer intelligence" and as we shall see, the clothes Oscar wears resemble robes of state and the too clever art corporate intelligence. However, like a king on the chess board, these inbred advantages are of no apparent value unless butressed by a protective entourage. Alone, he cannot move fast or far enough to avoid unmasking and final checkmate via the play of old Egypt is indeed the very thing we need to bring him to a reckoning with himself and his audience.

Oscar's mass illusion? It is very real and such is the commercial slant to the Hollywood chessboard, which, come to think of it, is not much different from the way the global one currently operates. No great Egyptian mystery how, during these "interesting" times, it seems like every actor and politician alive wants to do my thinking for me, change my sparkplugs and even move the pieces on my side of the board without my catching on. While I find that very noble and generous of them, it is not chess. Chess is far more democratic, independent and demanding than that. Besides, when a piece gets moved on a chessboard, the piece we see being moved is the one that actually does move. Hollywood bait and switch? That's a carney barker's shell game and with all that has come down the global pipedream during the course of our lifetimes, by now we should know what to expect from pea shufflers and chess mountebanks parading noble causes. Does the devil wear Exxon and General Motors? I suppose that on an Oscar night when everyone in town is dressed for success, it's better that than to be seen wearing no clothes at all.

American Idols
But alas, I find myself drifting far afield from the real essence of Mr. Oscar, who is, at the very least, a much perfumed American Idol in his own right. And we like to know where our idols come from, don't we? We read the tabloids to find out everything about them. That is why we buy the T-shirts and drink the vicarious drinks they offer right down to the very last dregs. And oh, how we do very much like to consume the forbidden liquors of the gods, all the while possibly knowing that the oddest thing about Oscar is that he pretends to be something he is while being something he isn't - or at least, something most people are unlikely to suspect him of being. Somehow that opacity, with all its internal conflicts hidden behind the patina of a polished gold finish, works out well for him and I suppose the real question about Oscar has more to do with how people are encouraged to see him than anything else. Indeed, we must ask ourselves how and why we come to drink, eat sleep and breathe Oscar, knowing all the while that his world is totally about pretending to pretend about pretending.

He is a great pretender, our Oscar - and I think it is important to ask what causes so many of us to willingly suspend judgement for the sake of whatever dreams a very few distill under the big top secret of our vaunted Hollywood circus. For, is it not factually evident that somewhere in the process of recreating and consuming "reality", the drink most people think is harmless has already passed though so many editorial pipes and spiggots before it gets into our glass that adulteration of some kind or another is practically guaranteed? What kind of Mickey Finn has Mickey Spillane been serving us all these years? Who dun it? And why? Don't look now, but there is a bridge and a toll booth up ahead with Balrogs standing guard over the Hollywood exchequer.

These questions and issues are not Mickey Mouse. As we already know from watching too much Disney, not even an "R" or a "G" rating tempers the flow Hollywood hootch. No matter what intellectual age we pretend to, prohibition does not seem to be at issue with the Hollywood we tend to believe we are consuming "voluntarily". Even though prohibitions exist in spades behind the scenes and on the political stage, in reality, the stuff that thrills and kills is all out there for the asking and the taking. And sho 'nuff, adults know from their own hard experience with hard alcohol what bad dreams may come. Yet, we down what we already know can be dangerous, sometimes carelessly, enthusiastically - conspicuously - as though it was our cultural and religious duty to do so and call it entertainment, hardly suspecting that there may be residual elements of a stupefying, if not deadly ritual mixed in with our movieland concoctions of choice.

Hollywood moonshine? It's like the colour of money isn't it? And aren't mainstream movies just another brand of money drink? Flowing from the cistern down into the taproot of everyday life, I suppose most Hollywood promotors have already learned for themselves how to milk mass media as though it was a petty cash cow. Taking cues from Pretty Baby, in the hallucinogenic process they offer the public a golden opportunity to forfeit its milk money for the sake of idle moments spent watching, then chattering idly about Hollywood, NASCAR and too many other things that really have little bearing on where the real money is actually coming from or going to.

Diversion? Diverted priorities? I doubt anyone can argue that Hollywood corn mash is not actually a kind of social currency we share with friends while marking time in some endless waiting line packed with other pawns. See how easily the stuff of dreams passes down a picket fence, jumping from one pawn, who shares it with adjacent others and so on down the rank and file! Like cheap wine, trash culture has that "ripple" effect. And haven't we all played the picket fence game often and earnestly over the years - so often, in fact, that, at times, the currency seems to wear a little thin? And doesn't Hollywood know when people are becoming bored of the rings? And doesn't it respond to flagging consumption with mass infusions of brighter, shinier baubles, bangles, blings, bills and billboards - more better booze - whatever it takes to get the old buzz happening again?

For old money's sake and new money's stock market options, Hollywood has always sensed the limits of its coming and going attractions and tries it's best to up the ante every year. They want to get us feeling just as drunk and delirious this year as we might have felt in those golden depression and salad days days of yore. So I guess you could say that this year, Oscar time was looking for a Viagra boost to get our postmodern nostalgia up and running once again. And while there is nothing wrong with feeling young at heart or even acting that way, there is a healthy limit to how long we can suspend reality without doing some real damage to ourselves. So, I guess the real problem with mass media has plenty to do with how it encourages consumption habits and strange addictions on a 24/7 basis. Nor do I doubt that there are even some among us who find old hat chess as addictive as Nintendo, movies, magazines or television, although I presume the crucial difference is that chess boosts mental and moral character in ways that these other passive types of media do not.

Thanks for the memes...

Cultural addictions? It has been exclaimed in Hollywood - "The Girl Can't Help It!" That might be a good description of Miss America contestants, but what about Mr. Universe? Well, that's right. Blame the girl for leading everyone astray. Always the girl. But I guess it doesn't matter who really holds the purse strings, wears the pants or buys the Viagra in most households. It doesn't matter because Oscar-time binges and spendthrift habits have come to be regarded as a kind of cultural panacea and misery, like ecstasy, loves company.

Because Oscar is Halloween, Christmas, New Year's Eve and so many other memorable things rolled up into one big block party, it seems hardly come by chance that we tend to yoke pleasant or even unpleasant moments with ephemeral Hollywood theme songs, scenes and sound bites, all the while choosing to believe that the people who follow Oscar around as a career are really following the days and nights of our lives with remarkable empathy and compassion. So, it is with great anticipation that we tune into the Mardi Gras renewal of the Oscar god from year to year, perhaps hoping for a replay of some memorable moment we might have lived at some stage in our romanticized past. That kind of giddy expectation is not always rewarded, but sure as there's a heaven above, Alfie, we do get to see actors clapping Oscar to their chests and making long acceptance speeches about how great is Oscar, Hollywood and the Academy of Motion Pictures.

Now remember, these folks - mere actors, mind you - and Oscar winners especially, all hold it within their power to become the instant priests and priestesses of an otherwise remote motion picture paradise. Remember too, that they are bought and sold like expensive race horses because of their ability to perform up to Hollywood expectations and it takes only a little consent at the big league race track before any one of them can and will run away with our personal treasures - our hearts, minds, souls and maybe too much of our spirits also. Certainly they are paid high salaries to lay hold of the collective consciousness as though it was the reins of Ben Hur's chariot. Then, off they rumble down the home stretch and like any number of would-be Mesmers or actual members of the Disney dream team, they can take all of us for a ride and influence our thinking permanently if we allow that to happen. And what would we do without them dragging us in the direction of a topped off glass or an old fashioned Hollywood run for the roses? The Oscar racetrack? The jockeys? The breeders? The bartenders? The brands? Some call it a culture and as long as we are having a good time, gasoline stays cheap and drinks are on the house, does anyone really want to ask what aperitifs or main courses are being served, for what real purpose and by whom? Thanks for the memes, Mr. and Mrs. Hollywood - but these are toughening times and with them comes an era of critical circumspection that even the sedatives of politics and Hollywood are having difficulty forestalling as Waterworld and Mad Max scenarios now figure more prominently in the public consciousness than ever before.

So, please forgive me if I begin to imagine how much Oscar and Hollywood remind me of the phantom bartender in "The Shining". Forgive me, because I cannot help but assume our dear Oscar does his stand up bit for a living too and accepts gratuities from influential donors tied to harnessing Hollywood's trend-sniffing powers of persuasion and translating everything towards big budget binges. Oscar? Isn't that the same guy who refuses our money, but still finds a way to rattle old skeletons in our mental closet? I see him there sitting tightlipped on the podium, accepting all the applause, fame and fortune that go along with being an Oscar winner. Right up front on center stage he takes it all in with customary dignity, humility, grace, charm, wit - and the same type of affable integrity that suits Hollywood hotel bartenders, bootleggers and culture barons to a "T".

And a very good living it is for cultivated Oscar - the golden boy with a bright future always ahead of him. And it is true that no matter in whose hands Oscar winds up on Oscar night, he knows, as do we, that he will soon experience the luxurious privilege of sitting in someone's expensive cabinet, inside an expensive Hollywood mansion nestled in expensive gated subdivisions on the manicured outskirts of magnificent cities that make owning expensive American real estate on the most expensive planet in the known universe a very expensive proposition indeed. So, there he sits, along with all the expensive chess sets, vases, and crystalwares that are almost too pretty to be touched by mortal hands, much less serve a utilitarian function. And yes, despite what are prohibitive fairy tale odds for the vast majority of "we", the great unwashed, our Oscar never fails to get the best seat in the best houses.

No wonder some people will gamble everything for a future with Oscar, while others fawn and beg to touch him as though good luck and great fortune will somehow magically rub off on their fingertips. Oscar's uncommonly golden touch... Oscar, the greatest pawnshop curio in Hollywood... Oscar, the lucky ducky born on third base and waiting for some actor to hit him home... Oscar, the silent partner... Oscar, the pandered panderer... Oscar, the bartender standing behind the stars and bars and the golden thrones of Oscardom... Oscar, the Midas boy who sees all, says nothing and still manages to affect millions... Oscar the suave, who, from his place inside expensive curio cabinets, gets to see the private comings and goings of the very rich and famous...

Now, if Oscar could only speak, just imagine how much richer the tabloids would be for all his bartender's confidences?

"Midnight and a rendez vous..."
And so, what if Oscar turned out to be better than a deaf and dumb pawn - had ears, eyes, nose and a mouth and used them? If that were the case, would he propose any kind of threat to himself or others? Well, let us not forget that to actors and politicians alike, there is no such thing as "bad" publicity. Therefore, in light of what that may mean to one and all - I give you "Oscar" as I found him on the Internet - apparently receiving some kind of award for distinguished silence in talking pictures and obviously ready, willing and able to spill the beans on Hollywood!

But WAIT a minute! That guy's not Oscar! And if it isn't, who exactly is this familiar looking imposter?

Well... some (but certainly not I) would quickly point out that this "Oscar" is a really a statuette of the Egyptian creator god Ptah. That makes him a 5000 year old hood ornament for Egypt's royal coaches and patron saint of Egypt's legendary craftspersons - those very old souls among whose mummified remains we find much evidence of Ptah, but few signatures telling us who might have actually owned or fashioned him. However, I believe that in most cases, Ptah was considered the mummy's real owner, rather than the other way around. As for how he came to own and operate the entire Egyptian studio, that is information you will have to dig up for yourself - that is - if you really do want to bring too many cultural illusions crashing down on your skull at once. Suffice to say, the Egyptians who drew and molded him probably didn't care if they were the world's first cartoonists and scriptwriters. Along with Ptah, they seem to have had other things in mind more precious and eternal than gold - but nonetheless synonymous with an Egyptian gold standard of some sort. How times have changed! Or have they? Oscar owns Hollywood, does he not?

Now I suppose the next logical question would be: "Does Ptah own Oscar?". Could envy of Ptah actually be the lettuce at the bottom of an Egyptian bowl that eventually made it into Hollywood's salad days? Oscar a lousy remake?! Could a rip off an Egyptian feature be how Oscar got his Vaudeville start? Probably. Old Egypt gets ripped off for more than just Oscar. And while we're at it, it may be good time to mention that some very astute historians deeply suspect that Indian, Persian and Chinese chess got their start in the very same way. Along with this observation comes many consecutive overlays of strenuous denial and most likely, an overabundance of historical obfuscation going far back in time. So, in the eyes of some, at least, this whole Oscar scandal is really small potatos by comparison.

Needless to say, (as if it is ever "needless" to say anything) the art of substitutions, doubles, stand ins and carefully re-costumed actors is very old, as is the history of those who think it is better to keep "oyster" about about all of this. In some crucial instances, silence speaks louder than words. So too, a cryptic kind of "gold star" language seems to have resulted from the long held reluctance of royalty to cast pearls before swine as well as their preferance for dishing out medals and "cultured" pearls. And, as any queen, queen mother, prince, princess, actress, artists, king, actor, viceroy, politician or script writer knows, to say less about what these genuine pearls are or why some people consider it in their best interest and everyone else's to keep them out of sight, out of mind or at the very best, sheltered in expensive glass houses, is to avoid complicity in matters that could prove embarrassing, if not fatal, to the crown.

Some crowned princes have actually lost their heads for speaking plainly about the actual source of so much prohibition and cryptic code words. Be this as it may, with truthful exposure comes the peril of self-incrimination. Thus, the string of pearls that eventually connects past with present have a tendency to produce a hangman's noose, mountains of obcurity to cover tiny molehills of fact, graveyards out of cities and headless corpses trying to say something about why all this cryptic silence is anything but golden. So, there is really nothing new under the sun. Inasmuch as concealment and deception have occurred in the name of Ptah and many other gods by a succession of kings, queens - but more likely their chief viziers - who, as a kind of clique, traditionally preoccupied themselves with the task over a broad stretch of history, deception becomes a Machiavellian golden rule ruled mostly by who has the gold.

As for the kings and queens who publicly cannot or will not dare to say how close to the gods they or anyone else might actually stand, or even attempt to explain why a purported need for silence surmounts our human need "to know", it's not hard to connect them with Priscillian assumptions that, since Egyptian times, have remained dangerous scepters in need of much cosmetic masking, shutting up in towers and shrewd denial. During any day or age, preservation of strictures separating inner from outer court appears at the root of many evils and despite that the democratic spirit we assume are protectively encased in such things, the common spirit incipient in the dedications of Ptah and Oscar "listeth where it will" and is no respector of high walls or imperial justice. Only under imperial rules of law and culture do songbirds get caged and people led astray to places where they are robbed of a certain spiritual birthright that puts the Helen Mirrens of this world on the same footing as Elizabeths I or II. Only by order of the state and its religious co-defendants does justice stoop low enough to protect the needs and greeds of a pretentious, insecure but powerful few. Need I say more?

I suppose I have already said enough, but in cases like this, less is not more, nor are words alone adequate to undo the culture spells that bind us to disempowering sets of widespread illusions. Nor, with words alone, can we undo barriers to meta-realities even the great and powerful Ozs of Hollywood can neither truly nor truthfully explain except by analogy, metaphor and parable. The fact that those who stand behind the curtain of culture exist in awe of what carefree winds blow their balloon is something seldom spoken of in Hollywood, since the appearance of control is vital to their con. Nor do we get from them any inking of how the self-created recreates anything of inestimable value since that would also detract from the money game that is constantly afoot at Caesar's Palace. Avoiding attraction of public attention to both themselves and their stock and trade drives the Oz's of our planet into hilarious, if not humiliating pretzel shape denials and if, after all these years, you really do need a punchline for the batos and patos that accompanies Solon's idea of a politically colourized Thespis, I can supply you with one you can build a joke around if you choose.

The punchline is that I can imagine Ptah, or something very much like what he was intended to represent, feeding everyone their lines and liquor since time immemorial and that certain people found a way to tap into his spiggot as a way of creating profit out of religious rapture. As bartender to Egyptian pharoahs and a full line up of culture gods, delivering life itself along with rapture, ecstacy and "primodial gnosis" was his chief occupation. Moreover, and despite how this may shock the orthodox masses, being the Egyptian creator god of a polytheistic culture does not automatically make him consummately evil, nor is hemlock the type of drink Ptah preferred. We leave that to the sycophants of every cultural era, for as surely as they made others drink their poison in real life, there will be a price to pay, if not the price of a clear conscience, then perhaps some other type of repentance. All is one and if we must let fall the curtain of appearances, we would have to say that like great good and great beauty, great evil dwells in the eye of the same beholder and perfection of either appears to be the just reward for knowing both at once and chosing one path over the other in this great mirror game of chess we call life.

Sources and outcomes arrive in many shapes, sizes and disguises. So, like chessmen, in their own quiet way, Oscar and Ptah are simply saying something about the path to perfection. This is something extremely important that is also encoded into the promtotion of pawns in chess but also many other games. After that, there is not much more to say except - "Honit soit, qui mal y pense." or maybe "Let the buyer beware" - for, as Frodo learned for himself, reckoning Ptah with Oscar and promoted pawns is something that comes at a price, as all the great pearls of wisdom apparently do.

So - you see how things cross over and double back through the magic mirror in Hollywood... Or rather, you see, but maybe you don't see. On the other hand, "experience" says that one man's return to Oz or introduction to Oscar is always purchased at a premium and yet, the real source of moral justice - the actual experience - is utterly free - as free as any chess board choice we might consider making. It's really only a matter of how much time, reflection and dedication one puts into the game. On the other hand, there has to be something quite corrupt and corrupting about the various ways in which currency exchange and mark up on new intellectual diversions cause us to pay and pay again for the privilege of being tricked and treated to so many superficial, meaningless and redundant shams. An Oscar who is allowed to speak would tell us that old bones will do just as well as the new and that fools gold is to be expected whenever seven or eight dwarves go about mining their individual appointments with a common destiny and the unknown knower.

In consideration of the high levels of imaginative craftsmanship exhibited by many ancient cultures, Ptah's very old bones do just as well as Oscar's new ones with the exception perhaps that the commerical price tag on Hollywood wares has inflated beyond the comfortable reach of the average pocketbook and cost of extravaganzas have actually driven what used to be a pleasant opportunity for social gatherings at the local theatre into the pay per view vacuum of private homes - a sign of the frenzied consumerist times it seems and the all part of the fable of cultural obsolescence Hollywood has helped rear over the years. That goes hand in hand with the idea that Hollywood pyrotechniques and distribution networks actually improve on the best that classical literature, theatre and music have to offer or is responsible for inventing anything new other than the commercial aspects of its carney barker persona. There is no question Hollywood still banks on the P.T. Barnum maxim of a fool born every minute. On the other side of the coin, however and to the degree that Hollywood pushes the envelope of profit over that of high quality productions, there are as many fools being unborn and turned off by the predatory nature of commercial film in general - ones who will seek their entertainment elsewhere and find it, often cased in old bones and bookbindings.

If for instance, I had to purchase a complete new set of chessmen after the end of every game, just as though they were a new round of drinks at the bar, I might soon switch to rocks, pebbles and water. In the process, I might also discover for myself how the pleasure of chess is not really altered in any way. Aside from the illusion of a die having already been cast to favour industries based upon overconsumption, drunkeness and diversion, the prospect of having to make do with less might prod at least some of us into trading our sets of Staunton chessmen for stones, DVDs for live theatre, Humvees for skateboards and the like. Not that humble materials offer any means of avoiding the status trap, but at least they do help bring us down to earth and closer to it on occasion. As for the sparkling stones Oscar night puts in our soup, Hollywood bartenders and waiters can and will bring us an endless supply of doubles doubling as doubles, until we get fed up with Mummy II and Mummy III and demand a glass of water or a mirror that does not distort our view of what lies both within and without. From such things we may learn to talk to each other again about who we think we really are, what we think the world insists we are, where we might be heading and how we might prepare to get to where we want to go without disturbance from a mass media culture bent on influencing our views of the old nurture versus nature connundrum and selling life experiences we should be experiencing for ourselves back to us in pre-packaged, flavor of the day varieties. Who knows what we may find in old bones? Who knows if an uncoloured picture of many interconnected messages streaming from distant yesterdays may not come to resemble the true wrappings of all Egyptian Mummies?

So, how comes it that our own human mass and volume can be so neatly re-manufactured and looped back to us in ways that entice us into believing we are only good as the gold we wear, when even Shakespeare knew how everything about us actually resolved into a dew? How comes it that even today, when we absolutely know how every aspect of our flimsy, filmy selves and the universe add up to no more than a collection of subatomic particles and waves we call light? Obviously, there is a very schizophrenic, make-believe detachment from some original gold-star realities going on here, there and everywhere - and yet, we are supposed to believe in Oscar's durability and originality? Ptah, I say! Believe what you want, but the real reality of make believe says "Anything Goes" in Hollywood Squares, quantum physics or chess for that matter. Hollywood sound and lights? Call it a trick of shade and substance designed to tempt coddle and cajole. Call it representative of some truth, but don't call it "truth", for as soon as a particle of truth is spoken into existence, it has already begun morphing into something slightly different - just like this essay, which is not the same piece of work I began the day after Oscar - and certainly not like the churches, politicians and moviemakers who like to freeze us into their frames of reference for many dubious reasons even as the flux they help create in our social frames of reference carries most of us down a magic carpet ride that leaves a majority gasping for personal ideas about what may or may not be enduring "truths".

Could some of the proof lie in the Oscar pudding? I don't doubt that it does, although to believe what actors say is true rather than rely more purposefully on what our lying eyes and ears may tell us is not the real name of the game. It is not chess. And frankly, if it is not our names we hear being called at Oscar time, anything of deeper value Oscar might have to say to this and future generations will escape us and we may be tempted to plunge again into endless rounds of escapism. Oh yes, you are entitled to take your precious cues and scripts wherever they become available and go through all the classic trails of learning them by heart, but it may be wise to remember that this will not be your heart speaking truth to itself or extemporizing over the dialogue you may be having with your own Oscar. So let's at least come to some agreement over how the wool gets pulled, who does the pulling and how we can become complicit in this act if we elect to savour life through vicarious pleasures rather than indulge in them directly. This we must risk on our own behalf, even if we don't fully understand all the whys and wherefores of a real life motion picture that is, in many respects, more virtual and holographically interconnective than solidly "real".

Certainly, what Oscar represents is not a chunk of gold we can bite into or hold up to a worldwide audience for all to see and be saved. And, while we're at it, let's not forget the ages old question of "who profits" from all the old patchwork some call the Emperor's clothes - this aptly named "golden fleece"? Also, let's not forget to ask why not all rewards at Oscar time are entirely monetary. Power? Who can weigh that on a banker's scale? Fame? How fleeting! Knowledge? Ah! What light through yonder window breaks? Now we may be getting somewhere! So the answer to Oscar has something to do with knowing something about something after all and 'tis a great pity that we have to wring that out of him by threatening Hollywood with a powerful Egyptian double - a great light that once shone with clalrity from the mystic east but which has since been buried under the rubble of human forgetfulness and torn apart by enchanters eager for the gold rather than its true meaning.

What ho? Ptah to Queen Mirren's Oscar! And checkmate! So let it be known that somewhere floating above all the graft, greed and envy of Oscartime, a cloud of love, peace, morality and maybe even great prospects for immortality beg to differ with politicians who see only money, political opportunity and not much else in our message based coin of the realm. Your soul or mine? Toss a coin, because what Hollywood says and does with souls is very two faced, pari-coloured and not always on the square. And that, my friends, is one of the longest running punchlines seen or heard in movies anywhere. Beyond that point, I know for a fact that takes a real "Depp" - a real German fool - to understand why this is so. That much said...

Johnnys dark and Johnnys light... I guess that's entertainment! That certainly is the entertainment industry and chess all rolled up in Cleopatra's magic red carpet. So, while we are busy entertaining all possible worlds, here are some of this year's award winners - among them, a white queen and a black knight, who, by the way, does not bear much resemblance to any "Last King of Scotland", (he still has his head, after all) but, given the chance, could probably do a nice imitation of Othello...

I believe in these new Oscar kings and queens. I believe in their personal adventures and the stories they can tell. I believe that, like Othello, Whitaker's promotion to excellence was well deserved. I also sense that, unlike Othello, there are no Iagos waiting for him in the Academy wings. He has, for once and all time, been publicly acclaimed and crowned. Too late for treachery and too late for him to turn back now! So, long live the newly promoted Oscar king! And thank you Hollywood, Oscar and that lucky star for providing people like this the opportunity to promote.

Aside from a very passionate and sincere speech, the proof of Whitaker's determination is written all over his picture and I neither saw nor sensed any sign of cue card coaching while he delivered his acceptance speech. My feline instincts tells me, not only is he a real gold star actor, he's a real gold star person too and as they sing in Hollywood - "No no - they can't take that away from me..."!

The character he played to win this role? Well, since I never met the man, I refuse to judge Idi Amin on Hollywood films alone - nor is it my place to judge anyone in my Bacon number book of addresses with whom I am not personally well acquainted. On the other hand, I reserve a cynical eye for home grown politicians who pretend to acquaint themselves with me through my vote, will kiss my babies at election time and then kiss other parts of other people's anatomy afterward. I also prefer to resist that rather loathsome part of Hollywood I see reaching out from behind the screen in some half concealed attempt to adjust the dials on my moral and intellectual compass. My only regret is that good people - skilled actors and other legtimate talents - can be manipulated into providing the kind of relief required to relax our minds into thinking that everything we see coming at us on the screen is pure gold. Mixed messages and black and white relief - that's how fool's gold and counterfeit achieves it's ugly reputation by comparison and we have to learn how to tell the real from the unreliable at every turn of the way or somehow content ourselves with the rule of Trinculos and other poor fools. Illegiimate kings, half truths, deceptions and outright lies sprout like weeds among the lilies and orchids. In that process of discriminating natural selection, games of chess are lost and won. So it goes for hearts, minds, souls and spirits as well.

Movies? Once they are made, they do not change and any man woman or child can pick and choose their reality according to what they see lined up at Blockbuster. Politics and politicians do not offer quite the same variety of free choices as entertainers. Maybe that's because their directors and sponsors offer them little leeway to pick and choose for themselves - a sour note which might explain the different lines they speak and the different types of character parts they play before and after being elected. As for Idi Amin, like many a Gold General who would be king, despite that they can became synonymous with evil incarnate, his heart and soul may have been in the right place at one time or another. Who can say? Who would dare? Why do some always dare to say too much about what is impossible to judge and not enough about what is either tenuous or questionable about the facts as they choose to represent them - much less the things that are of most immediate importance to our own critical abilities?

That is perhaps how Hollywood attempts to pander to our weaknesses and how it profits from posing absolute evil against absolute good, ignoring the murky middle ground in favour of dramatic license. However, on the global stage, things are far more complicated than Hollywood would have us believe and much more so than in chess. What pushes men and women over the edge or wards them from it does not always show up on the balance sheet or in the ballot box of consensually constructed histories and there are no chessmen that ever slip their gyros or take the plunge into madness that would send them careening off the deep end of board. Frozen Hollywood perspectives and great distances from events can give us enchanting views - but who is to say if these very same views are not also some form of attempted enchantment?

Even so, what we can gather together of Idi Amin's frame by frame history offers us a glimpse into the kind of slow boil in Stygian waters poor Jack Nicholson played out in "The Shining". These kinds of things do happen to people and while we can see some of their descent into maddess framed in movies, I recognize there is no real heroism involved in condemning those who have, for reasons we can only speculate upon, suffered profound degredation of character at some turn of events or for some other unpopular reasons, were given no other choice but to make the passing their poison to others their point of contact with political history and the Midas touch of unbridaled political power.

Now, Al Gore says that global issues offer a moral rather than a political opportunity. That may well be the case, but it is not the full reality of issues he brought forward on Oscar night. Also, it may be saying something about his brand of perfumes and poisons, or how one man's passion from the podium can stirr pawns to uncritical opinions and reflex actions. Take it or leave it, by offering only one view of our impending ecosystem reality and gaining endorsement from Oscar, the outcome is noting more than a crooked game of chess - the mountebank's game of offering what seems to be a straightforward problem and then pulling in the fish as they fall for the entire trap, hook line and sinker.

The strategy of bait and switch is a politican's favourite passtime and they get help with this from their varrious backers. So what are we fools to believe when so many things are being spun in so many conflicting directions at once, or when Hollywood lays a hand on the board and decides to spin it in a particular direction? I do not pretend to know what makes the world go round, but I do know how mental fatigue can be induced by continual shock and awe, until we stop trying to make sense of what is happening around us and just lie down and let the tanks of Tienamin roll over us.

Tanks for the rhetoric and spoon fed memes... but no tanks, Big Al. Nor do I feel inclined to go into the tank just because Hollywood lights a certain way and does this without also lighting the way to the more diverse sources of its political and social conscience. Suffice it to say, I did not like everything or everyone my TV screen delivered into my home on this most recent Oscar night. I did not appreciate the all the agenda. On the other hand, I never met an honest game of chess I didn't like.

Queen Takes Oscar!
As for The Queen... Is not caesar's wife always beyond suspicion? And therefore, is she not also the source of many deep suspicions? Ah Hollywood! - the stuff of virginity, virgin dreams...golden boys and girls - and gold stars too! Was Helen Mirren playing the part of Queen Elizabeth I or II when she made mention of her gold star? We may never know and frankly, it does not matter. What matters is that we do know what she said and can harbour a pretty good guess at why she might have said it. There is something too in the way she decided to share her accolade with all those other "brilliant, brilliant actresses" whom she edged out for this year's Oscar throne. A queen, is a queen, is a queen. So, what of it? Graciousness in the light of victory is both the most and the least the victorious can offer and people with only one genuine gold star in their collection probably care less about Oscar, Hollywood crowns or even Holyrood than what lies above and beyond in the immovable kingdom of one fatefully wandering star.

The human quest for immortality is what that star is all about, and has been for thousands of years. According to Oscar, public immortalization is just a game we play among ourselves while biding time in this nutshell dream of a body. According to Ptah, it is not a game, but a gold star reality - something the heart can count on to pull us through the mirror of life during times of crises and renew us in ways that cannot be explained by words alone. We pass from place to place, role to role and rung to rung on a ladder leading to and from the stars. No doubt the connection between this ladder, pawns and royalty holds the same view towards reincarnation and transformation as Indian chess. As for Oyster watches, pearls and pawns, or cabbages made kings and preisdents - to paraphrase Lewis Carroll...

The time has come, the tabloids say... but tabloids will write what they will write and say what they will say, while truth goes hungry and crying out in the street. I know less than nothing of Buckingham or Hollywood and I make a habit of staying as far away from Access Hollywood as I can. However, I can say that Mirren's virtual throne arrived without any background of personal want, starvation and bloodshed. Not so the chair Elizabeth I claimed at the expense of Mary, Queen of Scots, much less many of the male suitors who seem to have lost their heads over her while she, herself, was loosing her heart over them. And not so Elizabeth II, who as a child, knew only too well the odious trials of war, local poverty, power politics and senseless loss of lives. These are legacies few actors or actresses have to endure and while such individuals as Elizabeth II help sustain the aloofness of queens and kings, for good or ill, their conscience and not that of Hollywood or tabloid scavengers, will say what it has to say about them and when the time comes for a final reckoning of the balance, that moment will not be filmed.

Of course the tabloids will go on tattling what is advantageous to their publishers and paparazzi and like Hollywood, they will be judged accordingly. Since I have nothing to gain or lose in this entire equation, knowing that I have done only my best to keep this papyrus a civil one, I can say from the heart that I suspect much deeper and richer purple hovering in the background lights of rich and poor, famous and infamous alike than Hollywood can capture. Like the rooks Old England keeps in London Tower, these may represent many of the hidden things that make the circumstantial weight of crowns heavy or light, but like the poor who look up to them, they are not the playthings of the royalty who come to bear them much less the Hollywood that tries to snare them.

Winners and losers... sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. Tables turn on Oscar night and next year new royalty will be elected. How odd that is! An elected royalty? Perhaps it's better not to say who is who and what is what too loudly or too often. Careers have been forfeited like crowns for calling spades spades and in Hollywood or Holyrood, that's the name of that tune.

I Need to Wake Up (Melissa Etheridge)

Have I been sleeping?
I've been so still
Afraid of crumbling
Have I been careless?
Dismissing all the distant rumblings
Take me where I am supposed to be
To comprehend the things that I can't see

I'm not sure if I personally need to wake up Melissa Etheridge, but I'll let the typo stand for now, knowing full well that when you wish upon a star in Hollywood, as elsewhere, there is no telling how it may rise or fall suddenly, much less what that hidden star of destiny might signify to some. There is one star that never fails, however, and by the trail of footprints leading all the way from Egypt to Hollywood's Walk of Fame, we know a little about who may have dreamed and worn it like a crown. They are not always born to the manner or the manor and the weight of acquisition is said to be lighter on some than others. As for the crowns of England and Egypt. these are very curious objects in their own right. The closer we get to them, all the more "Curiouser and curiouser" they become. But, as with all things black and white, female or male, up or down, virtual or virtually real, if there was ever man in need of a consort, it is poor, lonely Oscar.

So then, if I were to supply him with the girl of his dreams - one to match the incredible gift for disguise and love of fashion that blend him with the stars of destiny, given Mirren's speech, among the many I could choose, this one in particular is a kind of standout.

And it gives me great pleasure to offer the tinkling Hollywood brass a gold star statuette fit for female actors of any day and age..

Afterthoughts on Dreaming Gods, Gold Stars, Oscar, Oscarina
and the Inbetween World of Shemale Paradox, Divine Irony and Chess

Now, there are Queens and queens and queens. There are even legendary British Music Hall and Hollywood entertainers who would be queens - are, in a sense "queens" - but who, like Oscar, are a little like themselves and a little unlike what they appear to be at first glance. There is, of course, no accounting for taste, DNA, candid appearances or how the star stuff of the universe assembles itself from primordial opportunities no mortal man, woman, or child can truly fathom. Grace be with and upon them all.

And so it is said that among their rank and file, famous Hollywood queens ignite a paradox that neither the icons of chess nor those of Hollywood seem capable of addressing - even though these queens have been given ample opportunity to address Hollywood and millions of Hollywood fans. They are, as a rule of thumb, attracted to pianos, costumes, make up, mehem and the same sex. Sometimes their appearance alone is enough to drive us mad, mad, mad. And "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", isn't it? To quote the Chessshire cat - "We're all mad here".

The International Chessoid Tomorrow's Muse Today !