Axel Folly

Axel Folly

So who else watched the Oscars last night? I did, despite the fact that I only saw two of the 56 films nominated for best picture—Up in the Air and District 9. Giant alien prawns in the same category as the luscious George Clooney is a true travesty. But so was Sarah Jessica Parker’s spray tan. OH MY GOD who was the genius who 1) made her neon orange, 2) did her Mother of the Bride updo, and 3) slapped that toga dress on her. Now I’m going to have to go see Hurt Locker since it won best picture and Kathryn Bigelow won best director and she was up against her megalomaniac ex-husband James Cameron. Girls kick ass!

Clearly I did not get to my Sunday NYT until much later in the evening, after texting everyone I know to say that I would have been so much funnier than Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin and their ass performance reminiscent of David Letterman’s. By then I was only interested in a couple front page stories. The one on that Scientologist defector couple, and the profile of David Axelrod. The stories were somewhat connected since the Scientologists were, like, so totally surprised that the Church of Scientology is batshit crazy, and David Axelrod was, like, so totally surprised that Washington D.C. is batshit crazy.

Did anyone read it? Could Axelrod have come off as any more of a grumpus maxiumus? (“Grumpus maximus” is a more masculine way of saying “whiny little crybaby” since it sounds kind of Gladiator-like.)

In an interview in his office, Mr. Axelrod was often defiant, saying he did not give a “flying” expletive “about what the peanut gallery thinks” and did not live for the approval “of the political community.” He denounced the “rampant lack of responsibility” of people in Washington who refuse to solve problems, and cited the difficulty of trying to communicate through what he calls “the dirty filter” of a city suffused with the “every day is Election Day sort of mentality.”

What’s a flying expletive?

While I think everyone would agree that DC is a dysfunctional place, wouldn’t you know that going in? I mean, this guy grew up on Chicago politics and he’s shocked—SHOCKED—at all the nastiness. I must admit, though, that this description of Axelrod’s lunch was a tad mean-spirited, given that the writer had already pointed out that he’s 20 pounds heavier than he was during the campaign:

Sitting at his desk next door to the Oval Office last week, he was tearing into a five-inch corned beef sandwich on rye with a Flintstone-size turkey drumstick waiting on deck. I’d hate to have anyone writing about what I eat for lunch, which typically consists of a bag of goldfish, veggie chips, some yogurt (sometimes with crushed veggie chips), and 25 Werther’s.

Is it fair that the Obama team has been roundly criticized by its own party for perceived failures at fulfilling campaign promises? Of course not. Is it fair that I’m a blogger of a certain age who actually throws full-on temper tantrums on rainy mornings because I don’t want to get out of bed? Of course not. We all have our crosses to bear. I mean, come on Axel, you get to work for THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Not a bad gig.