I’ve listened and considered and poked at the ground with a stick, and I think I understand what the Jon-Stewart-hosting-the- Oscar-show deal is going to be. The Blue Staters love his tweaky irreverence and are looking very much forward to his wicked bons mots, and the Reds aren’t into him as much (a guy wrote me claiming that people between the coasts and outside the cities don’t even know who he is) and won’t watch as much as they would if someone they felt more comfortable with had been chosen to host. Am I suggesting that the Academy release photos of Stewart waiting in line at a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise while wearing a T-shirt and a baseball hat? Fuck no. But the ratings, I fear, will not…naaah, maybe not. I don’t care about the Oscar show ratings anway. Let ’em fall…what do we care? And besides, as the New York Times “Carpetbagger” David Carr has written, “Mr. Stewart is an enemy of convention, of industrial folkways, of the mannered back-slapping of the entertainment business. Joaquin Phoenix won’t be the only one walking the line on Oscar night.”