2003

Best Picture: chicago

"John and Gwen's Oscar Party" becomes "The Barker Oscar Party" as we add a third host to the proceedings (fourth, if you include Fly). Chase Nicholas Barker, all of two months and eleven days old, makes his social debut at this year's party. Gwen had gone into labor hours after we'd seen this year's Best Picture winner "Chicago", which I guess signifies something, although I'm not exactly sure what. Unfortunately, after the first hour or so of the party His Majesty decides that he's had enough of everyone's company and retreats to his room for the night; he'll become a much more active participant in the evening within a few short years, though.

Cassette tapes, quickly going the way of the 8-track and the dinosaur, become increasingly difficult to obtain, so we start sending sending out the Best Song and Score nominees on CD's, which also include audio clips of scenes from the Best Picture nominees. This inaugural CD also included this behind-the-scenes aural representation of Gwen and me getting ready for the Oscar Party (taken from "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?")

During the party, Fly sets some kind of an all-time low in hosting standards by pulling Steve Holstad's brand-new suede jacket off of the pile of guests' coats on our bed and eating it. Bad dog!

The run-up to the U.S.-Iraq war was the dominating story in the news at the time, and it was widely believed that the date of invasion was set for March 23rd...the scheduled night of the Oscars. For the final weeks leading up to the party I sweated out the possibility that the start of the war on the 23rd might cause the Academy to push the ceremony back a day or more, forcing us to reschedule the party (and, conceivably, cause many of our guests to be unable to attend on the new date.) The ceremony and the party go on as planned, though, and I give a little speech at the evening's end, stating how grateful I am that everyone was able to attend, and how depressing I imagined it would have been if anything were to ever prevent that from happening. Little did I know...