Academy Awards Special Guest Blog!

As I was practicing my Academy Award acceptance speeches earlier this week, I got a call from this insane guy named "Bookfraud." He called me at my Lake Como villa, rambling that he was burned out and sick of his "stupid, goddamn, whaleturd blog floating in the sea," and was furious that he hadn't snagged him a major book deal from it.

Whoa, whoa, dude. How did you get my private, top-secret phone number for which many females have died trying to obtain?

He said something about his wife being obsessed with me, and finding it in her address book (guys tell me that all the time), so I felt sorry for the guy. He begged me to do his next blog entry so he could take a "mental health vacation."

It had to be about writing, he said. This guy doesn't need a vacation, he needs a mental health career.

Bookfraud was one of many calls I get this time of year. This week alone, Al Gore called (of course I told him to run again), as did George Soros (short gold, go long on euro futures), Howard Dean (I have a stylist who can do wonders with gray hair), Steven Soderbergh (wants to talk about a script and needs a hot date for Sunday!), Julia Roberts (we dated, you know; wear Badgley Mischka to the Oscars, I told her, can't go wrong with that), Brad Pitt (advice on Angelina's erogenous zones - again), and Tiger Woods (needs a little help on his short-iron fade shots before the Masters).

I told Bookfraud, calm down, ease up, buddy, I can help you. Relax, just like Danny Ocean.

I totally understand what it's like to write. I wrote the screenplay to a movie that I directed (and is nominated, baby!), and it's important that I get my acceptance speeches just so, unlike most scripts. I've got a lot to say -- about politics, about how movies are made, about the corrupt society in which we live and the corrupt White House that runs it.

Like, for instance, notice how "ER" has totally sucked ass since I left? It lacks my moral and intellectual heft. Noah Wylie! Gimme a break.

I told ol' Bookfraud not to worry, and, as I pushed the three bisexual lingerie models off me and checked myself out in the mirror, I graciously volunteered to fill in, to show that I'm not just another pretty face.

Everybody thinks I'm vain, but I've shown them wrong. I got fat n' bearded for "Syrianna," and my fingernails got torn off. I even learned Arabic and Farsi. Hell, in "Good Night and Good Luck," there's a pasty, unattractive guy named Fred Friendly, who was Edward R. Murrow's director. I was Fred Friendly. I embodied pasty.

The writers I know are fat, pasty, or both. And they're pretty cranky bunch, whiny and bitter, like this Bookfraud dude. That's why I'm writing my own screenplays from now on, like "Good Night and Good Luck." It's just like "Citizen Kane," except with pasty, unattractive people.


Fat, bearded, and Oscar bound!

But I am worried. Nic Cage told me playing a screenwriter was the worst, because he had to hang out with the guy for a day. I don't want to turn into Charlie Kaufman! Ugh.

It's always better to be an actor than a writer. Even if you're a semi-famous actor, you get all the lady friends you desire, even if you're not tall and gorgeous and multi-talented and able to speak Arabic and Farsi and used to date Julia Roberts.

That's because even if you gave the crappiest dinner theater performance of your life, nobody blames the movie bombing on you. Everybody blames the director, mostly, but also the screenwriter, the producer, the editor, the publicity department. You can get some of the blame, but never all: usually, the problem was that the "script was weak" or that you "needed to be directed."

Even when your acting stinks, you can have a winner. Just look at my buddy Keanu Reeves.

But those fiction writers are masochists. If their book falls flat, artistically or at Barnes & Noble, it's their fault and theirs alone. I hear that fiction editors these days rarely "edit," because they're too busy acquiring new books. I also have it on good information that publishing house publicity departments are being torn in about five thousand directions at once. It would be like the studio not publicizing "Ocean's 12"! What, are they insane?

I can also tell you that book critics are the only bunch of people who are bigger assholes than movie critics.

Writers have one big advantage, though: they don't have paparazzi. No helicopters are chasing them. They're boring, and they're just too damn ugly. You don't see paparazzi at the National Book Awards. Though I'd like to win the award, one day. Hell, if Madonna can write a children's book, I know I can write an award-winning novel!

The only writer I am jealous of is Salman Rushdie. Ever see his wife? She is hot. Seriously hot. We're talking Catherine Zeta-Jones hot. In fact, I've got Rushie's wife right here in my speed dial.

So watch me on the Oscars kick some serious Academy butt. I'll have Salman Rushdie's wife on my arm. Good night and good luck. To me, of course.