By that I mean I’m mad at the Oscars.  More to the point, I hate them.  And I hate that you still love the Oscars even though they take and they take and they give nothing back.  And I want to break you guys up.  And the way I plan to do that is to introduce you to some awards way cooler than the Academy one. 

I loved the Academy Awards when I was a kid.  I didn’t really watch the ceremonies from end to end – I was too young to stay up that late – but I saw the pictures in the newspapers and I loved the idea.  My sister had a book about the history of the Oscars and I pored through that, memorizing names and dates – the book ended in 1968 or 1969, right at the end of the line for the Hollywood studio system.  People looked so great back then, the gents in their tuxedos and the ladies in their elegant gowns.  The sophistication, the repartee.  And if people weren’t well-spoken, they were at least plain-spoken.  Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas singing “It’s Great Not to be Nominated” – there was nothing better than that.  I was on board for quite a while but at some point during the Eighties I began to notice the cracks in our relationship.  Oscar began making poor choices, as if he really wasn’t thinking things through.  By the time RAINMAN (1988) won “Best Picture,” I was throwing Oscar’s things out onto the street.  When CRASH (2005) won “Best Picture,” I went over to Oscar’s place, asked to borrow some personal items, went back to my place and threw them all out the window again.  I get mad like that.  To celebrate Oscar Madness, I want to introduce you to a roster of far-worthier awards that don’t get nearly the attention of Old Baldy.  See if you can wrap your mind around these:

1.  The Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award.  A tribute to cult horror movie actor Rondo Hatton (1894-1946), these annual awards celebrate excellence in all branches of the fright game: movies, books, articles, artwork, toys and even people who have been or still are important to the genre.  I’d kill for one of these Kerry Gammill-sculpted beauties.  (I was nominated once upon a time and I don’t even remember why.)  My friend Tim Lucas has about 12 of them.  You think he’d share.

2.  The Edgar Allan Poe Award.  Known more commonly as “The Edgar,” this bust of the celebrated author of The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven and The Pit and the Pendulum is awarded each year by the Mystery Writers of America for excellence in novel, movie, and stage play form, in both fiction and non-fiction, as long as mystery is the soul of the plot.  Okay, so the award sort of looks like shaving cream should come out of Poe’s nose or something when you press on his head but I still think this award kicks Oscar’s electroplate ass.  Past winners include novelists Raymond Chandler, Patricia Highsmith, Ross Macdonald, Ellery Queen, Ira Levin, Chester Himes, and P.D. James, as well as screenwriters John Michael Hayes (for REAR WINDOW), Joseph Stefano (for PSYCHO), Ernest Tidyman (for THE FRENCH CONNECTION), Quentin Tarantino (for PULP FICTION) and Christopher Nolan (for MEMENTO).

3.  The Hugo Award.  Shaped like an Old Timey rocket ship, the Hugo is awarded for excellence in the fields of science fiction and fantasy and is named for Hugo Gernsback (1884-1967), founder of Amazing Stories.  The Hugos have been presented every year since 1955.  Robert Heinlein has won several Hugos for his novels (including Stranger in a Strange Land and Starship Troopers), as have Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Neil Gaiman and J. K. Rowling.  So, yeah, it’s only for novels… but in my book, a silver statue of a rocketship beats a gold statue of some naked guy.

4.  The Saturn Award.  Another statuette for excellence in science fiction, the Saturn has many categories for the various media in which one can demonstrate excellence.  Again, my friend Tim Lucas has one (he has lots of cool stuff), for his book MARIO BAVA: ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK, which he picked up personally at the awards ceremony here in Hollywood last year while he got to hobnob with the likes of filmmaker Guillermo del Toro (MIMIC, HELLBOY, PAN’S LABYRINTH) and cult legend John Saxon (THE EVIL EYE, ENTER THE DRAGON, BLACK CHRISTMAS).  The Saturn is class.  The awards were first presented in 1972, by William Shatner.  ‘Nuff said.

5.  The Screamfest Awards.  The official award of the Screamfest Horror Film Festival (the largest horror film festival in the United States) is a freaking skull and it just doesn’t get any cooler than that.  What must it be like to win one?  You must feel like some Aztec or Mayan or Toltec demi-god or, I don’t know, Indiana Jones or something, strutting up to the podium to the thunderous applause of your peers and assorted freaks to take possession of a human head stripped of flesh and tissue and gleaming gold.

There are so many cool awards – The Dracula Society has its own rewards for provable excellence and then there’s the Crime Writer’s of America Dagger and the International Horror Guild has an award shaped like a tombstone (my friend Tim Lucas has one of those, too) but best of all is the AVN (the Adult Video News) awards for excellence in the adult entertainment industry.  That’s right… porn Oscars!  I don’t know what the statuette looks like for that.  I’m not sure I want to know.  But I’ll bet you Tim Lucas doesn’t have one!