Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. What an exciting night. These past 3 and a half months have been very tough. The town was torn apart by a bitter writer’s strike but I’m happy to say that the fight is over, so tonight welcome to the make-up sex. Of course there is still obviously some collateral damage left over from the strike. Emotionally. Economically. Perhaps worst of all the canceling of the legendary Vanity Fair Oscar party. They said they did it out of quote respect for the writers and oh, you know another way they could show respect for the writers? Maybe one day invite some of them to the Vanity Fair Oscar party. They would enjoy it. Don’t worry, they won’t mingle, don’t worry.

They actually say that having the Oscars helped to end the strike. That the idea that getting the town back to work and having an Oscars was one of the impetus to get things done. Which I think is wonderful. So if we could, before spending the next 4 to 5 hours giving each other golden statues, let’s take a moment to congratulate ourselves.

-Jon Stewart, in his opening monologue for the Oscars last night.

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Every day the WGA and the producers are like, “No, we’re getting close. Keep watching TV. We’ll have new programming soon.” And every day nothing happens, except American Idol is more inexplicably popular than ever.

And with the Academy Awards only a few weeks away, things need to get settled if People wants to run its standard 40 pages of Oscar Glamour spread. Writers are threatening to picket, and you know actors. They’ll do coke in public, but crossing a picket line will ruin their reputation.

But now it doesn’t matter if the Oscars go on, because its raison d'être has been abandoned. In sympathy with the striking writers, Vanity Fair has canceled its party.

“There will be something sort of liberating about ordering Chinese food and watching the Oscars in bed,” Graydon Carter said.

Well put. Now stars really will be like us. Except we prefer pizza.