Truth be told, our hopes were always with impeccable British thespian Colin Firth for the Best Actor Oscar (very quixotic of us, we know). Jeff Bridges is a very fine actor, but sentimental films that glorify drunken, over-the-hill minor performers, like Crazy Heart or The Wrestler, do next to nothing for us. A Single Man, that strange hybrid of Christopher Isherwood's novel and a Vogue magazine spread, was also the only gay story in contention at this year's Academy Awards, unless you count the guy-on-guy roughhousing scene from The Hurt Locker. And we do, we do.

Notes from watching the Oscars at the Academy of Friends gala, guests of our very good friends AIDS Legal Referral Panel executive director Bill Hirsh and his handsome partner, the birthday boy Thompson Chambers :

6:25 p.m.: The Brat Packers pay heartfelt tribute to late filmmaker John Hughes , many years and many drug addictions later.

6:30 p.m.: The anti-corporate Logorama wins Best Animated Short. Our consort Pepi's head explodes. The New Tenants, with urbane gay author David Rakoff in a major role, wins Best Live-Action Short. Out There's head explodes.

6:55 p.m.: Queen Latifah: still a big ol' slab of lesbian. Middle America's head explodes.

7 p.m.: Mo'Nique, winning for Best Supporting Apostrophe, gets rapturous cheers from the AOF crowd.

7:10 p.m.: Steve Martin salutes the "clothes whores" of Ho'wood. The glamorous spangled gowns displayed around the AOF Gala all came from the closets of the AOF Board of Directors.

7:40 p.m.: James Taylor sings mournful Beatles song "In My Life" during the "Famous Dead People" segment. Huge James fan B.'s head explodes.

7:50 p.m. During a strange and overlong interpretative dance number, T. tells us his (woman) friend X. once had sex with George Clooney ! Everybody in overhearing distance's head explodes.

8:15 p.m. Odd couple "furrin'" filmmakers Pedro Almodovar and Quentin Tarantino bestow the Best Foreign Film award to some Argentinean tearjerker no-one's yet seen.

8:25 p.m. Mega-juicy Irish actor Col

in Farrell says he once spooned on the set of S.W.A.T. with Hurt Locker lead Jeremy Renner. The homosexual population of SF's heads explode.

8:40 p.m. Best Actress Sandra Bullock promises to share her award with "my lover, Meryl Streep."

8:55 p.m. Katherine Bieglow is the first woman in Oscar history to win Best Director. Presenting diva Barbra Streisand's head explodes.

And in a heated cabana on the pool deck of the Beverly Hills Hilton, agents and producers are already putting together the package for The Hurt Locker 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Late winter play-list

We like listening to music on antiquated technology like CD decks! Call us Amish! Here's what we're spinning:

A Single Man (Relativity), the soundtrack to the Tom Ford film based on Isherwood's novel – score by Abel Korzenlowski, with "No Andro Lontana" from the opera La Wally (sung by Miriam Gauci), "Blue Moon" (sung by Jo Stafford), and this: "Don't know why/ There's no sun up in the sky,/ Stormy weather./ Since my man and I ain't together,/ Keeps raining all the time." – "Stormy Weather," sung by Etta James .

Scratch My Back (Real World) – Peter Gabriel sings covers of songs from David Bowie, Paul Simon , Talking Heads, Lou Reed, The Magnetic Fields, Randy Newman , Neil Young, Radiohead and others. "These are the days of miracle and wonder,/ This is the long-distance call,/ The way the camera follows us in slo-mo,/ The way we look to us all." – "The Boy in the Bubble" by Paul Simon.

The Floating Celebration by Vaus (Night World) – "It's time/ for the old heave-ho,/ and off we go/ to San Francisco!/ The world is skidding, so people, dig in!" – "San Francisco" by Vaus.

Realism by The Magnetic Fields (Nonesuch) – "Seduced and abandoned, and baby makes two,/ Baby, abandoned by you./ Seduced and abandoned, and what can I do?/ I think I might drink a few." – "Seduced and Abandoned" by Stephin Merritt.

The release of the Fields' classic 69 Love Songs box set on limited-edition 10" vinyl is coming on April 20 (Merge Records). The story has it that Merritt came up with the idea for 69 Love Songs while sitting in an elegant Midtown Manhattan gay piano bar. He originally planned for it to be a live musical revue, performed with a rotating cast of singers, in the hotel bars and cabarets of New York City.

69 Love Songs was first released in September 1999. Its booklet features liner notes written by Lemony Snicket author Daniel Handler. Arts writer Gregg Shapiro interviews the irrepressible Merritt in this week's Arts & Entertainment.

You'll also find arts writer Tavo Amador 's review of a new Mae West biography this week. So we may as well wrap up this item with what La West reportedly said while publicizing the film made from Gore Vidal's Myra Breckenridge. When asked about her co-star Raquel Welch, she replied, "Who? Oh, you mean the girl in my picture? She's very nice."

Lost world

The Balboa Theatre, 3630 Balboa St. at 37th Ave. in SF, will host the world premiere of Tom Wyrsch's film Remembering Playland at the Beach, a mere dozen blocks from the site of the beloved amusement park, on Tues., March 16 at 7 p.m. and 9:15 p.m.

The full-length documentary tells the history of SF's famous 10-acre seaside amusement park Playland at the Beach. Located next to Ocean Beach, it was torn down in 1972 to make way for a condominium development. More than three decades later, it remains one of the city's lost treasures. Gone forever are Laffing Sal, the Fun House, the Carousel, the Big Dipper, the Diving Bell, Dark Mystery, Limbo, Fun-tier Town, and more. The doc, with 12 interviews, 20 minutes of archival footage, 187 photographs and original music, was written and directed by Wyrsch (Creature Features), who will answer questions after each screening. Dan X. Solo will discuss carnival-game scams and present a mentalism act before the screenings. It's a great way to commemorate the lost cultural mecca of Playland. Tickets at www.brownpapertickets.com.