People have a hard time taking me seriously. Maybe it’s because I have been known to walk up to girls at bars and use “Will you be my catch of the day?” as a pick-up line or because I actually want to work for the FOX television network. Some might even say that it might just be that I write a column called “13 Inches” and fill it with 95 percent fart jokes and 5 percent self-referential ego-padding. Whatever the cause, people always are hesitant when I try to do something different. They don’t know what to think or how to view it. It’s frustrating.

Well, multiply that frustration by 100,000 and you know what Bill Murray must be feeling right now.

Murray has been my favorite actor since I had a favorite actor. By my estimation, I have seen “Caddyshack,” “Stripes,” “Ghost Busters,” “What About Bob?” “Kingpin” and “Rushmore” more than 200 times combined. His number of Oscar nominations for these six comedic masterpieces? Zero. Zilch. Nada.

This isn’t surprising. The Academy is very hesitant to reward comedic roles with Steve Martin and Jim Carrey being among the most glaring omissions. A good comedian makes a performance look effortless, and sometimes there is this perception that they are only playing themselves.

I fear the same bias might be applied to the brilliant “Lost In Translation,” a film that finds Murray playing a world-weary celebrity lost in himself and Japan. It loosely can be defined as a comedy, and Murray shows impressive restraint by only flashing his whit in fleeting moments, making him extremely effective. It’s the sadness and vulnerability that you remember. Still, I cannot imagine anyone else in this role, and the movie is just so good that I wish I could eat the brains of all involved in order to acquire their genius.

Now, I haven’t seen presumptive front-runner Sean Penn’s “Mystic River” and I don’t plan to. Life is too short to spend two and a half hours of my life bored out of my mind. The movie just reeks of arrogance, and I can think of more entertaining things than watching characters so tortured and anguished that you expect them at any moment to start kicking dogs and feeding apples with razor blades hidden in them to little children. I think I will take a pass.

I reserve less rancor for the other nominees: Ben Kingsley, Johnny Depp and Jude Law, but would you honestly be watching the ceremony with baited breath awaiting their acceptance speeches?

Everyone knows that Michael Vick is a more exciting quarterback when he is scrambling around recklessly, but there is a sickening need to make him conform and force him to become a stay-in-the-pocket-at-any-cost, drop-back passer. It’s the same way in Hollywood. Sure, they are too willing to cash in at the box office, but when it comes time for the entertainment industry’s biggest event, it’s color inside the lines or go home empty handed.

John Winger, one of Murray’s iconic characters from “Stripes,” said in that movie, “Y’know, one day, Tito Puente will be dead, and you’ll say, ‘Oh, yes, I’ve been listening to his work for years.'”

I desperately hope that same fate doesn’t befall Peter Venkman, Carl Spackler, Bob Wiley, Phil Connors, Ernie McCracken, Herman Blume and, most importantly, Bob Harris. A role and movie so perfectly suited to an actor’s talent comes along once or twice in a lifetime and it should be recognized now. So say it with me Hollywood …

Baby steps see “Lost In Translation.”

Baby steps give Murray an Oscar nomination.

Baby steps send Murray home with the Oscar he so richly deserves.