Grammy and Paw

Oh, Lord have mercy. First blog of the week, and I already have to apologize. Man, that's a bad pun, even for me.

But you see, I watched the Grammys last night. I wasn't going to admit that in public, but now that I have, I guess I may as well blog about it.

"Grammy?" OK, that's obvious. I guess "Paw" would refer to Mick Jagger showing up.

Now, I have to tell you right up front, I have hated the Grammys my whole life. And that's kind of what prompted this whole blog. You see, I would normally not watch them under any circumstances, seeing as how, well, I've hated them my whole life. But a couple of things happened that got me watching this year.

First of all, there was nothing else on TV last night. At all. And I was home with a lot of free time. And second, I heard the Avett Brothers were performing.

OK, so the stage was set for me to tune in. But wait. There's kind of a third thing, one that goes into the whole "I've hated the Grammys my whole life" thing.

See, as anyone who's read any of the press about the Grammys today knows, the big story of the night is that someone won the Best New Artist Grammy that apparently only 1% of the population has heard of. Her name is Esperanza Spalding. To be honest, I'd never heard of her either, but she seemed to be a lovely girl, and she plays jazz bass, which is just fine by me.

She won over several more popular artists, namely Drake (who began life on "Degrassi: The Next Generation") and some little dude with a lot of hair named Justin Bieber.

And the Bieber fans are livid about this. How dare some unknown take the Grammy away from their Chosen One, their version of Jesus, Our Lord, at least for the last 12 or so months.

And this, my friends, is why I'm writing my whole Grammy (and Paw) blog tonight.

The reason I began hating the Grammys is because I watched them when I was a kid, and none of the people I liked won. I liked teen idols as a kid? Then Sinatra and Dean Martin won. I liked Elton John as a teenager? Then Fleetwood Mac and Jethro Tull won. It was maddening. "What's wrong with these people? Don't they know good music when they hear it?"

And there are two things I could say about this. The first is that no, they don't know good music when they hear it. They're bloated fatcats who vote for who they want to, and you'd better like it or lump it. The second is that no, you're a kid and your taste in music sucks, so you'd better like it or lump it.

And that is exactly what I'd like to say to the people last night whose favorites didn't win. The Grammys will never make you happy, so please, do what I did. Realize that they do in fact suck, thumb your noses at them, and go out and discover the people they don't reward with their little grammophone trophies.

Elvis Costello didn't win Best New Artist? Well, fuck you, Grammy People, I'm going out to find people even more obscure than Elvis (at the time)! And I did, and I'm glad I did.

So there. That's out of the way.

Now, about last night's show. Whew, where to start. First of all, as I was sure it would, it made me feel very old. I generally have no trouble admitting I'm way out of the loop where today's music is concerned, but Holy Jumping Shitballs, it was brought home to me during last night's show. I may have known a few names of people throughout the night, but there were few to whom I could explain their nominations this year.

So of course, the nominees and winners meant little, but I got over that, because over the years I've come to expect that.

However, there were a few points that I did care about, enough to have the whole show get up my nose. (Which happens every time I watch, and I even expect it, which begs the question, "Why do I watch?" and the only reason I have for this is that I am the proverbial glutton for punishment.)

And so I shall try to address them here, quickly, but you know me, so it probably won't be so quickly.

OK, here we go.

1. During the Grammys I saw: "The Wannabe" Lief Garret, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Tammy Wynette, Joy Division, Aretha Franklin, Madonna, James Brown - can't anyone be original? Is this what 2011 has brought us to?

2. When did the Grammys decide that the whole show would be (first) performances all night? I had watched the damn show for over an hour, and after that over an hour, only one grammophone had been given out. At the end of the night, and I don't know, I'm totally guessing here, no more than 15 awards (of roughly 4000) had been presented.

3. When did the Grammys decide that the whole show would be (second) all these odd combinations of people singing together? Can't one artist just come out and sing a song? (OK, apparently they can, Arcade Fire did just that.) But it seemed no one could take the stage last night unless they were accompanied by at least two other people. And OK, fine, seeing John Mayer (hate), Norah Jones (hate), and Keith Urban (don't care) doing a version of "Jolene" was great (it really was nice), and seeing my Avetts with Mumford and Sons (I saw them for the first time and they were good) and Bob Dylan (well, what can you say?) were great too - it seems they just want to frontload all the stars to make you overload, like having too much cotton candy at the state fair.

4. Speaking of having 4000 Grammys now, remember when they used to have commercial breaks or downtime where they read the "lesser cared-about" awards? Before breaking for Revlon or Target, someone came out and read the "Best Traditional Polka" or "Best Spoken Word Under 4 Minutes?" Well, screw that - apparently no one cares anymore, so if you won a Grammy for that, you're screwed. In fact, your Grammy (and Paw) listening at home never got to hear your unknown name mentioned. Hey, if winning a Grammy is so important, why the hell don't they at least read your name? Oh yeah, because Justin Bieber needs to dance with Usher.

5. Since when is it OK at the Grammys to lip sync? I don't care what anyone else says, Lady Gaga was lip syncing. And hell, let's get this out of the way right now: that song she "wrote" is just Madonna's "Express Yourself" - I mean, why else would I have been singing "Express Yourself" all day today at work - no other reason - but she was hopping and dancing and running around, and there was not a single hard breath in her microphone. Not a bounce while she was hopping. She was lip syncing, and anyone who says otherwise is a fool. Oh, and someone in the press today mentioned that Rhiana (yeah, right, Rhiana, like she has talent) dropped her microphone at one point to her waist, and her vocals still continued loud and strong.

6. Mr and Mrs Will Smith, would you please take your kids out of the public eye and put them in school? Hell, put them in "Half-a -Day" school, so then you can use the other half a day to send them to acting and singing school. They are not talented, they're regular untalented kids. Stop using your famous feet to kick through the door to make them famous now. It does nothing but give them a false sense of security and talent, and annoys the rest of us. Let them try again when they're 18 or so and have a little learning under their belts. Your son is not a singer or actor, and your daughter is not a singer or fashion designer. You all seem like nice enough folks, but this shoving of your kids down our throats when they're so untalented makes me want to punch your kids in the face, which I know you don't want, so teach them a little first, OK??

7. This is the Grammys. It's about music. Or so I thought. Why are Seth Rogen and Jason Siegel there introducing acts? Besides the fact that they movies to promote? Why are Eva Longoria and Selma Blair and Kim Kardashian getting coverage for showing up? We have enough celebrities in each category - we don't need to cross-breed.

8. I'd heard of Arcade Fire, but didn't know anything by them. And though their first performance was widely panned, I have to say I loved it. OK, the bike riders onstage were more then lame, but they themselves - 8 or 10 people making up a band, thrashing, people singing into bullhorns, a keyboardist screaming for five minutes into a microphone - that's excellent, and I'm happy you won the so-called best Grammy of the night, even though I may never listen to you again. (Although the fact that when you did win the so-called best Grammy of the night, you went to sing again, which seemed more than rigged.)

9. Ricky Martin, if you ever wear silver lam�é pants again, I'm hiring a hit man on you. I mean it. You've already come out. We all know it now. You don't have to advertise anymore.

10. Gwenyth Paltrow, you are an actress. A marginal actress, with a couple of good performances. You are not a singer. Your voice is mediocre at best, and that's stretching it. Quit singing, on television and with recording artists better than you are.

11. What in the hell happened to country music? A lame-ass country song won both Song of the Year and Record of the Year, and a couple of other grammophones, and the song that won for Best Country Song was not only lame, but a total rip-off of a fantastic song from a decade ago, "This Old House," by the Rice Brothers. You have some atoning to do, Country Music - go to Robbie Fulks and genuflect.

12. Dear Grammys: We know you only gave out 15 (or so, I'm still guessing) awards last night, but with all those silly performances, your show was 3 1/2 hours long? If you're not going to give out real awards, and not even announce the "lesser" (to you only) awards of the night, anything over three hours is a crime against humanity. And I'm thinking of having you brought up on the charges.

OK, so that said, I fell off to sleep a little after the Grammys ended (30 minutes - at least - overtime), but I drifted in sleep in fits and starts, shaking with the knowledge of what music has become.

Hey, maybe that's why I don't sleep anymore. I know what music has become. Or not.

On an up note, though, Gwyneth aside, I like that "Fuck You" song by Cee-Lo. It's catchy and funny. He should have been allowed to do it alone, and with all the profanities intact. Oh, and much as I hate to admit it, Mick Jagger ("Paw") doing Solomon Burke was fine indeed. He danced longer than I ever could have, and he's older than I am.

Seacrest out.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Milo played at the dog park yesterday. However, he rolled in the dirt for 45 minutes with a Schnauzer. Like you do. He is so filthy he's like Pig Pen from Charlie Brown - you pat his back, and a cloud of dirt appears. I hope I have the strength to throw him in the shower tonight. Or at least tomorrow night.