I’ll write about the wedding later, but right now, while the iron is hot, this one’s about the Grammys.

Poli and I trundled home from Ottawa last night and ordered pizza, started opening wedding gifties and turned on the Grammys. Here are my comments -- 'cause I just can’t resist harping on these trivial pop-culture events.

• Prince & Beyonce’s opening performance - In a pleasant surprise, Prince performed the opening number with Beyonce and did not have butt-less pants or a hole-in-the-belly-button shirt. He kicked ass is what he did, and though I know it’s not cool to like him, I’ll be damned if I miss his show next time he’s in town. The man can play *any* kind of music and participated in the highlight performance of the evening – before anyone else had even picked up an instrument or microphone.

• Outkast wins Album Of The Year - OK, I’d like to just ask: What Da F*ck? Don’t these guys have only one song, and not a very good one at that? Yes, I definitely see it’s catchy, but when a song’s chorus consists of “Hey Ya” and has to be adorned with T&A girls convulsing around in green leafy undergarments in order to distract us from the obvious lack of melody and effort that went into the song, why is it even being considered in the same sentence as a Grammy? The freakin’ Chicken Dance song is more complex. I smell a rat, and the rat is explaining to his army of marketzoids at Grammy headquarters that if they give an award to a young, hip, black artist purveying a rap-soul-pop cross-breed, the Grammys will come off with the new-found glitter and hipness they so desperately need. As if the music business hadn’t sunk low enough already.

• All Justin, All The Time - Justin exposes Janet’s boobie. Justin apologizes. Justin agrees to apologize again at the Grammys so that he may still attend. Justin brings along his mom to look like good boy. (Justin’s mom, incidentally, wears a low cut dress showing more cleavage than Pamela Anderson on a private cruise ship with a rock star of your choice. Did he buy those t*ts for her to celebrate his coming of age as an n’sync-less solo artist?). Justin wins an award, does the apology thing (enough already!), performs one of his songs, performs with Black-eyed peas, and stares overexposure straight in the eye.

• Speaking of Black-Eyed Peas - Now *they* would’ve been a good choice for an award. They have several principle members who could carry a group on their own, and they released a melodic song with a message last year. And oh yeah, the lead chick’s really hot. Not that I notice these things or give them any importance. :-)

• What’s with the sympathy awards/nominations?? - Look, I respect Warren Zevon, George Harrison, and Luther Vandross, but did they really have to die or suffer devastating debilitation to get recognized? Would the Grammy nominating committee have even considered these guys if the works in question were just another year’s worth of output, with many more to come?

• One person’s crap is another person’s art - Christina Aigulera’s elaborately staged and highly skilled fake emotional singing in “Beautiful” was followed by The White Stripes making as much noise as they possibly could with a guitar and a set of drums. Though both performances could be construed as crap, I’ll take the Stripes over Christina any day ‘cause at least what they’re doing has some semblance of genuineness to it.

• Credit where it’s due - Celine got stuck with a faulty mic and no monitor, but still managed to pull herself together and pretty much nail her duet. Kudos to her for pulling it off. I only wish that one of the Britneys had had to endure the same technical difficulties. I can only imagine one of them stamping off the stage in a hissy fit, or warbling away in another universe’s key. Now *that* would’ve been priceless.

• What, is his brain paralyzed too? - A lot (well, perhaps a little) has been made of 50 cent and his partially paralyzed face (due to a shooting, is that right?), but what was he thinking when he wandered up onstage thinking he’d won Best New Artist after Evanescence had just been called?

• Coldplay, part of a dying breed? - These guys beat out Beyonce and Outkast for record of the year with “Clocks,” and while I admit I’m biased toward them (I loved their album and the song), I’d be happy even if I didn’t like ‘em, because at least they’re doing it themselves.

• Beatlemania? Not quite - Vince Gill, Sting, Dave Matthews and a guy named Pharrell Williams played tribute to The Beatles with a rendition of “I saw her standing there.” Matthews got the words wrong (“I saw her dancing there”), and Williams accidentally switched into half-time after the guitar solo. Guys, don’tcha think it might’ve been a good idea to rehearse a couple of times before an international broadcast? At least they reminded me that behind all the hoopla, John and Paul were two very good vocalists who are difficult to duplicate.

• Weirdest award - Did anybody know that Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev and Sophia Loren won best spoken word album for children for Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf/Beintus: Wolf Tracks? Neither did I.

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