LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT

Why?  What’s the backstory here?  We need context.

LEA MICHELE AND THE PACKER

Just creepy.

Like this Lady Antebellum performance.  Teddy Pendergrass is rolling over in his grave.  That’s what I think of when I think soul music, middle class white country singers.

What’s the meaning of the term "American Honey" again?

Meanwhile, everybody tells me "Need You Now" is about a booty call.  I thought it was just about lost love, I guess I’m a hopeless romantic.  And ignorant.

MILEY AND THE KINGS

Are they gonna do drugs together?

GWYNETH PALTROW

The movie stiffed, can we stop seeing her on music awards shows?

CEE-LO

Outfit of the night, he’s channeling Elton.

Love the Muppets!

Meanwhile, Gwyneth’s not terrible, but isn’t this really Christina’s role?  This calls for belting, and didn’t she just get a divorce?

Give Cee-Lo credit, he’s having fun, and that’s what it’s supposed to be all about.  People will remember this performance more than who won, and I already know Cee-Lo did not.

Old man can make fun of himself, Justin Bieber’s got to take himself seriously.  Bieber should have sung with the Muppets. Has Kermit ever won a lifetime achievement award?

KATY PERRY

HD is not her friend.

Pop.  Here today, gone tomorrow, dependent upon hits.

Is this the new single?  Otherwise why would she lead with such a lame ballad?  Don’t tell me I should know, I’m not paying attention.

Is that real footage from her wedding?  That’s a cheap shot.  Is nothing sacred?  Is everything grist for the mill?  Meanwhile, she’s singing like Madonna, from somewhere down in her chest.

Okay, now she’s doing the hit.  The track is overwhelming her.  And I think she needs a new hairstylist.

I wish she weren’t trying so hard.  Trying to cover up a certain lack of talent, a feeling of inadequacy.

No "California Gurls".  That’s what I love about the Grammys, it’s not about the music, but commercialism.  Ever hear of giving the people what they want?

MAYER, JONES, URBAN

A new Crosby, Stills & Nash?

The vocals are overwhelming the guitars, and this music is rooted in that acoustic sound.

Did Dolly Parton die?  Then why are they singing "Jolene"?  Is she gonna come out and surprise us?

I’d love to hear these three cover a seventies country rock classic.  Maybe a whole album, cut in two days.

SONG OF THE YEAR

If Arcade Fire can win Album Of The Year, couldn’t Ray LaMontagne win this category?

Is Lady Antebellum really the only act to thank God so far?

Meanwhile, they thanked Gary Borman.  He deserves an award, because he’s done this more than once.  He built not only Lady Antebellum, but Keith Urban and Faith Hill and…  That’s the mark of a great manager, someone who can do it more than once.  Which means if you’re a developing act, you’re better off with Gary Borman than Paul McGuinness.

SETH ROGEN

Didn’t he lose all his credibility with "The Green Hornet"?  What, does he have a new show on CBS?

ADAM LEVINE

Does the stiff of Maroon 5’s new album prove for good that James Diener has not invented a new paradigm, that nothing has changed and it still comes down to hit songs?

EMINEM

I know this is working live, you’re feeling the energy, it’s a Marshallthon, but at home it’s just not working.

Meanwhile, next year can NARAS simulcast the Grammys on HBO, or at least the hip-hop performances, so we can hear the swear words, so half of the songs are not cut out?

GLENN FREY

"Boycott the Grammys until they change the name to the ouncies."

ESPERANZA SPALDING

This is what eviscerates the credibility of NARAS.  Is it a mainstream clusterfuck or an insider circle jerk?

NEIL PORTNOW

Please explain again how you make more money than almost everybody on stage?

Why don’t they play HIM off?

DAVID GEFFEN

You’ve got to stop with the plastic surgery dude.

Just because you’re a billionaire, that doesn’t mean you get a good result.

IN MEMORIAM

Why do the jazzbos come first?

MICK JAGGER

Wow, I can’t believe it, he’s GOOD!

Good song selection, let this be a lesson to so many others.

But I can’t stop thinking about his small dick.

This is the music that was embedded on 45s that we lost our virginity to at house parties.  We were infected by the music, needed to get closer to it, made us feel positively alive.  Too much modern music pushes us away.

Wow, he’s working the dynamics like it’s 1969.

He’s killing it, he hasn’t been this good in decades.  Put tickets on sale for the 50th anniversary tour tomorrow!

KRIS KRISTOFFERSON

I understand the casting, but he can barely get it out.
But he did write those classic songs that are still paying his bills decades later.  As for today’s new artists?

BARBRA STREISAND

Wait a second, it’s 1965 all over again!  Want to know what the Grammys were like prior to Mike Greene’s modernization, watch this.

RIHANNA AND DRAKE

It’s TRIBAL COUNCIL!

Isn’t this taking cross-promotion a bit too far?  Or are they both on the next season of "Survivor"?

RECORD OF THE YEAR

I got e-mail about this hours ago.  It was a hit song.  But a minor composition.  Evidence how vapid the scene is.  Or how lame NARAS is.

ARCADE FIRE

A great surprise…  IF IT WAS A SURPRISE!

CBS refuses to live in the Internet age.

Meanwhile, is there anybody in America who would refuse to sell out like these Canadians, who would refuse the major label money and go their own way?

Yes, more people will now know their music, but the vaunted Grammy bounce evaporated with the change of centuries and the democratization of music distribution by Napster and ultimately iTunes.

Arcade Fire is a beacon, that you can do it your own way and survive.

As for winning…  If you think that matters you’re still living in the nineties.

Okay, we’re done, on to March Madness!

ARETHA TRIBUTE

Enough to put Aretha six feet under.

Note to Christina…  SUBTLETY!  And just because you’re in the public eye that doesn’t mean anybody wants to pay to see you.  What planet are you living on?  AND LOSE THE HAND!

As to why Florence and Martina were there…can you say DEMOGRAPHICS?

At least Jennifer Hudson can sing, even if she does look like a completely different person.

PATRICK MONAHAN

What’s up with the hair?

Funny that a faceless band is interested in image.

(It’s the dude from Train, in case you didn’t know…)

LADY GAGA

The "60 Minutes" intro did her no favors.  She just looked uneducated and flavor of the moment.

Meanwhile, if you need to hold your hat on with your hand maybe you need to reconsider your outfit.

Not only did she steal Madonna’s song, she stole her whole act!

Didn’t anybody on her team realize this was "Express Yourself"?  Everybody online seemed to know instantly.  Madonna could sue her.  And maybe even win.  There’s no doubt about access.  As for substantial similarity?  I rest my case.

Meanwhile, didn’t anybody tell GaGa it was television?  You overdo it on Broadway, live in an arena, but looking like you’re on uppers does not work on TV.

WALK ON THE WILD SIDE

Sacrilegious, but at least someone still cares forty years on.  What was the name of that Lady GaGa song again?

8:35 PM

My inbox is filled with east coast viewers and attendees telling me who won the big awards.  Suspense?

MIRANDA LAMBERT

Look at those heels!  You might as well be wearing stilts!
So you’re short, is that a crime?  And it’s TV, we can’t tell!

LENNY KRAVITZ

Who’d he blow to get on this show?

MUSE

Wow, they’ve got their own stage set!  The three towers!  Not that it works on TV.

Never forget television robs rock of its magic.  Which is why when MTV found its stride it became about how you looked and special effects/creativity in videos, neither of which have anything to do with music.

Meanwhile, do we need the runners/dancers?

Forty years ago the BBC shoots the Eagles standing stock still, but now the music is no longer enough.  We’re going backwards.

BRUNO MARS, ET AL

It’s for the kids!

But I thought the rap in the middle actually worked against it.

Someone like Bruno Mars could never win on "American Idol", and ain’t that point.  It’s not about playing to America, but bringing America to you.

Bruno is closing me.

Now I’m bored.

It would be great to sweat to in the club but it’s hard to keep watching this, keep watching just about any music on TV.  Then again, remember that 9/11 tribute, with everybody from the Boss to Enrique Iglesias?  Then music was enough.  No backdrops, no dancing.

Janelle Monae…  If only she weren’t singing to tape, then maybe the song could breathe.

As for the crowd-surfing…  I thought the whites were supposed to rip off the blacks, not vice versa!

Your best chance to close people is with subtlety.  Just try throwing yourself at a love interest…  Get it?

ZAC BROWN

What’s up with the beanie?  At least put a cowboy hat on top, like Billy Gibbons.

Meanwhile, Jewel is nominated for a Grammy?  Could that be due to name recognition?

MOSH PIT

Why not make the entire floor GA?  That’s what the promoters in the audience would do, to sell more tickets, even though they say they only let in the same number of people as when there are seats…what b.s.

I mean maybe some real excitement instead of the industry stiffs. With a bar in the back.

EVA LONGORIA

Felice: "What does she have to do with music?"

JUSTIN BIEBER

They should have led with that 2007 clip.  At the top of the show.  Because the Grammys are about the latest, the greatest, the evanescent crap.  And nothing fits the equation like the Bieb.

Meanwhile, whenever I see this kid play an instrument I’m reminded of pre-teens in the basement.  So he can strum a guitar, who at that age can’t?

NINJAS IN THE HOUSE!  POUNDING DRUMS!

Give credit to Muse, at least they sang while the dancers performed.

The Bieb is so FAUX!  In leather, singing/dancing to beats, imitating every music video he’s ever seen.  He’s a mirror star!

Meanwhile, it’s not a bad song.  But performed at a level of sub-NKOTB amateurishness.

They used to say the Kennedys were America’s royalty  Now it appears to be the Smiths.

Meanwhile, shouldn’t the Black Eyed Peas be able to crash Usher’s set?  Isn’t turnabout fair play?

Felice: "It’s not music it’s entertainment."

Okay kiddies, it’s over.  Drink your milk, eat your cookies and go to bed.

MUSE

Best rock album of the year, I’ve got no problem with that.  They were the biggest SELLER!  It’s hard to have a winner which few have even heard.  I mean you can give honorary awards to the oldsters, but let’s not allow them to win for subpar new music.  If there’s gonna be any future in rock and roll the oldsters either have to lead or get out of the way.

LADY GAGA

You don’t play the biggest star of the night off.

Meanwhile, she must have cursed because the sound cut out.

TOP TEN

Academy President finally explains difference between "Record Of The Year" and "Song Of The Year".

That’s what we all want to know.  That’s everybody except those on the inside.

MUMFORD & SONS

Wow, it’s coming across as authentic.  Maybe it’s the warm visual tones that complement the music.  This is a career-making moment.  They’re gonna get a bigger bounce than anybody else on the show so far.  People know all the other acts, they don’t know Mumford, who are killing it, playing something anybody would definitely call music.

Energy, passion, authenticity.  Those are the keys to musical success, never forget it!

The performance is not perfect, which is why it works so well.  Play to tape at your peril.  Hard drives are for pussies.

AVETT BROTHERS

Wrong song for television.  Start off with energy.  Slow and meaningful only works when the audience is in a dark theatre and is forced to focus on you.

Now the song has sped up and revealed that…it’s just not good enough.

Good exposure, but no home run.

DYLAN

Funny, everybody in America is willing to work on Maggie’s Farm.  Yup, the plantation of the rich elite who pay ever fewer taxes as they oppress the rest of us.  I wonder why there’s no revolt here.

Meanwhile, the "Wall Street Journal" had it right, Dylan can no longer sing, he should hang it up.  Greatest songwriter of the rock generation (well, maybe that’s Joni Mitchell, and the Beatles are in their own category, but when it comes to lyrics…), but this endless victory lap has got to stop.  Embarrassing.

P.S.

I already know who won.  The show is running out of steam, like me, and half of my audience is already asleep.

I wasn’t going to watch the Grammys.

Until I started checking my e-mail and Twitter feed on my BlackBerry…

I set the DVR.  Figured I’d fast-forward through ’em at some later date.  But I feel drawn in by the magnetism of a cultural event, I now want to participate, I want to be a member of the club.

That’s why the Grammy ratings went up last year, and I expect them to be good this year too, because in a world where everyone speaks a different language, where we cannot even talk about watching the same TV shows, never mind listen to the same music, it’s fun to be a member of the club, we want to render an opinion, we want to kick the can.

Don’t take this as an endorsement of the awards or the winners.  Those are irrelevant, to be forgotten tomorrow.  In the Internet age, everyone gets an opinion, everyone is equal, and the haters want to weigh in as well as the lovers.  It’s like being a member of a family, you can’t divorce your parents or your siblings, but that doesn’t mean you can’t complain about them.

Unlike the movie industry, music has got it right.  It belongs to the people.  The Oscars have the imprimatur of importance. The Grammys are a joke.  NARAS nominates what the public loves, what’s in the mainstream, no one wants to tune in to see Grizzly Bear.  Not even the band itself.

That’s why soon we’re gonna have gazillion selling records*.  Not albums, singles.  Because just like "Avatar", people want to be included.  That’s what music does best, bring us all together.  And who knew that the Grammy show was an exponent of that?

It’s got to be broadcast at the same time across the country.

Unfortunately, this is not NARAS’s call, but CBS’s.  But if the Oscars can do this, why not the Grammys?

Because I want to e-mail and tweet with my bros on the east coast, watching it now.

I know that Train thanked Howard Stern.

I know that GaGa descended in an egg.

I’ve learned of the faux pas, but I’m left out.

And in the modern world, where everything happens now, this is anathema.  Everything’s here today, gone tomorrow.  Just like this telecast.  Let me play NOW!

* Maybe not sales, but streams.  Hell, check the Vevo numbers for GaGa.

There’s a scene in this film where John C. Reilly’s Dean Ziegler implores Ed Helms’s Tim Lippe to trust him.  Once you’re a friend of Deansy Ziegler, you’re a friend for life, your secrets are safe.

I was intrigued by the reviews.  I rarely go to the movies anymore, I can wait to watch five minutes or completely ignore them when they appear on cable a year later.  But I’m always interested in excellence.  That’s the secret sauce, greatness.

And there’s so much of it in "Cedar Rapids" that you end up feeling warm all over, believing you too are a member of the evolving group of buddies in this movie.

With a three hour window before seeing the Decemberists at the Wiltern, I surfed for movie availability.  I try to go to the ArcLight.  Because if I’m going to bother to spend my time, I want a good experience, and I’m willing to pay for it.

And right alongside the two-dimensional high concept fare at the multiplex in Hollywood was the flick that was warmly-reviewed by Joe Morgenstern in the "The Wall Street Journal", got an A- in "Entertainment Weekly" and got an 84 on rottentomatoes.com.  I’m not taking any risks with my time, I triangulate, I research before I purchase, I’m a BABY BOOMER!

Kids are impulse buyers.  Which is why all that advertising is geared towards them.  They’re susceptible, we’re not.  You can’t pull the wool over our eyes.  We don’t believe in flavor of the moment, we want to see the arc of a career.  Which is why NARAS is placing Dylan next to Mumford and Sons on tonight’s Grammy telecast. Bob may be almost unable to sing, but we’re not gonna tune in for a new band with no track record, we need the imprimatur of longevity.

I’ll admit that I loved Ed Helms in "The Hangover".  But I didn’t even know John C. Reilly and Anne Heche were in "Cedar Rapids", they were the unexpected bonus, alongside journeyman Isiah Whitlock, Jr., who plays a middle class African-American of unknown sexuality who works too hard, drives a minivan and enjoys antiquing.  That means he’s…

John C. Reilly ultimately calls Whitlock’s character on this.  That’s Deansy’s role.  To speak the truth.

We love those who challenge convention.

But institutions don’t.

It’s a hard road following the truth, when everybody else is kissing ass to get ahead, especially if you’re not beautiful like Brad Pitt and lack the personality of Jack Nicholson.

Deansy is the kind of guy we hate.  Whom we ultimately come to love and trust.  You know, someone we laugh at, not with, until we realize he’s got a good heart, that he means no harm, that he’s just trying to navigate this difficult game we call life.

And Anne Heche…  What to say about someone whose questionable behavior has media flogging her but is an incredible actress?  Sure, she’s probably better looking than the character she plays, but the fact that she made her choices and has to live with them resonates with us all.  You look back and think of all you want to change, unfortunately you don’t get that opportunity.

And then there’s that moment…  When John C. Reilly learns secret information.  Too often the hearer of facts like these uses them for leverage, to gain advantage over the speaker and move ahead in the game itself.  But Reilly does not do this.  Instead of screwing Helms, he bonds to him, says he’s his friend for life.

You know who your lifelong friends are.  The people you can count on, whom you trust.  They may not be stars, they may not be rich, but if you call them up and say you need a ride to the hospital, they come right over.  If they intuit you’re down in a phone conversation, they insist you journey over for dinner.  They’re there to share your triumphs and your losses. They’re your team, you can depend on them.

Everybody wants to be rich and famous, that’s what the media tells us.  Isn’t that the lesson of Snooki and the rest of the cast of "The Jersey Shore"?  That you’re only one reinvention away from stardom?  That if you can only come up with a catchy nickname…

But most people never get to be stars.  But that doesn’t mean they don’t live.  Selling insurance may not be glamorous.  But it might get you into bed with your elementary school teacher.

Ooh, I’ve said too much.  I won’t tell the tale of Macy, an eighties star sans plastic surgery who acts her age.  But I will tell you to see "Cedar Rapids".  Because it’s everything most movies are not.  It’s got no special effects, there’s no high concept and no bankable star.  But it’s more truthful and life-affirming than any of the blockbusters.  Sure, we go to the movies for escape.  But we also go to feel alive, included, not so alone. We’re looking for context.  We’re looking for insight on the human condition.  And we’re looking to laugh.

A big thumbs-up to "Cedar Rapids".

Cedar Rapids: Trailer