Gator Got Yore Grammy

I didn't watch the whole Grammy show last night–missed Lady Gaga, though I did catch her appearance on 60 Minutes. Shrewd young woman, and a lot smarter than you'd think looking at the costumes. Madonna's heir apparent; she knows exactly what she is doing.

Most of the music in the running for awards I'd never heard, nor of the groups who sang it. The group that won album of the year did a number that was for me,  unwatchable. The light show was idiotic, and the music punk-rock monotonic and a yawner. Yeah, Eminem won something, and Rihanna has great junk in the trunk and all, but the cutting edge is so far ahead of where I am I'd need the Millennium Falcon to catch up to it, and–let's be frank here–I don't care to ask Han for the loan, you know? Not my music, never gonna be.

The one pleasant surprise was Esperanza Spalding, a local jazz singer and stand-up bass player who became the first jazz singer ever to win Best New Artist. Blew right past Drake and Justin Bieber, showing that, now and again, talent does triumph. 

The New Yorker ran a piece on Spalding last March, and she's a great success story. Raised by a single mother in a poor neighborhood in Portland, the child was pulled out of public school in the fifth grade because her mother was convinced the school wouldn't allow her to reach her potential. 

Home-schooling sometimes works out ...