Gator Got Yore Grammy

Watched the Grammys last night. There was the usual bespangled and bedecked crowd of singers, dancers, musicians, actors, producers, A&R guys, ranging from children to Tony Bennett. Geezers doing rock, from Springsteen to McCartney, with a Beach Boy reunion, a tribute to Glenn Campbell, who has Alzheimer's, and Glenn himself, doing "Rhinestone Cowboy."


The usual good, the bad, and the ugly.


Rather than a listing of who won what, who I thought the real winners and losers were.


Best Presenters: Folk/Country duo Civil Wars, who introduced Taylor Swift. They sang a couple of verses of their Grammy winner "Barton Hollow," just them and a guitar, and it was terrific. And of course, Taylor is cute as a ladybug.


Best Costume: You could barely see them it was so dark, but the dancers backing girlfriend-beater Chris Brown for his rap with L'il Wayne, with the Foo Fighters and Dangermau5, in the tent, wore what appeared to be spandex about as thick as spray paint.


Best James Brown Re-incarnation: Bruno Mars, right down to the drop-split and bounce up.


Best Tribute to Whitney Houston: Jennifer Hudson. Woman has a voice on her.


Best Line in an Acceptance Speech: Adele, for "Oops, a bit of snot," when collecting the Best Album Grammy.


Best Hair: Bonnie Raitt, of course.


Best Plastic Surgery: Gwyneth Paltrow. Also Least Necessary Plastic Surgery.


Best Impression of a Cylon and Gort the Robot: Dangermau5. I must be way out of the loop. I'd heard of this guy, but the only way that electronic head does it is if you are maybe on good-quality psychedelics. I mean, really, kids? A DJ in a mouse-head?


Worst Dressed Male Performer: Jason Aldean, who wore a black tuxedo with a shirt unbuttoned to his sternum, with cowboy boots and a thirty-gallon hat that looked as if it had been airbrushed to look like a desert and sprayed with shellac. 


Worst Dressed Female Performer: Nicki Minaj, who also wins Worst Overall Performance for that hideous mash-up of The Exorcist and ... whatever else it was. 


Worst Rock Jam: I hate to say this, because I love the songs and the performers, but the McCartney medley, "Golden Slumbers," "Carry That Weight," and "The End," was way too choppy. I mean, Sir Paul had Bruce Springsteen, Dave Grohl, and Joe Walsh to switch off leads with, and he was pointing to them and giving them all of six or eight bars before moving to the next player. I know the show was running long–it always runs long–but Geez Louise, couldn't they have eliminated one of Chris Brown's numbers? The one where he did gymnastics all over a disco-lit hill of boxes, but you couldn't hear him singing? 


I'm sorry Whitney Houston died. The tragedy, of course, unfolded over several years, drugs, bad marriage, booze, and being found face-down in a hotel bathtub is just the final fall. Accident, suicide, murder? The coroner will get back to us, and one can never be sure guessing in advance, but I'd guess an OD is not a bad bet if you want to make it. Her ghost haunted the show this year, even when Alicia Keys and Bonnie Raitt came out to do their tribute to Etta James, they had to mention it, and it sounded tacked-on. 


I wonder why somebody didn't step in and do something for Houston when she was alive. It would have mattered a lot more.


Um. Anyway. So another Grammy show goes ...