Yet another Sunday of disenfranchisement

It’s bad enough to have just had a Sunday of Super Bowl [so what's an offensive pass interference?]. Now tonight I have to confront the Grammy Awards.

There was a time when music was more important to me than anything I’d see in the movies. I was the quintessential Beatle nut: I could sing all their songs backwards, I could make my voice SOUND like a Beatle – just ask me to do “Fool on a Hill.” And I was one of the 72 million that tuned in to the Ed Sullivan show 40 years ago. I was just 10, but I cried through it, I was that worked up.

I tried to keep current in music. Even when I returned to Poland in the late 60s, I found ways to tune in. And I was one of the lucky few to get tickets to the Rolling Stones when they “broke through” the “Iron Curtain” and traveled to Warsaw in March of 1967. I threw a bunch of flowers on the stage with a note for Mick: “call me: I speak English.” I was 13 and very naïve.

Then I lost it. I started experimenting with classical stuff, with women vocalists, with jazz, but any fool on the hill could tell that I was in the hinterlands and would never catch up. And now? Anyone who gets happy that Clinton won a Grammy because she wants to hear a familiar name does not deserve to watch the Awards.

Still, one Sunday on the margins is enough. I bought the Norah Jones CD, I know who the Sting is, and U2, and the sensual Celine, and my colleague keeps blogging about the Dave Matthews Band.. Sooo, I’m with the NYT reader from today (see post below) –it ain’t over til the fat lady sings (who is the fat lady, BTW?)!

P.S. Does Justin Timberlake always wear a suit and tie?