The Highlight of the Grammys

I actually considered terminating this blog. For six years I’ve ranted about the pathetic and dysfunctional state of pretty much all American institutions— public education, and organized religion, and public health / medicine, and giant financial corporations, and the “traditional” heterosexual American family, and labor unions, and the United States Government together with their chief client— the Pentagon. It’s not that I’ve run out of critical things to say. It’s just that so many bright thinkers now are all saying the same thing, and for me to continue would be merely to overstate the obvious. I might as well blog every day that rich and healthy is better than poor and sick.

So now I’ve been reduced to blogging about the Grammys. Okay, going into it I knew it would consist of non-stop renditions of “I Will Always Love You.” What I didn’t foresee was that they would never once mention Dolly Parton who actually wrote the song and sang it in a film a full ten years before The Bodyguard. There I go being critical again. But let’s face it— the Grammys wasn’t about musicology. It was about idolatry, and the idol wasn’t Dolly Parton.

That’s not to say that the Grammys were a waste of my time. I got to see the most amazing and creative commercial I’ve ever seen on television. I’m referring to the animated Chipotle commercial done with a voice-over song sung by Willie Nelson. Yes— that one with the pink pigs stylized to look like piggy banks. Nothing aired during the Super Bowl this year, or any other year, was this good in my opinion. Unfortunately, I’m willing to bet that the spot will prove to be a commercial failure. It was far too intelligent and subtle to sell very many burritos.

It Was All About Ms. Aguilera

Let’s face it. July 4th really isn’t America’s day to shine, at least not beyond our borders. July 4th is our homeland celebration, but when it comes time to show the world why the U.S.A. is a big deal, that honor is reserved for Super Bowl Sunday. It was claimed that Sunday’s game was seen by one billion people, which means that 850 million foreign TV viewers were watching. America does three things in a bigger way, and better than any other nation on earth— self-congratulatory patriotism, television advertising, and good old rugged, smash-mouth football (not to be confused with soccer), and Super Bowl Sunday showcased all three of these core competencies. And then, just to show the world that we have a sense of humor, we selected— to lead us in singing our Nation Anthem— a “vocalist” who looked like a Barbi doll, but who didn’t know the lyrics or the melody to the Star Spangled Banner. Francis Scott Key’s musical composition was evidently viewed as merely a guideline for individual interpretation by Christina Aguilera.

There was an even more patriotic time in America’s past, during and after World War II, when a singer named Kate Smith routinely sang God Bless America and The Star Spangled Banner. She knew all the lyrics, and she hit every note with perfection. She always made the song be “about America.” Christina Aguilera made Sunday’s performance of our National Anthem be all about her. It didn’t work out all that well.