Media Fool

I have friends who don't own a TV set. Suddenly confronted by the Grammy Awards telecast last night, I'm sure a few would hurl wreaths of garlic at the screen while making the Sign of the Cross.

And that would be the atheists.

As a writer, though, you gotta love it. A sure sign of societal degeneration is when more and more elements of the culture morph into a self-mocking parody, and the actors aren't in on the joke.

You can't make this stuff up.

I mean, really... Earth, Wind & Fire as the backup band for Ridiculous (or whatever his name is) and Mary Kay Bilge(sic) with her hairpiece on crooked. Thank goodness she didn't win any more awards. She was about to give her next acceptance speech while speaking in tongues.

Most of the music stunk, a lot of it offered up by either never-will-be's or has-beens and in general not well-rehearsed. Some Low Lights: Rascal Flats 'honoring' The Eagles with a vapid, lifeless cover of Hotel California. A tribute to 'Soul' began behind the velvet smooth glory of Smokey Robinson and Lionel Richie, but ended with the farce of Chris Brown having some kind of fit onstage, flopping around aimlessly to a pre-recorded sound track. The Red Hot Chili Peppers mailed it in, Flea as always an annoying distraction. Carry Underwood sang like she was there because she won a popularity contest, hardly a surprise. Justin Timberlake should be working behind the counter at a Popeye's Chicken somewhere. Instead, against all odds, we are again haunted by the emotionless smirk of the 2001 Banality USA Poster Boy.

And, no... I'm not saying that just because of Scarlett Johansen.

It was so bad, during many of the candid shots into the audience, people were whispering to each other behind cupped hands and exchanging puzzled looks or shrugs.

There were a few goodies, notably Christine Aguillera belting on the James Brown classic, This is a Man's World , and the Dixie Chicks, a class act.

There was also an adequate dose of the awesome Shakira shim-shaking her incrediblecaboose, but that has little to do with music.

The show needed a host, a guide--someone to tell us how to make sense of it all, as if that were possible.

What does it mean, Jellybean? Is it merely an opportunity for public voyerism into the pitiful lives of the chronically overindulged? Is that all this is?

Oh.

I'm still going to buy records, or whatever they call them nowadays. There are people still making good music somewhere. We should find them.

NEWS ANALYSIS: You gotta love it. Yesterday, CNN ran a piece, the core premise that Condoleeza Rice denied she would run for President in '08. Denials are just not interesting, guys. (Remember, "Hey, OJ... did you do it?")

What they really need to do is to ask the right question. As a reknowned expert on media fabrication of news that's not news, I suggest someone at CNN, maybe Larry King, ask Ms. Rice the following, "When you attend the Presidential BBQ's at the Crawford ranch, do you prefer the ribs, sausage or brisket?"

Larry could do this under the ruse of making her seem more human--a daunting task to begin with, but she'll probably take the bait. Then, regardless of her answer, you can make up any number of interesting tag lines:

• Rice craves boss man's meat
• Condie denies oral contact with Presidential sausage
• Bush porks Condy at Crawford Affair
• GWB stuffs Sec. of State with huge wiener
• Secretary Rice slashes Bush ribs

It doesn't matter if there's some sort of fluff piece to follow, just as long you get another ad-click opportunity on the website or get the rubes to sit through three-minutes worth of furniture ads.

And it's not dishonest at all. Caviar Emptied... duh...

I look for interesting stuff in the news to make fun of, and it's becoming more and more a mean and ugly business. It's all too easy to parody, and most of the news isn't funny.

Is Michael Jackson, 'funny'? How about Paris Hilton, tidal waves, prison-going priests, or George Bush cutting his homies in on a fat slab of the Social Security pie?

Okay... Paris Hilton is sort of funny. She was invented for the new millennium, poster girl for those afflicted with poor eyesight and bad taste.

And she probably tastes bad, too.

Paris deserves a haiku.

NEWS THAT'S NOT NEWS: A Marine Corps General recently came under fire for saying it was fun to shoot Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. Why this is newsworthy is beyond me. Do any of us go to work and try not to be enthusiastic about what we do for a living, or not expect to enjoy our profession?

Besides, Marine Corps Generals have a long tradition of bloody flag-waving. In 1968, the Commanding General of the Twenty-Nine Palms Marine base, in a speech given to all hands on the Marine Corps Birthday, said he hoped the war didn't end before everyone assembled got a chance to go to Southeast Asia to kill gooks. "War is our business," he said, sort of a Marine Corps homily, "When there's no war, we're out of business."

It's hardly a well-kept secret that enemies are necessarily dehumanized. How else can you get decent young Americans to kill them? Let the generals shout it from the hills, if they want to. It's better we understand what war is and the moral price you pay when you choose to fight one.

My god... the snow is actually melting...