Monday, February 11, 2008

Herbie Hancock? No, No, No...

My obligatory Grammy Post.

Amy was excited to watch the awards last night, perhaps due in part to the imminent end to the writers' strike.  I quickly lost interest after they gave away two awards in the first hour while digging acts out of the grave because the A-list acts were either pregnant, in rehab or committed, and I went off to bed to read more of my HST biography.  I woke up to learn that the Cohen brothers lied to me.  There is a country for old men, and Herbie Hacock (67 years young) won Album of the Year.  At first I checked to see who won CD or MP3 of the Year, convinced they only gave out "Album" of the Year to a member of AARP.  When I realized he did in fact beat out Amy Winehouse and Kanye West I was reminded of why the Grammys have become irrelevant to me.  I did catch Kanye's first acceptance speech, when I feared for the conductor's life when they started playing the music on him and didn't turn it off when we began talking about his mother.  This may be a turning point in AW's recovery, having had to miss one of the greatest nights of her professional career because of her drug abuse.

Today I had an interesting visit to Random House, where I had the chance to meet the Dean family from Omaha.  Tony Dean wrote a book about his family's success in losing weight together called the F.A.S.T. Diet.  I am working with him on some publicity surrounding the book, and his family was in town for an appearance on the Today Show.  I managed to crash a lunch at his publisher's offices.  They had Obama's book everywhere, along with a number of others I have read, or am still trying to get to (including the Zombie Survival Guide I received for Christmas) laying around the offices.  I didn't see a Grammy, and the woman in publicity wasn't sure if they even get an award to display in the office for their role in producing and distributing the audio version of Audacity of Hope, for which he won the Grammy.  Obama's real prize will come in November.

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