I got to go to the Grammy Awards last night, courtesy of the fact that Yahoo did the main Grammy web page. Highlights:

1. Seeing core members of the various music industry factions -- emo, cowboys & indians, gangsta -- standing next to each other in the line for $6.50 hotdogs.
2. The Mary J Blige performance really moved me. Her presence was incredible.
3. Evening gowns mean cleavage, cleavage, cleavage. It's a contest between rich cupcakes to see who can get the most naked.
4. Ornette Coleman won a lifetime achievement award to universal puzzlement in the hall. Few people in hall even knew that there was a thing called "free jazz", much less that Ornette founded the genre. Even so, during the Red Hot Chili Peppers performance a little later they had up an improvised sign spray-painted on a bed sheet -- "love to Ornette."

About the specific choices that the awards represented, there's no point in ragging on the recording industry about being out of touch. Being out of touch is what the Grammys have always been about. Shut up and fiddle.