Boo Hoo for Hollywood

So much sad news coming out of the world of pointless entertainment I hardly know where to start.

-Kelly Clarkson just won a Grammy Award. And Paul McCartney was nominated in the same category. The only solace was watching Bonnie Raitt's "Don't drag me into your shit" look when Clarkson said what an influence she was in her acceptance speech.

-Lance Armstrong and Sheryl Crow split which is kind of sad. But not nearly as sad as Armstrong expressing himself by covering one of her songs on his own radio show. [or did he just spin the album version? Does it matter?]

-My favourite story is definitely the one about the Rolling Stones and the Super Bowl. Turns out the the 'bowl folks decide to bleep out some of the racier lyrics in the Stones' halftime performances of "Start Me Up" and "Rough Justice." Word was that the Stones had agreed to the censorship but now, in fear of losing their bad boy status, they are saying otherwise.

Having read the heretofore not-worth-reading lyrics of "Start Me Up," I am utterly baffled as to what might even qualify as PG-dirty. "Brown Sugar," with its black slavewomen getting whipped and none-to-subtle references to cunniligus? Okay. But "Start Me Up?"

But compared to those ribald lyrics, "Rough Justice," is practically pornographic!

"One time you were my baby chicken/

Now you've grown into a fox/

And once upon a time I was your little rooster/

Am I just one of your cocks?"

Can you believe Jagger thought he'd be able to sing that on network TV? "COCK?!"
The Super Bowl is a FAMILY show (paid for by beer and pickup truck commercials).

It's pathetic on so many levels, really. That someone showing their nipple could have these reverberations...It just goes to show that for all the talk of the mighty consitution and free speech and all that, the United States - from the citizens to the networks to the FCC to the White House - are a bunch of pussies. You don't hear any whining when Jack Bauer tortures someone on 24 but a nipple? Rolling Stones lyrics?

For what it's worth, despite our own flaws, I'm proud to live in a country where people can say "shit" and "asshole" on prime time (on a government-owned network no less) and you NEVER hear ANYTHING about it.

-And I was just signing off but the Grammys are still going and there are now a bunch of soulless white and/or soulless black "artists" destroying the songs of Sly and the Family Stone one by one. What's next, Jack Johnson's tribute to P-Funk?

Oh, thank God - the Black Eyed Peas are here now to bring soul (and style! and talent! and humps!) to the masses. And while I'm happy to see them outside that horrible White Gap Room of Hell, even Steven Tyler and Joe Perry are just sucking horribly. Perry looks like a Richie Sambora impersonator and Tyler...looks like a Tyler impersonator.
How very sad.