Grammy Griping

Yesterday was the 51st Annual Grammy awards. Usually I like watching this kind of thing. I get to see all the artists and watch them perform. Sometimes I think it's a little bit corny, especially as far as jokes go (I'll get to that in a minute). But most of the time it's usually cool to see. I did like what I saw the first few minutes- U2 was playing their new song, "Get on Your Boots," which I ended up liking. Of course, the stupid L.A. crowd went absolutely mild.... About that... they must not know how to categorize something as cool. Not only was U2 ignored, so was Kid Rock, it seemed. Everyone else had cheers abound for the stupid Jonas Brothers (ugh!) and all the rappers and stuff. Which, yeah, I'm not a big fan of rap, and I suppose it was good or whatever...but come on. Plus, the 'jokes' that came about were the lamest dang things I'd ever heard. Thank God there was only a couple of them. I felt sorry for poor Dwayne Johnson (aka the Rock).... he got the worst of it. His joke didn't even fizzle out- it straight up DIED right there, like all the air was sucked out of the room. I kid you not.
COLDPLAY won best rock album and song of the year. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!!!! They were up against Metallica, the Raconteurs and Kid Rock, and they WON?!! Seriously. I was upset with that one... Something is not right with that. Even if you're a Coldplay fan, you know that they aren't rock. They're pop at the very least- Mope Rock is what I call it. I can imagine Metallica trashing Coldplay's dressing room roaring, 'where's my Grammy, you idiots!!' But maybe that's a tad over doing it... :)All the performances were good, though, except for Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus, which I totally flipped the channel for. I have nothing against the former, but the latter I just can't stand. And Raidohead. Ugh- hate them, too. Thank God they didn't win album of the year... Robert Plant and Alison Krauss did, which I was happy about. I was happy to see a deserving artist get that award.

And, much to my ecstatic-ness (which is not a word) my lovely band GREEN DAY showed up to present the award for album of the year. How awesome! I get to see them again after a loooong time, and that's always nice. They don't look too bad, if you ask me. (pic via GDA). Of course, they were their endearingly strange selves. :) The new album is called "21st Century Breakdown," and it's coming out in May! Yay! Can't wait for it! Billie Joe had the last word before they all left the stage, hinting at what's to come, albeit with tongue in cheek, "Good bye, and we'll see ya next year."
I better.

Good Grief!

It's the holiday season, of course; everyone knows that. With this knowledge comes tradition. We all have our own little ways of celebrating the holidays. One of the 'traditions' that come around the holiday season for me, is that every year, we find some way to watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the cartoon one- the good one) and A Charlie Brown Christmas. I like watching these, because it reminds me of being a kid and how I used to get so excited about Christmas. Santa was coming and all that. Now, I'm definitely not that excited anymore, but I still like the holidays. It's a good time for everyone and I like seeing the members of my family all gathered together. Now that I'm older, those movies I mentioned are more like things to remind me of being younger rather than hanging on to every word. What's fun about them now is that I can share them with my three young nieces, and have them enjoy what I did when I was their age. Of course, sometime they'll sit with me on the couch and ask questions about nearly every thing, but that's okay. I don't mind it.

What gets me every time, though, is A Charlie Brown Christmas. When you think about it, that poor kid takes a lot of crap. And for what? He has the nerve to get a real Christmas tree instead of a fake one that everyone else has? He gets ridiculed for being different. Seriously, if you watch again being all 'grown up,' you realize that those kids are mean. Even Snoopy is liked more than Charlie is. Linus is the only one who seems to understand him, too. It's so weird. The kids are all so terrible to him. "Boy are you stupid Charlie Brown," one girl tells him when he bring in the tree. "Rats," is all he replies. And this is after enduring the derisive laughter of the people he had previously considered friends. Call me crazy, but who wanted this poor kid to go through all of this just to learn the meaning of Christmas? It's a little insane. In the end though, Charlie Brown realizes that he does have friends and all that; that it's okay to be different and he learns what Christmas is all about, thanks to Linus. But still. He always gets put down. This is a kid who gets rocks for Halloween.

What kind of kid would he be nowadays? Would he be in therapy or something like that? Or would there be no Charlie Brown at all today? He'd probably be like, Emo or something. Wouldn't that be nice?

I've just realized... maybe Charlie Brown himself is the correct one, and all the others are wrong. Maybe he's been right this whole time. Who knows? But he always 'triumphs' in the end, which is inspiring, I guess. It does teach kids a good lesson: don't give up on yourself.

As long as Charlie Brown doesn't give up, then I guess he can go on being mopey. At least we know he'll come out victorious in the end.

'30 Rock': See It If You Haven't!!

Since I don't really have anything too serious to write about lately, I'll just write about what I know: pop culture.

One of my favorite t.v. shows is called '30 Rock.' Not only is this one of the funniest shows on the Thursday night line up, it is one of the funniest shows on t.v. I say this because, in all honesty, t.v. is really crappy right now. I mean, seriously. All I get when flipping through the channels is mind-numbingly stupid stuff. Take reality shows for example. Yeah sure, they're good for a few cheap laughs here and there, but they lack a moral center; they lack substance. You can tell that there isn't anything to it other than the fact it was somebody's dumb idea that was turned into a t.v. show. Like that stupid Paris Hilton bff show? I mean honestly, people! What self-respecting person would actually sit down and watch that?!! I don't freaking care if Paris needs a 'bff' and I kinda hope that she doesn't get one. It's obvious her only true friend is money and this show only proves that she wants more of it. If you're dumb enough to go on that show (or any other show like that) and display your stupidity, go right ahead. God!

All this talk of Paris Hilton has brought me to another idea. I don't think there are really any good women role models out there for anyone. I have three nieces, and I wouldn't dare let them grow up to be like Paris Hilton!!! Now, the creator of '30 Rock,' Ms. Tina Fey, is a brilliant girl whom I certainly look up to. Some of my friends and family tell me that I remind them of her. I definitely take that as a compliment. I look up to her because she is a writer, which I would like to be one day. Tina Fey is a very successful women, and has earned a lot of respect for her work on 'Saturday Night Live' and '30 Rock.' She has won Emmys for writing and the best new comedy series. Recently, she was back in the spotlight for making fun of Sarah Palin, due to how similar the two look. It always makes me happy when someone compares me to her, though. I look up to her because of her success, her intelligence, and how she has found her own ground in a predominately man's world. It is common for people to think women aren't funny, but Tina doesn't fit this stereotype. She writes a majority of the episodes for the show and even acts as the main character, Liz Lemon. She has also written movies, like 'Mean Girls' and 'Baby Momma.' She's definitely someone I think helps inspire people and I hope that I could be successful like she is.

Also, her character Liz Lemon is someone I can to relate to, not only because she's Tina Fey, but also because her character is similar to me- personality wise. We're both a bit obsessive about certain things, neurotic, and constantly bothered by other people. (ha ha.) What I mean is, a lot of people ask me to do a lot of things, and often I end up making strange decisions like Liz does. We both have a tendency to have stupid coincidences happen, too. Also worth mentioning is Alec Baldwin, whose dry humor is spot on as Jack, Liz's boss and friend. And how I could forget Tracey Jordan? He is absolutely hilarious, running about the studio like a an overgrown kid who forgot to take his Ritalin. My favorite line of his from last night's episode came after he had finished describing a legal term (very out of ordinary for his character!): "I watched Boston Legal nine times before I found out it wasn't a new Star Trek." Ha! I actually laughed aloud at that...

So, yeah. I definitely feel that this is a wonderfully funny show. The humor is smart humor, full of pop culture references and often a little strange. For example, when Liz thinks she might be pregnant and tells her boyfriend, and he responds by saying, "Cool. We can name the baby Morpheus." But everyone loves zanyiness. Without humor, our lives would be very dull. Tina Fey is a genius!

Take that, Paris.

A 'Daily' 'Report' of Laughter

In these turbulent and frustrating times, where do I turn to for comfort? Well, music helps, but if I try to watch t.v. I become bombarded suddenly with all these disturbing news reports. More casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, the financial crisis and the economy in a downturn, gas prices, global warming, the Election-AAArgh!!! So many things happen at once that I can't really pinpoint which issue I want to tackle first....It's all so confusing. So...desperate times call for desperate measures.

Every night at Eight o'clock (except today because it's Monday), I will watch the "Daily Show" with Jon Stewart. After his show, "the Colbert Report" with Stephen Colbert comes on. I watch that, too. It's interesting, because I usually get a lot of my political information from the two of them, and then look it up later for more on the subject. It has become a good way for me to become informed. Both shows give me both sides of the story, but they have a tendency to lean toward a different wing of politics.... Bush Lovers beware! (If there are any of you still left). I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I need to be able to laugh at some of this stuff. Particularly at the stupidity that is involved in American Politics. Both Colbert and Stewart have a great habit of pointing out politician's mistakes, especially if it contradicts whatever it is he or she has been saying. It's like, 'wait...didn't you just say you were against this a month ago?" I favor Jon Stewart, mainly because he isn't afraid to tell it like it is. He acts as one of us, who sit and watch and hear about this stuff and reacts as we do; He's great at bringing out the absurdity and just laughing at it. It's a good thing, too, because some of it is pretty much unbelievable. Often, his reaction to all of this nonsense is a simple, "What the (expletive) is going on?!!" It's times like that when I can relate to him and what a lot of people must be thinking....

So, I'm just glad there's a period where I can just sit back and laugh at this whole thing. At least there are two people out there who have enough brains to explain it all to us....