The 48th Annual Grammy Awards! This year, we're Hoobastank-free!

-The theme of this year’s Grammys was “Mash –Up”...with predictably lame results. Hey, what can you expect from an award show so boring that they tape delay it for the west coast? Like people from the east coast are going to call friends in other time zones and say “I know who won Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance, and you don’t!” As if.

-The show opened with Gorillaz’s huge huge huge record of the year-nominated song “Feel Good Inc.,” performed by the same blasé cartoon characters from the video. At one point, the cartoon singer became so bored that he started texting someone from his cell phone, which probably captured the mood of the Grammy audience throughout the evening pretty accurately.

The Gorillaz’s song gave way to Madonna, who rose out of the stage (surely you don't expect Madonna to just walk onto the stage, do you?) with ironed disco hair and a lavender lycra leotard. Hey, why the fuck not, right? Madonna latest club song, “Hung Up,” is not bad, really, but if I was Kylie Minogue I would be on the phone to my lawyer. Okay? ‘Nuff said.

-Oh, Coldplay? Your music called. It’s tired and it’s going to lay down for a while. It’ll see ya later.

-John Legend, the next Norah Jones. Oh, shit, she’s still alive, right?

BTW, whenever they precede the awarding of “Best New Artist” with a sampling of the previous winners, how come they never mention Christopher Cross? Or Milli Vanilli? Or Evanescence?

Just wondering.

-You know, I love me some Alison Krauss, but Best Country Album? This is why country music just has its own awards and feels free to ignore the Grammys, because the Grammy voters are infiltrated with stuck-up idiots who just have no fucking clue about what real country music is, or real rock music for that matter.

-Which leads me to U2. Once again, winner of the Best PR Machine Award (although Kanye gave them a run for their money this year), and still inexplicably winning Grammys for a record that came out in…what? The mid-90’s?

I know, I know, Bono is so awesome. Well, yeah, except he puts out tripe like “Sometimes You Can’t Make it on Your Own,” and then stands up and spouts off about it and his life and his career and his music when what he should be doing is accepting the award with embarrassment and humility and some sense of how mediocre and tepid the album is and how lucky they are they got an endorsement deal for that Vertigo song. Then he should slink off, red-faced, to the green room and get really really drunk.

But hey, that’s just my opinion.

-And then came Sir Paul McCartney, who I really wish would wash that shoe polish out of his hair. I mean, what good is being married if your wife won’t tell you how stupid you look? I thought he might play “When I’m 64,” since I think he really is, like, 64, but no, he’s bopping along, playing some “chopping broccoli” song from his new album that I think is also on a car commercial right now, (well, you know, Paul was always the “cross-over marketing Beatle") and then, suddenly, he informed that crowd that he might begin to rock a tiny little bit. And then he actually did. Fuck yeah, Sir Paul of McCartney played Helter Skelter, I think just to show everyone in the room that there was a time and a place when he could and did write and play awesome rock songs. And, babies, it rocked. Yes it did. A tiny little bit.

Good for you, Sir P. Now go wash your hair.

-This year’s “Across the Universe” Heinousness Award goes to the confused, non-funky, no-beat, can’t-dance-to-it free-for-all that was the “tribute” to the god Sly Stone.

Ah, the heinousness. Where do I start? How about Maroon 5? How about Joss Stone, the cyborg Janis Joplin? What about Ciara, and Steven Tyler? These are not people acquainted with the funk, my friends. Not at all. These are people acquainted with the mixing engineer, yes. But not the funk.

-God Among Men Bruce Springsteen, whose record, Devils and Dust, was correctly categorized as folk, but whose performance singing the title cut was nominated under the rock category (huh?) uttered the only political statement of the evening, a curt “Bring ‘em home” at the end of his performance of his nominated song.

Yes, it’s true. Musicians trooped up and down the steps and sprung up from under the stage and hovered over on platforms and throughout the whole 3-hour ordeal we got exactly 3 words of personal feeling that wasn’t about thanking the producer?

Where the fuck was Kanye, and why no speculation from him about Bush’s lack of affinity for African Americans? Why no dressing as Christ, or Coretta Scott King, or something?

Oh right, he was too busy copping Andre 3000 from 2 years ago.

Yeah, I said it.

The marching band thing? So “Hey Ya,” Kanye. So “Hey Ya.”

Oh, yeah, you’re bad. I forgot. So bad you rewrite your songs for the censors. “Broke…broke” Please.

-After winning Record of the Year for “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” a song which is on my own personal "what if I were condemned to hell for all eternity?" soundtrack, Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong declared “Pop radio playing rock music is a very big deal to me.”

Really? How about rock groups selling out to strike it rich on pop radio? How do ya feel about that, Billie? Equally good, I would think.

I was actally stupid enough to look forward to the Richard Pryor tribute they kept waving at me all night long. And then the tribute consisted of Queen Latifah (‘cause she’s black and funny, get it?) saying “Thank you, Richard Pryor.”

Was it cut out for the West Coast? Was there a technical glitch?

Or maybe there wasn’t enough clean, non-obscenity laced, non-offensive footage of Richard to string together a tribute appropriate enough for one of the most whitewashed, lameousness-filled television award programs ever.

I’m looking at you, Kanye.