Grammys 2018 - The Aftermath

Out of this world!

Bruno Mars won six Grammy Awards this past Sunday night, including Song of the Year and Record of the Year (both for "That's What I Like"),  and yes, for Album Of the Year (24K Magic), infuriating rap fans who thought that a rap album should have won the top prize.  Screw 'em.  While rapper Kendrick Lamar did win five Grammys overall, and while rock's increasing irrelevance was highlighted by the failure of rock artists to be even nominated for the big awards (at least it has its own category), Mars' wins prove that the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, while misguided in acknowledging rap as music, is not completely insane.  Though I am not a fan of Mars, I will say that he is a musical talent to be reckoned with.  He arranges his songs with real musical instruments, he actually sings the words, and his performances are high-spirited affairs in the tradition of James Brown and Michael Jackson.  Equally as important, his songs can withstand being pared down to a vocal accompanied only by an acoustic guitar and a harmonica.  Chris Hillman, formerly of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, once said that, as a rock musician who started out in folk, he knew the value of a well-written song; when he got out there on coffeehouse stages with just an acoustic guitar and his own voice, he knew the material had to be good because there was no band or choreography to hide behind.  Bruno Mars' songs, with the electric music and the dance moves taken away, can stand up to a solo acoustic arrangement.  I'd love to hear someone cover "Locked Out of Heaven" with just an acoustic guitar, a harmonica, and a voice - with some good ol' fashioned foot-stomping!

A lot of folks weren't happy with the injection of politics into this year's Grammy ceremonies, I'm led to understand.  Several recording artists spoke out against sexual harassment and for the child-immigrants currently under the DACA program.  But the political segment that got everyone's attention was a filmed skit in which Grammy ceremony host James Corden auditions celebrities to read from Michael Wolff's Trump book "Fire and Fury" for the audio version that would qualify for the 2019 Grammy for the best spoken-word album . . . and Hillary Clinton makes a surprise appearance as one of the auditioners.  Corden tells her she has the gig.  Responding to the skit, United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley wrote on Twitter, "I have always loved the Grammys but to have artists read the' Fire and Fury' book killed it. Don’t ruin great music with trash. Some of us love music without the politics thrown in it."

So, I assume that Nikki Haley doesn't like Crosby, Stills and Nash?  Solo John Lennon?  Early Bob Dylan?   Peter, Paul and Mary?  Every other folk singer that's ever been?  Good grief, how far back do you want to go?  Pete Seeger was singing political songs in the 1940s. 

And, Ambassador Haley, apart from Bruno Mars, there was no great music to "ruin."  What's so great about hip-hop?  Heck, I would argue that there was more trash at the Grammys than great music. 

Be that as it may, Hillary Clinton's cameo was wildly cheered by the live Grammy audience, confirming her status as the most beloved and respected person in the Democratic Party.  Which beings me to the subject of Martin O'Malley, perhaps the least beloved and respected person in the Democratic Party.  O'Malley wasn't invited to the Grammys - indeed, he's the kind of guy that the bouncer would have tossed out head first - and he demonstrated the reason why the week before, when he made his own surprise appearance at Ryan's Daughter, an Irish pub in his hometown of Baltimore.  He stopped by with his guitar and played and sang a set of Irish folk songs and American folk-rock tunes.  In other words, the very sort of music that  - like O'Malley with Democratic primary voters in 2016 - fell out of favor with record buyers decades ago.  (A picture of O'Malley in the bar is below, taken from a smartphone video;  I apologize for the poor quality of the image.)  As if symbolizing the plight of white guys in the twenty-first century - they're not wanted in either pop music or the Democratic Party these days - weren't enough, O'Malley (below) performed songs that could symbolize his own political career, like Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer" and Don McLean's "American Pie."  "The Boxer" is about a city boy who can't make it on his own, and "American Pie" chronicles a rise and fall.  Now if he had only included Steve Goodman's "City Of New Orleans" - the song about the decline of passenger rail in America that was covered by Arlo Guthrie in 1972 - the symbolism would have been perfect.  To add insult to injury, Ryan's Daughter is no longer in business; O'Malley dropped by to be a part of its last weekend of operation.  Again, how symbolic.

Except that O'Malley's fellow barflies happily sang along to every song he performed, and at the end,  someone yelled out, "O'Malley 2020!"  So, there is an audience for good music and a constituency for good presidential candidates.  They can't get good music from the record business so much these days, but O'Malley - who could probably play and sing "Locked Out of Heaven" or "Just the Way You Are" (the Bruno Mars song, not the Billy Joel song) with aplomb - can give them a good presidential campaign, one that can lead him right to the White House.  The Democratic Party might try to stop him like it did in 2016 - mainly because Democrats fear that, if he's elected President, he'll offend the hip-hop generation by inviting the Chieftains to play at his inaugural gala ("No, not that corny Irish crap!"), or worse, being his own headliner - but this time we ain't gonna let them.  Some people might call those of us who like folk and folk-rock music nerds.  I call us Martin O'Malley's base.  We're there, and we're square.  Get used to us.

Oh yeah, someone at the Grammys suggested that Carter run for President in 2020.  Not Jimmy - Shawn.  You know, Beyoncé's husband?  Can anyone explain to me how Shawn Carter and Kanye West are taken more seriously as presidential candidates - and as musicians - than Martin O'Malley?  This country needs an enema.

You can find the video of O'Malley's appearance at Ryan's Daughter here. 

Wolff At the Door

If any one book takes Trump out of office prematurely, it will be this one.

Michael Wolff's "Fire and Fury" is shaking things up, both for its controversial source material and for its stunning revelations about the Trump White House.  Some of the "revelations" are facts we already know, like Rex Tillerson saying that Trump is a moron.  But other so-called allies can't find nice things to say about Trump's intellect of lack thereof either; Reince Priebus and Steven Mnuchin both said he's an idiot, economic adviser Gary Cohn called him "dumb as sh--," and national security adviser H.R. McMaster thinks he's a dope.  Another aide couldn't get Trump to understand the Bill of Rights.  Wolff confirms that New Jersey governor Chris Christie was slated for a job in the administration but was denied on the basis of his success at putting Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner's banker father in jail  when Christie was U.S. Attorney for New Jersey in the two thousand zeroes.

There's more - too much for me to repeat in this space.  Among other tidbits, Trump eats fast food to avoid being poisoned (these jokes write themselves, folks!), Melania never wanted to be First Lady, and the only reason we lucked out with Tillerson - our most avuncular Secretary of State since Dean Acheson - at the State Department when we could have gotten Trump's fellow xenophobe John Bolton is because Trump didn't think Bolton would go over well because of . . . his moustache.  (Our last mustachioed Secretary of State?  Dean Acheson.)

Steve Bannon doesn't look to good in this book . . .  to those who like the guy.  He apparently had a problem or two - or more - with all those Trump campaign meetings with the Russians at Trump Tower, calling some campaign members "treasonous" and "unpatriotic," adding that Trump had to have known about the meeting involving Paul Manafort, Kushner, and Donald Trump, Jr. Bannon even suggests that the President may have met with the Russians himself, and he even thought that the way Trump handled the Charlottesville incident in August 2017 might have been "25th-Amendment bad," requiring his removal of office due to a loss of sound mental capacity.

Trump didn't like that.  He's since turned on Bannon, even though many in the administration agree that it is Trump, not Bannon, who, as Trump said about Bannon, has "lost his mind."  But here's the kicker: Trump was hoping to lose and planning on losing.  The Guardian reports that, according to Wolff's book, Trump "expected to leverage his defeat for wealth, fame and a Trump-branded TV network," and "key advisers wanted jobs in television or politics."

And if that shrew Debbie Wasserman Schultz had given Martin O'Malley a fair chance at the Democratic presidential nomination instead of backing Hillary, we'd still be in the Paris Agreement now. >:-(  

How did Wolff get so much access to the Trump White House?  They gave it to him, carte blanche, and practically let him wander around interviewing everyone he could find.  Trump knew a little about Wolff's reputation and was actually expecting a favorable report.  

So what effect will Wolff's book actually have?  Sadly, despite the first sentence of this blog entry, little if any whatsoever.  First, many people found Wolff's sources to be highly suspect, and some of his stories may be exaggerated.  Second, even if these stories are completely and thoroughly true, the people who should read this book won't.  And, as  I wrote in this blog entry from December 2015, Donald Trump, like Madonna, has a knack for maintaining and even increasing his popularity with fans after saying and doing outrageous and offensive things that no one else would have gotten away with.  The idea of Trump's opponents hoping for Wolff's book to destroy his Presidency reminds me of us Madonna-haters hoping that her career was through after her movie Body of Evidence tanked.

And her cover of Don McLean's "American Pie" was the pop-music equivalent of Trump hypothetically shooting someone on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue.