…a (sometimes) handsome midwestern state

I generally don’t watch the Grammies. They tend to celebrate music I don’t care about. But TV pickins on my few channels were very sad last night so I watched a bit of Grammies while restlessly flipping. And I tuned in just to see this atrocity–Keely Smith singing “That Old Black Magic” with Kid Rock. Who thought this was good idea? I’m not even a big jazz fan, but even I was asking myself, doesn’t Keely Smith deserve better? The nearly rhetorical answer being “Yes, she most certainly does.” My other response was “Isn’t Kid Rock’s cultural moment over, and if not why not?” I think you should take a moment to discuss this amongst yourselves.

But I checked Wikipedia which said that Kid Rock had number one album called Rock N Roll Jesus (John Lennon must be bursting with pride) released in Oct. 2007. Which, ironically, is newer than all the work the Grammies were celebrating because the Grammy eligibility year ended on Sept. 30 2007. I just wonder who in what committee still thinks that Kid Rock is edgy? And those people should spend at least 50 extra hour next year hanging out with their grandchilden before next year’s voting.

I just finished the most frustrating historial biography: Jane Boleyn: The True Story of lInfamous Lady Rochford by Julia Fox. Jane was Anne Boleyn’s sister-in-law. Jane Boleyn managed to keep her head, her title, and some of her property when her husband, George, and Anne Boleyn were hanged on charges of treason and incest only to lose it as lady in waiting who assisted Catherine Howard’s extra-marital activities. I enjoyed the re-hash of Henry VIII wife drama; this time it was told mainly from the point of view of the plotting Boleyn family. However, Jane herself never becomes a real character in her own story. We always learn that she was here or there doing this or that because she was in the company of the King or Anne Boleyn or because as a lady of certain rank of that time her lifestyle and doings were most likely to be x or y.

The book includes no pictures of Jane Boleyn nor does it ever do more than quote a line of letter she had written. It supposes she managed to convince Henry’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, to negoiate a better jointure payment from her stingy father-in-law. The book also posits that Cromwell helped Jane Boleyn get re-appointed as lady-in-waiting to the next three queens. And in her most visible moment, Jane Boleyn gets an act of parliment passed to make sure her father-in-law, Thomas Boleyn, will give her land to replace land from her marriage portion that he wished to sell.

This act of parliment thing seems like the only bit of the whole book where she is really out in front, and it passes in a few pages. It seems like the core of this book is a journal article about an extrodinary tale of a woman’s statue and properity rights during this period with an outer layer of wifes of Henry VIII bio-pick to fill it out. All of the sources used tend to discuss Jane as someone who was there when things happened. Its like series of huge group picture of Henry VIII events where you have to hunt for Jane in the crowd. It’s the first Where’s Waldo historical biography.

I just saw the opening number of this week’s Dance War: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann. It was medley of songs from the ’70s/ early ’80s, and the dancers/singers were wearing white and silver on a cheap set. In case you had doubts, the Solid Gold of the millennium have arrived. I give you Dance War: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann. I was totally waiting for Marilyn Mccoo or the ghost of Andy Gibb to come out and announce/sing the next number.

Okay, I thought this entry was over, but I just saw six women in sequined dresses singing & gyrating to Donna Summer’s “Sad Girls”. It is Solid Gold. Not a new show, but the same one–I hope they haven’t cryogenically frozen any of the original dancers. Althought that might help make them convincing zombies when they get to “Thriller.” I’m going to turn the tv off and start my bath early before my brain melts.

I think I might need to get out more . . .