In This World of Troubles

This past weekend was quite an earful for news and notes on contemporary music, not all of it good (the news, not so much the notes). 

As a card-carrying BOF, I had to look up 'twerking' (how would I know) in the online dictionary of urban slang and then wash my hands for a couple of minutes from having touched the keyboard. Talk about a goofy word. But you know what? I think I am showing my age. 

A quick on-line flip through the LA Times' photo gallery from Sunday's MTV Awards show at the Barclay Center in Brooklyn produced 'huh?' at least half the time for me. 

I wouldn't know a song from Lady Gaga if I fell over her (and she did one that had Clarence Clemons in her video and I bet her fans went 'huh?') while people like Kanye West and his Auto-tune, do less than nothing for me. If they gave Grammys for self-aggrandizement he would get one, it seems, but I have no idea how his music sounds or why he does what he does, whatever it is. 

Some of the photos lead me to conclude I was better off to have gone to bed rather than stay up and watch. Another (c)rude question from beyond the Great Chronological Divide: what exactly are 'Mob Wives' and why would anyone connected to that be on a music awards show if that is, indeed, what the MTV show was about? 

I mean, all the music, which is what the 'M' in MTV originally stood for is now on their other channels. Most of the time on MTV they're just twerking off or twerking each other off. (You know, I have changed my mind. That is a delightfully useful word. Think Beatles' "We Can Twerk It Out" you're welcome.) 

And the folks who are famous or being famous-and they know why they are-aren't all that different from my rock and roll roots years with creatures like Twiggy whose entire function was always unclear and whose fame was as fleeting as fog on the Tyne. 

Of course she also has an album for sale! Why was I so surprised to see that? It's a miracle she doesn't have a sex tape and a workout video or perhaps something available for "only $29.95" that serves as both. Postage and handling are extra, of course. 

Amongst and Betwixt all the Miley Cyruses (don't you suppose her folks are proud?) and Robin Thickes (actually beneath my contempt and I have low standards) was news that would reverberate with my generation. 

Governor Jerry Brown's old flame, and one of the most original female voices of the California Cosmic era of rock, Linda Ronstadt, has Parkinson's. Maybe it's just me but that 'happily ever after' is starting to get shorter and shorter, innit? Gute Besserung, Linda. 
-bill kenny