Okay, let’s get Madonna out of the way (as if we could!) Why can’t she see what we see? Where are the loved ones who care enough to caution her about her face? I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want to be pitied or laughed at. Right? But her surprise appearance revealed a gigantic blowfish of a face, with crazy milkmaid braids and a slit skirt revealing a stocky old leg in fishnet stockings. At one point, she even snapped at the audience, “You’re supposed to applaud here.” Let’s hope she doesn’t trouble us again until 2024.

It was a suspenseful showdown between Beyonce, Harry Styles, and Adele for Best Something. Album, record, I can’t remember. Bey won two awards, breaking a record for Grammys won, and she gave a humble speech with gratitude to god and her parents. Her dress was awful but at least not see-through this time. If I note that her boobs have grown with her fame, people will be mad at me, so I won’t do that.

Harry Styles performed in a tinsel shroud, and looked genuinely shocked when he won the award that Beyonce wanted.

Adele won an award for “Go Easy on Me” and thanked her son (I think.) She was thinner than ever and had an adorable fangirl meeting with The Rock, who looked like a massive Oscar Award.

That stupid Steve Lacey performed his hit song that made one wonder anew at his popularity. He has zero charisma, can barely sing, and looks like he just woke up.

Brandy Carlile pretended to be a rockstar but worse, she was introduced by her wife and kids, in a nod to LGBTQ inclusivity. No heterosexual artist was moved to display his/her spouse. She sometimes wears cool suits, but not this time.

Stevie Wonder was fantastic, performing a raucous “Higher Ground” to the delight of the black people in the audience. Can we stop letting white people attend the Grammys? They can’t even clap on the right beat.

Speaking of white people, Taylor Swift, the whitest person on earth, wore a a boring sequin two piece outfit that Bob Mackie wouldn’t give the time of day to. As always, she insisted on “dancing” in the audience, to show that she is just a fun girl after all. She didn’t perform or present anything, a huge win for me personally.

Lizzo was her usual vivacious self, performing with a bunch of huge back-up women and exuding a joy that is hard to resist, even for me. I still think she is way too fat because I’m not blind and there is such a thing as too thin and too fat.

Also fat, but horribly full of himself was the new Sam Smith 2.0. Recreating himself as a sex-crazed diva, he arrived with a crew of gender fluid creatures dressed in blood red gowns with weird vampire makeup. His performance was deeply disturbing. He is no Lil Nas X, alright? I officially never want anything to do with him.

Best new artist went to Samira Joy, a woman with a beautiful voice who I plan to learn more about. Yay for beautiful voices!

A salute to 50 years of Hip Hop was mostly great, even though I’m too lame to know most of the artists. At least they seemed authentic and in the moment when they performed.

What else? J Lo and Ben sat near she stage, so we were treated to his dour expression and her attempts to look like she was enjoying herself. Lose him, J Lo. It’s going to be exhausting to keep his spirits up.

As for fashion, Tems (above) looked gorgeous in Vivienne Westwood, Cardi B looked great in a blue avant garde ensemble, Pharrell Williams was pimpin hot in red leather and fur, Laverne Cox looked amazing in black and gold faux-croc, Miguel, who is actually really talented, wore an awful faded denim get up, and even though I can’t stand her, Doja Cat wore a great black latex gown with matching gloves.

There was a big finale featuring a bunch of rap artists sitting at huge table piled with a million pounds of fruit. Jay-Z rapped furiously about either god or himself, I couldn’t tell, but it seemed good. DJ Khaled ruins everything but not this.

Okay? Sorry it was so blah but it’s not my fault! let me know if I forgot anything.

I never expected the Grammy’s to fuck up my personal life, but thanks to Justin Bieber, it has. I posted a picture of an oversized suit I bought last month from Zara (I know), and several people commented “Justin Bieber.” So today I googled “Justin Bieber suit” and to my horror found that he wore a similar suit on the red carpet. What a bastard. Do I have to take mine back now?? I don’t want to. I don’t want to lead a Bieber-directed life. Let him return his suit.

Other than that, the Grammy’s offered  fewer insults to taste and intelligence than in recent years. It was quite a surprise. The grown-ups won several award that could have gone to some useless clowns. There were fewer rappers performing and more actual singers and musicians (yep, okay boomer, I get it, so don’t even bother.)

Olivia Rodrigo has become my most hated figure in pop, dethroning Taylor Swift, who must despise Olivia for muscling in on the My Boyfriend Was Mean territory. Olivia and Taylor both got implants, both have huge teeth, and both like to bleat instead of sing. But Olivia seems even more fake and awful somehow, turning to Doc Martens to signify her punky side. Just ew, Olivia. Every time she didn’t win something, I felt a surge of relief.

I also hate Doja Cat, for obvious reasons, but I was enchanted by her Grammy co-winner, a full-sized woman on crutches and wearing a naked dress with a long train, carried by a helpful Lady Gaga. If you didn’t see it, it was a Moment.

Sticking with Lady Gaga, she performed a sickening Jazz number, playing the role of a 50’s chanteuse to the hilt. I actually had to cover my face. Why can’t she just choose one persona, or, god forbid, just be an authentic and genuine person?

Billie Eilish turned out to be a real rockstar, even if it’s taken a lifetime of looking in her bedroom mirror to perfect the stance. I loved her head banging song, which contained the line You ruined everything good, a lyric for the ages, I feel.

H.E.R was fantastic as always, bringing aging sexpot Lenny Kravitz onstage for a dueling guitar solo, serving up real style and talent that everyone present seemed to appreciate. I want to know how Lenny can squat so effortlessly when I can barely get down to tie my shoe.

What else? Jon Batiste, whoever he is, gave an all-cylinders performance that ended with him jumping on a table, and later gave a beautiful acceptance speech celebrating art. I love it when someone seems like a great human being, even if they aren’t.

Lil Nas X was super gay and super hot, but he ruined things by adding Jack Harlow to the mix. Who the fuck is Jack Harlow and why do we need him?

Carrie Underwood turned out to have fabulous muscular legs, even though her song was stupid, so fabulous that I googled them and found  her work-out regime. I’m not going to do it, by the way. But go look at those legs.

The Bieber performed an annoying emo song about peaches, and I was mad at him without even knowing about the suit insult to come. I would have been happy to just feel sorry for him, but now it’s war.

If I forgot something, let me know.

Can anyone think of another female vocalist who complained so much about being dumped?

If you happened to see her perform on Saturday Night Live over the weekend, you are probably wondering how you can get those ten minutes back. A tedious new version of some song that her fans loved back in the day when it was only 5 minutes long, it was the stupidest thing ever. My husband and I both laughed and groaned throughout, wondering why there was a video of a couple mooning around in the background. Didn’t she think she could hold our attention with her big chunky white veneers and hair-flipping?

Anyway, if you didn’t see it, the new song is about her break-up with Jake Gyllenhaal, when she was 21 and he was 30. Apparently, the 9 year age difference is one of his felonies, like keeping her scarf. 21 and 30 sounds pretty normal to me. Do couples have to be within a couple of years in age these days? Is anything else exploitation or a power imbalance? Poor Jake really takes a beating, because he dared to get tired of her. But victimhood is her brand. First it was Jon Mayer, boo hoo, then a million other bad, mean boyfriends.

I admit that I don’t know why she’s a star. She seems like such an awful person, obsessed with making money and shifting genres to suit the times. I also admit to a visceral dislike of her physical self. She looks like a rodent and her hunchback or scoliosis is disturbing.

I further admit that she’s been annoying me for years and years. Here’s something I don’t even remember writing!

But it’s so nuts to read a fawning appreciating of her in the New York Times, which I thought was a refuge for normal adults.

“All Too Well” parallels the emotional work that many women have been privately undertaking in the wake of the #MeToo movement: Looking back on past encounters or relationships that left them with a seemingly outsize feeling of unease; wondering what exactly constitutes exploitation or emotional abuse; wishing they could go back and extend some compassion or wisdom to their vulnerable younger selves.

Haha, whatever. If this break-up song is a masterpiece, what is Back to Black?? To paraphrase Etta James, I’d rather go blind than see Taylor Swift perform again.

I wish I had something incisive to say about her as an “artist” or phenomenon, but I’ve always been at a loss, urging millennial friends to explain her appeal. But they always hate her too, because none of my friends are idiots, I guess.

What if all her mean boyfriends got together and wrote a song about dating her?? Why can’t we have that? All the guys would get cancelled for their toxic masculinity, sure, but why can’t they sacrifice themselves for the greater good?

If you can explain Taylor’s success, please, I would love to know! Mean while, enjoy Amy and Etta, who know how to take a romantic punch.

*Scarf exegesis here.

This year, I am giving out my own awards in my own categories. You can suggest your own categories if I missed any.

Most Egregious Dress: Duh, this one is a no-brainer, right? The winner is Gwyneth “please hate me” Paltrow, in as awful sheer peignoir that appears to have been shredded in the garbage disposal before she rescued it. Gwyneth is always trolling us, so by now she’s a master at it. Thank u next, Gwyneth.

Most Personally Gratifying Dress Fail: Taylor Swift, in a big floral bedspread that accentuated her round-shouldered posture and added forty years to her face. YES, let’s see more of this, Taylor!

Most Discomfiting Presence: Renee Zellwegar. I almost had to cover my eyes. From the beginning of her acceptance speech, she made it clear how much she resents her peers and critics. Extremely ungracious and neurotic, Renee lived up to her hype as super cray.

Most Unctuous Hollywood Back-Slapping: The Tom Hanks intro and speech, depicting him as god’s gift to acting as though acting itself were god’s gift to humanity. I try to avoid Tom Hanks movies and I don’t plan to forgive him for pretending to be Mr. Rogers or anyone else.

Best Dress Periodt: This Chartreuse Gucci worn by a gorgeous person I’ve never heard of (Gugu Mbatha Raw). God, this is everything.

Best Scene Stealing Red Carpet Look: Perennial winner Billy Porter. Perfection from head to toe.

Most Sickening Couple: Here, we have a tie. is it Bey and Jay? Or is it J Lo and A-Rod? It’s such a tough call. Should we give it to Beyonce just on snobbery grounds? You tell me.

Most Shameless Couple: This one goes to Noah Baumbach and Greta “homewrecker” Gerwig, sitting up front and poised to win, which, haha, they did not.

Most Tragic Dress Fail: Kerry Washington, why girl??

Most Supernatural Boobs: Another duh, Salma Hayek.

Most Starving Actress: This award goes to Nicole Kidman, in a hairline decision over Rooney Mara. Pale, anorexic, desperately hungry….just give up and have a sandwich, Nicole, and stop fucking with your face.

Ickiest Male Sexpot: Brad Pitt, looking like he had to pull himself away from a mirror to accept his award. If only he wasn’t a dope! He can never live down his years as Mr. Angelina, when he adopted all her mannerisms and called everything “grand.”

Most Attractive Male Lunatic: Joaquin Phoenix. The intensity! I am all in. Call me, Joaquin!

Joan of Arc Award: Michelle Williams. She is always suffering for Us, the people. She is so much better than us. Bow down.

Name You Have To Say, or Else: Martin Scorsese. Better yet, just Marty.

Okay, what did I leave out??

I know I’m late but the Exegesis must go on, so here we go. As usual, the show was a boring waste of time but let me say that the ONLY thing I wanted was for Lady Gaga not to win. Sometimes a negative wish is enough to encourage a sense of involvement, right? And I stand before you a happy camper.

Why the animosity toward Lady Gaga? I just can’t stand her. But I think I have crystallized my revulsion for her with this insight: She is too needy. Her neediness makes me anxious, and it reminds me (subconsciously) of my own neediness, which I can’t face. Okay?

Anyway, her loss was my gain. Likewise, I enjoyed (i.e., hated) the sight of Bradley Cooper as Colonel Sanders, with his girlfriend du jour, a Russian prostitute/model.  I liked Nicole Kidman‘s fillers, while I disliked whatever Charlize has done with her face.

Taylor Swift‘s surprise appearance was like the Wicked Witch in Show White. When Idris “Please have sex with me!” Elba told Taylor that she was looking good, she replied “Thank you.” WHAT ABOUT “YOU TOO,” TAYLOR? ARE YOU FUCKING BLIND? Maybe she just has no manners.

Olivia Coleman was by far the most charming winner, just as she is the best actress alive. She can do no wrong. Go and watch all her movies and British dramas if you don’t believe me. Alfonso Cuarón was another deserving winner who exhibited unusual modesty in a sea of gushy idiots still telling Liam and Isabella to go to sleep.

Catherine Zeta-Jones was the winner of my Most Well-Preserved award, with Jamie Leigh Curtis taking the coveted Most Badly Aging prize. Patricia Arquette was amazing in her role of a lowlife prison guard in Escape at Dannemora, but her boobs were truly disturbing as they tried to explode in her face.

Regina King looked gorgeous and gave a delightfully joyous acceptance speech. Mahershala Ali looked inexplicably sad. Don’t be sad, Mahershala, we love you!

Why did the Versace series keep winning when it was such a trashy piece of shit? Anyone?

Most incandescently beautiful was Saoirse Ronan in a Gucci dress that revealed her perfect satiny skin. I will be her in my next life.

That cute guy whatsisname who everyone loves. Chalmet or something? He took the prize for most daringly queer beaded halter over a black on black outfit. But Billy Porter was by far the most glamorous man on the red carpet or anywhere else.

God, just kill me. It’s too boring to relive. The show ended on a high note, with Gaga getting snubbed beyond my wildest dreams. Yay! Let me know what I left out. xoxo

Even when you expect the worst, the Grammy Awards show surpasses anything you could possibly imagine. It’s hard to know where to begin with a menu this egregious, but I’ll just jump in with Lady Gaga.

Once I heard she was chosen for a David Bowie tribute, I braced myself. She would turn it into an awful showcase for her androgynous mugging and strut around like a Vegas act for people who vaguely recall Ziggy Stardust. Check, check. But it was so much worse.

Even David Bowie’s son couldn’t contain himself and tweeted in exasperation. Please go away, Lady Gaga. You’ve already tainted poor Tony Bennett, your work was done long ago.

Now for Taylor Swift. Her performance of that awful song with woods and wolves was all about her sparkly unitard and scrawny giraffe-like physique. Her come-hither gazes into the camera were disturbing enough to make my stoic husband recoil. Where is that washed-out fake country girl we used to not love? Can she come back? I am begging.

Then, when Taylor won her award, she began, “As the only woman to win two Album of the year awards…” as though accepting the Nobel Prize for discovering the Time Space Continuum. She went on to urge girls to own their success, evidently a coded message to Kanye West to stop fucking with her. As if!

Kendrick Lamar or Lamar Kendrick performed a gripping rap that made one aware of how corrosive racism is in America and I’m being perfectly serious. He is to Kanye as Richard Pryor is to Kevin Hart. I think. Because I may be too white for any of this.

Demi Lovato sang something very loudly but I like her for her struggles with mental health issues and her great eyebrows.

On the Cute Guy front, we had the always dreamy John Legend, Dave Grohl looking fresh and eager, Miguel and Bruno Mars easily making up for their diminutive stature (or statures plural) with great style. Justin Bieber was also kind of hot, in a clueless rent-boy sort of way.

If like me, you were waiting for Adele to come out and justify the whole torture-fest, you were stunned and baffled nearly to tears. WHAT HAPPENED TO HER PERFECT VOICE?! We cringed at the bad notes, wondering if our last beacon of hope for pop music has suddenly gone dark.

However, it seems that technical difficulties, like a mic falling into the piano, had fucked her up. This makes sense. I am going to accept this explanation and cling to it for dear life. We’re counting on you, Adele. Don’t leave us alone in the wilderness of auto-tuned screeching and jazz hands!

Finally, the debut of Johnny Depp‘s band, the Something Vampires, featuring Joe Perry and Alice Cooper and also Duff Something from Guns And Roses.

I wondered what millennials thought of this stupid throwback attempt at hard rock at it’s most posturing and pointless. Why can’t these guys indulge themselves in their home studios and leave us out of it? For anyone still on-board with Johnny Depp, jump. Even if there’s no lifeboat.

Where is Madonna when you need someone to roll around on a bed or just trip on a cape?

If it gets any worse, I will have to watch the Grammys blindfolded, with earplugs.

Okay. What did I forget?

The horror, right? It was mostly non-stop horror, with the exception of Kanye West‘s comic turn.

Poor Kanye! He could talk forever and never make sense. That is his genius. I tired to explain to my husband why I don’t aim my wrath at Kanye instead of Taylor Swift, by explaining:”Because there’s something wrong with him.” It would be like taunting a special ed kid; I can’t do it.

The show’s most egregious figure was Taylor Swift, because that’s how much she annoys me. She wore herself out trying to prove that she’s best friends with everybody, leaning down to embrace everyone of importance, who all looked like midgets compared to the giraffe-like chanteuse.

Something was wrong with Taylor’s face that made her look Chinese. She had trouble smiling, as though her mouth was full of bigger teeth than her lips could accommodate. Whatever it is, keep it up, girl.

Moving along, Justin Bieber tried to sing and then cried with relief. Pharrell hopped around like a little sailor, and an awful girl named Tory Something shrieked her head off and strutted around like Beyonce-times-ten.

Miley Cyrus was aggressively obnoxious but still relatively sexy. Her tiny butt was the perfect antidote to Kim Kardashian and Nicki Minaj. The latter two women need to manage their asses, somehow, before they become separate entities and use up the world’s oxygen. Remember “The Blob?” Take this as a warning, people of Earth.

What else? Oh, a guy called The Weekend did an impression of a poor man’s Michael Jackson, and wore his hair in a style reminiscent of Woody Woodpecker. (Millennials, that’s a cartoon character.)

John Legend was handsome and charming as usual. Call me, John. You too, Jared Leto, you freak.

Miley Cyrus ended the show with a musical number that involved a fleet of trannies or whatever the word is, bringing a Sixties vibe to the fiasco with her Free Love/Smoke Pot message.

The best moment for me personally was during the Kanye monologue, when my friend Margaret suddenly exclaimed, “He’s gay!” in the exact tone of Archimedes shouting “Eureka!”

God what a cultural wasteland. The Billboard Music Awards was one long Disney ad, disguised as a tribute to popular musical artists, with the word ‘artist’ meaning in this case ‘no-talent little shit.’

Sheer torture throughout. it was nothing short of a call to arms: Taylor Swift Must Die.

It was all about Taylor Swift, either Tayloring up the place with her sickening speeches to her fans (“You guys! I’m obsessed with you!”) or just grooving in the front row to whatever awful music was murdering our souls from the stage. She is one awful girl. She’s the girl we all hated in junior high, still pretending to be nice while making life miserable for anyone who crosses her.

There was Kanye, reminding us of his genius at getting bleeped out on live TV. I read that he said the word ‘nigger’ forty-one times. If he could just chant it the whole time, we wouldn’t have to hear anything! Think it over, Yezy.

Nicki Minaj livened things up with some solid twerking, and domestic-abuser Chris Brown danced around in a florescent blood-red suit. He danced with Pitbull, that bald guy who nobody can figure out why he’s famous.

Some awful country band sang about having a ‘girl-crush’. I’m sorry, I can’t even talk about it. Let’s see, what else. OH! Ed Sheeran was surprisingly inoffensive. I don’t like that elf look of his but at least he plays an instrument.

One Direction was there but we didn’t know if one guy was missing because we didn’t know how many there are supposed to be. It seemed like there were three or four too many.

Iggy Azalea and Britney Spears did a lip-syncing number that both seemed bored by, and Iggy betrayed me personally by getting a new nose and chin, nullifying her claim to originality. She’s dead to me now.

Some kind of fake Sam Smith person played a song with Wiz Kalifa. Much less perturbing than the real Sam Smith, who, mercifully, is recovering from throat surgery.

Chrissy Teigen was an embarrassing co-host to Ludacris, who is a pretty decent actor if nothing else. Chrissy is married to John Legend, so one assumes she must have hidden depths of some kind. However, the two men present for this viewing agreed that she was a “mean and stupid Filipino girl.’ They said this was a lot of authority, too.

That long-haired Hozier guy took us to Church, and rated a pass from all of us just for seeming like a real singer and bringing a little Goth melancholy to the situation.

There was one moment that offered a glimmer of hope: When two Kardashian girls came out to introduce Kanye, the audience booed. For just an instant, the audience acted like they had standards of some sort.

But then, no. It was Taylor, Taylor, Taylor, all the way home.

Who is worse, Katy Perry or Taylor Swift?*

*Show your work!