9:11 p.m.
Eddy Arnold gets his lifetime achievement recognition from Billy Bob Thornton, who then introduces Tim McGraw to sing a song. Hmm. Bad Santa considers Tim McGraw "a good friend." Perhaps I should reexamine my opinion of Tim McGraw. Nope. I'm sorry, call me an indie snob if you want, but Tim McGraw is just a country version of "Tuesdays With Morrie." The song, "Live Like You Were Dying," is about a man who gets bad news from his doctor, but doesn't let that stop him from going out and doing adventure sports.

Tim McGraw, how many of your fans can afford to go sky-diving or Rocky Mountain climbing? How many of them even have health insurance? If I found out I were dying, I'd fall into a sobbing heap for about two days, which is what most people would do, and then I'd start figuring out a way to use my sympathetic status so I could sit on the Phoenix Suns bench during the playoffs. Skiing wouldn't be high on my priority list.

Hallelujah! The Good Lord rains justice down from the heavens as Loretta Lynn defeats Tim McGraw for best country vocal. Ms. Lynn takes the stage with power, grace and class, sucking any lingering stupidity out of the room. Jack White, growing nicely into his Johnny Depp phase, plays the polite young man role to the hilt. He says, "We recorded this record on Loretta's front porch, and one day she told me, 'Jack, 14 times my record got banned from country radio, and every one of those records went to No. 1. Well, this record got ignored by country radio as well. And look who's No. 1!'"

Rarely has an award winner satisfied me more.

9:26 p.m.
Rob Thomas, who doesn't owe his career to Ahmet Ertegun, announces that the founder of Atlantic Records has won First President's History of Greatness Award or something, Too little, too late. Still, it's nice to know that a native Turk can receive a major award on American television.

9:30 p.m.
U2 wins an award. Bono says this is "the best Grammys I've ever seen." And he's right! It feels like the moment when the music business has finally matured; culture has met commerce at the crossroads, and they've shaken hands in friendship. Everyone seems to respect everyone else, they're feeding off one another's energy, and we're all enriched. We'd better enjoy it. Next year it could easily be Christina Aguilera paying tribute to Billie Holliday, Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey singing the songs of Kenny and Dolly, and J.Lo doing a forbidden, fully synthesized dance with her new husband, Colin Farrell.

But for this brief moment, the mainstream rules, and this is before the James Brown dance duet with Usher! As Steven Tyler, Billie Joe Armstrong, Norah Jones, Alison Krauss, Bono, Alicia Keys and others perform an absolutely magnificent cover of "Across the Universe," with all proceeds going to tsunami victim relief and a harmonica solo from Stevie Wonder, for god's sake, I have a rare flash of optimism, thinking that music really is going to change the world this time. As soon as they stop giving solos to Tim McGraw.

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