Notes on last night's Country Music Awards

Okay, so I was home AND READING--I swear I was reading--and had the television on and NOTHING was on, not even three channels of KCPT/PBS so I confess, I flipped it over to the Academy of Country Music Awards (not to be confused, apparently, with the Country Music Awards--??) so I just had to make a few notes.

1) Randy Travis looks more and more like Lyle Lovett all the time, don't you think? Do you suppose they were separated at birth or something? (Note to Randy Travis: come out of the closet, dude. You have a load of money. What could it hurt?).

2) The people in the audience kill me. Everyone's always singing along with the live performers who are on stage, performing their own songs, so that they--the people in the audience--can a) look like they care and b) get on live television. They're singing along so giddily it's embarassing. But if it isn't for the laughs like this, why watch, right?

3) Thank the heavens above Brooks and Dunn are retiring. Yikes. How overdue is that? And while we're at it, why does Brooks look so alive, awake and healthy--even younger--while Dunn looks like total, old-aged crap? It's an awful comparison. In the meantime, though they're retiring, they're milking they're exit for all it's worth, with a TV show and tour, the whole thing.

4) I swear, if one more person on the show thanked God for their success, I was going to have to have a Transfiguration, right there in my living room. This is what happens, though, when religious people--particularly fundamentalists--and right-wingers have to set out to prove that they're the most believing of all believers. It's disgusting.

5) Okay, someone tell me what the draw is for a performer to come out live on stage with a video camera, filming the audience he's supposed to be performing for, ala' Keith Urban, toward the end. What the hell is that about? Who cares but the few people in the front row?

6) And Keith, your song sucked. Just sayin'.

7) Finally, right at the end, Darius Rucker--formerly lead singer of Hootie and the Blowfish--comes out and sings a song and it hit me--this is the first Black person on the whole show. It killed me. AND HE WAS THE LAST PERFORMER. Notes on this note:

--He was so obviously, I hate to say it but it's true, a "token";

--He's far too talented to be pawned off like this;

--I wasn't sure if I was watching a Tea Party protest or the Republican National Convention or what;

--Suddenly, it was as though he were Michael Steele, but in a much more pleasant way, certainly.

What a show it was. What didn't repel me made me laugh.

Oh, and just so you know they aren't all "backwards" 'n stuff, they even have one o' them thar website thingys": www.acmcountry.com