The 2nd Annual Benign Comedy Grammy Blog (Pre-Telecast)

3:43pm - Patti Austin has twice called the White Stripes' album "Icky Thumb."

3:40pm - Against all odds, Tom from Slayer is there to pick up their award for Best Metal Recording. He's very nice.

3:35pm - First truly wrong award of the night: Chemical Brothers wins Best Dance Album, over LCD Soundsystem and Justice.

3:32pm - The Beastie Boys win Best Pop Instrumental Album, over people like Dave Koz and Spyro Gyra.

3:24pm - This is the first time I've seen Brad Paisley not wearing a hat.

3:08pm - Lupe Fiasco's sister and mother accept an award for him, and ask people to pray for his "recovery." What happened?

2:53pm - Herbie Hancock wins best contemporary jazz album. Harbinger! Harbinger!

2:51pm - Best New Age album goes to "The Paul Winter Consort." I remember, back when I was playin' the bar bands, gettin' in fights every night, I did it all because I had a dream -- "One of these days, I'm gonna front the biggest consort in the world."

2:50pm - Patti Austin: "I'm so glad Kanye won, because you know how cranky he gets when he doesn't." He's won three so far.

2:48pm - Kanye wins an award, and he's not there to pick it up. Ah, irony. Hey, he just won another.

2:44pm - Ah, dang, my horse Billy Joe Shaver lost in the Best Southern Gospel album category. That's all right.

2:36pm - Polka album. Here it comes. Jimmy Sturr. I'll bet you a million it's Jimmy Sturr... Yup. Jimmy Sturr. This is like his 18th Grammy or something. Good lord.

2:17pm - Not many people show up to the big pre-televised awards, let alone winners, so the award presentations usually take around 45 seconds each if the winners aren't there. But the winners for Best Hawaiian Recording were there. It was a various artists album, so about ten winners showed up. And each of them spoke. It took about 5 minutes to get through the award. Nobody on the actual telecast will get that long. That's wonderful.

2:02pm - The Classical Awards are finished. Come back, polka fans.

1:56pm - There are a contingent of shrieking groupies in the audience who cheer wildly every time the Phoenix Bach Choir's recording of Grechaninov's Passion Week gets called out (it's happened twice).

1:49pm - Here come the classical awards. Where's my bong!!!

1:40pm - Barack Obama beats Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter for Best Spoken Word Recording. Audience also finds the list of nominees hilarious.

1:37pm - "Best Surround Sound" album: Category Most Likely To Be Eliminated Next. Does anyone actually listen to Surround Sound albums in their intended environment, besides other audio engineers? Oh... never mind. Audio engineers. It'll be around forever. The Beatles win the award.

1:32pm - Best Historical Recording. The audience cracks up over the mention of two albums, one about indecent recordings from the 1890's, the other about murder ballads from the early 20th century. Woody Guthrie wins.

1:24pm - Johnny Cash wins Best Short Video, over Feist and Justice. Sentimental vote. I'm tellin' you. You wanna put your money back on Hancock right now.

1:21pm - They even have teleprompters at the pre-televised ceremonies. And they, too, are feeling the after-effects of the Writer's Strike. Oh, wait, I'm mistaken - all Grammy banter has sucked for the last 50 years. This is de rigeur. They just have something to blame now.

1:15pm - BTW, I'm sticking with my Herbie-Hancock-Wins-Best-Album prediction.

1:12pm - Hi. I'm watching the pre-televised Grammys on the web right now. This is where they give all the awards that they don't think anybody watching television gives a shit about. They are opening with a jazzy big-band/pop fusion number that underscores exactly why everybody thinks the Grammys are out of touch.