Bob Explains Why the American Music Awards Were So Darned Magical

So rarely does an Awards Show come along that enthralls as well as entertains, educates as well as enlightens, and stinks up a room less than a Tour Bus full of Used KFC Buckets, 2 Weeks worth of Green Day’s unwashed sweaty stage socks, and the urinal odor of R. Kelly’s bedroom, but this year’s AMA’s managed to do just that.

Not by much, really, but still ….

A MAGICAL NIGHT FULL OF MAGICAL MUSIC AND MAGICAL PEOPLE BEING MAGICAL

Seriously, what a magical, magical, show! Just MAGICAL!

From the magical opening number by whoever that was, to the closing credits which ran over the chaos of everyone trying to mount the stage in a flurry reminiscent of Kanye mounting Kim, because the show ran over and Tay and 47 of the other Identify-as-Female persons wanted to get home, feed the labradoodles, and take a dive or two in their money bins.

All of it, every word, every note, every unexplainable fashion statement, every painful forced smile, every cued audience member …all of it …just fucking MAGICAL.

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So, the adorable moppet that opened the show turns out to have been Selena Gomez, on again-off again-on again-off again-for-good-as-far-as-we-know GF of one Justin Bieber, who has traded in his Mclarenborghini for Jesus or a 12 Step program and married some other adorable moppet, and was, like some other high profile pop culture fixtures, conspicuous in his absence. Thanks to a captioned version of last night’s Magical Event, I 1. learned who this was, and 2. read the lyrics she sang and now have a theory. Because 3. Theories are important in the 21st Century in order to explain everything. Conspiracy Theories make it easy for the Google Challenged to be able to understand things that don’t exist far better than those of us who know they don’t exist and thereby don’t need them explained to us by people who stare at their Apple Tablets all day trying to understand the non existent, like chem-trails, and Pizza Sex Parlours, and Trump’s ability to pass a 9th Grade Social Studies Exam.

Judging by the lyrics of the song (whose name was never mentioned) she was singing about how her love for Justin set her on fire, and said how painful being set on fire is and even MORE painful when he left her and set her on fire again and now, holy fuck is she in pain, and owww, it hurts but I will smile when I’m not chewing the words like scenery so you know I’m like, okay now, and thanks for letting me bleed all over you about my shit love life, and thanks to Adele and Tay for making that cool …that we can whine about having everything you will ever dream of, but are STILL getting fucked over by guys because they are shit, and we know you, the FANS, can relate because YOUR boyfriends have treated YOU like shit, or maybe they didn’t, but they made you FEEL like they did, so to hell with them, we don’t need them, right, girls? We’re STRONG and we’ll do better than them, and we’ve got each other, and hugging, and possibly some experimenting with one another in the future, and …and …Thanks. I feel better now.

WHOA! Hold the Phone!

Moppet number One has wiggled out of the long black demure dress and has re-lurched onto the stage in a glitter covered one piece bathing suit (there were a LOT of bathing suit outfits last night) surrounded by 35 dollar an hour ‘dancers’ (More posing and ‘roboting’ than actual ‘dancing these days), cue the samples and beats and …WOW! THIS is a short epilogue to the goodbye, go fuck yourself song, and is a bouncy ditty about how SHE WILL FIND LOVE! SHE WILL FIND LOVE ANEW! Awesome!

Thankfully, the song didn’t last long, and gave the director time to cue roving cameramen to entertain us with FAN girl power excitement, PEER girl power excitement, and, as expected, ramped up the girl power excitement in all of us watching at home!

I hate repeating myself, but Holy Crow, this was just fucking MAGICAL. …and the show hasn’t even started yet.

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I guess Pink wasn’t available for the (now) traditional Circus Act Opening for the festivities, so instead, we get another one of those artists who are so ashamed of their families, they decide to call them selves by one name, probably not their REAL name, but these days, most everyone in the public eye would be wise to give themselves a fake name which may help keep them out of jail should things go sideways.

This is one of the many participants I have never heard of, and don’t get snippy with me, this stuff isn’t AIMED at me, and I’m far to interested in other passions to keep up with the revolving-door turnover of Who’s Hot-Who’s Not these days, but seriously, are soccer moms, young girls and gay guys the only audience these entertainment shows are interested in?

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Our Hostess for the night, who was lowered from the ceiling onto the stage (instead of onto an elephant, like a REAL circus) decided on the name Ciara to avoid being tracked down should her career take a turn to crime in the future.

Because I have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, I Googled the fair Ciara and among other too-much-information news stories I came across was this gem – “The reason why Ciara‘s song “Level Up” is such a hit is probably because she’s the humanized definition of the term. After a succession of failed relationships with the Voltron of Fuck Boys 50 Cent, Bow Wow and plus-sized hating mush mouth Future (whom she made a baby with) Ciara hit the jackpot when she scored a ring from NFL Quarterback Russell Wilson. During their courtship though, Ciara  and Russell decided to keep their goodies to themselves until marriage. They’re now happily married and happily fucking. However, she admits that she spent a lot of time on her knees performing a different kind of act to make sure their love was successful, and that act is called prayer.- Online Magazine DListed

Well, Ill be darned …her name actually is Ciara (like Sierra, the Mountain Range, Sierra Nevadas) and out of respect won’t mention her last name, but she’s been around since 2004 and works at it and acts, writes, sings, models, and judging from the excerpt from DListed above, does other ‘stuff’, too.

She is, of course, jaw-droppingly hot, and has a dazzling, blinding smile. Also good with cue cards, so …yay.

Anyhoo, Ciara and a suddenly-on-stage gaggle of dancers break into a song like a tea pot or bear in a Disney movie, and, being that it is important these days to be all inclusive, some of the dancers are plus sized, different ethnicities, and have hair extensions (there were an AMAZING amount of hair extensions throughout the night), binding them all together in another lyric dripping with GIRL POWER all about “Chocolate Chocolate”, which here, seemed suspiciously like a euphemism for SEX, because, according to the lyric, they just LOVE their chocolate.

The vocal was then taken over by a singer who announced her name is La, and must be somebody because she appeared to have rented (or was given) the use of Kim Kardashian’s rear end for the duration of the performance.

It was …downright magical.

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Just as I am curious to see what’s next, the Black Panther, Chadwick Bozeman saunters onto the stage and I’m like, WOW, it’s the Black Fucking Panther! I didn’t expect this! I was expecting Myley Cyrus to swing over the stage riding on Lady GaGa wearing a wrecking ball dress and do a half-twist, double-flip off of Ms. Ga and manage a three point landing holding a wireless FM microphone between her teeth like a dagger.

But no.

It was Black Fucking Panther!

Chadwick (Mr. Panther’s given name) started saying words ….

Okay …he’s announcing the winner of the Alternative Artist Award. The nominees are weird to me. Panic in the Disco, who have been around for, like, forever, and Imagine Dragons, who I am surprised are still around doing whatever they call that stuff they do, and a 17 year old kid named Billie Eilish.

Now, old, in the way, out of touch, little ol’ me, has heard of her, so clearly, she is one hot cookie right now, and has all the markings of a superstar in the making.

Billie, whose real name is Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell, was born in L.A. to showbiz parents, (judging by her given name, they may have partied a bit back in the day …the 1990s) and is a living, breathing example of what America demands in their Celebrity Superstars.

America loves those who fly their Freak Flag.

Some thought may have gone into this …but let’s give her the benefit of the doubt.

First of all, I’m pretty sure she decided to wear her pajamas to this thing. If they aren’t her flannel pajamas, I wonder how expensive the actual material made to look like a pair of flannel pajamas costs with a designer label, and the price tag that comes with it. A pair of expensive looking sports shoes, two tone hair (Pale green roots, unkempt black), a pair of Dollarama sunglasses and what looked to be a Cherry Tootsie Pop, completed the picture.

Perfect.

No meat dress, abandoned monkey, drill-like phallus, giant white wig, Weeknd hair tragedy, or glitter bathing suit.

All original.

She sounded very sweet, thrilled, authentic, very Lorde-ish (whatever happened to her?) , quite charming, really …but there was a hint of that horrible adult weariness, smug self awareness, and giggle-fit potential, but she cleared customs as far as I’m concerned …that she shows up later in a different but equally quirky ensemble made me feel a little ‘played’, but then, these events ALWAYS make me feel played.

Quick cut to Ciara and a crowd of teenage fan girls and 4 fan-boys and two adorable toddlers dressed in 1200 dollar suits, and off we go. Yeah …just got played.

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“Fresh Off the Boat’s” Constance Wu flounces to the front of the stage to name the winner of Best Pop Rock song. I heard very little pop and no rock in any of the nominees, and the Big Glass/Plastic Triangle of Winning was awarded to someone named Halsey.

Who dat?

Well, 25, Edison New Jersey, sang on a Chainsmokers record, got known through social media has sold over 22 million records in the U.S. alone and does charitable work for suicide prevention and other worthwhile programs.

Later in the program she performed …if that’s what you want to call it. Singing or synching to her hit “Graveyard ” her and a clone move around a white table on a white set and eventually start throwing red and blue paint all over each other as the ‘dance’ gets more and more ‘erotic’ until they look like they’ve used up all the finger paint, and now they’re going to eat paste before going home and rolling around on mom and dad’s California King Size like puppies on liver snaps.

Her acceptance speech for the Pop Rock category was puzzling not only for the lack of pop and/or rock, but her flighty use of the English language made her sound like she was on meth and had ADD issues, talking about the different looks of award show trophies and what-not.  She reminded me of a stripper excited to get a pole of her own.

If anything, this should have been in the category “Urban Beats Sad-Core Boys are Dorks”Nice tune, though. …but Pop/Rock?

Judge for yourself –

As far as all the Performance Art presentations throughout this show, I must confess, Performance Art bores me to the tits, only the performer knows what the fuck they’re getting at and it reduces the song to background noise. In this case, samples, beats, and her singing something about something in her personal life something. Too pretentious for my taste. At least Nikki Minaj rolled around on the floor with her ass in the air and sang about sexing. THAT, I understood..

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Well, look …I just passed 2000 words, and we haven’t even SEEN a male performer on stage except for the Black Panther, and I have a lot more to say. If you want a Part Two to this on Friday, let me know in the “Reply” section at the bottom of this column.

Otherwise, next Friday’s column could very well be about deciding whether your fridge door should open to the left or the right, or something even more riveting …Ross explaining where to put things in your fridge. Will Chandler EVER learn!?

New column from Vickers tomorrow.

Shut up Geiger ….

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Segarini’s regular columns will never throw paint all over you and then make you ride home in the trunk of the car

Bob “The Iceman” Segarini was in the bands The Family Tree, Roxy, The Wackers, The Dudes, and The Segarini Band and nominated for a Juno for production in 1978. He also hosted “Late Great Movies” on CITY TV, was a producer of Much Music, and an on-air personality on CHUM FM, Q107, SIRIUS Sat/Rad’s Iceberg 95, (now 85), and now publishes, edits, and writes for DBAWIS, continues to write music, make music, and record.