Dan,
I don't know if this is relevant to your rant, but it might give you a little different perspective on one of those events.
In 1983, I along with Steven Miller and Michael Hedges was nominated for Best Engineer Non-Classical for Michael's second album, Aerial Boundaries. Michael was the most accomplished acoustic guitarist I have ever met and I am proud to say he was also a good friend of my wife and I. However, this album was on Windahm Hill records in an era of musical giants and we had about as much chance of winning a Grammy as I now have of getting date with Britney Spears.
We all can dream however. So off to California we go to attend the Grammy ceremonies. The Grammies start at noon even though you only see the show from about six to nine PM West Coast time. So there we are sitting in our seats for hours and hours. There must be more than 150 categories and everyone politely claps for every damn award. Now my particular event was around number 100. So we sat there all afternoon clapping for everyone who won and everyone who was nominated.
Sitting on your brains for that long can cause funny things to start going through your head.
We were nominated for Best Engineer up against Humberto Gatica, who had recorded the Chicago 17 album, The Cars, Daddy O album, and a couple of other multi massive million sellers. Humberto had just recorded "We are the World" with Michael ( I sincerely hope he is innocent) Jackson and could have come in a dress and still won. Still, you never know.
For the first 30 awards, I felt fine. I was resolved to the fact that we were not going to win and anyway it was a huge compliment just being nominated. Right?
Between awards 30 and 50, I began to feel a little warm. You know, stranger things have happend. Little albums had come out of nowhere to win stuff before. Right? It could be our turn this time. Right? Right?
Between awards 50 and 80 my palms were sweating, my suit was too tight, my shoes hurt, I started thinking about my speech. It occured to me that I had not written down my speech and I would probably forget everyone I was supposed to thank. I started trying to recall names, however I couldn't remember a single person's name. My brain was loosing oxygen fast. I needed to stand up but I couldn't move.
The praying started around award 85. I'm not sure exactly what I was saying other than Oh God, Oh God, however I think I made some promises that I have since broken.
Around award 95 I started feeling seriously high. Light headed. I'm sure I could haver walked up there, if I really wanted to. It wasn't that far, although the stage started to look like it was a football field away. My whole world started to close in on me and all I could hear was this announcer in a locker room reverb, with the regen on 80% and all the bass rolled of below 500 hz.
Then he read our names, individually, very slowly, clearly, with great enthusiasm and feeling... and time slowed.
Then, out of the blue, he announced that Humberto won the Grammy and everything snapped back into perspective like a switch was thrown in my head. I was fine. I applauded and looked at Michael who (I think) was going through the same thing as I was. We laughed gleefully and hated Humberto.
Shortly after that the stars started coming in. Our seats happend to be right behind the Eagles and we were in the TV shots a few times. Tina Turner sang "What Love got to do with it?", blew me away, and then came and sat down fifteen feet from us. It was great.
Best Regards,
Bill