On that museum in Cleveland

The Induction Ceremony for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has been playing on VH1 all weekend but I didn't really feel in the mood for it until this morning. One has to be ready for that kind of shit.

When Clapton and Diddley were inducting bluesman Buddy Guy (who once had a jheri curl, bless him) they kept cutting to John Mayer in the audience. One forgets that Mayer was once a blues guitar prodigy. I think, and tea_and_toast agrees, that he woke up in the middle of puberty and thought, "This blues shit is cool and all, but it ain't gettin' me no tail, man," and started writing songs like "Your Body is a Wonderland."

Ice-T inducting Seymore Stein was so classic. Stein was behind Sire Records and discovered Ice-T and Madonna among other people, and when he got to the podium he compared the whole thing to his Bar Mitzvah.

I love me some Gamble & Huff. You go, O-Jays! (And if you are unfamiliar, I urge you to go wherever it is that you go and download "For the Love of Money" right the fuck now.) I hadn't realized that Percy Sledge wrote "When a Man Loves a Woman" but he's living it; his tribute to his wife was really touching.

Pretenders? I need Pretenders II like right now before I wear a hole in Pretenders. Is there a better line than "I shot my mouth off and you showed me what that hole was for"? Is there a chick who loves the rock who doesn't secretly want to be Chrissie and look that good in leather trousers after having two kids? Is there anything cooler than Neil Young getting up there and playing "My City Was Gone"? (Okay, so I also need to get Learning to Crawl.)

I once had a conversation with C where I pointed out that the profession "rock star" doesn't really have an exit strategy. You can od, you can go back to selling real estate, you can do reunion tours, you can start making crappy faux jazz, you can go to Vegas, or you can be Mick Jagger. And you know, no one else is ever going to be Mick. But I'm thinking Bruce found the way out: you can go be a modern folk guy. It looks really good on him.

As for U2, what more is there to be said? This:
+ I love Bono for the shout out to college radio
+ I love Larry for his comments about jumping the queue
+ I love Adam for referring to his bass as "a weapon and a shield"
+ I love The Edge because how could you not, and because he's finally stopped looking like my brother-in-law

And now I'm going to keep dancing to the Pretenders. Thank you.