This is either brilliant or really crass, per the Guardian:
Dozens of couples will marry on air during Sunday night’s live broadcast of the music industry’s annual Grammy Awards, as Macklemore & Ryan Lewis perform their nominated song, Same Love, which has become an anthem in the campaign for legal gay marriage, the New York Times reported.
Queen Latifah will officiate at the nuptials, with pop diva Madonna performing the song with the hip-hop duo and featured vocalist Mary Lambert, the Times said.
Lewis said that the weddings, including 34 couples of various ages and races, some gay, some straight, “will be in our minds the ultimate statement of equality, that all the couples are entitled to the same exact thing,” the report said. “We’re serious about this,” the Times quoted Ken Ehrlich, the long-time producer of the Grammys, as saying…
The idea for the segment originated last autumn, when Ehrlich and the duo met to discuss a Grammys performance. Since the singers’ concerts have occasionally featured onstage marriage proposals, Ehrlich suggested a wedding. A casting company sought couples who were initially told only that the ceremony would take place on live television. The report said they learned of the Grammys’ involvement only in recent weeks, and had to sign confidentiality agreements.
For Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, whose Same Love is up for song of the year, the event took on a personal note with the participation of Lewis’ sister Laura, who will marry her boyfriend during the ceremony…
… Okay, I guess the familial involvement tips the concept away from ‘totally crass’. Not that a certain amount of crass isn’t an unwritten requirement of the modern American wedding, in any case…
IowaOldLady
I vote for crass.
maya
Sure to give the Cyrus/Thick thing some comp.
Anne Laurie
@IowaOldLady: But I’m hoping it will be more entertaining to watch the Culture Scolds lose their tiny minds over ‘gay weddings on mah teevee!!!’ than their usual plaints about dirty whore ladies and hippity-hoppers.
Maybe Ross Doubthat and Erick Erickson will enact a mutual suicide pact?
FlyingToaster
@Anne Laurie:
Speak for your own; I got married in my living room.
Like we could be so lucky. I’m just hoping for exploding heads among the #TCOT crowd.
dmsilev
@Anne Laurie: We could only be so lucky.
? Martin
@IowaOldLady: I’ve got to go with crass on this one as well, as much as the pain it will bring 27% of the population pleases me.
Roger Moore
@Anne Laurie:
FSM doesn’t love us that much.
Elmo
@FlyingToaster:
Front porch here, with a total of 9 attendees including myself and my wife.
Baud
I’m starting to think Oklahoma has got the right idea about marriage.
Suzanne
Oh, I think this is charming. Crass are the countless LDS receptions I’ve been to, with no dinner or drinks, held on the basketball court.
FlyingToaster
@Elmo: We were 7 + the JP. We spent the 20 minutes before the “ceremony” signing and witnessing the pre-nup. Afterward we went to Dim Sum.
Small weddings are fun. And cheap. And short. And there’s not a chance of someone injecting their religion (not shared by the couple) into it. Heh.
scav
If we’re really lucky, maybe a legislator in Oklahoma will introduce a bill banning all TVs in the state in order to stop exactly this sort of thing, and then have to set up a planning committee tasked with stopping all these corrupting eeeeelectromagnetic waves coming accoss the sacred borders.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
ObOpen Thread: TransCanada gas pipeline explosion in Manitoba:
Brrrr.
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@FlyingToaster:
Me too. Of course, it was a Frank Lloyd Wright living room…. (No, seriously).
Baud
I hope one of the couples is a man and a dog, for Santorum’s sake.
aimai
Well, i don’t really have an opinion on whether its any crasser than any other personal moment being carried out on live tv. But I will say that the idea that Queen Latifah will be performing the service–I did get that right?–will be produce the biggest “The last days of the Roman Empire” style culture war hysteria any of us have every seen. A woman, a black woman, a hollyweird entertainer instead of Billy Graham style old white guy? Like scav says the entire state of oklahoma will probably ban TV over this assuming that the nuptials will be celebrated with a polyamorous orgy immiediatly following.
SiubhanDuinne
@FlyingToaster:
My brother and one of his wives kind of looked at each other after the ceremony, said “Whaddya wanna do now?” and ended up going to a drive-in movie with their witnesses.
Suzanne
@SiubhanDuinne: Mr. Suzanne and I looked into having our wedding at Taliesin West. Ended up having it here. Turned out to be the tenth anniversary of the park, so we got fireworks. And it had been raining the day before, so we had a rainbow.
Ash Can
@Suzanne: No dinner or drinks? What the hell did everyone do, stand around and play rock-paper-scissors?
Suzanne
@aimai:
THAT would be worth watching.
Suzanne
@Ash Can: LDS receptions are incredibly short. You get sparkling cider and appetizers and then you say hi to the couple, leave a present, and go home. You’re done by eight.
Then Mr. Suzanne and I go out for REAL food and drinks.
? Martin
@Suzanne: That would definitely be pushing it into crass.
Cacti
Led Zeppelin is up for their first ever Grammy tonight.
dmsilev
@Elmo: When my brother got married, the ceremony took place at the justice’s office. Attendees beyond the bride, groom, and officiant were my parents, my parents’ dog, and the justice’s cat.
cckids
@Baud:
I’ve said for a long time that the only way for all the gay-marriage bans to be constitutional is for government at all levels to get out of the marriage business completely. Can’t perform them, no married-filing-joint tax returns, no insurance breaks, nada. Let people who want “marriage” to go to a church.
No way it ever could (or should) happen, but . . .
Culture of Truth
I have this image of a toaster flying in from the kitchen to tie the knot.
SiubhanDuinne
@Suzanne:
That is awesome. As I’ve mentioned here previously, I grew up in an FLW home (Charles E. Roberts house in Oak Park, IL, for anyone who cares) — would be very cool to get married or have a major life event in one of the iconic Wright structures, but in my case it was just home, therefore cheap venue.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: My first wedding was in the Foo Dog Garden at Allerton Park. Ten people and two dogs.
Mnemosyne
Apparently we had a ginormous wedding by BJ standards — we had 40 guests at a Unitarian church that included permission to take our wedding photos around the exterior of the Gamble House. Then we had a nice mojito-fueled luncheon in Old Town Pasadena and were done by 3:00 p.m. G and I napped, did wedding stuff (ahem) and went out to dinner at King Taco.
To keep it to the thread theme, guests walking to the chapel had to go past a huge rainbow-decorated “We Support the Freedom to Marry” banner that the church had up. In 2006.
Culture of Truth
Doin’ it prairie style!
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Should add, my nephew works there (I think) — know he works at ASU in Tempe, at something something arts something.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: I saw Judy Collins there in 1970.
FlyingToaster
@Culture of Truth: Not too far from the truth.
Someone gave us a Presto-Hot-Topper (it was the wedding joke gift that had been through every couple in our social circle).
FlyingToaster
@Mnemosyne: That’s not ginormous, that’s just a “the two families won’t restart Ireland’s Troubles if they’re in the same room” size.
Suzanne
@SiubhanDuinne: That is amazing and I am envious. If you are ever in PHX, I recommend doing a Wright tour. Scottsdale is the home of Taliesin West, which was and still is the winter home of his school. Phoenix just managed to save a major one of his residences, which will probably be opened to the public at some point. Tempe has the Gammage Auditorium. Plus, the Arizona Biltmore was designed by one of his first students, and is the last hotel in the world with a Wright-influenced design. He was so influential to the city that he got a major street named for him, and they built a large tower in his honor.
WereBear
@Suzanne: Don’t want to outshine the Temple ceremony. ;)
And the most excruciating wedding stuff I’ve ever sat through is the full Catholic mass.
Bring on Queen Latifah!
Suzanne
@SiubhanDuinne: I went to ASU from 2006-2010 in the art/design school. There is a chance I know your nephew if he works in that college.
Suzanne
@WereBear: I hate LDS wedding receptions. There is never anything memorable. No one gets drunk and makes asses of themselves, the locales are invariably suburban and boring, the food is barely a snack. Even they know it. Mr. Suzanne’s best man is LDS and he works as a DJ at weddings, and he made the comment to me once that he knows that, well, the sinners have much more fun.
SiubhanDuinne
@Suzanne:
I have stayed in the AZ Biltmore, and in fact it was you who strongly recommended that I do the Taliesin West tour when I was out there a couple of years ago. But I have not seen the Gammage, or the residence, and would very much like to. However, given AZ politics (sorry, but it is what it is), it may be a while before I make a return trip — although I love my nephew and grand-niece very much — but would prefer not to pump tourism dollars into the state’s economy right now. No offense to you.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: Is this the thing you attended at UGA?
Roger Moore
@Cacti:
Which should tell you everything you need to know about the relevance of the Grammys.
SiubhanDuinne
@Suzanne:
You know, I have no idea what he does. I actually don’t know him very well. He’s not particularly educated (i.e., no college) so I know he’s not faculty. But he is a gifted artist and has painted a number of commissioned murals both at ASU and in doctors’ offices and children’s hospitals in the area. If you want to find out, email me at SiubhanDuinne (at) gmail (dot) com.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
Yes, and holy fuck, that’s me taking the picture with my iPad!! I’m in the fucking New York Times??!! Wow!!!
? Martin
@SiubhanDuinne: LOL. That’s awesome. Way to own that front row.
SiubhanDuinne
@? Martin:
I had no idea! I am chuffed.
Suzanne
@SiubhanDuinne: I completely understand and don’t take offense. My blue friends and I work hard to make that different, but it is an uphill climb. Mr. Suzanne and I just did our first canvass of the year last week for this lovely lady, who is running for State Senate, and who just happens to be my third-grade teacher back in the Dark Ages. We’re going to her campaign kickoff event later tonight, so I will have to DVR the crassness.
WaterGirl
@raven: The only wedding I ever attended at Allerton Park was in the sunken garden. And yes, of course there were dogs!
Edit: my cocker spaniel was there, with other dogs to play with
raven
@WaterGirl: Everyone got married there. . .but us! Do you know you can stand at one end in the entry, talk in a normal voice and a person at the opposite end can hear you?
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: I wondered if that was you! Cool.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: That’s okay, some of us can’t see it because we’ve reached our 10 limit. :-(
SiubhanDuinne
@raven: thank you so much for sending the link. I’m not sure I would even have seen it. As it is, I’ve put it up on my FB status and have already had about 10 people like and comment :-)
WaterGirl
@raven: I had no idea! I will have to test that out next time I’m there. I don’t get out there as often as i used to…
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
Well yeah, me too!!
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: I even did the “start with the ? and remove the rest of the URL” thing. I catch just a quick glimpse of maybe chin length hair with an arm holding an iPad and then they tell me to fuck off and take the page away. I tried twice, though, ’cause it was you!
raven
@WaterGirl: The Princess was going to test it out!
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: Do you want me to capture it or can you?
raven
Here it is for all.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
Thank you so much! I was having trouble grabbing it. This is terrific.
Such an awful photo of me, but it’s not about me. And so cool that NYT decided to go with that image when they presumably had a gazillion others from that event to choose among.
WaterGirl
@raven: And now we have to inspect SiubhanDuinne’s
countertopsability to frame a shot in her camera.Beautiful photo of the garden. So much green! I miss that, this time of year.
raven
@WaterGirl: It was that July we were up there and it was REALLY hot!
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
Yup, they changed that workaround a year or so ago. Fuckers.
But y’all should save that photo, because when I come to visit (and you know I will), I’ll walk in backwards and you’ll all recognise me at once.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: Cool. We aim’s to please. I have a picture from the AJC at an early Kerry event and I’m sitting behind him. I was in line and this clown said “you look like a vet”! Ya think maybe wearing a 7th Infantry Division hat and jungle fatigue jacket made me LOOK like a vet. I said, “I AM A GODDAMN VET”!
WaterGirl
@raven: Yep, I call that RFH.
Say, I saw something the other day – you are going to skip the surgery and try some other stuff to see what helps? Did you see my links to two products I thought could help?
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: Just don’t wear long sleeves or change your hair; we won’t stand a chance of recognizing you. :-)
SiubhanDuinne
@raven: Wonderful! Do you have thT photo? Would love to see it!
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
Too bad you didn’t have Balloon Juice on the iPad. Although NYT probably wouldn’t have used that photo.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
:-)
Hair won’t change, sleeves depend upon the weather.
IowaOldLady
Having said “crass,” I also think people are entitled to do what they want. Big blowout? Go for it. Elope? Blessings on you.
I might have to draw the line at an LSD wedding with no booze, but at least it sounds short.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: I’ll root it out tomorrow.
IowaOldLady
@IowaOldLady: Wait. Make that LDS, not LSD. That would be an interesting wedding.
J Mac
David Foster Wallace describes a cruise ship junket (no pun intented) he took on behalf of Harper’s magazine in piece called “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.” Very, very funny. It’s worth finding and reading.
e.a. foster
Crass.
The whole Grammy thing is tasteless, crass, and a waste of t.v. time. its much better to watch paint dry. I tried to watch it, but it was so lame,