I watched the Grammys last night for the first time since they stopped awarding great Jazz Artists and Symphony Conductors (sometime after the Jurassic period). And I was disappointed! Not because of the great increase in skin and decrease in artistic quality - what do I expect after madly skimming channels to find the watchable? No, I was disappointed for the selfish and personal reason of ego puffing. My niece, Emily Palen (violinist), who tried out on You Tube's Grammy Moment, was to play in an orchestra backing up the Foo Fighters, who won something. The disappointment was not that she did not win and get to solo (although she is MUCH prettier and plays MUCH better than the number 1 winner - apologies to HER granduncle). It was that while the support Orchestra of really good musicians was playing, the mike was turn up only on the guitar, and the camera was mostly close upped on the scraggly beard (worse than mine) of the (I guess) head Foo Fighter, thus spoiling any mitigating sights and sounds that I had thought would alleviate the pain. Well, one mitigating circumstance: In a quick scan, I saw Emily in the front row of the orchestra; she was smiling, and seemed to be having a ball with it. Maybe they took them out to Dinner too - I hope. So back to Oregon Public Broadcasting for me - Lawrence Welk reruns even don't sound so bad nowadays -all things being relative, as uncle Albert used to say.