What a f**pping weekend it has been.

On Saturday morning (UK time) I was awakened to the shock news that Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins had been found dead in his hotel room as the band prepared to take the stage for a gig in Bogotá, Colombia. Police were quite rightly being cautious about the cause of death, but when the autopsy report came back with 10 different drugs, including benzos, opioids and tricyclic antidepressants, in Hawkins’ urine, you knew where this was heading. I will most likely be writing more about this later, when further facts have been established. Personally, I have a vision in my mind of exactly how the complete autopsy report will come back, when all of the tests are done, and how that report will be spun for the benefit of the world’s media, I’ll write more then. Because that’s not what I’d like to talk about right now.

What a shame for Taylor Hawkins and Foo Fighters.

The following day, yesterday, brought news that legendary rock band Genesis had just played their final gig, in London, perhaps appropriately. I am a huge fan of this band – in all their ‘eras’ with or without Peter Gabriel, with or without Steve Hackett, and as a trio (or not). I even loved their various solo careers; that’s how committed I was.

But I have to say, Phil Collins is now officially worse than Frank Sinatra. I think he’s on his third retirement; and, furthermore, becoming more like an embarrassing tribute artist version of himself with every tour. He may also try to kid you into believing that he has every right to perform as Genesis if he wants to. Well…OK, but to perform as Genesis you need the agreement of at least two other gentlemen and, let’s face it, it would only really make musical sense if you could persuade FOUR other gentlemen to take part as well. And he and I both know which four gentlemen I’m referring to.

The Genesis The Last Domino? tour was first announced I think back in 2020, but just as with everything else, COVID-19 ruined any chanced of it happening that year, and almost did the same the following year, but in fact the tour did begin at long last in September 2021. When it did begin, and videos began appearing on YouTube, I was shocked. Shocked, I was. It was as though Will Smith had walked up to me and smacked me in the gob.

Phil Collins sat in a chair all evening, never once went near a drumkit, and, despite all their great songs being re-tuned to suit his voice, still managed to sing every one of them flat as the proverbial pancake. In short, it was the worst performance I had ever seen by any band, either in person or on video, in more than forty years of gig-watching, concert-going and just general live music-loving. The tour should never have happened. Why Phil Collins agreed to do it is a mystery; but, a still greater mystery is why the dicky doodle doo the other two agreed to do it either.

What a shame for Phil Collins and Genesis.

But here I am about 17 paragraphs in and I’ve only just reached the topic I would like to discuss – one that happened just hours ago from the time of writing this. An incident that took place at the 94th Academy Award® ceremony in Los Angeles in which actor Will Smith climbed on stage, calmly walked up to the comedian Chris Rock, who had just made a joke about Smith’s wife, the actor Jada Pinkett Smith, (whose struggle with hair loss was so bad that she had shaved her head), and lamped him one. I’ll not go into the details of the joke because a) it wasn’t funny and b) you can read it on exactly one and a half million and four websites already.

But you see, Smith wasn’t simply at the awards as a spectator – he was nominated. His performance as the father of tennis legends Venus and Serena Williams in the film King Richard was thought good enough by the Academy® to qualify for a Best Actor® Award®, and – blow me down if he doesn’t go on to win it!

Now, here’s the kicker to this story because, being the winner, Smith has to return to the stage and make a speech thanking everyone he has ever known. But here’s the thing: because of earlier events, he also has to make a very public and very explicit apology. Not to the public, not to the man he smacked either; no, this apology was to the Academy (of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences®, in case anyone’s interested).

And in Smith’s tears, you can see very real fears that his career was suddenly and very publicly in jeopardy, and perhaps more importantly in that moment, he could find himself stripped of the one award that he and millions of other actors prize.

Smith’s justifications for his actions was that, like the man he played in King Richard, he was fiercely protective of his wife and family.

That’s bullsh*t right there, a huge pile of it; fresh, steaming, hot, stinking.

Because, let’s face it, jokes like that affect him as a man, as the chosen protector of his wife and family. And it is this pseudo-justification of the incident that have led some of the more ‘tabloid’ corners of the tabloid press to suggest that this incident was in fact staged as a publicity stunt to promote the movie.

I’m sorry, but that, too, is bullsh*t.

If I was in Will Smith’s shoes, and I felt in superior physical shape to another man who’d just made a cheap crack about my wife, I’m pretty sure I would have done the same as Will Smith – let me just get that out there. But that does not stop me from the view that Smith ought to be stripped of his award. I would expect the same to happen to me if it was me, and even if it didn’t happen, I would feel that I did not deserve the award anyway. Oh yes, and that’s before we get to:

The Academy® Awards® are now officially the most pointless thing that everyone associated with movie making dreams of receiving. The Smith Smackdown just made the Oscars® newsworthy again, and maybe that’s the point – we’ve all just fallen for some Smith-bait, or smackbait or something like that. If you are not connected with movie making in anyway, you most likely don’t give a rat’s ringpiece about the Oscars®. If you are, then the chances are an Academy® Award® is all you dream of. And that is why Will Smith bubbled like a b*tch during his speech.

What a shame for Will Smith and the cast & crew of the film King Richard. x