She’s actually apologetic about it. And she encourages people: “don’t be afraid to wait until after, to talk to me.”

Lane’s cool in that she welcomes communication with the people who like her work — hence, she’ll have a little time for people who’ll wait til she’s available to talk after a show. She also prefers building up a little communication with people over email, rather than field blank requests for her head shot (meaning, her professional photograph). She says “I love emails saying ‘hey this song really moves me’” – but prefers that people offer a little bit of context when they ask for a photo — are they a fan, why they would like a photograph — something that helps her know them a little bit. Otherwise, it can be a little weird.

That said, she adds, if you like her music, “don’t be afraid to create a relationship” with her over email. She’s been corresponding with a teenager who has similar aspirations and says she really enjoys that relationship. “It was all about the music. It’s really all about sharing creativity.”

As for pressure to create new music, she says that’s a compliment. “You want to know people want more.” It’s a motivator for her, too. “Some people are prolific and write a hundred songs a year, and I’m not that person. But it makes me happy when people ask.” Lane’s current album, “Find a Way,” can be found here.

Lane’s music is being used in an upcoming film called “Cotton” starting Gary Cole. More on the film here.

Like all performers, Mitchell is reluctant to criticize his fans too much; every performer appreciates the people who love his work. But, like all performers, he finds that life on stage has a unique set of trials.

Like the eternal live-show joke, “Play Freebird!” Mitchell, with his dual goals of ministry and entertainment, says his take on actually playing the song “depends on why you’re there. If you’re there to entertain, you should play Freebird. If you’re there to promote your material, you don’t have to.”

Here’s a longish clip — 8 minutes, but worth it — in which band members talk about their love of funk music. Oh, and they’re playing it, too.

Keep your eye on the guy with the bro-fro — that’s Cozmo Holloway, who’s now playing with rock and roll band the Dirty Guv’nahs. You need to hear them.

As for Mitchell: there’s also the problem of recognizing people he’s met before. “In general, as a musician, people just assume you know their name if they come to see you once. I’ve played probably 40 shows in the past few months and I’m genuinely sorry, but I don’t.”

And he is, he’s genuinely sorry about stuff like that. He’s that kind of person.

There’s also the matter of fueling up before performances, and winding down afterward. I asked if he ever wants to keep people at arm’s length a little so he can breathe. He says sometimes “you’ve got 10 minutes before you go on and you’ve just gotten your piece of pizza” and there’s scarcely enough time to wolf it down, while people approach and want to talk. “As I get older,” he says, “I just appreciate my personal space. There’s an overstimulation that happens; there’s something about the way musicians are wired. We get in a social setting and we lose our focus.”

And there are stage-crashers. When you play cover songs in bars, they happen. Mitchell takes it in stride. His advice? “Just play it off like it’s fun, part of the show. Over the years, you learn to handle it better. And the people who are there really to appreciate your music, they know when you’re getting a curve ball thrown at you and they appreciate it.”

The problem with letting someone sing, however, leads to the problem that one song is never enough. The solution? First: “Let’s give it up again for [fill in the blank], people!” And if that hint doesn’t get the “guest vocalist” off the stage, start playing a song he or she doesn’t know.

We also discussed balancing fans and friends. Fans may want more access to the performer than he or she can reasonably provide, whereas the real friends — for instance, the musicians Mitchell plays with — understand a person’s limits. Often, because they’re in the same position.

Frankly, that tension is difficult for us fans too. If you do meet someone you really admire, it’s really difficult, isn’t it, to keep the admiration at bay and act like a regular human being? It’s like a crush: we’re always wanting a little too much, and we know it, and that doesn’t make it any easier to keep things normal. Like Mitchell says, “it’s a delicate balance.”

I also asked about the pressure to put out new original material, either from one’s label or from the fans. The curse of doing really good work is that people want MORE really good work, and the creative process is unpredictable. Good ideas don’t always come just because you want them too. When fans ask when Mitchell is going to put out his next record — and it has been a couple of years — he says, “It’s flattering. But if you’re in a dry spell and they ask for it you get more sensitive about it. But other times they’re right, I do need to push myself a little bit more.”

If he’s going to keep writing songs like this, then yes.

For a musician like Mitchell, who still works a day job to pay the bills for himself and his young son Bowie, that’s particularly difficult. He says it’s “really hard, especially with bivocational artists. We’re working 40 hours a week, and in between there, the creative time — we have to make time for it. The older I get, the more responsibilities I have. I have to budget my time like a bank account.”

And here we are as fans, appreciating performers’ efforts but at the same time wanting more. For us, a great performance or a new song from someone we love — that’s payday, buddy.

Be good to the artists you love, people. They may make it look easy, but it ain’t.

He enjoys appearing a little cranky onstage, but in reality he couldn’t be nicer. When I asked him about fan behavior that bothers him, here’s what he emailed me.

Pet Peeve fan behavior #1: You know you burn copies of my record. I know you burn copies of my record. But don’t TELL me you burned copies! If I’m going to live in poverty, let me at least live in ignorance and poverty.

Pet Peeve fan behavior #3: Birthday mentions. [Being asked to sing Happy Birthday during a show.] There are over 3 BILLION people on the planet and only 365 days in a year; chances are its someone else’s birthday too. No, really, the CHANCES ARE ( do the math). So let’s not open that can of birthday worms, shall we?

On the other hand, he says, he says he sure appreciates what he’s got.

I have very loyal fans who want to “see me win”. You can’t ask for much more. AND people are laying down their hard earned dollar to hear you play. In the end, you must respect that. If you think you’re too good for that, you won’t last long in showbidness.

And if you liked that, here’s more at the Scott Miller website.

Album art for "Note of Hope"

I’ll be adding additional comments from performers as I get them, so please check back in.

Rock musician Matt Nathanson alerted me to a thorn in the side of professional musicians last night — he mentioned it during a concert at the 930 Club in Washington, D.C.

He was talking about fans who are standing in line for an autograph and then call him by the wrong name, or who request a certain song but get the name of the song wrong.

It got me thinking about the whole push-pull between an artist and the people who consume his work. See what Matt had to say about it in this video from December 2007.

It’s an uncomfortable balance, the artist demanding respect and the consumer demanding product.

Which often breeds annoyance. The whole getting-the-artist’s-name-wrong thing reminded me of something dumb that I did when an old friend got hired by a popular band. I knew their music, but not the individual performers, and while looking for my friend after a show, I asked a guy, “Hey, aren’t you with [name of band]?” And yes, helpfully, it turned out he was. One of the founding members. Whom I had just watched perform a two-hour show.

My friend and I lost touch shortly after that. Surprised?

Which brings me to the question: What do you do when you meet a performer? What ticks them off and what do they appreciate? I’ve been asking around.

Later, we’ll talk about what we expect from performers, what’s reasonable and what’s not. Because we fans get ticked off, too.

Got a story about a celeb encounter to share? Let’s hear it!

So. If you’re wondering what it’s like to see a taping of Saturday Night Live, I can fill you in. Because that’s what I did this weekend.

First of all, you will apply for tickets to SNL in August. They’re free; you just fill out a form with your contact information and hit “send.”

Next, you will forget about it, because what are the chances you’ll actually get seats?

Then, in early April you’ll get notification by email that you have tickets for the following Saturday night, about eight days away. If you live in Washington, D.C., you are happy about this, because it’s easy to take the bus up to Manhattan. If you live on the other side of the country, you may be annoyed because it’s a long haul to New York on short notice. If you don’t go, they give your seat to one of the stand-by people waiting outside. And it might be a good seat — some center seats were filled at last minute last night by people who were standing by.

When you go to Manhattan for your SNL weekend, if you have worked an overnight shift in a newsroom the night before, you may plan to sleep on the Bolt bus to NY but find you’re too excited to do so. This will bite you in the ass later. But It’s understandable, as you’ve been working a lot and didn’t realize how much you would relish a break.

When you get to Manhattan you schlep your bag across town, a long way on foot, because you want to look at everything and by the time you decide you really should have taken a cab, you are like five blocks from your hotel. You vow never to travel with a non-wheelie bag again.

If you are nuts, you do not sleep when you check into your hotel. You drop your bags and go out on the town to see and do as much as possible before you collapse. That evening, you hit a Broadway show, and get home around 11:30.

Of course, you sleep from like 1am to 7am, and then you are too jazzed to sleep anymore. So you take a walk. You eat breakfast at a cafe across from Grand Central Terminal, because not one of the many food vendors at the train station serve a breakfast with any protein in it, just bagels and pastries and etc. And you are starving. So you hit the cafe and you wolf down a couple eggs, toast, potatoes, and three pieces of bacon, and then you are astonished and ashamed. But it’s just food guilt, and you were distracted by the very talky California native chatting at you from the next table, and after all if you were that hungry, you needed to eat. So you move on.

You decide to walk off this delicious breakfast with a two-hour walk up Manhattan’s east Midtown and Upper East Side, which must be capitalized because it is the land of the rich and impressive. You admire many dogs at dog parks, and miss your own companion animals, and then by the time you reach your destination, the mayor’s Gracie Mansion, you are gritting your teeth and wincing at the blister on your left foot.

Gracie Mansion

You take a cab back to the hotel. This has become a favorite sight-seeing method of yours, the one-way walk followed by a cab ride. You would be smarter, of course, to walk half as far and then take a different route back home on foot. But inevitably your compulsion to keep going gets the better of you.

After some rest, you go see a matinee performance of a Broadway play, “That Championship Season,” if you’re lucky, which reunites Brat Packers Kiefer Sutherland and Jason Patric, who happens to be the son of the guy who wrote the play, who happens to be the guy who played the young priest in The Exorcist, and this happens to be his only play, and it is magnificent. Afterward, you might catch Kiefer Sutherland outside the theater, signing autographs, and he is shorter than you expected but how nice of him to come out to see his fans. He is mobbed, of course, and the most you see is the back of his head.

Once you have established that you would have to climb over about fifty people to get a good look at Mr. Sutherland and opt not to, you meet a couple of friends for dinner and coffee and then you and your plus-one head to Rockefeller Center.

Where you get in line and wait for a very long time. And your lack of sleep and long walk make you a sore, punchy, and way too talkative conversation partner with your plus-one. He, being a new dad, is tolerant. Your conversation may be inane, but at least if you need to pee you’ll do it yourself, and new parents appreciate that.

Eventually, you get in line to show your ID and claim your two purple tickets, which list the show host and band. Your plus-one takes a picture of the tickets to post on Facebook, and you’re mighty glad it’s just your hand and the ticket in the picture because you’re feeling pretty darn ragged.

You stand in line some more. Eventually, you are broken into groups, which tempts you to make a Holocaust joke and you refrain but admit to your plus-one that you were thinking of it, and he is probably horrified but he doesn’t show it. You take the elevator upstairs, and you get in line and wait some more. There are pictures of SNL sketches in the hallway where you’re standing, and you’re distressed to see that they have one of the infamous Jenny Slate sketch where she’s supposed to be uttering a euphemism for a four-letter word not allowed on broadcast TV by the FCC, and she messes up and utters the actual word, and then afterward she kind of disappears from the broadcasts and you feel really really bad for her because anybody could have done that.

Also, you make a quick nervous-pee run to the restroom, and lots of other women are doing the same, and you have a “can’t spare a square” moment except that everybody’s equally nervous and excited and nice and you actually have a little square-train running all down the four cubicles so everybody is saved by the one or two booths that have some squares left. The thing about New Yorkers being mean and tourists being dumb is pretty much a myth, and I’ve been wanting to say that for a really long time. If you are proactively nice, people are usually nice back. And we’re all tourists at some point.

When you get into the studio, you’ll be seated in a very specific seat, and, as the gay couple next to us found out, no amount of arguing will get you moved to a better seat. You are stuck, and you’d better like it, because the fact that you own a house in the Hamptons doesn’t mean squat to these NBC pages.

You are in a balcony area looking down on the SNL set, which is actually a number of three-sided backdrops facing in all directions around the room. You can’t see any backdrop perfectly, because of the angle or the cameras in the way or the rail in front of you or the fact that the whole thing has its back to you. It totally reminds you of playing-card houses scattered across a coffee table.

While you are waiting for the program to start (and your plus-one notes that they can’t start late since it’s live TV — although that never stopped any Democratic president in recent history, and I say that with love) you are jittery, annoyed by the guy beside you who keeps hitting you while gesturing dramatically, and worried you will cough during the performance. You grip an entire tin of Altoids in your sweaty little palms and finally speak to the guy next to you about his bumping you. Turns out that, because you are nice about it, he is nice back. (I use this often when trying to get to a conformable viewing space at concerts. I’m 5’2″; if I weasel my way to the front, I ridiculously ask the people behind me “Can you see over me?” which pretty much guarantees a space for the entire show.)

The band plays warm-up music starting at 11pm. Does anybody not like this happy funky sound with all the brass instruments? More about the SNL band, which was started with help from Paul Schaffer, here. Before the program starts, Jason Sudeikis comes out to ask you to turn off your cell phones. He makes some jokes and makes fun of the section nearest yours for having the worst sight lines and also being in the most danger if there’s a fire in the studio. Then he introduces Kenan Thompson to come out and sing a number with Abbey Elliott, Nasim Pedrad, and Vanessa Bayar singing backup. The song is “Saturday Night’s All Right For Fighting” which is super-fun because it’s an Elton John song and Elton was the guest host last week.

When Kenan and the girls leave, the crowd is pumped, and then it’s tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock and you’re so excited and the stagehands bring out the Oval Office set and you know the opener will be about the budget crisis. Fred Armisen enters, dressed appropriately, and yells hey to the crowd, and people love him. Lorne Michaels also comes out to eyeball the set, and it’s almost as difficult to keep one’s cool watching Lorne Michaels as it is watching the actors. He’s a force of nature.

It’s funny; when you perform, you feel so indebted to your audience for paying attention to you, and when you’re part of an audience, you are so grateful for the distraction and the good work. SNL has my gratitude for making me laugh at the worst moments of my life. That’s not nothing.

And then the show starts. You have a number of monitor screens above your head, so you can see what the TV audience sees, but sitting in the studio you’re struck by the nearness of the famous people and the mechanics of the production and you’re very very glad you are DVR-ing the show at home. Helen Mirren is a little nervous, but the intro is great and she pulls off includes a costume change while hiding behind six of the guys in the cast. It’s a take on “There is Nothing Like a Dame” which is kind of an easy joke, but of course everyone’s wonderful. Here’s the opening number. You note that during scene changes, even though there’s at least 90 seconds of commercials, the cast runs like hell out of the studio after skits, presumably to change and warm up for the next one. No wonder they’re so flushed and happy after the show. That’s a lot of running.

NBC doesn’t allow re-posting of video, but here’s a link to a set-change video on the NBC site. More fun behind-the-scenes stuff here.

And here’s a funny thing: as a recovering theater geek, I think of every set as having a backstage. But in TV, you don’t, necessarily. The cast is running away from the set, right past the audience, back to a center door across the studio. Except for the permanent stage where the band plays, there’s no backstage at all. And even there, it’s for show. Everybody who takes the stage comes from the back of the room, right past the audience, except for Helen Mirren’s first entrance.

You have trouble not watching the monitor screens, because the real-live show is happening in front of you, and the set changes and etc are so interesting, but the camera view is funnier.

When there is a fake commercial for a photography service for one’s unmentionables, you watch that on the monitor. When a skit is performed outside your frame of vision, you watch that on the monitor too.

And of course when one of your boyfriends, Bill Hader or Seth Meyers, comes out, you are starstruck and craning your neck to look at them as long and closely as possible. When Seth does Weekend Update, which you have loved since the days of Dennis Miller, you are thrilled to find out how the guests roll on and off the set so quickly. It’s so smooth and quick that one might (foolishly, and for years) think that there was some kind of track with a motor, but it’s really just a stagehand pushing a rolling chair on and dragging it back off again, or the guest himself kicking his chair off. Things are so much more low-tech than one might guess.

The Foo Fighters play a musical number. You realize the TV audience is hearing a different mix than you are, because the vocals in the studio are unusually loud. Regardless, they rock. And the Foo Fighters fan club over on the side of the studio where they are playing goes crazy. And, surprisingly, they don’t play in the same space as the house band; it’s another permanent backdrop next to the main stage. How had you never noticed the different backdrop on TV?

As the show launches into its final half-hour, you look at your watch and realize the minutes are ticking down, and you haven’t been there long enough. You start to dread the end of the show and crane your neck even harder to make sure you see everything. A few sketches are done at angles where you can’t see them and you watch that monitor like you’re studying for a college-entrance exam.

The band plays its final number, “Walk,” from their June 2011 album Wasting Light. Here it is. It’s even better than the first one, but you’re already sad, anticipating having to leave. By the time they do the last sketch, which drags a little until Dave Grohl takes a role and makes it funnier — here’s a bit of it — you are antsy and feeling a sense of dread. And then there’s another commercial, and you are wondering where in the studio you can hide overnight so you don’t have to go. And then after a hugely long break, during which the band plays the closing theme and urges you to clap-clap, clap-clap, so the TV audience can hear it and know it’s almost time to go to bed, the cast and Helen Mirren run out and take the stage.

And then it’s ending, and Helen Mirren is thanking the audience and the cast and — for a moment she hesitates, trying not to preface the band name with the word “the,” because they don’t use it, and she finally blurts out “Foo Fightahs!” and then there is more theme music and you’ve forgotten to keep clapping and the cast and band and Helen Mirren are hugging each other and you just want more than anything to be one of them. You really do. You want it so much it hurts.

Yet, when it’s time you leave, you do not try to hide under your chair or in a corner hoping to remain unnoticed until everyone returns on Monday. You shuffle out, obediently, sadly, momentarily cheered by the sight of Bobby Moynihan standing near the exiting crowd, chatting with a crew member. You almost go over to talk to him and then decide to leave him alone. You try to make peace with the fact that Bill Hader will probably never be your boyfriend. (And as that thought strikes you, you wonder if you are a potential stalker just waiting to explode into Full Blown Crazy.) And when you exit 30 Rock, you note that security has set up barricades outside the door you are exiting and fans are gathered and it appears that the stars might exit this door and sign autographs before they leave for the after-party. But it’s late and you’re exhausted and your plus-one has a long drive back home. So he drops you off at your hotel and you are up until 4 am, wondering what the heck you are doing with your life.

And you are so grateful you applied for those tickets. And you wonder how you’re going to change your life and move up to New York, where you always wanted to live in the first place, and do what you always planned to do, which is a thing you cannot admit to yourself just yet. And the answer, you know, is to write and promote yourself and hope. So you write. And you try to get your stuff out there. And you hope. Against hope, really.

You can take a look at the winners here and I’ll just let you know upfront that if you are a fan of The Last Airbender, a) you must be terribly lonely and b) you won’t like the results. Sex and the City 2, ladies, did not fare well either and I don’t know about you, Two Dear Readers, but I’m not losing any sleep over that.

Now, I can’t quite decide whether to call this guy John or Mr. Wilson, so I’m going to follow his lead and refer to him as Ye Olde Head Razzberry, or the HeadBerry for short. By day, he is a copywriter and publicist. He has also written two books: The Official Razzie Movie Guide and Everything I Know I Learned at the Movies (long subtitle omitted).

Now, it is a Sunday, and I’m putting in a six-hour workday for you, my Two Dear Readers, and I have to save some strength for the Oscars tonight, so I’m not going to give you a verbatim Q and A transcript. But I will dish.

The first thing I asked Mr. Headberry is whether he thinks the Raspberry’s 600-750 voters actually see these movies, or if they vote on reputation. He said he didn’t know, and isn’t that true of all the other awards shows too? He himself likes to go see bad films. So what makes a bad film? He said it’s the idea that not only is it ridiculous to you, but the idea that the cast and crew actually (I paraphrase) made this picture with a straight face. That it actually seemed to someone like it was a good idea.

I will stop for a second and just explain: anybody can join the Razzies’ voting membership for a fee of $35. The movies nominated must have come out in the past year. An actor can get a nomination based on more than one film. There is an award for an entire cast. There is an occasional career award, which Mr. Headberry says Nicolas Cage is campaigning for right now, and I agree with him. Mr. Headberry notes that Mr. Cage does have some back taxes to pay, but doesn’t have to take every script handed to him.

2011 was a banner year for the Razzies, as far as I’m concerned, because there were Supporting Actress nominations for the Three Divas: Cher, for Burlesque; Barbra Streisand, for Little Fockers; and Liza Minelli, for that Razzie jackpot winner Sex and the City 2. How did this happen? I ask. Well, says the Headberry, it’s not clear why any of these ladies took these roles. It’s not like they needed the money, and the work certainly didn’t showcase their talents. Based on their track records, he says, you’d think they would have put some thought into this.

I should also note that none of the winners showed up to collect their prizes this year. He says they’re used to that. You will probably remember that Sandra Bullock showed up last year –the venue is a theater in L.A. — to collect her Worst Actress award for All About Steve. She very kindly brought a little red wagon full of All About Steve DVDs. And the next night she won an Oscar.

Photo: AP

And then her husband cheated on her and then she revealed she had secretly adopted a son and then the tabloids went mad and had her secretly dating Ryan Reynolds and being abducted by aliens and going into witness protection . . .

In 2005, Halle Berry, also showed up for her award, and accepted her gold spray-painted (fake) raspberry glued to an 8mm film reel while holding her Oscar for Monster’s Ball in the other hand. (I swear, I will link these movies to IMDB later, Two Dear Readers, but for now I must save my strength for the Oscars.)

Mr. Headberry notes that getting a Razzie is something people in the film industry COULD treat as a warning sign that they’re doing something wrong. Then again, as established, at least two Razzie-winners are also Oscar winners, so you might just say that in the course of constructing a body of creative work, one is going to hopefully make a few really good pieces but may also expect some serious clunkers, because that’s how it goes with creative work. Also, getting noticed for ANYTHING in Hollywood means you’re doing something right, doesn’t it? Aside from getting arrested?

We did talk a bit about Lindsey Lohan and Charlie Sheen and that was a little sad. It’s hard to watch talent — and lives — being wasted. Oddly enough, though, I was quite cavalier about Lindsey and Charlie, and yet hated Ricky Gervais’ jokes at the Golden Globes, and Mr. Headberry was sympathetic to them but really liked Mr. Gervais’s performance.

I asked where the Razzies Walk of Shame would be, if there were one, and who’d be on it. Mr. Headberry says it would be in North Hollywood, the San Fernando Valley, because “the Hollywood snoots would never want to admit they’d been there.” We never reached an exhaustive list of honorees but among them, he said, he’d include Sylvester Stallone; Pia Zadora, who save for her rich husband would probably never have become famous; and Bo Derek. He also noted that it was a sad day for the Razzies when Madonna gave up on acting.

Other thoughts: “Somebody called Sex and the City 2 the lamest Grumpy Old Men sequel ever.”

[Of M. Night Shyamalan, the man behind The Last Airbender and a string of other post-Sixth Sense duds] “His next gig is either going to be a beer commercial in Japan or a TV series. He’s destroyed his credibility.”

“We can’t really razz everything that stinks or our show would be as long as the Oscars.”

My last question: I have, truly I do, a DVD of the horribly reviewed movie Valentine’s Day. How should I get rid of it? Mr. Headberry proposed sticking a marshmallow on either side of the hole in the middle, sticking a wire coat hanger through it, and roasting it over a fire.

How about you? Suggestions? What creative ways could I destroy this Razz-worthy monstrosity? What do you think of John Wilson, Headberry, and don’t you want to go to the Razzies with me next year? Such a lark, darlings. Even if it’s in North Hollywood.

Now: the Independent Spirit Awards, which you’ll find tonight on the channel IFC (if you get IFC, and otherwise I’m pretty sure you won’t find them), were founded in 1984 as the FINDIE (Friends of Independents) Awards. It took only two years before they changed the name to Independent Spirit. They were founded by Jeanne Lucas and Anne Kimmel to thank people and organizations for their support of independent films.

The first FINDIEs were acrylic glass pyramids with shoelaces inside, to represent the shoestring budget many independent films operate on. Since 2006, the award has been a bird sitting atop a pole with shoestrings wrapped around it. You know, I like the acrylic pyramid thing better.

Key moments for Independent Spirit Awards: in 1992, Jodie Foster gave a keynote address entitled “The Scum-Sucking Vampire Pig Theory of Hollywood.” Eight years later, they eliminated the keynote address.

In 1995, the beach in Santa Monica is established as the permanent home for the awards. Also, criteria for competition are established: original, provocative subject matter; uniqueness of vision; economy of means; and percentage of independent financing.

Over the years, new categories are established to encourage filmmakers, writers, and actors new in the profession to keep going. Grants in the amount of $20,000 are given out to said newbies.

The Independent Spirit Awards were an early place to protest the war in Iraq. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was held three days before that ceremony. Elvis Costello showed up to perform “What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding,” and Michael Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine” wins, giving him a chance to make an anti-Bush (2.0) speech.

Skipping ahead — in 2009 Mickey Rourke made a six-minute speech in which he thanked the Santa Monica Police Department for giving him a bed to sleep in 10 years ago.

And that brings us practically to the 2011 awards, which happen tonight. Tune in tomorrow for a recap of the awards and stories about the Razzies, which have been looking for a television home but evidently are still looking. Also: this little show called the Oscars that for some reason everyone’s all hot and bothered about.
Go to the movies, people! Thank you, that is all.

Goal for this blog is to share true stories, explorations of historical places, some test-cooking of recipes from the past, and link what I can to pop culture, i.e., movies, TV, and books. It is a broad swath I mean to cut. But the common thread will be that all of these entries will explore history in ways that make it relevant to modern life.

My other goal is to raise this blog’s readership to eleven. Eleven is all I ask. Until then, my dear Two Readers, thank you for your patronage. Expect a new entry in the next few days.

So instead we’ll talk about the French president’s hot wife, Carla Bruni. This came up because she’s an actress and singer and has a song on the soundtrack of “(500) Days of Summer,” a 2009 quirky rom/com that I really like, both for the storytelling and the awesome music therein. And I just came across the lyrics of that song, Quelqu’un M’a Dit (Someone told me) and remembered to order her 2002 album of the same name. The song is lovely — very gentle and sexy and thoughtful and musing about whether or not the object of her affection still loves her. She’s addressing the guy, “someone told me you might still love me, is it possible, then?” but it’s casual and that’s what’s so striking about it.

What is also striking is that she is the wife of France’s head of state. Can you imagine Laura Bush or even Michelle Obama having a singing/modeling career and also being the First Lady? Would Americans even stand for it? Would Laura have to be banned from doing topless photos, no matter how much tshe wanted to do it for the integrity of the art? Would Michelle have had to make sure the songs she chose weren’t too sexy?

God bless the French.

Having said that, I should clarify that Bruni herself is Italian. It is the French tolerance for things that would be scandalous in the U.S., that’s what I’m referring to. Before marrying French President Nicolas Sarkozy in February 2008, after only four months of courtship, Bruni was a supermodel who reportedly dated Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, and former French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius (oh my goodness, much too old!). Again, God bless the French; so what if their First Lady has slept with a few rock stars?

So here’s the full story: Bruni was born in Turin, Italy, in 1967, to a family with a lot of money from the tire-manufacturing industry and a lot of musical talent. Her legal father is classical composer Alberto Bruni Tedeschi, although she claims her biological father may be someone else. Her mother is Italian concert pianist Marisa Borini (yay for women named Marisa!) Her sister is an actress and movie director.

Bruni began modeling when she was 19 and by the 1990s had reached supermodel status, earning $7.5 million a year. She quit modeling in 1997 (a wise move, for even supermodels are criticized for aging, as inevitable as it is) and went into music full-time. I suppose one could see that as an egotistical, silly flight of fancy if one didn’t know her family history. It seems like an excellent choice to me. Quelqu’un Ma Dit, the album, was released in France in 2002. Work from that album has been used in the American film Conversations with Other Women, the U.S. television show Chuck, an H&M Christmas commercial, and the film Le Divorce. Which is good, because you know if she ever loses that family fortune and divorces the president of France, she’s going to need those residuals.

Bruni kept recording, releasing the album No Promises in 2007. It contains work of famous poets such as Dorothy Parker, W.H. Auden, and Emily Dickenson set to music. (Just thinking about that album makes me feel so much smarter. Imagine how intellectual one would feel if one bought it!! And maybe even listened!)

The third album, Comme Si De Rien N’etait, or As If Nothing Happened, came out in July 2008, after her marriage to Sarkozy. She wrote most of the lyrics. She’s working on a fourth album with Lenny Kravitz.

Bruni took part in a parade at the 2006 Olympics and sang at Nelson Mandela’s 91st birthday party in July 2009, her first public performance since marrying the president. She is next to try acting, with a part in Woody Allen’s upcoming film Midnight in Paris, set for release in 2011. (And while we’re on the subject, is anyone else thrilled that Woody Allen finally got his butt out of Manhattan? His movies are so much fresher now, the good ones and even the bad ones.)

Meanwhile, in Bruni’s other life, she accompanies the president on state visits, generating, as you might expect, a lot of interest. Some were scandalized in April 2008 when a nude photograph of Bruni sold for more than $91,000 more than 20 times its expected price, on the eve of a state visit to Britain.

Bruni has also bonded with the U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama, who shares her passion for fighting HIV/AIDS, and met with the Tibetan Buddhist leader the Dalai Lama in lieu of her husband. Heads of state who meet with the Dalai Lama risk ticking off China, because China considers the Dalai Lama a separatist, but evidently the hotsy-totsy wife of a head of state meeting with the exiled leader is just fine. And I bet the Dalai Lama didn’t mind one bit either.

So could anything be more perfect for this talented, gorgeous, wealthy woman who seems on top of the world? Well, before you start hating on her, you should know that she has said she gets bored with monogamy, and that while love lasts fa long time, “burning desire” lasts only a few weeks. Mr. Sarkozy, were you aware of this?

Regardless, as it has withstood a presidential divorce (lord, we didn’t even talk about that yet, did we?), record albums, a history of dating rock stars, and nude photos, whatever Bruni does next, I bet the Eiffel Tower will still stand.

Although the Washington Monument may fall over out of shock.

A bientot, mes chers. Yes, I will try to learn how to add accents before I write any more about Frainch stuff.

Confession: I did not grow up watching The Lawrence Welk Show. By the time I was old enough to care, the show was in syndication and competed with the country-music variety show Hee Haw. Why, on God’s green earth, a conservative Southern Baptist family tuned in to cornball comedy and country music on Saturday nights instead of the tasteful song stylings of Champagne Music, I’ll never know. Unless it was the fact that we were Southern Baptists, and we did not discuss scandalous things like champagne. (I had the urge to write “shamepagne” there for a minute, and then I realized that was like the worst joke I’d tried to make in a week, so then I started to erase it, and then I figured I’d leave it there as a testament to the inevitability of creating mediocrity in the pursuit of great art. Besides, somebody will think it’s funny, whether they admit it or not.)

So anyway: there’s this misconception about Welk that English was not his first language. But it was, it was just taught to him by people who had accents. Welk was born in North Dakota in 1903, into a little sod house. He was from a tight little German-Ukrainian immigrant community in Strasburg, where the family homestead is now a tourist attraction.

While he was growing up, Welk taught himself to play accordion on an instrument that had been in the family for generations. He played it to death, bought a cheap replacement that soon fell apart, and finally struck a deal with his dad to get funding for a $400 accordion that he would pay off through four years of work on the family farm. When he finished his indentured servitude at age 21, he lit out for greener pastures (OK, yes, pun intended, and now that I’ve admitted it, it’s not funny anymore) despite his dad’s assurances that he’d be back home as soon as he got hungry.

Hey Dad, your home’s a museum now, and it ain’t because of the corn crop. Suck on THAT.

Roadside America has more on the birthplace.

A self-taught conductor, Welk spent 25 years touring with his band before establishing his television show in 1955. ABC canceled it in 1971, saying the audience was too old and the music was out of date. But Welk managed to get his show syndicated in 250 U.S. and Canadian markets and carried on until 1982. North Dakota State University says he completed more than 1,500 shows.

A quote from a 1964 interview with Lawrence Welk, thanks again to NDSU: “We try to please our audience. We try to bring it some joy, happiness and relaxation and always to be in good taste—the kind of entertainment that should come into the home.” Ah, wunnerful. I love how “good taste” just somehow personifies the conservatism of the 1960s.

Back to Mr. Welk. He showcased musical numbers with which his audience would already be familiar, and only branching out into current tunes as a novelty. As the show developed over the years, Welk’s orchestra adapted some popular tunes to his “champagne” style, which actually means I should blame him for the easy-listening rock music adaptations that traumatized me during childhood. Mr. Welk, if you had just heard this one orchestra version of “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” I swear you would have reconsidered that whole idea.

Welk employed a “Champagne Lady” with whom he would dance during his shows; at least one was phased out after she got married and another, Alice Lon, was fired for showing “too much leg.”

To the moon, Alice!

I wonder if it would work to do a sketch featuring a fans’ campaign to God to send a popular celebrity back from the dead. Me, I’d ask for Jim Henson. The online campaign would be all puppets and impassioned pleas and — my favorite thing about the Muppets — things blowing up unexpectedly. You know actor/puppeteer Jason Segal would be all over that.

Oh wait, do I need to explain that? He’s on “How I Met Your Mother.” He wrote the movie “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” which includes a <a href="http://“>Dracula puppet show subplot . And he’s been entrusted with the script for the next Muppet movie. I love this guy.

But I digress. And frankly there’s so much more we haven’t talked about yet: Welk’s recordings, his “career” as a minister in the Universal Life Church (in such fine company as Tori Spelling (occupation “actor”), Lydia Lunch (“punk, spoken word confrontationalist”), and John Wayne Bobbitt (“penectomy survivor”). Also his business dealings: if you have a hankering, after reading this, for more Welkiana, you can always go and stay at the Welk Resort in Branson, Missouri (where else?) where featured performers this fall include Ray Stevens and Tony Orlando with the regular Welk performers the Lennon sisters (not related to John). There are other Welk Resorts in Palm Springs, San Diego, and Cabo, Mexico. The San Diego resort contains the Lawrence Welk Museum.

But wait, here’s another fun fact about his business affairs: Welk Music Group operates my favorite music label, Sugar Hill. Which is decidedly not easy-listening music, although I find it easy to listen to just about anything Sugar Hill produces.

Welk, having left a considerable legacy, died in 1992 of pneumonia, survived by his wife of 61 years (of course; no divorces for this man!) several children, and a passel of grandchildren. His shows continue to be syndicated on public television.

Carry on, tasteful and appropriate readers! And the rest of you.