Quincy Delite Jones Jr...How Could You Be Anything Less than Great?

Word Up, Queen Latifah.

Last night were the BET Awards, and I have to say, that if I am ever given the opportunity to attend an awards show - just one awards show, ever - I would not choose the Oscar's, or the Grammy's, or even the MTV Awards. No. I am picking the BET Awards. That was the best fucking awards ceremony I have ever watched. I didn't get home till around 9.30, but as soon as I opened the door and stepped inside, I was commanded by the Brother and the Other Roommate to enter the living room immediately. I didn't even get to put my damn bag down.

The Brother, the OR and the Dog were sitting in completely darkness, utterly enthralled by what was on the screen. When I walked in, the Brother whispered "it's the BET Awards. Al Green is getting a lifetime achievement award." And he was! And it was a fucking party! Seriously, people were getting down at the BET Awards. Everyone was standing in the aisels, just dancing. Most people had, obviously, been doing their down dances to various Al Green songs for the past 20 or so years (please, you have your own moves to these songs, too. I do, anyways) so it was kind of awkward, but also, nobody cared, because you have to dance to these songs.

And the craziest thing about the Al Green award was that it wasn't even the best part of the night! No! Neither was the Lil Wayne performance or any of the other insane moments I saw. The best part of the night was the Quincy Jones achievement presentation and acceptance. First of all, I had no idea that Quincy Jones a) did so much incredible humanitarian shit or b) was 75 fucking years old. Item b sort of informs item a, when you look at it - he's had a lot more time to accomplish shit than I realized - but still. And I steadfastly refused to believe he was 75...until he took to the podium to give his acceptance speech.

Holy shit. It was the best acceptance speech I have ever heard. It was one of those speeches that makes so little sense that you have to check with the people around you to make sure it's legitimately non-sensical, or if you just aren't getting it. I still have to admit - maybe Quincy is just on a totally different level. Maybe I'm not capable of understanding him.

I can't find this on YouTube, but I honestly didn't look that hard. If you're good at YouTube, just see if you can dig it up. It's totally worth it. It's the best acceptance speech of all time. My favorite moment, by far, is near the end of the speech, when he says "If it rains...get wet." and then holds his hand up like 'ohhh' and the crowd totally leaves him hanging. That's when I knew no one else got it, either. And it was hysterical. Like, we weren't ready for that catchprashe. I'm almost ready now, though.

Other brilliant moments are when he references scientific advances (he's on the board at MIT? For real? Awesome.) and pronounces 'genome breakthrough' like it's the name of a band, and when he makes comparison statements with an empty second line...

Because if it rains...get wet.

Anybody?