MTV, You’ve Done It Again!
If there’s any more awesome spectacle than the MTV Video Music Awards I have yet to find it. And if I haven’t found it, that shit is Bigfoot, Kaiser Sose, and the clitoris: IT CAN’T BE FOUND. For I am the world’s foremost seeker of awesome, and I have turned over every leaf under every rock tucked in every crevice of every corner of every nook to uncover all this world’s awesome. If it’s awesome and it’s out there, I’ve found it. The VMAs is the awesomest, and I didn’t even have to search a cranny.
You don’t wanna know what lurks in crannies. I’ll tell you anyway. Wombats. Or maybe it’s womb rats. One of the two. Possibly both. Let’s assume both. Ooooooh, crannies.
Back to the VMAs. The Veemas, as I call it. I don’t call it that. Each year, once a year, MTV and Viacom give modesty the night off and use the time to shit in the mouths of cynicism and restraint. This musical display of pageantry is nothing short of opulence on a coke binge. Oh the money spent! Like Beverly Hills Sweet Sixteen parties, the only goal is finding a way to out-what-the-fuck the last one. In ’08, when they pranced their acts around a Hollywood studio lot, I thought they couldn’t top the year before when they staged concerts throughout a Vegas casino. I was wrong. This year, at little ol’ Radio City Music Hall in New York, I was reasonably certain they couldn’t raise the bar on last year. Then what can only be described as a burlesque circus unfolded. Wrong again, Ben.
Let’s start with the red elephant at the Veemas (I guess I do call it that). Kanye fucked up. Again. His music speaks for itself. Then he speaks for himself and his music cringes. The crowd less cringed and more loudly booed him the rest of the night. He’s the last person I’d want to be right now. He stole Taylor Swift’s Moonman virginity! It was uncomfortable to watch. Let’s stop talking about it.
Michael Jackson received the bulk of the attention, but it was Jay-Z’s show. He gave the King of Pop his last moment and then strolled in at the end to remind us who currently runs the game. Dude didn’t even show up until he was slated to take the stage and then had cameras awaiting his arrival in a limousine caravan. How played out is that, right? That’s what I thought too! Jay-Z proved it’s actually the coolest thing ever.
I’ve long said of comedy that anyone can make shitting your pants funny, comedy is finding humor in the Gastric Cancer that caused it. Jay-Z is the coolness equivalent to that. At the VMAs he proved that, to him, cliche is just a French word meaning “another lame thing I can make look cooler than the coolest thing in your life.” Our definition is shorter, but his is…cooler. Watch Hova (featuring Keys by Alicia) for yourself and count the number of times he defies triteness:
Related story about Jay-Z: I passed him on the street in New York some ten years ago and, even then, honestly considered Talented Mr. Ripleying him. I generally like being me; am comfortable in my own skin, with my own mind, with my own life. I want to be Jay-Z. Like, bad. As much as I don’t want to be Kanye.
I don’t feel like there’s any joke that can improve the perfectly-ignored drunk fan who wanders on-stage at the end of the song. She’s like someone shitting their pants: No additional joke required.
My favorite part of this clip isn’t even part of the song. It’s this brief two-shot of besties forever:
Look at Beyonce in that clip or picture. She is hard-selling it for her man. Nobody is more into Jay-Z than her. I wish I could find even a poorly-lit, well-tucked tranny who loved me half as much as she loves him. And she’s the hottest female in the world! If anyone disagreed before her performance, they changed their mind after.
Look at her, damnit! Stunning! She can call the song whatever she wants, that performance was called Viagra, because it gave me a four-hour erection. My boner has been asleep ever since.
Speaking of well-tucked trannies…Lady Gaga! (I don’t want to perpetuate the rumor that Gaga is a transvestite as it’s cruel and I don’t believe it. But this is comedy and sometimes a guy needs a segue.)
She was a spectacle in and of herself, and I loved every moment of her. Her outfits, each more redonk than the last; her acceptance speech, thanking “God and the gays;” her performance, bloodied and spastic…why don’t I just show/remind you. Check out the most burlesque of all the circus performances:
And I can’t leave out my girl Pink. She treated this “award show” like a skate park demo, whipping out tricks nobody knew were possible while proving once again that she’s the baddest dude on the planet. Check out the most circus-y of all the burlesque performances:
MTV doesn’t do a lot well these days. They make reality stars out of people so out of touch with reality it is fair to question whether they SEE stars. They may be actually the least likely place on television to see a music video. But boy do they ever nail this event. The rest of the award circuit, like Kanye West, is under the false impression people give a shit who wins awards. Nope. Opulence on a coke binge. The more opulent and the more cocaine the better.
There’s no way they can top this year. Don’t worry, I’ve grown comfortable being wrong.
My name is Ben and I blogged this.
My Name is Ben
