The Times They Are A-Changin'

We unfortunately have been treated lately to a noticeable lack of interesting news. There really isn't anything of late that I've felt the need to go off on; Bush has been in Texas at the ranch, Congress was in recess, and most of the headlines have been rehashes of the recent past... whether to go to war with Iraq (we shouldn't), the tug of war over the economy, and so on. Luckily for me, I had football picks to make the past two weeks, but then what? Well, at the perfect time, here comes the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards, a week early this year, no less. Talk about a columnist's dream, at least in my case.

As always, MTV starts with the pre-show, and immediately you have to realize that this is not CBS or even the E! Network, it's MTV News. As such, you have a different, uh, standard of journalism. I really wonder what goes through Kurt Loder's head every time they throw to the guy with the mohawk. I don't know about you, but I'll tell ya, nothing screams "professional TV journalist" to me like a good tall mohawk. Meanwhile, Gideon Yago has The Strokes wrestling each other in front of him, and Mr. Loder still has to put up with Suchin Pak, who still has a job despite my pleas last year.

Then there was Jimmy Fallon, who opened the show by managing to ape everyone from Nelly to Dave Matthews to Avril Lavigne (she, by the way, loved it; then again, what 17-year old wouldn't dig being huge enough to be impersonated on the VMA's). His stage presence, however, was like that of a high school kid making his first speech in public speaking class: scared out of his freakin' mind.

I decided to enhance my VMA's experience by printing off a list of the nominees for the major categories beforehand and choosing which one would be the "right" pick for the award, and which one would be the "wrong" one. You should try it next year, it might make a great party game. Anyway, I got 4 "right" picks and one "wrong" one. Maybe I just assumed that since MTV handed over all the big ones to 'N Sync last year, they would do it again this year. Or maybe they actually read the tea leaves this time.

For the Best Pop Video, I had Michelle Branch picked, and it would have been poetic justice to have Britney Spears have to give that moonman to the Anti-Britney herself, but alas, No Doubt won the award. At least 'N Sync didn't get it (my "wrong" pick, obviously). Oh, speaking of them, I don't know if you all noticed the quick cut to 'N Sync as No Doubt was heading up to the stage; I had the thing on tape, so I went back and looked again a couple of times. What I saw was Chris Kirkpatrick with his head down and a look on his face that can only say, "Guys, I think we're through." The look that players have on their faces when they're losing in the final minutes of their last game.

Although they did have an awkward presenter-winner moment, when Christina Aguilera had to give the Best Male Award to none other than Eminem, who slammed her in "The Real Slim Shady". Her reaction was priceless: "Interesting...", as in, "Are you kidding me? I've gotta give this award to HIM???" Based on Slim Shady's reaction, I'd say he pretty much felt the same way about who he was getting the thing from. What happened next, you all know if you saw the original live broadcast, only I had to look it up online because those slick editors at MTV chopped it out for the replays. If you don't know, Triumph The Insult Comic Dog (who flopped last year) was picking on Moby and tried to make light of Eminem trashing him in "Without Me". Slim and his posse proceeded to go after the puppet, seriously, not part of the plan. So, after Eminem gets his award from Miz Aguilera, he proceeds to blame "that girl Moby" for his stammering speech, at which point, he got booed. I will repeat that I did not see this, as I did not tape the original broadcast; Syracuse was losing to, errrr, playing BYU and I thought that more important. My bad.

Oh, and speaking of messed-up moments, The White Stripes picking up their Breakthrough Video award from the Olsen twins?

Then there was the TLC tribute, one of the most emotionally riveting scenes in VMA history, as T-Boz and Chilli barely struggled to keep it together long enough to thank everyone for their support since the death of Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes.

But easily the best moment of the night was Pink accepting the Best Female Award with the following declaration: "I'm too drunk for this..." And she was. Oh, and once again, the MTV censors had days to go back over the tape and bleep a 4-letter bomb out, but they didn't, but then again, Pink WAS drunk, so I guess sometimes you gotta just go with it.

All I thought about this time around was what I wrote about last year and the things going on and the names in the news, and I realize that EVERYTHING is different now. In one year's time. Suddenly, you have Ms. Lavigne, with her double-platinum debut album that has taken up permanent residence in the Top 5, sending Times Square into a frenzy with an awesome rocking performance on the Radio City Music Hall marquee. Suddenly, everyone is voting for Michelle Branch's VMA wardrobe online. Hell, suddenly everyone is voting for Michelle Branch, period; she won the Viewer's Choice Award, an award that in previous years was pretty much reserved for a "boy band". Suddenly, all the young men and women who were huge pop stars a year ago don't want to be pop stars anymore. Britney's taking six months off, Joey from 'N Sync is in movies and on Broadway, Lance is going to the space station, and Christina Aguilera is joining Pink as artists who suddenly want people to hear an album that is "really" them. Oh by the way, I almost threw up when I saw how Christina looked (the appropriate word here would be "skeletal"), and when did she suddenly become ghetto? The only one who still wants to be a pop star is Justin Timberlake, and his performance just seemed so out of place on a night with Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow, the Hives, the Vines, and the new rock side of Pink.

The point is the winds of change have blown through MTV, even though they insisted on digging up Guns 'n Roses for the finale and Michael Jackson again for that sham of an "Artist of the Millennium" bit. Ten bucks says he calls them "white devils" next. They actually managed to restore some of their lost credibility tonight, except for one thing: that faux-film look the show had. It just bugged me, it looked like it wasn't live but some concert film shot a few weeks before. They gotta ditch that before next year's VMAs; toss it in the dustbin of bad ideas along with Andrew DIce Clay and the year they let Roseanne host. Still, everyone got something they liked on this night; well, except maybe Britney Spears. Once again, she did not win a single award. She may well now be the Susan Lucci of the VMAs. Oh no, wait, they finally did give Lucci an Emmy that one year, right? OK, never mind; Avril Lavigne will be my wife before Britney wins a VMA...