MTV Video Music Awards 2005: The Running Diary Returns

In a quest to deny how old I actually am, I've decided to blog throughout the entire MTV Video Music Awards. If you haven't read one of my running diaries before, I should say that (1) I completely ripped the idea off from Bill Simmons and (2) because of the nature of this post, it will almost certainly be full of mistakes (even more than normal).

(End of VMA note: It didn't turn out as well as I'd like, but here you go anyway. I'm not about to delete this much work.)

7:57-At the end of the preshow 50 Cent tells us what to look for from G-Unit during the show. It seems they are going to perform a melody. Fifty, we've all heard you quasi-sing, and I promise you won't perform a melody. Maybe he meant medley. We'll have to wait and see.

8:00-We kick off the show with Green Day singing Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Billie Joe had his makeup done by a fifteen year old Goth girl before the show.

8:05-"Please welcome your host: Diddy." Dude, just go with Sean. Then you don't have to change it every two years. Or you could forgo the whole name thing and be a symbol like Prince. In fact, for the duration of this blog, Sean Combs shall be known as &.

8:08-I'm not sure if I've ever seen anyone who loves himself as much as &.

8:11-Best Male and Best Female Video nominees. Why are these both presented at once? I should also probably point out that Lindsay Lohan is helping to present these and her weight loss has certainly served to answer one of the burning celebrity gossip column questions: Apparently, they weren't.

8:12-Kelly Clarkson wins Best Female and Kanye West wins for Best Male. Gwen Stefani is angry. Perhaps someone should remind her that Toni Basil didn't win for that video either.

8:15-Beavis and Butthead are helping with the Viewers Choice Award tonight. I'm very disturbed that MK is next to me laughing at them.

8:23-Performance: Ludacris and Bobby Valentino. Not so good.

8:25-The performance has improved because they brought out a steel drum band, and Bobby Valentino is no longer trying to sing live.

8:27-& just told us about how he's a gentleman and doesn't use words like...several seconds of silence on the delay. Ah, rich and witty.

8:29-To prove that "anything can happen", & just gave away his watch, and now he is telling us about giving $100,000 to charity.

8:30-& makes the night's first reference to Vote or Die, so I will make the night's first reference to the fact that after all the hype, he did neither.

8:31-Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst are presenting an award. It's good that he has facial hair now, because otherwise it would be a toss up as to which of the two was more masculine.

8:33-Green Day just won best rock video. In other shocking news, the sun rose this morning.

8:37-I promise the guy correcting people about music and other facts in the MTV commercial is not me. Really.

8:40-Grandmaster Flash is helping DJ tonight. I wonder how many of the kids in the audience and watching on TV even have a clue who he is. I feel old again.

8:40-Security didn't think that & was serious and took the watch back from the guy, so we had to perform the give-away again. Why? Because "Anything can happen."

8:42-MC Hammer is performing. I seriously could not be happier, unless he were to perform...Wait! He is! Can't Touch This! Congratulations, Hammer you just got an extra 30 seconds of fame.

8:44-The Simpson sisters are on stage to present an award, and it could only be more painful if they were singing. With what Jessica is wearing, she's pretty much assured of being on GFY tomorrow.

8:49-"From the Miami Heat: Dwyane Wade." I love his name because it looks like someone transposed the Y and A, but no one noticed. I'm going to start doing this with other names. "Hi, this is my friend Jmaes and his wife Stephnaie."

8:52-Shakira is performing and singing entirely in Spanish. It always bothers me to not have a translation of what's being said in another language...mainly because I'm convinced they're making fun of me. Is that a bad thing?

8:53-I just realized, Jessica Alba introduced this performance by Shakira. Someone's been paying attention to The Letter D and wanted to get a definitive answer to his question.

8:56-Kanye West is now in a Pepsi commercial. He's come a long way from leaving the American Music Awards after losing Best New Artist to Gretchen "Redneck Woman" Wilson.

9:01-We have people Clowning and Krumping. I would like to take this opportunity to say that dancing clowns are even more creepy than regular clowns.

9:07-Ladies and Gentlemen, lock up your daughters. No, not you with the eighteen year old, just the one's 14 and under. Live on the stage: R. Kelly!

9:08-While we sit through the obviously lipsynced one man opera (I really wish I could put a link to this thing. It's hilarious and everyone needs to see it.), I would like to say that, yes, there is truth to the rumor that I owned an R. Kelly tape back in the day. It was long enough ago that it was R. Kelly and The Public Announcement. It was back before all of the underage girl things. Back then he was busy discovering and then allegedly marrying Aalyiah before her parents found out and forced
them to get an annulment, because she was only 15...oh, umm...never mind.

9:15-The one man opera finally ended. It was really, really bad. He should get prison time for that too.

9:19-I have no idea if the new show "How I Met Your Mother" is any good or not, but in the commercial there was a clip of Neil Patrick Harris saying, "This is totally going in my blog." It made me laugh.

9:20-After hearing the history of his name from Sean Combs to Puffy to Diddy, we now know why & wasn't a comedian.

9:23-How did Hillary Duff end up dating the guy from Good Charlotte? Has anyone bothered to tell him she's underage?

9:23-Who cares about Hillary? It's the Killers playing Mr. Brightside! They're on a stage over a hotel pool, which is cool, but I kinda miss the Moulin Rouge-esque video.

9:27-Little Kim is wearing clothes. The world must be coming to an end. Maybe she's just preparing for prison. I don't think they have standard issue pasties there.

9:31-Beavis and Butthead return and MK is laughing. Though this time it was justified.

9:34-I barely recognized Alanis Morisette in the Gap commercial. She doesn't seem nearly angry enough anymore.

9:35-An ad for a new movie, Flightplan with Jodie Foster. It felt like I was watching the trailer for Panic Room on a plane.

9:39-& is "conducting" an orchestra over a couple tracks of Notorious B.I.G. rapping. It's interesting, but the music on Juicy didn't match up with the rhyme.

9:42-They way he's dressed, Common does not look like he belongs at the VMAs, but that's not a bad thing.

9:45-Fall Out Boy just won an award for Sugar We're Going Down. They performed this at the pre-show and it sounded very different live, and by different I mean horrible.

9:53-Another performance, and I would like to add that I have discovered recently that I like reggaeton.

9:58-Our 501st shot of Jay Z in the audience tonight. He looks completely bored out of his mind.

9:59-To celebrate the fans in the balcony, & is bringing some of the fans down to party with him, because "Anything can happen!" That line is getting old almost as fast as me calling him &.

10:00-Please welcome: Coldplay! I don't like Coldplay, and Chris Martin named his kid Apple; that's pretty much all I can say. On the other hand, they sound almost the same live or recorded, unlike some people (Green Day and Fall Out Boy, I'm looking at you.)

10:10-Ricky Martin. This is too easy, make your own joke.

10:12-Gwen Stefani loses to Kelly Clarkson again and graces us with what is either a fake smile or the onset of appendicitis.

10:13-Kanye West and Jamie Foxx perform Gold Digger. Has Jamie Foxx always been able to sing, but we just found out in the past few years or is this something new? This performance makes me very glad that it's only a few more days until the release of Late Registration.

10:25-For some reason, we have a random comedian performing. The audience looks bored. I agree. Then again, jokes about blowing up ones own child are always funny, right? Right? No? Must just be him that thinks so.

10:28-Best New Artist: The Killers. Is this the kiss of death like it is to win best new artist at the American Music Awards? Hopefully not, because I really like the first album.

10:32-Eva Longoria comes on stage to my least favorite currently popular song, Pussycat Dolls, Don'cha. Trampy girls singing about being trampy with an annoying hook that gets stuck in my head for days at a time, fun!

10:45-Lil Jon and some mostly naked chick come out to present the Breakthrough video award. He tries to put his arm around her and she pushes it off. Nice.

10:47-It's time for 50 Cent's melody. I can hardly contain myself.

10:48-Apparently, in preparation for the melody, someone handed out tambourines to the audience.

10:49-The stage is on fire!!! Oh, it's part of the performance. Never mind.

10:50-Tony Yayo comes out to join 50 on stage. It's good that he got out of jail in time to replace Eminem, who's now in rehab.

10:52-At the end of the performance, the members of G Unit decide to bad mouth other people like Fat Joe. Hasn't 50 Cent been shot enough times already? Eventually, the censors give up on repeatedly hitting the button to clean up their taunts and we get 30 seconds of silence. The silence is welcome at this point.

10:53-Attempts at inciting a riot aside, there was no melody, just a medley.

11:00-My Chemical Romance is playing, according to &, it's because he asked them. Personally, if I would have preferred "I'm Not Ok (I Promise)" rather than "Helena", but that's just me.

11:02-I feel the icy hand of death. Oh wait, it's just Paris Hilton coming to present an award.

11:03-Paris and (Don't call me Lil') Bow Wow compare the amount of diamonds they are wearing, and the collective IQ of the universe drops another 50 points.

11:12-The final award for Video of the Year, presented by Jamie Foxx and Destiny's Child. I can't believe Beyonce is allowing the other two to talk so much. I guess it really is time to break up the group and go solo.

11:15-Unsurprisingly, Green Day wins Video of the Year. I really can't make any remotely objective comments on this, because when our local radio station was playing the song every 20 minutes for 4 months straight, I learned to hate it, passionately.

11:18-As a finale, we get Kelly Clarkson performing Since U Been Gone. Approximately 75% of the performance is Kelly tugging at her pants to prevent crack exposure. Perhaps this should suggest something about your performing attire. Or not. It's up to you; I'm just trying to help.

11:22-To keep me from feeling too old, MTV immediately switches to the after show with Kurt Loder and John Norris, who are both almost ready to retire and move to Florida.

11:23-As exciting as this has been, it's time for me to go to bed.

Well, what have we learned? We learned that I'm old, that many famous bands stink when they perform live, that pants can be held up by one hand and the collective will of the audience, and most importantly that there is a difference between melody and medley. I hope that someone out there gets some amusement out of this, because it's past bedtime for us old folks.

Until later...