Greetings from 38,000 feet.  Although by time I send this I will be on the ground, in D.C.  I’ve got this hankering to hear "Girlshapedlovedrug" by Gomez but the MP3 is on my other computer, and I haven’t synched my iPod since I added it to my iTunes library.  If this plane had Net access, I’d fire up a P2P service and pull it down, alas, airborne wireless availability is still on the horizon in the U.S. (but available in Europe, but the PRICE!)  But I’m willing to forgo Net access if they continue to disallow cell talking (JIVE TALKING, the Bee Gees would say?)  What the FUCK is so important on all these calls.  If I ruled the world people wouldn’t be able to use cell phones in public unless it was a personal emergency.  Then again, if I ruled the world there’d probably be a revolution, AGAINST ME!

Saturday night Felice and I went to Sony Studios for the annual MTV Movie Awards.  The show varies, but the hang with Tom is always good, I look forward to the connection.  Alas, Tom e-mailed me the night before that he was tied up in New York and would be unable to attend, which was an extreme bummer, but despite having to fly solo, we drifted on down to Culver City in the summer heat to partake.

Now the great thing about this show, or me attending this show, is Tom provides FULL ACCESS!  He even sent a limousine/red carpet pass this year, in case we wanted to pull up and stroll the gauntlet.  I LOVE strolling the red carpet, but to emerge from Felice’s Lexus and hear the groans (or silence!) of the hoi polloi was just too much for someone with social anxiety to endure so we parked in the structure and walked on over to the action.

First perk: our Talent passes.  They had a big screening station, with a list of all the accoutrements you could not take inside.  I thought I was going to have to go back to the car and deposit my Blackberry, since no phones were allowed, but once we flashed our passes we didn’t even have to go through the metal detector.  It makes one feel good in a society that’s all about the haves and the have-nots.  It’s good to be the king, or at least a prince, for a day (and don’t tell me in a world with constant discrimination you don’t agree…)

New to the event was framed paintings of prior hosts.  Seemed a bit extravagant until I learned later that they were part of a skit.  And while observing Jack Black and Kirsten Dunst, I noticed a slew of bars, dispensing…DR. PEPPER??  Got to give those MTV wonks credit.  They find a way to monetize EVERYTHING!  I hoisted a glass of some newfangled cream/cherry flavor and we took off for the red carpet.

We just hit some serious turbulence.  On a flight that our pilot said would be smooth sailing.  One good bump and this old Titanium Powerbook is HISTORY!  MacBook Pro here I come!  I wasn’t playing any music, not being able to satiate my Gomez hunger, but feeling the anxiety I glanced at the tracks showing in my iTunes library and clicked on the Beach Boys’ "’Til I Die":

I’m a cork on the ocean
Floating over the raging sea

I’m floating over this great country of ours.  There’s still snow on the mountain peaks.  I remember buying "Surf’s Up" on a hot summer day at Korvette’s in Trumbull, Connecticut and then going to the Merritt Canteen for lunch.  Feels like yesterday.

So, who’d I get off on on the red carpet?

Will Ferrell.  Clothed in a NASCAR jumpsuit.  He and John C. Reilley were both in get-ups.  Obviously promoting a movie I hadn’t heard of yet and probably wouldn’t ever care to see.  But appearing in CHARACTER got me off.  I could take or leave Will on SNL, but his nude scene in "Old School" sealed the deal for me.  In a land where stars are dieted down to nothingness, where the main attraction of Madonna’s tour is her buff body, it was so refreshing, so HONEST, to see an untoned male cavorting in 35mm.

Jessica Alba came strolling by.  Up close and personal, and I mean TRULY up close and personal, we literally rubbed elbows with a lot of these people, I just didn’t get it.  And the lame, barely above the level of homemade, tattoo she sported on the back of her neck creeped me out.  Couldn’t she pay somebody to REMOVE IT?

Owen Wilson…  In real life his nose is truly strange.  But this guy’s got an intelligent fuck you attitude that draws me to him.  God, wasn’t he great in that Jackie Chan movie?  Owen’s my kind of star.

But there were a bunch of people we asked the MTV escorts the identities of.  Makes you feel really old going to a show like this.  Where youth culture is on parade.

But then came Keanu and Sandra Bullock.  Keanu’s getting old.  Hell, Anthony Michael Hall sat near us during the show and it wasn’t until almost the END that we recognized him.  When the teenage stars of yore are in the neighborhood of forty you know you’ve seen if not too much, then a HELL of a lot.  Sandra looked good.  But Felice couldn’t understand her dress.  Watch the show and render your opinion.

It was blistering hot.  Kind of like being down on the track at Talladega.  Hell, one of the celebrities passed out and had to be taken away by wheelchair.  I wasn’t sure if he was unbelievably fucked up or having a heart attack.  He couldn’t even stand.  And when they carried him out he LOOKED dead.  Kind of interesting to have in your obit, then again, I didn’t recognize him so I don’t know if he’d even be WORTHY of an obit, at least one that those other than his family would read.

Oh, we saw a bunch more people.  I could look up the names, but who really cares.  And isn’t that just the point?  Celebrities are just fodder for the tabloids these days.  We don’t look up to them, they’re just living cartoon characters.  I guess those with no access would like to be up close and personal.  But is that changing?  Are we just O.D.’ed on these people?  Isn’t Steve Jobs a bigger hero than ANYBODY on the big screen?

Finally, after a healthy time spent stargazing, we ventured into the green room, or was it the NEUTROGENA room.  Some cosmetics company paid to host the rumpus area where the privileged snacked and drank prior to the show’s advent.  Food was pretty good.  Good shrimp.  But NOTHING compares to the raw bar at the Beverly Hills Hotel at the EMI Grammy party sixteen months ago.  If it lived in the ocean, they had it.  In COPIOUS amounts.

Our seats were sixth row, dead center.  Two rows in front of the biggest star I saw all evening, Brad Grey.  Oh, you might know him from his production credits on "The Sopranos" and "Larry Sanders", but right now he’s starring in the biggest movie in Hollywood, far bigger than "The Da Vinci Code", "The Perils Of Pellicano".  I’m sure Tom didn’t know Brad’s history when he hired him to run Paramount.  And NOW what does he do?  Leave this untested movie head in charge of a multi-billion dollar public enterprise, or ease him out?  But he probably can’t ease him out, because one of those lawyers who also used Anthony P. probably excised the morals clause from Brad’s contract.  And, would it hold up in court without a criminal conviction anyway?  Ah, this is a great subplot for the movie.

At the end of the row in front of us was Ali G.  Did you see him in that "thong" at Cannes?  If not, surf the Web and find a picture.  Utterly HYSTERICAL!

And right in front of us was the new Superman.  Not that I knew that until he was a presenter deep in the show.  And his flick sidekick, Kate Bosworth.  She was attractive in "Blue Crush", but you’ve got no IDEA how skinny these actresses (and actors too!) are in real life.  Rebecca Romijn’s legs were barely more than matchsticks.  You could beak one with an errant  flick of the wrist.  I think they should pay these people in food, obviously money is not enough.

For the first time ever, they shot the show out of order.  So the audience wouldn’t get restless during the set changes and journey out to the bathroom and make noise and…  So, we started with a performance by Christina Aguilera.

She’s got the chicken legs too.  And a boob job that evidences breasts that could never grow on a woman of her size.  But she DOES have pipes.  But who she’s performing for I’ll never know.  It was like a Broadway show.  And the song resembled nothing on the hit parade.  I saw evidence of money, talent and showmanship, but I’ve got to say WHO THE FUCK CARES???  Christina.  Study Linda Ronstadt’s career.  It all comes down to material.  And why the endless production number?  After all, it’s MUSIC!  It goes in the ears, not the eyes.  But the highlight of Christina’s performance was the end.  When Irving Azoff and his entourage, as large as that of any rapper, promptly arose from the back of the soundstage and marched out.  Right in front of the stage.  Oh, there was a pathway in the back, but the effect would have been lost.  As in, I’m so fucking heavy, so powerful, that I got MTV to feature my act FIRST so I can GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!

Then the show began.

If you’ve watched the Movie Awards previously, you know the highlight is the taped parody pieces.  Which were unfortunately lame, as they were last year.  Oh, what happened to the memorable clips of yore?  Has the formula been lost, just as it was with SNL?  And speaking of SNL…former Movie Awards host Jimmy Fallon took up MINUTES on screen doing one of his unfunny routines.  This guy’s driving headlong towards the scrapheap.  It’s not like he’s Andy Kaufman and his bizarre pieces have an underlying meaning, they’re just not funny.

But Jessica Alba…  WHEW!!  She CLOSED ME!  What a personality!  Unlike wooden hosts of the past, Jessica TOYED with the audience.  Engaging members all the way up till the cameras rolled for each segment.  She’d do shout-outs, she’d crack jokes, she’s the real deal.  If only she could lose the tattoo.

And Steve Carell’s speech was funny.  And I’m glad Jake Gyllenhaal won for "Brokeback Mountain", but you know you’re not supposed to take this show seriously.  After all, the only reason a non-winner appears is to hype a new movie.  Even Samuel L. Jackson.  God, he hyped "Snakes On A Plane" heavier, and more inappropriately, than Macy Gray hyped her new album on the Video Music Awards that year (and look what happened to it, and HER!)

Oh, Jim Carrey’s speech was funny.  But I don’t know what the angels were all about.  Yet there WERE a fuck of a lot of them and Will Ferrell’s reactions were priceless.  But if you’re not getting the feeling you had to be there, then you’re getting it right.  This was entertainment fodder.

As is MTV.

Isn’t it funny that we hear no hype about MTV’s impending twenty fifth anniversary?  Yup, on August 1st, 1981 that rocket ship blasted into space for the very first time.  MTV was an addiction.  You’d go to people’s houses just to WATCH IT!  We truly wanted our MTV.  Now?  I can see you shrugging your shoulders.

Who are these million dollar production videos for?  I laughed hysterically at the Shakira/Wyclef number they featured on the almost twenty big screens that made up the set.  I mean who HASN’T seen the Latina bombshell shake her pussy.  And isn’t Wyclef a has-been?  God, the video resembled nothing so much as a fifties musical.  You can’t sell a movie musical today, but on MTV, they RULE!

But at least I knew who Shakira and Wyclef were.  As for those in the rest of the videos shown during breaks…

Oh, I picked out the Strokes.  Even T.I.  But then we hit a skein that were completely unrecognizable to me.  But what was TRULY stunning was the early twentysomethings surrounding us, the seat fillers who’d lined up in the heat to get just this close to stardom when my brethren had had enough and split, didn’t know who these people were EITHER!!  And didn’t seem to care.

Wow, could it be that mainstream media is giving a party and nobody CARES?

Seems like it to me.  Just take the list of featured artists from MTV’s Website and do a bit of canvassing.  I did on KLSX last night.  Nobody knows and nobody CARES!  Oh, there’s a market for Top Forty, but it’s becoming further marginalized every day.  The major labels think this market is all that counts.  Because they can’t fathom the newfangled Internet world.  But despite hyping these acts all over MTV (and its sister cable channels that actually DO play videos) they just don’t register with the public.

I could not find ONE person who knew what AFI stood for.  The band that closed the show.  Oh, they had their amps painted white and the lead singer had an asymmetrical haircut and the song wasn’t bad but really, who cares.  Oh, they garnered the biggest applause of the night, but was that from the seat-fillers who lined up especially to SEE THEM?  Oh, that shows dedication by the chosen few, but it’s a tiny flock.  You want evidence?  Show me the diamond selling acts of the past few years.  There’s not that big a mainstream scene.  Especially not for homogenized acts.

Still, there was one highlight.  Gnarls Barkley.  Introduced by Ali G. as CHARLES Barkley.  Whew does that Cee-Lo have a voice.  What a hit record.  But that’s what it is, a single.  I don’t find the rest of the album ANYWHERE near as good.  You can’t keep great tracks down, but that’s all the mainstream ever seems to have, great tracks.  No depth, no soul, and no real careers.  Just check the live business of these MTV wonders.  Especially after their one big year.  Seventies acts without hits in decades sell out arenas and the Backstreet Boys play theatres.

Used to be the public was ignorant.  Those on high, the entertainment icons, they DICTATED to the public.  If you think that model still exists, you’re completely out of touch.  Youth culture has been democratized.  It’s not about winners and losers, but the group.  They’re more interested in themselves than manufactured stars.  Which is probably why the reality shows on MTV get far higher ratings than music.

I’ve got no beef with MTV.  I do think the "M" should be stricken from its moniker.  Then again, as long as there are musical "artists" willing to sell their souls for free promotion, that’s not going to happen.  But music no longer lives on MTV.  Used to.  MTV drove the culture in the eighties.  But everything’s got a lifespan.  MTV is mature.  And that’s why they’re not hyping its age, hell, they’d lie about it if they could, to look cool, to the kids.

I don’t know what you take seriously in your life, what you’re passionate about.  Could be a sport, or your kids.  I hope you have something.  Because you just can’t believe in the old institutions any longer.  Does anybody even GO to the movies anymore?  And CD sales keep dropping.  It’s a new era.

Not that I didn’t have FUN!

And, as the Beatles sang, fun is the one thing that money can’t buy.

After AFI closed the show (and AFI stands for "A Fire Inside" according to a caller to my show last night) we strolled out into the balmy summer evening for another bite at the repast.  And after conversing with Kevin Spacey for a few minutes, who Felice knows from when her brother-in-law taught him to play drums for that Bobby Darin movie, we got back into her car and drove off into the darkness.

The MTV Movie Awards was like a pit stop at Little America.  That mega gas station in the middle of nowhere Wyoming.  You stop, squint in reaction to the bright lights, fill up and then move on.  Little America is not a destination, but a way station.  Just like today’s MTV.