We Offer Our Own VMA Odds
So with MTV ramping up its VMA pre-coverage until pretty much anything that can be turned VMA-related features at least a plug for the show (which is this Sunday! Starts at 9!), today they brought in a bunch of Vegas high rollers to offer their learned opinion on who would win the (coughriggedcough) Video of the Year award. None of MTV’s pros had the same pick for the potential winner–two voted for Rihanna, even if one was kind of cheating–but Ms. Uhmbrellah-ah-ah, Kanye, and JT seemed to be the nominal favorites. In this spirit, we offer our own special odds in advance of our VMA liveblogging extravaganza this weekend:
1.One of us passes out drunk before the show is even over. Odds: 12/1. It’s not like it’s New Years Eve, even if I do plan on starting drinking and eating cocktail rye bread around noon. It’s only two hours long, and even with them shaving off so many award categories, the cramped running time will likely be packed with such wall-to-wall incoherence that our aging brains will be too busy trying to keep up with it all to pull a sloshed Rip Van Winkle. Also there will be two other people there to poke us with plastic forks should we start to nod off.
2. One of us exclaims “This is some bullshit!” (or similar) within the first 10 minutes. Odds: 5/2. C’mon, Pee Wee? Lisa Marie and Michael? Courtney Love drooling all over Madonna and Kurt Loder? This show prides itself on testing your patience with some sort of “aren’t we a bunch of stinkers?” moment before the first award is even handed out. Plus Britney’s perfoming, and you know they’re hustling that potential timebomb on and off first thing and as quickly as possible.
3. Britney actually shows up. Odds: 2/1. She could emerge grown-up-teen-pop triumphant, reminding us of the glory days of live snakes, school girl uniforms, and the gift of shame. Or we could find out the next day that she was arrested while trying to buy an alpaca in a Jersey Petsmart while high on PCP.
4. Pointless multi-artist medley. Odds: 2/1. A longstanding tradition, whether for showboating purposes (Kid Rock/Run-DMC/Aerosmith) or (especially) when they have to shoehorn a bunch of rock acts no one really cares about into a few minutes to keep things rolling. With the awkward “suites” set-up of this year’s show, however, this may prove problematic. And having the crowd watch a spectacle from the monitors in the audience when it’s going on in another room sorta deflates the intent, doesn’t it?
5. This is the last VMA’s EVER. Odds: 20/1. Any network that can get people–okay, us–talking this much about a video awards show, when said network’s business model famously now has next to nothing to do with televised music, when its general audience could give a flying fuck (probably rightfully) about the “art” of the music video, when judging by our comments section people our age are supposed to be carrying around big chips over the fact that the channel has long-sinced turned its back on the days of “Jeremy” and the works of Spike Jonze collected on DVD, is doing something right from a marketing standpoint. Two hours worth of semi-interested rubberneckers should provide at least as many viewers as a Viva La Bam rerun, right? Christ, even if it’s an hour long with two awards and the prerequisite Kaney hissy fit…we’re going to be watching the VMA’s when we’re 50, aren’t we?
