Hi there, music awards show lovers! Welcome to CityCynic.com’s Liveblogging of the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards!

PRE-SHOW: Its great to see My Chemical Romance performing, especially on the Top of the Rock^TM, that is, on the observation deck at 70 stories high MCR is talking about their “high-concept” touring theme about a guy who is dying tragically young and Death comes to him in the Black Parade.

Wow, Christina Aguilera looks amazing on the red carpet!

More arrivals! Hey, its non-singer Paris Hilton talking about her record release party. Sujin asks her if it was the best party of her life. “It was a fun party,” she replied. Yeah, nothing’s better than a party promoting a terrible new album, right?

Beyonce is apparently a big fan of Shakira, Justin Timberlake, and Christina Aguilera. She wouldn’t reveal her pick for Best Video of the Year though. (Mine is Panic! at the Disco.) When did Beyonce get so diplomatic?

Kurt Loder found The Killers. I don’t remember them looking so strange. Acting strange, sure, but still.

Yes, “thank God” Christina Aguilera pulled through. She was sick last week. She’ll be performing on tonight’s show.

Diddy has a spokesman tonight. He’ll just be nodding tonight. Good! After last year’s hosting disaster, we don’t want to hear anything else from him.

Fergie and Snoop Dogg make a cute couple, don’t they?

Sway is backstage with either a million dreadlocks or a gigantic pulsating brain under that cap. This year will have a backstage component of some sort.

THE SHOW: Here comes the opening. Its Jay-Z coming to you from the most amazing city in the world.

Justin Timberlake is dancing and performing in a gray suit and sneakers. Wow, is his voice high-pitched. And now he’s bringing sexy back. Whoa, now he’s freestyling it with Timbaland, too.

Its the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards, Live from Radio City Music Hall in New York City!

Justin Timberlake is backstage in a bathrobe, supposedly after his performance, with Jack Black, who is ready to perform in his spaceman suit. “This show has been lighting farts for the past 20 years and I’m going to light the match.”

His arm is on fire and now he’s in an Elvis jumpsuit. “Your pants will not contain your erection.” “More fog.” He disappears into the fog. “Less fog, less fog.” Oops, Eminem isn’t in the audience tonight. There’s just a placard with his photo and name on an empty chair. “Entertainment cannon’s gonna blow up the skyyyyyy!!! Booom!”

Wooo, its the Godfather of Soul Daytime Television, Montell Williams!

The Raconteurs featuring Lou Reed will be the award show’s house band apparently. Yes, they definitely tried to hard with the opening. Having everything go wrong just looked unprofessional and wasn’t funny.

Lil’ Kim is being brought out in an orange jumpsuit by armed guards. “The girl is back.” Okay, now she’s doing a monologue? What is she talking about? Oh, she’s presenting Best Male Video. “You know what they say, you can’t keep a good bitch down.”

James Blunt wins Best Male Video for “Beautiful” and they cut to Nick Lachey looking pissed. “I’ll race you to the bar,” Blunt said. Kanye West looks excited for James Blunt when they cut to him, though.

Jack Black is back in a shimmering gold suit to introduce the next presenters.

Andre 3000 (complete with high red keather boots and a baseball cap) and Ciara come out to answer what makes hip hop tick? Apparently bling and a good beat do.

Best Hip Hop Video goes to Black Eyed Peas for “My Humps.” Again, they cut to Kanye and he seems happy, despite losing to them. Fergie is dressed in her best 1930’s flapper-wear. “Positive hip hop can make it.”

Next up is The Rock, whose left foot is in a cast of some sort. He’s here to introduce Shakia featuring Wyclef Jean. Whoa, Shakira is in hot bellydancing-garb for “Hips Don’t Lie”! She even has a matching pink mic pack on her back. Look at that bellydancing conga line go! Synchronized bellydancing really is the best. Wyclef and Shakira perform great together.

The cast of Jackass 2 are with a military field phone showing how not to phone in for the Viewer’s Choice awards. Bam totally got electrocuted and his fingers are bloody. Eww, the naked midgt guy just jumped on him.

All of a sudden a band appears without introduction. Oh, its tonight’s house band, The Raconteurs. Why is there a house band, anyway?

The “Kings of Queens” — 50 Cent and LL Cool J — are happy to have the show back in New York. LL Cool J: “The good thing is, hip hop is hip hop and love is love.” Michigan, Detroit, Canada, Colombia…” now they are teaching high school Geography or something. Best Female Video goes to Kelly Clarkson, in absentia. She can pick it up from LL’s house, apparently.

Lil’ John and some other guy are here to make people “stand your asses up” and to introduce Pharrell’s performance. Come on, shake your moneymaker, everybody!

A vault opens and out come the Pussycat Dolls to perform.

Sarah Silverman is backstage in the maekup room. She’s seen every celebrity she’s ever heard of tonight. She “saw Lance Bass, who was obviously trying to hit on me.” Sarah: “Space travel is pretty gay. Space travel is like the Liza Minelli of travel.”

Jack Black is joined on stage by homemade moon man and Tenacious D partner Kyle Gass. Jack Black: “I’m like Jared Leto and your like 30 Seconds from Mars.”

Here comes “humanitarian” Jessica Simpson: “I’m just a white girl who can’t dance. I can just push my tush.” Then she mumbles through to the Best Dance Video nominees. Pussycat Dolls win for “Buttons”. They’re starting to get booed. One of them pulled out her Sidekick to read off people to thank.

The “sizzling hot” Chris Brown tells us about MTV’s broadband simulcast. There’s OK GO, who is performing their choreographed treadmill dance that was all over YouTube recently. Too bad MTV doesn’t know how to shoot it right. Fast MTV video cuts between the performance and camera views blocked by fans’ hands really messed up the flow.

The Olympic Gold Medalist “Flying Tomato” Shaun White comes out to intro the Jackass crew and something with a live lobster and one of their tongues.

Jack Black introduces “the world’s most attractive producer of independent film” Paris Hilton who can’t read the teleprompter very well, but manages to introduce the next perfomance. The All-American Rejects really sound great with “Move Along” — its like one of those traditional VMA rock performances we all know and love.

Nick Lachey and Nicole Richie present Best Pop Video to Pink for “Stupid Girls”. She looks less than thrilled to have won for a song calling Paris Hilton and Britney Spears stupid girls. She threw in some faux Valley girl talk (”Thank you like soooo much for this award.”) and then gave a look to Nicole Ritchie before walking off-stage.

The “irascible” Snoop Dogg comes out with a drink to present Best Rap Video. Snoop: “If you can rhyme, the Top Dogg will always bless you and the cream always rises to the top.” Cut to Jay-Z laughing in the seats. And the winner is Chamillionaire for “Ridin’ Dirty.” 50 Cent told him he was going to win. Oh, finally, someone gives thanks to God for supporting him. He vents about “20/20″ cancelling his interview, but “no one can cancel this award!”

“Spy” Beyonce lowers down to the stage from the ceiling in a trenchcoat (which doesn’t stay closed for long) amidst the sound of sirens. Uh oh, the riot police are trying to detain her! You know, you can always count of Beyonce for an epic performance. Here come the trenchcoat backup dancers!

Sarah Silverman is still in the dressing room talking about fame. “It doesn’t make you more creative. It doesn’t.” Then she’s throws to the pre-tape, which is her in a pyramid with a naked guy.

Best Direction in a Video appears without presenters. Then there wasn’t a winner announced. Did I miss something?

Diddy (he’s talking again?) comes out to introduce “The King of the South” T.I. Who is that with him? Rappers do a bad job of announcing their backup rappers. At least they have kids singing back-up.

Amy Lee from Evanscence and Jared Leto from 30 Seconds from Mars both have matching black eyeliner and present Best Group Video. Panic! at the Disco and Fallout Boy should win. The winner is… The All-American Rejects for “Move Along”. They were caught off-guard and are stunned, as their girlfriends look on. They are totally “standing in front of 1000 people right now”. Then they broke it: “MTV will send us a real one.”

Ne-Yo and Rianna present Ringtone of the Year to Fort Minor for “Where’d You Go”. More product placement: an audience shot with all the kids holding up their Sidekick phones.

Fall Out Boy is jealous of this bands’ songs: Panic! at the Disco performs “I Write Sins Not Tragedies”. If you thought Fall Out Boy dressed distinctly, check out Panic!, complete with top hats, crazy dancers that are straight out of Thriller, and even a string section! Too bad the lead singer seemed super nervous and managed to totally blow out his voice halfway through the song.

Jack Black summed their performance up perfectly: “A cleverly veiled indictment of our nation’s foreign policy.”

Fergie is joined by “Little Miss Sunshine” girl, Abigail. “That’s so cool, I just got to dance on the VMAs!” Best New Artist in a Video goes to Avenge Sevenfold. I knew that song “Bat Country” all along — just not the band or the name of it. When they got up on stage they definitely frightened the little actress. One of them thanked “God, whichever one I believe in… I’m not sure right now. Umm, just kidding, Dad.”

Jack Black seems to have annoyed Jack White with his joke. Another miss for Black.

Britney Spears and Kevin Federline do a pre-taped bit making fun of the candid video that went around the Internet of them at home. Then their baby is “missing” and a midget drives away in a toy car. They’re an even worse comedy team than they are human beings…

Best R&B Video went to Beyonce featuring Slim Thugg for “Check On It” Beyonce: “I have to start off by thanking God and MTV.” God AND MTV! A great support team, indeed.

Kanye West talks about music video “filmmaker” Hype Williams. Andy Warhol, Picasso, and Hype Williams’s letterbox music videos We are treated to a montage of his video clips, including Biggie, Nas, Tupac, Jay-Z, J-Lo, Busta Rhymes and others.

Then its Busta Rhymes and dancers coming to the stage from the crowd for a performance. We get a little of Do you really want to party with me? Then Missy Elliott comes out in a black plastic bag and a toy Escalade, which stops working and she gets stuck in and gets banged in the head with an umbrella with her photo on it.

This was all to present the Video Vanguard Award to Hype Williams, apparently.

Sarah Silverman finally comes out on stage to Paris Hilton’s “Stars are Blind.” Sarah: “You seriously need to lose wait. Its bad. You’re like bigger than the fat Olsen Twins.” “You’re supposed to be Paris Hilton, okay, not Paris, France.”

Time for a Christina Aguilera performance! She is gorgeous! Since when did Christina Aguilera become the classiest one at an MTV function? She’s performing completely seated, backed by a complete orchestra wearing top hats. Beautiful.

Lou Reed and Pink (awkward pairing of the night ALERT!). She starts singing “Dear Mr. President were you a lonely boy…” then stops. Lou Reed requests MTV play more rock videos.. They are there to present Best Rock Video to AFI for “Miss Murder”. Panic! loses again! Darn.

The members of Black Eyes Peas come out to present “Best Hip Hop-Rap Fusion Video” with its newest member Kyle Gas Timberlake is maximizing storage space. “You didn’t bring the thunder, you didn’t bring anything!” He doesn’t want to host the VMAs anymore, he just wants his friend back. “You did bring the thunder, the thunder of friendship.”

And now there’s a Tenacious D performance about a “mystic uniformed goat” and friendship.

The cast of Jackass finally makes it to the stage. What a group of jackasses! They present the Viewer’s Choice Award to Fall Out Boy for “Dance, Dance”! Fall Out Boy got totally harassed by Wee-man and the Jackass crew during their thank you speech.

Queen Latifah tells us the planet is out of balance and introduces former Vice President Al Gore. He got a standing ovation from the crowd. Gore: “I wasn’t originally planning on being here tonight, but then MTV told me Justin Timberlake was bringing sexy back, so I decided to come.” We see some before and after pictures of glaciers and get a peptalk about rising to the challenge of global warming. Nice how he got himself inserted into the show, complete with his think.mtv.com link.

Jack Black tells us its time for the big one… oh no, not J-Lo’s ass, its the presentation of Video of the Year. J-Lo promotes MTV Tres, a new MTV channel featuring musica latina. Anyway, back to the award…

Video of the Year: Panic! “I write Sins, not Tragedies” Shakira “Hips Don’t Lie” Christina Aguilera “Ain’t No Other Man” Madonna “Hung Up” Red Hot chili Peppers “Dani California

And the winner is… PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICCCCCCC! AT THE DISCO!!! Its a total upset (take that Madonna!) by one of my new favs. Congrats, guys!

Oh no! Some guy just jumped on stage and took the mic from J-Lo! Get off the stage, dude! The guy says MTV never gave him his own show and mentions some website with 6000 in it. Then he’s promptly tacked off the stage.

Panic! thanks their family and friends, including the guys off Fall Out Boy.

Jack Black doesn’t skip a beat: “Guys! Who was that guy? I think 6 is the new Soy Bomb.”

Axl Rose is on the show for some reason (unknown even to him, it seems) to present a performance by The Killers. Let’s forget all about the frantic look on J-Lo’s face and that 6000 guy and enjoy some delightful rock music.

And that’s it for the 2006 VMAs. Jack Black: “We gave the mighty Thor a rusty trombone.” Well said, my friend. Well said.

UPDATE: That stage crasher was actually a guy promoting his company’s DVDs at a site called AwardCrasher.com. Here’s the loser’s MySpace page.

Check out a real wackadoo performing The Simpsons theme and the Star Trek theme together with a piano, a funnel (!), and a theremin. It sounds great, but this guy is crazy!

And just where did this guy get a theremin, anyway?!?

Its been exactly one year since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and set in motion an equally disastrous government response.

And have things since improved? Certainly some businesses and residences have been rebuilt in the past year. Some percentage of tourists are back spending money in the French Quarter.

But mostly, its a slow rebuilding process, with thousands of small businesses’ fates, as well as the future of New Orleans itself, hanging in the balance. Not to mention areas that haven’t been touched since the hurricane hit:

There are many places in New Orleans where it looks like the flooding happened yesterday: whole neighbourhoods are deserted, flooded buildings still show the high watermarks, the mangled wreckage of smashed homes still present a health hazard.

And, despite nearly a year of reconstruction by the Army Corps of Engineers, those levees that crumbled under the immense flood waters still may not be able to withstand the power of a Category 5 hurricane:

Despite aggressive efforts to repair the New Orleans levee system following the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, it isn’t clear yet whether it could withstand a hurricane with heavy storm surge this year, the head of the Army Corps of Engineers conceded Saturday.

Hopefully, New Orleans will be spared a direct hit during this year’s hurricane season.

The New York Times has an interesting infographic, which I’ve broken down into blog-sized chunks, that shows how close New Orleans is to pre-Katrina levels, in a number of measurable fields:

Will New Orleans ever be the same? Hopefully, in time. But, certainly not in just a year.

Hi there folks and welcome to CityCynic.com’s Liveblogging of the 58th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards.

Conan O’Brien impressed me, as usual. The song and dance number about how NBC is in last place, while being televised on NBC, really pushed the limits. They made him change “last place” to “in the top 5″ though, he said.

Ellen Pompeo and Patrick “McDreamy” Dempsey presented Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, reminding us that a new season of Grey’s Anatomy is on the way. Megan Mullaly from Will and Grace won.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Sean Hayes talk about the new, controversial Emmy voting process and how it actually got them nominated. Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series went to Alan Alda (in absentia).

Conan says the Emmy broadcast traditionally runs long. But this year, there will be consequences — Bob Newhart is in an airtight container with exactly three hours worth of air! It doesn’t look like anyone told Bob him that. If the Emmy’s run even one second over, Bob Newhart will die.

Conan tried to introduce the Sheens — Charlie and Martin, but the producers cut him off to cut to them walking out! Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series went to Blythe Danner, apparently for the cancelled show Huff. She guesses that she has to thank Showtime, even though they’re the ones who cancelled the show.

Jamie Pressley and Jason Lee present Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series goes to Jeremy Piven for Entourage. He dedicated his first Emmy to his late father.

Christopher Meloni gets into Conan’s comedy bit, riding across the stage on a “Podium Segway.” They should look into that for future shows.

Dennis Haysbert and William Peterson present Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie to Kelly MacDonald for something. I don’t really catch many miniseries, so I don’t know what’s going on. But, whoa, she’s Irish! Listen to that brogue!

Conan always looks great with a moustache! Especially for the Telemundo simulcast’s Spanish-speaking viewers.

John Lithgow, Heidi Klum, and Jeffrey Tambor come out to present Outstanding Actor in a Variety, Music, or Comedy Series and we’re treated to clips of the nominees on seat filler’s handheld devices, as they’re sitting in the audience. Yes, there were iPods, but not solely iPods. I saw a Blackberry in there somewhere. Jon Stewart wins for The Daily Show! Stephen Colbert kissed him as he was walking towards the stage. Those two are always hilarious!

Jennifer Love Hewitt and John Livingston (from the new show Standoff) present the earlier-presented Guest Actor in a Comedy Series and Guest Actress in a Comedy Series to Leslie Jordan and 8-time record-holding Emmy winner Cloris Leachman. Leslie Jordan (who, incidently, was great as a guest star on Boston Legal) says its great to win an Emmy. In fact, the Emmy statuette is the first woman he’s ever slept with. Now that’s funny!

They then presented Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series goes to Marc Buckland (My Name is Earl). He hasn’t been this nervous since his Bar Mitzvah. He thanked his mom and dad (”Screw Conan!”), even though Conan specifically said not to earlier in the show.

They also present Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series to Greg Garcia (My Name is Earl). He doesn’t want to thank his 8th grade teacher who told him to sit down because he wasn’t funny, someone who made him clean gum off of the Executive Producer’s shoe while he was a PA on Step By Step, nor God Himself for taking his hair.

Simon Cowell comes out and tells us that Elvis first connected music with television. A tribute to Dick Clark — chock full of American Bandstand clips follows. Then one with all the Dick Clark Productions shows, including Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve through the years. And there’s Dick Clark, seated at a special podium-desk! He received a standing ovation. His voice is still off from the stroke and he couldn’t walk out onto the stage, but he looks the best ever.

Then he introduced Barry Manilow, singing the theme from American Bandstand with Dick Clark smiling as he sings to him. A pretty touching tribute.

Continue reading this entry…

Skillz and Scales are my two bearded dragons. They are approximately one year old and love crickets and romaine lettuce.

When I went to turn on their basking light and full-spectrum UVB light (both necessary for optimum bearded dragon health), this is what I saw:

They are obviously bearded dragon buddies and hardly ever get into a scuffle over crickets.

It was bound to happen — there are motherf*king parodies of these motherf*cking snakes on a motherf*cking plane!

In case you were wondering what this was all about: Snakes on a Plane.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention something very awesome indeed: Snakes on Cocaine.

Lately, I’ve really been getting into a band some of you may know as The Arcade Fire.

Like many connoisseurs of general pop culture, I first noticed the unique gang of musicians when they performed on the Late Show with David Letterman.

I saw all sorts of instruments being played and heard them along with several vocals in a unique blend of musical goodness. There was even this red-haired kid jumping all around and dancing throughout the performance.

Then, I didn’t hear about them until they performed “Wake Up” with David Bowie in 2005 during Fashion Rocks at Radio City Music Hall and then again at Summerstage in Central Park.

Fast forward to last week, when I burned a CD of Arcade Fire’s Funeral along with their EP for my commute to work. I popped it into my car’s CD player and I immediately found a new band for my top 10 favorite bands.

Arcade Fire is best played loud. My favorite songs include Wake Up and Neighborhood #3 (Power Out).

I may be late to the party, but its still a party all the same! Check them out if you haven’t already.

This weekend was all Dave Matthews Band as I went to see the Island Getaway festival at Randall’s Island for the second year in a row.

The first day, I went with Kaleigh and my sister and we had a blast in the general admission lawn section. We even snuck two digital cameras in and took a load of photos! (Thank goodness for camera batteries in bras!)

We found an awesome spot for our blanket (thanks, Kaleigh) up near the front and had a good view of the video screen and the stage. And they played Ants Marching!

Too bad they didn’t label the parking areas, because after the concert the three of us couldn’t find our car for a good 40 minutes. But once we did (we were in the right area the whole time, but it was back further than we all thought), it was a quick ride. We got home around 2:30 in the morning exhausted, but excited about the day’s performances.

The DMB road crew wrote up a pretty good summary of the second night, so I’ll just include that here:

The heat broke for our weekend stay on Randall’s Island in the middle of New York’s East River. Béla Fleck and the Flecktones kicked it off tonight, David Gray followed. Both sounded great and were well received by the crowd.

Carter and Butch opened Say Goodbye, trading licks in a cool way. The extended outro was unique as well. Béla sat in on Lie In Our Graves, then came back out with the rest of his band for Jimi Thing. The horn section have been flying in old TV show themes in the most unexpected places.

If you get a chance, see if you can spot I Dream Of Jeannie and Lost In Space on the tapes. Tonight we begin the long haul to Tampa for a show on Wednesday. See you then.

The DMB Crew
Sunday, August 6
11:57 PM EDT

The second night seemed to have a bit more energy, even with Dave sounding slightly hoarse (from too much partying, according to Dave) and the song selection was better. Plus, as an added bonus, I even got to see the band on stage!

All in all, it was a rockin’ weekend and the event organizers even slightly improved on last year’s first attempt at the Island Getaway.

ALSO: Click the link just below this for the setlists for both nights…

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Sony pulled a recent billboard ad campaign for their new white PlayStation Portable after many people disapproved of it’s perceived racial overtones.

The name of the campaign: “White is Coming.”

The controversial ads were only displayed on billboards in Holland, but criticism spread worldwide via blogs and Internet forums.

Sony Europe issued a statement of apology:

We… recognize that people have a wide variety of perceptions about such imagery and we wish to apologise to those who perceived the advert differently to that intended. In future, we will apply greater sensitivity in our selection of campaign imagery, and will take due account of the increasingly global reach of such local adverts, and their potential impact in other countries.

Its hard not to see how people wouldn’t find this campaign controversial.