Personally, I think this is a genius step on MTV's part. And, obviously, they haven't made too many genius decisions in a long time so I am not just saying that lightly.
From HuffPo:
NEW YORK — MTV is staking its brand on a lesser-known one: Russell Brand.
The British actor and comedian will host this year's Video Music Awards, set to air live from Paramount Pictures Studios in Los Angeles on Sept. 7, MTV told The Associated Press on Thursday.
Brand recently co-starred in the Judd Apatow-produced comedy "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and the Reese Witherspoon-produced fairy tale "Penelope." He is currently filming the Adam Sandler comedy "Bedtime Stories," slated for release later this year.
Brand told the AP that he hadn't started thinking about how he would approach the assignment _ not that there's much planning to be done for the infamously anything-goes show.
"I've just been invited to do it," Brand said in a telephone interview from London. "It'll be good to preside over what is sure to be only vaguely coordinated televised insanity."
Not that chaos or improv a problem for the 33-year-old comedian.
"That's how I've made my name in this country: Flying very much by the seat _ and the crotch _ of my pants."
MTV hired Brand to be a VJ on its Britain-based show "Dance Floor Chart" after catching his comedy act in Edinburgh, Scotland. He also hosted a call-in show called MTV Select.
Why genius? Maybe I'm being hyperbolic, but I really am impressed by MTV actually taking a chance and having someone virtually unknown on this side of the pond hosting the VMA's. Who is an actual host and knows how to, you know, host. As opposed to, well, the typical egomaniacal, deplorable, half-witted tabloid celebrity. Let's face it, MTV barely takes any risks and so this is a refreshing surprise. Of course I, with my Anglophilia and obsession with all things British, am just about one of only like 100 Americans who knows who Russell Brand is. He's just a crazy man with crazy hair from England and he's sure to make the night fun. I might actually watch just because of him. So good job MTV! I'm proud of you for taking a risk! And for actually knowing who this guy is, I mean damn. And I thought your (MTV's) head was up your ass all along! Good to see it come out finally! And also, I haven't mentioned this, I laud you (MTV) for creating the show FNMTV. It is a very noble and admirable effort to inject music back into MTV, and although it is still a bit awkward, it has a lot of potential. And I love that it plays bands like Vampire Weekend, Slipknot, and the Jonas Brothers all together. That is awesome.
FOX News should go fuck itself. For one, I hate all those airheaded bimbos that only get the job there to look pretty. That's right, sweeties, they don't give a shit what you have to say- the slimy old creeps that somehow manage to watch this piece of crap channel just want to stare at your tits. Sorry, but that's reality. And the stupid passive aggressive guys that are on the fox News talk shows... they're just way past saving, way past anything. All of these people just need to fuck off and live under a rock in their own house, NOT in my television!
How dare they talk about Michelle that way. Michelle has more class and dignity in one finger nail then they can ever wish to have in their entire life. Bunch of pathetic fools.
This is amazing. FINALLY the rest of the US can witness the awesomeness that is Skins.
It's kind of crazy because this is exactly what I complained about at the end of this post back in February. But now my wishes have been answered and now I will be able to watch Skins in all of its non-crappy-internet-video-quality glory: on TV! That's right, Skins is going to be on BBC America (not quite as good as the major networks or even MTV, but good enough). Here's all the info:
Skins is set to air in the US on BBC America.
What on earth will they make of the outrageous, honest and buoyant kids when compared to the groomed kids of The OC or Gossip Girl?
Hopefully it will be a wake up call on depicting teenagers as true teenagers, not just young adults with adult values. But it will also push a lot of buttons for its use of sex, drugs and rock & roll. At least on cable it has a lot more leeway.
The series will air in a 9pm timeslot from August 13.
The second series of Skins airs at 10pm Mondays on SBS (although it's resting for 2 weeks during the Tour de France cycling -back July 21).
Producers have also indicated all but one of the current cast will be replaced for the third series.
I was rooting for him to do well. I mean, I get the whole problem with having a rapper- an American rapper no less- headlining this legendary, historically rock-oriented British festival. But the uproar just got kind of out of hand. It started making me uncomfortable- it's like big whoop, let him headline! It started looking a bit racist, although I'm sure that's not where people were trying to go. Well anyway, he did a great job. The crowd frickin' loved him. I love the site of everyone in the audience waving their hands back and forth together and singing along to "It's a Hard Knocked Life." Later in this video Jay-Z says in a sad voice, "so they say you guys don't want me to be here tonight." And everyone booooos. "Said you guys are not into hip-hop" Crowd: "Boooooo!!" (in a good way).
Another cute Obama video for public enjoyment. Here he is watching his daughters' soccer match with his wife:
Noteworthy:
-Obama's tucked in shirt- all the better to accentuate the ass. Oh, no she di'int! Yes, yes I did. And all those crazy Wonkette commenters said it before me.
-Michelle playfully "slapping" at Barack at the end of the video. Awwww! They are so adorable I just want to jump in and join them. That would be really awkward though, wouldn't it? But anyway, do you think this was staged? I choose to think not. And whatever I choose to think is always true, obvs.
-LOL at the AP photographer people's reactions to the Obamas' playfulness. (That is the voices we hear, right? The photographers'?). If I am not mistaken, and it is very likely that I am, when Obama first nudges/pushes Michelle, some guy says, "OH OH! That's a good shot!" And then when Michelle soon hits him some woman gasps and says "OOH OOH OOH!" It's called a paparazzorgasm.
Unrelated... I want to invent a new snack, which would be a combination of two great things:
-Bamba (an Israeli snack I have eaten all my life. It is sold in my local supermarket here in LA too. It is one of the most amazing snacks in the universe. If you love peanut butter. Which you should, duh).
Join me on this great journey through the fabled and whimsical lands of the hipsters...
You might think hipsters are randomly dispersed and have no correlations to each other (because that wouldn't be cool), but then you would be fiercely mistaken. If you thought that. So. Here I shall unfold connections between the following subjects:
-Phantom Planet -BlackBlack -M83 -Sixteen Candles & Pretty in Pink & Breakfast Club -The Cobrasnake
Get ready to have your mind blown. Alright, it's actually not that big of a deal at all. But this has taken years of Cobrasnake.com-stalking to figure out so I'm quite proud. In an embarrassed sort of way, anyway.
So once upon a time, about four or more years ago, I discovered this lil' website called The Cobrasnake, where Mark "the Cobrasnake" took pictures of hipsters in their prehistoric forms and posted them online. Prehistoric because it was before the threshold point that took place somewhere around 2006/2007 when the hipster style spilled out from Cinespace and such underground hipster-infested night clubs into the hungry mouth of the mainstream. The mainstream, that vicious beast, got tired of the "boho" (eww, remember that?) hippy style and also tired of the later quasi-boho Rachel-Zoe/anorexic-coke-addict/denim-mini-loose-top-vest-huge-sunglasses combo... and devoured the new hipster trend. And, behold, seas of neon wayfarers and bright skinny jeans took over the streets. This is not really important to the aforementioned "connections"... it's just background. To add richness.
So, back to those early prehistoric days... before Cory Kennedy's dirty hair ever graced our eyes... there was this odd girl on the Cobrasnake. She had a young face, kind of pretty in an awkward model sort of way, and she was incredibly lanky and such. Here she is, back in the day, the giantess in the middle:
Notice also a younger Mark the Cobrasnake there in the far left, with a huge jewfro. Nice. Watch that picture carefully because that's the hipster style before hipster was a widely used slur. It still had the annoying sporty vibe...but it was more innocent, don't you think? More prehistoric hipster styles can be found where that picture came from:
... which was Mark's website before he started the Cobrasnake. Luckily he hasn't removed it, so we can indulge in comparing and contrasting old hipster vs. new hipster.
But I digress. AGAIN. Ugh, it's so hard for me to stay on track sometimes. So, this was around the time that I obsessively read Elle Girl (RIP), aka the most amazing magazine to ever exist. Anyway, the magazine had some sort of young talent feature spread and in the section for bands, they featured a lil' band called BlackBlack. It featured Alex Greenwald, the singer in Phantom Planet, whom I recognized back then- probably because they sang the theme to the OC. Or something. Then with him was a girl about my age (back then) with short hair, and an older girl WHO WAS THE AWKWARD GIRL FROM THE COBRASNAKE. Mhmm, connections. Remember, keep track. The mini-article said that Alex, the Phantom Planet singer guy, was dating Diva Dompe (real name I think is probably Diva Haskins. Who knows.) aka lanky Cobrasnake girl. And the young girl was Lola Dompe or Lola Haskins- Diva Dompe's little sister. All three of them created this sorta-band BlackBlack. Sorta because Alex was already in Phantom Planet so how serious can it be, right? Here they are, all three of them together:
And here are only Diva Dompe and Alex Greenwald, in case you're still skeptical:
Oh, look! A hipster picnic in the background. Yay.
Something sweet about the pseudo-band is that they like to dress up in different themes for their performances:
Not so sure what the theme is in that one... Lola is wearing a flower heandband in the background. Oh- by the way- Lola is the drummer, Diva is the guitarist/singer, and then I don't even know what Alex does. Is he also the guitarist/singer? I don't remember and I can't bother to look through the Cobrasnake archives to find out. It was enough to find the photos I'm posting now!
About... maybe three or four years ago, I was watching some indie video show on TV (believe it or not, there are two- which no one knows about because they play at like 3 am (yay Tivo!)- they are Subterranean on MTV2 and The Dive on Fuse. So I was watching one of those and a video by an indie band called M83 started, and who should be featured in it but DIVA DOMPE, lanky cobrasnake girl herself, Alex Greenwald, her boyfriend, and little Lola too! And what do you think, of course you can see the video for yourself, right here. It's called ""Don't Save Us From the Flames" and I actually quite liked it, although it was pretty strange:
See, she just kept popping out at me, it's not my fault! It's like I was meant to find all these connections! Or something.
But that is not where the story ends. Oh no. So these people have kept showing up on the Cobrasnake throughout the years. They are Cobrasnake fixtures. Here are some pictures from just a few weeks ago-
Diva:
Lola:
But it's still not over. So recently- like two weeks ago- I was innocently scrolling through Stereogum, minding my own business, when this post showed up about a new M83 music video for the song "Graveyard Girl". I was intrigued, so I started watching it, and imagine my surprise...
Yes, that is Lola! That is Lola in that video and so not only does he put Diva in his first video, but now he puts the young Lola in his new one, and he makes me feel like a stalker. Damn him. So yeah, that's the connection web right there. Oh, the Pretty in Pink/Sixteen Candles/Breakfast Club thing is because that's the theme in the "Graveyard Girl" video with Lola. By the way, both girls are simply gorgeous in their respective videos. That's totally outside of my general tone in this post, but I've just got to put that out there!
One final touch to this long and pointless story- Lola and Diva are the daughters of Kevin Haskins, the drummer in the classic British rock group Bauhaus. Their mom (his wife) is named Pamela Dompe. I just found that out now from his Wikipedia. Well now we know where the Dompe/Haskins confusion comes from.
And that is the end of the epic journey. I hope you learned something. Because I sure didn't. Ha ha.
