why life isnt fair

in the world of youtube 3.3 million views on a video is a smashing success

and even though this one has that many, i still feel like it should have ten times as much

because not only is it an outrageously great tale

but it’s told well, unexpected things happen,

and it lets us peer into a world i, for one, never imagined existed.

ninja from die antwoord is a national treasure. when his group debuted in LA in 2010, even solid journalists like the LA Times’ Chris Lee wasn’t sure if it was a joke or not. turned out it was so seriously great it had no peers.

a couple years later Ninja’s video vision became fully realized in Baby’s On Fire and it catapulted their career

that video has over 220 million views.

which makes me wonder why the top video of Ninja talking about hanging out with Kanye West and Drake can only pull in a fraction of that.

is it appeal of Yo-Landi? is it that great beat? the funny narrative?

these are the things i think about sitting on my couch waiting to be called up to the pros: why are some great videos only worthy of 3 million views, and why do others get 222 million.

which always gets me back to the most pressing one:

How can MTV continue to avoid music videos when they perform sooooo well on YouTube. clearly there’s an audience. why not return to your roots?

if i wasnt so lazy


If I wasn’t so lazy,
I would start a GoFundMe to buy Fox News
I’d change the name and play music videos on it all day
hosted by VJs.
There would be a daily dance show,
one about Hip Hop,
cartoons and a game show called Remote Control.
On Fridays there would be concerts.
First a half hour by a small band
then a half hour by a medium sized band
then an hour from a giant band.
On Saturdays at midnight there would be a midnight movie.
There’d be news but it would be about music.
I’ll need about $5 billion, it seems.
fine.

kanye is right about beyonce

 

shes everything. and mtv knows it and tidal knows it and even jay-z is starting to figure it out.

but here’s my problem with viacom. if you go to the MTV.com page of the VMA video clips

and you click the Beyonce video of her performance from Sunday night

a night that was tape delayed to the West for no good reason at all,

they provide you with an embed code so you can share the video on your busblog.

but when you use the code Viacom

for no good reason at all

blocks the video from being able to be played on your busblog.

several things happen when you do things like this, Viacom

the first is we continue in thinking that you dont know how to Internet.

the Internet is a Web. it’s many sites all sharing in information and linking to each other so as to spread the message.

the message on Sunday was MTV had many of the top female solo acts on one stage

(except for Adele, Kesha, Taylor Swift, Regina Spektor, PJ Harvey, and Banks)

the best way for that message to get spread is via social media, which blogging is still part of.

so when you provide a code to embed the video but then block it you seem bipolar and ridiculous.

sorta like when you stop showing videos on your music video network

but then go right ahead and continue to have music video awards each fall like nothing has changed.

the second thing we assume is you hate us. you dont want us to see Beyonce’s amazing performance.

we think that because, like was mentioned earlier, you tape delayed a Sunday “live” show to the West

and you make it hard for us to see today’s most fascinating and talented performers do her thing.

it give us the idea, Viacom, that you dont care about art or music, all you care about is beans.

the type you want to count. but you forget that the more beans you put out there

the more will be seen, and the more you can count.

but the worst thing you have done is you have played yourself.

and you have given an excuse to pirates to steal the signal that you have failed at protecting.

“stealing” a video transmission is easier today than ever before.

you are building a wall across the border but it is porous and ridiculous.

which makes you ridiculous.

and poor us, you are poor er.

we will see the video.

the mountain will move.

you will die.

and fail to reach paradise.

because what Saint will let you in to Heaven

after it is discovered that for a living you tried to block Queen Bey from her fans?

i pity you.

i pray for you.

you need to repent.

theres so many different ways our lives coulda ended up

when i was a kid i thought that by now id have a house a few kids a dog a minivan a huge afro golf clubs a huge satelite dish in my back yard a pool table in the basement a barbershop quartet moustashe a fridgerator in the garage a fridgerator in the kitchen that had an ice maker a station waggon a 401k a beer belly an exchange student a kite stuck in a tree a minibike that my wife said dont let the kids ride but when shes shopping i lettem ride couplea fish named angus and malcolm some rare picassos six seven suits renters insurance and several bowling league trophies.

instead i have a blog. and you. and pretty much all the freedom in the world.

how did this happen? how did the lord bless me so? how is it that everything that i thought would be mine is someone elses and they seem happy with it but i seem just as happy without it. maybe more. maybe.

how is it that every bit of music except exodus’s free for all is available at the click of a button or the spin of bottle? how is it that you can pause live tv? how is it that you can buy a house with no money down? how is it that gas is $2.75 and we think thats the greatest deal ever. how is it that theres a black man in the white house and his name isnt sammy sosa?

how is it that monday i woke up and both of my alarm clocks said a certain time a half hour earlier than what it was but my iphone said it was the correct time and i swear to you after i took my shower the clocks had corrected themselves?

how is it that people pay me money for things that take me ten seconds to do and with that money i can send a dutch girl a sweet christmas gift and have money left over to pay for an expensive and sinfully delicious sushi meal for two? how is it that im pretty sure that those sorta opportunities wont end.

how is it that the cubs arent world champs right now. how is it that i dont have a sweet pair of pumas right now. how is it that yesterday at this time i was checking out a hottie in hello kitty booty shorts and today im not and im sorta ok with that. how is it that ive worked at my dream job for 11 months now and i still take pictures like a tourist inside the building?

but if you could only answer one question please tell me how all the vjs have come and gone on mtv but why god has john norris the least interesting of all of them and his frosted tips has been allowed to stay.

bring back kennedy.

its 421am

rihanna im in vegas. listening to gogol bordello on the plasma screen. karisa is snoozing away in her room. my room is calling my name. last night we attended the mtv video awards and it blew our minds.

like many of you, i grew up on mtv. but unlike most of you, i remember life pre-MTV so when our town finally got it, we were glued to the set – even when the videos were as lame as chris debarge, men at work, and krokus.

but through all of these years mtv has been a mainstay on my television dial. not only did they turn me on to a lot of music that i ended up love, ive also watched almost every reality series that theyve run. definately every episode of The Real World, Ozzy, Remote Control, my super sweet 16, “I’m a …” and oh so many more.

so to actually Be at the vmas, and get invited to interview people on the red carpet, and hang out in the free bar – i mean Press Room – and get to talk to Common whose song “The People” i play almost every day – was so surreal.

i met so many stars. i saw so many of the biggest people. i got to interview so many artists who i’d seen so many times – from Scary Spice to Steve O to Ron Jeremy – and to be there with one of my best friends, in my third favorite city, and get paid for it. well, if you were ever gonna hate, this would be the time to unload cuz ive had a dream weekend.

speaking of karisa, mtv gave me 1 pass to one of the fantasy suites that they had. in each room there was a band playing. in one room you had fall out boy, in another foo fighters, in one was Kanye, and in another was justin timberlake. mtv said you can get a pass for one room and party there for the length of the awards show and the artist will perform a mini concert. but you can only pick one suite to go in, and you have to stay there.

so i picked JT for our girl but because Justin was winning awards and having to perform on main stage downstairs at the Pearl, he had 50 cent do a concert in his suite, and then TI, and then Justin came up and did his thing. so yeah, 3 concerts basically. although the suites are big, theyre still just a hotel suite, so karisa was just feet away from the fellas.

she also told me that when Justin was trying to get on stage, someone pushed her into the former boybander and her hand sorta ended up on JT’s backside. which means that if you hooked her up to a lie detector and asked karisa if she had ever tapped Justin Timberlake’s ass, she could say yes, honestly.

after the awards we tried to accept Diddys invite to meet him on the 32nd floor of the Palms but were shunned by security at the door of the suite. but we got to ride in the elevator with Megan Fox who was the only chick in the house, other than rihanna, who gave karisa a run for her money.

afterwards we ate crab cakes and fried cheese at the Peppermill and one guy seriously spilled his drink when karisa crossed her legs in her short black dress.

and in 7 hours we have to leave this excellent hotel and this fine city and go back home. and ive been here in vegas many times, but this was probably the most fun ive ever had here. booze flowed like it was liquid! the food was amazing. and the company was ideal.

and in a strange bit of good luck we ended up in a stretch limo that took us to the awards for a ridiculously low rate. particularly since so many limos had rolled into that hotel at ridiculously high rates.

once again, the Lord showing that he has my back.

on the way here to vegas, karisa suggested that we make it an Honesty Weekend. since we’re good friends, and since what happens in vegas stays here, we could be brutally honest about everything regarding life, our friendship, and rock music and we had to accept the feedback or answer the tough questions. and i gotta tell you it was a great excersize cuz i learned things about her that i never knew, and she told me things that i would have never guessed.

if you do have a close friend who you trust, i highly recommend it. you might be pleasantly surprised by their feedback.

christina is trying to get my attention

christina aguilera vma 2002 by wearing the shortest skirt ever photographed on television.

shes like me, very low self esteem.

the daily pundit and this other dude were debating about why im not getting a huge sweaty pile of cash from mags or newspapers or whoever and its cuz im terrified to send anything out. christina is sitting on like three completely finished albums right now for the same reason. they’re not sellout records, they’re real ones. experimental to a point.

one of the dudes asked if it was possible for an unconventional writer to clean up the writing and still pack the same punch, and i say no, its not possible. but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t still beat the hell out of most of the stuff you read in the paper.

you could take all the drugs out of hunter s. and it will still be wild and untamed, but the question is why would you want to do that?

isn’t a newspaper or a magazine or a journal a collection of a variety of writers? are they really all supposed to sound alike?

i know when i go to the zoo i don’t want to see sharks with no teeth, bears with no claws, or giraffes with brown hair so that they’d look more like the loveable beaver family.

sure i can sellout. i don’t have to say fuck in everything i write. people who were worried that dennis miller was gonna swear on monday night football were complete idiots. most of america knows when its appropriate to say, “look at that hot piece of ass over there!” and when its appropriate to say, “good evening ms. Aguilera.”

i would imagine that most publishable writers would know who their audience is and what would be the right time to say the right things.

as for the “cleaning up” process. i am 108 years old. soon to be 109. idealism has been beaten out of me. at this stage of my life i am happy to even be able to write things down and have people read them. if someone wants to edit my stuff, fine.

by the time most writers have gone through their fourth draft of their 50 inch pile of dreck, i have finished my 5th mini column and have already completely solved like 8 serious issues and taken at least three killer pictures. let the editors who are hung up on capitalization, run on sentences, comma splicing, and justin timberlake’s ass tidy up my prose. we all have work to do. we all have a role. my job is to gather the info, write it down and move on. if they want to sand the edges, fine.

odds are i forgot about what i wrote half way through writing it.

im not making huge sums of cash because im scared. i don’t want some jackhole telling me thanks but no thanks. ive dealt with rejection my whole life, as has most people, but rejection when it comes to writing is something that i don’t like. and selling out is something that is very hard for me to do too.

i know that if someone hired me i would have to write the way that they want and i think that would be tough, for as lucky as i get sometimes, its hard to walk the straight and narrow when you’re interested in all the other sidestreets.

to me, writing can be a dynamically enjoyable creative process that can flirt at being art.

let the boring hacks who cant write anything else besides AP style write AP style, but please don’t try to lump the rest of us into that box because you know what, if that was really the only thing that people wanted to read, then why is it that the blogosphere is so big and my hits only go up each and every month?

i know theres a place for me somewhere, and i don’t think that this is the only place for me.

i do believe that in the right context i could produce a daily column for someone that wouldn’t be so tonypierce-centric that would still be edgy, informative, cocky, bizarre, and humorous that people would want to read. i think i could do a decent job of interviewing real celebs and take pictures of them, dont you? of course you do.

just like theres a place on tv for britney and nelly and justin and christina And the vines, and the strokes, and bruce springsteen.. and even tom waits.

my fear is that im the replacements.

my motivation is that i don’t ever want anyone to say, “God he could have really been something.”

tonight i went drinking with one of the coolest girls in hollywood. she too had a pretty short skirt and extensions in her hair and we drank baileys and shot pool and i wondered how long im going to be able to pull this off.

and i tried to kisser and she said no and i said, but you’re from my real hometown in illinois. ive never kissed a girl from there. she said, sure you have. i said, not in like 100 years, ive completely forgot what its like.

she said its pretty much the same.

i said, but aren’t you curious? im curious. come on, its not like im attracted to you. im just being scientific, its an experiment.

and i don’t know why i continue to use that line, it never works, but for some reason i use it like all the time because i Think it should work.

but kissing a girl at a bar isn’t about getting them to think, its about getting them to stop thinking. and thats a tough trick when you go out with smart girls.

ok its 4:19am, might be a good time to go to bed.

big shout out to Oish who keeps turning on her friends to the busblog and i totally appreciate that. thanks teresa!