When was the last New York Fashion Week was eclipsed by an occasion as momentous as a televised Britney Spears appearance? (Hm, what year was it those big buildings fell down?) Yeah yeah we're at the Jezebel Fashion Week 2007 command center, a luxurious suite in the historic Algonquin Hotel, where every room comes equipped with its own Dorothy Parker quote plaque. Ours says: "Dorothy Parker describing a party guest: "That woman speaks 18 languages and can't say 'No' in any of them.'" Coincidence? We guess that's pretty applicable, minus the multilingual part.. We're liveblogging this because MTV is NEVER EVER IN THE FUTURE OF THE UNIVERSE GOING TO RE-AIR IT, and Moe got the honor because she really wanted to hear that "Umbrella" song everyone's talking about..
PRESHOW
Ok. Who the fuck gave John Norris a lifetime contract, and who is more loathsome, the guy who inked that contract with Norris or the guy who gave him that gross boy band weave? Wow.
I'm in the hotel room. The Bible is out, and for some reason, it smells faintly of coke. A prominent journalist — who actually claims he was invited to the VMAs — is watching with me. He just informed me that someone who is a Pussycat Doll had brought Jimmy Iovine and some gentleman from Laguna Beach into one degree of sexaration. "Those Laguna Beach guys, they've all dated up," he says, and there is admiration in his voice.
Kanye West rules.
Prominent Journalist —PJ? — just informed me of Suchin Pak is known as "Supac" among friends. Is she also a fan of Machiavelli?
PJ: "Nicole Scherzinger — you gotta hand it to her for sticking with that name. It's not an automatic rock star name." Um, that is a rock star? Apparently it's a Pussycat Doll. PJ: "Sway just missed an excellent chance to say Paris's dress wasn't "jackpot or jack-not" but jack-hot....but nice sly reference to her prison visit "Enjoy your freedom"....John Norris totally went to the salon with a picture of Perez Hilton...
Wonkette's Anonymous Lobbyist is online: "wtf is up with that guy's eyeliner/really tight pants?" she wants to know? PJ: "There really needs to be a gay rapper so the couplet 'I got tight pants and a wide stance' can make it into the Original Hip-hop Lyric Archive."
BRITNEY OMG OMG.Prominent Journalist: Nah, you don't have to look, this is the opening act, Brooke Hogan...Diddy's lookin like he's takin it in...he didn't look chill about it. ..um, PJ: "I'm still lookin for the Criss Angel influence...."
My thoughts: um, give me more ..time to formulate
PJ: "Give me Scores!"
IMs received during the last fifty seconds:
Intern Cheryl: "general consensus in my apartment- the digital intro with graphics = better than britney spears"
Tracie: "omg! you can see where her extensions are"
Wonkette's Anonymous Lobbyist: "dude, bad extensions and she's already off key. and tripping
having trouble remembering the routine. geez. but, i do love the glitter spike heels, even though she can't walk in them... dude, you can seriously see her counting off the beats to the dance moves..also, gold shoes on all the male dancers...and, she's got that thing us big breasted girls have where it pops out the top side of your bra under your armpits"
SARAH SILVERMAN
"If she's not Jewish, someone should tell her face." Good line! And totes applicable to my face.
ALICIA KEYS looks as hot as she looks fugly on the cover of today's New York Times Arts section. Apparently the first single is really good. Is it okay to admit I bought her first album?
Me to Jennifer Hudson: "Oh, my god, is this the high def TV or something? She looks fuckin f-"
Prominent Journalist: "Please tell me you were gonna say 'fierce.' 'Fabulous,' maybe."
Are we actually still watching this?
Okay, I've had some time to digest. Intern Cheryl wants to know if anyone actually watches the show in the seats. They don't. Losers do. I watched the Movie Awards once.
Akon! I know that song! Because I used to live in Harlem.
Idolator's liveblog is so much better. Fuck this server.
Could Adam Levine have actually become more despicable?
So there's a new show that's supposed to be the new Laguna Beach, but P.J. tells me it's irrelevant, probably because it has a non-heinous theme song. Did anyone else watch 8th and Ocean?
Chris Brown is apparently really big shit in the slowjamiverse. PJ: "I seriously think Usher is watching this with a gun pointed at the TV." Intern Cheryl: "Having a seizure is the new dance trend!"
Rihanna's thighs look like Jennifer Hudson's on this TV. Female entertainers should launch a class-action lawsuit against the plasma screen manufacturers. "Umbrella" actually may be something I have heard before. According to PJ, Mary J. Blige turned down the song. Whatever, it's not "Real Love."
So MTV now specifies on promos when a show is "scripted." That has to mean something depressing, but could it be worse than being subjected to the sounds of Kelly Sweet for longer than the duration of this commercial?
We're getting room service now. Think I should get the cornish hen?
L.C. and Alicia Keys are sharing a stylist, and I'm buying stock in her future celebrity stylist apparel line right now. Too bad they can't style L.C.'s voice. PJ: "It would rule if they were outed as gay lovers right now." He's referring to Justin and the pudgy guy with the studded belt. Justin persists in disrespecting the media conglomerate that perpetuates his fame by dissing MTV's increased (and not exactly unnoticed) reliance on "unscripted" programming to the detriment of the artform that is music videos. "He just dissed reality television to the cast of 'The Hills.'" There is such a thing as too much candor, JT.
Dodai IMs to wish that Britney had given that performance at the Apollo.
Hey, that bisexual show I saw on Drudge! "You know who DOESN'T want to make out with Tila Tequila?" Dodai IMs...
Oh that was TIMBALAND. I can't watch and type and listen to PJ's incessant witticisms at the same time. Did I ever tell you how I feel about multitasking? Apparently the FCC made them change the word "pornography" to "technology." I cannot process how meta-meta-absurd that is.
Ludacris is female audience of the year! Bc he's got PROS in different area codes.
Our IMs of the last fifteen minutes have revolved around four themes: Kanye's white sunglasses, which Intern Cheryl dubs the "white elephant in the room"; Shia's "molester stash" (also Cheryl), Whitney's apparently "draq queen"-esque appearance that I was too distracted by L.C.'s perfect lipstick to notice, and Tila Tequila's bisexual dating show as this commercial break's sign of the apocalypse.
Megan Fox is sort of pretty.
Linkin Park. Motto: Making Moe Feel Old Since Before She Could Legally Drink..
Speaking of feeling old, why is this show so incredibly hard to follow? Paris on Larry King was nothing like this. Fascinatingly, there was a time during which I was actually pretty "plugged-in" to pop culture. When I worked at a business newspaper. Why the fuck is there just so much of it? Even within a single specimen of pop culture, like this Rihanna song, there is just SO MUCH GOING ON JESUS FUCK HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO DEAL WITH THIS.
More PJ trivia: Jodie Foster apparently rapped "Lose Yourself" once at a graduation.
The Chevy Volt ad features extended, prolonged, baffling footage of a dog licking a girl's foot. Alerting Fleshbot.
Now it's Alicia Keys' new single PJ is so creaming himself over. She needs to be a lead plaintiff on that HD-TV lawsuit. So far it's meh but I've got an open mind. An empty mind.
I shared my lawsuit idea with PJ, who called it an "ass action lawsuit."
TMZ already has Britney's clip up with a poll as to whether it "sucked!" / "rocked!", and I usually try not to side with 89% of the 38,000 TMZ readers bored enough to vote in an online poll about an event that happened sixty minutes ago, but yeah the exception proves the rule here or something.
Idolator Maura has a crush on Fall-Out Boy's non-Pete Wentz lead singer. "Well, that's certainly the contrarian choice," says PJ. I'm the first to give the benefit of the doubt to the fat guy, but WTF?
Also, Jennifer Garner does not get in on the ass-action lawsuit.
Ketchup on sheets. Look, as fascinating as this shit is, I need to drink more and type less right now. So I'm taking a breather. Not like you read this far.
Rihanna won some big prize she deserved. She looked cute.
Then it was Queens of the Stone Age who um need to talk to Dave Grohl's stylist.
Just added to the plaintiff list in the ass action suit: Nelly Furtado's backup dancers. Nelly is blonde now, which is apparently a "big change" for her. Timbaland is involved in this new song, which is not as good as Promiscuous Girl, only because that would be impossible.
Ok I take that back. This song is extraordinary. People! Get off the internet! There are pop anthems to be drunk made out to!