In the news: MTV and nsync

Wherein also mentioned are NFL halftime shows, Oprah, and a prescient shoutout to Clerks II


It's MTV's birthday, Lance Bass (is that bass like fish or bass like guitar? I've never been sure) is gay, I hear Clerks II has donkey action, and football practice has started. With all that, a strangely relevant Lewis Black routine popped up during shuffle play. From the 2001 CD, End of the Universe, here's "Halftime at the Superbowl." Slightly edited:

...Halftime is the best. If you want to know exactly where the American culture is at that point in time, at that year, you watch the Superbowl at halftime. It is unbelievable, it has gotten exponentially worse in my lifetime. I used the word exponentially because I learned it in math class and that's the first sentence I've ever been able to use it in. By exponentially I mean shittier and shittier and shittier. And this year didn't let me down at all, 'cause it was the shittiest.

It was brought to you by MTV, because when I think music--oh, yeah--I think MTV. The people, who, during my lifetime, have done everything they can to destroy music. MTV is not music. Music is a wonderful thing; it's like a drug, really. It's played and it goes in our ear, and we get a vision. MTV is a video, and that goes where? In your eye. This is an eye...ear. There's a big fuck difference. And if you get a vision in your head after you listen to some music and you go home and turn on MTV and the video they show is the vision you had--kill yourself. You're better off coming back as a lobster.

So who did MTV get to play at halftime? They got N'Sync, 'cause when I think football I think N'Sync. Unlike most Americans, I'd never heard of N'Sync, because usually when they come on I like to take a pencil and shove it in my ear. I'd never seen them because I do not track these fuckers and I was shocked; I did not know this considering they have a demographic of young girls: N'Sync is gay! I can tell by your reaction that you're a little shocked. Aren't you? Well, they are gay. Gay, gay, gay, gay, gay. They may not know they're gay, but they're rootie tootie fresh and fruitie. And I don't know who their manager is but he's gay, too.

N'Sync would've been enough--that's a halftime show. Maybe if I'd heard them sing a couple sings I would've understood what all the ruckus is about. So then, they bring on who? Aerosmith. They now have N'Sync and Aerosmith, now I'm really fucked up. How did they decide on N'Sync and Aerosmith? Where did that decision come from? One MTV executive turned to another and said "Who should we get for halftime at the Superbowl?" and then he took a shovel and whapped the guy across the head. And then he said "well, N'Sync and Aerosmith." When they were playing together, it wasn't music, it was the sound of chaos. It was unbelievable. I knew it was chaos because you could hear pigs being slaughtered. Women were weeping, men were gnashing their teeth. And there were sounds so hideous I cannot describe them to you or you will flee from the room.

It was unbelievable and while I listened a vision came into my head. I'm embarrassed to tell you this, but I felt at this point and time I'd rather be seeing donkeys fucking. I told you I'm not happy. It's not like I sit in my New York apartment and pine to see livestock go at it. When you've got N'Sync and Aerosmith, you know what I say? I say bring on the burros! And if you're going to have donkey's fucking on television, be sure there's a musical soundtrack. Because if you have donkeys fucking and it's quiet, that's perverted. There's a fine line. Don't cross it.

N'Sync and Aerosmith would've been enough, but no, they were joined by Britney Spears. Now I've got N'Sync, Aerosmith, and Britney Spears--I've got a trifecta from hell. But I was lucky, I had a spoon in my hand. And I shoved it up my ass. Why, you might ask? To distract myself from the pain. Because if I'm going to hurt that much I'm going to do it to myself. And you know what we call that? Empowerment. I learned that from Oprah.