My good friend Liz Witman once said to me, "The worst thing anything can ever be is boring." I'm not entirely sure, but I think she was specifically referring to the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards.

Now, traditionally, I really like the VMAs. This is the only award show I ever make it a point to see, because it's always been a hell of an event without being pompous-- equal parts tongue, cheek, ass, ass-kissing and ass-kicking. But this year it was suffering from a terminal case of W.F.C. "who fucking cares."

Chris Rock, who by all rights is the funniest man alive, must have accidentally left most of his wit at home. (Full disclosure: his post-50 cent / G-unit / Snoop Dog quip about "Isn't it nice that Martin Luther King's dream has finally come true" was brilliant.) Still, I'll take glorification over this if the overall quality is going to be low. Speaking of which, Jack Black was unfunny during his appearance. As my sister screamed when he came out, "Ah! Too slapstick." Ditto the puppets and Eminem's thing with them.

As for the awards, the most boring people won in every category. First of all, the VMA's self-proclaimed bridesmaid Missy Elliott winning the big one? I'm asleep. Though I'm glad Good Charlotte won viewer's choice.

And, you might ask, how do you fuck up the presentation of a lifetime achievement award? How about by having grotesque Kelly Osbourne and a clueless Avril Lavigne (whose album I actually liked!) present it? The production crew was so obviously staffed with WCW castoffs that the only people who seemed prepared for the "surprise" VMAs were the "surprise" recipients themselves! Bush league, I say.

The big story, is, of course, the three-way make-out between Madonna, Britney Spears, and Christina Aguilera. Alot creepier than tantalizing, I'm afraid. When the Cocksmen proposed Celebrity Porno, this is obviously not what we had in mind. However, speaking of Christina Aguilera I will say that her performance of "Fighter" featuring (Dave Navarro, who has all the luck, apparently) was the most rockin' thing, and that girl is the one who sang with passion -- fuck the party line about ego-riffic Mary Blige being the soul of the show.

Not even an appearance by Ben Moody and Amy Lee of my beloved Evanescence could bring this show to life. (HAR HAR!) Ben Moody is a funny, mad, spontaneous, genius motherfucker of a swizzle stick, but he looked liked a deer in headlights. He should have been lit and done some crazy-ass shit to stir things up a bit, I say. Amy looked beautiful, though. I don't mind so much that they didn't win anything-- competition was feirce and "Bring Me to Life" is a pretty weak video, but I see big things at VMAs 2k4. Not that I can guarantee that I'll watch it, cuz this shit sucked.

On the plus side, I saw Liz Phair in concert.

On the downside, I spent too much money, was juked out of an autograph by being kind, walked and re-walked several miles, paid a cover charge on a Tuesday night, had a pile of puke in my car for several hours, recieved a tender upbraiding, had a debit card malfunction when all I wanted was a lousy quarter, encountered a closed road, finally obtained said quarter only to have it eaten by the machine I needed to put it into, mopped up a flooded kitchen while attending to my second passed out drunk person of the day, fixed a door frame which had been kicked down, rewrote my resume into a really good one only to have it blip out of exsistence, and, finally, and best of all, realized that at some point during all that, someone punched out the screen in my window and stole both of my digital cameras right out of my bedroom.

Also, I may or may not have eaten a pizza with motor oil on it.

When I look back on my college years, I think of only one thing: I got an A+ on that paper I wrote about Nietzsche in which I argued that the "biographical themes" of his life directly influenced his philosophy and, thus, said philosophy had to be discounted. What I should have gotten on that paper was an F, of course, because as anyone who's familar with logical fallacies should know, I was really doing very little more than a gussed-up ad hominem arguement.

Sadly, I think education has always coddled me and never challanged me. Which is not to say that there aren't challanging disciplines out there, but I was never really interested in them. With interest and laziness as the guiding forces behind my scholarly career, I ended up learning very little. It would be nice if University were an intellectual forge that tempers the mind, but I feel like I've come out of it practically unchanged from when I went into it. I hate to say it, but American education for mid-level, liberal arts intellectuals sucks.

And, of course, it's not just me thinking this. Given my quarter-year strike out at landing any job commenserate with my abilities, I've got to believe that most people think that a college degree isn't indicative of much, since, you know, it's not. This, of course, at a time when, though our economy is doing worse than it was a few years back, remains the most powerful economy in the world and the most powerful economy of all time. Yet, I'm pretty sure there was a mythical golden age when a college education meant something, like during the Great Depression era.

My sister's not going to college, though not of her own will. My mother thinks that she should go to trade school, which I advocate since it will be infinitely more valuable to her than floating through a liberal arts education.

I apologize for being overly bitchy today. I'm just a bitter old man who wishes he'd done something with his life.

My ears were still ringing from Chicago on Monday, and I'd just pulled myself out of bed after being knocked out by a cold for a few days, but nothing was gonna make me miss an Evanescence show on my home truf. After all, sixth times the charm, right? Espeically with two of your best boys in tow.

All told, great show-- even better than Chicago and-- dare I say it-- possibly even better than my beloved St. Louis.

Cauterize was good for what they are-- kids with heart but without much songwriting skill. I do like "What about the promises," tho.

Revis, as always, rocked. I continue to be mystified by Justin's haircut, though. Not only did he sport the bowl tonight, but he also had a cowlick. He looked like Alfalfa. Still, I must reiterate, Revis rocks.

Cold did what Cold does, which isn't my thing, but they seem to really connect with alot of fans, so more power to them. The lead singer of Seether made an appearance, fueling speculation.

As for Ev-- what can I say? They really worked the crowed into a frenzy. There were big pops when Amy appeared, this time sporting the Carrie-esque balarina outfit (complete with the one freaky eye) with the "Rock Royalty" beater. Ben, incidentally, was completely shrowded in a hooded jacket for the first part of the set. I noticed during the intro that he was smoking a ciagarette, despite the facts that I didn't know he smoked and smoking was prohibited in the building.

Don' t get me wrong, the crowd was into it from the get-go-- singing along to all the songs (Albeit a bit softer on Farther Away and Even in Death), but as the show when out they really came out of their collective shell. Ironically enough, the same transformation was visible on stage as Ben lost the master of darkness thing and proudly displayed his blonde mop, kisser, and Thundercats tee-shirt. (Ho!)

Standard Ev goodness for the show proper, save for the anomoly of 2.5 Amy curse words and Ben taking an unused play from Cold's book and asking the crowd, "How's my family?"

During the encore, hilarity ensued. First off, Ben launched into a cover of "Enter Sandman" while Amy was still prepping. This caused Amy to rush out to the stage and try to tackle Ben. She told the crowd that she didn't know the words to the song, but did an admirable job before she got completely lost. She tried to get Ben to sing, but he just said that he wasn't the lead singer, which caused Amy to literally hang on his guitar until he stopped playing, then he shook free of Ms. Lee's grasp and he and Rocky finished off the song sans vox.

Next, Amy came out to do "My Immortal" but she was still embarassed about not knowing the words to "Sandman" and said as much. The crowd comforted her with a chant of "Amy! Amy!" which Ms. Lee then gloated about causing Mr. Moody to run out and wave his arms at the crowd to get them to stop chanting.

As in Chicago, Amy messed up "My Immortal" but played it off gracefully by letting the crowd take over. According to her, it was one of the best renditions of that song she'd ever heard. On behalf of Indianapolis, let me say that flattery will get you everywhere, Ms. Lee.

Now this is some fascinating information-- The Death of Dynamic Range. It's a page which visually illistrates the metamorphasis of the CD format from a rich, dynamic medum to one in which maximized loudness rules with clipping at its right hand. Pretty sad stuff, and just another token of evidence as to how un-helpful the major music labels are to music fans.

Case in point-- and I can't confirm this just yet-- but, as you know, I am a big Evanescence fan. One of the most common (and accurate) criticisms of their major-label debut album, Fallen, is that "all the songs sound the same." Yet, this was simply not the case for the lush, dynamic, and varied music which they recorded and mastered themselves before they were even a blip on anyone's radar. Comparing older Evanescence songs to the Fallen songs will leave the newer material sounding, well, flat. My guess is that Ben Moody, being a self-educated Pro-Tools genius, mastered his own songs the the proper way-- with proper attention to peak levels and clipping and dynamic range. But when those very same songs were remastered by the experienced record label veteran who knew all the tricks to make it a "commercially viable" record the dynamic range is lost.

Like I said, I don't have the tools in front of me to confirm this, but I think it would make a good case study.

Aparently, some professional recording engineer thought that Rush would make a good case study as well. As such, he makes some much more salient and well-informed conclusions than I do, so if this discussion sounds interesting, check that out. And Rush has-- for a band I've never heard one note of-- brought alot of joy into my life.