Waking Ear

Beyonce Knowles/"Crazy in Love" -- Entering its second week at the top of the Wake-ly Top 40, especially after I saw that Pepsi commercial 18 million times last night during MTV's Video Music Awards.

Speaking of, Perpetua has the full recap. My thoughts on last night's show:

a) I missed the opening monologue, so I could be wrong, but from what I saw Chris Rock was hugely disappointing. I only witnessed two good jokes, and when Rock had to stall toward the end of the show, he came up lame with a joke about how MTV's Cribs is really just people showing off their stuff. Well, yes.

b) Beyonce is 100 percent fantastic and had the night's greatest performance. Which wasn't that hard to do.

c) Snoop Dogg makes everything better. He blew 50 Cent out of the water. Only slip: when that heckler came up and stole the mic when Snoop and Adam Sandler were doing their "izzle" shtick, Snoop should've encouraged him to read the teleprompter and present the award. Instead, he seemed taken aback and mumbled something about moving along, "nephew."

d) Eminem's puppet thing sucked, and if he had any sense of humor the skit would've had Triumph in it, preferably humping his leg in a show of affection. I have the whole thing mapped out in my head, and it's hilarious.

e) Speaking of, the Crank Yankers were terrible.

f) I have never been so happy to see Method Man. Ditto for Dave Navarro.

g) Of course Johnny Cash should've won "Video of the Year." But he'll get the Grammy, so don't worry about it. You still got the pleasure of seeing a work of art, and that's all he wanted.

h) Good Charlotte is not, as Chris Rock said, "more like mediocre Green Day." Good Charlotte < Blink 182 < the Offspring < Green Day < NOFX.

i) Jack Black, regrettably, is done. Justin Timberlake is just beginning his reign. He is cooler than bubblegum.

j) I want Missy to gain some weight.

k) I want Kelly Osbourne to go away.

l) It's really too bad Duran Duran's Lifetime Achievement video package didn't work.

m) It was really neat to put Outkast with Iggy Pop. I hate the "the album drops Sept. 23" thing, but Outkast should never, ever be classy, so it's OK. Iggy seemed to be having a good time.

n) Xtina looks so much better now.

o) I didn't see the Madonna kisses, and I don't feel like I missed anything.

p) Stick a fork in Nelly. I'm not saying he's done. Just stick a fork in him.

q) Why would Jimmy Fallon keep insisting he's straight? It would be so much better if he was proud to be a Queer Eye guy.

r) Is it just me or have the MTV Movie Awards become much better than the VMAs? When did it happen?

s) Am I too old? This just doesn't seem as fun as it was in the old days. There hasn't even been a Triumph moment to talk about this year. The Madonna kisses were un-shocking. Eminem's puppet thing was dull. Beyonce looked cool coming down from the ceiling, but that was it.

t) Only one California joke (unless Rock tackled it in the opening monologue). Ben Stiller announced that Cruz Bustamante had won some award he was presenting.

u) I mean, remember Howard Stern's "Fartman?" Remember when everyone used to be insanely drunk for this thing? Now Snoop's shooing people offstage.

v) Only profanity to make it past the censors: Fred Durst's middle finger to Chris Rock.

w) That rock comeback thing fizzled quick. White Stripes win nothing. I bet the Strokes don't even get nominated next year.

x) If Adam Sandler gains more weight, he could be fat-funny instead of just angry-funny.

y) When Run-DMC came out, a bunch of crowd members in the front held up Adidas shoes. It didn't feel right at all.

and finally, z) Lars Ulrich is so old.