Pants?!?
VMA awards, Aug 30, 2006
I’m not much for awards shows. They seem masturbatory to me, and I don’t like to watch other people wanking*. Honestly, I’d rather watch an infomercial for a revolutionary new vaginal yeast cure**.
But Heather told me that the members of the rock group “OK Go” were going to perform their intricately choreographed treadmill dance at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMA) this year, and I’m a sisyphan sucker for treadmill acts. So a-tuning we did go.
The women you see clustered like a pile of personified idiocy at the bottom of the above picture is the novelty act “the Pussy Cat Dolls,” who’ve just won an award for doing the best bump-n’-grind in a music video this year. I’m a typical heterosexual male, so I usually judge female dancers based on the rigidity of my resulting erection. By that standard, Shakira got robbed and MTV has disappointed me yet again***!
But then I noticed the message MTV is sending to the world. A single word, appropo of nothing. The word which, oddly enough, has been voted funniest common English word for three years running.
PANTS!!!
The Pussy Cat Dolls were not wearing pants. They did not talk about pants. They didn’t thank “pants” for making this award possible****. I bet they only infrequently think of pants in any meaningful way.
Yet there it was. Pants. Take that home with you, little kitten, and cover your damn legs with pants.
* OK, I’m not averse to watching pretty women cooking their own suppers.
** In some ways, there’s some creepy supper-cookin’ going on in these little golden nuggets of TV experience.
*** I still haven’t forgiven them for cancelling “Yo! MTV raps!”
**** Their individual parents and Snoop-Dog collectively received this singular honor.
***** Pants, pants, pants, pants, pants.
A friend of mine sent me a link to that OK GO video, which I’d never seen before, and I was duly impressed.
It’s making the rounds on the InfoBahn! The friend who sent it to me didn’t even know OK GO was a band; she was just like ‘check out this crazy treadmill video!’
The Pussycat Dolls: some of them are sexy (read: the slutty kind of sexy), but like most MTV acts, as soon as they begin ‘singing’, you want to rip your ears off your own head.
Also! Pants.
‘A sisyphan sucker for treadmill acts’
I just caught that. Cute.
PANTS!
what else is there? appropo of nothing.
“pile of personified idiocy”
“cooking their own suppers”
SafeT, it is phrases like these that make me love you.
I hold steady on the octopus and picture J though. I also thought you protested too much about it. Fishy.
All these people performing under that big sign were clearly under-pants hahahahahahaha. Sigh.
My brother forwarded me that treadmill dance thing and I found it to be strangely beautiful.
I did not know that that Theodore bloke was Dr. Seuss, by the way. We didn’t get Dr. Seuss in the Hebrides when I was a nipper, a fact which tends to make people shriek and point at me as if a wocket had just crawled out of my belly-button. He’s everywhere there now, but I only had my first Seuss experience at university and the drink was flowing and I suspected at the time it was probably not as wierd as the liquor made it appear, but I was wrong.
DC:I have a copy of OK Go’s first internet phenom dance number “A Million Ways to be Cruel”, in which the band are dancing sans-treadmill in their backyard. Quite nice, even if it had no treadmills. You caught sisyphus, eh? Wasn’t sure anyone would notice/care about that one.
l>t: PANTS: wear them. This message brought to you by the Mormons and the Church of the Latter Day Saints.
Sam,PCB:I don’t even like cephalopods. Can’t stand ‘em. I like fish, but that’s as far into the realm of water-borne livestock I’m willing to go. Yeah, Geisel was the real last name of Dr. Suess. There are only a few 20th century creative-types that a guy with my wierd personality gets off on. Dr Suess, Jim Henson, Faulkner, Spike Jones….
Yeah, I caught Sisyphus. But that was back when I was younger and more reckless. It’s all cleared up now, though, and my doctor gave me a clean bill of health.
Thanks, I’ll be here all week. Be sure to try the veal.
Everyone seems to be reading the word in the wrong context. Pants is what a dog does. Are they not perhaps The Pussycat Dogs?
Oh, those crazy kids these days with their long, well-fitting, completely unrevealing trousers. Why, I remember when women crassly exploited the sexuality of their own bodies to the perverse satisfaction of all males in the general vicinity. Different times, man … Different times.
DC: And don’t forget to tip your wait-staff!
Foot:No, they are the Pussycat Dolls. There is a slight possibility that the sign did mean “America Pants for the Pussycat Dolls,” although that seems pretty awkward. Sortof like MTV.
Arthbard:Yeah, where’s those good, old-fasioned values we all learned in the 70′s? Thrown out the window by these immorally concealed school-marmy types.
Pants in the UK are underwear.
In more recent years the word has also come to be a derisory expression – “that’s pants that is”, meaning it’s stupid.
I guess that’s what the lights were referring to – someone obviously doesn’t like the Pussycat Dolls
Pants means shit. eg, that tofu yoghurt with flaxseed was pants, bring me a muthafuckin’ cheesecake. So the fact that ‘PANTS” came up when those shameless hussies were fannying about is quite excellent and very apt indeed.
Kim: Really? In the USA “pants” is synonymous with trousers.
FMC:Well! Even more colorful! So pants is bad, even more than perhaps just ‘codpiece’. I wonder if a UK intern was responsible. Seems a lot of trouble to go through just to insult the Pussycat Dolls. I mean, twenty foot tall neon letters?
Doesn’t seem nearly enough if you ask me…
No, there’s never enough codpieces
“that’s pants that is”
… That’s the most awesome expression I’ve ever heard … That’s even better than “bloody hell.” Man, British slang rocks!
Arthbard: *nodding solemnly* I know.
Actually, the sign was an advertisment of the welknown production company– Worldwide Pants — shortened to just- Pants -to be cool for the MTV awards show.
David Letterman’s production company?
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