Entertainment News Blog - Celebrity Movies Music Television

But a difference there is. For the first time in the network’s 29-year
history, MTV has decided to give the channel’s iconic logo a face-lift.

“The people who watch it today, they don’t refer to MTV as music
television. They don’t have the same emotional connection that, say,
the people who are writing about [the logo change] do,” MTV’s head of marketing Tina
Exarhos said. Indeed, The Wrap called it “a minor change with major symbolism,” while The Hollywood Reporter wrote having “music television” in the old logo was “a constant reminder that
MTV was branding itself one way, programming itself another.”

Outside of its annual “VMAs” music video award show, and with the cancellation of “TRL,” MTV has long abandoned music as a programming mainstay. For years, all eyes have been on genre-busting reality shows like “The Osbournes,” “Newlyweds,” “Jackass,” “My Super Sweet 16″ and “The Hills.” The network is currently riding high with the docudrama “Teen Mom” and “Real World”-esque “Jersey Shore.”

Exarhos said the network’s marketing team had tossed around losing “Music Television” from the logo before, but “we had never taken the idea upstairs to [MTV president Van Toffler and MTV Networks chair-CEO Judy McGrath]. We thought, ‘No one is ever going to let us do this.’ It’s the one thing we’ve never touched,” she said. But with the channel’s most recent on-air redesign — something the network switches up every couple of years — “now felt like the right time.”

“It felt like, ‘Why have we been so scared when the channel itself has evolved so much over the years?’ ”

Does the newly cropped logo mean no music at all? “Absolutely not,” Exarhos said, pointing to the success of the “VMAs” and the recent Haiti telethon organized by George Clooney and the network. Some editions of the logo, in fact, feature Beyonce at the “VMAs” and Jay-Z on the telethon, while others promote new shows like “My Life as Liz” and upcoming ones including “The Hard Times of RJ Berger”.

Beyond cropping out the words “Music Television,” Exarhos said her team redrew and minimally tweaked the placement of the “TV” within the “M” (Spot the difference between the logos, pictured above.)

– Denise Martin

Photo: The MTV logo, before and after (left to right). Credit: MTV

..and that’s why I’m not allowed in the men’s room at work ever again.

Perhaps I shall back up.

I walked into the men’s room the other day to pee.

This in and of itself is not news, as I AM human.

Plus they don’t let me pee at my desk anymore since the whole ‘ruined the recycling bin’ incident.

Whatever.

I stepped up to the urinal and prepared to release Mr. Wiggly.

I mean, um, THOR.

YES! I PREPARED TO UNLEASH THOR THE WONDER SNAKE!

Much more threatening.

Oooh! I have goosebumps! You?

I’ve digressed.

Regardless…

As I looked down into the urinal…I saw something…

Different.

Amidst the normal little pink urinal cakes (FYI, pink is THE best flavor)…were THESE:

(click to enlarge..the blurriness is my sucky fucking Verizon piece-of-shit-I-guess-you-get-what-you-pay-for-when-the-camera-is-free fucking camera phone)

?!?!

There are nickel-sized, like, rocks or some shit in the urinals.

The fuck are these things?

I first start thinking that HOLY SHIT THESE ARE FUCKING KIDNEY STONES and now I’m picturing some poor bastard who eats too much cheese saddling his fat ass up to the urinal and squeezing boulders out his urethra but then I’m, like, ‘Well..I probably would have heard the guy screaming like it was his first night showering in prison or maybe the things PING PANG PWOOONNG! ricocheting off the porcelain or something’ so I went with guess number two:

GEMS.

YES! They are precious gemstones from the mythical land Urinasia brought by tiny little fairies that reek of the insides of nursing homes ESPECIALLY that creepy old lady that they stick in a chair at the end of the hall who keeps sticking her tongue out when you walk by and is just going “BLOO BLOO BLOO BLOO” and you’re all like, ‘fuck this shit, I really hope I die before I end up turning into piss-stink-tongue-grandma.’

Fucking nursing homes.

Seriously. Put a fucking bullet in my head first, please.

Where was I?

Oh..Fairy Imported Urinasia Precious Urinal Gemstones.

Then I realized that I was about to piss myself because I’d been standing there for ten minutes thinking of writing these stupid paragraphs, plus I didn’t have one of those mining things to pan them out of there.

So I pissed on them instead.

When in Rome…um..pee on..uh…weird urinal rock things.

Then I put Mr. Wig..then I reeled in Thor the Wonder Snake, stood back…

..and took those pictures you see above.

And it was on or around this EXACT moment in time that - even though I’d been marveling at these kidney-piss fairy-gems in here for ten minutes…

…that someone walked in.

Our eyes meet.

And there I am.

Shitty fucking Verizon camera phone in hand.

Taking pictures of the inside of the urinals.

How. Awesome.

You know…

Shit like this wouldn’t happen if they’d just give me back my recycling bin at my desk.

I bet I could trade one of these gems for one.

I might not need this mining pan after all.

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It’s been a very difficult week. I wish I could talk about it. Something about hashing things out here seems to make it better or at least, put it in perspective. But I can’t, so I won’t. I really resent it, though.

Speaking of Stupid & Fancy, on the advice of the Dork Lord, I’ll pulling out all the stops and wearing a really for real gown to this wedding. It kills me to see it collecting dust in my closet, and truly, there are not many Black Tie Optional events in my life, so I’m taking advantage of this one. Oh, crinoline, the twirling that will take place! Now, I had to up the Spanx quotient to fit into said gown, but Shhh. Let’s not ruin this fun with the truth. 

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These gruff, grizzled rock ‘n’ roll lifers gave it a good go as they chased past glories. At least Daltrey and Townshend weren’t lip-synching as they struck poses amid the lasers and pyrotechnics. Townshend in shades and porkpie hat swung through windmill chords, Daltrey bellowed and blew through a harmonica solo, and drummer Zak Starkey (yes, Ringo’s son) wore a union-jack shirt for the occasion, evoking the band’s earliest publicity photos from Britain’s Mod era.

Of course, back then Keith Moon was the band’s drummer and John Entwistle its bassist. Both are long gone, and The Who has never really been the same since. No matter, Daltrey and Townshend keep pushing the brand and have licensed their music to countless advertisers to keep it alive. Their set list played like a compendium of TV commercials from the last decade as much as a classic-rock primer: snippets of “Pinball Wizard,” “Baba O’Riley,” “Who Are You,” “See Me, Feel Me,” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” It all built up to the climactic, spleen-busting, technologically-enhanced Daltrey scream. Couldn’t have said it better myself, Roger.
 
The pregame performances — Queen Latifah’s gospelized take on “America the Beautiful” and Carrie Underwood’s a capella “Star Spangled Banner” — both had a few duff notes, suggesting they weren’t performed to backing tracks. In both instances, I found myself appreciating the powerhouse national anthems performed by Jim Cornelison at Blackhawks home games even more.

greg@gregkot.com