Thoughts About The 2026 VMAs From An Old Guy

I had no intention of writing a blog post about this year’s MTV Video Music Awards. As an AARP member, I’m not part of the award show’s target demographic, and I didn’t plan on even watching it. And then I did. The show was hosted by Snoop Dogg, and the first musical performance was by Madonna (more on that momentarily). The evening featured Nirvana receiving the Video Vanguard Award. There were tributes to Dolly Parton and George Michael, and appearances by Chuck D, Emma Bunton (Baby Spice), and Rachel Dratch. Wait, look at all of those names. I AM THE TARGET DEMOGRAPHIC! They're talking about me!

Think about it. Do teens and people in their 20s watch MTV? And if they do, it’s certainly not for music videos since the station doesn’t play them anymore. Awards for music videos are for people in their 40s or older. Sure, there are enough younger performers and presenters to interest people under 40, but the phrase VMAs means more to us older folks. So despite several moments where I caught myself thinking “what the heck is this,” I still watched the show. I mean, I watched some of the Pitt-Stanford women’s volleyball match first and then the VMAs, but that’s the joy in being able to record shows. On to the notes!

* The opening number was odd. There were people writhing on stage with a video of Madonna talking behind what could have been a glass shower door. Then the camera cut to Madonna sitting on top of a piano with someone playing the piano turned away from the camera/audience. That someone was Sabrina Carpenter. Dancers soon appeared, and my favorite part was this clear scene of Madonna not even attempting to lip-sync.

Madonna then took a table ride around the stage ending in a bathroom setting singing with Charli XCX. And if this sounds confusing and unbelievable, it was. Oh, and Julia Garner and Debi Mazar and Seth Rogan all appeared too along with dozens of dancers because why not. If you really want to watch it, the video below shows the Madonna/Sabrina portion while this short shows the beginning of Charli XCX and Madonna.

* Madonna ended up winning three awards including Artist of the Year. In 2026. Not 1986, 2026. Did she not win VMAs earlier in her career, and these were essentially lifetime achievement awards?

* Sienna Spiro won the Best New Artist award. Fun fact: Spiro was the only nominee to perform at the show and may have been the only nominee present. Between this and Madonna’s three wins, I’m starting to think that maybe the award voting is flawed at best or perhaps even rigged. I mean, no accountants were mentioned or introduced during the telecast. 

* I don’t remember where I saw this online, but someone wrote that Nirvana's Krist Novoselic looks like Dr. Phil. Now I can't get this image out of my head.

* Lisa won the award for Best Pop. Not Best Pop song, just Best Pop. Apparently, she will now appear with Snap and Crackle on Rice Krispies cereal boxes. 

(If I had any talent as a blogger, I would have photoshopped Lisa in place of Pop in the picture above.)

* While Lisa also performed, there was a missed opportunity to have a Lisa / Lisa Lisa collaboration. 

* Taylor Swift won video of the year and received the first Artist Director award, which seems like something made up to make sure she attended. Disappointing that her husband wasn’t there to support her. Oh, apparently he had to work in Miami and couldn’t make it to Los Angeles in time. But did he even try? 

I really liked the performances by Kacey Musgraves honoring Dolly, Shaboozey, and the George Michael tribute.

I think I'm officially done with the VMAs. Unless next year they feature Billy Joel, Debbie Gibson, Mariah Carey, Oasis, Pearl Jam, U2, and a tribute to Prince!

Nirvana photo by Kevin Winter-Getty Images.

Shana Tova From NFL Teams: Part V

Welcome to my fifth annual post where I see which NFL teams post Happy Rosh Hashanah messages on their social media pages. This year, I only looked at teams' Instagram pages, so if a team shared a photo or graphic on Twitter or TikTok, I missed it. Sorry. 

The sunset picture is from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 

This year, it seems like only 5 NFL teams shared messages, down from 10 in 2025. My guess is the main reason for fewer teams posting messages was timing. Rosh Hashanah started on Friday evening, coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the September 11th tragedy. Nearly all of the NFL teams shared some type of remembrance post on their Instagram pages. Plus, this was the first week/weekend of NFL games. Most NFL social media staff likely focused on the beginning of the season with posts focused on preparing for the opening games.

In the five years I've been doing this, only one team has posted a Rosh Hashanah message each year. It's the Baltimore Ravens. Please don't make me like the Ravens even a little bit!

Please click here to see these posts from the previous four years.

25 Years Later

Today marks 25 years since the 9/11 attacks on America. I wrote about where I was on 9/11 and the aftermath of living in the DC area in the following weeks and months. While I think that post stands on its own, this post and today in general seems about the passage of time and aging. I was 26 on September 11th, 2001. I've lived nearly half my life since then. How did that happen? For an event which had such an impact on our country, a significant amount (though not the majority yet) of the US population wasn't born yet or are too young to remember that day. I was still nearly 10 years away from having my first child on 9/11, and today, my kids know little about that day. With my parents both gone, I can't talk with them about 9/11 or have them share their experiences of that day with my kids.

I've shared many, many times that I keep too much stuff. This is particularly the case with emails. I started a Yahoo email account in summer 2001, right around the time I finished Ohio State and was unsure what would happen to my OSU email account. I also had an excite.com email account which is long gone. Anyway, I looked through my Yahoo inbox and sent mail folders from around 9/11 to see if I had any immediate thoughts from back then. While it's possible and maybe likely that there was some correspondence with friends and family about 9/11 in my Excite email account, there's nothing in my Yahoo account. Instead, there's some good things. I moved to DC in August 2001 into an apartment with my girlfriend, which is funny to write since we've now been married for 22 years. I guess I was trying to learn how to cook since I have a salmon recipe from my mom from a few weeks before 9/11 and another recipe email a few days before 9/11 from my roommate in Columbus for deviled eggs. I've still never made deviled eggs. However, in the emails back and forth with my former roommate, it seems like I went back to Pittsburgh for the Labor Day weekend and played tennis with my dad. Apparently, he beat me once, and I beat him once. Makes me smile.

And some not as good things. On 9/10, I received an email from a friend about something awful that happened to another mutual friend. I only really see what happens to all of the people on the email on Facebook these days. Any emails from later in 2001 or early 2002 seem to focus on me trying to find a job. 

Again, while it's possible that there were some emails on the Excite account about 9/11 and the days that followed, I think I talked with people then. On the phone. You know, actually called friends and family and had conversations. That doesn't seem to happen much anymore. Maybe it's because I'm busy with kids and work, but now, it seems like it's easier to text. This has absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, but in the next month or so, my goal is to call friends and family and catch up with them. I don't know how this blog post got to this point, but it did. And maybe that's the message for today. Remember those who we tragically lost on 9/11 or because of 9/11. Thank first responders. Be good to each other. And check in on people you care about.

Feeling Minnesota

I’ve been in a fantasy football league for about 20 years. I’m still the new guy in the league celebrating its 25th year. In non-COVID years, the league gets together to draft in person. It’s a fun “guys” weekend but we’re not in our 20s or even 30s anymore, so the activities related to the draft weekends usually involve going to a baseball game or other tourist destinations rather than late nights out at bars or clubs. Or so I’ve heard! Based on my schedule and the start of the kids’ school year, I’ve only attended a few drafts in person. Atlanta was fun, Jensen Beach, Florida was interesting, and the Northern Virginia drafts were a blast. Still, after a long break from being at a draft in person, I decided I was definitely going this year. This year in Minneapolis! And the Minnesota State Fair! And with Weird Al Yankovic! Maybe! 

On Thursday morning, I received this email from American Airlines:

Disruptive weather conditions are forecast to impact portions the Northeast, which may affect your upcoming travel on American Airlines. Your flight is currently on time, but we are offering options if you would like to proactively change your travel plans. That means you could travel on a different date or time or use a different airport to make your connection.

I watched Good Morning America in the morning, and though they discussed severe storms between Vermont and Virginia, I didn’t think much of it since the local weather showed thunderstorms starting around 5:00 in the DC area. Our flight was at 3:50. My friends and I got in the car to drive to the airport around 1:15, and just as we left my street, we got notification that the flight was delayed. Our plane was coming from New York and got stuck thanks to poor weather there. Not ideal but not terrible. We went back inside my house and played video games as members of my family arrived home from school surprised to see me and my friends still there.

We finally left around 4:00 and parked at a hotel near DCA since I made parking reservations there. As an aside, hotel parking for the airport is a great deal. With tax, you usually pay about $15 a day to park in a covered garage and you get a shuttle to the airport. Daily economy parking at DCA is $25 for an open-air parking lot and you still need to take a bus to the terminal. We ate dinner at a restaurant at Pentagon City, walked back to the hotel, and arrived at the airport for a 7:55 flight. 

Through security, we got notified at 6:51 that the flight was delayed to 10:00. Lovely. A few minutes later, another notification that the flight was delayed to midnight. What? Then 2:00 AM, then 4:00 AM, then 6:00 AM. What the what?

The weather was the problem earlier but now it was air traffic control issue. We talked to someone at American at the airport who confirmed that the flight was delayed to 6:00 AM the following morning and assured us that we’d be fine leaving the next day. You see where this is going, right? 

We debated about getting the car to go to our respective homes to then try to meet up again before 4:00 AM, go back to the hotel since we had the parking reservations, and then Uber/Lyft to DCA since the shuttle doesn’t operate that early. Seemed like a lot of time and hassle spent to get little sleep, so we decided to get a room at the hotel for the night. Got a great price and Alexis and Tony were extremely helpful. You know, let me plug the Embassy Suites at Crystal City National Airport. Nice rooms with a free breakfast and great staff. And if this Embassy Suites wants to be the official blog of Sean's Ramblings, we can talk! 

And at just after 10:00 PM, we got notification that the 6:00 AM flight was canceled. Not delayed, cancelled. Completed cancelled. We called American and asked about options. We looked into leaving out of Dulles or BWI or even Richmond or Philadelphia. Or flying into Duluth or Sioux City. The “best” option was flying out of DCA around noon to get into Dallas for a 3:30 PM flight to get us into Minneapolis at 6:19 PM, over 24 hours later than the originally scheduled flight. We took it.

After a tasty breakfast at Embassy Suites, including the chef at the omelet station “cooking” two donuts on a grill with cheese in the middle (hey, we planned on spending the entire day at the Minnesota State Fair and the flight cancellation significantly decreased the amount of time at the fair and opportunities to eat fair food), we made it back to DCA and on to Dallas-Fort Worth. 

And then another delay at DFW. Ugh. We landed just before 7:00, got a ride from the airport, and arrived at the front gate of the fairgrounds at 7:33. I got cheese on a stick just minutes later.

We arrived at our seats just minutes before Weird Al started the show.

Weird Al was fantastic. Such a fun show with lots of costume changes. While most of Weird Al’s songs are silly, he and the band are seriously gifted musicians. Although most of the exhibits and venues at the state fair were closed after the concert, I enjoyed a deep fried apple pie with cinnamon ice cream. 

We were unsuccessful in buying a bucket of cookies since the lines were outrageous. These cookies by Sweet Martha's Cookie Jar are a really big deal. However, outside the venue, we saw three guys probably around 18 with more cookies than they were going to eat. We approached them with a $1 bill in hand, explained that we were from out of town and wanted experience the state fair cookie, and offered them money for a cookie. In hindsight, this seems really creepy. Even at the time, I felt like this.

 

They ended up being Minnesota nice and gave us a cookie for free. 

As for the rest of the weekend, I played fowling (which is a football meets bowling game) and whirlyball (basketball meets lacrosse in bumper cars) for the first time. I was fairly useless in helping our team successfully complete a difficult escape room played in multiple rooms and floors. I ate famous blueberry pancakes and an infamous burger. Went to a Twins game too. We stayed at an awesome sports-themed Airbnb with bubble hockey, video games, a poker table, and a hockey room. Oh, the fantasy football draft also happened. My team has a lot of high-risk, high-reward possibilities which is a nice way of writing that it probably isn’t very good. But you don’t care about my fantasy team.

So that’s it. Or is it. On the flight back from Minneapolis, about 35 minutes out from our scheduled arrival, the captain announced that there were thunderstorms in DC, so he was instructed to slow down and basically hold the flight south of Pittsburgh. He said we don’t have a lot of extra fuel (which you definitely don’t want to hear as a passenger!!!!), but enough to get to DCA and that we’ll land about 40 minutes late. Fortunately, the storm moved past the airport, and we only arrived about 15-20 minutes behind schedule.

The overall verdict is that it was an amazing weekend. I was one of over 200,000 people who attended the Minnesota State Fair, marking a record for the biggest attendance on the festival's first Friday, but I only got a small taste of the event. I'd love to go back, but I think the lesson here is that I'm never flying to Minneapolis again (at least from DCA)!

By the way, I never saw the movie referenced in this post's title.