So for some reason, that I can’t and won’t be able to ever explain, I DVR’ed “Rock the Cradle” on MTV. Now here’s the thing with me and MTV, we have this real hate / hate relationship. I desperately want to like MTV because back in the day, the network sort of represented my youth. As I learned more and more about music and more and more about film, art and culture, we sort of grew apart, thinking that we might one day reconnect, even in some sort of nostalgic way.

After years and years of us not getting along, I still flip to it once in awhile hoping that something will be different, anything… but nothing.

ANYWHOO… I recently taped “Rock the Cradle” cause I thought (now this is going to sound lame…), I thought Art Garfunkel’s son was going to be on it. And we all know about my love for Paul Simon and the occasional Garfunkel.

This show is basically American Idol for sons / daughters of rock icons. Now let’s say this.. Rock Star / Icon is a pretty relative term. (I mean c’mon, Al B Sure! Maybe homeboy has the best unibrow in music history next to Guy from Fugazi but that hardly makes him a famous musician.) Let’s also say this, I only got through about 20 minutes of the first episode before I turned it off.

My favorite part of the whole show, is that the host, some d bag, keeps talking about how these rising young stars want to make it on their own. How they don’t want to ride the coattails of their famous parents.

Let me give you an example on why this is so funny…

Seacrest Wannabe: “So next up is Lil Al B Sure! He’s a great talent and it’s time to see if he can step out from his Dad’s fame and do it for himself!” Then they cut to Al B Sure! in the audience cheering his son on. “So Lil (is that really this kid’s name? Lil?) are you ready to free yourself from the fame of your Dad, Al B Sure, who’s hits include Love and Tenderness and the Blahity Blah blah??”

Lil: “Yeah.”

Seacrest Douchebag: “So here he is doing a song, that best exemplifies his relationship with his famous father who’s hits include: Shake your Shark and Blahity Blah blah…,”
“Let’s see who can Rock the Cradle!”

WTF?

On top of this.. One of the kid’s name is like Jennifer Amani-Hammer. This is insane. This poor girl wants to be so famous so badly that she took her dad’s pseudonym / rap name / nom de plume. Like “I want to do this on my own.” So I am going to call myself Hammer. Which is a made up name to begin with. Ugh.

DUMB!

Here are some more kid’s names we can do while we’re at it:

Jerry Juvenile
Orlando Ice Cube
Prince “Prince” Billie
Moses Coldplay
Francisco Fall Out Boy

Just suggestions. Go ahead run with it. Any more kid’s names? Leave them in the comments.