I’m not sure when it was that I began to grow disillusioned with televised award ceremonies. They are theatrical performances, sure — inherently fragile and purporting many surprises for the audience — but the narratives are anything but fragile or surprising. Can you imagine if “Entertainment Tonight” discussed the possible storylines of a theatre production months in advance like they do the Oscars® or Grammys? Unlike (good) theatre, you walk away from one of these shows wanting a shot of hard liquor to make it all disappear in a haze of Bill Conti-orchestrated sparkle and silvery staging.

It’s not so much that sometimes the right actor gets picked for the wrong film.

The Academy Awards (1993)

Or that sometimes the wrong film wins in the wrong decade.

The Academy Awards (1990)

Or the wrong rock band wins in the wrong decade.

The Grammy Awards (1990)

Nor is it necessarily a question of ridiculous egos taking oxygen-depleting lengths of uninterrupted camera time.

Ol’ Dirty Bastard, The Grammy Awards, 1998

Or the decades of unsuccessful demonstrations of Picture Editing.

Michael Flatley, “The Wonders” (The Academy Awards, 1997)

It’s simply the sheer volume of awards shows themselves, to this day mulitplying like bacteria… The Spike Guy’s Choice Awards, Much Music Video Awards, Scream Awards, Spike Video Game Awards… The list is long. It makes the bubbly, gushy, possibly corrupt Golden Globe Awards seem calcified.

I call it the MTV Awards Effect: let’s just have a stupid party and not worry about heavy shit like talent and integrity. Forget the subtleties of Marshall McLuhan, it’s not about the medium or the message: now it’s about content. Director William Friedkin recently called the Academy Awards®, “the greatest promotion scheme that any industry ever devised for itself.” The same can be said of most award shows. And with separate Movie and Music Video Awards ceremonies, MTV has become the third rail of awards programming: a populist-driven hybrid film-TV-music lovefest which I hold most responsible for today’s rat’s nest of fake-celebrity back-patting.

Thankfully, a few souls have had the gall — during their acceptance speeches no less — to call it like it is. In what is at first provocative, but then rambling.

Jerry Seinfeld winning the “Comedian Award” (2007)

Then, encouraging us to laugh through the painful truth.

Jim Carrey at the MTV Movie Awards (1998)

And exposing — even as host — just how much humorless self-regard can squeeze into a ball room.

Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globe Awards (2011)

- Matt Cahill

I was sitting alone in an empty bar on College Street on a November night, pissing rain outside. It was 1995. I had few friends and fewer prospects for work. I can’t recall how I’d planned to pay for the drink in front of me: it was probably a coffee. I was just thankful to be dry. Out of nowhere came this voice, soft and warm:

É pau, é pedra,
é o fim do caminho
É um resto de toco,
é um pouco sozinho.

Elis Regina, “Águas de Março“

I discovered years after (this being a pre-Shazam age) the name of the song was “Águas de Março” (or “Waters of March”). It’s a bossa nova piece written by Antonio Carlos Jobim in 1972. One of the definitive performances is captured above by Brazilian superstar, Elis Regina, who died, tragically, of a drug overdose at the age of 36.

The song is inspired by Rio de Janeiro’s heavy downpours in late March—the end of summer in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s a stunning bit of onomatopoeia, regardless that I can’t understand the lyrics. Jobim did re-work them into a longer English translation, something he felt was necessary to keep the feel and structure of the original. This said, I prefer the original Brazilian-Portuguese: the song is so ethereal that English lyrics seem plodding by comparison.

Since that night, almost fifteen years ago, it’s been a tune which has continued to enchant me. What I love about it is its combination of childlike tick-tock rhythm and lyrical stream of consciousness. Time stops whenever I hear it, English or not, though there’s a dearth of good interpretations. In truth, they typically run the gamut from treacly to nauseating. This convince you?

Sérgio Mendes with Carol Rogers and Marietta Waters (1980, from “Brasil ‘88)

Not quite? How’s this?

Commercial for Coca-Cola (1985)

Oh my.

Art Garfunkel gave it a good try. It’s better than most: almost all of these performances tend to encapsulate the best (and worst) of the era in which they were recorded.

Art Garfunkel, “Águas de Março” (1975, from the album “Breakaway“)

Byrne & Feist? Sounds good on paper…

David Byrne & Leslie Feist, Radio City Music Hall (2009)

Not so much in reality.

To be honest, I don’t know if it was Elis Regina I heard over the sound system that night in November (for years I was convinced Astrud Gilberto had done it originally, which turned out to be a red herring, as so many things were that I’d naively attributed to her). Like all great performances, what I heard that night transported me; I was temporarily removed from the cold distortion of my problems into an oasis. On that note, I leave you with a duet between Elis Regina and Tom Jobim himself.

Antonio Carlos Jobim & Elis Regina (1974)

- Matt Cahill

I discovered soccer on the eve of the 1998 World Cup. My friend Simon took me to see England’s crucial qualifier against Italy in a pub very (very) far away from downtown Toronto because this was Canada and there was scant soccer coverage back then. It was the earliest I’d ever walked into a bar (9am) and the first time I’d had to pay to see a sporting event on someone else’s television.

The energy in that room… men crying out as if stung by bees in unison at every chance on goal.

1998 World Cup Qualifier: Italy v England (October, 1997)

England prevailed. Simon was happy. I was smitten with “the beautiful game”.

When the World Cup approached, it was not England that I fancied but my ancestral (mother’s side) country: Holland. Lucky for me, the Dutch were favoured to do well. Thing is, I have learned since that they always are -- they’ve just never managed to win the Cup.

By this time, I knew about Holland’s roster of stars: Overmars, Kluivert, Davids, the DeBoer twins, and goalkeeper Edwin Van der Sar. But the player who stood out most was the striker, Dennis Bergkamp.

He had an incredible depth of vision on the field, an instinct for being in the right position at the right time. Have a look at this:

Dennis Bergkamp v Newcastle (March, 2002)

Bergkamp was also handsome and -- like a lot of Dutch soccer players -- made a fine role model for male pattern baldness. Most importantly, he scored the goal of the decade, the goal of the century, the goal which will forever define, for me, what god-like eloquence on earth can look like.

On the 4th of July, while Americans were either celebrating Independence Day or else still reeling from their 2-1 loss to Iran, Holland was playing their World Cup quarterfinal versus Argentina with 55,000 people watching in Marseille.

We were tied 1-1 and the clock was ticking -- the winner would move on to the semifinals against Brazil and the loser would be eliminated. In the 77th minute, Arthur Numan received a red card, leaving Holland with 10 men against the same team that had knocked Simon’s England out of the tournament with considerable controversy.

In the 88th minute, the gods intervened: Ariel Ortega, Argentina’s temperamental striker, made an attempt on goal before clashing with Dutch ‘keeper, Van der Sar.

World Cup Quarterfinal 1998, Argentina v Holland

Ortega’s clearly stupid -- Zidanesque? -- behaviour earned him a red card. The sides were even, with two minutes left in official time to decide. Team captain Frank deBoer saw Bergkamp from 60 yards away on the right of Argentina’s penalty area.

The pass is clean and clear: Bergkamp brings the ball down delicately, almost picking it out of the air with his foot, controls the ball through the legs of defender Roberto Ayala with another step, and with his third touch, slots it past the shoulder of the Argentinian goalkeeper.

World Cup Quarterfinal 1998, Dennis Bergkamp in the 89th minute (4 July, 1998)

Three touches of the right foot and Dennis Bergkamp sealed his legacy and his team’s victory. It was the first time at a sporting event that I had drained my lungs with screams.

However, to fully understand the heights of this goal’s effect, one must listen to the Dutch commentator on the following clip:

Bergkamp’s goal as relayed by Jack van Gelden

- Matt Cahill