The MTV Movie Awards, an affront to the culture and all that is holy, will return May 7th with two changes. First, they will include TV shows– meaning “Game of Thrones” has already won– and they’ll be live. Apparently they were pre-taped last year. Who knew?

MTV continues to struggle with finding a purpose. Last year this was a summary of what won:

Films with multiple nominations

• Eleven – Star Wars: The Force Awakens
• Eight – Deadpool
• Six – Avengers: Age of Ultron
• Four – Mad Max: Fury Road, Pitch Perfect 2, The Revenant, Trainwreck
• Three – The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, Jurassic World, Straight Outta Compton
• Two – Concussion, Creed, Fifty Shades of Grey, Furious 7, Joy, San Andreas, Spy.

Multiple winners

• Three – Star Wars: The Force Awakens
• Two – Pitch Perfect 2, Deadpool

This year, “Star Wars: Rogue One” will win most of the awards. Also nominated will be “Logan,” and all the the other comic book movies and movies that had soft core sex and came out since May 2016 including Doctor Strange, Suicide Squad, Fast and Furious 8, Beauty and the Beast, Fifty Shades Darker, and Guardians of the Galaxy 2, which releases two days earlier.

It’s doubtful that La La Land and Moonlight will have much to do with this awards show. Maybe for fun, at the end, they could say La La Land won, and then give the award to Rogue One. Best Kiss will go to Ryan Gosling and Andrew Garfield at the Golden Globes.

Barack and Michelle Obama are each getting $30 million book deals from Penguin Random House. So how will that affect taxes for all concerned? This morning a press release from the book company gives some idea;

“In support of the mission of The Obama Foundation and Penguin Random House’s own commitment to social responsibility, the company will donate one million books in the Obama family’s name to First Book, a longstanding Penguin Random House non-profit partner and the Washington, DC-based partner for the 2016 White House digital education initiative, Open eBooks. First Book is dedicated to promoting equal access to education by providing new books, learning materials, and other essentials to children in need in the United States and Canada. Consistent with their past practice, the Obamas also plan to donate a significant portion of their author proceeds to charity, including the Obama Foundation.”

I’ve never heard of First Book, but according to GuideStar, which is funny because they pay a PR firm called Drascena Communications $956K in fees.

Even funnier: Drascena has no website or any footprint on the internet. But according to Politico, which mentioned them in another context a couple of years ago they’re part of the Pearson Foundation. Pearson owns Random Penguin etc. First Books claims $37 million in net assets.

And get this: Pearson paid Drascena $5 million in fees in 2012-2013 according to documents. Drascena’s only listed address is an apartment in Mill Valley, California.

The other news from Random Penguin is that the books will be issued under the Crown Books logo. That’s surprising because Crown is a lot less prestigious than Random House, Penguin or Viking. When I think of Crown, I think of cookbooks and so on. But maybe that’s changed. In English language territories, however, the books will under Viking Press. Those include the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Ireland, New Zealand, and South Africa.

In every other territory around the world, different Random Viking Penguin labels will handle the books.

I’m hopeful that these books will describe the reason that Valerie Jarrett has moved into the Obamas’ new home in Washington, DC instead of Ms. Jarrett getting her own pad. You’d think after 8 years in the Whie House, the Obamas would want to be alone. Very “Three’s Company.”

You don’t see the great Patty Smyth on stage every day. The rocking star of the group Scandal from the 80s married tennis great John McEnroe and took over a family of six kids. But she’s still got it, more than ever. Last night at the all star mega rock show at the Beacon for God’s Love We Deliver, Patty staged a performance of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” for the records books. It was blistering and she was better than ever.

Only one problem. The announcer introduced her as “Patti Smith.” Uh, that’s someone else, as we know.

Our Patty was not pleased. She joked about it to the audience. But I’m told backstage, among the 30 or so stars stacked up to sing, she told off the stage managers. It didn’t help that she was joined on stage by a guitar playing McEnroe, who has a notorious temper. The long married duo did not stay for the big end of the show jam session when the 4-and-half-hour proceedings were over.

Otherwise, Love Rocks 2017, went off pretty well considering how long it was and how many people were involved. “Letterman” and “SNL” band star Will Lee was the musical director, Paul Shaffer shined on keyboards (he was great), legendary Steve Gad was on drums. Think of this: they were required to play blues, rock and R&B, everything from Motown to Van Morrison to ZZ Top to the Stones, Dylan, Beatles, Curtis Mayfield, BB King, and Joe Walsh’s “Life’s Been Good.” There wasn’t even a bathroom break!

Willis was the unofficial emcee. Murray showed up later for amusing pleas to donate money to the cause.

Some highlights: Warren Haynes on “Soulshine.” Michael McDonald with Catherine Russell on “AIn’t No Mountain High Enough.” Sam Moore singing Sam Cooke’s “Good News,” then having Walsh join him on Soul Man with Bruce Willis on harmonica. Later, Moore, Susan Tedeschi, and Derek Trucks tore down the house on “Lovelight.” (See video)

That wasn’t all. Lisa Fischer maybe stole the whole show with “Gimme Shelter.” She peeled the gold leaf painting off the Beacon’s walls. Anthony Hamilton and Russell complemented each other nicely on “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”

There was a lot of virtuoso guitar playing from Gary Clark, Jr, Billy Gibbons, and Trucks. Dr. John was astonishing on “Such a Night” given his permanent state of addled blues aristocracy.

There was no theme for the shoe particularly. Originally it was going to be a night of Sam Cooke songs, but the folks who control his music objected to that in the same week Aretha Franklin was saluted at Carnegie Hall. That made for a kind of blues-rock jukebox, but it worked in the end because the roster– including Mavis Staples, Cece Winans, William Bell, Keb Mo, Jackson Browne, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Aaron Neville, and Amy Helms (daughter of the late Levon Helms and songwriter Libby Titus) — were so exceptional.