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Can somebody please tell me why American Idol is entertaining? I'm open to discussion because I cannot figure out the draw. Maybe I'm just not that interested in someone else's success or perhaps I just don't like watching people be judged by the likes of Paula Abdul...though to her credit, she is mostly positive and not a cold-hearted snake.
We've even become obsessed with talent shows over seas! These are people that we didn't even breed as a nation and yet we cannot stop watching it, talking about it on stupid morning radio, and writing about it. And now I'm forced to write about it, and that chaps my hide (when was the last time you said "chaps my hide"....if ever? Think about it, I'm bringin' it back).
And it's getting worse, I noticed an entire article the other day dedicated to the minute, banal factoid that Susan Boyle disagreed with a judge's statement and may have raised her middle finger. Really? We're gonna write a whole article on that and report the disagreement? Who gives a crap!! Am I missing something here? Are celebrities and entertainers more important than I'm giving them credit for? And keep in mind at this point, these people are only POTENTIAL rock stars; for the most part they're flash in the pan puppets that are yesterday's news, sometimes a literal day later.
I can't think of anyone who's had a truly respectable career coming out of this stupid show and the offshoots its spawned. Kelly Clarkson has had a pretty solid career, she was the very first winner; but let's not forget, her music sucks! But how bout her counterpart Justin Guarini? Exactly, I didn't remember him either, had to look him up. Point is nobody remembers these people after the spotlight is off them. Rueben Studdard? Where the hell is he? He actually won, and yet his loafer-light opponent Clay Aiken is still more popular........and that's only because he announced that he's gay. Once again, who friggin' cares! You don't get extra attention for being gay.
Isn't it just pathetic that some people are famous merely for being famous? Lindsey Lohan, both Simpson sisters, Nicole Ritchie, Paris Hilton etc. I can't name one artistic contribution from one of these people....granted, I don't pay attention, but yet I know of them and about them and I should because they don't DO ANYTHING!
I had some guy not too long ago mention something he saw on VH1, something about Amy Winehouse being in the news, and when I seemed like I didn't know who she was (and essentially asking, why is this important?), he responded, "dude, you don't know who Amy Winehouse is?"
"No I don't, sorry.....see, you watch VH1 apparently, so I stopped listening to you as soon as you mentioned that awful habit in your life. Secondly, she's on VH1, so her music probably sucks and she's more famous for who she's screwed while on bender at the Viper Room on the sunset strip, and lastly......I'm gonna get back to work.
"You mean, you don't watch American Idol?"
"No.........I read."
It's tiresome and pitiful to hear and read people going on and on about celebrities for the sake of their celebrity.
Shoot me. Shoot me now.
I wish I could post a link to this or give you some kind of illustration, but there simply is none....it's just something I saw when I was driving.
I'm on the highway in Florida recently and I saw a huge billboard off the road that was advertising for a hospital. I had never seen an ad for a hospital, I didn't even know that was necessary. Business must not be quite that good lately, apparently the economy is even slowing down peoples' sickness and ailments!
I'm picturing the marketing director for this hospital, not sure what that would look like during a campaign meeting, "Okay everyone, we need to find a way to get more people into this hospital. Swine flu and cancer are dated strategies...we need to go out there and starting hurting people!"
The kicker was that the highlight of the billboard was for their ER. And the strategy was to post their current wait time in the ER. I guess this is helpful if you're driving and you just happen to be in the market for a good ER. But on the whole, if you have an emergency, I don't think you're gonna be sifting through the yellow pages trying to find the shortest wait time. I don't know anyone who at any point in their lifetime has "shopped around" for a good ER.
"Hey listen, my kids head is bleeding profusely...I'm wondering if maybe you could recommend a good ER that I could take her to? Which one? Oh St. Lukes?......ehhhhh, kinda don't like their snack options in the vending machine, what else you got?"
It gotta say, when Michael Jordan left the league back in the day, my interest in the NBA dropped significantly. I love the game, probably more than any other sport, but this playoff season is the first that I've made it a point to tune into in a very long time.
Kobe stepped it up in last night's Laker game, he has an innate ability, similar to Jordan, to take over a game when it's on the line. We'll see what Denver can offer them at the Staples center on Thursday.
But let's talk about Lebron James for a moment. GROWN-ASS MAN is all I can say. He is undoubtedly the most exciting player to watch in the NBA and brings an accelerated athleticism to the game that I personally haven't seen since Jordan. He is a fully developed adult of the male species. The Cavaliers have been kinda floating through their playoff games with relative ease compared to their colleagues, and it has largely been due to the fact that Lebron is a full-grown man out there. There's no question he can rent a car whenever he wants, and he's not even 25 yet.
It's my opinion that he could score just about every time he has the ball, or at least end up at the free throw line. He's not a selfish player, however, and thus we see him dish the ball just as much as he dunks it. But his athleticism is absolutely through the roof. It angers me just watching him. He plays 4 nights a week and can leap through the ceiling and still go to a dance club later that night and nail at least a couple of girls. And what do I do after a game? I play three on three for an hour and am home icing my shins and feet, complaining that I should have called a "jump ball" even though what really happened was that my opponent just took the ball from me.....straight out of my little girl's grip!
Lebron James and any other athlete that's 'better than me can go straight to hell.
Okay I realize that blog entry took a turn to negative town, but as I was writing I got frustrated.
Found this in the NY Times sports section today.......a fun little article taking us back to some of the greatest (and frankly funniest) base running errors we've ever seen in baseball.
My personal favorite being the guy who got picked off at first, ending game 2 of the '74 series. The only thing that would have made it funnier was if it was game 7.
I'm a pop culture guru and a pretty big movie buff with a ridiculous encyclopedic memory for details that most people don't pick up on or don't bother to find out about. Why? Because they shouldn't, it's useless knowledge. And I'm not talking about Kelly McGillis' next big role after she filmed Top Gun kinda knowledge (it was 1987's Witness by the way, opposite Harrison Ford). I'm talking about being able to spot a young Nicholas Cage (then known as Nicholas Coppola) in 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High. He had no lines, a couple brief cameos, one of which was flippin' burgers at the fictitious "All American Burger".
These are items of knowledge that I don't expect everyone to know, hardly anyone really. But what does a guy like me do when he's dating someone for 8 months and he finds out that his girlfriend hasn't seen Back to the Future? Is that grounds for a break-up? I think it's pretty close....the aforementioned Top Gun being an equally offensive "not-seen". Part of it is my fault for not being up front with her right away about my deal-breakers.
My girlfriend is an absolute treasure, but when I found out that Back the Future had somehow missed her radar, I about lost it. Of course it followed as no surprise that Teen Wolf, a true classic, had also not made the roster of FRIGGIN' AWESOME MOVIES THAT EVERYONE SHOULD SEE. Now both of these problems have been rectified and we're doing much better in our relationship because of it. She just sat down, by herself mind you, and watched the Back the Future Trilogy without stopping. I was so proud of her, but still wanted to wag the finger like "what took you so long?" I was also proud of her for sitting through Predator with me when we were dating early on...that one scored huge points with me because it epitomizes a "guy's movie". Now if I can just get her to tackle Roadhouse and maybe one of the Porky's flicks, I'll marry her tomorrow. In an attempt to play fair and broaden my own cinematic horizons, I played the good boyfriend and sat through Thoroughly Modern Millie and The Devil Wears Prada....everyone makes mistakes.
All I'm saying really is that I have a mild problem when I find out that someone has not seen a movie like Back to the Future or The Breakfast Club (or anything John Hughes directed). I can handle it if you don't know that Under Seige 2 took place on a train instead of a battleship. I can muster the energy to still sit at the bar with you even though you didn't catch Ace Ventura. Even still, I can allow ignorance when it comes to Alyssa Milano's very young role in Commando (way before she went vampy in Poison Ivy 2).
But if movies like Swingers, Teen Wolf, Caddyshack, or Uncle Buck have missed your radar.......then let's sit down and hash this out for the sake of our relationship.
Today is Cinco De Mayo and I know I'm not the only one who has thought to blog about this mysterious and historically misunderstood holiday. I think it's probably close to common knowledge by now that Cinco De Mayo, despite its affect on 20-something urban Americans, is NOT Mexico's independence day.
That day would be Sept. 16th which is when it is celebrated in Mexico. This is a good thing because it means that Mexico knows when its own independence day is. The Cinco De Mayo holiday commemorates the Mexican army's unlikely defeat of French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862
I kinda like the fact that they are content letting their misinformed northern neighbors go on celebrating the wrong holiday; as if to say, "yeah keep celebrating you stupid gringos...you got the day wrong but thanks for paying attention and caring about our country's history. Just for that, we're gonna laugh at you being wrong, shake our heads, and not say anything."
In Mexico, May 5th, though significant in Mexico's history as a day when they whooped some French ass, is a rather arbitrary day when it comes to celebrating however. According to Wikipedia, the most trusted name in the world of information, Cinco De Mayo has a very limited significance in Mexico. Now if it were the U.S. that was outnumbered against the French and we came back and dominated, you can almost guarantee that we would have the day off......perhaps even a 4 day weekend kinda holiday.....you know, because we hate the French.
The real people who feel independent on Cinco De Mayo, are the young white people who go out and get plastered on margheritas until they think they're Mexican. Next time you're out on Cinco De Mayo, take a look around and tell me if you see any Mexicans "going big" on several pitchers of Dos Equis Amber. If you live in NYC like me, you're likely to just see 5 girls straight out of college deciding "should I get the strawberry, or should I get mango".....and they will all be white chicks.
I guess I'm just too cool for school or something. I have some latant inclination to not celebrate things that neither I nor my heritage had nothing to do with. I've done nothing historically significant and nor has anyone in my family. The fact that I'm an ethnic mut means that I have nothing to really cling on to. I might as well get absolutely pasted on bastille day or flag day! Don't misunderstand me, you might very well catch me drinking Guiness on St. Patrick's day, or even throwing back a few dozen Corona's on Cinco De Mayo.......but I'm not really celebrating that, I'm just celebrating "thursday". Because that's the life and heritage I've been dealt.
So be it though, don't let that stop you from celebrating any holiday with which you have no connection. Happy Battle of Puebla day!
This is definitely worth writing a little something about as it was my first time seeing this. I've always heard about this either secondarily or just conceptually but now I actually have witnessed the phenomenon and have experienced the glory--the glory of a face tattoo.
Now I know perhaps Mike Tyson's decision was just less than sound, but I got on the subway last night and this dude walks in with a FULL face tattoo.......forehead, ocular regions, nose, lips, cheeks and chin all had ink on them. The first thing that came to my mind was, "So you're saying then.....that you don't have a job interview tomorrow?"
I found myself angered at his decision. Not sure why...it's his face, but I think maybe the fact that he was forcing it on everyone and making me feel uncomfortable just to look in his direction, like he would jump down my throat and say "What the hell are you looking at?
"Well....your face tattoo actually."
He had his girlfriend with him and that just made me think, "Pal, you better enjoy her and treat her right cuz if she breaks up with you (which she should) the odds of you 'getting yourself out there' are slim to none."
Clearly if you do that to your face, you are purposely making a statement. So why not just tattoo the actual message you're trying to send on your face? Why not just have it say, "I don't get along with my dad." or...."Too many lunches alone in high school". I really cannot fathom what someone must have gone through in life to make that kind of decision.
Shouldn't it be illegal? Think about it, if a cop pulls you over and asked for i.d., how are they going to recognize you with a full tattoo covering up your face? Unfortunately I don't think the police can simply hand out tickets for poor decisions otherwise problem solved. Unless of course he had that face tattoo at the DMV when when he got his license issued and had the picture taken.
Either way I think witnessing this is a powerful lesson for everyone.........hug your children!
What to do when you have a performance but are feeling ill? My voice feels like doo doo and yet I have to sing for about 2 1/2 hours tonight. I hope I can do justice to the 80's music I'm forced to sing.
What would Steve Perry of Journey think if he heard my voice crack trying to sing one of his splendid melodies. Well, I think he would laugh at me either way for even attempting to replicate what only he can do.
Eddie Money on the other hand would probably be proud considering these days he sounds like Janis Joplin with bronchitis.
But I'm gonna suck it up and get the show on the road.
This post sucked.
