As a defense to the honor of the American legal system, I just want to remind everyone that we can't keep them from filing this nonsense. It can't be thrown out of court until after they've filed it.
At the risk of impugning your beloved Hicks, Tia, when is he going to stop riffing on the song and sing it, damnit?
This is why we need a philosopher-king, to swoop down and give them the airhorn.
Wait, so are all those posts going to go? Understandable, I just hadn't noticed yet.
re: in the "this" link. true! that man has never touched ta's.
4, 5: Ixnay on the indepth iscussion-day, if you would.
Sorry, sometimes I forget about that thing called e-mail.
I dunno... does Taylor Hicks really have a penis?
That lawsuit is bizarre. I hope it goes through, and they win.
I wish I had titled this post "Gaybait." It would have been a lot more clever, since it would have been a play on the conventional meaning of "gay bait" and the notion that Aiken was bait for these consuming fish. I hate realizing the clever thing to say after the fact.
As usual, Dinosaur Comics speak to this issue with a voice that our generation can't ignore.
I suppose it's a marker of how little I've been following American Idol that I read the word "Claymate" and thought of the California Raisins.
Could we all pay attention to this line: "As consumers, we feel ripped off. It is obvious now that the private Clay is very different from the manufactured packaged public Clay that was marketed to us." This line I think crystallizes everything that is weird and bizarre about celebrity. These ladies' sexuality is moderated through a marketing machine. They are, furthermore, aware of this and totally ok with it, but they feel that there is an implicit contract. They give their souls to the machine, it is obligated in return not to mislead them into lusting after a homosexual.
16 gets it exactly right. This lawsuit is teh geniuse! 200+ years of American jurisprudence have been slowly but inevitably building towards this climax!
"This is tantamount to a manufacturer concealing information about a defective product."
Jodie Foster wasn't ever really a teen prostitute! And she likes girls! I'm gonna sue that Scorsese bastard. I've been sullied.
I dunno from SEX GODS, but Taylor Hicks looks like he's auditioning for the role of that really cute 11th grade Algebra teacher.
But if we're gonna fantasize over ambigiously gay pop stars--and who among us hasn't--how about this guy. Unlike Clay, he doesn't look like an elf--though sometimes he does look like his own sister--and his record is named, forthrightly, SeXoR, not Measure of a Man.
But if we're gonna fantasize over ambigiously gay pop stars
Screw that. If they're gonna be gay, let's have 'em be really, really gay!
Once again, we have much to learn from Japanese culture. (Somewhat NSFW. Wikipedia explanation here.)
The scandal here is that not that anyone claims he's gay, but the person who claims to have had gay sex with him claims he was the top. That's the illusion worth sueing over.
Okay, but if Clay's polygynous, then it's okay, right?
Sheesh, my moral compass is all over the place today...
[small voice]
does this mean ewan macgregor really isn't a jedi knight with l33t jedi force skills? why didn't someone tell me tv and movies were made-up?
[/small voice]
What are we, Thermians?
does this mean ewan macgregor really isn't a jedi knight with l33t jedi force skills? why didn't someone tell me tv and movies were made-up?
Of course not. Ewan McGregor is a turn of the century poet who will sing Elton John to me and rescue me from courtesanship until I die of consumption in his arms. Gah.
Surely not! He's the skinny junky who gets to shag Kelly Macdonald while making pithy comments on Scottishness and heroin.
No no, he's Iggy Pop under a transparent pseudonym and he has hott sex with Christian Bale.
Weiner is the only one of you who comes close to getting it right, especially if I get to join them. Nevertheless, I nailed it in 28.
Incidentally, [lowering tone] Kelly Macdonald = teh hott
Speaking of music, is this Tim Berne?
I do not know what this "lowering tone" is that you speak of.
But this isn't Ben w-lfs-n! I'm suing KTSU!
"We leap into the universe of prog rock," and I leap into turning off the radio and playing the other side of my Olympia Brass Band record. Damn substitutes.
Olympia Brass Band
I'm down wit' OBB. Yeah, you know me. Matt, have you ever listened to any David Murray Big Band?
Speaking of David Murray, he's in the excellent Altman-directed (Kansas City) Jazz 34 music vid.
A vid I highly recommend with Joshua Redman and Murray and others recreating 1934 Kansas City jazz.
4&5 - Fear not. Your links will return soon enough. We had some of the archives get eaten during all of the server stuff and will try to restore them from the backups we made. In other news, the server: no longer sucking! Yay!
36: Yup. I generally prefer the Octet to the full-fledged Big Band but the latin big band album he did not long ago, "Now Is Another Time," is smokin'.
Now Is Another Time
Awww yeah, baby.
24: Cubert and Demon, available at that same link, are also riveting, in a not-too-gifted, made-while-drunk, amateur sort of way. I guess that doesn't put them too far off-topic. Though Taylor Hicks is really good, judging by this clip.
Tia, Tia, Tia, how are you not annoyed with Taylor's transparent schtick yet? As TWoP pointed out, he's just the flipside of Brenna: shrewd and image-conscious down to the last decimal point.
Chris, however, rocked my fucking face off last night. Admit that Chris will win. Admit!
WhatEVAR. Look, I realized I had to stop reading TWoP because they are hataz, every one. I don't blame them for this, because their name is TWoP, but they were quickly sapping my enjoyment of the show. Frankly, through my new jaundiced eye, I had a hard time watching it this week. All of a sudden Paula did seem stoned and incoherent.
Anyway, I hardly noticed that was the consensus view of Taylor even on the bilious TWoP boards. I get from him nothing but musicality and joy. Chris, eh, maybe I just don't really enjoy that kind of music, at least not without a really good band. But even if he had a better band, he's just not the artist Taylor is. I don't see any exciting musical interpetation from him. Who on that show can you say truly has vision but Taylor?
Last week, you were claiming that Katharine McPhee was the next American Idol and that Brenna was *snort* crazy charismatic. I can't believe I was gentle with you on that one, and this is the repayment I get.
It's true, I am as changeable as a weathercock. Kat could still win! But Chris could also win. He got loads better this week, and she got much worse. You've got to admit that Taylor has a huge "I'm just a caveman, brother" thing going on. The TWoP thing about Taylor was gotten from the recap, not the boards, which are, admittedly, full of haters.
There'll always be haters; that's the way it is. Hater niggas marry hater bitches and have hater kids.
But Brenna is crazy charismatic! Just not as a singer! She could be the badass host of some dumb MTV show that I hate!
Kellie Pickler is really endearing.
I think we can agree on how awesome American Idol is, in the same way that cooking cocaine down to rock form is awesome.
Let me get this straight. You are accusing Taylor of having a schtick, but Kellie is endearing. Kellie is an effigy of a human being constructed of fibers of schtick. Okay, so she's kind of cute sometimes. But not in that clip of her and Katharine, boy. And this is not me hating on giggly femme women because I am one. I do my friends' makeup, I cuddle in bed with them, I make lists of the invitees to my wedding with them, but that clip made me think, please god let no one ever film it, or perhaps more accurately, let no one instruct me to stagily reenact it while they film it. I'm not sure whether to believe Kellie that she had never heard of spinach salad. That's just barely more believable than Ayla, child of a state senator and a TV anchorwoman not knowing what foundation was.
I haven't read the recap and the site is being slow, but even if he has a schtick, all he's really trying to say with it is that he loves music and loves to perform. Since that's transparently true, it's pretty harmless. I think he's genuinely excitable. I like twitchy men.
Here's a question:
Could it be there's a gender divide here? Kellie's schtick doesn't work on you because it's sort of designed to appeal to men? And Taylor's schtick is seemingly designed to appeal to women?
Growing up in rural Texas, I'm here to say it's totally credible that she hadn't heard of spinach salad. I, too, never had calamari until I went to Los Angeles, when I was 18. Not that they didn't have calamari in San Antonio when I was in high school, but it certainly seemed like a weeeeeird food to me.
And come on, the clip with her and Katharine was obviously staged, but it's not like they requested the staging of it. Kat clearly said (for reasons calculated or not) that her favorite part of the AI journey has been rooming with Kellie, and so the producers said, "Here's what we're going to do, girls; act girly and cute in your room while we roll the cameras, because that'll be great TV." What, were they supposed to refuse? Stage a walkout?
Kellie has personality schtick, but no more than every single human being who walks around and intends to interact with other human beings. She's remarkably genuine (more so than just about everyone else on the show), and so what if she likes to be sweet because people say they like it when she's sweet? Who among us is not guilty of accentuating traits that get us attention?
The Ayla Brown thing was clearly more troubling, but it's far easier for me to hate her and all her Republican works and ways.
The important question is, though: who's getting bounced? I think it's:
Brenna
Heather Cox
Possibly Kinnik
Daniel
Sway
Possibly Bucky
Of course, by "Daniel", I mean "David".
Who's Daniel? The crooner? I thought his name was David. Anyway, I agree with your predictions except I disallow the possibilities in italics.
Who among us is not guilty of accentuating traits that get us attention?
Those among us who do not love NASCAR?
Kellie has personality schtick, but no more than every single human being who walks around and intends to interact with other human beings. She's remarkably genuine
Why is this not a defense of Taylor?
Katharine is more like me than anyone else on the show, so maybe I should be rooting for her.
I think it's because I have yet to see Taylor give what I thought was an authentic, deeply felt performance, rather than an act with a lot of "woos". (There were probably 78 "woos" from Taylor last night, each less justified than the last.) I don't care what he's like when he's not singing, so much; it's the actual singing performance that has started to bug me. This is only this week that it's started to bug me, by the way. I liked it in the beginning, but it got old really quickly, and I was hoping that he'd do something a little more serious this week.
Kellie, though she's not as strong of a singer as Taylor, is able to connect with a song much more fully, at least from my perspective. Taylor always seems like he's trying to do the best damn Joe Cocker/Ray Charles mashup that anyone's ever seen. I honestly don't know how his voice really sounds.
But this isn't Ben w-lfs-n! I'm suing KTSU!
Yeah, I got someone to sub for me because I wanted to see the Weasel Walter Quartet (w/ Henry Kaiser & William Winant!) on the occasion of the anniversary of my birth yesterday.
Also, if leaping into the universe of prog rock puts you off listening, I'm surprised you ever listened to me.
I totally approve of that playlist, too.
Except maybe for the Happy the Man.
If Taylor Hicks came on the radio, I would immediately know it was him. I cannot say the same for Chris Daughtry. I know perfectly what his voice sounds like. Does he woo when he's singing? I haven't heard it. I think Taylor is a deeply connected performer, but I will grant you that sometimes it feels like he's connecting to a well of joy in performing that's similar for every song, and his interpretations are riffs on notes, and not enough responses to lyrics.
Kellie feels the song, but expresses it in the most obvious of ways--like pointing or singing louder to express intensity. It's not just feeling, but having the tools to channel the feeling properly.
Ben is the adult!
Happy birthday, yo.
Happy birthday, and nice Koufax nomination for best commenter.
Happy birthday, Ben!
That particular prog rock (whatever came just after the Tim Berne) sounded like some Yes-but-less-obscure-and-without-vocals-which-admittedly-is-the-first -thing-to-do-to-Yes bad prog rock, instead of the interesting stuff. And I mentioned last time I wasn't big on the Ahleuchtistas.
Close to the edge, fish in the ri-vurrrrrrrrr (?). Barf.
In and around the lake
Weiners come out of the sky
They stand there
Now that you've reached the age of majority, Ben, you have to be less casual about where you put your euphemism.
Ah. I was beginning to wonder with all of these "adult" and "age of majority" jokes.
Happy birthday, Ben. You'll be pleased to know that, appropriately, the skies cried in SCMTville.
I suspect the truth of the matter lies somewhere in the middle.
What? Wait - I'm too gullible for these types of conversations. I'm just going to have to slice you open and count the rings.
But don't you want to make sure the 1/2 + 7 calculation works out first, Becks? You wouldn't want to contribute to the dendrochronology of a minor.
Yeah, but I can't do that unless I know your 1/2 my age + 7.
I am opposed to calling jinx or pwn on this.
If my memory of Becks' age is correct (that it is in the vicinity of the second perfect number!), then the calculation checks out.
I clicked post on 76 before seeing 75. So the objection stands. (Didn't we used to say something like "cross posted"? Those were the days.)
53: Except maybe for the Happy the Man.
That was it. (I also note that I had to make breakfast and get moving.)
My calculations were correct. But face it, Brenna was poised and kind of hot in the way she handled her rejection.
Dude, Mr. Potatohead was in the bottom 3! He's not gonna make the top 12! That was kind of surprising. Who goes with him; Bucky or Gedeon? I say Bucky. And next week's girl cuts are going to be Kinnik and Melissa McGhee, unless Ayla blows it, which is what I'm praying for.
I didn't see it. Did they actually say he was in the bottom 3, or did they pull that "one of you is going home" thing? I say Gedeon goes, I think. Also, things can change in a week as people get motivated to vote by danger they perceive. I had a dream last night that I watched David's singout, and all of a sudden he dropped his fake mannerisms and sang like an angel.