I watch videos on YouTube all the time, but two recent ones really made me smile.
I heard about the first one on tonight’s NBC Nightly News and Entertainment Weekly’s website. Here is the description from www.ew.com:
By now, you've probably seen this weekend's viral video sensation, 47-year-old ("and that's just one siiiiide of me!") Susan Boyle's audition for Britain's Got Talent. The never-been-kissed Scot blew away the initially sneer-mongering judges with her rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables, causing Simon Cowell to sort of shift in his seat a little bit while allowing one the most sheepish documented grins to date spread over his "O" face.
Here’s a link to the clip on YouTube (embedding has been disabled).
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The second video was sent to me by J A S O N.
I'm not even a huge Sound of Music fan and I loved the video.
I hope you enjoy them both.
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As long as we're talking about "Feel Good" videos, here's the video for the song Feel Good Inc by Gorillaz.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Adam Lambert Gay? Who Cares?
Although it's a little long, this article from today's New York Times is worth reading.
Note that the pictures are from my collection, NOT from the New York Times web site.
----------------------------
April 12, 2009
American Idol's Big Tease
By GUY TREBAY
LET'S say you are an "American Idol" contestant with a criminal history. Let's say you claimed to have had an affair with Paula Abdul. Let's imagine that you are found to have posed for topless photos or been charged with identity theft.
These are not hypothetical scandals. Each has occurred during the eight-season run of the top-rated show. And each has duly been processed out of consciousness at a speed accorded most show business scandals — forgotten in the nanosecond it takes us to move on from the latest reality TV distraction and back to our ordinary lives.
Let's imagine, then, that among the assorted warblers and strummers and leather-lunged divas that have made up the renewable cast of hopefuls on the country's No. 1 television show, you appear not as some talented hopeful with a shady backstory but as a theatrical creation with a message to sell beyond the usual will to prevail. You are swivel hipped and pillow lipped. You have an outsize talent and a fondness for Cher. You have blond hair dyed black and styled in an asymmetrical shag. At some long-ago moment, you gave in to your inner Maybelline girl.
You are Adam Lambert, the contestant widely tipped as a favorite to be the next winner of "American Idol." And the only thing standing between you and riches and the chance to play arenas may be a question currently burning up the Internet: Can a gay contestant win?
Leave aside for a moment the answer to such a question, or even whether Mr. Lambert is gay. He may be. He may not. Fox, which owns "Idol," is not saying; neither is the contestant himself.
What is notable is the intensity of the insinuations caroming around the Internet and in certain corners of the mainstream press — that and the fact that even asking whether a gay contestant can win a broadly popular reality show, whose survivors are selected by public acclaim, seems increasingly anachronistic in light of decisions in Iowa and Vermont to extend marriage rights to gay men and lesbians.
Still, ask they do. Pointing to "embarrassing pictures of Mr. Lambert circulating on the Internet," photographs that show someone who looks uncannily like the contestant tongue-wrestling another man, the conservative commentator Bill O'Reilly inquired last week on his Fox News show, "These pictures that hint that he is gay, will they have an effect on this program, which is a cultural phenomenon in America?"
Cultural critics with a broader frame of reference than Mr. O'Reilly's can easily contextualize Mr. Lambert in a long line of performers who tantalize the public with their talent and equally with their gender ambiguities. Think of Liberace. Think of Prince or Bowie or Elton John or K. D. Lang or Pete Wentz. "We have always had that person" on the pop landscape, said Aaron Hicklin, the editor of Out magazine. "The difference now is that previously the conversation about sexuality has not been as public. When Liberace was around, there was no real way to talk about this stuff."
Now, of course, there is no way and no reason to stifle conversation about the signals Mr. Lambert appears to send in the form of song choices pilfered from the hope chests of anthemic divas (Cher's "I Believe"); his bio (he was a child who enjoyed dressing up a lot but sports "not so much," said his father in an on-air interview); and a theatrical style at times so arch that his country-night version of "Ring of Fire" evoked for Sarah Chinn, the executive director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, "Joey Arias channeling Billie Holiday channeling Johnny Cash."
According to a Gawker post last week, the "applause-o-meter" had Mr. Lambert pulling way ahead. "Might we actually get a Kris/Adam finale?" read the item, referring to Kris Allen, a generic teen idol type with a waxed cowlick and a lopsided smile. "Might, also, we get a Kris/Adam somethin' else?' Hah, doubtful. No one sees Adam without his skinsuit on, except maybe that fetching, fey little blond character they keep cutting to and describing as Adam's `friend.' "
Predictable as the snarky innuendo is, it also struck a discordant Roy Cohn note, coming in the week when Vermont's Legislature voted to override a veto by the governor and recognize gay marriage, adding the Green Mountain State to Connecticut, Massachusetts and Iowa in a list of states actively advancing the cause of civil rights for gay people. "The entire system is changing so rapidly it is not to be believed," said David Ehrenstein, a Los Angeles based film critic and scholar who writes the hilarious Fablog.
America's heartland, he said, turns out to be politically contiguous to its notoriously liberal coasts. "Iowa is apparently infested with San Francisco values," he said.
Even the White House made a point of inviting lesbian and gay families to join in an annual Easter Egg Roll.
Thus it seems plausible that a person with more than a toe peeking out of the closet might actually win the most hotly contested singing show on the planet. True, it took six years of public insinuation before Clay Aiken, the popular also-ran from Season 2, made the choice in 2008 to come out. When he did so, however, the anticipated career-stall never happened. The news was greeted with a collective yawn.
"I see us as living in the post-Neil Patrick Harris era," said Mr. Ehrenstein, referring to the actor who in 2006 trumped online efforts to expose his sexuality by publicly declaring himself gay to People magazine. "He crossed the Rubicon. He did the `sudden death' play. Supposedly you come out and your career is over. He came out and his career is in better shape than it ever was."
It is worth remembering how radical a shift this is in the public consciousness and that a half century ago, in the 1950s when the film producer Marina Cicogna first found herself in Los Angeles, as she recently told W magazine, studios forced Rock Hudson into bogus relationships with women and obliged gay actors "to lie from morning to night."
In 1959 Liberace, the camp artifact best known, as one critic wrote, "for beating Romantic music to death on a piano decorated with a candelabra," sued an English newspaper for libel for implying in print that he was gay. Given his taste for lacquered pompadours, rhinestone jumpsuits, white mink coats and pneumatic male personal assistants, it is hard now to imagine Liberace believing his public was deceived. But then it is still hard to square shifting public opinion with that of an industry that forces its gay talents to hide in plain sight.
When asked on the witness stand whether he was homosexual, Liberace emphatically told a judge: "No, sir! I am against the practice because it offends convention and it offends society." He won the suit and damages and then, much later, was named in a $113 million palimony suit by his partner Scott Thorson.
"For a long time, gay men were very sensitive to being associated with effeminacy," said Mr. Hicklin of Out. "It was highly objectionable, an example of stereotyping and caricature."
Being photographed in drag or, as Mr. Lambert apparently was at the Burning Man Festival, wearing makeup and a thigh-high halter dress revealing enough to bring a blush to the cheeks of J. Lo, is far from a career-killer these days. "There was a common set of signifiers in theater and TV and popular culture that implied gay," Mr. Hicklin said. "Gay men came to embrace all that because it came to feel far less threatening to be labeled in that way."
Also, somewhat unexpectedly, heterosexuals took up the playfulness of gender ambiguity. "The gay thing got derailed by the way many straight guys started playing with image," Mr. Hicklin said. Metrosexuals followed homosexuals out of the closet. Pete Wentz posed for the cover of Out. "Pete Wentz wears makeup and clearly is confident enough not to be threatened by any assumptions his fans or nonfans might come to," Mr. Hicklin said.
Like Mr. Lambert — whose more steadily assertive gender games are likely to reach an apotheosis this week when the "American Idol" contestants are asked to perform their favorite movie song — performers are now free to treat real or putative gayness as another show business tool, a peekaboo game, a ploy. So-called low forms of sex relationship that entertainment industry codes once kept from being depicted on movie screens are now so routine a feature of pop culture that when "Saturday Night Live" recently parodied the proliferating pop references to sexual experimentation in a sketch titled "The Fast and the Bi-Curious," the Entertainment Weekly critic Ken Tucker slapped the show down for using jargon that "feels old and overused."
Unlike other reality shows, said Joe Jervis — a gay activist blogger whose recent mention of Adam Lambert on his site Joe My God generated 50,000 hits from people searching the term "Is Adam Lambert Gay?" — the contestants on "American Idol" aren't voted off their little show business island by one another. Love them or hate them, it is up to America to choose.
"The show is squarely in the hands of the viewers," Mr. Jervis said. It is just that vox populi aspect of "American Idol," he said, that demonstrates radical changes "in the popular view of openly gay people." That may be. But it is certainly also worth noting that a Revlon habit is no surefire tip-off to gayness, latent or otherwise. Ask Marilyn Manson. Ask Devendra Banhart or Brandon Flowers or any of the other members of groups sometimes called "eyeliner bands." For that matter, why not ask Kiss?
Note that the pictures are from my collection, NOT from the New York Times web site.
----------------------------
April 12, 2009
American Idol's Big Tease
By GUY TREBAY
LET'S say you are an "American Idol" contestant with a criminal history. Let's say you claimed to have had an affair with Paula Abdul. Let's imagine that you are found to have posed for topless photos or been charged with identity theft.
These are not hypothetical scandals. Each has occurred during the eight-season run of the top-rated show. And each has duly been processed out of consciousness at a speed accorded most show business scandals — forgotten in the nanosecond it takes us to move on from the latest reality TV distraction and back to our ordinary lives.
Let's imagine, then, that among the assorted warblers and strummers and leather-lunged divas that have made up the renewable cast of hopefuls on the country's No. 1 television show, you appear not as some talented hopeful with a shady backstory but as a theatrical creation with a message to sell beyond the usual will to prevail. You are swivel hipped and pillow lipped. You have an outsize talent and a fondness for Cher. You have blond hair dyed black and styled in an asymmetrical shag. At some long-ago moment, you gave in to your inner Maybelline girl.
You are Adam Lambert, the contestant widely tipped as a favorite to be the next winner of "American Idol." And the only thing standing between you and riches and the chance to play arenas may be a question currently burning up the Internet: Can a gay contestant win?
Leave aside for a moment the answer to such a question, or even whether Mr. Lambert is gay. He may be. He may not. Fox, which owns "Idol," is not saying; neither is the contestant himself.
What is notable is the intensity of the insinuations caroming around the Internet and in certain corners of the mainstream press — that and the fact that even asking whether a gay contestant can win a broadly popular reality show, whose survivors are selected by public acclaim, seems increasingly anachronistic in light of decisions in Iowa and Vermont to extend marriage rights to gay men and lesbians.
Still, ask they do. Pointing to "embarrassing pictures of Mr. Lambert circulating on the Internet," photographs that show someone who looks uncannily like the contestant tongue-wrestling another man, the conservative commentator Bill O'Reilly inquired last week on his Fox News show, "These pictures that hint that he is gay, will they have an effect on this program, which is a cultural phenomenon in America?"
Cultural critics with a broader frame of reference than Mr. O'Reilly's can easily contextualize Mr. Lambert in a long line of performers who tantalize the public with their talent and equally with their gender ambiguities. Think of Liberace. Think of Prince or Bowie or Elton John or K. D. Lang or Pete Wentz. "We have always had that person" on the pop landscape, said Aaron Hicklin, the editor of Out magazine. "The difference now is that previously the conversation about sexuality has not been as public. When Liberace was around, there was no real way to talk about this stuff."
Now, of course, there is no way and no reason to stifle conversation about the signals Mr. Lambert appears to send in the form of song choices pilfered from the hope chests of anthemic divas (Cher's "I Believe"); his bio (he was a child who enjoyed dressing up a lot but sports "not so much," said his father in an on-air interview); and a theatrical style at times so arch that his country-night version of "Ring of Fire" evoked for Sarah Chinn, the executive director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, "Joey Arias channeling Billie Holiday channeling Johnny Cash."
According to a Gawker post last week, the "applause-o-meter" had Mr. Lambert pulling way ahead. "Might we actually get a Kris/Adam finale?" read the item, referring to Kris Allen, a generic teen idol type with a waxed cowlick and a lopsided smile. "Might, also, we get a Kris/Adam somethin' else?' Hah, doubtful. No one sees Adam without his skinsuit on, except maybe that fetching, fey little blond character they keep cutting to and describing as Adam's `friend.' "
Predictable as the snarky innuendo is, it also struck a discordant Roy Cohn note, coming in the week when Vermont's Legislature voted to override a veto by the governor and recognize gay marriage, adding the Green Mountain State to Connecticut, Massachusetts and Iowa in a list of states actively advancing the cause of civil rights for gay people. "The entire system is changing so rapidly it is not to be believed," said David Ehrenstein, a Los Angeles based film critic and scholar who writes the hilarious Fablog.
America's heartland, he said, turns out to be politically contiguous to its notoriously liberal coasts. "Iowa is apparently infested with San Francisco values," he said.
Even the White House made a point of inviting lesbian and gay families to join in an annual Easter Egg Roll.
Thus it seems plausible that a person with more than a toe peeking out of the closet might actually win the most hotly contested singing show on the planet. True, it took six years of public insinuation before Clay Aiken, the popular also-ran from Season 2, made the choice in 2008 to come out. When he did so, however, the anticipated career-stall never happened. The news was greeted with a collective yawn.
"I see us as living in the post-Neil Patrick Harris era," said Mr. Ehrenstein, referring to the actor who in 2006 trumped online efforts to expose his sexuality by publicly declaring himself gay to People magazine. "He crossed the Rubicon. He did the `sudden death' play. Supposedly you come out and your career is over. He came out and his career is in better shape than it ever was."
It is worth remembering how radical a shift this is in the public consciousness and that a half century ago, in the 1950s when the film producer Marina Cicogna first found herself in Los Angeles, as she recently told W magazine, studios forced Rock Hudson into bogus relationships with women and obliged gay actors "to lie from morning to night."
In 1959 Liberace, the camp artifact best known, as one critic wrote, "for beating Romantic music to death on a piano decorated with a candelabra," sued an English newspaper for libel for implying in print that he was gay. Given his taste for lacquered pompadours, rhinestone jumpsuits, white mink coats and pneumatic male personal assistants, it is hard now to imagine Liberace believing his public was deceived. But then it is still hard to square shifting public opinion with that of an industry that forces its gay talents to hide in plain sight.
When asked on the witness stand whether he was homosexual, Liberace emphatically told a judge: "No, sir! I am against the practice because it offends convention and it offends society." He won the suit and damages and then, much later, was named in a $113 million palimony suit by his partner Scott Thorson.
"For a long time, gay men were very sensitive to being associated with effeminacy," said Mr. Hicklin of Out. "It was highly objectionable, an example of stereotyping and caricature."
Being photographed in drag or, as Mr. Lambert apparently was at the Burning Man Festival, wearing makeup and a thigh-high halter dress revealing enough to bring a blush to the cheeks of J. Lo, is far from a career-killer these days. "There was a common set of signifiers in theater and TV and popular culture that implied gay," Mr. Hicklin said. "Gay men came to embrace all that because it came to feel far less threatening to be labeled in that way."
Also, somewhat unexpectedly, heterosexuals took up the playfulness of gender ambiguity. "The gay thing got derailed by the way many straight guys started playing with image," Mr. Hicklin said. Metrosexuals followed homosexuals out of the closet. Pete Wentz posed for the cover of Out. "Pete Wentz wears makeup and clearly is confident enough not to be threatened by any assumptions his fans or nonfans might come to," Mr. Hicklin said.
Like Mr. Lambert — whose more steadily assertive gender games are likely to reach an apotheosis this week when the "American Idol" contestants are asked to perform their favorite movie song — performers are now free to treat real or putative gayness as another show business tool, a peekaboo game, a ploy. So-called low forms of sex relationship that entertainment industry codes once kept from being depicted on movie screens are now so routine a feature of pop culture that when "Saturday Night Live" recently parodied the proliferating pop references to sexual experimentation in a sketch titled "The Fast and the Bi-Curious," the Entertainment Weekly critic Ken Tucker slapped the show down for using jargon that "feels old and overused."
Unlike other reality shows, said Joe Jervis — a gay activist blogger whose recent mention of Adam Lambert on his site Joe My God generated 50,000 hits from people searching the term "Is Adam Lambert Gay?" — the contestants on "American Idol" aren't voted off their little show business island by one another. Love them or hate them, it is up to America to choose.
"The show is squarely in the hands of the viewers," Mr. Jervis said. It is just that vox populi aspect of "American Idol," he said, that demonstrates radical changes "in the popular view of openly gay people." That may be. But it is certainly also worth noting that a Revlon habit is no surefire tip-off to gayness, latent or otherwise. Ask Marilyn Manson. Ask Devendra Banhart or Brandon Flowers or any of the other members of groups sometimes called "eyeliner bands." For that matter, why not ask Kiss?
Friday, March 27, 2009
Stories From My Youth
I have been compiling some Classic Stories from my youth. I thought I’d pass a few of them on.
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Every school morning when I was in high school, I used to walk 10 blocks to meet up with a friend of mine, then he and I would take public transit (“the big green limousine”) to school. About three blocks before his house, I would stop in this one garage that was always open, to smoke a cigarette. I was 15 and my parents didn’t yet know that I smoked.
One day I noticed that there were hundreds of books in this garage. Upon further investigation I discovered that these books were all porn novels. (“He slipped his hand over her milky white breasts, caressing the…” and so on.) I took one to school to read. After reading it, I showed it around to all my friends. One of my friends offered to buy it. Supply and demand, I said $10.00. He readily agreed. My other friends asked if I could get any more.
By the end of the semester, I had stolen almost all of the Garage Man’s porn books and sold them to my classmates at school. Once I ran out of books, I stopped and moved on.
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When I was a kid, I loved to play in water. During the summer, my parents would drop me off at the local country club at 7 am for swim team practice and come back for me at 9 pm when the pool was about to close.
I remember begging them to let me stay.
Every summer I would have green hair because I would spend so much time in the pool that the chlorine in the pool would react with my white-blond hair and turn it a nice shade of green.
During the school year, when the pool was closed, I devised a game to keep me in water. We lived in a house that had about 25 wide concrete steps leading from the sidewalk up to our front porch.
I would take one of our trashcans up to the porch, fill it to the top with water, get in the trashcan, and dump myself over. The water and I would go cascading down all the steps, onto the sidewalk.
I did this over and over, taking a 20-minute break between rides while the water refilled in the trashcan. At the end of the game, I would usually have brush burns on my chest from slamming into the concrete steps as I was shooting down them.
I was telling Carlos this story:
Carlos: “Where were your parents when you were barreling down the steps on a small plane of water, almost killing yourself?”
Me: “Oh, they were around somewhere. Their theory was that as long as I wasn’t bothering them, I was okay, whatever I was doing. My parents weren’t neglecting me; they just trusted me.”
I played this between 12 and 14. My sister Claudia often played with me. She’s 8 years younger than I am.
--------------\
My mom had me when she was 23 and Christine (my sister) came 13 months later.
(Christine and I were both accidents. My informal family nickname is “Went On The Honeymoon” since my mom was three months pregnant for me when my parents got married. Christine’s informal family nickname is “Can’t Get Pregnant While You’re Breastfeeding” because my Aunt Barbara – my mom’s supposedly-all-knowing younger sister - told my mom that. And Christine was conceived while my mom was breastfeeding me.)
I don’t think my mom was prepared for us. And she definitely wasn’t ready for two kids under 3 (and we were really wild kids) before she was 26.
Since she’s the oldest child in her family (thus had no one to ask about parenting) and since my dad was always at work during this time, she had to improvise a lot.
All of my family had a habit of reading while we ate. Not during family meals – We always ate those together while I was growing up. Even my dad was home in time. But when we were sitting down at the kitchen table alone, we would naturally would go to the bookshelf in the kitchen, pick out a book, get our food, read and eat.
My mom dealt with the dreaded Sex Talk by putting books on sex on that bookshelf. From the time I was 8 years old or so, my sister and I were perusing such titles as “Talking To Your 5-8 Year Old About Sex”, “Talking To Your 9-12 Year Old About Sex”, “Dealing With Sexually Transmitted Diseases”, “Your First Period”, “The Pill and Its Alternatives”, and my favorite because it had some graphic illustrations, “Where Do Babies Come From?”.
My parents never mentioned any of this to us. One day these books just appeared on the kitchen bookshelf, and Christine and I read them all. She and I were some of the most knowledgeable kids in our peer group.
-------------\
Every school morning when I was in high school, I used to walk 10 blocks to meet up with a friend of mine, then he and I would take public transit (“the big green limousine”) to school. About three blocks before his house, I would stop in this one garage that was always open, to smoke a cigarette. I was 15 and my parents didn’t yet know that I smoked.
One day I noticed that there were hundreds of books in this garage. Upon further investigation I discovered that these books were all porn novels. (“He slipped his hand over her milky white breasts, caressing the…” and so on.) I took one to school to read. After reading it, I showed it around to all my friends. One of my friends offered to buy it. Supply and demand, I said $10.00. He readily agreed. My other friends asked if I could get any more.
By the end of the semester, I had stolen almost all of the Garage Man’s porn books and sold them to my classmates at school. Once I ran out of books, I stopped and moved on.
--------------\
When I was a kid, I loved to play in water. During the summer, my parents would drop me off at the local country club at 7 am for swim team practice and come back for me at 9 pm when the pool was about to close.
I remember begging them to let me stay.
Every summer I would have green hair because I would spend so much time in the pool that the chlorine in the pool would react with my white-blond hair and turn it a nice shade of green.
During the school year, when the pool was closed, I devised a game to keep me in water. We lived in a house that had about 25 wide concrete steps leading from the sidewalk up to our front porch.
I would take one of our trashcans up to the porch, fill it to the top with water, get in the trashcan, and dump myself over. The water and I would go cascading down all the steps, onto the sidewalk.
I did this over and over, taking a 20-minute break between rides while the water refilled in the trashcan. At the end of the game, I would usually have brush burns on my chest from slamming into the concrete steps as I was shooting down them.
I was telling Carlos this story:
Carlos: “Where were your parents when you were barreling down the steps on a small plane of water, almost killing yourself?”
Me: “Oh, they were around somewhere. Their theory was that as long as I wasn’t bothering them, I was okay, whatever I was doing. My parents weren’t neglecting me; they just trusted me.”
I played this between 12 and 14. My sister Claudia often played with me. She’s 8 years younger than I am.
--------------\
My mom had me when she was 23 and Christine (my sister) came 13 months later.
(Christine and I were both accidents. My informal family nickname is “Went On The Honeymoon” since my mom was three months pregnant for me when my parents got married. Christine’s informal family nickname is “Can’t Get Pregnant While You’re Breastfeeding” because my Aunt Barbara – my mom’s supposedly-all-knowing younger sister - told my mom that. And Christine was conceived while my mom was breastfeeding me.)
I don’t think my mom was prepared for us. And she definitely wasn’t ready for two kids under 3 (and we were really wild kids) before she was 26.
Since she’s the oldest child in her family (thus had no one to ask about parenting) and since my dad was always at work during this time, she had to improvise a lot.
All of my family had a habit of reading while we ate. Not during family meals – We always ate those together while I was growing up. Even my dad was home in time. But when we were sitting down at the kitchen table alone, we would naturally would go to the bookshelf in the kitchen, pick out a book, get our food, read and eat.
My mom dealt with the dreaded Sex Talk by putting books on sex on that bookshelf. From the time I was 8 years old or so, my sister and I were perusing such titles as “Talking To Your 5-8 Year Old About Sex”, “Talking To Your 9-12 Year Old About Sex”, “Dealing With Sexually Transmitted Diseases”, “Your First Period”, “The Pill and Its Alternatives”, and my favorite because it had some graphic illustrations, “Where Do Babies Come From?”.
My parents never mentioned any of this to us. One day these books just appeared on the kitchen bookshelf, and Christine and I read them all. She and I were some of the most knowledgeable kids in our peer group.
Guilty Pleasure II: Year 3000
I gotta admit: The Jonas Brothers have some infectious songs.
Here is my favorite of the lot:
Here is my favorite of the lot:
Guilty Pleasure I: Nights on Broadway
The first in a series: Guilty Pleasures.
I have always liked the Bee Gees, and their song Nights on Broadway has always been my favorite of theirs. I think because Robin Gibb is my favorite in the group, and this is one of the few songs that he gets to sing lead vocals. (He's the one in the middle. Barry, on the right, is the main lead singer. Maurice was the backup support. He died in 2003, resulting in the remaining brothers saying that they'd never "perform as the Bee Gees again".)
Here is the best (and earliest) version of the song that I have found:
I have always liked the Bee Gees, and their song Nights on Broadway has always been my favorite of theirs. I think because Robin Gibb is my favorite in the group, and this is one of the few songs that he gets to sing lead vocals. (He's the one in the middle. Barry, on the right, is the main lead singer. Maurice was the backup support. He died in 2003, resulting in the remaining brothers saying that they'd never "perform as the Bee Gees again".)
Here is the best (and earliest) version of the song that I have found:
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Jeff Buckley
On Wednesday night's American Idol, Randy said about Adam singing Ring of Fire: "It's really hard to say, man. But I must say that I was one of the ones who loved Adam's Jeff Buckley take on that song. Many people don't know that that is Jeff Buckley's version."
I'm a huge Jeff Buckley fan and didn't think that he ever recorded that song. After looking through my (complete) collection of his songs, I still hadn't found it. Before he died in 1997, he had never recorded that song.
After some research, I found this article:
American Idol Judge Randy Jackson Says Adam Lambert Channeling Jeff Buckley on His Version of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire"?
Scour the internet as much as you like, you will not find the classic song "Ring of Fire" by Jeff Buckley. Although "Ring of Fire" has been done by at least a hundred artists since it was written by June Carter (the future wife of Johnny Cash) and Merle Kilgore, Jeff Buckley did not record a version. This does not mean that Jeff Buckley never sang the song. He just never recorded it.
So why even bring up the subject? Because American Idol judge Randy Jackson brought it up. On the American Idol results show on Wednesday evening, when Ryan Seacrest was down to the last two finalists left to decide which one would join the other two contestants on the chopping block (one would be eliminated from the three), he asked for comments from the American Idol judges about Adam Lambert's rendition of "Ring of Fire" the night before. That's when Randy Jackson mentioned Jeff Buckley in relation to the song.
Although Jeff Buckley never recorded "Ring of Fire," it is easy to understand why Randy Jackson would bring up the name. Randy Jackson is not on American Idol for just his good looks. He's also a hot producer and musician himself. He has a very good ear for music. He prides himself on his ability, which is why he often uses the term "pitch problems" or "pitchy" when referring to a performance.
Randy Jackson was comparing Adam Lambert to Jeff Buckley, at least on a vocal level. Adam Lambert's version of "Ring of Fire" was done the way Jeff Buckley would have done it. And with the same amazing vocal control as well. And perhaps just as haunting. If one were to surf one's way to YouTube and click up "Grace," "Forget Her," Or "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley, Randy Jackson's words start to make a lot more sense.
It really is a shame that the world lost Jeff Buckley. He was an amazing talent.
------------
Here's Jeff Buckley doing his song Grace,the title track from his first album.
I'm a huge Jeff Buckley fan and didn't think that he ever recorded that song. After looking through my (complete) collection of his songs, I still hadn't found it. Before he died in 1997, he had never recorded that song.
After some research, I found this article:
American Idol Judge Randy Jackson Says Adam Lambert Channeling Jeff Buckley on His Version of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire"?
Scour the internet as much as you like, you will not find the classic song "Ring of Fire" by Jeff Buckley. Although "Ring of Fire" has been done by at least a hundred artists since it was written by June Carter (the future wife of Johnny Cash) and Merle Kilgore, Jeff Buckley did not record a version. This does not mean that Jeff Buckley never sang the song. He just never recorded it.
So why even bring up the subject? Because American Idol judge Randy Jackson brought it up. On the American Idol results show on Wednesday evening, when Ryan Seacrest was down to the last two finalists left to decide which one would join the other two contestants on the chopping block (one would be eliminated from the three), he asked for comments from the American Idol judges about Adam Lambert's rendition of "Ring of Fire" the night before. That's when Randy Jackson mentioned Jeff Buckley in relation to the song.
Although Jeff Buckley never recorded "Ring of Fire," it is easy to understand why Randy Jackson would bring up the name. Randy Jackson is not on American Idol for just his good looks. He's also a hot producer and musician himself. He has a very good ear for music. He prides himself on his ability, which is why he often uses the term "pitch problems" or "pitchy" when referring to a performance.
Randy Jackson was comparing Adam Lambert to Jeff Buckley, at least on a vocal level. Adam Lambert's version of "Ring of Fire" was done the way Jeff Buckley would have done it. And with the same amazing vocal control as well. And perhaps just as haunting. If one were to surf one's way to YouTube and click up "Grace," "Forget Her," Or "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley, Randy Jackson's words start to make a lot more sense.
It really is a shame that the world lost Jeff Buckley. He was an amazing talent.
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Here's Jeff Buckley doing his song Grace,the title track from his first album.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Best of 2008
Since many magazines, TV shows, and web sites are doing their best of lists this time of the year, I thought I’d do mine.
I am sure many other really good movies were released in 2008, but I only included the ones that Carlos and I saw. (Maybe Carlos will also do a list?)
Plus, my best of lists will NEVER include Will Ferrell or Tom Cruise.
Top 12 Best Movies I Saw in 2008
21
American Teen
Iron Man
Michael Clayton
Milk
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
Slumdog Millionaire
Son of Rambow
The Dark Knight
The Express
Wanted
Top 8 Worst Movies That I Saw in 2008
Hancock
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Jumper
Paranoid Park
Pathology
The Happening
The Women
Vantage Point
Top 10 Favorite Movies I Have Rented From Netflix in 2008
(The year released is in parenthesis.)
12 Angry Men (1957)
African American Lives - Volumes I and II (2006 / 2007)
Confessions of a Superhero (2007)
It’s A Boy Girl Thing (2006)
Paris, Je T’aime (2006)
Primary Colors (1998)
Shelter (2007)
Spellbound (2002)
The Curiosity of Chance (2006)
The Deaths of Ian Stone (2007)
Top 3 Lists That I Started and then Abandoned
Top 10 Best TV Shows of 2008
Top 10 Best DVD’s of 2008
Top 10 Best CD’s of 2008
If you do best of lists, let me know!
I am sure many other really good movies were released in 2008, but I only included the ones that Carlos and I saw. (Maybe Carlos will also do a list?)
Plus, my best of lists will NEVER include Will Ferrell or Tom Cruise.
Top 12 Best Movies I Saw in 2008
21
American Teen
Iron Man
Michael Clayton
Milk
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
Slumdog Millionaire
Son of Rambow
The Dark Knight
The Express
Wanted
Top 8 Worst Movies That I Saw in 2008
Hancock
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Jumper
Paranoid Park
Pathology
The Happening
The Women
Vantage Point
Top 10 Favorite Movies I Have Rented From Netflix in 2008
(The year released is in parenthesis.)
12 Angry Men (1957)
African American Lives - Volumes I and II (2006 / 2007)
Confessions of a Superhero (2007)
It’s A Boy Girl Thing (2006)
Paris, Je T’aime (2006)
Primary Colors (1998)
Shelter (2007)
Spellbound (2002)
The Curiosity of Chance (2006)
The Deaths of Ian Stone (2007)
Top 3 Lists That I Started and then Abandoned
Top 10 Best TV Shows of 2008
Top 10 Best DVD’s of 2008
Top 10 Best CD’s of 2008
If you do best of lists, let me know!
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
Long-Suppressed Gay Star Trek Episode Comes Out
I have only seen a handful of Star Trek episodes (counting all of the different series). But I still thought this article was interesting.
-----------
David Gerrold, famous for writing the "Trouble with Tribbles" Star Trek episode, also wrote an episode that included gay characters - but it was shot down by Paramount. Now you can watch it online.
To make the episode, Gerrold teamed up with the fan crew behind Star Trek: Phase II, a web series that's intended to be the fourth season of the original series. He dusted off his gay-themed script, called "Blood and Fire," and also directed it. Originally, "Blood and Fire" was written for Star Trek: TNG, and approved by series creator Gene Roddenberry, but executives at the network balked. Gerrold says they told him they were worried they'd lose their advertisers because "mommies" would call in to complain that they'd seen gay people on Star Trek.
For the webisode, Gerrold re-wrote the script to bring it up to date with issues like gay marriage, and also to make the characters more openly gay. In the original, they were portrayed as friends - the only hint that they were gay was one character asking them how long they'd been together. In the new version, as you can see in the clip here, there's no question that they're lovers.
The episode is about the Enterprise responding to a distress call, and dealing with scary "bloodworms." It introduces a new character, Peter Kirk, the gay nephew of the captain.
According to AfterElton's Brent Hartinger, who has seen the full episode:
There’s tension between Peter and his famous uncle, who is determined to keep him out of harm’s way, even if it means treating him differently than the other crewmembers. Eventually, Peter reveals the real reason he requested a stint on the Enterprise: to be near his boyfriend, Alex Freeman (Evan Fowler). When the couple make plans to marry, Kirk agrees to officiate, but only “after the away mission” — which may or may not bode well for the future of this relationship . . . The portrayal of Peter and Alex's romantic relationship is treated no differently than any of the dozens of heterosexual relationships the various Star Trek incarnations have included over the decades. Indeed, the storyline is incorporated so naturally as to make the “official” Trek's inexcusable lack of gay characters even more obvious.
The first half of "Blood and Fire" goes online this Saturday on the Star Trek: Phase II website. The second half airs in February.
You can see more images and a longer clip at AfterElton.
----------
This entire article was copied from here.
My favorite posts in the comments section:
So, going where no man has gone before except for that one night at college?
The bottom guy's in red. I don't see them being together much longer.
-----------
David Gerrold, famous for writing the "Trouble with Tribbles" Star Trek episode, also wrote an episode that included gay characters - but it was shot down by Paramount. Now you can watch it online.
To make the episode, Gerrold teamed up with the fan crew behind Star Trek: Phase II, a web series that's intended to be the fourth season of the original series. He dusted off his gay-themed script, called "Blood and Fire," and also directed it. Originally, "Blood and Fire" was written for Star Trek: TNG, and approved by series creator Gene Roddenberry, but executives at the network balked. Gerrold says they told him they were worried they'd lose their advertisers because "mommies" would call in to complain that they'd seen gay people on Star Trek.
For the webisode, Gerrold re-wrote the script to bring it up to date with issues like gay marriage, and also to make the characters more openly gay. In the original, they were portrayed as friends - the only hint that they were gay was one character asking them how long they'd been together. In the new version, as you can see in the clip here, there's no question that they're lovers.
The episode is about the Enterprise responding to a distress call, and dealing with scary "bloodworms." It introduces a new character, Peter Kirk, the gay nephew of the captain.
According to AfterElton's Brent Hartinger, who has seen the full episode:
There’s tension between Peter and his famous uncle, who is determined to keep him out of harm’s way, even if it means treating him differently than the other crewmembers. Eventually, Peter reveals the real reason he requested a stint on the Enterprise: to be near his boyfriend, Alex Freeman (Evan Fowler). When the couple make plans to marry, Kirk agrees to officiate, but only “after the away mission” — which may or may not bode well for the future of this relationship . . . The portrayal of Peter and Alex's romantic relationship is treated no differently than any of the dozens of heterosexual relationships the various Star Trek incarnations have included over the decades. Indeed, the storyline is incorporated so naturally as to make the “official” Trek's inexcusable lack of gay characters even more obvious.
The first half of "Blood and Fire" goes online this Saturday on the Star Trek: Phase II website. The second half airs in February.
You can see more images and a longer clip at AfterElton.
----------
This entire article was copied from here.
My favorite posts in the comments section:
So, going where no man has gone before except for that one night at college?
The bottom guy's in red. I don't see them being together much longer.
Friday, December 05, 2008
Thanksgiving 2008 Quotes
I spent five days in Atlanta for Thanksgiving, driving there with my sister Christine and her girlfriend Karlie.
Carlos stayed in New Orleans. (Melissa and Steve were in town.)
Here’s a snapshot of my trip via quotes.
“Karlie says that nothing goes in the back seat except for her.” Christine (the spokesperson for their relationship) to Carlos and me as we smashed my luggage in the trunk, while observing Karlie lounging in the back seat.
“That’s nothing but static. Please turn that off.” Karlie, expressing her feelings about what I was listening to on the radio as I was driving us back to New Orleans.
“You’re welcome to ride with me, but I’m not riding with y’all ever again. Your car has too many rules.” A future quote, whenever Karlie and Christine ask me to ride with them ever again.
“Go away, okay?” Eden, my niece (my sister Claudia’s two and a half year old daughter), carefully explaining to me that she doesn’t want me to be around her. She usually takes about three days to warm up to me. Then she and I bond.
“They have to let me in. I’m a Gay Breeder.” My parents live in Faubourg Marigny, an area of New Orleans that has the largest gay population in the city. My mom loves to swim. The closest swimming pool is a health club two blocks away, usually overrun by nude gay men. That doesn’t bother my mom at all, but my dad figures that they (“The Gays”) will be uncomfortable with my mom being there. My mom responded that she would have to play The Gay Card: “….I must be: two of my three kids are gay.”
Best Quote Ever.
Carlos stayed in New Orleans. (Melissa and Steve were in town.)
Here’s a snapshot of my trip via quotes.
“Karlie says that nothing goes in the back seat except for her.” Christine (the spokesperson for their relationship) to Carlos and me as we smashed my luggage in the trunk, while observing Karlie lounging in the back seat.
“That’s nothing but static. Please turn that off.” Karlie, expressing her feelings about what I was listening to on the radio as I was driving us back to New Orleans.
“You’re welcome to ride with me, but I’m not riding with y’all ever again. Your car has too many rules.” A future quote, whenever Karlie and Christine ask me to ride with them ever again.
“Go away, okay?” Eden, my niece (my sister Claudia’s two and a half year old daughter), carefully explaining to me that she doesn’t want me to be around her. She usually takes about three days to warm up to me. Then she and I bond.
“They have to let me in. I’m a Gay Breeder.” My parents live in Faubourg Marigny, an area of New Orleans that has the largest gay population in the city. My mom loves to swim. The closest swimming pool is a health club two blocks away, usually overrun by nude gay men. That doesn’t bother my mom at all, but my dad figures that they (“The Gays”) will be uncomfortable with my mom being there. My mom responded that she would have to play The Gay Card: “….I must be: two of my three kids are gay.”
Best Quote Ever.
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