is there anything more dismal than listening to people murder songs that weren't done all that well by the original artists over 20 years ago?
tonight's American Idol was a complete exercise in how to make NO ONE want to watch ever again.
i don't know if i'll watch the girls tomorrow or not. if their choices also come from the glorious '80 music and they can't manage to do anything but ballads, i'll seriously be ill.
and that one rocker chick is totally one dimensional. can she please show us something that resembles anyone besides janis joplin?
perhaps i am just angry that my friend's daughter got cut in the final tally. she was 25th out of 24. literally.
ouch.
but in all candor, there is no way she could have done that much worse than the people that were picked to do this show. whatever skills they may have had during auditions have melted away like an ice cream cone on a car seat in august.
the only bright spot has been the kid from utah who sings so nicely. but he is also all bubble gum and sweetness. so that may keep him from being commercially viable and that is what idol is allegedly about.
thusfar, we have had major moneymaking success from only a few of the idols and idol runners up.
and since the show started 7 seasons ago (1 season in dog television), we only have two really BIG names: Kelly Clarkson & Carrie Underwood.
while i totally realize that everyone can't be a winner and somebody goes home in tears, that is a pretty crappy track record for a program that is alleged to bring the best and brightest to the forefront.
there are many others who have experienced measured success from this program. but there are hundreds of others over the course of these auditions who didn't make it due to a bad day, a sore throat or life in general who might have been 'the one' on any other day.
sadly, life doesn't seem to be very forgiving when it comes to a persons' moment to shine. you are either on target or miss the mark completely and there are seldom redo opportunities.
it's like daddy always told me growing up, 'you never get a second chance to make a first impression'. i have to believe that unless you could rewind and erase what they previously catalogued as what you had to offer, then a second chance would always be weighed unfavorably when added to the first fiasco.
so to all those Idol wannabe's and all of us who are simply content to sing in the shower, remember the only reason they are there and we are home lathering up is because it was their day.
tomorrow may be mine. or yours.
either way, something tells me that there will still be people who must learn to content themselves with Supreme's hits in the shower, or singing their baby to sleep or making the high notes ring from the rafters in their church choir.
and what is more American than that?
March 4, 2008
February 27, 2008
Ebay
The delight of watching the clock tick down with an itchy trigger finger ready to do the deed that seals the deal in my favor.
There is something especially thrilling about bidding on Ebay for the pearl in your particular oyster. Everyone wants to get a bargain and more so when you can secretly double pump your fist and proclaim yourself king, queen or regent pro tem of the bidding frenzy.
I am currently waiting out a particular purchase. I'll confide right now that my bid is the grandeloquent sum of ONE CENT.
Do I expect to win?
Absolutely.
Why?
I have no reason to believe that the item I am bidding on is so average as to be mundane. Worse yet, it isn't even pedestrian. I have bid on something old and dull. Unless it's something you actually want.
So I sit her like a fool and wait with my heart pounding like I've run a marathon.
If some other bidder sneaks in at the last critical second and trumps my maximum for the win, will I be crushed?
No. Well, maybe just a little, but I'm a big girl and I'll get over it sooner or later.
But what if I WIN!?!?!?
The starry eyed thrill of receiving the little email that says I have been declared THE WINNER among possible millions of others who wanted, but didn't obtain, the prize.
It's a heady elixer, that draught of winning.
I am not fooled by its silken flavor. I know all too well that the temptation offered by the seductive process of bidding can be snatched away like a rattle from a baby. And I imagine I'd react about the same because I have done just that in the past.
Ranting and raving about how some speed demon rushed in a last second bid to wipe mine right off the planet and bring home the shiny treasure all for themselves, I have been compelled to lull myself to sleep thinking of calmer things in the real world unattached to digital gateways and primal bidding wars.
A few moments is all that separates me from my treasured prize.
I feel a little like Gollum . . . the precious . . . the precious . . . uh . . .
I hope I don't LOOK like him.
By the way, I WON! I feel so . . . victorious!
There is something especially thrilling about bidding on Ebay for the pearl in your particular oyster. Everyone wants to get a bargain and more so when you can secretly double pump your fist and proclaim yourself king, queen or regent pro tem of the bidding frenzy.
I am currently waiting out a particular purchase. I'll confide right now that my bid is the grandeloquent sum of ONE CENT.
Do I expect to win?
Absolutely.
Why?
I have no reason to believe that the item I am bidding on is so average as to be mundane. Worse yet, it isn't even pedestrian. I have bid on something old and dull. Unless it's something you actually want.
So I sit her like a fool and wait with my heart pounding like I've run a marathon.
If some other bidder sneaks in at the last critical second and trumps my maximum for the win, will I be crushed?
No. Well, maybe just a little, but I'm a big girl and I'll get over it sooner or later.
But what if I WIN!?!?!?
The starry eyed thrill of receiving the little email that says I have been declared THE WINNER among possible millions of others who wanted, but didn't obtain, the prize.
It's a heady elixer, that draught of winning.
I am not fooled by its silken flavor. I know all too well that the temptation offered by the seductive process of bidding can be snatched away like a rattle from a baby. And I imagine I'd react about the same because I have done just that in the past.
Ranting and raving about how some speed demon rushed in a last second bid to wipe mine right off the planet and bring home the shiny treasure all for themselves, I have been compelled to lull myself to sleep thinking of calmer things in the real world unattached to digital gateways and primal bidding wars.
A few moments is all that separates me from my treasured prize.
I feel a little like Gollum . . . the precious . . . the precious . . . uh . . .
I hope I don't LOOK like him.
By the way, I WON! I feel so . . . victorious!
February 25, 2008
FREE!
Okay. I'll admit to a certain amount of medicine induced stupor.
After all, cold and flu liquid medicine does have an alcohol content in it.
But I am fascinated by the junk mail and emails that promise everything for free. How can you run a business if everything is free? Is the idea behind the free pitch to run your company into the ground and then declare bankruptcy?
Has Chapter 11 become that appealing?
Then there are the offers that promise vacations and travel to exotic places (look, my definition of exotic means anyplace outside of the state) and a generous daily spending limit for your meals.
I have always been told that 'somebody wins' these free things.
I can't understand though, why if 'somebody' wins, why can't I be that 'somebody'? I have filled in enough prize claim forms to have gutted a significant amount of digital space with my pertinent information. More than likely, that is the reason I keep getting these offers for 'free' stuff that never comes my way.
I'd love to win the Wal-mart shopping card that is currently being bandied about. Stocking my pantry and the cleaning cabinet on their dime would be great news to our strapped budget. I have the feeling that whomever does win it will be someone who only stopped at Wal-mart and filled in the survey because they were bored.
Oh well.
I can guarantee one free trip for the day. Since I have been ill with the flu, I can virtually guarantee a free trip to the outside garbage can to empty the little wastebasket that has served me so admirably today for the million or so tissues that have gone to work keeping my sore and pitifully red nose from dribbling like a leaky faucet on the Titanic.
By the way, good luck on your next "FREE" opportunity. You just might win.
After all, cold and flu liquid medicine does have an alcohol content in it.
But I am fascinated by the junk mail and emails that promise everything for free. How can you run a business if everything is free? Is the idea behind the free pitch to run your company into the ground and then declare bankruptcy?
Has Chapter 11 become that appealing?
Then there are the offers that promise vacations and travel to exotic places (look, my definition of exotic means anyplace outside of the state) and a generous daily spending limit for your meals.
I have always been told that 'somebody wins' these free things.
I can't understand though, why if 'somebody' wins, why can't I be that 'somebody'? I have filled in enough prize claim forms to have gutted a significant amount of digital space with my pertinent information. More than likely, that is the reason I keep getting these offers for 'free' stuff that never comes my way.
I'd love to win the Wal-mart shopping card that is currently being bandied about. Stocking my pantry and the cleaning cabinet on their dime would be great news to our strapped budget. I have the feeling that whomever does win it will be someone who only stopped at Wal-mart and filled in the survey because they were bored.
Oh well.
I can guarantee one free trip for the day. Since I have been ill with the flu, I can virtually guarantee a free trip to the outside garbage can to empty the little wastebasket that has served me so admirably today for the million or so tissues that have gone to work keeping my sore and pitifully red nose from dribbling like a leaky faucet on the Titanic.
By the way, good luck on your next "FREE" opportunity. You just might win.
February 21, 2008
Chesney Frenzy
As a well deserved favor to my best friend, Beth, I held tightly to her credit card and waited with baited breath by the internet linkage for advanced ticket sales for the Kenny Chesney concert to open up.
Precisely at the tick of 10 am, my less than nimble fingers entered the appropriate information and the process of hoping that in a venue which will seat approximately 70 THOUSAND screaming, enthusiatic and delirious fans that I would be able to aquire the requisite number of tickets for her party to attend one of the greatest events the summer will offer fans of country music.
Making the selection after being informed the infield seats were all sucked up in roughly a nano-second, I selected from the approved list of 'these would be good choices too' for a section where they would be able to hear and see Kenny just like if they were having him over for a quiet family barbeque without being obstructed by a goal post or a beam.
Quicker than it takes to type the story, the machinations of the digital age whipped the circuitry into a frenzy and plopped down the final tally and seating arrangements for the concert. I don't think I've ever been more excited to buy any tickets of my own!
Of course, this isn't my first rodeo when it comes to being the proxy ticket purchaser for other concert goers. It is a real honor to be trusted to take someone's credit card and represent their interests if only for that momentary bit of pleasure that is derived from the concert.
It sort of struck me that much of life is a process of proxy representation. We stand in for our friends as seconds at weddings and fights, buying tickets at events and placing orders in restaurant speakers. We stand in as representatives for our children before they reach the golden age of majority and for our parents when they reach the twilight of life and are no longer able to discern their own best interests and act upon them.
Infants require the proxy of their parents as health care and doctor visits attempt to provide assurances of good health. Elementary age children have proxy in the parents who sign for their ability to behave, participate and find their place in the classrooms of the world.
Even in matters spiritual, we have a proxy. Indeed, we require a proxy in order for any of those tender teachings to ever have any weight in our eternal welfare's concern. Without a proxy, we are left to stand naked and ashamed before God Almighty to pay in full for those sins and transgressions that we simply cannot cover, a debt for which we will never receive a revocation nor a remission without the assistance of a proxy who has the ability and the strength to stand in our place and take our stripes FOR us.
While buying tickets and atoning for another are leagues apart in both intent and purpose, the simple math of one doing for another is not lost on my simple mind.
That God planned by divine design to make a world where we could come and sort out the processes of daily living, but with a terrible and majestic price. The very Son of God would willingly look upon us as agents unto ourself, but agents who simply lacked the ability to pay the fullest part of the measure when the time came. Jesus would intercede in a way that was most personal and unique in a way that simply cannot be universally explained away.
Because we are all God's children and we are all different in the need for the services of that One who is Our Proxy, Jesus Christ looks into our very soul to meet the full measure of our guilt and our lack, our want and our need, and deep into our very person to offer himself fully for that which we cannot pay.
That is a kind of golden ticket much better than anything that we stand in lines for either literally or digitally, whether that standing for tickets happens in private circumstance or public entertainment, the result is the same.
Sometimes we just need a friend to make something we need to happen truly occur.
I do not make my participation great. Rather I acknowledge the many times that my family, my husband and children, and most certainly my friends have stepped into the breech and paid for that which I could not.
Perhaps that is the reason that I feel so honored to be offered in any way the opportunity to be able to step into that same role for another for whom I care.
Just thinking with my keyboard today . . .
Precisely at the tick of 10 am, my less than nimble fingers entered the appropriate information and the process of hoping that in a venue which will seat approximately 70 THOUSAND screaming, enthusiatic and delirious fans that I would be able to aquire the requisite number of tickets for her party to attend one of the greatest events the summer will offer fans of country music.
Making the selection after being informed the infield seats were all sucked up in roughly a nano-second, I selected from the approved list of 'these would be good choices too' for a section where they would be able to hear and see Kenny just like if they were having him over for a quiet family barbeque without being obstructed by a goal post or a beam.
Quicker than it takes to type the story, the machinations of the digital age whipped the circuitry into a frenzy and plopped down the final tally and seating arrangements for the concert. I don't think I've ever been more excited to buy any tickets of my own!
Of course, this isn't my first rodeo when it comes to being the proxy ticket purchaser for other concert goers. It is a real honor to be trusted to take someone's credit card and represent their interests if only for that momentary bit of pleasure that is derived from the concert.
It sort of struck me that much of life is a process of proxy representation. We stand in for our friends as seconds at weddings and fights, buying tickets at events and placing orders in restaurant speakers. We stand in as representatives for our children before they reach the golden age of majority and for our parents when they reach the twilight of life and are no longer able to discern their own best interests and act upon them.
Infants require the proxy of their parents as health care and doctor visits attempt to provide assurances of good health. Elementary age children have proxy in the parents who sign for their ability to behave, participate and find their place in the classrooms of the world.
Even in matters spiritual, we have a proxy. Indeed, we require a proxy in order for any of those tender teachings to ever have any weight in our eternal welfare's concern. Without a proxy, we are left to stand naked and ashamed before God Almighty to pay in full for those sins and transgressions that we simply cannot cover, a debt for which we will never receive a revocation nor a remission without the assistance of a proxy who has the ability and the strength to stand in our place and take our stripes FOR us.
While buying tickets and atoning for another are leagues apart in both intent and purpose, the simple math of one doing for another is not lost on my simple mind.
That God planned by divine design to make a world where we could come and sort out the processes of daily living, but with a terrible and majestic price. The very Son of God would willingly look upon us as agents unto ourself, but agents who simply lacked the ability to pay the fullest part of the measure when the time came. Jesus would intercede in a way that was most personal and unique in a way that simply cannot be universally explained away.
Because we are all God's children and we are all different in the need for the services of that One who is Our Proxy, Jesus Christ looks into our very soul to meet the full measure of our guilt and our lack, our want and our need, and deep into our very person to offer himself fully for that which we cannot pay.
That is a kind of golden ticket much better than anything that we stand in lines for either literally or digitally, whether that standing for tickets happens in private circumstance or public entertainment, the result is the same.
Sometimes we just need a friend to make something we need to happen truly occur.
I do not make my participation great. Rather I acknowledge the many times that my family, my husband and children, and most certainly my friends have stepped into the breech and paid for that which I could not.
Perhaps that is the reason that I feel so honored to be offered in any way the opportunity to be able to step into that same role for another for whom I care.
Just thinking with my keyboard today . . .
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