April.18.2007. • 11:18 PM
Fare thee well fair Sanjaya. I will miss you. Your 15 minutes have run out and it has long been time for you to go. You couldn’t sing to save your life, but I loved to hate you and really looked forward each week to your pearly smile, your characterless, colorless, common, and vanilla vocals and of course…
the hair.
Thank you for giving all of us something to talk about.
wait…
Do you think the producers might have pulled him out using their “the producers reserve the right to blah blah blah” card? I smell a conspiracy.
Filed under: american idol, entertainment., life, pics, reality tv, thoughts, tv
It seems like the Saatchi Gallery is eager to venture into the web 2.0 world of social interaction, with the launch of a handful of new features. The Saatchi, which became famous in the 90’s for collecting artists like Damien Hirst and putting together shows like Sensation (which caused quite the commotion at the Brooklyn Museum), has launched SHOWDOWN— an MTV style, head-to-head battle between 2 works from their new SUART (student art) and YOUR GALLERY (exactly what it sounds like) services. In addition they have launched CRITS— a forum for artists to upload their work with the intent of engaging in discourse and dialog with other users about your work. Both these new features seemed squarely aimed at bringing some of the myspace phenomenon to the artworld, and exploring the evolution of the gallery concept in the age of the internet.
While the Saatchi is marking out their cyber-territory, and exploring some interesting opportunities, the whole concept still feels a bit adolescent. They have succeeded in racking up some hits but seems to induce only simplistic and shallow discussions thus far. Some of the work found in the YOUR GALLERY is quite good while others are significantly lacking. And much like American Idol and other reality tv this model depends upon the audience to determine the artistic merit of the work. In theory this is a great concept, but as this years Idol and it’s Sanjaya project are proving, the audience is not always honest or noble when casting their vote. For now I’ll reserve my judgment, keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn’t drift too far in to the MySpace or Deviant art models. In the mean time I’ll keep checking the site and may even have to through my own art in the ring (just to check it out of course)
Filed under: american idol, art+photography, artsy., random, reality tv, web2.0
April.10.2007. • 10:02 PM
This week even the 2-and-a-half glasses of wine can’t solve all of these Idols performance problems. Karen and I were in agreement this week most of the performances were boring and all of the contestants sounded like karaoke— with good reason, NONE of them are Latin. It truly was a battle of the mediocre tonight and Blake barely managed to come out on top and Sanjaya was NOT NEARLY the worst this week. I had a lot of time to think (drink) during the uneventful performances and I was wondering…
1. How does Melinda even sing without a neck?
2. How many sets of tits does Lakeisha have, exactly? ‘Cause in that dress it looks like she has two sets in the front and one set in the back.
3. How many different ways can Phil find to tuck his Dumbo ears away?
4. Why did the stylist paint every girls lips hooker red?
5. When did Karen and I turn into Statler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show?
Filed under: american idol, entertainment., life, random, reality tv, tv
Binging on tv and internet entertainment, puking out posts and dry heaves in the studio.
This is my week in a nut shell.
I could blame it on my daughter and her ‘change of season cold’ or supporting Karen’s (as well as my own) nightly need to decompress (with mindless tv and cocktails) after a particularly stress-filled week, but the truth is I think I am avoiding dealing with the issues arising in my art/studio practice.
In a typical week we watch maybe 5 hours of tv, excluding the fast-forwarded commercials. I think I watched my normal weekly intake last-night. When I am not watching tv, I am surfing the web; reading headlines, blogs and watching podcasts. All of these are a normal part of my routine just not quite in the quantities that I am consuming lately. Last night I went from a yawn inducing episode of Idol (which I watched almost entirely in fast-forward) to last weeks episode of House, followed by last nights new episode of House and topped my evening off with Miami Ink and went to bed only mildly satisfied with my evenings indulgences. No matter how repetitive House is I just enjoy watching Hugh Laurie play the character.
After last-night’s tv binge all I am left with is this virtually-void-of-content post and a list of unresolved artistic issues. I think it is time to re-structure my time usage. I have not been practicing Yoga since we returned from nyc and am definitely feeling a profound lack of focus and clarity in its absence. I need to re-introduce some structure to my routine, bring back meditation and yoga and cut the fat out of my media diet in order to nurture creative freedom and face the reality that my art is leading me further from my comfort zone.
—that was supposed to be the end of this post, but I am left here thinking about the kind of social anesthetic that tv provides when consumed in large quantities. It seems to provide a fairly strong disconnect from your daily life and ultimately yourself when its consumed binge-style. There is something very powerful and dangerous when something can capture your mind so completely and do absolutely nothing real for you in return.
Filed under: american idol, entertainment., life, personal., reality tv, thoughts, tv
There are not many shows that I feel I need to watch on the night that they air. This season American Idol roped me in with the whole Sanjaya drama and the obnoxious New Jersey girl with the slutty internet pics. (who incidentally, represented all that is wrong with the state we successfully fled from last year) And Idol is a show that you have to watch the night that it airs so that you can be part of all the conversations the next day. But on Sunday nights, my television belongs to foodtv. That’s right the ultimate food geek showdown based on the classic Japanese show— Iron Chef America. It lacks the poor over-dubbed voices and the overly-dramatic theatrics of its Japanese counterpart but still delivers about 35 minutes of intense cooking action.
For me this show signals the end of the weekend and is the last opportunity for self indulgence before the work week officially begins. The show requires little-to-no-thinking and is a great show to vegitate intfront of. Usually our DVR clicks on as the show is beginning and we prep ourselves a snack and a grown-up drink that usually involves lime juice; Belvedere gimlets, or margaritas with Herradura tequila are the most commonly consumed Sunday night cocktails. So, drinks mixed and snack-less we sit on the sofa to fire up this weeks episode of ICA and skipping the Iron chef intros to get straight to the action.
To our surprise the challenging chef is José Andrés the head chef at our absolute favorite DC restaurant Jaleo. This is the restaurant that I give credit for opening up my palette and truly beginning my love/passion for food. Now the illusion of the show is that the challenging chef gets to pick who they will face in kitchen stadium (in reality they are picked weeks before the battle takes place) I thought for sure that he was going to ‘pick’ Mario Batali but instead calls out Bobby Flay— our favorite NYC restauranture and the person whose cookbook taught me some of the best cooking techniques for pairing and extracting big, bold flavors. We are sitting on the sofa hot with anticipation and the affects of the gimlets and for a fraction of a second we were in food geek heaven— head chefs from 2 of our all-time favorite eating establishments are about to face off. And then the words that provoked a simultaneous “what the fuck?”—
“the secret ingredient is… Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: american idol, entertainment., food., iron chef america, life, reality tv, tv
I just had a thought… I wonder if the fact that Howard Stern is off on vacation this week will have any affect on the Sanjaya projects success.On Tuesdays he usually spends a good chunk of the morning talking about Idol and revving up eric the midget before the nights episode.
Nah— I don’t think Sanjaya is going anywere just yet
Filed under: american idol, entertainment., thoughts
I do not claim to be an American Idol expert, (or even a fan really) but it would be extremely difficult to engage in water cooler and coffee bar conversation without some awareness of, or opinion on the current Idol contestants. But this year is a little different. There seems to be a growing trend towards voting for the underdog and the misfit in the Idol universe.
Last year Taylor Hicks and his less-than-mediocre singing and dad-at-a-wedding performances was catapulted to the top of the Idol heap. Now audiences have set their sights on Sanjaya. For some (young, shy, socially awkward girls across the country) Sanjaya and his slight, soft spoken personality and his boyish looks are reason enough to vote for him. For others Sanjaya represents an opportunity to take control of a major network show with millions of viewers. Howard Stern, Votefortheworst.com and others are all urging America to vote for Sanjaya for the sole purpose of a feeling of power and control over something typically uncontrollable.
The whole premise of Idol is to turn over the vote to the American audience with the idea that they will use their “power” responsibly and vote for the best singer/performer or at least the contestant with the most “star quality”. But what happens if Sanjaya wins? People all over the blogosphere and tv are talking about Idol loosing its credibility. (as if it really had any to begin with— the show is an advertisers wet dream and a marketing monster) But the thing that I find most interesting in all of this is what happens to Sanjaya if he wins? The sweet, innocent, shy, soft spoken Sanjaya is already starting to be changed by his artificially attained position of safety among the remaining contestants. Even Sanjaya is shooting back at the judges with attitude laden comebacks (despite his increasingly absurd hairdos and word-forgetting, whispering performances). His continued presence on the show and the astronomical number of votes he receives are already corrupting Sanjaya.
Despite his lack-luster, passionless performances Sanjaya remains on the show. And by now he and his fellow contestants must be aware of the various movements afoot to keep him on the show. I wonder what affect this kind of “success” has on a person. How do one would deal with knowing that they are getting votes just to piss off a midget (in the case of Howard Stern), or because they are perceived as the worst singer/performer in the competition. If Sanjaya does manage to win, he will always have the knowledge that he did not do so based on his vocal ability. In all likelyhood he will spend the remaining10 minutes of his carrer(unsuccessfully)attemptingto prove that he really can sing. The other (potentially more interestin) option is that he will begin to believe that he truly is deserving of the votes and subsequently the win. Either way these votes, this success has the potential to destroy anything that is truly appealing about Sanjaya— and that is interesting to me.
Is the Sanjaya movement the future of reality television? Is this tv 2.0? This may just be the beginning. As an audience we are manipulating more than just of the results of a tv show. We are manipulating a person’s life and potentially his character. It would seem that we are no longer content to passively watch as the lives of real people unfold before our eyes on the various realty television and competition based shows— we now want to influence and exert control over those shows and indirectly (for now) over someone else’s life. (probably because we feel like we have little control over our own)
Filed under: american idol, life, music, thoughts
