Me and Mother Discuss American Idol

I watch American Idol. So what? Who cares? I don't really watch it for the music, but like any television show, there is some drama to watching a complete season. There are characters, heroes (Crystal Bowersox, Michael Lynch) and villains (Tim Urban, Ellen DeGeneres).

Once in a while you hear a decent performance, and it certainly resurrects the original versions of songs that some viewers would not have otherwise been exposed to (I am sure American Idol contestants botching Hallelujah has lead to discoveries of Jeff Buckley and Leonard Cohen).

Okay, so the point. This morning my mom sent me an email with her recap of last night's American Idol. And well, it turned into a brief back and forth. My mother and I rarely get to discuss things like artistic merit, music, fashion and competition: Spartan's fun zone. Here are some (mostly unedited) highlights.

And for those that argue American Idol is a dumbing down of society, a future blog that will attempt to justify it. For those that argue this entry dumbs down Spartan, a reminder of this.

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Dave's Mom: Crystal - good job; liked it a bunch
Dave: Agreed. She's solid and doesn't need the show anymore.

DM: Right - I don't think she will win because the audience tends to choose less out there singers.
D: Maybe. I just think there are 4 rockers this year and it's rarely an all rock final. So something has to give. I don't really think it's going to hurt her career to be booted early. It might even help.

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DM: Andrew - Karaoke a bit; a bit boring or unexciting
D: Brutal. Worst of the night and surely he'll go home. Song choice has destroyed him. He always picks something lame and light instead of going for gravitas (Can't Buy Me Love and Hound Dog?! Are you kidding me? Your dad was in a gang! Where's your depth and pain?)

DM: Agree 100% with your comments

D: Thank you. And to add: I mean, you have a neck tattoo! Where's your edge?!

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DM: Tim - the Karaoke continues; give this boy a telethon to buy a personality (don't understand why the judges liked it. Perhaps he is wearing them down and they have to start saying something nice about him)
D: I didn't hate this. It was pretty good. Even pretty. I still don't like him and think he's soulless.

DM: Pretty indeed. I do agree that he is soulless.
D: He'll go into cruise control now and only do those songs. He reminds me a bit of Jason Castro now. Empty masquerading as deep and cute masquerading as important.

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DM: Lee - I really like his voice and enjoyed this one possibly better
than Crystal. (Let's call it a tie for now.)
D: Lee was amazing. I like him better than David Cook, who I guess is the most obvious comparison.

DM: He reminds me a bit of Dave Matthews. By the way I LOVED David Cook.
D: Good comparison to Dave Matthews. Look at you! The song Dave Matthews played at the Grammy's was amazing and I can see Lee going that way. I didn't love David Cook. His originality was someone else's originality (doing a version of a song the exact same way as someone else's version is not creative e.g. when he did Billie Jean he was ripping off someone else's version of Billie Jean; sort of how it bugs me when people sing Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah...it's amazing, but it's not amazing to do HIS version...it's Leonard Cohen's song. Do YOUR version Tim Urban!)

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DM: Aaron - Ouch! Started really poorly and went downhill from there. (He will get pre-pubescent votes and remain in the competition however.)
D: I think the pubescent votes got to Tim. Strong finish, great voice, but this guy is in trouble, though in 5 years, you and Dad will buy his album.

(Editor's Note: a brief conversation about Pamela Anderson ensued. Most of that has been redacted. But here's how it ended:)
D: I don't watch Dancing with the Stars. I don't think she's slutty per se. Besides, it seems to keep her rich. She's got maybe 5 more years of people thinking she doesn't look creepy.

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DM: Siobhan - Not my favourite of hers until she got funky toward the end. I don't like her lower register because it sounds like she is trying to be some sex kitten.
D: She's sounding very 70s right now. Which might not be a bad thing. I actually think she's peaked and can't really do anything to surprise. I originally thought she'd be in the top 2, but not anymore. Her song choices haven't helped. If they do a Dusty Springfield week, she'll be fine. They won't.

DM: Too bad because I really like her voice, her look and her attitude. Again, the voters won't keep her around to the final 2.
D: Agreed. Though most people think she sings from her nose. I did like her defence last night.

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DM: Michael - I liked it but think the judges should have let him go last
week. Really nice, pure tones to his voice.
DM: This was amazing. Second or third best of the night and I completely agree with the judges keeping him (especially when Tim is still around). Totally deserves to be in still, and should be top 3.

D: I just think they may need the save for Crystal because the voters aren't smart enough to keep her.
DM: They could use it after the top 5 and she'll surely make it that far. I think voters are smart enough to keep someone like her around. I give the AI audience some credit. Very little though until they turf Katie or Tim.

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D: Katie - Most upbeat, most personality but time for her to say goodbye in my humble opinion - I personally am tired of her.
DM: Dislike her completely. She's got a poor sense of who she can be as a singer. I've agreed with Simon's comments. She's not Mary J Blige. At most, she's Taylor Swift. She was great last week, but I think she should be bottom 3 with the other two young ones.

DM: Total agreement!
D: Cool.

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DM: Casey - I like Casey but this was not his best for me. Too many other really good Elvis songs he could have chosen.
D: I agree with you. He's pretty awesome, and while I'm glad he chose something cool (Hound Dog and Blue Suede shoes are just lame choices from two this week), I think something like You'll Never Walk Alone or something more epic from Elvis would've been good (even Guitar Man, which is a great Elvis song made famous by Jerry Reed!)

DM: Needs a stylist to dress him as well. I know it is tough for the men to look good but Casey looks like he got dressed in the barn before going out to milk the cows. And yet he has that rocker vibe when he sings. Perhaps he could watch some Bon Jovi videos to see how Jon dresses and presents himself on the stage.
D: I disagree with you on every single point there. Are you suggesting Casey should wear leather pants? Casey wears fantastic shirts. I am inspired by how they keep his sleeves rolled up without rolling? I asked Erin, how do you think he does that. Erin thought safety pins. I think it might be a tailored button. Anyway, he isn't looking farmery, he looks blues musiciany (google Derek Trucks who I think he's ripping off a bit). Big ass difference. To say he should be MORE like Bon Jovi is like you telling me I should be more like an accountant. Sure it's respectable, might mean a steady income, but...hm, maybe I should be an accountant.

Home Opener!

...and of course, what better way to prepare for the 2010 Jays' (currently 5-1) season than a cross-blog pollination with Jake Mooney and his optimism project through the Torontoist.

Click here and read not just today's entry by yours truly, but the previous six days which have me feeling pretty damn good about...well...everything. Even Vernon Wells!

It's hard to excerpt something that's less than 300 words, but here's a taste of my treatise which Mooney summarizes as "the ineffable feeling of hope that accompanies the beginning of a new MLB season"

Opening day optimism is a shared secret. Shhhhh, stay sober in the face of perceived conclusion that the Blue Jays’ playoff hopes are obstructed by behemoths of history and finance; the AL East is the terrain of baseball’s best (Yankees, Red Sox, and Devil Rays). A failed optimist lingers on other’s success, on cruel divisional alignments; she transforms to pessimist instantly.

I'll be in the upper deck tonight and expect to see a decent game, a lot of completely hammered white people, and Alex Rios, being escorted by armed guards to and from the dugout each inning. Ah, sport.

Alice Cooper, Tiger Woods, a Big Hump

Although Alice Cooper isn't my favourite metal icon (I bet you're all interested as to who is), the combination of metal and sports is well, arousing.


There are a boat load of comments on this graphic on the Globe and Mail website, and Tiger Woods is probably going to win the Masters this weekend (not coincidentally and quite unnecessarily, Alice Cooper is touring Canada with Rob Zombie right now). Repugnant or reprehensible as one may find Tiger Woods, if he wins the Masters, it will be an amazing sports story .

I can't wait until Dave Mustaine makes his NHL Playoff picks.

Dave says: "Cup Finals...Coyotes and Capitals."

Eva Markvoort

I think we underestimate how athletic each of us are. How, even if we're not "in shape" we can climb a set of stairs, and although we may be winded, we can still breathe. I am guilty of taking for granted that I have yet to come face to face with a major health obstacle: that I sail freely around each room.

This morning, someone I knew, someone I wish I had the privilege of calling a friend, as she seems to have had nothing but a positive affect on people who did have that privilege, passed away after 25 years fighting cystic fibrosis. To me, she was a best friend of my best friends. I cannot claim to have known her, yet, like any star worth following, I felt as though I did.

From her friends in theatre, her friends from the online community, her friends as a result of her activism, and her friends living with cystic fibrosis, there have been and will be many eloquent things written about Eva Markvoort, all of them true, all of them reaching to express what her, her family and her close friends have experienced, screamed, cried and laughed at in these past couple of months since the acceptance that her battle was coming to an end. Without preface or apology, I'm compelled to reach. To acknowledge that good friends, acquaintances, strangers, and friends of friends are better off just to have heard of Eva.

Suit

—For Eva Markvoort

Put this poem in

a pretty book, if I can

put these words in a pretty place,

a next-stop-to-heart-sink kind of spot,

a here lies the meaning of life sort of joint.

And put my body in the perfect suit

if it goes, if it goes, if it’s something

fit for viewing. Dress it up and pin

these words to my lapel, just so,

and pretend my style

really had panache; make it

look like my arrangement meant the world,

or said anything at all, or everything

at once.

Sport Costumes!

kd Lang was great at the opening ceremony. Got a problem with that, hippy?

Some of you may know I'm working on a book of fashion writing with Sean Horlor in a sort of tag team affair of poetry. Added to the writing, we have some really beautiful sketches from Mara Gottler. Sean's much better at promoting this beast than I am, so watch the awkwardness with which I say that next week I will be reading some of these poems from my chapbook Gasmask Summer which is being launched and released by Toronto's Emergency Response Unit.

Launch and release seem to be very powerful and aggressive words for something that weighs less than a pound, but these verbs will be happening Monday, February 22 at 7:30PM at the Magpie in Toronto. (Note: the gold medal game will not be happening at this time or on this night).

Also releasing chapbooks this evening, Elisabeth de Mariaffi, Aaron Tucker, and the boyish and brash Jacob McArthur Mooney, who will soon be entering into a steel cage match of arty sport discussions on either my blog or his or both (or somewhere else - these negotiations take time).

In writing the poems for this book, I've been thinking about clothes pretty much non-stop for a year and a half. It's to the point where if we've seen each other in that time, I probably looked you up and down for ideas. But what I really want to discuss: last night's figure skating costumes. Not all of them; I'm sure there's a site for that. But this one:

Tatiana Volosozhar (she's graceful) and Stanislav Morozov (he hates the chaffing)

These two are certainly athletes. I am in no way making fun of figure skaters. Even when they fall, they are doing something that very few people could ever do, and with the exception of lugers, aerialists and VANOC organizers probably have the most Olympic balls of any of the participants (Jake, there's a possible discussion).

But even the commentators couldn't withhold their giggles at these beauties (and two of them WERE figure skaters!). Highlights were David Pelletier (gold medalist - pairs figure skating) saying that "this is sport not a carnival" and Rod Black (sports analyst, someone I got drunk with at a 2001 Winnipeg social: pictures forthcoming) claiming the skaters were "channeling their inner Avatar." I'll likely have something new written about these blue beauties for next week's Magpie launch.

I feel like Joan Rivers, excited to see what the Ukrainians will be wearing tonight.

Sidenote: I also met Joan Rivers, but didn't get drunk with her. She kept calling me Barry. I didn't correct her.

Who are you wearing, Barry?

Andre Dawson and other Funny Names

Andre Dawson (AKA The Hawk) doesn't want to enter the hall of fame as an Expo (a team he played ten years for, a team no longer in existence), but rather, a Chicago Cub (a team that will probably still be around in 100 years if baseball is). Though a lot of Expos "fans" are upset, it does make sense to want to enter the Hall of Fame with a city where there are still fans to clap you in. Compare it to finishing a marathon in 5 hours (when most participants are finishing and so there are loved ones at the finish line) to completing a marathon in 16 hours, where only the city's clean up crew is there, and really, they don't care. They've got more problems than your silly bourgeois fun-run.

Upon his 2003 induction, Gary Carter (#8, Caucasian, pictured below) asked to be let in as half Expo/half Met. This seems reasonable, but baseball is nothing if not unreasonable, and he was indeed inducted as a Montreal Expo. With class, Carter said a few words in French, and life, as it does, went on. But The Hawk seems to want to do no such thing. It took Dawson nine tries to be elected into the Hall of Fame, which is hardly evidence of a no-brainer decision, so he probably shouldn't complain (as Craig Gary Greenham likens it "It's like begging for a dinner invitation and then publicly whining about the dessert."). The puppy dog reaction to this story from "Expos' fans" (of which I was once one) is just another symptom of baseball nostalgia, of the good old days gone by. He never loved us. We know that now. Though this time, it's hit us where it hurts: right in our Canada.

Hey, Gary, did you hear the one about Phyllis Mangina? You didn't? Then check out the next section.

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Hi, I'm Dick Butkus, but you probably know me as the coach on every 1980-90s sitcom (except Coach)

Ah, names. This link below is both nostaligic (Ron Tugnutt and Dick Butkus) and informative (Phyllis!). From the file of things I should have been researching, comes one of the most well done photo-retrospectives I have ever seen. Props to the site Manofest (hey, they're on theme) for multiplying masculinity times infinity!

Take a look at:
The 30 Dirtiest Names In Sports History

Lakers versus Celtics: The Video Game

James Worthy taking it to Robert Parish as Dennis Johnson watches

I still haven't found a way to watch and enjoy NBA basketball, though there was one phase where I was an authority on the great 1980's rivalry of the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics. Okay, so I didn't understand the cultural significance of the rivalry. Perhaps I still don't. The Celtics, led by two white guys (Larry Bird and Kevin McHale), played for Catholic pride in the birthstate of basketball against the Lakers, led by the cocaine flash of Magic Johnson and Lew Alcinder (AKA Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). There has been much written on the politics of this rivalry, Chuck Klostermann's essay '33' among the best (though whoever wrote the Lakers-Celtic Rivalry wikipedia article did a hell of a job too).

But little, if anything, has been written on the significance of the video game Lakers versus Celtics, a video game I spent hours playing on my Tandy 1000 in 1990. Born of necessity (my Nintendo was broken and I suspect my Mom had sabotaged disk two of Leisure Suit Larry III: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals), Lakers versus Celtics was my first flirtation with the sedentary lifestyle I regularly now practice of sitting in front of a computer for hours.

Grade seven was not a stellar academic year for yours truly. I actually failed grade 7 art. This is, in part, due to the hours I spent on this video game when I probably should have been, I don't know, making a collage. But to me, Lakers versus Celtics was all the art I needed. Just look at all those colours as Magic lines up for a free-throw. Also note the awesome detail of Kareem Abdul Jabar's goggles (yellow number 33).

Looks like a brick

Computers were still a mystery. Good for little more than pretending I was going to write a novel or playing video games. In 1986, Ferris Bueller changed his attendance records from home; in 1990 Screech created a fully functioning Robot named Kevin. But the idea of a computer functioning externally was not on my radar. The solitary and private intimacy of playing Lakers versus Celtics was akin to reading a book (did I mention grade 7 was not a stellar academic year?).

This might not seem like much now, but this was the first video game I remember with real players. Actually, this still might not seem like much. But these were the days of Nintendo's Ice Hockey where the most identity a player had was to be Fat - Skinny - Medium (and from one of six countries, including, if the following picture is correct, Poland).

Go Poland!

Lakers versus Celtics is over 20 years old. For the hours I spent on this game in my soft-brain years, the actual sport of basketball never caught on with me. In fact, video games have never really been a part of my life either (I couldn't finish Super Mario Brothers until I was in my twenties). However, sitting in front of computers has been a giant part of my life. Though we all have our reasons for our computer habits (work, information, keeping in touch, porn), I can trace it all back to Robert Weatherby, Don Traeger and Michael Hosaka - the pushers of my pre-internet fixation with staring at bright colours and sports statistics, when there was probably something else "meaningful" I could be doing: a collage, protesting government, attending Conan O'Brien rallies, checking up on that whole environment thing, reading, writing...

Where does the time go?