Yay/Nay.

Yay:

David Cook's Grammatical Prowess.

Reading Perez today, apparently David Cook is all hot and bothered that he is being stalked by crazed women who show up at his hotel room, which I completely understand. I once drunkenly gave the wrong guy my phone number and he proceeded to call me the next day about six times all before I got out of work. Not the same, you say? Probably not. Perez says posting a MySpace blog asking to stop the stalking is a douche move [pot calling the kettle black, no?], but considering even I have mentioned David several times on this blog by the virtue of his handsome head of hair and Mariah Carey covering abilities alone, I believe there are probably some severe crazies out there. But regardless of the ethics of such a blog posting, I was most struck by the fact that said post was surprisingly well written for a "celebrity blog." No "lolspeak"! [Which I use, so...whatevs] The phrase "but in contrast"! Words as complex as "muster" and "condemn!" Entire sentences! Periods! Commas! Behold:

ATTENTION!

Hey everyone,
First off, I want to say thank you to everyone who has been coming out to the shows since my last post. The vibe at these shows has been amazing.

Secondly, I have to address some behavior that has become disturbing. We pride ourselves on being accessible to you as fans, but in contrast, we do enjoy what little privacy we can muster. To that end, the efforts by some fans to find our hotel rooms, call our hotel rooms, attach things to our bus, etc., is something I have to condemn. This relationship only works when it remains healthy for both parties, and should this behavior continue, the only thing we can do is take more preventative measures to maintain our privacy, which in turn makes us less accessible to you.

I hope this doesn't come off as harsh. I merely want to nip this in the bud so we can continue to have a great experience with all of you at the shows we have coming up. Take care and see you at the next show.

~D

If the base line for celebrity blogs is Courtney Love and Lindsey Lohan, this blog is basically the War and Peace of celebrity blogs. Which makes me feel a] that David might not actually have written it or b] if he did write it, I really like you now David and maybe I'll show up at your hotel room. We can play Scramble on Facebook for hours, and then make googly eyes to each other while we read Strunk and White's The Elements of Style.
Though you might not want to be so hasty David because according to your MySpace you are playing a show at the Allegan, MI County Fair and it does not bode well for your career that even though I spent the first 22 years of my life in Michigan I have no clue where Allegan County is. So, alas, I have no idea where to appear with my pink and glittery sign that says "I LUV UR GRAMMAR SKILLZ."

[Oh, Google Maps tells me Allegan County is on the west side of the state - the side I ignore, because it gave us Dick DeVos].


Barack watches Gossip Girl!

Barack redeemed himself in my eyes for his Special Olympics gaffe [which let's be honest, probably won't get shoes thrown at you] by mentioning Gossip Girl during a town hall meeting in California. As quoted by New York Magazine:

"Is he on, like, Gossip Girl or something?" —President Obama reacting to the boisterous applause mysteriously awarded to one questioner at a town hall in Los Angeles today

Nothing would make me happier than to know that Barack actually secretly watches GG every Monday night, but I am sure things like leading the free world might get in the way. Maybe he TiVos. At the very least, let's talk guest appearances Barack - Nate is apparently about to get into politics! Perfect!
Also, that is how Barack looked during his own Gossip Girl days ^


Allen Ginsberg Mania!

There is nothing I love more than bald gay men with plastic glasses [that is a lie], but I do love Allen - lines from Howl are in the running for the tattoo I will get when I have money to spend on such frivolous things. And now apparently, there is not one but two - two! - movies in the works about Allen, one starring James Franco and the other starring some random unknown. The one starring James Franco probably has a better chance, considering it also stars John Hamm, Jeff Daniels, Mary Louise-Parker, and David Strathairn. The one with the random also stars some guy from Fantastic Four as Jack Kerouac [ummm.....what?], but also has Ben Whishaw, who was pretty good in I'm Not There.
Speaking of I'm Not There, is it even worth it to make two Allen Ginsberg movies when David Cross and Cate Blanchett already nailed this scene?:


Nay:

The End of Team Juliet?!

At the moment, Juliet is basically the best character on Lost - she is not annoying like Kate, she has proven herself to be kind of a badass [gun fights during canoe chases! delivering babies on the spot in 1977! a Dharma mechanic!], and most importantly, she managed to snag Sawyer for herself and I don't hate her for it. In fact, they make a pretty adorable couple. So please, please, Elizabeth Mitchell do not leave Lost!!! I have never heard of this TV pilot you have been cast in - maybe just as guest! please! - but if you have to leave, please do not leave without giving Karen and I the Juliet/Kate smackdown we having been wanting. Of course, if we had our way you would win this smackdown, hands down. Kate may be an ex-con, but Juliet conned all the castaways into trusting her back in the day - and has proven that she's actually worth trusting. That is, unless this entire thing is a ruse spanning thirty years - and if that's the case, you can go Juliet.


Watchmen

I give you props off the bat for one thing Watchmen - your soundtrack included not one, but three Bob Dylan songs. [Well, two were covers, but still] The bad thing? Did we really need to see someone get his arms sawed off Zack Snyder?! The worst thing? Silk Spectre telling the nuclear Dr. Manhattan that licking him was "like licking a battery." I understand that line isn't in the book, so pay attention to this eye roll. Oh, brother. The worst worst thing? The slow motion CGI-looking sex scene in a flying owl-shaped airplane thing set to Leonard Cohen's original Hallelujah. Maybe that's just because Leonard Cohen kind of creeps me out.
But to be fair, the movie made me want to read the book, because you could tell the movie was trying too hard to live up to something it couldn't. Plus, unlike the movie I hear the book contains a giant fake alien squid, so really, why wouldn't I want to read that?

The best part of the movie was its visual style, and all the best parts are in the trailer [of course]. Plus, stay tuned to the special surprise at the end of the video:

Yay/ Nay.

Yay:

The Road - Cormac McCarthy

Yeah I know this book came out like 2 years ago or so, but working on a Masters can take its toll on your pleasure reading. I heart Cormac, so I am pretty sad it took me this long to read this book, but since I got two copies of The Tales of Beedle The Bard for Christmas I returned one and bought The Road instead [Beedle also gets a Yay! btw]. The Road is disturbing and terrifying and its images of a destroyed world where the only things that exist are ash, a dead grey sea, ruins of cities, crumbling roads and cannibals will probably haunt your dreams [then again, when I read All Quiet On The Western Front I woke up one morning and jumped out of bed in a panic when I heard a fire truck siren because I thought I was getting shelled....so that last thing might only apply to me]. As per usual, McCarthy writes about terrible things beautifully - and the prose is the entire point of this book. There is no plot per say, because well, after the apocalpyse what is there left to plot? In previous books McCarthy pondered how you could describe terrible acts that defy description; but in The Road he asks, what do you talk about when there is nothing left to talk about? His answer? "The ponderous counterspectacle of things ceasing to be." This is one of those books that I had to put down every once in awhile and tell myself that it was all just a story, that this couldn't happen - but in the end I knew just how easily it could. Quite possibly the most depressing book I have ever read, and the perfect antidote to holiday cheer. [Oh and also! They are making a movie! With Viggo Mortensen! Heart!]

Gran Torino

I had no idea Clint Eastwood a] could be funny and b] play a really surprisingly convincing cranky old Polish man. I think I enjoyed the movie because of its setting and filming in and around Detroit - and because the cranky old Polish man was basically a dead ringer for my grandpa. Well, without the action hero-ness. But I give Clint Eastwood props for being an action hero of sorts even when he is nearing 80 - when he utters the lines "You ever get the feeling you fucked with the wrong person? Well, that person is me" he sounds more badass at 78 than most people do when they are young and spry. Even though its slightly predictable, the story itself is rather touching, even though the whole time all I could think about was how the actor who plays Clint's young Hmong neighbor Thao looked just like an Asian David Archuleta. Seriously. Oh, and that the actress who played his spoiled granddaughter plays essentially the same character on Gossip Girl. I probably wouldn't have gone to see this movie if it wasn't set/filmed in the D, but in the end I was pleasantly surprised and happy I saw it.

Nay:

Lame New Year's Eve Telecasts With Ryan Seacrest/ Dick Clark/ Fergie/ Carson Daly/ The randoms over at Fox.

These shows could start at 11:30 and the world would be a better place. Instead they start at 10 and include performances I could do without from the likes of TI, Ludacris, the Jonas Brothers, and I like her, but good god Katy Perry sounds awful live [It sounded like she was singing a bad warbly karaoke version of her own song!] And good lord ABC, just let Dick Clark retire with grace already. And a note to Ryan Seacrest's "special correspondent" Kellie Pickler - DO NOT wear a white coat with matching eyeshadow. For realz. And omfg, my family. Watching the telecast from LA which continued after the ball dropped in Times Square[hosted by the one and only Fergie Ferg!], they revealed their severe lack of knowledge about popular music. Which let's be honest, is probably for the best. My dad thought Jesse McCartney was Paul McCartney's son. He also refered to Natasha Bedingfield as "that girl from American Idol." And my brother asked me which Pussycat Doll was Victoria Beckham. My mother however - rather disconcertingly - knew exactly who Ne-Yo was. Oh and Fox, just give up. I thought you owned Ryan Seacrest, but apparently not as he ditched you for ABC. Everyone else under American Idol contract appeared though, Chris Daughtry's entire band decked out it t-shirts I am 100% certain I saw on the clearance rack at Target. And the camera work was so bad that one shot only contained the top of David Cook's head [this is the one time his incredibly wonky hair worked in his favor, as otherwise we would have had no idea who it was]. And whoever the randoms were Fox tapped to host the show looked like geeks from some random college A/V class they pulled out of nowhere at the last second. Seriously, the one skinny guy in the plastic glasses and poufy coat I am pretty sure I have seen him huddled in the far reaches of the college library. Fergie did a better job as MC! I could have done a better job! Fox, why are you even a network?!

Homemade Incindiary Devices at My Starbucks!!!!

So this is a notice to the jerk who decided to try and pull off some lame prank and make a homemade firework/ incindiary device/ minature bomb and set it off at one of the Starbucks in the Prov. That Starbucks is right next to the bus stop I frequent and when I am early for my bus sometimes I run in there and grab a coffee. I do not appreciate you setting off plastic bottle bombs and nonsense there, and I am pretty sure the general population of Providence doesn't either. I know that Starbucks is taking over the world, and I would actually rather give my business to independent places like Blue State or the Edge or Coffee Exchange because well, their coffee is better - but damnitt that Starbucks is like 4 blocks closer to my house and sometimes its cold and I don't want to walk those 4 extra blocks. Plus, they are genius for building them right next to bus stops! I mean one time that Starbucks gave me hot chocolate when I ordered a latte but I was late for class already [typical] so I just took it anyway - but really, they never did anything else to make me anrgy enough to set off plastic bottle bombs. So calm the fuck down. Peace, love, and no plastic bottle bombs.

Yay/ Nay.

Yay:

808s & Heartbreak - Kanye West

If Bob Dylan was Kanye West and he tried to record Blood on the Tracks in 2008, he might have made 808s & Heartbreak instead. Neither Bob nor Kanye can sing, and neither of them really care. While Bob channeled his graveliness into raw emotion, Kanye takes the opposite approach - covering his voice up in AutoTune, instead stressing the dehumanizing effects of grief and loss. This shift over the course of four decades may actually speak more about society in general than about the artist - after all, we now live in an age when more people might be devastated if Facebook shut down than they would be about losing a significant other. Kanye's trademark wit is sparse here - there are no Klondike/ blonde dyke rhymes - and the rapping that is present, especially from Lil Wayne, is kind of annoying. [Rap on a Kanye West record annoying?! Go figure.] But if you are home alone on that rainy night, this is it.

Plus, leave it to Kanye to make a video that includes women in day-glo body paint:

Single Ladies - Beyonce

Damnitt Beyonce, this song is catchy. I didn't realize I was a fan of Beyonce until I noticed this song has near 40 [forty!!!!] plays on my iTunes. And the video? Kind of awesome. Sure the choreography is sort of spazztastic and that Micheal Jackson-meets-Anakin Skywalker metal glove thing is freaky but I am pretty sure the only person capable of pulling it all off without being laughed at is Beyonce. Oh and If I Were A Boy? Also annoyingly catchy.

Without Justin Timberlake in tights:

Nay:

David Cook - David Cook

This album would have been really good - if it was released in 1998. I have a lot of nostalgia for the '90s, so that probably helped when my friend sent me the YouTube video of David singing Mariah's Always Be My Baby on American Idol. I didn't really know and/or care who he was until I saw that video, but after watching it I thought he was pretty adorable. But it's one thing to cover '90s songs and quite another to release a whole album of them - but since his intended audience is "cougars" who last cared about music in 1998 and 13 year old girls who are too young to remember what music sounded like in 1998, he should probably do alright. And Johnny Rzeznik co-wrote the first song which only proves David probably would have been better off just releasing a cover of say, Iris, than actually having one of the Goo Goo Dolls write songs for him. Or if he wanted to be really brave, maybe he could have covered ...Baby One More Time - I so would buy that.

Oh, and also, why does his music video feature high schoolers? Isn't David Cook, you know, not David Archuleta?

Quantum of Solace

So I have really good memories of Casino Royale, mainly because I watched it for the first time in a rather nice hostel in Switzerland which had the most a.maz.ing instant coffee [for serious!], a week after I had the very James Bond-y experience of waltzing into the casino in Monaco, and just a few a days after I had walked around Venice, the setting for the film's finale. The fitting locales aside, I still thought it was a pretty quality movie [Daniel Craig decidedly helped this verdict]. But while Casino Royale was plot driven, Quantum of Solace shifts to action, action and more action - and the plot that is there is rather confusing [it somehow involves a performance of Tosca, the country of Bolivia, and a MI6 agent named Strawberry Fields]. That being said, there are decidedly worse movies I could have gone to see and I will most likely see the next movie in this franchise. As I said, Daniel Craig should probably be thanked for this.

But Jack White and Alicia Keys sound weirdly good together!