6:50 pm: OK, this is more like it. Hey guys, are we ready for two bloated hours of movie previews, pitchy performances from has-been former stars, and the coronation of a new American god? Yup, me too. Can’t wait!
6:54 pm: So, I have a bit of housekeeping to take care of before the show starts. Here’s what I get for not paying attention last night: neither Archie nor Jughead actually sang the true 2008 American Idol Coronation track last night. Because of last year’s “This is My Now” trainwreck (which, some say, unfairly tipped the scales in favor of Jordin over the more electrifying Blake when they both had to sing it in ’07’s performance finale), the producers decided to let each David pick their favorite from the top ten entries in the songwriting contest, and decided to save the winner for tonight’s show.
6:56 pm: The winner is called “Time of My Life” and it was written by a guy called Regie Hamm, whose name you may or may not recognize. He released a terrific album called American Dreams in 2003, and I’m pretty sure nobody but my deranged ass owns it. And/or loves it.
6:58 pm: At some point during this evening’s festivities, I’ll figure out how to link to Amazon’s Regie Hamm page so that you can check it out. It’s a very good album.
7:00 pm: It’s finally here! Is David Cook wearing a Nehru jacket, for the love of Jesus?!
7:10 pm: Due to an agricultural emergency (don’t ask), I’m a little late in liveblogging the “American Idol” finale. That’s what I get for hyping this to you people!
7:11 pm: At any rate, dinner is ready (and a tad burnt), the TV’s on, and we’re ready to go. I haven’t missed a performance yet, but I’m fifteen good minutes late in introducing you to the cast of characters. Screw it; we’ll do it on the fly.
7:14 pm: Good lord, Daddy Clive is picking songs again. Remember that year he picked “Open Arms” for Elliott Yamin and he blew it?
7:15 pm: Who put Andrew Lloyd Webber in charge of the peanut gallery?
“In the first 45 seconds of the reading… I [was] sitting there and I thought, ‘Okay, this is too embarrassing. I can’t say to anybody, ‘What is this about?” Because it’s a farce; it’s falling down funny! And they’ll just die laughing at me if I say, ‘Well, we have to figure out what it’s about.’ And I felt like a fool. So we start to read, and right at the beginning, [star] Tim [Curry] says, ‘I’m King Arthur, and these are the Knights of the Riiiind Table.’ And I thought, ‘Well, of course. It’s about class. It’s English. Everything English is about class. It’s their only subject!'”
— legendary director Mike Nichols, explaining to Charlie Rose the process of getting the Broadway musical Spamalot on its feet
After a brief hiatus (for which you can blame A — he popped into town for the weekend, and we spent that time alternately vegging at the movies — if you miss 21 on the big screen, do NOT let it (and the wickedly handsome Jim Sturgess’ exhilarating, star-making performance, not to mention typically snarky work from Kevin Spacey) escape you on video — and making pigs of ourselves at our fave restaurants — and if, by some cosmic accident, the poor woman who waited on us at Marie Callender’s Friday night is reading this, please know: A did NOT mean to take your head off when you asked him that benign salad question), the Buzz is back, and with a major announcement, to boot: the end of “American Idol’s” seventh season shall blissfully cross paths with this here spankin’ new multimedia platform of mine (which today celebrates its one month anniversary) tomorrow and Wednesday, whereupon the Buzz will venture into uncharted waters and take its first stab at liveblogging.
A and I have a tendency to IM each other while watching the big, splashy events (y’know, the Grammys, the Oscars, etcetera), and since I’m rarely at a loss for witty sarcasm during these moments, he always tells me that the world at large should be privy to these confabs. This week, at their discretion, they will be: both Tuesday and Wednesday evening, starting at 7pm central daylight time (perhaps a bit earlier, if I’m feeling especially fired up), the Buzz will document urry riveting second of “Idol’s” epic Battle of the Davids as it happens, and you’re all invited to join in on the fun. Set an alarm if you must, but don’t miss this.
I’ve spent the past thirty-some hours, Syesha, trying to summon something even remotely interesting to say about you and your tenure as one of this year’s top twelve. And to my dismay (and even slight horror), there’s just nothing there, my darling. Despite the fact that you never once had a true knockout performance, you were expert at straddling the median (even in your best weeks, you weren’t as good as Brooke or Michael, two unfortunate victims of your phenomenal lucky streak; neither, however, were you as abominable as Kristy Lee or Jason, each of whom now flank the incomparable Sanjaya as “Idol’s” most stunningly inept semifinalists). Most weeks, you were so unassuming that America seemed to altogether forget how unremarkable you really are.
Consider this, Ms. Mercado: the “Idol” highway is liberally littered with the carcasses of contestants who well inhabited your very niche, and be they ridiculous (season five’s Mandisa, anyone?) or sublime (how many folks still believe “Idol’s” original diva Tamyra wuz robbed all those years ago?), you’ve managed — save one, who ended up winning the whole enchilada by plumbing the American songbook and brilliantly fleshing out, of all things, a Gershwin tune (!) from the ’30s — to place higher than any and all of them.
As I whispered in Brooke’s ear two heartbreaking weeks ago, there is nothing you could have done to alter last night’s verdict. Syesha, you could literally be Whitney, and it would still have been all for naught: ever since Mr. Cook turned Lionel Richie’s shockingly schlocky “Hello” into the coolest grunge ballad this side of “Plush,” the forthcoming David Squared face-off has been in the cards. You must have known your great fortune — however remarkable heretofore — was never gonna derail that train.
Simon predicts a “humdinger” for next week. Get yourself a front row seat, Syesha, and watch the fireworks unfurl.
“What I tell straight people in my stand-up is, if you watch ‘Will and Grace’ but don’t support gay marriage, then fuck you. Taking the flowers of a culture without easing the burden of minority is like when white people took rock & roll from black people in the ’50s: ‘I love that song, but please don’t use that drinking fountain.'”
— comedienne Margaret Cho, sounding off on same-sex unions
a stanza of innocently foreboding prose (swathed in a brilliant beat, no less) courtesy of good ol’ Gordon Sumner:
“There’s no religion / but sex and music
There’s no religion / but sound and dancing
There’s no religion / but line and color
There’s no religion / but sacred trance
There’s no religion / but the endless ocean
There’s no religion / but the moon and stars
There’s no religion / but time and motion
There’s no religion / just tribal scars….”
— from Sting‘s 2003 smash “Send Your Love”
Coming soon: the mission statement hits a (roughly) thrilling crescendo.
names dropped with reckless abandon: quotable, Sting
Comments Off on the mission statement, roughly (interlude, or: listen closer — ain’t no prayer but the one I’m singing)
According to the stats provided to me by WordPress (and lord only knows how credible they are, but I take them to heart nonetheless), the Buzz will be viewed for the thousandth time at some point today. (As I type this, we currently sit at 996 “hits.”)
We’re not even flying at 30,000 feet yet, but this crazy, demented exercise in loquacity — love ya, Mike! — has already been far more successful than I would ever have dreamed a month or two ago.
So to all of you who have allowed my madness to touch your life on even the most superficial level, I offer a sincerely heartfelt word:
“Oh, look at this, it’s 96% fat free ham. Ham is fat free? Ham is fat free?! Did you know that ham was fat free? Oh, it’s a what? A pig? Isn’t that the universal symbol for fat?”
— the always welcome Susan Powter, with one of a multitude of worthy pullquotes from 1993’s original Stop the Insanity infomercial
Notwithstanding, for sure, your ingeniously flukish performance of Jeff Buckley’s (by way of Leonard Cohen’s) “Hallelujah,” I never had much use for you, Jason. Your dull, dirty hair — which, I swear to Jesus, I want to wash for about three or four days — is easily the most fascinating thing about you. You’re almost certainly not cognizant enough to feel guilty about robbing my beloved Brooke of another shot to build on the momentum of her sensational comeback last week; after all, sir, you couldn’t even summon, when you needed it most (!), the ONE lyric from “Mr. Tambourine Man” — the one about the jingle jangle morning, natch, and something tells me you’ve known a few of those, am I right? — that even people who can’t sing that song on a bet know!
Not since the outrageously outmatched Nikki McKibbin squeaked into season one’s top three has a more obviously underqualified contestant reached “Idol’s” vaunted upper echelon, which I s’pose proves as handily as anything could that old canard about fooling all of the people some of the time. Chin up, Jase: in time, you’ll become the most famous opening act at luaus the world over, and you’ll recall — no doubt with wistful, flippant fondness — the season you and your stringy, matted mane magnetized a nation’s entire electorate toward voting with its thumbs for the happy busking hobo.
“I’m a fan of science. I believe in science. I’m… humility before the facts… I find that a moving and beautiful thing. And belief in the unknown, I find less interesting. I find the known and the knowable interesting enough.”
— House star Hugh Laurie, discussing whether or not he shares his character’s skeptical streak, on Inside the Actors Studio.
I ask you without a trace of insincerity or jest: when was the last time you turned on the radio and felt like you were hearing a true musical event?
Those righteously brilliant mavericks Sugarland are yet again tossing country radio on its tin ear this spring, and this time, they’ve gotten a little help from their friends. Last fall, the duo — led by the divine and fearless Jennifer Nettles, who may well be the finest, most striking vocalist to be found on the current dial — toured with up-and-comers Little Big Town and Jake Owen, and all three acts decided to corral their disparate voices and close each show with a thrilling, towering cover of The Dream Academy’s 1985 classic smash “Life in a Northern Town.”
A video of the spectacular performance has been streaming at cmt.com (and playing on the network) for months now, and in the last few weeks, thanks solely to a series of enterprising program directors poaching the audio directly from said video, the song has become a sensation at radio and is skyrocketing up the country charts. Sugarland’s label, MCA Nashville, continues to insist there are no plans to make “Northern Town” commercially available, but we’ll see how long that lasts as this thing continues its brisk march toward #1. When record labels realize they’re leaving gobs of money on the table, they tend to overturn their own dumbass decisions real quick-like.
Sugarland, Little Big Town, and Jake Owen,
in a special performance from April 2008’s CMT Music Awards:
