Author Archives: Rob MacD

OMG!!!  Could you believe it when Paula said something negative about one of the contestants’ performance?  I was like SHUT UP!  Tammy, what are you wearing to school tomorrow?  Don’t wear your pink Hello Kitty because I’m wearing mine, kay?  And Anthony the Russian likes you.

Sorry.
I was just trying to get into the mindset of a 13 year old MSN Messenger girl because:
a) I go undercover on chatlines trying to trick perverts into  thinking I’m  13 and available, just part of the sting.
b) I want to try to understand the mentality that keeps voting for Anthony the ArMuEsRsIiCaAnN to stay in American Idol.
c) It just really turns me on.

Here’s my oh-so-important opinion about last night’s performances.  Ignore as you see fit:
The order in which I remember them:

Nadia:  She wears a red short short tina turner "I’m Still Sexy, Dammit!" dress, and it looks great.  She looks great, with legs that don’t quit.  Too bad her song was so dreadfully boring.  It was sung well (I thought) but there was just something lacking.  Nadia is in danger of Bottom Three tonight.  Oh, and she’s gotta be careful of those mouth contortions too.  Sure, sure, emote all you want, and the tina turner scowl face can look good if employed for just a sec, but when tina turner turns into the Rober DeNiro "I’m holding a pistol at your head, and I’m angry, and I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you" look…well, then you got problems.

Bo: I’m not a fan of Bo, even though, apparently, the rest of the world is.  His rendition of Free Bird was not very good in my opinion.  I’m not sure if it’s the song, or his version, but it seemed to consist of only 6 notes, sung in random order, over and over and all emitted with a "rock" grrrr through clenched rock balls.  Bo has lost some of his early favourite status, I’d say.

Scott:  I agree with Simon that many of Scott’s notes were not the right ones.  But, he sang them with heart and soul and conviction, and when you do that, well that cancels a lot of the mistakes.  I thought this was Scott’s best performance so far, and he even seems to be letting that Psycho Killer persona drop a little bit.  Heck, he was even smiling last night.  I think of all the contestants, Scott is the one who can best explore the emotion in a song.

Anwar:  Technically the best singer in the competition?  Technically the most consistently under-performing contestant.  Oh Amway, I’ve given up on you.  You have yet to show us the voice and emotion and joy that lies somewhere within you.  You are a singing robot, coded to sing the correct notes.  If it’s not too late (that is, if you don’t get booted off tonight, which is a real possibility) you need to become a human boy and discover your beating, blood-pumping heart.  If you make it past tonight, then no more do I want to hear: "the song I’m singing tonight is 1000100101001000110001111001010011001010001."

Anthony: Blech.  Blonde hair, blue eyes, good looking.  You remind me of a younger me.  Blech.  At least he performed the best I’ve seen him yet.  And that was still the worst of the bunch.  Anthony’s biggest problem is a weak voice.  In a singing competition, that’s a pretty serious problem.  But seeing as this is a popularity contest, keep on trucking, A-Fed.  I’ve already wasted more words on you than I think you deserve, but here’s a couple more: You shouldn’t be in this competition.

Carrie:  Guess what, world!  Carrie Rocks!!  Unfortunately, she doesn’t rock very well.  If you can, look at a replay of her performance last night.  She was most definitely there in body, but look behind the eyes, and she was a million miles away.  She also sings like a robot, if you ask me.  But a root that has had its emotion chip installed a thousand years ago.  That robot, you see, has long ago given up the quest to actually feel, think, emote like a hu-man.  All it can do is be almost hu-man.  Carrie is almost hu-man.

Vonzell: Oh Vonzell, I may have misjudged you.  I’ve called you on the lacking emotion in song earlier, but I think you must have found a couple of bags of Constantine’s Extra Emotion Elixir ™, because the last two weeks, you’ve brought your quality way up.  Last night, I thought she was the best of the bunch.  Let’s hear it for the girl!

Constantine:  Okay, Constantine was obviously rope-a-doping the competition in the early rounds.  Last three weeks. though, he’s been dynamite.  Last night’s "Bohemian Rhapsody" was a risky choice (I thought. Always dangerous to tackle an iconic song like that.  Just ask Simon about Free Bird.) but he did a great job with it.  I may even be succumbing to his smoldering eyes and pouty mouth.

Bottom Three tonight:
Anwar, Nadia, Carrie

Leaving:
Nadia

My very good friend, CBC Mainstreet host and Sketch22 compatriot, Mort Rainnie, turned me on to this funny article about last night’s The Amazing Race.

Mort found it funny.  I found it funny.  If you are watching this round of TAR, you will most likely find it funny.

This article makes me sad.
Apparently, Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster is going to learn about moderation in his eating habits.  He’s going to learn that cookies are a "sometimes food" not an "anytime food".
I understand the reasoning behind this, I really do.  But I can’t help but think that it’s wrong.

The cookie monster is the cookie monster.  Gorging himself on cookies is the very point of his being.  They are taking away is very purpose.  Let Elmo learn to be healthy, but for the love of the children, leave Cookie alone.  Let him be what he is.

Let’s all go eat cookies.  Right now.  Lots of them.  Everyone, eat a protest cookie.  Eat two.  Eat fifty!!!

Last night I watched Popcultured, the new half-hour "comment on popculture" comedy show with Elvira Kurtz on The Comedy Network.
I thought it was pretty bad.  Not funny to me at all.  I’m not really sure what the format is supposed to be, but there was far too much single person monologuing going on.  And none of it were very interesting, nevermind funny.

Elvira really needs to stop smiling and appreciating the humour of what she says.  It’s not good when the performer gets the biggest kick out of the material.  Her opening monologue was dull and full of fairly tame Jay Leno type current event jokes. Later, she did a bit on lip injections which basically culminated in her making faces at big pictures of celebrities.  Cheap and boring and bad.
Other segments included some woman’s review of The DaVinci Code (or, rather, a review of people’s perception of it, I’m not really sure what it was about, truthfully) and wasn’t nearly as smart as she thought it was.  Another woman did another monologue opinion-piece type thing that I wouldn’t even be able to remember if I was hypnotized specifically to bring up that memory.  Some guy did some on location video piece on gift bags at the Junos, and it was surprisingly bad.  Surprisingly bad in a show where expectations had continually plumetted, so that at the point when his segment came on "bad" was the expectation, and it still surprised me.  So, that’s pretty bad.
Then Elvira interviewed some celebrity reporter from, I think, The National Post, and it was a terrible segment.  Appallingly full of entirely nothing of value in any entertaining way. 
And the show ended.

The production was poor.  I don’t know whether it was live, but it sure looked live, because words were  stumbled over far too often (if it was taped, the director would/should have, a number of times, stopped the taping and had the performer speak more clearly).  No interesting set design to speak of.  It’s also not good when a tv audience hears only a smattering of laughter from the studio audience.  It sounded like there were about 10 people in attendance.  Either get enough people to fill the room and get them to be very generous with their laughter, or cut the audience laughter out entirely.  It sounds bad when it sounds like so few people laughing.

They really need to rethink the "you do your funny bit segment, then I’ll do my funny bit segment, then you do another funny bit segment, etc." routine and come up with some interesting look and feel.  As the show was presented last night, there was no flow, no direction, no focus.  It was just people saying things about things.  Standing and saying things.  Things that weren’t that interesting.  The show desperately needs a look and feel and format.
How about getting some sofas, chairs a couple of TVs and turn the set (which is now basically "Nothing") into a giant funky living room.  It’s the living room where people experience pop culture so it makes sense to talk about it there too.  Instead of the "I do my segment, then we cut to your segment, then cut to another segment" style, have the half hour unfold in a more informal manner, and let the segments flow naturally from one to another, with the other cast members on hand all the time, sitting around on couches, chairs, eating pizza or whatever.

As it is now, Popcultured is not worth anyone’s time.  It’s cable-access bad, and The Comedy Network needs to be airing better Canadian programming.