The Annekenstein Monster

I’ve got a huge crush on Prince.  Holy sweet Jesus!
The man owns the stage, owns the falsetto, and may very well own my heart.

Watch it before it gets pulled.

Some people told me they couldn’t view the previous video of Chimp’s Poot, so here’s a YouTube version.

Let me know if you still can’t view it.

… and I love this ad.  I’d definitely shop at The Red House.

I missed last week’s AI, and didn’t review it.

You know what I’m really hating about AI this year?  The childish behaviour of the judges.  Especially Simon and Paula.  I don’t really care that they play-fight, but it irks me to no end when that play-fighting gets in the way of the other judges comments, and thus causing the show to run long.

There.

The performers:

Lil sang I’m Every Woman.  Oh man, baby’s got back-talk.  Yes, she has a huge bum and it was splendidly showcased in tight black spandex or whatever.  Her singing was awful.  The background singers’ vocals drove the song, while Lil hooped and grunted and tried to get soulful.  She failed.  Worst performance of the night.  I hated how she interrupted the judges comments and demanded that her performance wasn’t karaoke.  The issue, Lil, isn’t that it was or wasn’t karaoke.  The issue is you have no idea who you are.  You need to shut up and heed other advice.  Except, I expect you to be gone this week.

Kris sang “She Works Hard For the Money”.  I liked his acoustic, it’s-not-disco arrangement.  I thought his vocals were strong.  I just can’t see Kris as anything other than a light-weight musical entertainer.  Second best performance of the night.

Danny sang “September”.  I found this performance boring and screechy.  He seemed like he was going through the motions.  Didn’t care for this.

Allison sang “Hot Stuff”.  I am liking Allison less and less each week, and I was never much of a fan to begin with.  Another strong vocal, but everything around it – the arrangement, the too-old face, the purple hair, the attitude all brought me down.

Adam sang “If I Can’t Have You”.  Okay, he’s won me over.  I’ve been waiting for him to show his petulant, arrogant side but he’s either just a nice guy, or he’s expert at manipulating his persona.  I quite liked the slowed down version of this song.  And he didn’t ruin it with screechy high-pitched power notes.  Best of the night.  Again.

Matt sang “Staying Alive”.  I mostly liked this, although it did reek a bit of desperation.  And those awful high falsetto notes didn’t win him any fans.  Don’t know if he did enough to stay around.

Anoop sang “Dim All the Lights”.  I wasn’t familiar with this song, or at least this arrangement of the song, and didn’t really care for it.  I thought Anoop sang it well, though, except for that wrong last note which he thankfully cut short.

I’m thinking Lil goes home for sure.  And it’s a toss up between Matt and Anoop.  My suspicion is that Matt will stick around because of last week’s close call, and Anoop will end up this week’s loser of the Saving Matt tactic from last week.

Tell a well-known joke, but keep to the haiku format:  5 syllable line / 7 syllable line / 5 syllable line.

Here’s one from me:

Orange knocks on door
Keeps repeating “Banana”
Annoying, Orange.

Yeah, so I’m late to the Sarah Boyle thing.  You know, the ugly woman who can sing.

In case you’re even more late than me, here’s a picture of her.

It’s true.  She’s beyond ugly.
In all honesty, I haven’t seen the video clip of her singing, and now it’s my goal to never see it.  Just like E.T.

I’m patiently waiting as every single person’s Facebook status eventually makes reference to this “magical voice despite being an ugly person” story.  Once that happens, then we can all move on.

From snippets of conversations and blurbs I can’t help but read on the web, I’ve pieced together the whole clip anyway.  And it goes pretty much like this, I reckon:

A warty dragon shows up to terrorize a talent show in Everinghamshire, England.  At first the villagers don’t understand the dragon, and fear its loathsome warts and fire-ugly breath.  But then, just like in all fairy tales, something magical happens:  the dragon shows its true heart, and the villagers, represented by the burghermeister, come to realize that they, in fact, were the loathsome warts and they possessed the fire-ugly breath all along.  They all become chummy good friends, and the dragon goes on to sign guest appearances for shows like Oprah, the good witch of the east, who coincidentally, without her makeup, makes the dragon look positively darling.  Everyone lives happily ever after: Oprah’s ratings have gone up slightly, a month later a terrifying pirate who masturbates parrots becomes the village’s next thing to be afraid of, and the original dragon goes back to being pointed at and feared by those people in her neighbourhood who don’t have access to YouTube.

Is that about right?

So, here’s a video a guy was compelled to put up on YouTube.  It’s him professing his heterosexuality.  I am assuming that pretty much every word he says is a lie.  To himself, firstly, and then to us.

There are some amazing moments in this video.  From the knick-knack filled background, to the odd animal on the front of his rainbow-like sweater, to the bizarre logic and halted sentence-structure.
On top of all these moments, though, is deep, deep sadness.
I keep envisioning the awfulness of this guy’s life: people picking on him, probably; fights with his family, no doubt; and lots of nights of crying by himself, I imagine.

That said, I admit I did laugh a few times.  The moment, about 7 or so minutes in, when he tries to convince us that’s he’s imagining ladies boobies and vaginas is awesomely fascinating.
Mostly, though, it’s a sad guy living a sad lie of a life in a sad situation. 
What were the circumstances that compelled him to make this and post it?

This pump organ has been in my mother’s family for a couple generations.  She says it’s over 100 years old.

It’s a great looking pump organ.  It does play, not well.  Takes a lot of pumping in order to make sounds.  It would need some work on the bellows, I think, in order for it to be a properly functioning pump organ.

It also comes with stool.

We want to sell it.  If you’re interested, you can drop by and see it, and make an offer.

for more details, contact me at sendit2me@gmail.com

Theme:  Sing a song from the year you were born.

Is there hope for the fake judges?  All three of the Bantam League judges upped their games considerably this week, and actually offered some good, smart, constructive criticism and advice.  Randy didn’t say “for me for you”, not even once.  Kara didn’t get petulent and smarmy and try to offer up suggestions of what should have been sung, and only mentioned “artistry” maybe once.  Paula even had some smart moments of elucidation.  And to top it all off, Simon actually gave a standing ovation.

On to the performers:

Danny Gokey sang “Stand By Me”.  I had no idea Danny was 48 years old.  Because, um, the song was written in, like, 1961.  Oh, I see, you cheated the rules by claiming to sing the version that was released in the year you were born, but didn’t really follow the structure of that version.  Huh.  Anyway, I thought Danny was quintessential Danny.  Great voice, good performance.  A solid opening.  I still think I’d hate to have Danny as a friend, though.  I think he’d always be hitting you up for money, or showing up late, or frustrating you over all kinds of minor things.  Just like John Pritchard.
I agreed 100% with Simon who said “good opening to the song, lazy middle part, and very good ending.”

Kris Allen performed “All She Wants To Do Is Dance”.  This was a song I had happily forgotten about.  Now it’s back in my consciousness.  So, yeah, thanks Kris, for that.  I pretty much agreed with the judges who weren’t feelin’ it, dawg.  Guitar work got in the way of the vocal work.  And neither guitar nor vocal was good enough to be of note.  Still, he’s cute.

Lil Rounds imitated Tina Turner with “What’s Love Got To Do With It”.  Basically, just a bad cabaret performance of someone trying to be Tina Turner, right down to the movements and vocal tricks.  Not a good job.  I’m surprised by the decline of Lil Rounds.  I had thought she’d be a strong contender every week, but she seems to be getting less and less valid as a potential winner (well, potential second place, because Adam’s going to win it, even if he doesn’t win it).  Judges are right:  she’s lost who she is, and now just wanders the stage trying to belt out power-notes.  I find her personality off-putting, too, which doesn’t help.

Anoop Desai crooned “True Colors”.  Anoop settles back into the ballady-emotional guy and does a great job.  Weird apology he made regarding last week.  I’m not really sure what that was about.  Anyway, pretty strong performance from Anoop.

Scott MacIntyre sang “The Search Is Over”.  He got away from the piano, and stood behind a mic, just him and his guitar (and the band).  His guitar playing was pretty bad.  Ugly sounding chord strumming there.  His vocals weren’t much better.  Lots of bad notes.  At least he looked and sounded a bit more passionate than previous weeks.  Still, a pretty rotten job, I thought.  Scott said “I just wanted to show I was versatile before I leave the show”.  Scott, playing mediocre piano and bad guitar doesn’t make you versatile.

Allison Iraheta sand “I Can’t Make You Love Me”.  I swear that before the song was over, I said “I don’t like her personality”, and then Simon went on to talk about how her personality is keeping her from soaring to the top.  She has a wonderful voice, and does a good job with this song, but there’s just something I don’t like about her personality.  Not sure what it is.

Matt Giraud sang “Part Time Lovers”.  Another song I’d have preferred to kept forgotten.  Matt does a pretty good JT version of this song.  Much better than his performance last week.  I think Matt might be the most marketable of all the remaining Idol contestants.

Adam Lambert did “Mad World”.  Another standout performance from Adam.  While I still don’t care for his screeching vocals (which he kept to a minimum here), I can’t deny that the guy is leaps and bounds above all the others in terms of showmanship and talent.  Honestly, in the past few weeks, his personality has been growing on me.  I think I need another bit of big indulgence from him next week to put him in his place in my head.  Why is he a guy I don’t want to like?

Top 4 performers:  Adam, Danny, Anoop, Matt

Bottom 2 performers: Scott, Lil

Scott should be leaving.

First Borat, now Bruno.
Looks like it will be lots of fun.

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