TV & Beyond!

American Idol

Overall tonight's performances by the guys were really good. There were about three or four of the twelve who didn't do as well, but the majority rocked. I'm loving the 29 year old fully gray headed guy that sings and moves like Joe Cocker. He's so unique and different from anyone else.

There are just some great singers this season, and I honestly, and not so secretly, wish I were among them. There are a couple I'm wondering how in the world they got this far and will probably be cut tomorrow night. But there is so much great talent this year unlike previous years there's no real clear cut winner at this stage.

In Season 1 there was no doubt in anyone's mind Kelly Clarkson was going to win.

In Season 2 everybody pretty much knew Reuben would win, with Clay proving to be a close second about halfway through the competition.

In Season 3 it was pretty apparent at least by week 3 that Fantasia was it.

In Season 4 Carrie was a shoe in and Bo was a shoe in for second.

This season it's not going to be so easy. My favorites thus far are Chris Daughtry, Ace, Elliot, Katherine MacPhee, the two youngest girls, Paris and I don't recall the other's name, and Tyler.

One thing that really psyched me up was something Elliot and Randy said. Ryan Seacrest made mention that Elliot was the rebel in that he didn't do any warm up excercises outside of just singing. After he went out and sang tonight, which garnered the response from Simon that he was the best male vocalist in the history of the show, Randy commented on the warm up exercises. He stated that "When you got it you got it. You don't need no special tea or lozenges, you just got it".

See, I sang in my church choir from the age of 13 until last year, which is a total of 15 years. And for most of those years our choir only consisted of 4 people or less. Now it's got about 7-10. But our choir leader, who is also my Pastor's daughter and five months my junior has always pressed hard on certain singing techniques.

The thing about Jessica is she's a bit naive and a bit of a sucker. She goes to other churches and sees them do something and jumps all over it. If it's a big church it must be the right thing to her. If they have a huge choir then they must know everything.

One once told her to drink orange juice like there was no tomorrow, and she tried to enforce this on us. I knew that any acidic juice drank constantly like that, and especially before you sing strips your vocal chordes and eventually wears them down. But she would never listen to me. After years of doing this she finally found out from someone she supposed more credible than I, who comes from a very musical family no less, that I was right, though she never admitted it. Her voice isn't what it used to be because of that and some other stuff.

Anyway, her latest craze last year was this absolutely ridiculous vocal tape of all kinds of over exaggerated exercises that I just couldn't get into. I have always only just sang a bit to warm my voice up, maybe hummed. To hear a professional concur really boosted me tonight!

Just thought I'd share. :)


Lost

The pilot episode aired tonight, and I was fortunate enough to tape it. Since I missed the entire first season I can now at least see the episode that started it all. One of these days I will get the season one DVD. It's just too rich for me right now.


Comics

I didn't get to pick any up today sadly. But I've still got several here I've been hanging onto for times like this. So I'll be alright. Once I'm able to buy again on a consistent basis I'm going to try ("try" being the operative word) to do a review a week here in the blog of anything that either really appeals to me or really doesn't.

In my own projects, I heard back from the artist and editor of one title yesterday and today, so I know everyone's still out there working on it. More on that once I've got something concrete to share.

I'm really considering some options that I won't go into detail about just yet. I don't mean to be ominous or suspensful, I just don't want to put a seed out there then change my mind about it. Suffice it to say that I am contemplating expanding my horizons in certain areas as I'm not completely satisfied with where my current level of involvement in these areas is taking me.

There's some words to think on and speculate about for ya. ;)

B-Out