Chaos Theory

Last night I watched the American Music Awards for the sole purpose of seeing Adam Lambert’s live performance. I was so let down. There’s been a lot of backlash about how explicit and “lewd” it was between the bondage dancers, the S&M implications (uhh, that’s no surprise, haven’t any of those people complaining heard the lyrics?), and the simulated guy-on-guy oral sex. I didn’t care much about that, it takes some serious effort to actually shock me. I did think that maybe the AMAs weren’t the place for it, it would have been better suited to a concert instead of prime time television, but eh.

What disappointed me was that he was so busy running around for the performance, playing the part, that his vocals fell by the wayside, and the fact that the sound mix sucked all night didn’t help him either. Anyone who never watched American Idol and was just hearing him perform for the first time would probably think that he can’t sing and that’s just not true. Adam’s a very talented singer and a stellar performer but neither of those were showcased last night. I hope his next live performance is better!

I have to say though, I got his album today and I’m loving it so far so there’s that!

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I knew that Monday would be in full form when I accidentally slept through three cycles of my alarm. It’s set for 6:15, I hit snooze and it goes off again at 6:24, then at 6:33. That last time I resign myself to getting up and starting the day (having a morning routine is rough when you’re a night owl!).

Today I didn’t really hear the first alarm go off. Part of me did since I reached over and smacked the snooze button but I was still in dreamland so it didn’t really register. When I heard it go off the second and third time I was off by one count so I went back to sleep before realizing I was supposed to be downstairs with the dog by then. Oops.

Luckily Hayley managed to get moving pretty quickly – something she’s not great at either on a Monday. We hurried along and she managed to be on time for school so there’s that at least.

George sent me back to bed for a bit since he knew I was really tired and that helped a bit too. The rest of the day went off relatively well so at least Monday only taunted me with that one mishap. I’ve had far worse Mondays than that.

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There was one very good thing about this particular Monday. I landed myself another writing job and will now be posting several times a week over at PhotoBlog. I only have one post up so far, but I’m very excited. I’m also looking forward to a very awesome-looking site redesign over there as well. I’m very thankful to Laura (are you still going by “Laura”? Have you come “out” with your real name yet? Hmm, nope, okay I’ll keep hush-hush then!) who suggested me to the editor when he mentioned he was looking for someone to take it over and start writing regularly.

Please go ahead and take a look at my first post, I’m always inexplicably nervous when I post somewhere new so if you’d be inclined to leave a comment or something, I’d be grateful!

What’s that? Eh? Oh, sorry. My tea and cake are calling to me and it would be rude to ignore them!

I had something else that I planned to write for this post but then I was horror-struck when my Blogathon monitor Pico commented that she had never seen American Idol before.

After I recovered from the shock (hee!) I decided this would be a good time to show you a clip of six of my favorite contestants on American Idol:

1. Obviously, Ms. Original, Kelly Clarkson – “Because of You” (live on some show, one of my favorites of her songs)
   
2. Clay Aiken – “Bridge Over Troubled Water” live on AI:
   
3. Blake Lewis – “You Give Love a Bad Name” live on AI, beatboxer extraordinaire!
   
4. Carrie Underwood – “Alone” live on AI (forgive her hair, it was 80′s week!)
   
5. David Cook – “Hello” live on AI (this was my turning point where I knew I was rooting for him)
   
6. Adam Lambert – “Mad World” studio version (this was so ridiculously amazing, seriously)
   

There you go Pico! Now you can be addicted like the rest of us next season!

Please consider sponsoring me while I do the Blogathon for the UNHCR!

Earlier today (at some point) I mentioned that I love American Idol. That’s not news for anyone who comes by my blog regularly – I look forward to it every year and get way too emotionally invested in people I don’t know. I’m also still irritated that they canceled Canadian Idol this season, boo, hiss!

Anyway.

Over the years I have always had a favorite that I was pulling for, but some were more important to me because I really liked their voice. My favorites were Clay Aiken (though with the Crazy Clay fans and his diva-esque behavior in the past, that’s almost embarrassing now, but he really had an incredible voice), Carrie Underwood, David Cook, and of course this season’s Adam Lambert.

But first there was Kelly Clarkson. I actually didn’t watch the first season from the start. I didn’t think I’d be interested in a singing competition show. Little did I know that years later I’d be so passionate about the damn show that I would yell at the TV, hop up on my couch like Crazy Tom Cruise on Oprah (that was when David Cook won, for the record), and basically freak out a lot.

However, I watched the last two episodes and knew right away that I wanted Kelly to win. Many seasons later, she can still show exactly why she won and why she’s still the Original American Idol. Because she is AMAZING.

George and I are watching Saturday Night Live right now and she performed two songs tonight, including her new single, “I Do Not Hook Up”. Obviously I can’t show you THAT performance but here’s one that she did on GMA. She is always so good and one of the few people who manages to sound great on talk shows where the sound isn’t usually very good.

I’ve been more invested in other Idol winners since then but she definitely maintains a regular spot on my iPod!

For those who are Canadian, my favorite Canadian Idol has always been Kalan Porter. I’ve liked others since him but Kalan was just seriously awesome. See?

Do you watch AI? Who’s your favorite?

I apologize for posting two videos in a row, but anyone who has been reading me for awhile knows that I am a huge fan of both American Idol and Canadian Idol. Last year I was cursing the fact that, as a Canadian, I couldn’t vote in support of David Cook.

This year, I found myself initially a bit ambivalent, but I’ve ended up becoming a *huge* Adam Lambert fan. I also really like Danny Gokey quite a lot and would most likely love his music when he puts an album out in the future, but after the past several weeks I fully expect that Adam is going to win this season and after last night’s performance I really think it would be beyond shocking if he doesn’t. Check this out, from last night’s “standards” theme:

As soon as it was over and the judges thew their praises upon him I immediately fired up Skype and started discussing how amazing that was with my fellow Idol fan.

Are you watching? Who are you pulling for?

(I promise I’ll have an actual *content* post up soon!)

What made my night last night, in no particular order…

1. David Cook winning American Idol. I didn’t babble much about Idol over here but I was a DC fan since the night of the top 20 – as Renee Zellwegger once said, he had me at “Hello”. I wasn’t sure if he would win but I was hoping for it. And so I apologize if I disturbed anyone last night with my wild screaming and Tom Cruise-style couch jumping. I only wish I was joking about that last part. I get a little emotionally invested.

2. David Cook singing “Sharp Dressed Man” with ZZ Top.

3. An unexpected and unintentional moment of humor. My satellite box took a nose dive so I was stuck watching it with a fuzzy antenna reception (yeah that was as fun as it sounds). I left the room and returned to hear someone singing and I thought, “Oh my god. Who is that? He’s TERRIBLE. Which freakin’ booted off contestant IS that, I can’t see him. He sucks.” And then I realized it was Bryan Adams. Oops. He’s fallen a long way from the days of “Summer of 69″.

4. Archie singing with One Republic especially when he sounded BETTER than the lead singer.

5. Carrie Underwood showing exactly why she won her season by putting on a stellar performance.

6. Chatting with Jeanne while she liveblogged the show and fangirling with the other people over there.

7. I didn’t see this on my network last night but thanks to the joy of the Internet, I can say that this David Cook Guitar Hero ad is ALMOST as good as it was having him win the whole damn thing.

(It’s about time a rocker won this show!)

Less than two weeks until Canadian Idol, thank GOD.

I haven’t been subjecting anyone here to my obsession with American Idol (and Canadian Idol in the summer), though I have been all over it over on LJ. This can not be kept quiet though. Last night Blake Lewis completely blew my mind. I’ve always liked Blake and he was always my favorite of the guys (with Jordin being my favorite of the girls although she didn’t do very well last night on rock night).

I’ve missed Blake’s trademark beat boxing but last night he totally made it worth the wait. I think he should win a prize for the most original version of a well-known song on Idol ever. Jon Bon Jovi was worried that fans who love the song would not be receptive to the changes but as a huge fan of “You Give Love a Bad Name”, I can tell you it was AWESOME. Thanks to YouTube, I can share the video with you.

Amazing, seriously.

Pardon my mouth but could someone PLEASE explain to me why in the fuck Sanjaya Malakar is still on American Idol? I mean seriously. He’s not the worst singer in the world but that boy is WAY out of his league.

Dear Amaerica,

Please do note vote for Sanjaya. My ears will thank you.

Sherry