It's a Southern Thang!

I watched American Idol tonight and I have just about had it with this show. I have watched from Season 1 and it has just gotten more and more annoying. Tonight, there was approximately 45 minutes of screeching and caterwauling and 10 minutes of stupidity (not contestants) and a five minute "recap" of the talent found. 

The new judge is, in the words of our favorite cranky judge, "forgettable". She adds nothing to the show or the competition. The original judges are still the same, sometimes annoying, sometimes strange, sometimes just plain rude.

Tonight, I was offended. I have never been on the AI website forums before but I signed up (another annoying process) to be able to spend my two cents. (This is more or less a copy of my post there.)

I have to insert a brief summary of the incident for the ten or twelve people who don't watch so that they can follow the logic...

This is an excerpt from another post from the forum...

...the auditions in Louisville ky, the man that auditioned [Mark Mudd] sang a George Jones song - White Lighting.  He was shot down, which was very understandable. At the end he told the judges "ya'll take care and be careful"  The judges took this as a threat.  Well i dont know how they could have taken this as a threat.  Here in Kentucky we say this quite often. 

I live in Alabama, was raised in Georgia and I have heard (and said) some version of this all my life - "Be careful" or "Take Care" or occasionally if the person departing is driving a distance, "Drive carefully" or "Drive Safe".  It is important to note here that this is not a "recent" colloquialism or new slang as my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother used to say this all the time. (Where do you think us "good ol' boys" learned it?) 

It was apparent from the moment Mr Mudd walked in that he was a victim of prejudice and ignorance. The first thing heard when he walked in was Simon Cowell asking "Is that a gun". Really? Perhaps when you live your life being as blunt and honest (and sometimes just cruel) to people, you should always be looking for weapons. 

I think this contestant was just nervous, shocked and upset and reverted back to his natural, polite, southern upbringing. It is a shame that a well-wisher can be so misunderstood. Is it really that rare? Not according to the AI forums. There are eleven pages of posts as of this writing (3 hours after the show ended). Most were people from all over the US stating that they have heard or said this themselves. Maybe it isn't just a southern thing after all.

Y'all take care.

Barack and a Hard Place

Inauguration Day 

Today was a momentous day, no doubt. No one can argue the achievement of being elected President of the United States of America by a poor black kid from a broken family with a name like Barack Hussein Obama. If ever there were an underdog with cards stacked against him, this is he. Add to that his youth and reputed inexperience and you must give credit to the man, the candidate and the entire campaign. If you stop to consider, not just his victory, but the staggering number of voters who turned out on election day, most notably the younger voters, who so often are not only uninformed but unconcerned, you should feel proud, regardless of your party affiliations or politics. 

Again today, an unbelievable number of Americans braved frigid temperatures to get a glimpse, to be a part of history. It was awe-inspiring. I wish I could have been there. Never before have I given a thought to watching, much less in person, an inauguration ceremony. 

The Real Job

Now the real work begins. Nothing that has been accomplished thus far has been easy. If anyone thinks, however, that the hard part is over, that the rest is downhill, that person has not been living above ground in the US for the last year or two. Mr Obama, himself, spoke of the challenges we face as a nation. We must approach the problems at hand together and with the same resolve and the same war cry that brought us to this point - "Yes, we can". We must build on this renewed vigor and remain united in the cause. Just as our Military needs our support to face their daily challenges, so our Commander-in-Chief will need to feel that support.

The Hard Place

It is inevitable that a person in a position of power, such as the President of the United States, will at some point make a mis-step, will mis-speak or will make a bad decision. Everyone does at some point, but few have to see it replayed in the news and on the late-night comedy shows. We should treat it just as we would if it were our friend. Laugh and point for a few minutes, then move on. Like every President before him, he is just a man, human and flawed. 

It is not only we who should remember this day, this campaign and this long, hard road that began with a dream. We, the people, are counting on President Obama to remember. With so much on a President's To Do List, it would be easy to forget, not just who you are and from where you came but who came before and from where. 

The newly sworn-in President mentioned his father in his speech, saying less than 60 years ago, his father "might not have been served at a local restaurant". He spoke these words standing across the Mall from the spot where, a little over 45 years ago, Dr King spoke those now oh-so-famous words about his dream. 

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

...I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

...And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And so I say to you today, Dr King, President Obama and my fellow Americans - Yes We Can!

Elvis is Dead (and that isn't even the bad news)

Well, I had decided to write a blog today about the fact that "The King" would have turned 74 today. It is a sad thought, maybe sadder than the fact that he did not. I cannot imagine a 74 year old Elvis. 

None of that matters, however, because I also signed over my car to the insurance company today and picked up my 16 year old Cutlass from the shop... over $900. That, in itself, is unremarkable until you factor in the fact that I left work early so I could get there before the shop closed at 5, left my perfectly good (yet, still totaled) car there to be towed away tomorrow to the crusher and made it approximately 1/3 of the way home.

First, there was a shuddering, then a clacking noise; then, as I rolled up to a red light, it cut off. Hmmm. Curious. I started it up, dropped it in gear, it cut off. Fast forward, three or four more times and I 'roll' in to the mall parking lot. Now, here I feel I should mention the enormous similarity to the events that led up to the car sitting for over a year and being in the shop to begin with. 

So, brief recap...  two weeks in the shop (holiday), $900+, and I don't expect to make it to work tomorrow. Happy New Year!!!

What's Next

Well, naturally, my first instinct, is to punch a hole in the gas tank with a screwdriver and drive through the shop. Of course, this assumes it will make it back that far. I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do. I suppose it should involve getting up much earlier and wearing comfortable shoes.  Have you ever wondered what you could have done to cause the cosmic forces of the entire universe to conspire against you? - Is that just me?

You know, I want to be pissed off. I should be pissed off. Everyone expects me to be pissed off, (most of the time I think). But I just don't have the energy. I think my give-a-damn is broken. What's worse - I expected this. I joked about it at work with an underlying sense of foreboding and a niggling little voice in my head that said "yeah, that sounds about right".

Greatest Hits

OK. It is still Elvis' birthday. He is still the king. I am still his subject, so in honor of the "King of Rock 'n Roll's" birthday, I am going to sum up my 2009 (thus far) using just a few of his #1 hits...

Now and Then, There's a Fool Such as I. I keep struggling just to keep my head above water but I find myself sinking Way Down. Occasionally, I feel like Crying (in the Chapel). I need a Good Luck Charm but if I had a rabbit's foot, it would just attract wolves. It all seems like Too Much and I just want to Surrender. I want to scream at people (mechanics, insurance agents, bad drivers and bosses, mostly), "You're the Devil in Disguise" and "Don't Be Cruel". I just want to plead, "Don't". It's got me All Shook Up and I want to tell them that I don't have a Wooden Heart. I would love, just One Night, to come home without feeling like a Hound Dog that belongs to Michael Vick. 

Days like today make me just a tiny bit more sympathetic to those living in a Heartbreak Hotel or doing the Jailhouse Rock and I wonder just what separates us. What makes me different from someone else who just had enough - maybe In the Ghetto, or even a former child star, who just snaps? I understand Suspicious Minds and civil disobedience. Where is that fine line? How close am I to it? Which side of it am I on?

____________________________________

Happy Birthday, Elvis. 

Happy Birthday, Katie. 

Happy New Year, all. (Can't we start over?)

Resolution Revolution

RESOLUTION

Some years ago, when I felt a need to change who I am/was, I used to make a short list of resolutions at the beginning of each year. It was the usual. And just as predictably, I rarely made it to St Patrick's Day. Even when I quit smoking, it never had anything to do with a new year. 

I haven't found anything I needed or wanted to change bad enough to even make the feeble attempt for quite a few years. Or maybe I just haven't cared. I certainly gave up a long time ago trying to change to suit others.  But, I was thinking the other day, if I wanted to change something or make a resolution to change something, what might I choose. Well, I'm forty, single, a little overweight and stuck in a job with no promise. I suppose there's room for a couple of resolutions.

1. I could definitely stand to lose 10-15 pounds. (ok, maybe 20)
   
2. I could stand to have a job where it would not be so easy to replace me with a monkey. (Need to send out more resumés)
   
3. I could most definitely benefit from the cessation of my worst habit - procrastination. (hmmm, maybe tomorrow)
   

I can't change being 40 and I am not looking to not be single so, I guess I have three basic resolutions this year. That's three more than last year and three more than I usually keep beyond the first quarter. Ah, but I have a plan, a new and rather unorthodox approach to push me past that imaginary boundary.

REVOLUTION

Most people who make New Year's Resolutions never make it past the end of March. I suspect half don't make it through the shortest month. When I was 24, I decided to quit smoking. It wasn't really a New Year's resolution. In fact, it was more of a spur-of-the-moment decision one night in mid-January. I put out my last cigarette and said "no more". I have never been one to take to being controlled and it seemed I was not only allowing something to control me but I was paying for it. 

Now, anyone who has smoked and tried to quit will tell you that quitting is not hard. Most of us have done it dozens, if not hundreds, of times. The hard part, really, is not starting back. (This was not the last time I quit smoking but it did last for a couple of years.)

We all know that saying something on January 1st is no more likely to make it come true than blowing out candles on a cake or throwing pennies in a fountain. This year, to better my odds and skew the results unfairly, I am going to implement my new resolve on February 1st, instead (not sure how this affects my third resolution), but this way, even if it doesn't work, I should make it well beyond the first quarter.