Many years ago...
Riing.
"Hello?"
"I got one for ya! I got one!" It was my brother Joe. "Who replaced Ringo on the drums-"
"Jimmy Nichol."
"-during their American tour in 196- What?"
"Jimmy Nichol. Ringo had his tonsils out."
"Damn. I was sure I'd get you with that one."
Two of my proudest moments as a parent;
1. Tyler and Katie are six and four. Help! comes on the radio. Curious to know if either of them can identify the Beatles from every other group on the radio, I asked "Hey, who's singing?" After listening for a second, Tyler says "John."
2. Josie, age seven, "Whenever we listen to the Beatles, I realize everything else is crap."
I bring this up only to illustrate a point: I am a huge Beatles fan. The world is full of folks who love the Beatles as much as I do, but there is
no one who loves them more. I didn't go out much in high school mainly because I didn't know anyone whose company was more appealing to me than sitting in my room, listening to the Beatles, reading everything ever written about the Beatles while drawing pictures of the Beatles. Margy and I went to a Beatles triple feature once at the old Westgate Theater; Help! Yellow Submarine and Let it Be. We considered it the best afternoon of our lives, so far. We even liked Yellow Submarine, which gives you an accurate idea of how besotted we were.
I hate the song Imagine.
Always have, always will. I think the tune is sappy and dull and the lyrics are an ode to communism. It sounds like the sort of thick poetry written by a twelve year old girl. John was far, far better when he was making up words.
So I was not blown away two weeks ago when the extremely young David Enchilada sang "Imagine" on American Idol. All I could think was "yuck, this stupid song again?"
I forgot to watch this week until yesterday when four kids got the boot, so all I saw was the several second recap of each singer. Three of the guys are named David. That must be rectified; get rid of some of them. David Cook looks like a gay Jack Black, but even Simon loved his performance, so he must have something. Talent or not, if Baby David doesn't stop singing dirges he's not going to last very long. I can't believe the cute Asian girl lasted longer than the cute black girl. Asian girl was off key in the three seconds I saw of her song. Of course, the cute black girl only demonstrated that she's no Whitney Houston. Of course, Whitney went all Britney before we'd ever even heard of Spears, so why should that matter? I'm glad the kid who looked like Jessica Alba in drag got the boot, he was obnoxious. I'm also glad the cute guy got the boot; looks are important but he had no voice. He couldn't even pull off George Michael.
Okay, George Michael is awesome. You'd better have a voice if you want to be compared to him. You'd also better have charisma galore, good dance moves and Faith, faith faitha!
I forgot to watch this week because I was too busy watching A Knight's Tale. I'm having my own little Heath Ledger memorial filmathon. A K's tale is one of my favorites. It's so over the top stupid, I love it like I love Blue Crush. What could be better than Heath at his cutest, dressed in Armor with a Nike swoosh, dancing at the post tournament feast to David Bowie? Nothing!
One last comment; Why was Paula wearing a funnel on her head? What's up with that?
