Paxton’s Friends

American Idol: Winners take all?

nobody@vox.com(8gurl) — Fri, 16 May 2008 17:22:30 -0600

I feel the need to blog about this because it's something that's really been bugging me. I'm so tired of reading about how some Idol winners are successful and some 'bombed'. I read today something to the effect of 'can a male Idol winner actually succeed?' Which is obviously a reference to Ruben and Taylor's utter failure as artists. I AM NOT just writing this because Ruben and Taylor are from my hometown, I'm writing this because it seems that people have got the wrong idea of what winning American Idol really means.

The winner of American Idol gets some good stuff: They get a 1,000,000 recording contract with 19. They get to carry the banner of reigning Idol for one year and also get to wear the title of Idol winner for the rest of their lives. They gain a tremendous amount of notoriety and fame. But that's about it folks! Beyond that it's still a big question mark!

Winning American Idol is a catalyst but it doesn't ensure tremendous success. There are many factors that come into play. In America to be deemed 'successful' in the music business you have to fit into a certain genre and mold and make waves on the Billboard charts. But what if your music doesn't neatly fit into a mainstream genre?

Here's a brief rundown of the winners and how they have fared:

Kelly Clarkson - she's a mainstream pop music wet dream and has gone from Idol to achieve international fame and the record sales to back it up.

Ruben Studdard - his roots were in R & B and Christian music. He's recorded albums in both of these genres. He's been on Broadway. Here at home, he used his fame and his own money to start a music foundation for under-privileged children in the Birmingham area. He has a huge legion of fans. He's not mainstream but how can you say that's he's not been successful? Before Idol he was playing local joints in Birmingham with his former band 'Just a Few Cats'. Nobody knew his name. Has he achieved success since Idol? You betcha!

Fantasia Barrino - what better story of success could you possibly write? A poor, teenage Mother who was functionally illiterate and living in poverty won American Idol, has recorded several R & B albums, wrote a book, recorded a Lifetime movie and appeared on Broadway. Is she mainstream? No. Has she achieved success? Definitely!

Carrie Underwood - she's been tremendously successful across several genres. Although her main genre is country, Jesus Takes the Wheel crossed over into Christian and Before He Cheats crossed over into pop. Everything she touches turns to ~~gold~~ platinum!

Taylor Hicks - his album played in the adult contemporary genre but Taylor is really more of a blues singer. He didn't quite fit anywhere on Billboards fabulous charts. He has lent his name and his fame to so many good causes here at home and when I heard him sing the National Anthem at Talladega a few weeks ago it was absolutely perfect and flawless. Taylor has a huge fan base called the Soul Patrol and they are loyal and dedicated to him. Taylor has recently joined the cast of Grease on Broadway as the Teen Angel. Before Idol Taylor lived in a little apartment just a couple of miles from where I live. He worked at some everyday job and played joints at night with his band. Nobody knew his name. Is he successful now compared to then? Absolutely.

Jordin Sparks - she's still just out of the gates but has had a couple of her songs played on mainstream pop radio which by some standards makes her successful. It's really too soon to tell how she will fare in the long run. But I say again, before Idol she was a teenager going to high school and working in a mall. Is she successful now? Absolutely.

American Idol is nothing more than a glorified talent show judged by America. When someone wins it gives them advantages they didn't have before winning. It doesn't guarantee them worldwide success in the mainstream music world. Some hit it big where people think big is. But they all are successful compared to their pre-Idol careers. And if the winner doesn't achieve that media glorified success that DOESN'T mean that the wrong person won or anything like that. Many people on Idol who DIDN'T win have gone on to achieve great success. Idol is about opportunity and notoriety. That's what it lends to these hopeful artists. Where they go post-Idol depends upon many factors and also a little bit of luck. Making it in mainstream music is very difficult, Idol winner or not!

When I see guys who write down a few words, hang some chains around their necks, add a few drums and talk some trash and then get a recording contract when they can't even carry a tune in a bucket, that is when I think the word 'success' is used inappropriately, but not when referring to an American Idol winner.

You take any winner of American Idol and hand them a song and ask them to sing it acapella they will sing it, and they will sing it well because they have talent.

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Vox Hunt: Wedding Bells

nobody@vox.com(Cat) — Fri, 16 May 2008 04:01:37 -0600

Show us a photograph from a wedding.
Submitted by Connie.

Firstly, I wish that anorexic man would go away from my vox home page. He looks very unhealthy. I know he's done well losing all that weight but I just don't like the look of him.

However. Wedding photos. This is my Nan on her wedding day. I'm guesing this would've been 1930 ish

Nan-wedding

This is my Mum and Dad. Hmmm, mid fifties maybe. Love how dressed up everyone is. Especially that lady on the left - didn't anyone tell her not to wear a long white dress to someone elses wedding.

Wedding-day

And this was just something I made for some reason. But the beautiful background of flowers was drawn and painted by Kimba. Honestly, I can't imagine them looking at each other that happily.

Parents

And Candy if you're out there I tried to leave you a comment but vox is foxing around again and wouldn't let me. I was going to tell you

1. Cool sunnies

2. Every time I hear that just one glass of wine a day increases your risk of getting breast cancer by an alarming amount, I pretend I didn't hear.

And Sherry I tried to tell you that your daughter is a stunner - gorgeous eyes.

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Nite Nite Kitties

nobody@vox.com(SweetMisery) — Fri, 16 May 2008 02:58:12 -0600

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stumbling kitties

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Parliament Review: Khairy Jamaluddin

nobody@vox.com(Aput) — Fri, 16 May 2008 02:27:39 -0600

For those who do not know by now, this young and greenhorn MP is the son-in-law of Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

While I object to this fellow on a personal level, the fact that his line of logic is parallel to mine is downright disturbing and unnerving.

Here are the points brought up by Khairy Jamaluddin, MP of Rembau, in his debating the Kings Speech.

1. The formation of a Judiciary Commission in charge of promoting judges is a good one to restore faith in the Malaysian Judiciary after the crisis in 1988.

2. The restructuring of the Anti Corruption Agency to be an independent commission known as the Anti Corruption Commission plus the forming of the Protection Act for whistle blowers is timely and appropriate. The power to prosecute should also be given to this commission.

3. Fight bribery through technology. Fight corruption with technology.

4. A freer media by abolishing the Printing Press Act.

5. Put a quota on the petrol subsidy to avoid abuse.

6. Focus more on food production with technological advances.

..... And after that all hell broke loose because he kept taunting the Opposition, but not giving them any leeway to rebuke his statements.

Not so smart, Khairy, but damned slick.

If I were to base his speech only on the points, I would definitely state that his was one of the better ones. But then, I simply don't like this guy personally.

So I'll stick to liking his points.

Right.

Next up: Datuk Abdul Ghapur Bin Salleh (who?), internal opposition?

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Firecat from Stumbleupon

nobody@vox.com(SweetMisery) — Fri, 16 May 2008 01:50:24 -0600

C5d6c137a009b9cf8c4ecea47ee2701c

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Kung Pao Chicken

nobody@vox.com(canarygirl) — Fri, 16 May 2008 01:26:48 -0600

The other day I posted an entry for Mochachocolatarita’s Chinese Take-Out Party…(if you guys haven’t checked out her party yet, get over there! There are tons of delicious dishes to be had!)…Of course, once the round-up was posted, my fingers couldn’t click the mouse fast enough to get to her site. There are main dishes, rices, noodles, appies, soups and desserts. There were a couple (ok, ok *more* than a couple!) of dishes that really caught my eye. The Kung Pao Chicken entries were especially insistent with the powers that be within my grumbling stomach. Kung Pao Chicken is basically chicken and peanuts, stirfried in a delicious brown sauce. But take this simple dish and add a bunch of ginger and vegetables, and you have elevated it to something sublime. The entries on Rita’s page inspired me to go out and make some Kung Pao, go and see what inspires you!

For the Kung Pao Chicken recipe, please visit: http://canarygirl.com/?p=183

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This is my Celtic Sign

nobody@vox.com(SweetMisery) — Fri, 16 May 2008 00:50:57 -0600

FIG TREE (the Sensibility) - very strong, a bit self-willed, independent, does not allow contradiction or arguments, loves life, its family, children and animals, a bit of a social butterfly, good sense of humor, likes idleness and laziness, of practical talent and intelligence.

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"Don't You Wish Yo Daddy Could Cook Like Mine?"

nobody@vox.com(Zola Kathryn) — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:39:30 -0600

"Don't you wish yo dinna could look so fine?" :P Tonight, we have:

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Red beans and rice with lambrusco. Do they go together? I dunno. I like red beans and rice; I like lambrusco. Your mileage may vary!

This cat has been hanging around our house alot lately:

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Dunno where he came from, but he doesn't look to be starving or mangy. I think he's got a home somewhere, because he'll disappear for a couple of days and then be right back again. Maybe Billy has started some sort of goodfellas club here at the house, because it's always the two of them bumming around outside yowling at each other. The cat's beautiful though, he's got two different colored eyes! I tried to get a shot but he wouldn't cooperate. One's blue and the other is yellow.

Maybe this cat and Billy are drinking buddies?

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Oh well, I guess we have a new cat around the house. I say we name him Red, just to be delightfully ironic (and in tribute to one of my dad's cats they had when he was young, named Red).

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Control your mouse wheel...

nobody@vox.com(Michelley-Shell) — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:22:34 -0600

Step 1. Hold down either the left or right [ Ctrl ] Key
Step 2. Roll the mouse wheel, if you have one, forwards and backwards

On-screen text in your browser window should in most cases get LARGER and smaller.

This is obviously useful for a quick-change of the text size for readability and accessibility purposes.

A useful, fun tip, from Moi :-)

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We're Not Powerless

nobody@vox.com(Patricia Volonakis Davis) — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:03:11 -0600

Ethan Ableman Children's Chorus of Washington by Scott Ableman

In 2002, the man I love lost his 19-year-old son to a car crash. Six months later, I had to face the growing evidence that yet another beloved family member was suffering from a mental condition which was causing him and those who loved him a great deal of emotional pain, but for which he was adamantly not going to seek treatment. Two minutes after that, I had still another falling out with my parents; regarding their obsessive control issues that dogged me right up to my mother’s death. A few months later, my 14-year-old son began his rebellion stage with a vengeance. Not to mention that throughout all this turmoil, I was making the slow and unbelievable discovery that a woman who I thought had been my friend for the past twenty years was simply…not. And then, of course, there was the Bush administration’s decision to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.

Some people might wonder how I could possibly include that last sentence in my list of personal woes. But I do, because since I’ve been in my early twenties, I’ve had what some call the annoying propensity to read the newspapers and use my God-given strategic thinking skills to analyse the information therein. And I don’t just read American newspapers. There are all kinds of news reports one can find online, many in English, but if not, I find that if I use a dictionary, I can read the newspapers in a few different languages. And being able to do that gives me a bit of an edge, because world reports are markedly and sometimes, scarily different than American reports.

The reason I go to all this trouble to read whatever I can and think about all of it is simple - I want to know when policy-makers are lying to me. I don’t care what party they belong to, nor what country they’re heading. I don’t join teams and stick with them doggedly to the bitter end, no matter what ‘my’ team does or says, when it comes to politics. In fact, after the dirty play I witnessed by the Italian team during the last World Cup, a team I’ve been cheering for since I was a little girl watching European football with my uncles, I don’t even do it with sports any more. Because I know that whenever anyone who’s been put in power opens his mouth, whether in sports or politics, sh*t happens. And that sh*t usually gets dumped with a heavy hand on the littlest guy.

But reading the newspapers and analysing the news led me to having to face the final personal trauma of the many personal traumas between the years 2002 and 2003, which was that my country was going to attack another country for a reason that I knew to be an absolute LIE.

Five years and countless deaths (of humans and civil liberties) later, I’m proven right. Oddly enough, that doesn’t make me feel one bit better about it.

But I digress.

Regarding every harrowing incident I lived through between 2002 and 2003, well-meaning supporters said, “There’s nothing you can do.”

It was true that there was nothing I could do to prevent the series of events that led to my stepson’s death. Nor could I stop the deluge of grief that followed and that will trickle forever. I couldn’t force my family member to seek counselling, nor my parents to be anything other than what they were. And, like everything else my son does, he did his rebelling so well, that nothing I, his father and his stepfather managed to come up with, would alter his course until he was damn good and ready to alter it himself. As far as my long-held acquaintanceship…well, I thought about it long and hard, and at the end of the day, I saw I was pretty much powerless there, too.

Powerlessness is terrible. It leads to hopelessness. Even though I coped as best I could with these events, I admit to feeling hopeless more than once during them.

But when the President of the United States starting talking about invading Iraq, I heard, “There’s nothing you can do,” once too often. I wasn’t powerless in this situation. I could at least have my voice heard. And so I began writing, writing, writing. I wrote essays, articles and satires. I wrote emails and letters to Congress.

What difference can the voice of one woman make? Maybe not much, but add it to another voice and now you have harmony. Add ten more and it’s a chorus.

There are a growing number of us who are less and less afraid of singing against the norm. We are tired of the different factions sniping at each other and pointing fingers. It doesn’t matter who was playing the fiddle when Rome started burning, it's time for us all to step up and begin to put the fire out.

I haven’t written about the presidential campaign because I am disgusted by it. I am sickened that this past week alone there was devastation in China and Myramar and none of the candidates - one of whom is to be the future leader of the free world - could stop his or her own personal crusade for self-aggrandisement long enough to bring these up in any real context. If I thought that any of the three could sincerely care about anything other than, “I want to be the next president of the United States,” just for a single moment, that in itself just might give that person the one precious vote that is still mine to give.

When I lived in Greece, there was a devastating earthquake in nearby Turkey that rivalled the one China has just suffered. Greek television is not like the television here in the United States. Reality TV in Greece is not who gets picked by the bachelor, reality TV is seeing your Turkish neighbour clawing through the rubble of his village, screaming in agony because he hears his family crying beneath the stone, and he has no tools save his bare hands to free them. When you see the tears and the blood of your neighbour, does it matter then if he is Muslim or Christian, friend or enemy? It shouldn’t and it didn’t to the Greeks. Long time foes of the Turks, with centuries of ill-will between them, the Greeks were the first outsiders to step on Turkish soil to help.

I remember being in my little bookshop in Athens, crying with relief as my business partner and I watched on our telly downstairs, Greek police, Greek firemen, Greek doctors, Greek nurses, Greek university students, all doing their damnedest to help their sworn enemies save their children, their spouses, their parents and whatever was left of their homes. And when just the following month, Greece had its own earthquake, the Turks were there in a show of solidarity that should make every self-proclaimed follower of God or any kind of spirituality here in my country hang his head in shame.

When I asked one Greek why he was able to help so wholeheartedly a people who have been at war off and on again with Greece practically since the beginning of time, his answer made me think. He said, “It’s not the Turkish people we Greeks dislike. It’s their government.”

We are all citizens of the same country here and yet we don’t show the respect for each other that those centuries-sworn enemies did. And don’t think for one moment just because you assume you are on the ‘correct’ side of the “Republican/Democrat, Christian/Non” debate, that it gives you the right to slander anyone else, or feel smug and superior to anyone else.

First off, it’s not helping. What it does is keep us occupied while all politicians- all - screw us. All. We are all in this crappy economy together, we are all in this war together, we are all suffering under the same antiquated health care system, school system, and electoral system. We may all have different opinions on how it should be changed, but the point is we all agree it should be different and the only ones who are benefiting from it as it stands are the ones who set us squabbling about it in the first place.-the politicians.

Here are three thoughts for both liberals and conservatives both in and out of the United States:

1) How is political protest “anti-American” when it was what the country was founded on? There would be no United States of America without someone - or once again, that small chorus of people, who said, “This isn’t working. Time to start over. Let’s start by having a tea party.”

2) Did it ever occur to anyone who criticises those who believed George Bush unequivocally, that they should have been able to believe him? George W. Bush is like my mechanic. He’s hired to fix my car. If my mechanic tells me my transmission is out of whack, how can I argue, unless I take a course in car repair? I have to trust him. And I do. I hired him to do a job. How can a person who believes in the office of the president be criticised for that same trust? It’s this president who violated that trust. It’s this president who should be blamed, not every Republican. Are you telling me there are no lying Democrats?

3) And lastly, there are three hundred million people who live in the US. Can we all be alike? Do we all have the same levels of exposure to the outside world or the same education? I just met a man recently, a good man, who believes fervently that we need to “stop the terrorists.” He is a stone mason, he is out of work, and my guess is he has no clue that the reason he is out of work goes back to Alan Greenspan’s incompetent, partisan fiscal policies and George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. How could he know if he never had an economics class, maybe never even graduated from high school?

Granted, not everyone who is ‘pro-invasion’ is this man. And many people on both sides of this equation are just not nice people who have their own agenda, their own desire for personal gain. And then there are those who simply see things differently.

I see things differently than most people. I believe that we should all be able to learn from each other and that the differences amongst us should not be a threat to any of us, but an opportunity to grow and learn as a species. I want to know how the people in India came to believe in a God with an elephant face, and the ones in Italy believe in a God who was born again as Himself. I’m not alarmed by either of these beliefs, nor do I mock them. I’m intrigued by them. How did they start, and what can I learn from them? Most importantly, what do I believe myself, as an individual, when I gather these facts? Am I strong enough to stand alone if I have to, when my beliefs are different than those around me? Can I also use what I learn to help build a better world?

That is the purpose of my life. To learn and to teach. To help leave the planet just a little bit better than it was before I got here. It will most likely make only a small difference, really, one woman’s voice. But if I can add a chorus to it, well…you never know.

And that’s how I’ll introduce you today to my new online magazine and podcast, Harlots’ Sauce Radio. It still only has a small voice, but the sound is unique and beautiful to me, because the chorus is comprised of people from all different parts of the world, coming from all different perspectives. Yes, we can do that without snarling at each other.

I’ve sent this post as an invitation to everyone in my VOX neighbourhood and in my VOX groups today. Not only do I invite you to read Harlots’ Sauce Radio and listen to our podcast interviews of many extraordinary people who make up this planet, I urge you to add YOUR own voice. There is a wealth of talent here on VOX - writers, humorists, musicians, poets, photographers, and deep thinkers. Please go to the submissions guidelines page and offer up your talents. Then, enjoy the talents of your fellow human beings who have already been published there. If nothing else, we make a pleasant change from Yahoo’s home page daily reports on who got thrown off American Idol.

I hope you will take me up on this invitation. If we sing loudly enough, sooner or later, our song will be heard.

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