Patti LaBelle was robbed, pure and simple. Nick Lachey’s choir was fantastic, no doubt, but they didn’t have the same heart and…dare I say it…soul that Patti’s group did, not to mention amazing, inspiring, incredible soloists. Proof? Backing a superstar diva like Patti LaBelle would send most singers to the back corner to be ignored in favor of the amazing LaBelle, but they held their own and were as much a part of that performance as she was. That choir gave me chills every time they sang.

Also, a note to the producers — Quit taking a show that could easily have been an hour each night and stretching it into two hours. The choirs were loads of fun to watch, but what was the point of the “panel”? And while we’re at it, what was the point of 99% of host Maria’s stupid questions? Those people deserved better than “Who do you want to win?”.

Anyway, congratulations to Nick Lachey, who did a great job of leveraging his own choral background into a win for his charity, and condolences to Patti, who really did deserve the win.

If NBC ever releases clips, don’t miss Lachey’s choir singing “Flight of the Bumblebee” a cappella, or Patti’s choir and Patti singing “Over the Rainbow”. Just amazing.

Still pouting…

Technorati Tags: Clash of the Choirs, Patti LaBelle, Nick Lachey, reality TV, entertainment

This was me in 1968. The preppiness of the outfit hides my inner hippie. Watching Tom Brokaw’s “1968″ on the History Channel after reading “Boom!” has been a trip down memory lane. If you missed it, do whatever you can to catch it on a rerun — it was excellent.

I watched it with DG tonight, and it wasn’t until we came to the assassination of RFK that she processed the fact that I had been alive in this era, and that I’d been involved, even as young as I was. My mom was at the hotel the night RFK was assassinated and I was staying up late to watch the news coverage because there was a chance I might actually see her. DG was horrified at the idea that her grandmother was there that night, and that her mom saw the events in real time. Her comment: “What a sad time to be alive.”

And you know, I suppose it was, though I don’t recall it that way. Looking back on a decade that saw the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, yes, it was a sad time. And yet, it was also vibrant and alive. Emotions ran high as the civil rights movement converged with the anti-war movement, but there was an enormous amount of passion and idealism afoot. My answer to her was yes, it was a sad time, but very much a time of commitment and change, unlike what I see today, which is an almost-defeated acceptance of what is, no matter how repugnant. Apathy has been substituted for passion. If I could recapture just a little bit of the mood of that time (without the drugs, actually…the drugs were never my thing) and join a movement of young people committed to re-centering values away from war and violence and back toward some of the idealism of that era, I would do it in a heartbeat.

Tom Brokaw has done a great job of capturing the mood, events, and magic of that time. Really, don’t miss it if you get the chance to see it.

Technorati Tags: Tom Brokaw, Boom!, 1968, HIstory Channel

Mick St. John can bite me any time. So can Alex O’Loughlin. It’s not often that I’m a TV star groupie, but it’s fate, after all. His birthday is the same as mine (and Sticks!) and he clearly descends from Irish rogues (born in Australia…).

Apart from lusting after Mick, I really do love the way the writers are approaching the character, his struggle with being a vampire while yearning to be human, and his obvious smoking attraction to Sophia Miles who manages to burn the screen with that gaze when she’s feeling just a little bit jealous. The voice-overs are especially fun, as are the tossed-off pieces of his conversations about being a vampire.

I really hope they settle the writers’ strike soon, because it would be too mean to get much farther into this series — the one new series I really like this season — and then leave it hanging. Literally.

Speaking of the writers’ strike, don’t miss Donna’s insider posts here and here. There really is a lot at stake, and mostly for the writers who don’t land the big high-profile gigs, but are just making enough to keep their careers alive and food on the table. Would it really be so bad for the Big Six (see this PDF to see exactly how deeply MSM is pwned) to sacrifice those pennies to people with incredible talent who have earned the right to share some of the wealth?

Selfishly, I’d much rather watch Mick and Beth smolder than any stupid reality show. Reality bites. Mick bites too, but he’s more fun to watch.

Technorati Tags: CBS, writers’ strike, Moonlight, vampires, nablopomo

DG’s segment will be in two weeks. LA next week, Chicago the week after. She’s the latter.

But if you watched tonight, you saw how mean Piers Morgan was to some of the kids and how Sharon Osbourne reacted to that. I’m here to tell ya, Sharon got over that fairly quickly. Piers Morgan, on the other hand, is a prime jerk.

I’m not sure if I get to say anything yet online…dagnabit.
One final thing — that sax player ROCKED. I’m votin’ for that boy.

Have you ever had one of those days when you open up a news site and check the calendar to see if it’s April Fool’s Day? Check these out:

• (CNN) Cartoon Network Promo for Aquateen Hunger Force sparks bomb scare. While I was getting ready for work this morning I saw the footage of this on CNN. I couldn’t believe it when I saw what the hoo-ha was about. Jeers to Cartoon Network for engineering such a stupid promo. The worst part of this was the placement of these silly LEDs (or electronic dangerous-looking thingys to law enforcement) under freeway bridges. (More on Make Blog.)
• Also from CNN.com and the Land of the Absurd, we have this story about a Tampa, Florida rape victim who goes to jail for a 2003 warrant when she went to police to report that she had been raped. Worse yet, these idjuts kept her in jail for two full days and refused to give her a second dose of the morning-after pill to prevent pregnancy, because the jail worker had her own “religious convictions” about contraception. Two morals to this story: 1) Don’t get raped in Florida; and 2) If you are, don’t expect any consideration from the PO-lice down there. Gawd.
• Over on HybridCarBlog.com, a shining example of why the Big 3 Automakers are being buried by Toyota and Prius sales. GM is evidently calling it the “Prius Effect” and confessing that they underestimated the ‘image value’ of hybrids. News Flash for GM: It’s not “IMAGE VALUE”. Every time we fill our little 9-gallon tank after putting around 500 miles on the Prius we raise our middle finger to the oil companies and folks who are so arrogant they think car buyers will just blindly roll over and wait another 10 years for their hybrid offerings.

Okay, back to your regularly scheduled programming now. I’m sure mine was hijacked by aliens.

Technorati Tags: news, Cartoon Network, Boston, Prius, GM, Tampa, CNN