Here’s an interesting roundup of opinion about Kid Nation. (see my other post here). Be sure to read the comments, particularly the one from the aunt of one of the contestants.
This is my favorite quote:
The concept of the “evil of banality” is not inappropriate here.
Technorati Tags: Kid Nation, Safety4Kids
Being the mom of an up and coming jazz drummer means that I get to learn a lot about some of the greats, but in the case of Max Roach I already knew. I’d grown up surrounded by jazz — it was my father’s passion. Max Roach was one of his all-time favorite drummers, alongside Buddy Rich and I was lucky enough (though I didn’t know it at the time) to see him play in person on more than one occasion. At the time, I didn’t realize the greatness and breadth of his talent, but when Sticks started playing and studying the jazz greats, it slowly dawned.
Sticks’ passion for odd time signatures gave me a much deeper appreciation for Max Roach’s talent. Mr. Roach was a genius god of time and meter, painting landscapes with his sticks, brushes, drums and cymbals that were unparalleled by any other drummer. Ever. Sticks’ ability and passion to play melodies inside of drum solos comes from his year-long passionate affair with the Max Roach/Buddy Rich solos on the classic Buddy Rich versus Max Roach recording. Max Roach set a standard that is unique, unparalleled, and will stand forever for all time.
Rest in peace, Mr. Roach. There’s got to be one heck of a concert happening in heaven today.
Other tributes:
Blogher: Max Roach Dies, and the Jazz Community Mourns (There are some great links in this post to other tributes, too)
Drummr.com: RIP, Max Roach
New York Times: Max Roach, Master of Modern Jazz, Dies at 83
Washington Post: Max Roach Dies at 83
Technorati Tags: Max Roach, obituary, tribute, jazz, drummer, odd time
Sphere: Related Content“Kid Nation” is the newest CBS reality show to air this fall. In a sort of “Lord of the Flies Redux” theme, 40 kids ranging in age from age 8-15 are left on the Bonanza Ranch in New Mexico to create an adult-free society, governed by and for kids. The reward: $5,000 and the hope of winning the weekly “gold star”, worth $20,000. The star is awarded each week to one of the kids.
Even though viewers are led to believe there is no adult supervision, there was a skeleton crew on the set during production, but none of them were parents.
When I first heard about this show, I thought it was insane. My brief foray into the underbelly of reality shows this summer, both real and unreal, hasn’t changed that opinion. As a parent, I cannot imagine sending my child off with a producer, psychologist, cameramen and various others into the wilds of New Mexico to set up a “society” as some sort of prime time showcase.
There are so many things wrong with this that I barely know where to start, so I guess I’ll start with what’s right about it. I think it’s good that the kids had to wrestle with the idea of forming a government and deal with the natural leadership struggles that arise as part of that process. I’m sure they learned much about the art of leadership and the art of following. I think it’s good that they had an opportunity to learn how to deal with the realities of daily life without the usual comforts. The preview below shows brief vignettes of the environment they were dealing with…hauling water, bringing it up from the well, cooking, cleaning, dividing responsibility…all of that is good. Some have objected to the series on the basis that they missed a month of school. That’s the least of my objections, because I’m sure the life and practical lessons they learned were worth the entire year, much less a month.
What bothers me most about this is the whole idea of a parent allowing their kid to go off to New Mexico by themselves with relative strangers for the promise of profit and fame. Here’s the call posted on RealityWanted.net for Kid Nation, Season 2.
CBS is currently casting the second season of their amazing new series – “Kid Nation”. Casting Directors are looking for exceptional, outgoing and enthusiastic kids who would be interested in a unique learning experience and the adventure of a lifetime. If that describes your child and he or she is between the ages of 8 and 15 apply now below.
So instead of sending Johnnie and Janie off to auditions for commercials, parents are sending them to auditions to spend over a month at “summer camp” (more on that in a minute) with no parental supervision and indeed, very little adult supervision at all.
Brian Lowry at Variety Magazine snarls about parents who would allow this:
After a preview of “Kid Nation” — CBS’ upcoming reality show that weds “Survivor” with “The Lord of the Flies” by setting up 40 kids age 8 to 15 in their own isolated community — one viewer spoke for most everybody in the room when she muttered, “Who the hell would let their kids do that?” Well, stage moms, for starters, along with pageant pushers and those who eat bugs and endure various forms of abuse themselves to enjoy a few minutes of fame — though here, their questionable judgment oozes over onto the next generation.
Although these kids learned many life lessons in the process of their time at the Bonanza Ranch, one that they did not learn was the lesson of “reasonable pay for reasonable work”. In fact, the show was able to skirt child labor laws (including 14-hour work days for the duration) by producing it in New Mexico, which had a now-closed loophole which allowed producers to characterize the production as a “summer camp”.
It would be unfair to bash the parents of these kids without bashing the inevitable hordes of viewers who are likely to make this show a hit, young and old alike. After all, if the show had no viewers there would be no motivation to exploit children in the name of entertainment, however willing they may be. But there will be viewers, and those viewers are open to taking large doses of reality TV, even clamoring for it. The RealityWanted.com website has 12 pages of listings for contestants and casting calls for reality television. It’s a big, huge profitable business. If this show is a success, I predict spinoffs and clones, all grinding those big bucks back to the production companies and networks clamoring for more.
When we get tired of seeing kids at their ‘meanest and best’, what will we watch next? Dogs? Here are some listings for upcoming shows. Which ones would you watch?
Technorati Tags: Kid Nation, reality tv, CBS
If you aren’t familiar with the legendary Spinal Tap, you don’t know that they tend to consume (or incinerate) drummers on a regular basis. I’m pleased to report (and Sticks will be pleased as well) that Gregg Bissonette survived the Live Earth performance quite nicely and was incredibly fun to watch. Boo-hiss to MSN for not allowing embedded video into our blogs, but I did find it on YouTube. (Just in case it gets pulled down, here’s the MSN Link). For maximum enjoyment, please go to 11 (note: stupid story linked there). (Backstory)
Also, don’t miss the Foo Fighters. They and Spinal Tap were the best of the UK sets (although I wanted to brush the hair out of Dave Grohl’s face about 60 times). Madonna did the usual bump and grind thing - she was okay, but a letdown after the Foo Fighters, for sure. John Mayer (NY) and Yusuf (Germany) — formerly Cat Stevens…a long-time fave of mine– round out a really nice online concert video experience.
Surprisingly, the MSN Video feed was very stable throughout the day. I thought they might encounter some glitches during peak traffic times but I had no problems with it at all.
Technorati Tags: LIveEarth, Spinal Tap, Foo Fighters, Yusuf, Gregg Bissonette, go to 11
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“The noise
Of worldly fame is but a blast of wind,
That blows from diverse points, and shifts its name,
Shifting the point it blows from.”
-Dante Alighieri, Purgatory, Canto XI
If you actually bothered to tune in America’s Got Talent tonight, forgive me in advance for encouraging such a thing. Until now, I’ve been barred from writing anything about DG’s experience with it, but now that it aired (such as it was), all bets are off. As you may or may not know, tonight was their big TV debut (NOT). What really happened was that the majority of what they did ended up in the editor’s recycle bin with maybe a 2 second clip left for public consumption. That isn’t so bad, but for the fact that they showed none of their performance (unlike the other rejected acts in that montage), made it look like all of the girls were devastated by their rejection, and bypassed all of the testimonial footage where they let loose on Piers Morgan and Sharon Osborne, who richly deserved what they got from them.
The Backstory
Just as we were getting ready to leave for Reno at the end of April, we received a call from DG’s dance teacher. She said that America’s Got Talent was calling our dancers back from last year’s auditions and could DG go to the rehearsal on Sunday, April 29th and the taping April 30th? Of course, DG was privy to this conversation which left me little alternative but to say yes, yes, she could do it.
Then she said the girls would have to be in full costume, wigs and all, for the rehearsal and show. If the producers had the first clue as to what a pain in the butt it was to put these kids in full costume and wigs, not to mention the cost of the dresses they wanted my daughter to sit around in for hours on end, they might’ve thought twice about leaving them on the floor. After clearing the schedule with my mother-in-law for that Sunday, we left for Reno, confident that she was in good hands.
We came home from Reno at 4pm; she came home from the Sunday rehearsal at 9pm, completely exhausted. Their call time was 7:30 AM the next day in Burbank, which meant getting up at 5:30 to get the hair done, makeup done, dress ready, etc. Because of the limited room available in the green room, only their teacher and one other adult could accompany the girls, who ranged in age from 7 to 16.
Monday morning at 10am I received a frantic call from the show’s producer, saying that she didn’t have the proper releases for DG to perform. Given that I’d read and signed piles of releases in advance of the rehearsal, I was confused but willing to sign whatever had to be done. There was a flurry of faxes and email back and forth, but at last it was done and she was cleared to perform at about 11am that day.
They actually went on at 7:30. They were almost the last act, which is probably why the judges didn’t go for them.
The Other Acts
The most bizarre by far had to be Boy Shakira. When DG came home on Sunday night she couldn’t believe how bizarre he was. But there were others they got to know — the 4 girl singers who were hoping to make it into the cut because they were raising money and awareness of breast cancer to honor one of their moms who died from it, CoolAid the Clown, who she said was really nice and had some awesome dance moves and young hip-hop dancers, the singing ventriloquist, and of course, Sideswipe, the martial arts dancers that hogged the practice floor.
Leaving the comfort zone
They were required to each do a one-on-one interview on camera. One shot. They had the questions in advance so they could think about their answers, but otherwise it’s them, the inteviewer, and the camera. For DG, this was a definite step out of the box. These were questions she really hadn’t thought about before — things like “What would winning a million dollars mean to you”, etc. It was a stretch for most of them. These girls are competitive dancers who have a great deal of poise and presence as a result of their training. But even that doesn’t prepare you fully for the somewhat jarring experience of being in front of a camera, lights on, boom mic hanging between you and your interviewer, sharing your innermost desires. From all accounts, they did quite well with it.
The Performance
They knew their routine cold. They are all sharp dancers, even the little ones. Of course, the younger ones aren’t as sharp as the older — how could they be? But even the short little clips they did show of them, they were colorful, animated and interesting. I say that with complete mother-bias. So anyway, this is DG’s account, which she has decided not to blog herself right now because she is more disappointed about being cut from the final airing than she was about being cut from the audition.
As she tells it, they started their dance and about halfway in Piers Morgan buzzes them with that horrible “X”. They knew to keep going until they had all three buzz them out, and did. The audience was completely with them, clapping and cheering. At the end, Piers went first.
Piers Morgan is an unnecessarily cruel man
He starts by telling them that they all look like Christmas trees. Then he goes after the youngest in the group (who is also the teacher’s daughter) and tells her that they need to split the group because the younger ones are detracting from the older ones. Keep in mind that it is 7:00pm, they’ve been sitting in the green room since 7:30 am after being there all day the day before, she’s 8 years old and tired, stressed, and standing in front of a big studio audience without her mother (or her glasses), taking criticism from a very mean man. He goes on to say that some of them looked like a deer caught in the headlights (one girl does have an expression that looks that way sometimes), and sorry girls, but you’ve got to go. Frankly, he goes too far, particularly with the kids. He gets personal, that’s what’s not right.
Hasselhoff goes next. He tells them that his daughters were Irish dancers too, but he doesn’t think they have what it takes to go the distance, no vote yet. Sharon Osborne then has her two cents, basically criticizing the costumes but not much else, giving an indication that she intends to vote no.
The vote is in: XXX, they’re done.
Would she do it again next year?
My short answer: No. Had their segment aired in place of um… maybe the Liberace wanna-be, then yes, they probably would do it if invited. It wasn’t the disappointment of not making the cut that bothers her (and me); it’s how off-base the show is this year. It’s absurd. To have Piers Morgan put the talentless but bizarre Boy Shakira into the next round and hammer every kid who walks onto the stage is just weird and sick. It’s a true statement of how low the denominator has become when he thinks that behavior is entertaining. None of the adults harbored serious ideas about the kids going very far with this, but we did see it as a way for them to glimpse the hard reality of what it’s like to be on a television show and also to stretch themselves a bit. They did that.
One of the comments they all heard many times was how nice, how supportive, how friendly they were. The other kids and adults all liked them. They had an opportunity to be in a strange and surreal environment for a couple of days and learn to accept others as they are without any filters or parents’ preconceived notions. That was all good. But not good enough to subject them to the kind of unnecessary nastiness that seems to come with any Simon Cowell production these days. As an aside, Simon did come up to them after they’d come offstage and say that he’d have kept them on. Easy for him to say when he’s got his mouthpiece Piers out there doing the dirty work.
One highlight for DG was, believe it or not, Jerry Springer. He was very kind and funny, and they had a fun backstage moment teaching him how to dance. DG was a fan of his from Dancing with the Stars and he didn’t disappoint this time around either. Another highlight was using her cell phone to catch some photos and video of her time in the green room, some of which are in this post. If you click through the first photo on this page her Boy Shakira video is the YouTube link on the Zooomr page.
Post Mortem
One last thought from me on all of this. After the first show there was a huge backlash on their AGT message boards about the way Morgan was with the kids. There were some calling for NBC to cancel the show because of it. I suspect that subsequent shows were heavily edited to downplay that aspect of things as a result, which is likely why their performance was relegated to the reject montage. However, what people don’t get is that by the time they’ve seen it on TV, Piers has ALREADY been mean. By not airing the segment, they added insult to injury. Those kids (not just ours, but all of the ones on the reject pile) worked hard for the opportunity to be slammed by Piers Morgan, et al. They were ticked, but they got over it. All of them were looking forward to that fleeting moment of ‘worldly fame’, and to take that away from them really was beyond cruel. Up to this episode, the montages had all been adults. This week they put the kids there too, and that’s just not right.
The Verdict
So my verdict is that yes, America’s Got Talent, but you’re unlikely to find it in large measure on that show, because they are not looking for talent, they’re looking for weird, bizarre and stupid acts to parade past a zombie audience. So far there have been exactly two acts worth even a second look. This show doesn’t represent what I know to be the true talent out there — well-trained musicians, singers, dancers and others — who really are worthy of attention. It plays to the lowest denominator and the basest instincts in us all. This is not how it was last season and had I known it would be this way this year, I’d never have agreed in the first place.
The only consolation for me at this point would be for the hyperactive sax player from Episode 1 to win it all. But he’ll have to do it without my vote, because DG and I have decided it’s not worth following to the end.
And PS to Sharon Osborne: Lose the purple hair.
Technorati Tags: America’s Got Talent, AGT, NBC, Simon Cowell, reality TV, Piers Morgan, Sharon Osborne, David Hasselhoff
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