Ken Lee

I came across this video the other night and found it hilarious. The singer is a woman named Valentina Hasan, who tried out for Season 2 of Music Idol, the Bulgarian version of Pop Idol/American Idol. Her performance reminds me the most of American Idol's William Hung. (Remember him?)



However, let's give credit where credit's due. I think the natural reaction for such a performance would be to hide under a rock somewhere and pray for anonymity. However, from watching several later videos (such as the one below), it's obvious that Valentina has continued to practice her music. While the quality of her singing's still not that good, she's worked on learning the lyrics to Without You, and can sing the song much better now than she originally could.

Third World America and the Boogying of the President

I'm not a terribly big fan of American Idol (although Milady is), but as we watched the "results show" last night, I was struck by one scene. Idol judge Randy Jackson had gone home to New Orleans to visit with some of the victims of Hurricane Katrina and, here, 600+ days after the tragedy, people are still homeless, living in trailer camps set up by FEMA amid the drugs and violence. In fact, what American Idol didn't mention is that officials in New Orleans are still recovering bodies and expect to find more corpses because some houses there have yet to be touched.

In all this time.

And I turned to Milady last night and said, "Only a third world country isn't able to recover after a natural disaster after two years."

In other news, President Bush gets down, gets funky at the White House:

"Paula, You're Fired!"

I'm not a terribly big fan of American Idol (although Milady is), but I did find this little snippet of information to be interesting:

More than half of adult voters for the Fox Broadcasting Company’s American Idol program value judge Simon Cowell’s opinion over that of the other judges in the 2006 season, according to a study released today by Pursuant, Inc. of Washington, D.C. The study found that 58 percent of voters respect Simon Cowell’s opinion the most. This is more than twice that of the 26 percent who value Randy Jackson’s opinion and nine times more than the 6 percent who value Paula Abdul’s. (Source)

This doesn't surprise me in the least. Cowell's comments, IMO, are spot on about 95% of the time. Jackson's comments can be decent, but he lapses all too often into "stroke the contestant's ego" mode (that and his frequent inanities like, "Yo, dog!" and "It's a hot one tonight!"). As for Abdul, she needs to be replaced immediately (actually, she should have been replaced after last year). It's amazing how often she's incoherent. She appears to listen to the music mostly on an emotional level, rarely listening to the music or the singer critically, and then gives little thought as to what she's actually going to say. To borrow Donald Trump's phrase, I'd say, "Paula, you're fired!"

One other comment I've told Milady in recent weeks is that if I were a music producer in, say, Nashville or Detroit, I'd be praying for Kelly Pickler and Paris Bennett to both lose (as they have). Those two in particular - along with Chris Daughtry - could have very successful careers, insha'allah. The remaining three finalists could also be successful, but I'd place my bets (if I were a betting man) over the long-term on Pickler, Bennett, and Daughtry because all three are very good in their niche (country, r&b, and rock) and all three of those niches are huge.

Clay Aiken Sued for Being Gay

Yeah, I know, I've been real busy today...but this one was just too good to pass up:


AIKEN FANS MAKE GOOD ON THEIR PROMISE

LATEST: Nine former fans of AMERICAN IDOL star CLAY AIKEN are forging ahead with threats to sue his record label bosses for false advertising.

The one-time devotees have been shocked by recent US tabloid claims the wholesome pop singer is gay and they've filed a Federal Trade Commission complain against executives at RCA and Sony/BMG, alleging they were duped in marketing and promotional campaigns.

The nine-strong group, listing themselves as "aggrieved consumers" SUSAN J, PATRICIA A, JACQUELYN C, KAREN G, PHYLLIS S, CAROL M, KAREN G, KIM M and LINDA F, hail from all over America.

They allege that employees of RCA, Sony/BMG, and Aiken himself "engaged in collusion to prevent public disclosures they believed might be harmful to their product."

The angry ladies go on to state, "This is tantamount to a manufacturer concealing information about a defective product. Therefore these actions were both unfair and deceptive to consumers."

A spokeswoman for the group says, "As consumers, we feel ripped off. It is obvious now that the private Clay is very different from the manufactured packaged public Clay that was marketed to us."

The group is asking the FTC to investigate the practices of the record companies, to invoke civil penalties where appropriate, and to enjoin the companies from violating the Federal Trade Commission Act.

So Clay's gay. So what? While I'm not a fan of homosexuality (I'm glad Brokeback Mountain lost the Oscar for Best Picture), I'm not sure I see what the point of the lawsuit is. Now that these women know he's gay, they're devestated that he'll never marry any of them and allow them to bear his children? (Rolling eyes.) Grow up, little girls, and get a life!