Idle Thoughts: The first seven minutes of Semi Finals 3 and 4

Dicko: "Perform last"

First off, a comment of Lana Krost. I wrote in the last edition that her performance was shocking, but that she'd get through to the next round purely on the TB/HTM vote. And guess what? She did. BOW DOWN TO MY POWERS OF guesstimation PSYCHIC AWESOME!!!
(Incidentally, Lana is reported in the Blue Collar Rag as being "Half-American and half-Vietnamese but born in Australia." I'm surprised she hasn't been adopted by Angelina Jolie in her quest to collect a child from every race on Earth, possibly to form some sort of unholy United Colours of Benntton army. But I digress...)
Speaking of undeserving hacks, Marty Simpson was one of the kids from the other group of boys (the good one) who got through. Other than a pair of eyebrows to stun, he had nothing going for him in his performance, which was a boring as bricks version of an already boring as bricks song, (Over My Head) (who, on a side note, only seem to release the one song over and over again but with a different name).

I know I've just joined the Idol merry-go-round, but has it always been like this? Has it always been the case that there is, apart from one worthy contestant, one undeserving contestant who goes through every semi-final? This year, there has been Matt Corby as well as the aformentioned Lana and Marty who have gone through to the finals despite a lack of entertaining singing abilities.
I have two schools of thought concerning this business. Firstly, voters are shallow people who will vote purely based on looks. Both Matt and Marty (I guess...) have The Dean Geyer Effect going for them (which is symptomised by the immediate ovulation of every female in the room; and in some cases, men). As for Lana, she would've got through based on both the fingers of the TBs voting for the young one (a la Lisa Mitchell and [insert your own example here]) and the hands of the Horny-Teen-Males (ie. The Hand-To-Gland Rule).
The other theory is that if you perform last, you'll get through. That logic has appeared in this year's semis as regularly as bowel movements. All those who sung last, Jacob, Lana and Agro, have gone through. I reckon voters are easily distracted, who vote for their favourite, and...um...the last person.

Here's hoping the final round can break this rule.






HOW IS THIS BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE?!

Idle Thoughts: Semi Final 2

Expect the expected

The second Idol semi-final has come and gone. My thoughts: The girls did decently, much better than the boys of the Semi Final the First; though that's kind of like saying you'd rather eat a piece of cake than a piece of crap- a godawfully homogenised, cliched and generally undeserving of 15 minutes of Idol fame (except for the odd WEIGHT CRISIS article in the local gossip rag) piece of crap. At least I could differentiate between the girls without having to refer to their costumes.

This sentiment, however, leaves me with little material to play with. I can't completely trash the girls voices, as that would make me a bit of a hypocrite; even worse, an Idol hypocrite - one of the lowliest labels possible.
And I can't pick on their costumes, as they didn't have the nafftastic conformity of the Night of the Scarves. That, and I'll probably be accused of being sexist. Even worse, I'll be on par with Kyle 'S&M Throat Fetish' Sandilands, who did go down that hazy path in commenting on Tarisai's pants, laying on several blatant subtextual hints of weight issues, something I'm sure Kyle will be familiar with (i.e. HE'S FAT!). Now there's an Idol hypocrite for you.
But I'll do my best. Prepare to be disappointed.

Speaking of nothing to do with winners, the aformentioned Tarisai was voted into the next round, as well as 17 year old Lana. Tarisai's inclusion was a no brainer - even if some viewers didn't like her, her voice, which was so loud that I think that the producers needn't bother giving her a mic, would have still echoed in viewers' ears as they blindly poked at their mobile phones. However, I'm not sure if she's aoing to appeal to the main voting demographics like some of the other contestants.
And that's where Lana comes in. Being the precocious 17 year old, there was no surprise in her getting through, despite a performance which was almost as weak as a Starbucks 'coffee' or an insult from Kyle the Cock. Performing Stacy Ann Ferguson's Big Girls Don't Cry didn't do her any favours in my eyes (but Ferguson's lack of talent is for another day). But clearly, she's fancied by both major voting blocs: the TBs ("OMG SHES A QTIE!!1!!") and the Horny-Teen-Males ("*thwap* *thwap* *thwap*")
What irked me the most about her inclusion is that it further pushes the fact that Idol is basically all about image. Yes, I know it's Idol, we're talking about. I know that singing is the least important aspect of this singing contest. But the whole image thing was pushed by all the judges, who each said in one form or another 'Awww. You're so adorable. I just want to gobble you up' etc.
On that note, Kyle revealed again what a twat he is, by saying to Lana that her performance should have been "sexier." This is a 17 year old girl we're talking about here. Yet Kyle wants this underaged contestant to be "sexier." You just have to question his motives. However legal eagles, I'm not going to specifically mention any ideas of inappropriate behaviour which may or may not end happily. I'm just saying the last thing we need is another Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera in her 'Dirrty' days hogging up the charts, let alone one from the factory of Idol.

*remembers Xtina's Dirrty phase*

*throws up*

It's a shame Cheray didn't get through. Her performance was respectable. Her particular stylings, however, would mainly appeal to an older demographic, and we all know older Idol voters don't actually exist; they're just like the Sandman or the Tooth Fairy (though last time I checked, the Easter Bunny was just about to be elected as CEO of a major Legal Firm, I won't remind you which one, as I'm sure you all know of this very common fact)


This is turning out to be a very typical series of Idol, and I can already tell that by the end of the series, I'll be shaking my fist at the TV when they pick the least desering winner. Despite that, I'll still tune in to the next two semi-finals with my 'Surprised' face on just in case someone at The Ministy of Truth Network Ten is watching me back via the telescreen*.



*Yes, I have been reading 1984, thank you for asking.

Idle Thoughts: Semi Final 1

Kyle (paraphrased):"All I can do is reiterate what Dicko and Marcia have said..."

Too true words from Kyle. Apart from one comment, all he did was copycat what the previous judges said, barely a scent of originality in sight. No wonder the producers put him on the right side of the table. I'm guessing it was for the best - if Kyle had to create more than one original thought per episode, he might strain something.

To the contestants, and I didn't like any of them. There was barely anything to differentiate from the lot, apart from what wacky costumes they wore, and even in that aspect, most of them adorned themselves in some form of silly neckwear. Husny, in particular, ended up looking like the result of a sordid one night stand between Prince, Flava Flav and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Whilst I'm here, I reckon Matt will make it far into the finals. He may not necessarily have the charisma, and I can't shake the feeling that he'd end up a Karaoke Princess, but he can hit the notes, but most importantly, the girls will think he's hot. That'll get the TBs flailing their fingers at their mobile phones and donating their 55c to the 'Corby Is Hot He Must Win LOL' fund. It's the Dean Geyer Effect all over again.
Vocally, they all even sounded the same. In one form or another, they all had that nasal R&B tone Guy Sebastian ran with in the first series. I'm guessing this blandness is the reason why these Idol kids (or at least the producers who dressed them) decided to give them all their distinctive costumes and neck trinkets, to give the viewers a way to remember them, cos we certainly aren't gonna recognise them by their original voices.
I should mention at this point that my tastes in male singers tend to have a voice that wouldn't even make it past the cattle calls (too much awsomeness for the Idol machine, maybe?). But last year's winner Damien Leith proved that Idol voters do actually respect a good crisp voice and songsmith, as opposed to some vocalist melismating their way through a butchered version of whatever song is popular at the moment.

And now an ordered list of like:
Jacob (Best by default. He didn't sound like some R&B cliché like the others - he sounded like a Rock Ballad cliché)
Carl (must...not...make...Village..People...joke...*head explodes*)
Matt (Stopping by Idol studios with a vanilla performance on his way to a Middle-Eastern Leaders themed dress-up party)
Junior (He sung Pink's Dear Mr. President without any political malice. Memories of punk rocker Lee Harding's version of Holiday come flooding back - I NEED AN EXORCIST AND A PLUNGER, NOW!!!!)
Daniel (He looked like he had just jumped out of a Lacoste catalogue. Wanker)
Husny ((from his profile)"Music is, like, is a big tool..." You're a big tool, Husny!)

Here's hoping tomorrow's batch of girls have some talent to them. We don't want a repeat of that train wreck from a few years ago.

A community message from the IJSF!

'We need 100ccs of stat, STAT!'

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As you were.

Attack of the D&G

"You know who wears sunglasses indoors? Blind people and assholes" - Larry David

The other day, the new logo for the London 2012 Olympics was unveiled (and yes, I know that actually happened months ago, making that sentence about as topical as haemorrhoid cream. But I needed a decent segue, dammit!). For those of you just joining us click here for the logo; but if you like a worded description, basically it’s a retina piercing bright fluoro-pink, sharp edged ‘2012’ arranged in two rows. One could also think of it as a broken swastika. This guy (a design, not art, student) calls it bad design. One can also accurately accuse this logo of being so ugly it gives everyone it touches seizures and cancer of the retinas.

The thing that sticks out about this logo, though, is how 1980s it looks. That bright fluoro and jagged edged motif hasn’t been seen in public since its well deserved execution back when the 90s was introduced to a wide-eyed, bouffant-haired, shoulder-padded population.
The makers of this logo have used the Art Student defence (if you explain something abstractly enough, it’s just got to be right) and said that the logo depicts a modern day London. The sad thing about this comment is that it is completely true. We, as a society, have devolved back to that horrific era of cringe-worthy 80s fashion. Be scared, ladies and menfolk, be very scared.

I remember back when everyone dismissed the 80s as a decade of bad fashion and an overabundance of daggy. If you dare wore something remotely fluoro, or wore sunglasses under a roof, you would be subject to several beatings and name callings. Then one day, the legitimately cool kids at school began wearing hints of this sort of thing, occasionally wearing a pair of op-shop 80s sunglasses, but in a purely ironic isn’t-this-lame way. Then that trend spread to the supposedly cool kids, who saw this as teh coolzor!, incorporating this stuff into their wardrobe and seal-clubbing uniforms. Eventually, celebrities got a hint of this from their PR hounds, and thus began the plague. Fast forward a couple of years, and now everyone is donning the 80s fashion, but in a legitimate this-is-serious-mum kind of way, blinded by supposedly popular culture.

If you think I’m wrong, just pop down to your local seal-clubbery or business faculty in your local university to see this phenomenon in action: A mass of eye-piercing fluoro t-shirts and hoodies brighter than a whole club full of Wanker Boys, scraggy bouffant hairstyles higher than the Tower of Babel (referring to the size of the wearer’s ego, maybe?), and the bug-eyed people wearing face-sized sunglasses – so many freaking face-glasses!

This combination has pretty much become the official uniform of teenagers everywhere. Take a walk around the city and you’ll see at least a third of male teenagers wearing near-identical copies of the following:

• Bouffant, scraggly hair with blonde tips;
  
• A fluoro coloured t-shirt with words like “Shiny Disco Ball” or “I’m a Walking Dance Cliché” in a large, jagged font plastered on the front;
  
• A hoodie with logos and icons synonymously of the 80s (in fluoro, of course);
  
• Jeans that are either so tight you’ll be worried (sorta) that one wrong move will castrate the wearer, or so loose they hang down to the knees;
  
• A belt so large one wouldn’t be too far off in mistaking it as a codpiece/sock-down-the-trousers; white sneakers with some name brand shouting its presence;
  
• And last and most definitely least, the face-sized sunglasses, most likely tinted so that it acts as an impromptu mirror for every other fashion sheep to check that their hair is still perfectly coiffed.

Which brings us to the face-glasses thing, the centrepiece of this fashion rehash. Popularised by such outstanding model citizens as Paris Beckham (I’ll be surprised if the latter ever takes off her face-glasses) and Misha Barton, the face-glasses have taken off in popularity over the past year of so.
The look behind the face-glasses (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?!) is supposedly intended to make the face itself look smaller and thus more petite and cute. I’m guessing that whenever people put on a pair of the things, they reckon they look like this:

However, they’re more likely to look like the following:

Everywhere I go, I see a handful of people wearing these face-glasses. What’s worrying is that many of these sightings are of folks who wear these sunglasses indoors; and for males, there is no escaping the fact that they look like an absolute arsehat doing this. Once, I saw a guy – typical wanker boy – who was in a shop wearing his tinted glasses like the cool chic guy he isn’t, whilst LOOKING AT OTHER TINTED FACE GLASSES!!
Most of these sunglasses have some fancy-pants brand adorning them, like Dolce and Gabbana or something like that. Now here’s a conspiracy theory for you: The abbreviation of Dolce & Gabbana is D&G (the letters and punctuation mark that adorns everything the brand touches). Notice how that ampersand looks kind of like the letter A:

D&G ----> DAG!!!

What’s even more horrific than this conspiracy of the Dag staring at us in the face (or not, it’s so hard to tell where people are looking considering their D&Ggy face-glasses seem to be permanently attached to their heads), is that this 80s trend is spreading it’s influence on so many other aspects of society.
Nearly every popular musical release steals samples from that decade. Rihanna’s SOS, for example, is basically a karaoke version of Soft Cell’s Tainted Love, just with the lyrics changed; kind of like that comedic device where the words of a popular song is altered to get a laugh, just without the funny, soul and irony.
Nearly every second blockbuster film is a poor adaptation of an 80s invention. And we can’t mention movies without mentioning Napoleon Dynamite, the film that every uni student was quoting non-stop at one point and claiming it as TEH GREATEST FLIM EVA!!2!1!!11!!@! despite it being at best a half-decent film, which is pretty much is a cinematic homage to that decade. And, of course, that ungodly decade was the inspiration for the London 2012 logo.

Maybe I’m getting a little it ahead of myself. Perhaps this whole thing could be an attempt by the children of that era (ie. Born in the 1980s) to recapture a period of time when thing were simpler, where we didn’t have Global Warming, Oil shortages and the War on Ethnics Terrorists bombarding society (instead we had Nuclear Winter, Oil price spikes and the War on Ethnics Communists). It could also be these kids trying to experience the decade in which they were born in, but were too young to experience the…naïve pleasures spawned from that era.
Perhaps, and at this point of the blog I must label this following sentence and paragraph LIES cos the fashion big wigs all read and love this blog and get all of their ideas off of this hereby space (a comment I again must label LIES) and I like my arse the way it is at the moment: unlitigated and firm, like mutton. Where was I? Ah yes. Perhaps, this could just be a campaign by Dolce & Gabbana and other fashion companies to clear out warehouses full of surplus face-glasses and fluoro 80s clothing*.

The only hope I can see in this whole debacle is that fashion, like the folk that follow it almost sheepishly, is an easily distracted creature. For some reason, it stumbled upon some mothballed boxes of bad 80s clothing and accessories, and decided to call that The Modern Fashion. Now that 80s fashion is truly entrenched in society, it will hopefully be a short time before the fashion beast tires of the 80s, and moves on to another decade to be ‘inspired’ by. Here’s hoping that Mr. Versace or Ms. Target bump into a crate of clothes from the 1890s, cos who here doesn’t want to dress up like a grizzly old gold prospector or a character from a Jane Austen novel?

At the moment, though, we’re still dressing and living in the past, with wanker boys and permatan bimbos continuing to dictate market forces and how society runs in general. This Attack of the D&G has made some forget that the uniform they wear so adamantly now as a fashion statement was not so long ago, and will soon be, considered horrifically daggy and naff. I personally can’t wait to see the looks on the faces of so many business students when they realise that the 80s clothes that they have spent hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on has become naff once again. In the meantime, we’ll just wait for the boffins at Fashion Land to unleash a chicken onto their archived wardrobes to pick out the Next Big Thing in fashion, and simultaneously hope that something decent comes out of the Eightiesfication of society – A Captain Planet movie, perhaps?

* LIES!**

** or is it...***


*** YES IT'S LIES****


**** or not...*****


***** YES, YES IT IS!!!