My Favorites on America’s Got Talent

America’s Got Talent: Guilty pleasure, manipulated reality talent show—that’s my take and I’m there. So far, I’m a big fan of former chicken catcher Kevin Skinner, aspiring country-ballad singer. If he’s genuine—there’s always a part of me that holds on to a bit of skepticism with these competitions—he has my vote. Then, those three Texas Tenors look awfully cute in their cowboy hats. Soprano Barbara Padilla sings beautifully, plus she’s a cancer survivor—she’s high on my list. Next week brings more semi-finalist performances. Hope they are as good as the last round.

Pandora Rocks

I’ve been listening to Chet Baker Radio today as I re-immerse myself in a long-tabled project. I have son Scott to thank for turning me on to Pandora. I’ve added a link so that you can check it out, but I am enjoying my Chet Baker and company as I work nearby.

The way Pandora works is that you pick an artist and they pick music they think you’ll like. You can thumbs up or down it and create your own little “radio” station. Fitting, in that Scott is taking a radio production class this semester away from Hendrix College at our excellent community college, Waubonsee Community College in Sugar Grove.

And a rambling afterthought. One of my favorite bloggers, Marsha, is soliciting view on whether her high school daughter should go away to college next year or stay at home and attend a community college. Of course, I chipped in my opinion, which I must confess is also rambling. Do y’all see a trend here? My conclusion was to weigh the pros and cons but of course this blogger is well ahead on that front.

Me, I never wanted to go to college anywhere but the University of Alabama. So, I never struggled with that decision. However, decades later when I wanted to learn design skills, I found the Advertising, Design & Illustration program at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn was excellent and my instructors were talented as well as great teachers.

Where was I? I am supposed to be working on a “long-tabled project” and not blogging. I told you I was rambling. Add distracted to that too

A Redneck Christmas or It Takes All Kinds

Jeff Foxworthy has made quite a career out of redneck comedy. I thought of him when I noticed gifts for the redneck advertised at the top of this morning’s post. Just because the blog is called Alabama Kitchen Sink doesn’t mean everyone from Alabama is a redneck, and I certainly don't purport to be one. However, rednecks are some of my favorite people, and let’s just say I have encountered my share of them. Most are lovable, colorful and rather benign except when it’s deer season or they've had too much beer. Both of those events can be interesting or deadly.

Click on over to check out a new-to-me redneck, Slidawg and the Redneck Ramblers for a new Christmas song called “Did You Heared What I Heared?” and slap a smile on your face. Appropriately, the CD is available at Wal-Mart.

Christmas Music Memories

I haven’t bought any new Christmas music this year, but if Oprah’s embrace of Barack Obama is as successful as her endorsement of Josh Groban’s new CD, Noel, we will have him as our Democratic presidential nominee.

Today as I write, Chris Isaak Christmas is playing on my computer. I love his Pretty Paper rendition, and his Mele Kalikimaka is playful when traditional grows old. A Charlie Brown Christmas with the Vince Guaraldi Trio is classic as is Nat King Cole’s Christmas Favorites. You can’t top Aaron Neville’s Soulful Christmas with its Louisiana Christmas Day. These are all some of my favorites.

However, I can’t help but think back to the Christmas music I grew up with--Burl Ives’ and A Holly Jolly Christmas, Gene Autry with Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer. Later today, I’ll sit down at the piano and plunk out a few tunes, most likely written by Johnny Marks. I will start and stop when I hit the inevitable sour note. And when I’m through, I’ll be smiling and I’ll be happy. Music does that to me.

For now, though, I work at the computer and sip my lemon lift tea and hope the ice storm is not so bad.

Retro Father’s Day

It was at the bottom of a very large stack of boxes filled with books, and I thought “oh boy, more books.” Pleasantly surprised and tired from unpacking the books, I tripped down Memory Lane as I have a tendency to do while unpacking when I discovered the treasures in this box. Maybe that’s why it’s taking me so long to get everything unpacked. I can’t stand the clutter and the uncertainty of knowing in which box that cordless screwdriver lurks, but dang it, I just get caught up in the emotions and memories.

But I digress, dear gentle readers.

The box contained our record collection, the one we and numerous mover-guys have carted around since the 70s. Heck, we don’t even have a record player or turntable since freeing ourselves from the Fisher-Price player our son Jeff had as a kid. But I did run across an ad in this week’s Big Lots flyer for a Retro Stereo System for $45. I suppose there’s a market for old Baby Boomers like me who may want to revisit their rock n roll days if they’ve clung to the old records as we have.

And what music did the young Sheila and the young Bill listen to? Of course Beatles—lots of albums since they were my first love. My first album, Something New, is there. The Bee Gees, James Taylor, ELO, movie soundtracks, Bill’s Burt Bacharach records, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, The 5th Dimension, The Hollies, Chicago and yes my old Carpenters albums are still there too along with Bill’s The Sea by Rod McKuen. There's no accounting for taste which, in some cases (not mine of course), has thankfully changed.

The first record I pulled out opened to photos of the individuals and then a big group shot. Inside were the lyrics in script. And although I hadn’t listened to the Moody Blues in years with the last time a concert at Chicagoland’s Ravina, I remembered how much I used to love their music. A CD is just too compact to carry the impact album cover art did. What we’ve given up in the name of compactness, we’ve lost visually. Oh well, that’s progress. Or is it?

My favorite discovery--those old kids’ records from the Muppets and Disney. Jeff, do you want those? Remember Lydia the Tattooed Lady? Now, there's a great song!

I can see why we hold on to these objects from the past—why it’s so hard to let go of them. Would I have brought forth these memories without the box of records to trigger the recollection? I fear not.

Dissing Rap Music, Dissing Wordsworth

I love to read fellow blogger Naomi and her Diary from England. She posted recently about Cumbria Tourism’s attempt to appeal to the YouTube generation. Now, as much as I love YouTube, I love the poetry of Brit poet William Wordsworth a whole lot more.

The YouTube production by Cumbria Tourism has bastardized a favorite poem of mine, Wordsworth’s I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, you know the daffodils poem, with a rap "music" version of the famous poem. I endured the whole rap treatment of the poem delivered by a be-bopping squirrel mascot known as Sam, a.k.a, MC Nuts.

Lovely Lake Ullswater serves as a backdrop to this large annoying rapping rodent.

“The modern re-working manages to stay true to the original sentiment but with some slight variation of the lyrics. As well as making the works of Wordsworth relevant to a new, younger audience, it also shows how modern-day rap and its clever use of wordplay is a distant relative of poetic rhyming verse.”

So says the Web site for the Lake District.

Crap, or as some call it “rap,” has it’s following, and I have actually found a couple of “songs” that worked for this old, white Baby Boomer. I’ll have to show it to Scotty and see what he thinks. I predict this 18 year-old will agree with his mum.

And no, I'm not intentionally becoming a poetry blog. Check in tomorrow for a crazy photo.


I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: -
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -and gazed -but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.