Sunday, May 31, 2009

Boyled in oil...

Well, the painful spectacle of Susan Boyle is finally over. She came second on Britain's Got Talent. All I can say is thank God it's over!

Unlike several friends and acquaintances (some of whom admittedly got teary eyed at her trilling tones), I never quite saw the magic in Ms. Boyle. Sure, her singing was very nice. It was NOT spectacular. Her talent wasn't different or better than many singers of that genre of music. She wasn't going to be playing the beautiful ingenue lead in Phantom of the Opera any time soon.

So what was it Susan Boyle had that so captivated the public around the world?

She made the superior feel even more superior. They could pretend to back the nag with the sway back to win the race in the hopes they would look noble. She made the shy and those who have a low sense of self-esteem feel better, because, well, Susan was one of them. And look how the audience loves her...so there must be hope for every other pub singer or garage band strummer locked away in a small town.

The bottom line is that she really wasn't a saleable commodity in the long run. Coming second is no small potatoes on Britain's Got Talent or on American Idol for that matter. On American Idol number two often goes on to bigger and better things than the winner. But you have to have a persona and a talent that has staying power and not just be a media spectacle for a few weeks.

Will Ms. Boyle be a household word six months or a year down the road? I doubt it.

Firstly, her style of music does not appeal to the downloading iTunes age group. In other words, the young. Not many older folks still buy CDs... so after the dust cleared Susan Boyle was ultimately not very marketable. Just who was going to buy her CDs or download her songs to their iPods? Very few in the long run....and it is the long run that counts.

And we all know, whether is it Simon Cowell or any other music producer, they don't just want raw talent, they want a marketability factor. Something or someone they can sell. Susan just doesn't have that. She has quirkiness mixed with the homespun. In this world of glam and glitz what Susan has doesn't make for eye-catching covers on weekly celeb magazines.

Her makeover (admittedly small that it was) came too soon after that first winning performance. It was as if the Susan we all came to know and love was not good enough in her own eyes or the eyes of Britain's Got Talent producers. So they tried to tart her up a tad. From a dowdy dress to a trendy pants outfit only made her suddenly seem false. Like she was cashing in on instant fame. If a sparkly old-lady dress and bushy eyebrows got her where she was...why was that no longer acceptable? Because dowdy is not marketable.

The "never been kissed" fable, to "she lives with her cat", to the "she sings in local pubs" stories all left me vaguely uncomfortable. Like "let's all feel sorry for Susan....poor dear, she doesn't have a life."

She does...and she will go back to it.

Boyle will have a year of being promoted and will probably end up singing in a few Euro variety shows. But my prediction is that she will disappear almost as quickly as she appeared.

The public is ever fickle...and while it feels good to back a dark horse, when that horse doesn't win we go on to greener pastures.

As for being shy and retiring...there are enough video clips of Boyle on YouTube to prove other wise. There is a video of her singing in a pub 20 years ago to a group of bored half tipsy Scots. There is a CD that she recorded for a charity event a decade or so ago as well. She is not the shy and retiring old maid she has been painted by the mass media. But it makes a good sob story.

She's been out there all along performing in front of her peers...But this was the first time she created a media frenzy for performing. It became apparent she couldn't handle the pressure of the media spotlight during this final week of the competition when she was put in seclusion lest she have a meltdown.

I don't blame Susan for any of this...I blame the media. They had a good laugh with it for awhile and now the story is over.

Let's all just let Susan go back to singing in the pub. I'm sure her cat will be glad to have her home.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Two-FacedBook

Yes, I admit it -- I am on Facebook. Mind you I was dragged very slowly into this instant communication world.

And no, I do not and will not Twitter. (Well, apparently I did, but my ex husband used that word 30 years ago and I don't think he meant the same thing! Twittering was usually preceded by the word Stop when coming from his lips.)

It seems to me that it is the "instant" part of instant communication that is the problem. It is a far cry from when I was back in high school and we had pen friends. For anyone who remembers the Ed Sullivan Show, The Beatles, or huge chrome-encrusted cars, a pen friend was someone from another country or another province with whom you corresponded via a pen, a piece of paper and a stamp. Apparently this form of communication was used just after the wheel was invented according to anyone under 30. And it wasn't instant. I waited for weeks for a letter from that tanned handsome 17-year-old in Adelaide, Australia. And God, I was in heaven when it arrived (especially the one with the photo!).

But I digress. I am on Facebook because a friend of mine in the U.S. sent me an invite to join over a year ago. So I did ... and I promptly took myself off the next day. I was worried about my privacy. Then about five months ago, I checked the site out again. I found I had not "killed" myself off as I had thought. The residue of my profile was still lurking there.

So I thought what the hell, and dove in with gusto. It became a challenge to find anyone to add to my list and when I actually had THREE friends, I was overwhelmed at my own popularity. Then I started to look for other people I knew from the past...imagine when I checked some of their profiles and found they had 4,245,699 friends! OK, a slight exaggeration -- but Facebook users having 300 friends is not uncommon. Three-hundred friends...sure! Even the Dalai Lama doesn't have 300 friends. Followers maybe, but not friends.

Which brings us to the word "friend". Who are we kidding here...no one has that many friends. It has become a bit of a game on these social networking sites to see how many people you can add to your score list.

I am up to somewhere in the high 20s...I think I have 27 "friends" at this point. Some are former business contacts, others who just wandered into my world by accident, some are friends of friends. Out of the 27 people how many do I actually see face to face -- maybe three. Probably the original three!

Not that I haven't had a dozen invites to lunch or to meet for a drink. I now weigh just over 12 pounds waiting to be fed and watered. The invites never quite materialize into real food or libations. It seems there is a little flurry of messages back and forth when you first receive a "contact" and then you realize you have absolutely nothing in common and it peters out. But that person is still on your prized friend list adding to your popularity total.

Now if any of my Facebook friends reads this...please don't think I don't love you all dearly. Or at least five or six of you. :-)

As for the rest of you, let's do lunch!
***
Sometimes you've just gotta laugh...

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Opiate for the masses....Viagra

Gee...some days the news is just too good not to pass along! Yes, I am being sarcastic.

And so comes (no pun intended) the headline of the day: Pfizer offers the unemployed free Viagra.

How about using some of those massive drug company profits to provide food and nutrition for school kids? How about donating it to green initiatives? How about ... well, anything, but enabling out-of-work American males to get their little stiffy on.

OK, for the record Pfizer is also going to donate Lipitor, anti-smoking meds, antibiotics and other potions to Americans who can present a "pink slip" to prove they are jobless. A good thing. Maybe....

But, seriously folks, Viagra! Since when has a cure for erectile disfunction become a neccessity of life. I was brought up to think it was food and shelter and clothing were the necessities of life. And maybe drugs to help a serious life-threatening illness. No guy has died from lack of nookie yet.

The jobless in this battered economy can use a hand (again no pun intended!), but surely drug company money can be spent on more pressing issues than making sure men can have sex. You think their wives, who are worrying about where the next mortgage or rent payment is coming from or how to feed the two kids, are feeling hot to trot? I don't think so....being sick with worry doesn't make for a raging libido.

So who is going to help the women feel sexy again? No free pills from Pfizer for that. No free gift certificate for wine and roses. Nope...the women will just have to get their groove on from hearing chubby hubby call out: "be ready in an hour dear, I am popping the little blue pill..." Who said romance is dead? Oh yeah, the drug companies.

Somes, You've Just Gotta Laugh...

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Hell's bells....

How many call centre people does it take to screw in a lightbulb. None...but they sure screw over customers.

Imagine my surprise when I checked my phone bill invoice online... I had received the usual notice that my One Bill was available for viewing. Even though I get a paper version in the mail, I still get a notice via email. Poetic justice this time.

The balance said $175.92! I am thinking, what the F.....! My phone bill (with one phone line and no frills, plus internet) always comes to $68 to $70 a month. So what the hell was this?

I dutifully called a "help" line...waited and pressed buttons before getting anything resembling a homo sapiens. I had asked for billing. Of course, that was too simple. Turns out billing doesn't really take care of billing...not if the overcharge is on the internet part of the One Bill.

OK? Then what is the point of One Bill?

I refused to dial through again and insisted the boob I had on the line patch me through to the internet boobs. That took several minutes...and I am being generous here. I listened to music for a long time!

Finally I get an officious sounding woman on the line. And believe me, I know officious when I hear it....since it is one my own favorite modes!

"What the heck is this $175 phone bill all about...?", I asked." She started to "look into the matter", to quote her highness, and determined that when I called last month to ask about a reduction in internet costs, the call centre drone at that time had cheerfully given me a $5 a month bundle discount...but had marked me as disconnected and then put a $100 reconnection fee on my bill. Huh? I moved house a year and a half ago and didnt go through this..so why after a simple call seeking a discount? The world is full of unanswered questions...

The error was found, of course. But why am I still ticked off? Because I still have to pay the $175 this month. The phone company can't credit my bill this month or it will "confuse" the billing department. This is what Miss Officious told m e. So whether paying the $175 this month is a hardship or not...tough cheese for me. I am supposed to get it credited back next month, and probably the following month. But what if I or another customer doesn't happen to have twice the amount of the normal bill just hanging around? No matter, the phone company gets my money, not to mention interest on the extra money that should have stayed in my bank account for another month. And I get not even an apology.

With the unemployment so widespread in this country, you would think those who are lucky enough to have jobs in this economy would at least do them right. Instead they penalize the very customers who keep them in work.

Sometimes You've Gotta Laugh...this wasn't one of those times!

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Blonde or die!

A blonde goes into a beauty parlour with a Walkman on her head.
"I need to take that Walkman off your head," says the hairdresser leading the client to a chair.
"You can't; I'll die," replies the blonde.
"I can't cut your hair with a Walkman on your ears," the hairdresser replied.
"I said you can't take it off or I will die!" says the frantic blonde again.
The flustered hairdresser grabs the Walkman from the blonde's head and throws it on the floor.
Within minutes the blonde dies.
Puzzled the hairdresser picks up the Walkman from the floor, puts it to her ear to listen and hears the machine repeating: "Breathe in, breathe out; breath in, breath out...."

Hey, I am blonde - and I can laugh. As long as I am breathing in and breathing out....