The Nittany Turkey

Primarily about Penn State football, this is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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Home 2008 Archives for April 2008

Archives for April 2008

Brooke Needs Shields

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She does. Brooke White needs all the armor she can get to cling to any hope of surviving this week on American Idol.

She and Carly both sucked on Tuesday night. Syesha was just OK. She didn’t thrill me very much. However, among the women, the biggest surprise was Kristy Lee Cook, who—no matter what Simon sez—nailed her song. (I’d like to nail her.)

Carly covered her tattoo, which was a good thing. At one point, the camera provided us with a shot of her husband, who looked either like he had been in a vehicle-pedestrian collision with a paint truck or took a wrong turn and rode his bike through a paint ball battlefield. So we had ample advertising for the family tattoo parlor. But the singing sucked the big one.

Among the guys, David Cook’s original arrangement was a standout, but David Archuleta delivered hands-down the best performance of the evening. This competition is his to lose, and it ain’t likely that he will.

I think Brooke should go, but my predictions have been way off this season. So, I’m going to say that Carly will be the one shedding the tears tonight. Tune in at 9ET/8CT and see for yourself!

What Were They Thinking?

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The American Idol public has voted and…

Michael Johns is out.

There’s always a shocker at this stage of the competition. Michael was this year’s version. A solid singer with no glaring flaws or distracting tattoos, Johns just gets up there and sings with passion and style. He’s got a good voice. He’s good looking. His rendition of “Dream On” was adequate, in this writer’s opinion. So why is he gone?

…of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: “It might have been!”

Thank you, John Greenleaf Whittier.

Wait, that doesn’t rhyme unless you pronounce pen like peen and been like bean; or pen like pin and been like bin; or pen like pen and been like Ben. ???? ??? ???? Hey, that’s my name! There are lots of possibilities. Some of us pronounce pen like pin and been like bean. ??? ???? ????? ?? ???? Some of us pronounce pen like pin and been like Ben. Some of us pronounce pen like pen and been like bin. What is poetry, anyway? Haiku doesn’t rhyme. What the hell. Know what I’m sayin’. Sheeeiiiitttt! (That’s Ebonic for “Oh, darn! ???? ???? ????? ”)

Michael Johns gone
No stopping Mexican kid
Kristy Lee must stay.

I didn’t expect Johns to be in the final two, but in my thinking he was at least good enough for the final four, which I believe should have been David Archuleta, David Cook, and Carly Smithson, in addition to Johns.

However, who am I to make such a prediction when the American public votes the way they do? It is not up to me to set the standards. Each voter gets to vote his or her own mind, just as many times as their button-pushing fingers, their patience, and their persistence will allow.

So, one has to suspect that the demography of the voting population is substantially different from mine. They have to be a helluva lot younger, for one thing. Youth is a state of mind, you say, but try and keep up with current affairs in the music business! I find myself 5, 10, 15 years behind and the gap is widening. Perhaps the brain has a limited capacity for accommodating pop music as it ages or perhaps our clinging to our old favorites—damn old, at this point—limits the absorptive capacity for new additions. Or maybe a lot of what’s currently popular doesn’t suit us. Or maybe much of it is pure crap. We had pure crap back in my younger days, but none of it had to do with bitches, hoes, and cappin’ cops’ asses. (Remember “Surfer Bird” by the Trashmen? That was the 60s. How about the 50s? “Purple People Eater”? But I digress…)

We know one thing: David Archuleta is destined to prevail in this competition unless he fatally alienates his fan base, which is highly unlikely. It appears to this Turkey that David Cook and Carly Smithson with any hope of offering him a serious challenge, but I have to believe that those hopes are slim. However, anything can happen. I have proved regularly by my off-base predictions here that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing and I’m out of touch with the voters.

This week features Mariah Carey as “guest mentor.” In other words, she’s promoting her new album and her signature perfume. This is the blurb from the Idol web site:

After being a part of the highly successful Idol Gives Back show last week, international superstar Mariah Carey will be gracing the “Idol” stage once again this Wednesday (results night) to sing “Bye Bye,” the latest single from her new album, E=MC2.

So, Syesha Mercado and Carly Smithson will have good chances to show off their pipes this week. So will the backup singers. I think Brooke White can probably do well, too, if she picks the right Mariah song. So can David Archuleta. It remains to be seen whether Jason Castro and David Cook can adapt this kind of commercial crap to their style.

And Kristy Lee Cook—dear Kristy—what will you do for Daddy this week? Choose well, you long-legged, fresh-faced baby girl, and keep this old Turkey happy for yet another week!

Looking is all I can do about it at my age! (Right, Artificially Sweetened?)

Faux Pas of the Week

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Barack Obama

Barack Obama’s gaffe at a private San Francisco fund raiser made me smile. It pretty much typifies the elitism and hypocrisy that characterizes a vast contingent of the Democrat party.

He was complaining about not being able to win over many white, working class voters when he said: “It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Why do I smile? Not because the faux pas might have cost Obama the nomination of his party. Not because Democrats typically self-destruct right around this time during presidential election years. No, I smile because this sort of thing exists just below the polished veneer of a preponderance of liberals and here it is, exposed for all to see, by one of their quasi-leaders.

Middle America has long been regarded as “fly-over” territory by these elitist hypocrites, who think that they know what is best for all of us. From their lofty perches, they pontificate that guns, religion, and individualism are bad for us, while abortions and illegal immigration are beneficial concepts.

Yeah, right. I love it how power mongers such as Obama are always telling us how they’re helping us (ostensibly, for our own good, but clearly, to buy our votes). They marginalize those of us who think differently about some of these core trigger issues, pronouncing us as misguided, and (behind closed doors at expensive party fund raisers) bitter and just plain stupid. Does this sound familiar? It should. It is the same mantra spouted by them about us Republicans!

Their issues with religion appear merely paranoiac on the surface, but what lies beneath is their deep-seated feelings that they are competing with God for His vassals. They can harken back to Karl Marx, who proclaimed that religion is the opiate of the masses, when they tell us to believe in them instead of believing in God. Their cradle-to-grave philosophy is essentially a God replacement. Have faith in Government, not God! Jesus H. Christ!

We should shun religion, shun individualism, and all work together for the collective good. Thank you, Karl. You know what I mean: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. “Need” is, of course, determined by those foxes who are guarding the henhouse, whose needs are much greater than those of the proletariat. Communism sounded pretty good to the workers who were subjugated by it until this dirty little fact emerged: the only folks who get to live the good life are those with the power to determine need.

Let’s have an Ann Coulter book burning in the public square, just for good measure! That’ll get it started. Then, throw in the Bible, the Talmud and and and…wait! no, not the Koran.

What I really need is a Harvard educated political rookie telling me what is good for me! Why is it that these liberals with their God complexes think they always know best what is good for all of us, but cannot ever enunciate just exactly what that is? Their attitude of moral superiority is continually contradicted by their own personal amorality and greed. We’re ripe for the taking with that kind of stuff only because our Republican leadership has failed us and the lefty goons sense an opportunity to dominate. They smell blood! However, their sort of domination is so transparent and so ultimately oppressive to the individual that it never lasts long. We won’t let it. We’re not the idiots they think we are.

We need change, they say. From what to what? From rich, elitist power mongers on the right side of the aisle who don’t give a damn about us to hypocritical, elitist power mongers on the other side of the aisle who don’t give a damn about us (who, by the way, are quite rich themselves, in case you haven’t checked recently)?

That’s what is funny. Democrats are just the same as Republicans, except that they prefer governmental control of everything over private control. If the government were the only employer, they’d be quite happy. That way, they could control us all. That’s what they want. It makes them richer and more powerful.

Behind closed doors they make fun of the very people from whom they derive their power and whom they feign supporting. They know that they don’t know what is best for all of us. They most assuredly know what is best for them, but they sure have a funny way of expressing it. Perhaps they truly believe that we are all stupid and misguided, and that consequently, we will let it pass. We won’t.

It is all a charade and this time it was exposed for all to see.

One change would do us all good. We need a change from short-term political tactics and philosophies. All those ideologues who jerk our political and philosophical chains need to understand that this, by and large, is a God fearing, gun toting nation, and their attempts to usurp those basic rights (yes, rights) will only serve to result in their eventual failure. Contrary to what they think, most of us Americans are not stupid! Far from it! So, let us change from this philosophy of change for change’s sake and get back to some good, old, sound conservative thinking, shall we?