call me capri!

i'm just WILD about capri, lola, sophia, and kiki!

wanta fanta?  don't you wanta?
wanta fanta?  don't you wanta?

spinning, spinning, getting dizzy.
you need something cold and fizzy!

you look hot in all that plaster.
drink some fanta!  faster, faster!

you're the hottest crowd in town.
we know how to cool you down!

wanta fanta?  don't you wanta?
wanta fanta?  don't you wanta?

through regular exposure to their absurd commercial and inane antics, i, along with several other disturbed movie-goers, have memorized the catchy couplets repeatedly recited by this fabulous foursome.  i discovered this while waiting on line to see fahrenheit 9/11, of all things.  (spinning, spinning, getting dizzy.) 

so just who are these girls?  well, according to their website:

the fantanas are four fun friends from fantana island.  their raison d'être is to bring fun into your life.  whenever people are bored, hot, and not having any fun, that's when the fantanas come to the rescue.

someone was astute enough to point out that, while the coca-cola company presumably spends a good chunk of change to advertise in the movie theaters, they do not sell fanta there — i would have had to leave the building if, after viewing their advertisement, i had actually wanted one.  how completely twisted.

still, don't you wanta?

mm-hmm!

cuddly animal

i'm just WILD about baby tigers!

(yes, i've been really bad about posting lately.  i'm a slacker.)

nba championships

last night, my friend carol invited me over to her apartment to watch what would turn out to be the final showdown between the detroit pistons and the los angeles lakers in the nba championships.  carol is originally from detroit, and her mother and grandmother, both pistons fans, were in town and excited to watch the game. 

the last time i sat through any part of a basketball game was a few years ago — some sort of playoff game involving the lakers, but i can't for the life of me remember whom they were up against.  at the time, i arbitrarily rooted for the lakers for all of five minutes, which mortified everyone else in the room.  the lakers ended up winning that game and subsequently dominated their way through the finals, making for a very boring end of that season (except for lakers fans).

having learned the error of my ways, i was prepared to root for the pistons, and not just out of peer pressure.  still, not being much of a basketball fan, i figured i'd only stay through the first half and then leave once the outcome was relatively certain.

of course, i ended up watching the entire game.  given the amazing performance by the pistons, who could possibly have torn themselves away?  the pistons were on fire, and the supposedly unbeatable lakers did not stand a chance.  while the pistons won by thirteen points, they had, at one point, been ahead of the lakers by thirty.  a week ago, such a thing was, according to those in the know, unfathomable.

while the game was great, carol, her family, and her friends were the ones who made watching it an extremely educational and overwhelmingly entertaining event.  if not for these die-hard fans, i never would have guessed that having kobe bryant take possession of the ball in a high pressure situation is actually a good thing for the opposition.  "run, kobe!  jump!  spin around!  don't pass the ball!  twist the other way!  shoot!"  by the end of the game, i was cheering, jeering, and armchair-coaching along with the rest of the party.

and so, the shaq-kobe dynasty crumbles, but who knows if the pistons will be back again next year?  in the meantime — congratulations, detroit!  i may not watch another basketball game for two years, but i will definitely remember this one for awhile.

mm hmm!

david beckham — a mighty fine man, from back to front.

need i say more?

cute panda!

nothing much to say.  i have the day off from work today.  enjoy this picture of an adorable chinese mammal.

hugh jackman

after thinking on it a bit more, i have to admit that i did enjoy seeing hugh jackman perform at the tonys, especially when he dragged sarah jessica parker up on stage with him.

on the other hand, as a fan of the x-men movies, i was slightly disturbed to see the actor who plays wolverine flaming it up on stage.  leave it to my twisted imagination to conjure up a scene wherein the two characters actually meet.  i guess, in the on-screen version, hugh would be essentially hitting on himself.  "rake me with those claws, you animal!"

tony awards 2004

now, i'm a huge theater geek, and i really loved the fact that avenue q won the tony for best musical over wicked.  i also happen to be an employee of the media conglomerate that owns the network that broadcasts the tony awards every year, so i hope i have some authority in saying that this year's ceremony blew huge chunks.

"what about hugh jackman?" you may ask — to which i will counter, "what about mary j. blige and her horrific rendition of 'what i did for love'?  what about l.l. cool j rapping 'hello, dolly'?  what about carol channing rapping 'hello dolly'?" 

awful.

leave it to the executives at cbs to conjure the twisted notion that they needed to brand the event with some kind of mtv hip-hop credentials.  simply because many of p. diddy's fans and admirers go to see him in raisin in the sun does not mean they will tune in to see him sitting in the audience of radio city music hall for three hours.  by trying to appeal the handful who do, the producers probably alienated about 90% of us who love musical theater for being...well, musical theater.

of course (and i seem to be saying this a lot recently), i still sat through the whole thing.  and, yes, i probably will watch it again next year.  i can hope that viacom learns to stop the insanity sooner than that, but then what the hell will i write about...?

heather who?

a couple weeks ago, my friend sue jean and i attended a bcefa presentation of heather headley in concert.  the event was held at the new amsterdam theater, where the broadway version of the lion king currently resides and where, apparently, ms. headley got her start, originating the role of nala.  in 1998, she went on to play the title role in elton john and tim rice's aida, for which she won a tony award.

unfortunately, going into this concert, i knew none of this.  i was only aware of heather headley at all from her one performance of "home" from the wiz at an earlier bcefa event, nothing like a dame.  she was pretty good, but her voice gave out when she went for the ringer note at the end.  certainly, i was pleasantly surprised to see heather's aida co-star adam pascal on the program for this event, but even this would not have brought me out on a monday evening.

no, i was really there for sue, who had only one reason for attending:  to see, live on stage, heather's special guest, who happens to share the same recording label and was there to sing "can you feel the love tonight?" from the lion king — none other than american idol season two runner-up clay aiken. 

you see, sue has a thing for tall, skinny, and slightly-effeminate red-headed crooners.  (john stevens was her male favorite from this past season.)  so, knowing that she had never seen him live before, i was eager to provide her first opportunity and experience the thrill vicariously.

unfortunately, these things never live up to the expectations i set upon them.  i mean, is it so much to ask that seeing clay aiken live would provide sue with the most glorious spiritual epiphany rendering her forever grateful and indebted unto me?  yeah, sure, clay sounded great, and sue was thrilled, but her life wasn't dramatically altered.  more importantly, neither was mine.

*sigh!*

curse you, clay aiken.  may you forever dwell in the wastelands of teenage pop.

oh, yeah.  heather sounded great, too, but don't ask me about any the songs off her album — sue and i left during intermission.  after all, clay had left the building...

idol worship

i can't believe i watched the whole thing...

from start to finish, i consumed every single episode of this season's american idol.  i feel an odd mixture of pride and disgust — also, a good deal of surprise, considering how early my crushworthy football player was eliminated.

the last two seasons, i stopped watching after the first couple rounds of the top thirty/thirty-two.  i got bored and rather quickly and was too impatient to sit through ten or so weeks of mostly mediocre singing to find out who won.

this year, i endured the seemingly interminable eliminations of the top twelve and was rewarded with the realization that american idol, for all its unscripted "reality" t.v. and game-show heritage, actually has a very compelling season-long story arc.

the first few weeks are mostly about the audition process and the inherent entertainment in watching people make asses out of themselves.  the good singers barely get coverage, and, this year, the world bore witness to the birth of...well, you know. 

next comes the harrowing drama of hollywood, where viewers get the most "real worldish" scenes of singers stressing out and going off on each other.  eventually, the judges narrow down the thirty-two semi-finalists and introduce them eight at a time to the viewing public.

the genius of this phase of the show is that, of an assembled cast of questionably talented and mildly interesting "characters," viewers actually get to choose which ones they want to continue watching.  can you imagine if they did that on regular television dramas?  how much do i wish that i could have voted off the really annoying character from beverly hills 90210 early on instead of having to wait until the writers had him accidentally shoot himself after one season.

finally, once the top twelve have been chosen, losers like me tune in week after week.  with no predetermined pro- or antagonist, audience members individually select their own, sympathizing with one based on singing-ability, looks, or personal history, and growing to despise other, presumably less -talented, competitors.  once viewers emotionally invest in one or more singers whom they really want to succeed, many actually participate in the drama that plays out by actually voting for their champion after the show has ended.  seeing one's hero or heroine in the bottom three a day later can drive one to extremes despair or outrage, while watching ones nemesis eliminated is the epitome of Schadenfreude.

the coup de grâce of this show is that anyone who can stomach or — god forbid — can actually enjoy the music presented each week is just a born sucker for any sort of cheesy quasi-inspirational song that the producers provide for the winner's first single.  (the kicker this year is that the song, "i believe," is written by a first-season favorite tamyra gray, so long-time viewers — what's the idol equivalent of "trekkie"? — experience at least a mild warm-fuzzy.)  thus, any fan of fantasia barrino's was bound to be bouncing around with joy, perhaps even tearful, at the sights and sounds of the nation's recently-crowned idol bursting into tears mid-way through her victory performance.

a week later, somewhat bitter at not having a new episode to devour, i'm finally able to sit quietly and peacefully reflect on just how orchestrated, calculated, and ultimately fabricated this manufactured and mass-marketed "cultural phenomenon" really is — and brilliantly so, i might add. 

knowing all this, will i be tuning in next season?