Sunday, September 23, 2007

Meet Kelly

You may remember Nicki from X Factor in an earlier blog entry who sung I Will Always Love You by Whitney Housten (yes, I know it was originally Dolly Parton, but it was ole Witney Crack Ho Housten who put the song on the international karaoke map). Well, meet Kelly.



This new phonomenon of instant fame - just add water - tears and lots of them - brings a secondary phenomenon. When once your bad performance being likened to a singing Lassie would be relegated to the fish and chip wrappers of collective audience memory, it is now uploaded in celluloid cyberspace perpetuity. You've donned your best frock, practiced with your toothbrush and signed away your rights for a shot of five minute fame, only to be a star performer for all the wrong reasons with a YouTube fan base in the millions.

I wonder what this next chapter of infamity does for Kelly's self esteem. The YouTube viewer comments about her and her family are filled with bile and vitriole based on five minutes of telly. The next question is whether or not this family is always truly hideous, or whether the Jerry Springer devil had posessed them for the five minutes of Kelly's audition and made them act like pretentious, self righteous fools. Which is what reality TV preys on, but rarely considers the after effect.

Take this clip for example:



and here's what the show and the subsequent uploading of her horrendous performance has had on her life:



Should we have sympathy? I say not. They want instant fame, they get infamous instantly and become an outlet for cyber punters to vent their spleens at people they don't know, don't care about and can laugh at. I sure did. That's entertainment.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Glastonbury Pics

I never added them, but you can see them on Facebook by clicking here. They are very cool lomo pics.

We went to Don and Christine's fabulous English wedding in a field on the weekend, complete with drum and bass music in world war II bunkers, Pimms and a pork pie wedding cake. Everyone wore black, red and white to make for a very St Kilda look. One of the readings was "The Owl and The Pussy Cat", and when read out loud at a wedding, rather than in the context of a bedtime story, it is rather hilarious, haughty and entirely rude.

After that, it was straight to London to see Prince with Ros who had joined us for the weekend. Prince funked it up at the Millennium Dome and we had el primo seats bought on eBay. Nice.

Can't wait to be coming home to Australia. I'm most looking forward to being in the thick of it when it comes to John Howard's demise. Oh what a joy it is to watch it unfold. Of course, I'm also looking forward to seeing our families and friends. Look out for invites etc on Facebook - I'm sure there will be a gathering or two.



Thursday, September 06, 2007

Che nessuno dorme, soltanto voi Luciano.

Luciano Pavarotti is dead. I heard the news today on my favourite form of news sharing - no, not Facebook, but the radio. His signature tune, the aria from Nessun Dorma from Puccini's Turandot, was just played and it woke me up good and proper from my breakfast slumber.

He made opera accessible and popular.
I don't have anything else to add really, except I wish I had seen him perform in person.



PS - YouTube is going bananas today. It's a wonderful phenomenon that folk are turning to YouTube to post their message about Pavarotti's death.