I was genuinely torn about posting today, because so much of my last day has been spent thinking about Ted Kennedy - the news has affected me way more than I'd anticipated. And my previous post, which was on the subject, isn't even 24 hours old.
However, there's news, so I wanted to post that...
We talk about writing together, our TV days, our thoughts on current comics... about anything and everything. And at the end of the interview we talk for a bit about our upcoming books, ALL SAINTS DAY and BAD MEDICINE as well as our upcoming BATMAN CONFIDENTIAL arc (the one with King Tut), so we're excited we got a chance to talk about those.
It's about an hour long, because we love to talk (especially me). But we had a blast with Scott and our good friend David, who made this happen.
And since I've broken the somber mood, I figure I should also post my thoughts on last night's coronation... er, I mean, competition... on American Idol.
I was frustrated by the show last night, for several reasons. The first is that my guy David Cook didn't slam dunk this thing. But the second is the obvious pimpage going on with David Archuleta.
Round 1 - This is where I was a little let down by David C. His "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" was very good, but it wasn't earth-shaking, and I was expecting it to be a crowning moment. That opened the door for David A., whose rendition of "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" was one of his better performances all year. Still, he insisted on singing it straight but then adding weird runs to show off his voice, so it felt a little off, too.
I thought the First Round was a tie and I was sad that Cook didn't win that one, not even in my eyes.
Round 2 - Can we just put the songwriting contest to rest already? 2 Seasons now and 3 songs into it, and there hasn't been a really good song yet.
Cook's song was not very good, but he sang it pretty well.
Archuleta's song was awful, and syrupy and when I try to even remember it, I wind up hearing him sing "This Is My Now" (last year's 'winning' song) in my head - they're practically the same song, only this one had the obnoxious lyric that Sir Andrew mocked not-so-gently.
Ugh. Two bad songs. Both sung reasonably well. But I give the edge to David C, simply because his song didn't suck as much (the chorus was catchy, at least) and he sang it well.
Round 3 - This is where I realized that this show is never going to be, for me, what it should be.
All season long, they applaud David C for taking risks, doing new things.
So for his choice, he picks a song he hasn't sung before ("The World I Know") and he sings the hell out of it. This was his moment, and I thought he nailed it.
And Archuleta does the safe thing, retreats to his best performance of the year. And they're not even singing full versions (despite having an hour for 6 songs - any idea why we still got condensed versions of songs), so there's nothing new there. The best he can do is replicate how glorious the song was the first time, and the worst he can do is fail to recapture the glory. David A's performance falls somewhere in the middle - he warbles once or twice, which he didn't do the first time, but for the most part the song hits most of the same highs as before.
(And once again, he skips the line about "Imagine there's no heaven" - talk about playing it safe!)
So one contestant, who's been praised for being original and new, does a new song exceptionally well. The other, who has sounded the same all season, sings a song he's sung before, exactly the same way (and in my mind, not even as well)...
and who do they praise?
And worse, Simon (David C's biggest fan) goes after him for not singing one of the songs he sang before.
I call bullshit.
Round 3 went to David C, first of all on performance, but second of all, because his fans got something new, while David A's got something they've already heard.
So I saw a show with 1 tie, and 2 rounds to Cook.
The judges saw a "knockout" by Archuleta.
Ugh.
By the way, I challenge anyone to watch the end of the show again where they give the numbers for calling in over a montage of each contestant's three songs. Watch it again and tell me that David Archuleta didn't effectively make two classic songs and one crappy composition sound all like one, long, bland song. You could barely tell where one ended and another began. Now imagine an entire album by this kid. Great voice, but I wouldn't buy it.
Anyway, those are my thoughts, and above is our news.
Like I said, I didn't want to shove Ted Kennedy off the top of our blog. So if you're gonna post here about AI (or the interview), please first go one post down and post some thoughts of support for a great man who is now fighting for his life.
Thanks.
posted by Nunzio DeFilippis #
8:33 AM 
