The Very Best of Katharine McPhee

Great post here recapping the best performances by Kat on American Idol this year. I’ve been reading Breath of Fresh Ink since I started scouring the internets for mp3s of the performances, and Chris Evans has a good blog going. Here he’s included both his original reviews of the performances and his current thoughts, PLUS, he’s got links to video clips of the performances that he’s uploaded to YouTube. (Also check out the interview of Kat, Taylor, and Randy Jackson with Ryan Seacrest that was on Larry King Live last week…Chris has video of it all. It’s heavier on Kat than Taylor, because she’s more outgoing, but hey. That’s fine with me. *g*)

I totally agree with his choices for her best performances. These all made me just sink back into my chair and go “wow.”

This month, my reactions to Broken Flowers, Thank You for Smoking, Sophie Scholl, Inside Man, War of the Worlds, The Constant Gardener, Crash, Digital Fortress, If on a winter’s night a traveler, and more.
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Hi, I’m Jandy, and I have an obsessive personality. Or something like it. I get incredibly obsessed incredibly easily, and when I get obsessed with something, I go all the way. When I was little, it was horses. I had an imaginary stable. But this wasn’t just “oh, sometimes I imagine I have horses.” No, I had a registry. Like, a physical notebook that listed all my horses’ names, their breed and breeding, their height, their color, their discipline, their temperament…and this was an ongoing thing for years, where the horses got older, and I bred them together, and got new horses that got added to the registry, etc. I still have that book somewhere.

Later, it was figure skating. This was after the 1994 Olympics. I watched it faithfully, learned the names of all the skaters, all the commentators, all the jumps and how to do them (although I can’t skate, so I just had to pretend to do them in my living room), kept a spreadsheet keeping track of which skaters were from where and what they’d won, taped and watched every competition for the next two or three years.

On to TV shows, which remain an obsession–to varying degrees depending on the TV show. I can name you pretty much every episode of Buffy right now. Veronica Mars, same thing. I go through phases where all I want to do is watch a specific TV show, whether it be 24 or Lost or Gilmore Girls or Desperate Housewives or whatever. These obsessions tend to be short-lived and don’t extend outside of the show itself (i.e., I don’t really get a great desire to learn everything about the actors’ lives).

Movies are an ongoing one, so I’m not even mentioning it. My love of movies is always bubbling under the surface, but it rarely exhibits itself as an out-and-out obsession.

My current obsession, as you may have guessed based on my last couple of posts, is American Idol, and believe me saying that is incredibly embarrassing. I have spent four years mocking this show specifically and reality TV in general (I still reserve my right to mock other reality shows), and claiming that even this year when I decided to try it out as a concert show, I wouldn’t get into the whole competition/voting aspect. Yeah, that lasted all of four or five shows into the competition segment. By that time, I’d caught McPheever and I couldn’t turn back.

I spent two or three hours this morning scouring the net for clips of interviews, news of what the Idols are doing next, and trying to talk myself out of wanting to go to the American Idol concert this summer. I dislike the elimination aspect a LOT, and I loved the finale with all the Idols back and performing together and just having fun. Now I really really want to go to the concert. Really really badly. Someone talk me out of this! Or, alternately, agree to go with me.

Yeah, that would work. So how about it? August 13th at Savvis? I’d have to come back from Texas for that, but I’d probably do it. That’s how obsession works. Or else September in Austin. For that I’d have to drag my livejournal friend from Houston, though, and a) Houston’s a long way from Austin (although she loves Austin and might do it, and b) I’m not sure she’d want to go. But tickets are on sale now, and I’m sure they’re going fast, so if I don’t decide soon, my decision might get made for me against my will.

In related news, Steven Spielberg wants to meet with Kat! Woohoo! In other, less fun news, her album probably won’t be recorded and released for like six months.

What the hell did they have her singing? Taylor’s wasn’t a much better original song, but Kat’s? Kat’s was one of the worst pop songs I’ve ever heard. She did her best with it, but damn. I agree with Randy…she is so much better than that, but that song was crap.

I think I’ll rewind and listen to “Over the Rainbow” again.

Will American Idol be a Red State vs. Blue State Battle?

Interesting post today on Reality TV Magazine, about how fans are likely split up geographically between Taylor Hicks and Katharine McPhee along the same lines as the 2004 presidential election. I’ll leave you to read the post, but basically it boils down to Taylor will get the red states (Southern/Central, conservative, Taylor’s home and home to many similar-styled artists) and Katharine will get the blue states (Northeastern/Western, home to the Broadway/Las Vegas-style performers that Katharine resembles). In addition, it points out that their different demeanors are likely to ingratiate them with the same states as their singing styles…Taylor comes across as humble, gentlemanly, polite, and doesn’t talk back to the judges when they criticize him (not that they’ve been doing that a lot lately, even Simon). Katharine, on the other hand, has been attacked by a lot of Elliott, Chris, and Taylor fans for being pushy, over-confident and happy when she gets into the next round (God forbid people be happy for doing well), as well as talking back to the judges, which tends to put off some people, but may in fact help her with the more aggressive Northeastern and Western demographic.

Personally, I’m a red-stater politically, but a blue-stater in this case (dare I say, a blue-stater culturally? In some senses, not all), based on the article’s division of red and blue…one of the commenters made a case for Katharine as California Republican and Taylor as working-class Democrat which makes some sense, at least based on a more historical view of the two parties rather than a contemporary one. I love Katharine’s bluesy Broadway voice, and while I think Taylor is good, I would never listen to him just for the sake of listening to him. I love the fact that Katharine called the judges on their comments about song choice when she didn’t even pick the damn song. I love the fact that she interacts with the judges and with Ryan instead of just standing there and taking whatever they dish out. I love the fact that Simon was forced to apologize to her for his undeserved harshness on her rendition of “I Have Nothing.” I love the fact that she can forget lyrics and recover so well. I love the fact that she’s bubbly and effervescent and enthusiastic and that her emotions play upon her face constantly.

What do I love about Taylor? Well, I love that he’s not afraid of looking like an idiot. I love when he hits his high registers. I love when he does quiet songs like “In the Ghetto”. I love when he sneaks a thirty-year-old song into the Billboard Top Ten week. That’s about it.

I know there are a bunch of Taylor fans here. Interestingly, I think most of them are from the South. Could be Reality TV Magazine is on to something. Or else they’re really bored over there are making up stuff to write. Honestly, I would probably be okay with either of them winning at this point. They’re both very talented. But Kat’s album is the one I will buy (especially if she does an American Songbook-themed one, or ends up on Broadway and there’s an Original Cast Recording–that’s where I think she would really shine). So I’ll be over here texting my little fingers off for her.

Only not really, because I don’t do poetry.

When I went to see Brick last week, I was impressed by the film, but I was equally impressed by the theatre-going experience, a topic that increasingly interests me. I don’t go to the Hi-Pointe Theatre very often, but I must make more of an effort. Let’s start at the beginning.

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Veronica Mars renewed for a third season. (The announcement is below the Grey’s Anatomy interview.)

WOOOOOOOOOTTTT!!!!!

I was fairly confident it would be, but it’s nice to have confirmation. Sorry to any Everwood fans out there…I didn’t watch it, but I know a lot of people really loved it. Okay, now back to VM. If I weren’t at work, I’d be jumping up and down right now.

So. UPN is rerunning Season 2 over the summer, starting TONIGHT at 9/8 central (my bad, I was reading posts from yesterday and didn’t connect the timing). I personally don’t like starting shows in the middle, but it can be done, especially if you’re not obsessive like me. ;) Go ahead and give it a try tonight, if you want. The S1 DVDs are available, as well, if you’d rather start at the beginning. I hear Target has them on sale for $22.99 (which is about 60% off normal price, and about 40% of amazon.com’s current price), but I haven’t been able to locate a set yet. I believe the library system has them as well. And if you’re in St. Louis, I have a set of DVDs burned off TV that I can lend you (of season 1, not season 2). And S2 comes out on DVD in August, which is still a month or so before S3 will start. So there are options both for obsessives and start-in-the-middlers.

If you choose to watch the S2 reruns over the summer and want to get an overview of S1, my friend Cindy has written up a brief synopsis of the season here. Be aware, she does completely spoil the mystery in S1, but she leaves a lot of spoiler space before she does, in case you decide while reading the synopsis that you really don’t want to know. (Of course, if you watch Season 2, you’ll find out anyway.)

Note that I was mistaken about the timing of the rerun…it’s not tonight (Wednesday), it was last night. So you can start watching next week with episode two, but do note that 2×02 was one of the worst episodes of the entire series, so if you do start with that one, DO NOT JUDGE the show by it! Please! (On the other hand, if you watch it and like it, just think how awesome the rest of the show is!)

Now, if I can just keep Katharine McPhee on American Idol after tonight, this will be a completely and unbeatably great day. Yes indeed.

Okay, today at work I have had:

A late return claim (the check was deposited in AUGUST, and banks only have like 10 days to return something…not NINE MONTHS), which was sent to us the wrong way in the first place, and the person at the other bank has no idea what to do with it…and neither do I, since I haven’t done a late return claim for like six months because they’re rare and usually the senior clerk does them, but she’s on vacation.

A check that was written for $400.00 but encoded as $4000.00, which was more than the customer had in their account, so it hit the “insufficient funds” report, which means Bookkeeping gets it, which means I get to do the adjustment instead of the normal person who handles encoding errors.

A “raw” return item, which is an item that we have to return (because our customer’s account is closed in this case, and thus we can’t pay the item), but we can’t tell which bank deposited the item, so we have to handle it through the Federal Reserve system.

Normally, I might get one of these things a month. If that. I think in the year that I’ve been doing adustments, I’ve had three raw items, four encoding errors on return items, and maybe two late return claims. All three in one day? Unprecedented. Not to mention the late return is going to be very ugly, because it was messed up before we even got it. Normally I spend maybe ten-fifteen minutes a day on return adjustments. Return adjustments are twice as confusing as normal ones. Me = not happy camper.

(Only forty minutes and I can leave…only forty minutes and I can leave…and watch American Idol…and House…TV makes everything seem better…)