Reality Bites

I'll admit I am hooked to 2 reality shows:-American Idol and Big Boss(and I wonder why the hell cant we have big brother alongside big boss when we can have American idol and Indian idol side by side on Indian television)

This is my 3rd season of watching American Idol and I'm hoping they find some real idol material this year. Carrie Underwood and that Taylor Hicks chap were/are most certainly not idols by any stretch of imagination....I mean what the hell was the American public thinking when they voted for those 2 to win???But then, they also voted for George W's 2nd term, so I guess it wasn’t a big surprise.

American idol is a laugh riot with all those hopeless wannabes getting ruthlessly KO'd by Simon, but this season it seems like it’s a tag team match with Randy too getting in on the rude act. But Randy as a Simon wannabe?pathetic.....when Simon’s rude he’s just being himself and spouting the truth in his own charming way, but Randy as the rude dude doesn’t quite cut it. Paula as usual is at her irritating best. I think it’s about time they replaced her with someone else:
Quick SMS vote to 2567:
A for Barbara Streisand
B for Julie Andrews (that would mean 2 Brit judges on the show !!woohoo :) !!!
C for any out of work, past their prime ,popstar from the last 2 decades…. I hear someone shouting Britney's name...and I am not being rude here ;)

If only Britney had had to audition for Idol there’s no way in hell she'd have gotten thru and the music world would have been better off!!!
but there’s stiff competition from home for Britney in being bad ....if there’s someone who'd be even worse than Britney it'd be her (ex??)hubby K-Fed himself.......K -who you ask? I don’t blame ya!...thought of a quick pun on Britney-she’s now 'K-Fed-Ex' !!!!hope they don’t sue for wrongful usage of their name ;)

Coming back to the show, last year the McPhee-ver really swept me away in its tide and I was mighty pissed she didn’t win. Why didn’t they have a recount?? :(
The new seasons just begun ,and so far so bad by large....but a teenaged bro-sis duo caught my eye.. and both ears.....their names:- Sanjaya Malakar,17 and Shyamali Malakar,19..... I guess they're probably 2nd generation Indians living in the US, and my word what TALENT. Shyamali blew me away with her rendition of that old Gershwin classic 'Summertime'...and Sanjaya sang a Stevie Wonder number that impressed Simon.Check out the video of their audition at “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uV4DxP-crVI&eurl=”
Or http://youtube.com/watch?v=uV4DxP-crVI
I think this is the 1st time I'm spotting any contestants of Indian origin on the show and thank heavens they chose wonderful songs to sing instead of embarrassing us by singing some silly BSB or Ricky martin or Britney(again?!) or some (shudder)bollywood number !!
I'm still waiting for someone to sing a Sinatra number...in the last 2 years I have seen only 1 contestant try it. But obviously no fool would attempt such an arduous task as it would definitely mean getting KO’d by Simon.
[Allow me this anecdote: Sammy Davis junior, master impresario, could do any voice but when it came to THE Voice, Sinatra, he said "No sir, thank you very much")]

Anyway, here’s hoping that this year we do find an Idol worthy of the title.

Moving on to the other show, Big Boss:(oops, I mean, Bigg Boss…,or so Mr.Jumaaaaaani tells me..hmmm I wonder why he hasn’t convinced the film publications/TV channels to address Amitabh Bacchan as the Bigg B)
Me strongly rooting for Rahul Roy to win it, but I’ve got a sneaky feeling he is the big boss’ henchman ‘coz I did the math and it tells me there’s only a week left and 4 people still remain. They say there will be 2 evictions next week and that would still leave 2 behind. So it may well be the final twist in the tale,if my suspicion does come true.

I’m already drawing up a list of celebs I’d want to see for season 2.
How about the Indian cricket eleven, plus Chappell. Now that would be a scream and we’d get 3 whole months without India on the cricket field….ahh that’d be wonderful!!!

As for my take on the recent Big Brother(I don’t notice a 2^nd ‘g’ there)-Shilpa Shetty episode, well just a month back we were all hi-5-ing each other that the Brits invited Shilpa for the show(ie establishing that we crave their attention and approval) but just ‘coz some Jane Goody(no goody 2 shoes she) called her a dog (well,she didn’t even use the feminine term for that),we (ie the news channels and some jingoistic opinion providers) start calling the Brits - Racists,thick,intolerant and what not…what a load of rubbish these Brit bashers are spouting.Hippocracy to the core,ifya ask me….
Anyway Ms.Goody’s been evicted so I presume all’s quiet on the western front.
Made a wish-> Star world,wake up and get BigBrother on air in India….pronto!

PS:Cant wait for ‘On the Lot’ to begin…it’s the new reality show being produced by Spielberg and Mark Burnett….

Well then, back to reality bytes for me, bytes of java code that is,….’coz my modules delivery is coming up mid week and if you’ve done Java coding standards implementation(after the entire coding has been done), you’ll know what I’m talking about. Well, ever tried building a house of cards only to be told after you’re done that the bottom row must contain only royal cards??its like that…:)

I find myself waking up in a cold sweat at nights ‘coz I’m having nightmares that my integer variable name doesn’t start with an ‘i’, or my loop uses an innocuous but unexplained numeric end point or my sun-studio java form file is corrupted…hell hath no fury like a corrupted java form file :(
And the Irish(my clients) are coming….for inspecting coding standards adherence…..
Hell, we oughta have a big boss show with IT professionals ,with a video camera rolling on every cubicle in the bay. Now that’d be something else :)

Share

Tweet

All That Jazz

For those who came in late, there’s a mini ghost town in Nungambakkam;
actually, its a small pocket inside the city's best bookstore.
Wondering what it is?well.... its the Jazz music section in Landmark.
You'll find a treasure trove of jazz music CDs there but hardly any takers or browsers.
People just stay away from it....why?I reckon jazz music is still a puzzle that most people dont want to give a try.
So there I was doing my usual CD browsing, pickin up some stuff only to put it back after lookin at the lofty prices.Yes,sad part is we're yet to lower these CD costs as compared to other 'import price CDs' which start from 195 bucks onward….more on that later.
And well, I'd done my initial round in the jazz section(I usually do 2) and moved on to the music DVD section and was tryin to find some DVDs of Sinatra or Elvis[I'll never learn :( ] and as usual was disappointed to find none.
Then I decided to glance at the ghost section for round 2 and whom do I spot??not the bird(Charlie Parker) or a train(Coletrane)...but India's very own jazz pianist-extraordinaire- Madhav Chari... :)
I have seen his shows a coupla times on TV and in an interview cum live performance show hosted by that irresistible beauty-Anu Ananth, on SS music and loved the music he played.
I sadly haven’t gone to any of his live shows coz I never knew when and where they happened and this time I decided to ask the man himself .I was a bit apprehensive of approaching him coz I wasn’t sure he was Madhav Chari, but then I put 2 and 2 together....there were 3 people I knew who were into Jazz...me, my cousin(whos in philly) and Madhav Chari....and well it hadta be him :)
So I went up to him and said "sorry if I'm mistaken,but arentcha Madhav chari?"...and I was relieved when he smiled and said "yeah I am"...
So we shook hands and I asked him about his upcoming shows and was disappointed to hear there was nothing on the cards till mid year 2007.
There are 4 basic things that happen when a celebrity is spotted in a public place.
1.The celebrity is hugely popular among the masses and you would find him/her being thronged by hordes of autograph/photo hungry fans and the celebrity obliging, all smiles
2.The celebrity is quite popular but the people around would be understanding enough to leave him alone if the celeb is with his family(save for the odd handshake bit with "I'm a huge fan of yours" or an autograph)
3.The celeb is a private person and wishes to remain unseen and you'd find him/her wearing more guises than an actor onscreen.
4.The celeb is well known in his field and its class but not to the general masses.and in this 4th division arise 2 subdivisions when the celeb is spotted by a solitary fan(who ofcourse is not part of the general mass):
a)the fan is overeager to get to know the celeb and may end up hounding him forcing the celeb to make a run for it after a coupla minutes
b)the celeb doesnt mind talking to the fan in detail

So coming back to mr.Chari,I would say my meeting with the celeb would fall under category 4b.
So heres how it unfolded:
I told him I'd seen his shows on TV and was beginning to like Jazz and was slowly gettin into it.He asked me who I started off with and well ,the obvious answer was Louis Armstrong.The next 10 to 15 minutes was a whirlwind with Mr.Chari nodding in consent to my taste in Armstrong and his words of wisdom about the various masters I should start listening to.So there we were talking (or more specifically, he talking, and me listening intently) about Charlie parker, Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson, Duke Ellington, Thelonius monk, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie and some others.He even recommended a few CD compilations I oughta try.And well, my wallet insisted that I talk to him about the hefty rates for jazz CDs and why we don’t get 'em for less in India(the minimum for any good compilation is round 295 bucks and the average prices for great compilations are 445 bucks or so)and to my surprise he told me the rates in India were cheaper compared to the US or Europe and well I must say that calmed down my wallet’s protests a bit.Then I asked him about his favorite artistes and he dropped quite a few names but I remember Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk, and he strongly recommended Chick Corea (whom I'd never heard of before this).He also pointed out how Sting’s music too was strongly influenced by these greats.I was also surprised when he talked about carnatic music and artistes he liked but ..carnatic music for me ?no way..atleast as of now :)In my bid to appear knowledgeable I dropped a few names I had heard on worldspace’s 'riff' Jazz station or read about in books/magazines, and asked him about those names I knew.And well I wanted to talk some more Jazz with mr.Chari but it was getting late and he had to leave so he asked me my full name so that he "will remember" and we shook hands again before parting.I didn’t notice what he'd purchased but I ended up going back for the jazz section-round 3(1st time ever) and got 2 compilations of Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson and Dizzy Gillespie.And I left Landmark with a smile on my lips and feeling good about the evening.Its not often you run into people who's work you admire :)P.S. for AR Rehman buffs: I also ran into AR Rehman once in landmark, but that meeting fell into category 2(read above) and he was with his entire family so I decided to keep away.So if ya wanna run into Rehman you should frequent Landmark I reckon..;)

The pongal weekend ended with me going to Sathyam with a pal to watch a night show of ‘Blood Diamond’.A good movie but by no means brilliant…I liked DiCaprio trying his best to put on a Rhodesian accent and I’d see any movie just to watch Jennifer Connely ;)
A must watch for all women I reckon ;) (diamonds are a gals best friend eh?? You’ll change yer mind after ya see this movie)
And my weekend celebrity spotting trip didn’t end with mr.Chari coz I ran into that popular Chennai based fashion designer Sidney at the movie show but the Fashion world is a place I rarely tread into, so enough said.

Share

Tweet