Silk Willow Talk

I have revived my blog because this guy triggered me to do it.

I love classic rock. I love nerds and smart people. And geeks. You may already have known that. I like odd looking people (see Clay Aiken). But hey, this guy is the epitome of all that.

You may have already known that I was a major Clay and Taylor Hicks fan. Clay — because he’s a spectacular vocalist and Taylor, because he was a charismatic, fun performer.

I thought (and even swore) that American Idol would never come up with anyone I’d “idolize” to this degree. Well I was wrong. I do believe that David Cook is my most favorite contestant on American Idol ever. EVER. That’s hard to say, especially being an almost “rabid” Clay fan 4 years ago. But here’s why.

David Cook is cool.
He looks interesting (the hair is off somewhat, but getting better). So he’s falling into the strangely handsome category for me, plus did you see his baby pictures??! I mean, what were those? I always thought ALL babies were beautiful but MAN, now I’m not quite sure…
David Cook has awesome vocals and is almost pitch perfect. He glory notes the way Clay Aiken does. So that gets me.
David Cook sings ROCK. My favorite genre of music ever. No, not hard or metal or southern rock. Classic or alt. rock are my preferences. So he falls squarely into that niche.
He performs like a true rocker should. Not a poser, not like Robbie whatever-his-name-is. Sorry, don’t want to offend anyone here but that other guy Robbie Carrico was just giving off some kind of boy bandish vibe.

Those are my reasons for loving David Cook and why I believe he’s the best American Idol contestant I’ve ever seen and heard.

Oh and the comparisons to Chris Daughtry and Bo Bice? Well, as they’ve said everywhere else, “different strokes for different folks”. I have mp3s from Chris and Bo and I still prefer David’s voice. There’s a deep polish to it. But again, that’s just my opinion.

If you’ve heard some of David Cook’s pre-Idol songs, you’ll know what I mean.

This blog has been out of sorts for so long, but I have to revive it. Why? American Idol Season 7 woke me up from my stupor again, that’s why.

I’ve been spending all my time trying to make a living off blogging with my other site (The Digerati Life), and haven’t had as much time to devote on new sites. But I’ve decided to turn this blog — formerly known as Silk Willow — into something a bit different. It’s personal, gives you my opinions of shows I’ve been watching lately, and is just a place to vent. So I don’t intend to run it like my other site (at least not yet).

New name for this site? Let’s see….. hmmm…. how about “FANTARD NATION”? Yeah, that’s it. Since that’s what I’ve been doing lately, being a serious fantard who spends inordinate amounts of time perusing internet forums and sites just to get a piece of a great American Idol season (and yeah, other shows too).

Hope to see you around here.

This site is on hiatus right now given so much going on for your author, yours truly, and not enough time to spare for serious television watching that would provide me ammunition for some decent and credible reviews. So I apologize for the inconvenience and the lack of posts here but I’ll be back at some point. For now, please join me at The Digerati Life, where I’ve been hanging around and regularly posting.

David Conley is a coal miner from Kentucky. He and his wife Mary are shaping up to be the popular team from The Amazing Race, based on viewers voting habits.

You know how while you are watching these reality tv shows now, how they keep popping up these silly text or web contests that viewers can participate in, to get some interactivity out of the viewing experience? Well, in these such little trivia quizzes or polls or what not, David and Mary aka Team Kentucky are scoring pretty high as viewer favorites.

So much so that when they were in last place last week, they were the first to NOT get eliminated in a non-elimination leg. Somehow I thought it was fishy… I know it’s a ploy by the network. When a popular team is up on the chopping block by finishing last, they save those non-elimination legs for these people so they are kept in the game. I don’t believe they have those special exemptions predefined in advance. I believe the producers see how the race goes then decide at that moment when to bestow the immunity upon whoever lags.

How clever it is. That’s why they have those interactive questions for the audience littering commercial breaks. By taking the pulse of the tv watchers then employing surprises in the show by bending the rules just a little bit here and there to keep the team favorites around, they’ll be able to keep more of the audience around.

Of course, I could be all just spouting hogwash and things behind the scenes aren’t really run that way. But it’s my theory. If anyone can argue otherwise, I’d love to hear about it!

This game play is actually cool by me since I am one of those viewers who are steadfast fans of the coal mining couple from the Bluegrass State. Their alliance with the single mothers from Alabama and the Asian brothers from San Francisco is an interesting demonstration of human dynamics involving very unlikely partners.

Go Kentucky, Alabama and Cho Bros!

 

Well, they did it. They got rid of CowBoy aka Cao Boi, the Vietnamese voodoo priest (sort of) who practiced pseudo shamanism on his fellow tribemates. In case you don’t know who he is, it’s the guy with the wrap around tattoo in the photo. They got rid of him because he was too unpredictable and I suppose… strange… but I absolutely enjoyed his uniqueness on this show. Survivor, just like The Amazing Race, is suffering from absolute mediocrity with contestants whose names and faces simply blend into each other and who lack any form of memorability. Cao Boi was a standout in a sea of average fellows and it’s a shame his unconventional approach to things got him the boot.

On the other side of the spectrum is Yul, who is a lovely soft-spoken Korean-American who I really think should win this year. He’s the rather wholesome looking guy in the left photo and is a Stanford graduate nonetheless. Wheww!! Not only because no Asian has ever won in this show before but he plays the Survivor game with a lot of integrity….so far. I listened to him during tribal council respond to Jeff Probst’s prodding questions with such class, and effortless dignity (ok I’m pushing it here but I like the guy) that I could not help but be lulled by his calm and gentle voice. The guy is strong; just check out his buff bod. The guy is smart; he discovered the hidden immunity idol… like right away! The guy plays clean or has played clean up to this point. So what’s there not to like? He’s my favorite this year to win. And if he doesn’t, it’s just one more example of why life is not fair.

Two Asian guys, both rock in different ways. Just goes to show you there is variety in every race and culture.

< Thank you canmag.com and roanoke.com! >

In case you haven’t noticed, American Idol Season 5 is being replayed on the Fox Reality TV Channel. It’s turning into another opportunity for me to get sucked into the show again and awaken and relive some deep-seated memories of events both on and off tube that happened earlier this year.

It’s just like when you hear an old song and you are sent back to a time when you heard it elsewhere, or when you fall ill and some kind of strange regression takes place and you feel deja vu about being sick in bed as a kid under the care of a guardian. Perhaps it’s some Pavlovian thing that happens to me but I certainly get that effect with tv shows that really pack me a punch….most notably this one.

There are already American Idol Season 6 advertisements appearing and reminding us that they’ll be back in January. Just great — I can’t wait to revisit my old haunts such as the boards, the spoiler sites and this special place: the awesome DialIdol site.

DialIdol is where all the post AI performance night activities culminate and you find out whether your voting efforts are really paying off. It’s a real-time vote tracker for the show and being the geek that I am, I find it fascinating how it works. It extrapolates voting totals using downloadable software that people use to set up and track their land line calls for specific American Idol contestants. It counts busy signals from your phone, using this as the measure for “popularity” when you call for certain contestants and through some formula calculates the contestants’ relative rankings. And recently, the site has expanded to cover more programs that involve audience voting such as So You Think You Can Dance?, correctly predicting Benji as the winner and Celebrity Duets, again correctly placing Alfonso Ribeiro on top. It now is in use during Dancing With The Stars and is there to confirm what is known all along, that Joey Lawrence and Mario Lopez are leading in votes.

It is such a great invention and am glad it’s around to keep things honest for the producers of these talent shows. Can’t wait to play this game again.