Silk Willow Talk

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.

It looks like this blog is going to be a casualty of my progressively taxing schedule given that I am in the midst of a hectic and uncooperative software release (read: my job) at this time. My TV watching is paying the price and I’m not necessarily miffed by that, since there is nothing too interesting in the networks and fall lineup thus far. As just another starstruck fan of people making fools of themselves in talent shows or maybe just an admirer of rags-to-riches, making-of-a-star themed shows celebrating people who are honestly talented, deserving and personable, I patiently await the rekindling of American Idol and spectacles of this nature. The reality show is only as good as its guests, contestants or players and without more unusual personalities with the gleam of the X-factor supporting them, I am inclined to pass over the couch for now.

Not to worry. I don’t see a silence in this place for too long for as soon as some rousing (or truly ridiculous) new program comes along, I will be back. Till then, I’ll be hanging out at My Left Brain.

The Bachelor is once more living up to its name as a glorified meat market. This time, the bachelor is an Italian Prince who has familial ties to Pope Paul V (Camillo Borghese) and Cardinal Scipione Borghese and a royal lineage that basically owns half of Rome. You know this because the guy’s last name is stamped all over architectural locales, coliseums, tourist sites and the occasional hole-in-the-wall cafe.

I can tell that 33 year old Lorenzo Borghese is enjoying himself immensely, as this experience is but another feather stroking his well-nurtured ego.

The girls are a motley bunch of professionals, give or take a farm ranch hand, socialite or native Italian female or two. There’s noone here connecting with the Prince just yet, so you know that their bottom wiggling will be escalating as the season wears on.

My own brush with a Bachelor boils down to my insurance agent actually being close friends with Andrew Firestone. I was only motivated to sign a contract with the agent if he got me an autograph of Andrew and his then chosen flame, Jennifer Schefft (who subsequently became the Bachelorette sometime ago). For all I know this agent was just pulling my leg by producing some signature on a rag he could’ve penned himself; but whatever. The insurance contract was a good deal anyway.

The ability of this show to spark a genuine love connection is in question given that its track record for initiating successful long-lasting relationships suck, but no matter, since dreamy (or is it deluded?) hopefuls continue to fight over and proclaim their right to the final rose — or in this case — the tiara. For their own sake, I sure hope these women are just feigning naivete about the whole love thing and are really all actresses just seeking media exposure.

For all that, I’d file this particular season under the category of crassy lifestyles of the rich and famous.

Watch The Bachelor in Rome on ABC, Mondays 8/9c.