The thing is, this isn’t by any means the first time I’ve let my frustration guide my actions.  It’s happened before with shopping, but I hardly go shopping, because I hate spending money.  Really, it’s almost like I’m Scrooge McDuck, only real (and human.. and not old.. and not Scottish or whatever he was supposed to be).  The one thing, though, that I’m generally willing to spend money on, though as little as I can manage, is food.  But even food (and I’m a big fan of food) is not immune to the dangers of frustration.

If something frustrates me when I’m trying to decide what to eat at a restaurant — they don’t have what I want, the prices are higher than I expected, there’s a special on buffalo wings that doesn’t include boneless wings which is nothing but pure and unadulterated bullsh*t — I often get what I call “hangry.”  To be hangry is to be hungry, but so angry that you can’t eat.  It’s not a great feeling, and it worries me that something as unimportant as the above can lead me to a state of distinct unpleasantness.  A perfect blend of seething and sulking, I’m pretty much as grey as winter until something later cheers me up, at which point I may or may not eat the previously-skipped meal.  Something’s wrong with that, right?

I’ve always had a tempestuous relationship with my own tempestuousness.  What it comes down to (I fear) may be that I’m incapable of controlling my emotions, once they’ve been let loose.  Thank goodness I hardly ever succumb to strong emotion.  In other words, it’s like I’m a hemophiliac who doesn’t wound easily.  So, a good 95% of the time, there’s not a drop of blood spilt.. but for that other 5%, you better grab a tourniquet.  That seems to be a fair analogy, so I’m sticking with it, until time and my own predisposition to disproving myself gang up on the theory.

Anyway, for reals, y’all.. there are songs that I sing, after having written them. You should listen to them, is what you should do, and link to them maybe, and also maybe play them on your car stereo when you have other people in your car, but then lock all the doors and windows so there is no escape from the musical assault. Just a suggestion.

As a side note, there is an actual picture of me to go along with the actual music, and it got me to thinking (actually) that I might as well be a little more open with this blog thing. I’ve never posted a picture of myself or my apartment or my cat or my other cat before, largely due to a strange paranoia I feel about giving out information about myself. It’s the same paranoia that leads me to shred both birthday card envelopes (They show my name and address!) and cash receipts (Someone could go through my trash and learn my daily routine!). Is it healthy? Probably not, but it has also so far prevented even one crazy from shattering my personal space bubble and/or solar plexus. Whether that’s propter-hoc or just post-hoc, I don’t know, but it settles me.

Still, if I’m going to try to enter the entertainment arena — in practically any capacity, though music may be one of the most high-profile — I need to learn to provide a public persona. It doesn’t have to parallel my private persona; hell, it could be so far removed from my self (spacebar usage intended) so as to constitute an outright lie of sorts. I’m not very good at lying, though, since I eventually forget to keep up the charade and fall back to my natural, and decidedly idiosyncratic, manners and tendencies, so the idea of living as a fictional character, while attractive in a multiple-personality disorder kind of way, is ultimately inviable. The next best route, then, would be to exist in the public domain as an extension of myself. Not a caricature — that would require the same attentive self-awareness that we’ve already established I lack — but an incomplete picture that authenticates my humanity without compromising it. The industry is a machine, after all, and you’ll get chewed up by the cogs if you don’t keep yourself tethered to reality.

That said, it’s a long way off before any such thing would become a substantial issue, so I think I can (and in some sense, have to) present myself as more of an entire person than I have up to this point. I can write with a bit more candor, with a bit more willingness to claim an identity. So, here I go. This is me:

This is my apartment:

This is my cat:

This is my other cat:

Nice to meet you.

Sorry, I’m lazy and a liar and I’m sorry, but baby, you know I still love you. Really, it’s just that the past three weeks have been what can only be described as a clusterf*ck of busyness. (That’s spelled as such for clarity’s sake, yo.) I’ll break it down, as I’m wont to do, enumerated-list style!

1. Mass murder
Or at least, three weeks ago, I thought we were going to murder Schubert’s Mass in E. We’ve been practicing our collective ass off, and I can’t deny that choir rehearsal became, for me, a frustration. After all, we’ve been working on the same piece for the past two quarters, and until the very end, we never really ran the piece.. we only trudged it. I even had called my parents and told them not to come to the concert, that it would be a waste of time for them to drive up from Kentucky to see us flounder on stage like a beached whale. Or a beached flounder. I mean, at least the whale can still breathe.

But as it turns out, we rocked that sh*t.. for the most part. (Pacememem, anyone?) I even managed to keep a “pleasant” expression, as we’re told to, instead of looking tired and haggard like I normally do. I did not, however, manage to look pleasant in any other regard, as the amount of sweat that poured from my pores (Yay, homophones!) roughly totalled the volume of Lake Erie. And was roughly as gnarsty. I mean, really. There were a good hundred singers on stage, plus an orchestra, belting it out for the better part of an hour, in an un-air-conditioned hall, with about eight trillion* lights helping to illuminate our drenched, glistening faces. Afterwards, though, I felt happy about how well we performed.. and happier still to take off my shirt.

*Rough estimate.

2. Movin’ on uuuup.. to the east north side
This is it, y’all: the move is imminent. I’m a good mix of nervous and excited, which I guess are denotatively the same, but you know how connotations are. It’s strange the things you suddenly realize upon preparing for a move. Things like:
– Wow, I’ve lived here for two years, and I never managed to put any pictures in the frames on my wall.
- Have I ever cleaned under my bed? I could knit a really disgusting sweater with this sh*t.
- Oh, so that’s where my AbSlide went!
- This packing tape smells like paint thinner. I wonder if you could use packing tape to get high. But then what if it got stuck to your face when you were sniffing it, and then you had to rip it off? I guess maybe you wouldn’t notice if you were high. Maybe you’d just think it was funny. It would be pretty funny, man.

No, I’m still not done packing, but I’m damn closer than I expected to be. Frankly, I figured I’d put everything off until the last minute, like I always do, but I totally got a multi-minute jump on it. Boo yah! It’s like I’m a responsible adult or something. Scary. The cats (‘Cause, yeah, there’s a second one now, remember?) know something’s up, but frankly, I don’t think they care. I know there’s always the chance that a cat’s gonna freak out about moving, but Burrito hasn’t given two sh*ts with any move we’ve made yet, and Gutterball hasn’t been in this place long enough to be attached to it. The fun part is going to be actually moving them to the new apartment. Gutterball has been in a car exactly once, but seemed fine with it, but Burrito.. Burrito does not like the car. It’s only a short ride, but God help us if we hear (dun dun DUN!) the evacuation noise. The evacuation noise is a very low-pitched meow, used to warn fellow passengers that an evacuation is about to take place. From which orifice? Who knows! But rest assured, it will be swift-in-coming, and it will be gross.

Follow-up: The move went smooth(ish)ly, and our apartment is livable.  Oh, and the evacuation was Burrito’s first-ever hairball.  Fantastic!

So.. I mean, I guess that’s it.  I thought there’d be more than two things on the list.  It’s telling that two things took over my life, consuming me outright.  Since then, however, I have tried to leave myself a little more open to fun bursts of boundary-breaking spontaneity.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some pajamas to put on and some Cinnamon Bun ice cream to annihilate.

Update.  Ha ha, I lied.  Yeah, so.. no.  Sorry, I accidentally fell asleep last night, so when I woke up on top of my bed nearly naked to the lights sill on, I was confused and cold (though rested).  We’ll shoot for today, then.

N!D!W! #1: The facial hair
I don’t grow facial hair very well.  It’s spotty and sparse, so it has that oh-so-desirable “pubes glued to my face” look, that I’m sure everyone thinks is hottt.  (That’s hot with three T’s.)  Also, I’m apparently part-calico, because it grows in as three very distinct colors: dark brown on my cheeks, strawberry blonde around my mouth, and I Love Lucy red on my chin.  It’s like Neapolitan ice cream, only frustrating instead of delicious.  Still, despite all the above evidence to the contrary, I decided to pursue having facial hair.

Well, that’s sort of a half-truth.  I didn’t so much “decide” as “forget to shave for a few days and then figure I might as well keep it going.”  But still.. that’s a decision!  Now, I’m not one of those guys (= the majority of guys) who have to worry about five-o’clock shadow.  I might maybe have to worry about five-o’clock-the-following-Tuesday shadow, and even then, it looks more like I got a little dirt on my face than anything.  Some call it a blessing (“You don’t have to shave every day!”); I call it a curse (“I look like I’m twelve.”)  So this, then, has been my attempt to thwart that curse.  I will look older, damn it.

All the brown facial hair was pretty quick to go.  I gave it a shot, but it’s really the worst offender.  I’ll never be able to have sideburns, and a chinstrap is entirely out of the question.  The rest of it had potential, but needed time.  Lots and lots of time.  Long story short, after much waiting and trimming and reshaping, I am left with what appears to be a Van Dyke I’ve been growing for as many as two days.  Really, I know guys who can grow better beards during the workday than I have now,and this damn thing’s been a three-week ordeal.  That being said, I think the idea suits my face well — it gives me a bit of angularity, when I otherwise have a very soft-featured face — but I’ll have to wait for it to thicken up before it looks completely intentional.  Who knows how long that could take?

Also, I wonder if it’d be worth it to get some Just For Men to get the color to match the hair on my head.  Or even to match itself, really.

N!D!W! #2: The cat
No, not Burrito.  The other cat.  As in, there is now (at least temporarily) another cat. He’s very sweet and is currently all up in my grill.  For real, guys.  It’s very difficult to type, and he just shoved his nose into my eye socket.  But it’s all out of love, if the has-not-stopped-since-we-got-home purring is any indication.

The story is, I was out with some friends at a bowling alley, and we had decided to head to a club for the evening.  Only, in the parking lot of the alley, a friendly but very skinny cat wandered up to us, meowing and rubbing up on any leg he could get to.  In other words: cat was hungry.   My heart then began to bleed, and when my friends hopped in a taxi, I told them I couldn’t leave the cat (the alley’s not in a residential area, or else I’d've figured he lived somewhere right around there).  So, I stayed.  We got him some chicken scraps and milk from the alley’s kitchen, and he scarfed it all down in no time.  I am, however, currently dealing with the consequences of that diet, because he has some RANK gas right now.

Yes, I took him home.  I didn’t know what else to do.  I’ve made an appointment with the local vet clinic for Monday morning, so we’ll have him checked out.  I’ve given him a mild flea bath, though I didn’t notice any fleas or flea dirt on him, and I’m keeping him fed without letting him gorge himself, but it’ll be important to get him some dewormer and some better flea protection.  He’s a very sweet cat, and I’ll try to find him a good permanent home, but Lord knows there’s a chance he’s here to stay.

Burrito is not pleased.   Normally, he greets me by shoving his head into me and purring.  Today?  Growing and hissing.  Oh yeah, he’s pissed.  And the cats haven’t even met yet.. he’s pissed about the very notion of there being another cat in my apartment.  We’ll see how this turns out.

N!D!W! #3: The music (mine)
The demo is nearing completion, though I think I want to record a couple more tracks to beef it up.  My plan was to do that today, but with the cats, I don’t know if it’s possible.  Either (a) the new cat will attempt to climb up my leg while I’m recording my vocals, and in the middle of a line, I’ll suddenly scream, “Holy Mother of God!  My femoral artery!”, or (b) the new cat, having been relegated to a room where he cannot see me, will start crying incessantly, so the vocals will have that haunting cat-howling-in-the-background effect that’s so popular with the kids these days.

N!D!W! #4: The music (not mine)
I went on a CD-buying binge yesterday and bought ten  albums from Amazon.  Some are absolutely brainless, one of them cost ONE CENT, but I’m sure they’ll all prove to be worthwhile in some way or another.  Even if only as a coaster.  Hey, one cent is cheap for a coaster!  Aaaand, I’m not even done.  Today, I’ll be buying a few more than Amazon either didn’t have as good a deal on or didn’t have at all.  In the next two weeks, I may be unavailable for comment on anything, and I’ll have headphones permanently affixed to my ears.

There’s more, there’s more.. but right now, there’s also a cat (Burrito) whose very confused as to why he’s closed in the bedroom.  Time for me to go get growled and hissed at.

Before I get started, I want to thank Rich at FourFour for the screencaps I’ve used for this recap. It seems that my computer no longer likes to take screencaps or something, or maybe I just turned suddenly stupid, or both. In any case, this makes the whole pictures-and-words thing seem like it might not last too much longer. That is, we might be down to words soon. Anyway, just wanted to let it be known. Now, on with the show!

Natasha
Well, slap my ass and call me Charlie, Natasha’s done it again. Despite the hurdles of her tenuous grasp on English and even more tenuous grasp on Australian English (“You’re all being cactuses.”), Natasha bowled Tyra over with her commercial and won the challenge, securing a spot as a Tyra Show correspondent. Hooray on Natasha for make the great interviews!

She so happy she hide her much happy face!

Also, hooray on Natasha for make the awesome comments. Case in point, I loved this: “Dionne and Jael are having a really, really hot talk. When I look at them, I imagine two cats ready to jump on each other.” Argument or foreplay? How can you tell! Ah, semantic ambiguity. Also, I don’t just imagine; I envision.

Meeeeoooowwww.

Brittany
Excuse me while I go on the defensive for a moment. You see, Brittany seems to be the object of a lot of ire, which I just don’t get. Are you mad at her for crying? But that’s what makes this show so fun! Is it because she’s actually a good model? Are you just not used to that on this show? I’ve even heard people criticize her voice, to which I say: Kathleen, Jaslene, Jael, ahem.

Now, Potes over at TwoP raised a legitimate question, and perhaps it’s the root of some of the more recent spite: Why wasn’t the I-got-hit-by-a-car-and-it-f*cked-my-short-term-memory thing an issue last week when she had to memorize a script for the acting challenge? To this, I think I have a legitimate answer. First off, we didn’t actually see much of Brittany during the acting challenge, so it’s quite possible that she did have a great deal of difficulty with it, footage of which of sacrificed in editing. Second, I can say from personal experience that learning one part in a dialogue is markedly easier than memorizing a monologue. You have more explicit cues to play off, and there’s generally less arbitrary thematic meandering. It also seemed like what hit Brittany harder was realizing that she could look at the cue cards and “forget what [she] read two seconds later.” That must be pretty embarrassing, and being upset by that seemed to be the real source of her undoing.

That being said, the issue and ensuing breakdown may have saved her in this competition. After all, she was in danger of hitting boring, forgettable territory, and this just shot her eight staples ahead of the pack. Plus, it provided her the opportunity to cry before Tyra, which I think we can all agree is a commendable strategy.

Tyra’s all, “Mm, yessss.. delicious, salty tears.”

“Perfect for my collection.”

Renee
You know, as much as the change in attitude may have made Renee a better person, b*tchy Renee was way better television. I mean, she hardly did anything remotely asshattish this week. Okay, so she interrupted Natasha.. oooo. Come on. This is the girl who threatened to beat Brittany’s ass for crying, then had the gumption to claim she’s “not a mean person.” Yeah, we hated Renee then, but we loved to hate her.

For entertainment’s sake, let’s hope this is only temporary.

I thought Renee’s commercial was good, if a bit pre-owned-vehicle in delivery. But you know what? She expressed reservations about being too over-the-top, and Jay told her to go for it. So to chastise her later for going for it is really stupid, Tyra. Plus, she was the only one of the girls who really used a thick Australian accent as directed. Granted, she was only about two notes shy of shouting, “Crikey! I’d sell my knickers for a spot of Vegemite!” But still, an A for effort.

Jaslene
When Erika Heynatz greeted the girls after they got off the plane, nobody seemed to understand her Aussie slang. (To everyone but Natasha, I say: Context clues, ladies! Did you never take third grade language arts? Also, “chewing the fat” isn’t so much Aussie slang as just.. slang. Like, people use it here in the States, too.) But nobody was more confused-looking than Jaslene, who might as well have just been explained the difference between unergative and unaccusative syntax structures. Jaslene says, “I had the biggest question mark on my forehead.” I oblige the metaphor.

But being the confident (and spicy!) Latina, she is, let’s do this right.

Jaslene says, “¿Mande?”

Also, as much as I joke about it too, the judges kind of need to give the whole Jaslene’s-a-drag-queen thing a rest. I mean, yes, I (and 9 out of 10 sighted people) agree, but at this point, it’s criticizing the ocean for being wet. Either give the girl a sponge to sop up the excess trannitude or leave her alone.

Dionne
During the challenge, Dionne didn’t use much (or any, if the editing is to be believed) Aussie slang, but she ended every indicative sentence with “That’s cool, that’s cool.” Maybe she just thinks that’s how you pronounce a period? Anyway, the editors kept a running tally:

What they didn’t show you was the other tally.

She’s not no f*ckin’ Aussie, neither.

During her commercial, the random Jamaican accent resurfaced. It’s like a secret second personality she never even knew she had. A secret second personality named.. Wholahay, perhaps?

Jael
Oh, Jael. You know, I’ll miss you and your weird.. everything, but it was pretty clearly your time to go. Thank you for the following: hula-hooping, your tutu, evil-duck protection, requiring more subtitles than the Russian chick, being a sexy beast, random nudity, and throwing tampons. Especially throwing tampons. As a side note, this one time, when I worked for the Humane Society, I was fostering a dog named Diego (man, I loved that dog), and I came home to find that he has been playing with one of Burrito’s toys. It was wet with slobber, and as I squished it in my hand, I thought aloud to myself, “I don’t remember buying Burrito a pink mouse toy..” I hadn’t. And it wasn’t slobber. BUT I DIGRESS.

Kittens make you forget all sorts of unpleasantries.

As for Jael’s commercial, I really expected the worst thing about it to be her speaking voice. I mean, she’s not really renowned for her enunciation. Much to my surprise, I found her relatively easy to understand. However, I also found her irrelatively hard to look at when she made this face:

It’s not that you look uncomfortable, Jael. It’s that it makes me uncomfortable.

Tyra
Kudos for finally getting her look at panel right this cycle. For once, she doesn’t look like a gypsy or a pirate or a gypsy pirate. Maybe that’s not saying much, but hell.. an improvement’s an improvement. Also, kudos (mm.. Kudos) for outdoing the insanity of showing up last cycle to announce the overseas trip in full flamenco gear by showing up this time in a kangaroo suit. Furries across the country just simultaneously orgasmed. I just happy-gasmed. It made me want Tyra to live in the Hundred Acre Wood.

Weeeellll..

Kiss her fat ASS, Christopher Robin!

[Insert sigh here.]

Dionne
Dionne was a fountain of hilarity this week. Not that she isn’t always.. *cough* Wholahay *cough*.. but this episode especially, she was a wholahoot. From the unintentional humor of butchering English (“Seeing my baby has made me extra happier; you need a little inspirationary now and then.”) to the admittedly random Jamaican accent (“I don’t even speak Jamaican!”) to the family reunion gone awry (“I see my mom, my sister, and my baby! And the first thing that came to my mind is: What the f*ck is wrong with my baby’s hair?”) to the almost-offensive-until-she-owned-up-to-enjoying-herself masterpiece (“Hold up. I’m not no f*ckin’ lesbo.”), Dionne wins the award for Most Quotable ANTM Contestant Since Jade. That is very, very special. Here, have a trophy.

The releasement of the news was just too much for the other girls to withhandle.

Dionne could also get an award for Biggest Potty Mouth. Damn, girl.. five F-bombs in one episode? Did I accidentally turn on Flavor of Love?

F*** is the new fierce, y’all.

Renee
Renee got to see her baby, too, as a reward for winning the acting challenge with that guy from that movie that’s seriously not that funny, you guys. She was on the verge of tears for three consecutive minutes of airtime, and amidst the eye-welling, she took the confessional time to personally thank Tyra for the familial visit. That is how you play the game, ladies and gentlemen. Oh, and did I mention that ever since last episode’s inTyravention, she’s turned over a new leaf? Man, she really knows the angles to hit.

In it to win it.

Too bad she got the task of shooting with Joanie. Why? Because Joanie kicks ass. Both Jay and the photographer noted how awesome Joanie was during the shoot and how less-than-awesome Renee seemed in comparison. Quite frankly, Joanie would probably have outshined whichever girl she was paired with, so it was a bit of a raw deal for Renee.

Look, I even gave Joanie a picture in Renee’s commentary section. Sorry, NeNe.

Natasha
Guess who didn’t get to see her baby? You know, I understand Jay’s whole “Some girls are going to have prize wins that other girls don’t have,” but dude. It was an acting challenge. You think maybe the non-native English speaker is going to be at a slight disadvantage at memorizing and reciting a script? Hm? So, Nata sort of got the shaft, and she took it real hard. It was like an emotional makeover.

Tyra’s all, “We’re going to give you big, flowy tears!”

Still, she rocked the photo shoot (as has been her tendency lately.. whodathunkit?), although the makeup they gave her did not look near as gnarsty as Michelle’s impetigo. Where are the scabs? The pieces of face falling off.. her face? The fodder for rumors of burning herself with cigarettes?

Okay, at this point, I planned on doing a side-by-side comparison of Natasha, with the lipstick-splotches they gave her, and Michelle, with the real deal. The problem was, I couldn’t find a good picture to use for Michelle. So I thought, why not Google image search for impetigo? Why not, indeed. Seriously, you guys, if Michelle really did contract impetigo, she had the prettiest goddamn impetigo in the world. The pictures that came up on the search made me want to vomit and then look at that vomit because it would be much less disgusting than the pictures. I’m still residually nauseous from it. In order to try to get over it (God help you if you just did the search to see for yourself), here’s a picture of a kitten:

Way cuter than oozing pustules, let me tell you.

Although, to keep in the spirit of the photoshoot, I should give him a few “blemishes”:

Still so cute!

Jael
Too bad Jael didn’t get picked to portray Michelle in the photoshoot. A few more burns with the curling iron and she’d be ready to go! Instead, she was enlisted to make vagus nerve disorder look fierce by posing as the faint-prone Rebecca. Somehow, she misunderstood and grabbed for Rebecca’s boobie.

It’s an honest mistake. Anyone could have made it.

At judging, the issue of Jael’s speech was finally brought to light. I’m not going to transcribe what was clearly the crafty work of editors (her boggling monologue before the panel), but I am going to include this polite but patronizing smile that capped it.

Twiggy f*cking hates Jael.

Brittany
Ding dong, the weave is dead. And thank God (Tyra), because that thing needed to go worse than a racehorse after its fifth Big Gulp. Look at it! It’s like they extracted a family of raccoons from her head.

I thought they normally denned in chimneys.

Brit had another solid week, posing with the twins, but can I just ask.. the twins? I thought the theme of this shoot was portraying great events in ANTM history. (By the way, the show has now evolved beyond merely referencing itself to outright worshipping itself. Somehow it seems like that could be a metaphor for someone..) Twins are not an event. Unless we’re talking about their birth, in which case the shoot would have seen Brit pushing her way out of a giant vagina, and you best believe it would’ve been fierce. But that’s not what the shoot was. Instead, they just had the three girls pose as triplets, which.. okay, wait. The theme was twins. Triplets are not twins. I have a very simple equation for that one, Tyra:

Learn your damn arithmetic.

Jaslene
For being the girl that forgot her lines in the acting challenge, Jaslene wasn’t much chastised or otherwise featured in this episode. Her draggishness was called out, but for Jaslene, that has about the same effect as if the judges started saying, “You know, she has a tendency to look really Latina in her pictures,” or “Have you ever noticed that Jaslene has a head, a torso, and four limbs?” What should scare Jaslene is that, as she herself predicted, she was labelled by Tyra as the girl who’s not progressing, or alternately the girl who’s lost her fire (see: Nnenna, Toccara, Brittany the First). Light that sh*t up, Cha Cha Diva!

Consider self-immolation. Tyra would love the commitment.

Still, I have to give Jaslene her dues for calling it. Jaslene is clearly a fan of the show and is like the anti-Brooke when it comes to deciphering Tyra Mails. Remember how in Cycle 7, Brooke was always wrong in how she interpreted them? There was that time she thought they’d be going to dinner when they were really going to interview Janice Dickinson, and another time, she guaranteed that the girls would be fighting each other on pedestals, which.. just didn’t happen. But Jaslene, upon listening to the first Tyra Mail this week (“Whatever you do, don’t be yourself.”), calmly asserted that they would be acting. It’s not that she’s a supergenius for figuring them out, but nobody else ever seems to. So, maybe in the world of ANTM, Jaslene really is a rocket scientist.

Hey, Jaslene.. what’s the drag coefficient for a model walking down a runway? Ha!

Oh.. that high.

Whitney
I have to say, I didn’t see this one coming. I thought for sure Whitney hadn’t fulfilled her destiny as a valuable bit of social commentary, but so we say goodbye, and I’m sort of relieved that this show is making the attempt to salvage what little credibility it might have once had. I still think Whit’s a gorgeous girl, but she just wasn’t measuring up. Also, what was up with the fivehead she was rocking this week? Was she challenging Tyra for the title?

You seriously could land an airplane on that thing.

Seriously.

Farewell, Whitelle. It’s been swell. We knew ye well, I’m glad to tell. Your spirits, well, they never fell. And.. oh, Dionne? What is it, praytell? Have you something quick to yell, within this, my poem’s shell?

“What the hell?”

Yeah, okay. I’ll shut up now.

Actually, no.. there’s one more thing. Someone please explain to me why we didn’t get to see the surely-fantastic exercise captured in this photo from the ANTM site:

I agree with Dionne. What the hell?

I can only imagine what would happen if the worlds of Tyra’s highly-punctuated judging spiel and Natasha’s linguistic interpretive dance were to collide. And so, in fact, I will imagine it: “They are two beautiful girl stand before me. But I have one only photo in the hand. And it to represent the beautiful girl who still is running for become America’s.. Next.. Top.. Model. I call only a one name. The girl her name I did not call must now go turn back into a loft, pack the bags, and go to home.” Congratulations, Natasha. You’re still in the running towards becoming my favorite.. person.. ever.

Dannon Light & Fit Smoothies
If you had to pick one adjective to describe a smoothie, what would it be? Hm.. you know, I think I would choose “smooth.” You know what Dannon chose? CHUNKY. They made f*cking chunky smoothies. First off, that’s an oxymoron like no other. Second, you know what a chunky smoothie really is? Really thin yogurt. It’s like a batch of yogurt came out too watery, and the Dannon execs said, “F*ck it. We’re not wasting all this sh*t. Put it in bottles and call ‘em smoothies.”

WTF?

Since they’re minimally different from Dannon yogurt, they don’t taste any better or worse than that does. So, it’s not that they taste gross, it’s that it’s really disconcerting to drink something with chunks in it. You know what otherwise-liquid has distinct chunks? Vomit. Yes, and soup, but soup doesn’t help illustrate my point. Which is, in case you were wondering, that downing one of these things gives me the vague sensation of backwards vomiting. That is not pleasant.

My recommendation is that the good people of Dannon invest in a few blenders. That, or start packaging that sh*t up as “Light & Fit Chunkies.” Then again, that might just bring us back to the oxymoron problem.

Nabisco Reduced Fat Nilla Wafers
I love me some Nilla Wafers. More encompassingly, I love me some cookies, but Nilla Wafers hold a special place in my heart.. and in my banana pudding. But it was my love of said cookies and my complete disregard for suggested serving sizes that led to my discovery of (and subsequent reburial of) Reduced Fat Nilla Wafers. “After all,” I thought, “now when I eat the whole box in one sitting, I’ll be ingesting 30% less saturated fat!” Yes, I realize that doesn’t make eating the whole box any better of an idea, but you know what? SHUT UP.

Anyway, so usually, I’m not picky about regular vs. diet versions of anything. I hardly drink soda, but when I do, I couldn’t tell a Pepsi from a Diet Rite from a Coke Zero. It’s just all cola to me. I always get the fat-free sour cream, ’cause I don’t notice anything off about it, and a 98% fat-free hot dog tastes just as ridiculously artificial to me as full-fat frank. Maybe I just have very undiscerning tastebuds, or maybe I’ve become so accustomed to seeking out “healthier” options that I just don’t care anymore. Whatever.. the point is, I was shocked to learn that while Nilla Wafers are delicious and awesome and nearly as addictive as meth, Reduced Fat Nilla Wafers are gross and horrible and as thoroughly repulsive as cameltoe.

WTF?

Why, great Nabisco gods, did you see fit to remove, along with 30% of the fat, 100% of the enjoyment? These suck. They taste and feel like cardboard, which I realize is the generic food put-down, but in this case, it’s completely appropriate. Maybe it’s that they don’t otherwise taste or feel like anything, so they assimilate to both the flavor and the texture of the box. Or maybe they just REALLY need that extra fat.

But what may be even worse is their crimes against the holy institution of milk. Look, milk is my lifeblood, so if you’re a cookie, don’t f*ck with that. Nilla Wafers in milk? Genius. The cookies soak it up like Sheryl Crow does the sun. Both wafer and milk are exponentially improved, and my happiness increased in parallel. Reduced Fat Nillas in milk? Horrendous. The cookies actually flatten upon hitting the liquid, and they suddenly acquire a taste.. a sour, spoiled-egg taste. It all makes me very sad, and that’s something I really thought a cookie could never do.

The Florian Sandwich
There’s this restaurant here called the Florian, and.. let’s just say, it’s not where you go for fine cuisine.  It’s where you go because nowhere else is open at 10:30, or it’s where you go because you can eat on five bucks.  That’s pretty common knowledge ’round these parts, so the general ho-hum quality of food isn’t the issue.  My beef (Ha!  It’s a food pun!) is with the menu item called, suspiciously, the Florian sandwich.  It’s quite possibly called that so it can be comprised of whatever the hell they have lying around their kitchen.  Anyway, one of the ingredients (at least as it was today) is mushrooms.  Not portabella or crimini or anything fancy.. just standard white mushrooms.  Oh, and they were raw.

WTF?

Who puts raw mushrooms on a sandwich?  They’re gonna add almost zero flavor, and they’re awfully inconducive to the idea of a sandwich.  They hinder the whole “staying together” thing, they fall off left and right, and they just generally get in the way.  Sautee them, please.  Or marinate them.  Or f*cking fry them, I don’t care.  Even slicing them really thin would’ve been an acceptable solution, but instead they’re just big weird hunks o’ shroom invading an unsuspecting French roll.

Also, while I’m talking about the Florian.  Apparently, baked potatoes are no longer on their menu.  WTF?  This is not Ireland, there is no potato famine.  If you were looking for effective cutbacks, potatoes were probably not the way to go.  Go buy some damn spuds.

JoJo, “Anything”
When considering teenage singers, JoJo is a hot fudge sundae among rice cakes. As in: she’s just better. That’s all there is to it. She has such great control and technique with her vocals, that it really was (and is) hard to believe she was 13 when “Leave” sat atop the pop charts. Her latest single is the low-key, mid-tempo “Anything.”

Repetitiveness: 5/10 (Moderate)
The track opens with the refrain from Toto’s 1982 hit “Africa,” then proceeds to play the main riff from that song a bajillionty times while JoJo sings over-top. Granted, it’s an awesome riff, but at a certain point, awesomeness is inversely proportional to prevalence, and hearing something for the 87,206th time is way less cool than the first. That being said, the riff stays in the background, and it winds up being more of a canvas than a drone, allowing JoJo to take center stage and keep the boat afloat.

Ability to get Toto stuck in your head for weeks: 10/10 (Dangerous)
Seriously, you guys? Can it stop? There’s an infinite loop of “Africa” running through my head, only I don’t actually know the whole song, so it’s just the refrain and the part that “Anything” samples. Which then makes me start singing “Anything,” so.. well played, JoJo. Well played.

Song rating: 6/10 (Good)
It’s nothing to write home about, and the lyrics are pretty par-for-the-course, but it’s got a catchy tune, and you can’t deny that JoJo’s got the pipes to back it up. Frankly, with a lesser singer, this would have seemed a far lesser song, but as is, it works. No, it doesn’t build up to a blowout moment like “Too Little Too Late” does, but it’s a breezy groove and a fun throwback to the ’80s.. a decade in which JoJo was not yet alive. Yeah, and now I feel old.

Hilary Duff, “With Love”
If nothing else, Hilary Duff is determined. Specifically, she’s determined to be a pop star, vocal ability be damned. Sometimes, her shortcomings have more-or-less-successfully been masked by solid, if cookie-cutter, pop sensibility. Now she’s back, and she’s dyed her hair brown, so you know that means she’s trying to be taken more seriously. The question is: does she deserve serious regard?

Lyrical content: 6/10 (Refreshing)
When I first saw the title, my initial reaction was vague-but-not-unexpected nausea. I very possibly rolled my eyes. But then I actually listened to the song, and I was pleasantly surprised. Pretty much, the lyrics are, “I know sometimes I get all crazy and worked up, so just tell me to chill the hell out.” Granted, they’re nothing earth-shattering, but at least it’s neither a cloying vow of forever-love nor a sad-but-scathing breakup letter. Golf claps for Miss Duff.

Choice of genre: 9/10 (Excellent)
There are certain genres that just work out better for “singers” with limited vocal prowess. New Wave synth-pop is high up on that list (just below “Instrumental”), so it’s a fine fit for the Duffster, whose voice isn’t quite the gold standard. It’s barely a wisp of a voice, riddled with little-girl affectation and prone to profound nasality. The thing is, I might as well have been talking about Kylie Minogue just then, and she’s made a killing sticking with that very same sound. Good girl, Hilary. Stay.

Song rating: 7/10 (Quite good)
This was a smart move on Hilary’s part (and on the part of whoever thought of it). It’s a light skip over to a sound that won’t alienate her fans but allows her to grow up without getting swallowed in the mess that “maturity” can make. It’s danceable, it’s subtly sexy without being sexed-up, and it’s just what we needed to forget the lemon-scented barf that was “The Beat of My Heart.”

Clique, “Worth the Wait”
When I set to writing this post, I was having a little trouble choosing the perfect third song to review. After all, teen pop is a half-dried puddle compared to the reservoir of hormones it was about seven years back. I’m not complaining (trust me, I’m not), I’m just saying. But then I came across an article, linked below, that introduced me to what I hope is not a sign of things to come. Ladies and gentlemen, straight from an elementary school near you.. it’s Clique.

Inherent creepiness: 8/10 (Hanson-esque)
At ages 10, 11, and 12, these sisters are cute and pleasant girls, I’m sure, but they’re also posing for the paparazzi while dressed up like pirates. If that doesn’t scream “stage parents,” I don’t know what does. Please, Mr. and Mrs. Cliquerson, let your daughters have their childhood. They only get one shot at it, and you’re strangling it away by turning them into living, breathing Bratz dolls. Save yourself the therapy money now.

Age-appropriacy: 1/10 (Equivalent to a nun wearing pasties)
No. No no no no no. The first line is “I had given up on love.” Need I remind you, YOU’RE ELEVEN. If we now live in a society where eleven-year-olds are jaded over not yet finding true love, then we have a major problem. I mean, THANK GOD the song is decidedly unsexual, but I still don’t want to hear about “all the nights [you] cried all alone.” Jesus, go make a macaroni necklace or something.

Song rating: 2/10 (Unfortunate)
The guitar riff is unoffensive, and their voices, although underdeveloped, are better than your average pre-teen’s.. but the song flatly sucks. It’s overwrought, it’s boringly treaded ground, and the age thing is a very thinly veiled gimmick. Really, unless they’ve got an unbelievable voice, there’s no reason for anyone under the age of 16 to enter a recording booth. It’s like.. okay, let’s say you’ve only got one arm. However, you’re still really good at golf, especially for someone with only one arm. (Bear with me, this’ll make sense in a minute.) But unless you’re a super-amazing golfer, independent of arm count, you should not be on the PGA tour. And that’s how I feel about Clique. Yeah, they’re good singers for the grade-school set, but if they’re not blowing everybody else out of the water, then what’s the point?