American Idol Auditions Jan 26-27 -- Hot n Cold

Technically, the title of this post should be Cold n Hot, because Tuesday's episode was the one that blew. But in deference to our second guest judge of this week, we went with the reverse.

This week we're in Los Angeles and Dallas, so there should be plenty of talent on display, right? We'll see.

American Idol Auditions Jan 19-20 -- Two Hours of Torture

Note: My spellcheck program wants me to spell the words likable and lovable, but I prefer to use the e in both.

I'm torn. On one hand, I'd like to write two sentences and be done with this post so as not to waste more time on what might be the two worst episodes of AI I have ever seen.

On the other hand, I really feel like ranting uncontrollably about what a disgrace they were. I'm sure you can imagine which path I'm going to choose.

Australian Open Preview -- Men's Draw

In different ways, the men's side of the Australian Open was the most and the least consistent major during the last decade. To start the aughts -- before Roger and Rafa brought stability back to scene -- the US Open had five different champions in five years (if you go back to 1998 there was seven consecutive years of different winners); Wimbledon saw four different winners from 2000-2003; Gustavo Kuerten won the French in 2000-2001, but from 2001 to 2005 there were five different winners.

Australian Open Preview -- Ladies First

Here come my predictions for the least predictable major of the year. Seriously, I suppose it's because it's so early in the season and some people start better than others, but you can get some seriously crazy results down under.

American Idol Audition Episodes January 12-13, 2010

I'm not a huge fan of the audition episodes. There are far too many of them and they are far too manipulative. They already know who the top 24 are when these episodes start airing, yet they waste our time with back stories of people that are going to be cut the first day of Hollywood week. I understand it makes for good television in some instances, but it's at the expense of people that could actually do better in the voting episodes if we'd ever heard of them before the night they unveil the final 24.

Tripping Down Memory Lane

Note: Statements made by the voices in my head are in italics.

Sobriety has often been, for me, one long episode of Samantha Who? (when a title has a question mark in it, putting a period at the end of the sentence looks weird so I am adding this parenthetical to make it less so). If you never saw the now-canceled Christina Applegate series, it's your fault I can no longer watch it. Oh, what I meant to say was, let me explain the premise. Samantha (C.A.'s character) is hit by a car and suffers amnesia. For the most part, she has no memory of her life before the accident, which is apparently a good thing because she was a self-centered, manipulative, vindictive b...person.

20 Idol Performances I Can't Forget (and Five I Wish I Could)

Idol starts next week. Yaaaay! I can't wait. No, I really can't wait. So, to prep myself for the new season, I've gone back through the last eight seasons and picked my 20 most memorable performances (and five I wish I could forget). The only real criteria I used is that I had to remember them. I didn't comb through the internet trying to come up with my favorites. I did use the internet to help me remember exactly when they took place, but that's it. So here goes.

Resolve

Up till now, I've mostly written about the past. But since the beginning of a new year is all about hope for the future, I'm going to take a crack at writing about that.

I'm not big on garden-variety new year's resolutions. I'm not going to resolve to lose 20 pounds this year (although...). Nor will I be resolving to exercise more. Nor watch less TV (yeah, right -- American Idol starts in 10 days).

Instead, I'm going to try to figure out ways to improve my life from the inside out. The big new thing in working out is strengthening your core. Well, if that's true then working on my real core -- my soul -- is probably equally important.

Medicinal Purposes

Note: Tonight's post contains somewhat graphic descriptions of drugs and drug use. Enter at your own risk.

Full disclosure: I'm all over the place tonight mentally so you may need to do some kind of intellectual lambada to follow along. The sinus headache dulls certain (I want to write "brainal" so I guess this is one of them) synapses, making it really difficult for me to express myself articulately and to hold on to one train of thought for very long.

The Sports List

The nice thing about writing a blog, rather than getting paid to write, is that I can write about whatever I want. And as I've said before, I love lists. So, today we have a list of my least and most favorite sports moments of the last decade (2000 - 2009). I'm going with my favorites rather than the best because I'm really only a fan of tennis and baseball, so I'd have no way of objectively ranking the best and worst of sports that I don't really watch.

If you aren't a sports fan, don't fret. I've only listed moments that in some way reveal something about me. So, look at this as more of a recap of significant moments of my decade, with sporting events as the back drop.

Counting My Blessings

Things I do well: sarcasm, sassy come-backs, really bad jokes, storytelling.

Things I'm not so good at: expressing gratitude, putting feelings like joy and love into words.

Make no mistake. I'm not the guy you want making the toast at your wedding, unless you were looking for a cross between Henny Youngman and Milton Berle for the job. I tend to get all "guyish" when I have talk about all the things we typically associate with the heart (metaphorically -- angiograms and clogged arteries I usually do OK with).

But I'm going to give it a try anyway. Practice makes barely adequate.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

I knew that crystal meth sometimes induced audio hallucinations. I had been hearing noises for awhile. But I remember the first time I heard her voice like it was yesterday.

We had just moved back to Manhattan from one of the dreaded outer boroughs. We didn't need to move. Our apartment was great. We had a backyard. The rent was reasonable, especially for two people. But I insisted. I was making too much money now to stay out in the boondocks. It took a full 30 minutes to get to midtown from where we lived. And since by that point I was taking cabs everywhere, I argued that it made sense to spend the money on our living space rather than on transportation to and fro. I never really considered that maybe Rafael (my boyfriend at the time) didn't want to move. As was typical during that period, I figured since I was paying there was no need to ask him what he wanted.

Flying High (Part Two)

It's been a long week and I couldn't bring myself to throw myself into another blog post today, so I'm cheating a bit. I am reprinting a letter I sent to American Airlines after they lost my luggage on one of my trips to California.

The story in itself is funny enough, but what's really interesting (to me) is reading exactly what I sounded like and what my thought processes were like when I was high. I resisted the very strong urge to take out some of the more embarrassing parts of the letter and I'm printing it in its entirety. Enjoy!

Flying High (Part One)

This is the post I intended to write when I ended up writing Brainstorm. I couldn't get into this without some preliminary exposition and then before I knew it I had written 700 words of prelude and it seemed really silly to try to switch gears at that point. In fact, I probably shouldn't have written that first sentence until I was sure that I was writing about what I intended.

My Five Favorites Things About the New Millennium

So I've been thinking a lot about how the computers are going to take over the world by the year 2025. Esquire says so, so it must be true. (The Techno-Prophet)

If you check the date on that article (December 2002), you'll realize that I've not only been thinking about it a lot, but for a really long time. For someone with horrible ADHD to still vividly remember an article he read seven years ago, that must have been some scary memorable shit. In some ways I'm looking forward to it (the computers taking over, that is). I'll be about 60 by then, but with computers in charge I figure I'll probably have my 30-year-old body again. And so long as they aren't rightwing gay-bashing computers, I'll almost certainly be in better shape politically than I am now.

Brainstorm

Before I dive in here, I want to explain a little for the uninitiated (those of you, for whatever reason, haven’t had any experience with crystal meth or meth users). Crystal Meth is kind of like an amphetamine on amphetamines.

The Very Best Songs of 2009

Here's part two, the top 15.

The Best Songs of 2009...According to p²

Note: Because 3600 words is way too much to ask anyone to sit still for, I'm breaking this up into two posts. We'll do half tonight and the other half tomorrow. Also, I'm only linking to songs that you likely haven't heard yet.

What a difference a year makes. If I had done a top 20(ish) list of the songs I listened to throughout 2008, not only would virtually all the songs be by American Idol contestants, the list would have been dominated by the songs David Cook performed during season seven. This year a full 50% of the list is made up of songs by non-AI contestants; and only two of the songs were actually performed on the show. Well, that's not exactly true. Katy Perry performed Waking Up in Vegas on a results show. Plus, I only downloaded the Jason Mraz, Fray and Lady GaGa albums after I heard them or their songs on the show. Still, it's progress. Baby steps.

Yours Truly?

The truth is overrated. That’s been part of my philosophy of life for as long as I can remember – probably since the first time I heard some nitwit finish a particularly rude, unnecessary and unnecessarily mean comment with “I’m just telling you the truth. You wouldn’t want me to lie to you, would you?” Yes. I would like exactly that most of the time.

True or False Idols

Note: Argue all you like, but we celebrated the end of the last decade (and millennium) in 1999, so 2009 is the end of this decade.

Here we are at the end of the first decade of American Idol. A look back seems in order. Who were the most deserving winners, in my opinion? I've ranked them in hybrid fashion, so that their rank reflects not only how deserving they are in relation to the other winners but also in relation to the contestants of their respective seasons.

Psquared Redux

I've been contemplating restarting psquaredtothenth since the day it disappeared from my Friendster account a year and a half ago. Don't ever let it be said that I make decisions in haste.

Shortly after it vanished however, I found Facebook. Look up the phrase "sucked in" and you'll see a picture of me chained to my FB page agonizing over my next status update. Petr is so impressed with himself that he truly believes more than 400 "friends" are hanging on his every word and thought.