Author Archives: ij

Baby, Baby, Baby, Ooooh…

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NYC signing September 1,2009 Nintendo Store - NYCImage via WikipediaI knew the moment would eventually come.

“Mom…are you really listening to a Justin Bieber song?”  my daughter is yelling down the stairs.  I’m  cringing to myself.  “Yep.”

One of my younger guitar students had asked for a Bieber song “for a friend” she said.  I’ll eventually get it out of her whether or not it really was for a friend, but in the meantime I find myself listening through the song and working out the sophomoric lyrics and chords.  Not hard to do for a pop song these days.  There are usually about 4 chords and one phrase repeated over and over, along with some other inane lyrics that little girls swoon to.  I laugh at the occasional Facebook comments like “Dear God, please give back Bob Marley and we’ll give you Justin Beiber“.  It’s inevitable that anything or anyone popular will create rolling eyes and sarcastic sighs from a large segment of the population.  But he’s got a huge, bubblegum fan base and that’s what counts to those marketers and record label execs.

The reason my eyes roll is this marketing madness that swirls around this kid.  How is it that a boy (what is he, 12??) is already releasing an autobiography?  What on earth could he possibly have to say?  How many pages is it?  Well, I guess you use more pages when you’re writing in crayon.  Oh, make me stop.

The latest gimmick I read about is a new line of nail polish.  Justin Beiber nail polish.  OMG.  Yes, the kid can sing and he obviously has that “little girl magnet” quality.  But nail polish?  There have been a lot of jokes, internet pranks and falsehoods that have swirled around since Bieber’s rise to fame, and you have to admit that the way he has been marketed, managed and merchandised since he was just a rising star on YouTube is nothing short of nuts.  It’s no wonder people like to make fun of him.

Okay, so I should confess something before I go any further.  When I was 13 I developed a large crush on Donny Osmond.  I read every Teen Beat magazine I could get my chubby hands on and put posters of him on my bedroom wall.  I bought all his records and sang “Puppy Love” along with him at the top of my lungs, so I ‘get’ these little girls who have “Bieber Fever”.  Donny Osmond somehow survived the 80’s when his career took a nose dive and then he managed to reinvent himself enough to go on to other things.  Other teen idols don’t do so well in between the healed acne and the grey hairs.  Whatever happened to David Cassidy, Bobby Sherman, Leif Garrett and Debbie Gibson?

Well, Bobby Sherman, for instance, is 67 years old now.  Yikes. And one day Justin Bieber, if he’s lucky, will be 67 years old.  That’s 51 years from now.  Yikes again.  By then, that Beatle-esque mop of hair of his will mostly be gone except some around the outskirts. He’ll occasionally see a glint of recognition in the eyes of  the female semi-retired pharmacist at the local mall where he picks up his high blood pressure pills, but she won’t quite be able to place him.   The den at his rancher in the gated community where he lives will be filled with memorabilia, a leather couch and not much else.  Grammy awards will gather dust beside framed photos of him with some strangely attired person named Lady GaGa, and oddly enough, there will be a bottle of nail polish sitting there that he can’t quite remember the story behind.  He will rarely leave his house, a habit he got into after all those years of having to hide out from the fans.  There are no more calls from reporters, no photo sessions or concert dates anymore, except that Bar Mitzva that he promised his nephew he’d show up for.

Yeah, feeling better now.  Baby, baby, baby, ooooh, baby, baby….

(Update:  even the first Chilean miners that were successfully pulled from the mine were bombarded with offers by media and marketers before all of them had been safely rescued!!)

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I Want To Be A Golden Girl

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The Golden GirlsImage via Wikipedia
In the last few months I have been enjoying old episodes of The Golden Girls online.  There is a GoingGoldenAgain channel on YouTube which has most of all of the seasons.  But it doesn’t matter if I’ve seen them before, I can watch them over and over.  When the series first broadcast on television in the late 80’s, my daughters were just babies and I imagined that one day it would be wonderful living in a house full of old friends in my golden years.  Especially THOSE old friends.  These days, I’m realizing how close I am in age to them now.  How did THAT happen??  They were so ancient to me back then.

Well if I thought they were funny then, the jokes and stories are even funnier and more relevant now.  The writing is so quick and witty and, of course, the lines were delivered by some of the best in the business.  I can’t decide which character I’d like to be most.  ‘Blanche’, played by Rue McClanahan, was the resident sex pot and might be the obvious choice…who wouldn’t want to have all those men on your date calendar?  I didn’t get that concept when I was younger, but I sure do now.  I also love ‘Dorothy’, the character portrayed by Bea Arthur, because of her brains and brawn and that dead pan sarcasm delivered with such impeccable timing.  And Estelle Getty’s ‘Sophia’ got away with saying whatever the hell she wanted because of her stroke.  Who wouldn’t want that pleasure? 

And then there was ‘Rose’, played by the only surviving member of the cast, Betty White.  Who doesn’t just adore Betty White?  Did you know that she actually has some Scandinavian blood, just like her ditzy, St. Olaf-born character?   The pseudo-Swedish phrases, the names of the St. Olaf residents and their food specialties make me laugh every time.  And those St. Olaf stories…how did she keep a straight face?  How did they all keep a straight face?  I would love to have been there to watch a live episode.

I’d like to be a mix of all of those wonderful characters.

I’ve been watching Betty White’s recent re-emergence on television with absolute delight.  She’s  88 years old and she still has amazing comic timing and enormous energy.  I joined the Facebook page that began to encourage Saturday Night Live to have her on as host and was astounded at the fact that she took part in pretty much every skit that night, with not one flub or sign of being tired.  Since then she’s done TV ads and appearances on talk shows and award shows, always with that beautiful smile and wonderful sense of humour.  She is tireless and timeless.

Come to think of it, I’d like to be Betty White.
IJ

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Tiger’s Demise

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Tiger Woods during a practice round at the MastersImage via WikipediaI watched a documentary on CBC’s Fifth Estate the other evening called “Tiger Wood‘s Rise and Fall” by director Jacques Peretti.  I’ve seen other documentaries by this fellow, most notably one on Michael Jackson after his untimely death more than a year ago.  Peretti does have a pattern to the way he tells his stories which is compelling but maybe just a little bit tabloid.

He took us through Tiger’s childhood where this kid was quite isolated and controlled by his father, a Vietnam veteran who was portrayed as fearless and full of himself and very much a womanizer.  The documentary creates an image of a young boy who had his life planned out for him even before he was born, and who never really had any other option…whether or not he wanted one.  He was kept out of the public eye when he started to play junior tournaments, protected and groomed and made to practice hours and hours on end.  At one point his only friend was a much older golf pro who was also interviewed for the documentary.

It almost felt as if Peretti was painting a portrait with his own colours, trying to create a reason for Tiger’s behaviour, behaviour which was, to put it simply, just plain bad.  He was a well-groomed, gifted athlete who had, as it turned out, a seedy side.  A really seedy side, according to this documentary.  He traveled to and from tournaments with his large entourage, and in between gigs (and sometimes even during them) he would go to Vegas and sleep with countless prostitutes, sometimes all night and one after the other.

A great life, some of you guys might say :-).

But of course, Tiger was married and had children and eventually this secret seedy side was going to come to the surface as it did in a sudden and dramatic way back when he had the accident with his SUV.

I have a good friend who was a great admirer of Tiger until all of this happened.  She decided that she couldn’t forgive him and would never again watch him play or root for him.  A lot of people felt that way, while others suggested that he should be forgiven because he is human, even though his public persona made him seem pretty much god-like.

If this documentary is true, then Tiger had a very bizarre upbringing.  But then, so did Michael Jackson.  And so do countless other “stars” and athletes and people in public life.  You can’t help but think it must be the weirdest thing living the way they do.  But is this lifestyle because of who they are or because of who they are taught to be?  It must be strange to have everyone willing to do anything for you; a person could easily lose sight of reality and a true sense of one’s self.  The Paris Hiltons and Lindsay Lohans give us a kind of moral measuring stick to compare ourselves to, but is that really fair?  We don’t live like that, we don’t have more money than we know what to do with and a lifestyle that is nothing but parties, appearances, and perks.  It must be difficult sometimes for these people to know which way is up.

We, the public, are guilty of wanting to watch these train wrecks-in-the-making too.  We secretly envy their money and talents, while otherwise enjoying their eventual demise.  I watched those two documentaries with a kind of disgust, and yet I didn’t turn them off either, did I?  I’m as guilty of gaping at these misunderstood misfits as they are of thinking they’re above and beyond reproach.

Tiger’s life will no doubt never be the same.  He’ll probably find his legs and get his game back on par, pun intended :-), but most of us won’t forget that he isn’t the perfect spit-and-polish pro we once thought.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think he’s a victim either, except maybe of our gawking stares.

And he sure can play.

IJ 

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