In preparation for my trip to Germany, I’m watching YouTube clips of “Deutschland Sucht ein Superstar,” (DSDS) Germany’s version of “American Idol, and reading Germany’s tabloid newspaper, Das Bild. The two converged recently in a story that puts the nanny into “nanny state.” Just as context, DSDS is a lot like “American Idol” and the [...]
The Berlin & Beyond German film festival is going on at the Castro Theatre, and one of the films that caught my eye was one called “The Red Elvis.” Who was that I wondered? I know of several Russian rock icons; maybe this was a film of one of them. But rather, “the red Elvis” [...]
For me, 2008 has definitely started off with a bang. Just take a look at how my last week has gone: Monday: We all go to the mall to buy Peter new jeans. We return with a couture top and a new car for me. World fails to take notice. Tuesday: It’s 2008! Our family [...]
As you can tell from the multiple postings below, my family and I are huge fans of the new television show The Next Great American Band. It’s a natural fit for our interests. We all love music, and Peter and I love live music, as well as discovering new worthwhile bands. Neil’s taken up guitar, [...]
American Idol has set a standard for musical competition shows, and we expected the same of the judges on The Next Great American Band. To a certain extent, the American judges exceed the standard. I used to dread Sheila E. so much I was in a state of consternation when I found out she was [...]
Light of Doom is the freaky young teen heavy metal band on The Next Great American Band. For some people, they’re the token heavy metal act, not a novelty show, but it’s beginning to be obvious they’re being judged on a different level that any of the adult bands (other than Rocket, the token feminist [...]
From their unimpressive audition in which they barely managed to muddle through a cover of the Ramones’ Blitzkrieg Bop, one of the simplest tunes ever, we’ve been filled with contempt for the all-girl band Rocket. Peter and I dread all-girl bands from experience. It’s not that an all-girl band is has to be bad: there [...]
Given our low opinion of Rocket and Light of Doom, we were disappointed to see them go through to torture our ears and aesthetics for another week at the cost of The Likes of You and Hatch. On the other hand, I lost some of that disappointment when Hatch was given an exiting word and [...]
On Monday, Peter, Neil and I went to see a “conversation with Philip Glass and Leonard Cohen” at Stanford. The next night, a performance of selections from Cohen’s poetry The Book of Longing set to Philip Glass’ composition was scheduled to be performed in the same theatre. Amazing, the tickets to the talk were free. [...]
The San Francisco Symphony came to play a free outdoor concert at noontime in downtown San Jose, and I was absolutely thrilled about it. I can’t afford even a stuck-in-the-rafters ticket to the San Francisco Symphony. Heck, I can’t even afford a decent ticket to the Symphony Silicon Valley, Ballet San Jose, or even the [...]
