Shut up, Barbie.

Is it just me or does blogging these days seem tragically onerous? It's a little bit like living in a cabin in the woods, all by yourself. Your cabin may have been built with your own hands, and may be a cabin you're really very proud of, but ultimately it's a cabin that no one ever sees. It's just so far out in the woods, you know? No one sees the brick path you laid, the planters you filled with geraniums, the really neat pot hangers. No one sees your blog either.

It's lonely in the cabin. A person starts to feel like the only person in the woods. So we all come out to the lodge or the campfire, and we start chatting with the other mountain dwellers. Of course, when you're sitting around the campfire, you can't pontificate for hours on the state of your geranium planters. You have to keep it brief, keep it entertaining. That's Twitter. That's Facebook. That's Tumblr. Meet me at the campfire. I'll listen to what you have to say for thirty seconds at a time.

Here's the reality: I'm no longer visiting your blog. Well, that's not entirely true. I'm no longer visiting your blog just to visit. I will read your blog posts if one of these three conditions is met:

1. You tweet or Facebook a link to it that attracts my attention.
2. It appears in my reader, in which case I read it there, in my reader.
3. It turns up in a google search for something specific I want to know.

I don't care about your awesome page layout.
I don't care about your 18 inch blogroll.
I don't even care about your tag cloud.

No, not at all.

I do care, deeply, about your ability to write 140 words at a time in Twitter. I care about your ability to post funny or interesting Facebook updates. I care about your blog posts too, insofar as they fit into my reader, uniformly formatted with all the other posts by bloggers with which I've categorized you. I care about the words you write, but I no longer care about the context in which you write them. And really, I want to say to you, and to myself -- enough blogging. If you can say it in 140 words, you should. No more "What we did today." No more "Here's a funny anecdote." No more "Have you ever wondered about this question?" None of those things merit a blog post any more, and I'm not traipsing all the way out to your cabin to read that! Say it in 140 characters, right here at the campfire, or don't say it. Sorry!

It sounds extreme, and obviously, I'm not entirely done with blogging myself. So what kinds of things can I *not* say in 140 words? What topics do I actually feel justified blogging about, and what blog posts will I still trudge out to your blog to read?

1. Something that's long and funny.
2. Something that's long and useful.
3. Something that's long and contentious.

I might also blog something that's full of pictures, but it must also be either funny, useful, or contentious. Otherwise I can just Tweet or Facebook a link to the Flickr set.

That's really it.

Does this mean that we no longer have the attention span for blogs? Am I now supposed to say something wan and dire about the decay of this or that, or the disintegration of blah blah blah?

No. Because the writing isn't gone. The text isn't even really shorter. It's just that the internet has become more modular. Instead of the context of your layout, your blogroll, your About Me, your profile, your color scheme and the rest of it, you now exist in a larger context. You are now in the context of whatever feed that brings you to my screen. You are adjacent to everyone else. You are without context.

This isn't the decay of anything. It is a literary evolution. Now more than ever, content is king. The blog posts that people do write and pay attention to are less like journals, less like casual diaries, and more like articles -- meaty and complex. The blogs that survive Twitter and Tumblr and will be the ones with actual content that's accummulated into a body of work with merit. For the rest of the blogging population, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Flickr, and Friendfeed will more than suffice. This is a good thing, people. While "Blogging" may be alive and well, "blogging" is dead. Face(book) it: It's just not worth posting the small stuff anymore.

Tweeting this post? Here's a short URL: http://bit.ly/ry1o8

Labels: blogging, facebook, internet, meta, social media, twitter, writing

America, there are three white guys standing before you. But you only hold two photographs in your hand. Only two of them will go on in the hopes of becoming America's Next Top Douchepouch. Which one will you choose?

You know, now that we're here, now that we're staring down the finale, I'm thinking maybe you should scrape the stage clean and start over, America. These puppets' felt noses are starting to pill. Their bright little jackets are frayed. As they stand there, shifting from foot to foot, showing their teeth, I realize I'm truly more interested in the commercials for Glee Club than I am in the show tonight. The contestants remaining are all treasured little darlings of the judges. They are predictable, solid performers who have nothing left in them besides obedience. Convenient, because this is the week they sing songs the judges have chosen for them. Three singers, four judges -- Randy and Kara have to collaborate.

DANNY GOKEY: For Danny, Paula chooses "Dance Little Sister" by Terence Trent D'Arby. Wow, I can't think of a less current song or a less relevant artist. Gokey sings it with moist scatting and damp foot-kicking and comes down to goofily play up to the judges like it's his farewell song. If James Brown married a beetle larvae and their baby was trying to sing a Terence Trent D'Arby song, that beetle child would be like, Gokey, I owned you just now. Paula and Simon get into some kind of wrestling match that results in Simon having a big smear of tan makeup directly over his right tit during the rest of the show.

KRIS ALLEN: Kara and Randy have chosen "Apologize" by One Republic. They predict that it will show his range, and his "dark melodic beauty." Unfortunately he proves completely incapable of hitting that high note. You know the one that recurs about a million times throughout the song? Totally inadequate voice for this assignment. He goes to a lower note, thrums simple chords on the piano, and looks beaten and a little stoned. Kara and Randy are disappointed that he didn't just come out on the stage with an acoustic guitar and sing it straight. The elephant in the room farts and bellows: "HELLO! HE CAN'T HIT THAT HIGH NOTE. WERE YOU LISTENING? ASS?" Simon: "Kara, I don't think you can blame him for the song, when you picked it." Kara: "Don't tell me about interpreting songs. Have you ever interpreted a song in your life?" Puff puff huff huff. They argue about whether he interpreted it right.

ADAM LAMBERT: Simon has chosen "One" by U2 for Adam to sing. Adam turns in a bizarre and unsavory performance. It starts low, sounding a bit like a song from Cats. Adam turns in a few very sweet and surprising notes. I'm thinking, damn, if he keeps it kinda creepy and low like this, he's going to blow me away. But then he starts belaying it, slaying it, and fileting it. He goes higher, squealier, squintier, and then unrolls his gruesomely long tongue, and ruins it. Completely. The judges love it with deep abiding love. I kinda just hate it. Adam reminds us kindly that the lyrics in the song are really beautiful. Yeah, but you delivered them like the front man of an eighties hair band. Sorry, Adam.

After we come back from the break, Ryan lets us know that in the last two years Idol has raised $140 million for Africa, and really, everyone feels like that's enough. No "Idol Gives Back" this year. Idol is resuming its policy of only taking. What a relief! Africa is grateful for the mosquito nets it got.

DANNY GOKEY: Did you forget last week that Danny Gokey's wife is dead? Well she is. Completely dead. And he *really* loved her too. Isn't that sad?

KRIS ALLEN: Kris Allen, allowed to make his own song choice now, chooses "Heartless" by Kanye West. I've heard Kanye's version on SNL, and on the radio, and I strangely like it, although this is not usually my thing. Kris Allen's version was actually really cool! He did it completely straight, with just the acoustic guitar and his own voice. It was very good. The judges love it. I love it. It's Kris Allen! Maybe he can bump out Gokey to edge into the finals. I hope so.

ADAM LAMBERT: Adam sings "Cryin'" by Aerosmith. He picked it because he can. He sang it because once he had called everyone there, worked out the arrangement, led the judges to expect something magical, invited a throng of people with hand-lettered signs, he had to go ahead and deliver. No one was surprised. The judges predict he will be in the finals, but Simon takes the time to remind us to vote, vote, vote for the white man in the leather jacket, who looks like he owns it, who looks like he can be the next gay rock star that girls can't wait to fuck.

This season it seemed like the producers might have wanted an Amy Winehouse, a Duffy, a funky edgy girl Idol. But failing that, they'll take another rocker. Whatever.

Best performance: Kris Allen's "Heartless"
Worst performance: Adam Lambert's "One"

Going home: PLEASE GOKEY PLEASE

Labels: adam lambert, american idol, danny gokey, idol, kris allen, recap, top three

I have Idol fatigue. Do you? No? Are you panting for more? Well, that's what you're going to get tonight. More. Not better or different. Not fresh or unusual. Just more.

Tonight's theme: Songs that would sound like Christmas songs, if they had Christmas lyrics. Cruise ship standards. Brat pack hits.

Tonight's mentor: Jamie Foxx.



KRIS ALLEN: Let's start out the show with a little hysterical hyperbole. Jamie Foxx loves Kris Allen so much! Kris Allen is his number one. If this doesn't work out, Jamie Foxx will marry Kris Allen and take him away from all this meaningless drudgery. As if to underscore his deep love of Kris, Jamie Foxx stops talking and grabs his own breasts. Kris sings "The Way You Look Tonight" in a super-boring, mind-numbing karaoke way. The judges rip out their hair and canter around the stage, rhapsodizing about his impeccable phrasing and charm. Randy, Kara, and Paula tear their clothes and pile ashes on themselves in humble adoration. They're not worthy. They abased themselves by urinating on each other in shame before him. Simon calls it, appropriately, a little wet.

ALLISON IRAHETA: Jamie Foxx LOVES Allison. She is his favorite, for sure. She sings "Someone to Watch Over Me" in a manner that would be ludicrous and repulsive in a 27 year old, but in a 17 year old is apparently precocious and inspiring? Or that's what the judges say. The judges peel their skins off and create little Allison dolls to sell to the crowd, decorating them with their own teeth and hair. It's an Allison love-fest. She is the best ever.

After the break, Matt Giraud will sing "My Funny Valentine." Can I go to bed yet? I swear I will put my eye out with this laptop if he winks.

MATT GIRAUD: Matt is like, hey, I wore a fedora before a fedora was appropriate. Yeah, that's not a point of pride, fool. Jamie Foxx takes one listen and then tears off his head and fills it with candy for Matt Giraud. That's the least he can do to prove the intensity of his love: create a bloody, brainspeckled candy dish for Matt's personal use. Matt sings pinkly and with a weird forcefulness, like he's trying to convince us of something related to the border with Mexico. Surprisingly, the judges actually manage to critique him. Maybe America will be allowed to actually vote him off this week! He was brought back and selected in the wild card show, then saved by the "save," and now... oh... wait. Simon calls him absolutely brilliant. I have a feeling Matt will be back to wear his Fedora yet again, maybe during techno-pop week or "white guy brawling songs" week.

DANNY GOKEY: Ace mentor Jamie Foxx needs to creepily violate Gokey's personal space in order to make him be more pure and real. Seriously, he like gets right up in his grill. He reports that Gokey's breath is fresh. Weird moment. Awkward. Gokey looks like he feels hit on, the opposite of pure and real. He sings "I'm Gonna Love You" and sounds like an old man. At first I think he will be denied his favorite technique of shouting his way through from the chorus to the end, but then he gets hollering about "rain or shine" and peels his lips back for the big ending as usual. Randy pulls out a record contract and begs Danny to sign on, eager to do an entire album of just minutely diverse versions of this same song. Kara wraps her neck around and around a stripper pole, seductively mouthing, "Gokaaaay." Paula demands that Danny suckle on one of her teats. Simon looooooves Danny.

DUDE, AM I CRAZY: These performances are just so completely unremarkable. Are they just setting us up for Adam Lambert? What can he possibly do to top the way the judges perceive the other contestants have performed tonight? What adjectives and analogies are left to describe him?

ADAM LAMBERT: Adam is going to sing "Feeling Good." Jamie Foxx predicts that our heads will fall off. Adam wears a white satin suit, rides in on the glowing red stairs, and delivers the only performance of the night that couldn't have been found on any cruise ship in the Caribbean. A little Freddy Mercury. The judges' heads all fall off. And the show is over.

Best performance: Adam Lambert
Worst performance: Matt Giraud
Going home: Matt Giraud

Or whatever. Seriously, the relentless lovefest is getting so old. Am I wrong?

Labels: adam lambert, american idol, idol, recal, top five

Say hi to your judges! Hi, judges! Randy points heavenward as if to say, "It's not about me, it's about God." Then he confusingly gives the UK version of the middle finger, as if to say, "Go eff yourself, America." No, the sign for peace is not a palindrome. When you turn it around it means something else. Kara in a pink homecoming dress, Paula in a floral cardigan, and Simon in an undershirt. Tra la la, isn't it all wonderful? Do we have to sit through six confused amateurs, poorly produced and ludicrously dressed to get to some Lambert?

LIL ROUNDS: Lil sings Chaka Khan's "I'm Every Woman." She's wearing a black spandex cat suit and a super funky wig. The judges have been trying to get her to sing something like this for weeks, but then they hate her for it. Yeah, okay, it was a steamy mess. Only Paula throws her a bone, saying she had laryngitis yesterday and has made an amazing recovery. As Lil listens to the judges' comments, she crumples like a dropped puppet. Then Simon says she's going home for sure -- this is her last week. Someone from the crowd yells angrily and the camera shows us some variety of Rounds relative who is saying unmentionable, I'm pretty sure, to the lip-readers in the audience. Poor Lil. Pimped early, dropped late.

KRIS ALLEN: Kris sings "She Works Hard for the Money" with a Latin folk vibe. Oh my goodness, somebody has changed up a genre! How shocking! They even drag out that drum that you sit on to play it, and bring all the percussion right downstage. Kris sings kinda like a fuzzheaded little cat or something. Sometimes he yawns and a note comes out. Kara repeats the perpetual lie with her overworked, ruthlessly articulating lips, "Oh, wow, you took a HUGE risk with that performance! And it paid off BIG TIME." Yeah, a giant risk. Because last year's winner failed utterly in switching genres on songs. And this year's front runner is having terrible trouble with his "Looky, I made it my own" performances. So yeah, big risk. Trust me, when they bring out the drum you sit on, accusations of blistering originality are right around the corner.

DANNY GOKEY: Danny sings "September" in a super dorky way. You know what, it just feels like everyone has given up. They're done. They're on the tour. Lambert is the winner. They don't even care anymore, they just want to get to the part where they get a few weeks off to take horse tranquilizers and lie around. Gokey's dancing is just beyond laughable. Gruesome even. When they go to "Danny's friends and family" the camera picks out four undead girlbots in sundresses. Who are these people? The camera visits them again and again. Are they more Cheesecake Factory conquests? Danny has an entourage that takes its ranch vinaigrette on the side. They droop and leer at the camera. The judges fawn and gush about him. Kara's lips disengage from her body, crawl down her front, swing out from the microphone and land on Gokey's scruffy chin, grabbing for purchase among his weedy little beard scraps, and landing at last on his pink, thin mouth hole. We know the judges love Danny.

ALLISON IRAHETA: Allison arrives on the stage riding a glistening chrome staircase illuminated with red bulbs and bathed in the glow of the fiery jumbotrons. She is a rocker! Take a memo! They're trying to help her out of the bottom three, I guess, but then Randy says, "You're one of the best singers in this competition." Really? One of the best? There are only seven left. Out of like thousands, hundreds, dozens, etc. So, really, one of the best -- that's overwhelmingly generous. The judges quibble. Do they like the arrangement? Or not? Who cares. They drag out the old lauds and honors -- she's authentic, she's genuine, she's real.

We are going to commercial BUT -- THERE IS ADAM LAMBERT! He's in the crowd -- I see his HEAD! I see his smiling head all wreathed in hair product and favoritism!

ADAM LAMBERT: Adam is pinching off a little Elvis tonight, and I totally want that snake ring on his pinky finger, microphone hand. He sings a really tortured, eye squeezing, look-at-my-pulsing-soul-seething-with-angst version of "If I Can't Have You." An unremarkable song that has now has all of the corpuscles wrung out of it forcibly, in the meaty fists of our favorite son. The judges froth and foam. Kara shakes her head in fake, contrived disbelief. By the way, Kara shouldn't wear her haid pulled back -- it makes her look like a fetal monkey. The kids love it. Paula confesses tearfully that she could feel Adam's pain. Simon calls it brilliant. Whatever! I didn't actually like it that much. So!

MATT GIRAUD: Matt bores the shit out of everyone with a predictable, crotch-touching, Whiny McPulerson version of "Stayin' Alive." Randy searches around for something mildly inaudible to say, and decides to opine that this group of seven is one of the most talented groups they've ever had. Oh, really? Out of seven groups, this is *one of the* most talented? I'm overcome with awe. Matt in a black straw fedora and burgundy leather jacket. Just the most completely unattractive man I have ever seen. Just that.

ANOOP DESAI: Anoop sings "Turn Down the Lights." I don't understand the song, the pink v-neck sweater under the taupe business suit, the judge's comments, or the show itself anymore. I am utterly, completely bored by Anoop, to the point that I clicked away from this window to investigate an incoming mail alerting me to a auto-thanks-for-the-follow-DM on Twitter. Just to see if maybe there was anything else there besides the autothanks. Equivalent of changing channels to watch the channel guide.

BEST PERFORMANCE: I didn't like any of them.
WORST PERFORMANCE: Matt Giraud.
GOING HOME: Matt Giraud and Lil Rounds

Labels: american idol, recap, summary, top seven