Backstage, the girls are chit-chatting about Detox leaving. There’s some banter and Detox has left a personal note for both Alaska and Roxxxy. Either because she’s a lot more of a bitch then she lets on, or because of producer meddling, she doesn’t leave a note for Jinkx. The high school bullshit will continue from there, folks, just a warning. [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race Recap: Order in the Courtroom, Hunties
ENTERTAINMENT
Chatty Talk with Elise
Happy Monday, ya’ll!! It’s weekend wrap up time!
Well, goodness me.. I did NOT see this coming! The beautiful Reese Witherspoon & her handsome husband Jim Toth were arrested over the weekend for DUI & disorderly conduct. They aren’t exactly out every night so they just had a little too much fun! Everyone makes mistakes.. Just remember, before you judge them, just make sure your hands are clean! I am sure everything will work itself out!
Onto happier news! Chaz Bono has lost 60lbs & is still losing! He’s looking incredible! Keep up the AMAZING work!
Last but not least… How fun is Jennifer Lawrence’s new haircut?! Love it! She looks gorgeous, per usual!
Game of Thrones Recap: I Practiced Detachment
Last time on Game of Thrones we saw Dany promise to give up one of her dragons, Jamie get wounded, some baby penis and a whole lot of boobs. Let’s see what awkward things HBO has in store for us today! [Read more…] about Game of Thrones Recap: I Practiced Detachment
What Would Ryan Lochte Do?: Take a Page from Jersey Shore Apparently
What Would Ryan Lochte Do? Sundays, 10pm on E!
The celebrity driven reality show is an interesting animal. This is because whereas most of the genre gives some degree of free will towards whom it designates as its’ heroes and its’ villains, the celebrity-centric shows (think Keeping Up with the Kardashians) are closer in nature to glorified publicity pieces. As a result, what you get is very little reality (or even “reality”) and more a glorified 30 minute infomercial that pushes whatever brand that celebrity is marketing (this brand doesn’t necessarily have to be positive, as a case in point see The Simple Life). This week we get to delve into the sub-genre a little more deeply, with the debuts of celebrity driven shows My Beautiful Crazy Life and last night’s What Would Ryan Lochte Do?.
What Would Ryan Lochte Do? (from here on out WWRLD?) follows Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte, his family, and his personal assistant Gene as he goes forth to pursue swimming, acting, endorsements, entrepreneurship, and the rigors of being famous for the sake of being famous. Additionally, the show shines a spotlight on the single Lochte’s search for love and family life, as his mother and siblings are all considered part of the show’s core cast.
We open on Lochte gushing about some shoes he designed. Within five seconds we learn how articulate our star really is, as he stumbles his way through an interview about the “Lochte Edge”, even being taken slightly aback at the question. However, we then get our first glimpse into the life of Lochte, with the bulk of the first half of the show devoted to partying and watching him awkwardly hit on females at his house and the club.
We’re then inroduced to the rest of Ryan’s family at a bowling event on a Monday afternoon. Ryan definitely takes a puckish streak, while his older sister Kristin plays mother hen and harasses him about his love life. This then leads us to Ryan preparing for a date with Megan, one of the girls he was awkwardly hitting on in the club. After discovering the girl is leaving for Los Angeles a week later (the show is set in Gainesville, known entirely as the home of the University of Florida), he decides that the long term picture is bleak and to not go further with the relationship (in a weird instance of a TV show telling instead of showing).
I want to hate this show so badly, but the truth is you can’t look away. Much like those early seasons of Jersey Shore, the show has a solid yen for peppering in large amounts of vulgarity (Ryan’s mouth gets pixelated out at least five times in our premiere) and a tendency for things to comically go bust (in this case Ryan’s football and bowling exploits). In this case, many of our interesting scenarios come as the end result of Ryan’s oversized ego, whether its making a bet and losing to younger brother Devon, his sister’s prodding him about taking girls’ out to a sushi place after Ryan makes the claim “all girls love sushi”, or worst yet, referring to himself in the third person in interviews.
Speaking of the interviews, I’m surprised to the degree that they let Ryan stumble his way through them. That being said, those awkward interviews are the highlight of the show, as Lochte’s responses to the questions being posed are often side-splittingly funny, if only due to a stunning lack of self-awareness. The editing does Ryan no favors either, as when he couldn’t recall what Megan looked like before her date, the scene flashed back to the night at the bar with a close-up of Megan’s chest, implying that was the only thing Lochte could recall.
The Final Verdict: As I mentioned above, WWLRD? has a vibe that feels not too far removed from Jersey Shore. A large part of this is due to the fact that Lochte’s frat boy nature, fairly large ego, and lack of discernible public speaking skills make him a dead ringer for The Situation. That being said, in between those moments of incredible ego you see a truly likable protagonist for a show of this ilk as he is generally good to the people around him. The editors in turn play this cartoonishness up, while playing the drama down, allowing for a brisk 30 minutes where there the stakes are low and you’re compelled to see how Lochte puts his foot in his mouth this time. If you’re into shows of that ilk, you’ll love What Would Ryan Lochte Do?, and it’s probably worth checking out otherwise just to get a peek into the mind of an Olympic Athlete whose show seems like the perfect mixture of every psuedo-reality show that MTV has released with a twenty-something male emphasis over the past decade.
Album Review: The Flaming Lips – The Terror
Flaming Lips: The Terror
Genre: Krautrock, Neo-Psychedelia
Similar Artists: Mercury Rev, Super Furry Animals, Radiohead
Label: Lovely Sorts of Death
Wayne Coyne has made it clear that nothing can stop him from being the manic, hijink involved front-man that he is. So unless he dies, it is pretty safe to say that “The Terror” will not be the final album by The Flaming Lips. However, their 13th album represents a sort of ultimate destination that would act as the perfect conclusion to the group’s astounding legacy. Of course, let’s hope that isn’t the case.
While lately, the band has become increasingly known for their stage antics and headline worthy mischief, starting with their 1999 masterwork “The Soft Bulletin”, their subsequent full lengths have continued down the road of unbridled seriousness. They might not have had a perfect run, (“At War With the Mystics” being a noticeable low point) but their work has always possessed a beating heart that shows how dedicated these artists are to their work. And yes, they have also put out some incredibly silly non-album work, such as last year’s “Heady Fwends” collab and the 24 hour long “7 Skies H3”. Luckily, (so far) none of The Lips’ studio albums have came encased with anyone’s blood in it. So while they might be pranksters in the spotlight, there are few bands as hard working as this one when they sit down in the studio. Don’t expect this music to make you laugh; it’s more likely to make you cry.
This album proves to be yet another artistic shift for the band. With their busy past few years they have honed their craft and advanced their sonic capabilities to arrive at an entirely new direction. With 2009’s Embryonic, the band’s sound turned a few shades darker as they ventured into the depths of the experimental void. Now, with The Terror, they have climbed out of the rabbit hole to find that the world has fallen apart. The album is composed of dreadfully dark psychedelia, and speaks of a near hopeless post apocalyptic world bathed in red, radiated sunlight. The Lips have brushed upon post-apocalyptic premises in the past, but none have been as thematic or believable as this. In fact, this possibly ranks as The Lips most concise record; from the first note to the last, every theme flows perfectly into the next. It is even difficult to discern when one song ends and another begins – which means this is an album meant to be listened to in a complete session.
The music itself is a combination of hypnotic pulsating keyboards, ambient flourishes, steady Krautrock percussion, and the occasional scraping guitar fuzz. All the songs follow a similar formula, which means there are no guitar freakouts or mid album surprises. The Lips have traded in hit songs and singles for an album that breathes continuity. Because of this conciseness, there are moments during the album where the mind tends to wander – which begs the question if these songs could have been just as worthy with a few minutes shaved off. Still, there is nearly always something interesting to be heard in the mix if one is focused enough.
The heavy handed concept would have fallen flat if its creators weren’t able to realistically convey feelings of loss, so it is a good thing that The Lips continue to be masters of translating emotions to music. Although they won’t admit it quite yet, with Wayne Coyne recently breaking up with his partner of over 20 years and Stephen Drozd’s continued substance abuse, the album was clearly birthed out of painful experiences.
Amidst the darkness, Wayne is the component that holds all the others in place. After being lulled into a daze of abstract existential thought, his voice is what brings us back to reality. Under the impressive palette of sounds he sings in a mournful cry unlike anything he has done before. At certain moments he sings like he is on his death bed, barely being able to muster the words from his mouth. Again, it is impressive because it is believable; never through the impressive running time do we doubt that Wayne has felt the pain of a broken heart.
His lyrics are also among his darkest – like when he says “You’ve got some nerve you fuck with me” at the start of the 13 minute centerpiece “You Lust”. Through many songs he references the big ball in the sky, but instead of being the usual metaphor for good days and happiness, in The Terror, the sun is a sign of impending doom. While it may keep us alive, it is also what causes us pain and eventually kills us.
In the end, the album’s message is clear. Love and pain are connected in the same way as life and death. These things exist without us even wanting them to, and once we have fallen in we have no choice in how they end up. The Terror stands as a singular piece in the group’s discography. It may not be their most defining, and it certainly isn’t their catchiest, but in the end, it’s no less essential to their portrait.
Track Listing:
1.) Look…The Sun is Rising*
2.) Be Free, A Way
3.) Try To Explain*
4.) You Lust*
5.) The Terror
6.) You Are Alone
7.) Butterfly, How Long it Takes to Die*
8.) Turning Violent
9.) Always There in Our Hearts*
* – Album Highlight
Candy Crush Saga Review
It seems that the hot mobile game right now is Candy Crush Saga by King. The game is free to download on the App Store and Android Market. A few of my co-workers play it, talk about how they’re at such and such level with three stars on all previous boards, so I thought I should try it out. No harm in a free game, right?
If you’ve ever played any of the Bejeweled games, you should know what to expect here. Candy Crush Saga is your typical “match three” puzzle game that has become so overdone that I wonder why anyone still bothers to make them. The one added twist in this game is that each level comes with a specific goal or challenge that you must meet to proceed. So far I’ve encountered three of these: obtain a certain score, clear the “jelly” off the board by making matches inside of it, and move ingredients to the bottom of the board. Unless stated otherwise, all of these challenges must be completed in a set number of moves (some of them have a time limit instead). Sounds simple enough, but once you dive a little deeper in, the evil of this game truly rears its ugly head.
You start your journey into… wherever you are (the game has an attempt at a story that quite frankly I don’t understand at all) with five lives. Every time you fail to complete a level, you lose a life. Run out of lives, and it’s sort of a game over. You have three options once you are out of lives. You can:
A) Wait out a timer that will give you one life per cycle. Usually the wait isn’t too bad, the most I’ve had to endure is 20 minutes per life.
B) Send some of your Facebook friends a request for them to give you lives. I’m not sure how this works; since I hate getting game requests on Facebook I feel bad burdening my friends with them.
C) Instantly buy five lives for $0.99.
See the bold? There’s where the satisfaction of getting a game for free ends. The game is only free if you have lots of patience and don’t mind harassing your friends on Facebook. In fact, there are a good number of microtransactions in Candy Crush Saga that are almost as infuriating as the game’s surprisingly steep difficulty. Failed a level and want more moves? 99 cents. Need lives and don’t have the patience to wait out the clock or your friends? 99 cents. Want a power-up? 99 cents. Want a permanent boost to the number of lives you can have at any given time? How does $16.99 move you? There’s another permanent power-up that will cost you a whopping $39.99 to get your hands on. I don’t know about you, but $16.99 to give myself three more chances to pass a stupidly difficult level before inevitably buying more lives is nothing short of diabolical.
Indeed, there is a business model in place here and it’s so devilish that I’m almost proud of King for coming up with it. In effect, the game preys on the human race’s need for instant gratification, as well as the lack of willpower and the want for “one more try” at something we feel we can conquer. Candy Crush Saga will take your money without you even realizing it. I’ve probably spent about $10 on the game already just buying more lives, because the game’s frustratingly hard levels are a challenge that I want to beat badly enough.
When generating new blocks, the game does you no favors. At least in Bejeweled, you stand a pretty good chance of getting the gems you need to either begin or continue combos, no matter how far into the game you are. In Candy Crush Saga, it almost seems like the game is seeking to screw you just to get more money out of you once you lose and rage. One of my aforementioned co-workers told me that she’s been stuck on level 50 for weeks now, which I haven’t gotten to yet. I completed level 35 a little while ago, and for my efforts I was greeted with a prompt that asked me to either invite Facebook friends or pay $0.99 just to keep going through the game. To be quite honest, I find this appalling. In a way it isn’t false advertising, because technically the game is still free, but if I’m going to be putting a game on my phone, I want the full game. I don’t want to jump through hoops (or worse yet, pay) just to unlock content that is in the package I got from the App Store. A great example of how to make a game that includes microtransactions but doesn’t try to force them on you is Angry Birds. Mobile game developers should really take some cues from Rovio, maybe then consumers would be happier with the products out there right now.
All that said, the game is still fun and addicting, which are the two qualities that puzzle games are required to have in order to be considered worthy of playing. I can’t consider Candy Crush Saga to be a bad game, because it simply isn’t; it takes the “match three” formula of puzzle games that everyone is familiar with and adds objectives that are sensible and enjoyable. I cannot, however, forgive the exploitative business model at work here. There’s no getting around the fact that this a free game designed to take your money little by little until you wonder where $20+ went. If you don’t have willpower or patience, stay far, far away from this one. I give Candy Crush Saga a C+.
System: iOS, Android, Facebook
Genre: Puzzle
Players: 1
Price: “Free” (I use that term VERY loosely)
New York City Street Photography- Working New Yorkers
Take a moment. Step back and think. How does a city the size of New York City function? Only through the hard work of those that fix the streets, collect the trash, clean the streets, work on the tugboats and barges on the river. Through the dedication of those that work the midnight shift so that when we wake up in the morning our city is all the more perfect. Without out any filters or fancy photography tricks this is the first of many journals I plan to post in their honor.
Album Review: Blake Shelton’s “Based On A True Story”
Blake Shelton’s new album “Based on a True Story,” is a bit like a roller coaster. You go up, up, up but occasionally you go down a bit too much. Don’t get me wrong, it still has great moments, but on some of the tracks I want to shake him around and ask him “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?!”
Opening up with “Boys ‘Round Here” rubbed me the wrong way. It seems to be crawling next to the category of country/pop. Not that there is anything wrong with a little pop, but I expected a little more from Shelton, especially on an opening track. What he follows up shortly with thereafter is like a car crash that I can’t stop looking at, whilst shaking my head in disgust.
I understand why he decided to record “Small Town Big Time”, he missed home while taping “The Voice” in Hollywood and how importance is on materialistic items and not life. But the auto-tune was unnecessary. I could go on for days on how much I loathe auto-tune, but I will spare you all. To have an artist like Blake Shelton use auto-tune strictly for proving a point and not having to cover up a voice, because he does have a great voice, is not acceptable by me. It brings down not only the song, but Shelton himself. The point was taken through the lyrics of the song,
With them red Maserati’s and them tuned up bodies
And everybody gonna be the next somebody
Yea, this place is a trip
Hey but meanwhile back in the stick
Somebody’s having a small town big time night
Somebody’s rocking the main street with red tail lights
Somebody’s cranking it up or falling in love
Or keeping the buzz sipping on a little moonlight.
Other than these down points, there are some great tracks on the album. “Frame of Mine” emulates the old country western sound, showing off Shelton’s vocal capability. Or during the ballad of “Do You Remember,” I can feel his strong sense of love and devotion being eluded to, that he once had. During “My Eyes,” Shelton shares the microphone with Gwen Sebastian and harmonies about taking everything except for his eyes off that one special lady. Probably my favorite is “Lay Low”, while Shelton swoons from note to note, with the same sounds of one of my favorite tracks by Josh Turner “Your Man”. Although having its own entity, it shares something which brings that classic ballad to my heart.
I may have sounded a bit condescending starting this review off, and I have to somewhat revise my tone. I really do enjoy listening to the album, but those two tracks stick out so much it left me with a bad taste on my tongue. But looking at the album as a whole, it does show the ability of Shelton’s talent and devotion for love and country music.
Off Pitch is Off Target
Off Pitch: Wednesdays at 10pm Eastern on VH1
Glee (n.): 1. Exultant, High Spirited Joy. 2. A part-song for usually male voices. – Webster’s Dictionary.
In the last half decade or so, starting with the success of the Real Housewives series on Bravo, we have seen an increasing trend of cable networks taking the subject material of already successful shows and turning it into an inexpensive reality show to cash in on a trend (or sometimes if we’re lucky it will be an even cheaper reality knock off of an existing reality show). VH-1 continues this trend, trying to make real glee out of Off Pitch.
Off Pitch tells the tale of the Grand River Singers, an all-adult community choir that takes their inspiration not from the classics or A Capella street corner favorites, but rather from that cornerstone of modern music innovation, Glee. This year is a huge year for the Grand River Singers, as they intend on taking their show out of the tiny town of La Crosse, Wisconsin and on the road across the state. Off Pitch focuses most heavily on co-directors Tim and Rob who run the choir.
Our first episode goes delves into the group’s annual audition process. This process exists not only so that Tim and Rob can find new blood for the group, but also so that they can continually mold the group in their own image year after year. That image was best described by Rob not even three minutes in when he stated “we’re not looking for the best singers, we’re not looking for the best dancers, but we’re looking for the best personalities!”.
Much like American Idol’s audition process, we see our fair share of people whom either don’t sing well or ultimately sabotage their audition (one audition we heard most of the music, but only one line of actual singing, while another felt her voice was sabotaged because her chest got in the way). The current members end up at an equally brutal brush-up rehearsal before their last performance of the year in a county park. This leads to an incredibly nervous (and public) announcement of the current cast of the singers, which saw both more singers than the previous year and some incredibly misleading announcements (watching Rob toy with Josh, the only guy you end up wanting to thrive in the series was kinda heartbreaking).
Off Pitch is dangerously catty, however, verging on flat out mean spirited. While the Grand River singers are described as a family by some, it gets downright vicious at points, whether its’ Rob tearing apart his current singers in cutaways during each audition or even worse, calling out singer Greg on his weight (if the person in question is fat, than I’m morbidly obese). This cattiness is made worse however, when you consider that the stakes have been blown out of the water compared to similar shows. There’s no half-a-million dollar recording contract, there are no regionals or even sub-regionals. It’s doubtful that anyone in this group is getting paid to sing. In spite of that, the criticisms that the show provides of its’ singers solely exists to break them down when it seems like for many this should be a social and creative outlet that allows them to do what they enjoy.
The production crew doesn’t help matters, often focusing on sound snafus or bored patrons at a county park during their performances. One gets the vibe that the production staff is trying to get you to emotionally invest in it’s cast by emphasizing the weaknesses, which seems like a time-honored recipe for disaster. Finally, a major weakness of Off-Pitch is that it wants so bad to be Glee, but it’s only willing to show public domain musical standards (or really anything that doesn’t require a top-dollar royalty check) over the course of the episode that it takes away much of the advertised distinctiveness of the Grand River Singers.
The Final Verdict: While it’s interesting to see VH-1 put on a music related program, a rarity since the networks format switched to lists, I love the ____, and Celebreality a decade ago, Off Pitch still feels like it too has nothing to do with music. It’s downright mean-spirited, which is even worse considering the incredibly sensitive nature of the cast (I dare you to find me a cutaway where someone isn’t on the verge of tears). The worst indictment overall is that for something that wants to be Glee, it seems to miss the fun, joyful forest for the over-dramatic trees. Overall I recommend skipping this, and if someone can buy me a time machine so that I also can get my 22 minutes back, I wouldn’t complain.
Chatty Talk with Elise
Hello & welcome back!! Let’s begin with the week(or weeks!) in review, shall we? !
Margaret Thatcher just recently passed away, at the age of 87. For those of you living under a rock, she was a British politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and the Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was a magnificent human being & may she rest in peace.
It’s a BOY for Milan Akerman & hubby Roberto Zincone & they named him Sebastian! 🙂 Congratulations to the new parents!!
More great baby news as Backstreet Boys’ Kevin Richardson Expecting Second Child With Wife Kristin! Babies on the brain in hollywood!