Feeling a bit under the weather today... that’s a strange saying, “under the weather.” Is it possible to be over the weather? Or in the middle of the weather? And what kind of weather are we talking about here? Sunny? Stormy? Cold? Wouldn’t you ALWAYS be under the weather, unless you were flying in an airplane?
Well, regardless… like I said, I’m feeling a bit under the weather today. I seem to have developed a cold, and would very much like to wrap myself up in blankets and go to sleep. But if I did that, I would feel like I was being some kind of lazy good-for-nothing, proving myself worthless to society or at least to my household in general. I must, therefore, continue on with my daily duties… except for my usual quest to walk 12,000 steps. I think I may have to significantly reduce that number today… In fact, it’s mid-afternoon and I’ve only logged 1167 steps so far. Quite pitiful in contrast to my typical mid-afternoon tally, which tends to be in the six to seven thousand range. Oh well… gotta have an off day every now and then…
So did everyone watch the Super Bowl? I was not overly-enthusiastic about either team, so I wasn’t sure who to root for. But after a while it became apparent that the Colts were playing better than the Bears, so I decided to root for the Colts. Might as well cheer for the team that will most likely win. And the Colts DID win, so – yeah! My team won! The team that I arbitrarily decided I wanted to win ended up winning!
What I want to know is, who decided Billy Joel should sing the national anthem? Was that the best they could find? I mean, hey, I enjoy a round of “Piano Man” as much as the next person, but the guy did not seem to know what he was doing with the Star-Spangled Banner. He’s certainly no Faith Hill – right Nick? :) And then there was the halftime show, with the artist-now-known-as-Prince-but-formerly-known-as-the-artist-formerly-known-as-Prince, who, strangely, seemed to be dressed for a Miami Dolphins game in an orange shirt and aqua polyester pant suit. Actually, I can’t be certain it was polyester – I’m just guessing, because it was pouring rain throughout the entire evening, yet Prince’s outfit seemed impervious to liquid. I suppose, in a way, it was a bit of serendipitous luck that it was raining so hard as he belted out “Purple Rain.” And yet I couldn’t help but think that if it hadn’t actually been raining, there would have been some sort of “rain shower” special effect on stage. And then suddenly there was no need for it. The “rain” special effect guy had probably been waiting for his moment all week, nervously practicing his “rain” button-pushing technique and worried he’d accidentally hit “fire” by mistake. And then his services were no longer required, and his big moment never materialized, and now he has to wait an entire year before another Super Bowl halftime show rolls around… (Yeah, I’m pretty sure that made absolutely no sense, but like I said – I’m not feeling my best today.)
And I was rather unimpressed with the commercials last night. There really weren’t too many that stood out, and certainly none that made me want to run out and buy whatever they were advertising. I think the Career Builder “lemmings” ad was pretty funny… and the Bud Light ad with the hitchhikers was funny. But it seemed like there were an awful lot of boring Chevy ads. And the Doritos ads were just weird, the Coke ads were annoying, and the one with the guy dressed up in a foam heart was rather disturbing. He was being accosted by evil villains representing things like “high blood pressure” and “diabetes,” and I kept expecting the superheroes to arrive – like a guy with “exercise” written across his chest, or a girl dressed like a salad… but no, the poor heart was just tossed against a wall and that was that. Rather depressing, if you ask me…
Well, speaking of being tossed against a wall… I’m off to take some Tylenol, which will hopefully help with this annoyingly achy feeling I seem to be overcome with at the moment…
1 comment:
I agree Lisa. Billy Joel's performance was really rather dull and uninspired. I actually like Billy Joel alot and he usually sings and plays with much more intensity and feeling. I was really unimpressed and disappointed. It kinda looked like he was just sort of bored with the whole thing, like, perhaps, when his mother might have made him play some simple song he'd already played a billion times once more for his grandmother.
The thing is...Billy’s a very good piano player and a much better than fair singer. I saw him on the Actor's Studio once, which is weird because other than some videos I don't think Billy's ever acted in a movie...I may have to look on IMBD for that…but anyway, Billy was great on that show. As he detailed his life's work and the inspiration for each of his songs, he would jump out of his chair and go to a piano they had setup and he would play his songs as they had first come to him and as he arranged them. He also, for fun, would play them as if they were written in differnt styles - changing not only the chord colors but the pacing, fingering and phrasing as well and it was really cool. I loved it, I guess cuz I would love to be able to do that. So when I saw him at the piano bench as he started the Star-Spangled Banner, I was excitedly anticipating a cool and maybe creative performance. Not maybe vocally so much, but definitely some creative chords and stuff, but no...nada...I got nothing. It was as if he were playing straight out of his 4th grade piano exercises book. I was disappointed.
On top of that, I was also concerned watching all that rain moisture collect on the beautiful grand piano he was playing on and I kept thinking about all the possible damage the water was causing. I kept wishing someone would go out there with a giant umbrella and cover his mic and piano. It was painful for me. Maybe it was painful for Billy too and that's why he gave such a lifeless performance. I have to hope it was something.
The only other thing I think it could have been, and Cindy pondered this, is that perhaps Billy deliberately played it that way out of respect. Maybe he thinks the one song in all the world that should be played without flair and creativity is the Star-Spangled Banner. Maybe Billy holds a grudge against those who jazz it up too much. I guess I could buy that, but it's the Superbowl and people expect our Anthem to have a little pizzazz to it, a little entertainment. In the end, it just wasn’t sung with much feeling...and I thnk respect or not, feeling should be integral to that song. We're Americans, Dammit!! Singit like you meanit!!!
Oh and yes, Lisa, Faith Hill’s version is still the best. Not just because she nailed the vocal, but David Foster’s arrangement with those cool sustained chords and the bagpipes and timpani was just awesome. David Foster is really good at taking classical songs and revoicing them with more modern chords. Look at what he does with Josh Groban, Celine Dion, and Michael Buble. All of them have sung a classical piece or an American Standard before and he knows just how to make them cooler. He did that with Faith’s Star-Spangled Banner arrangement. It wasn’t so jazzy to be annoying, but was varied enough to be inspiring and I still remember it fondly. That and well, Faith looked really really good in those black pants…Did I just type that out loud? Is Cindy reading this???
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