3 Reasons Why I Love Kelly Clarkson

From her recent interview in Blender:

1) On Jesus: "I frickin' love him! He's done a lot of cool things for me."

2) On meeting Clive Davis over her new record her reportedly hated: "I was like, I don't know you very well, and I am not a bullshitter. I get you don't like the album. You're 80; you're not supposed to like my album."

3) On hooking up: "I just don't make out with people. That's a waste of my kisses and time. And it's so personal: It's, like, my face. Plus, I'm afraid of mouth herpes."

Besides cracking me up in a magazine interview, which basically never happens, she comes off as a tough 25-year-old who stuck to her guns when an entire record company was telling her to cave. In a nutshell, she wanted to write everything on her new record, they wanted her to have outside help. What kind of help did they suggest? Turns out Davis sent her a song called "Black Hole," a song that already appeared on a Lindsay Lohan album. Oh, and no one told her. Could they have been more disrespectful?

I haven't heard her new album, My December, but I feel the need to give it a chance after reading about all she went through to get it released the way she wanted - and she did get it released the way she wanted. And how cool is it to see a young, successful, female pop culture obsession be defiant and rebellious without resorting to appearing in trashy outfits and getting busted for DUIs? (And how lame is it that that needs to be pointed out as a measure of her non-lameness?)

Plus, she's already working on her next album which she describes as "country-blues" influenced by Patty Griffin, Ryan Adams and the Rolling Stones. I'm already in line.

So that's more than 3 reasons, but whatever. Our little American Idol is all grows up!

Also check out: D-List Divas: Mandy Moore and Paula Cole.
And: Feist Feels it All. A Lot.

Just When You Thought It was Safe to Watch Daytime Television

Drew Carey will be hosting The Price is Right. According to reports, he reveals it tonight on The Late Show with David Letterman.

I guess it makes sense. I mean, the whole time Carey hosted Whose Line is it Anyway?, he was the least interesting, least funny person on the show. And let's face it, it's not like Bob Barker really had a lot to do other than charm midwestern Claymates (please click on that link. Oh, pretty please.) and hold that weird lollipop microphone.

This makes much more sense than someone like Rosie O'Donnell for a host. Rosie's fiesty, sarcastic humor (her take on health-store customers: "you know the type: a lot of hair, not a lot of deodorant") would be squelched on a sanitized, wholesome show like TPiR. Just ask fans of old-school Ellen Degeneres. Sure, she's cute and friendly and funny on her daytime talk show, but Ellen really shines during her cable stand-up specials where her I'm-just-the-lesbian-next-door act drops and a more caustic, bawdy Ellen emerges.

Drew may have a darker, more outgoing side to him in his stand-up routines. But on his eponymous sitcom and WLiiA?, he was always upstaged by his funnier sidekicks like Diedrich Bader and Ryan Stiles. In fact, that seems to be Drew's actual talent, and it shouldn't be disregarded: surrounding himself, and sharing the spotlight, with skilled comedians who otherwise might not get noticed for their talents. On his own, however, he is perfectly capable of reading cue cards and smiling and stuff.

So The Price is Right fans get a perfectly pleasant host and prime-time television is guaranteed one more overpaid, bland comedian is too busy to star in another generic sitcom. (Why couldn't they create another game show and hire Charlie Sheen and Kevin James?) I should knock on wood, just to make sure.

Also check out: Martha Stewart: You Know You Love Her.
And: Obsessing Over Food I Never Eat with Giada de Laurentiis.

Miller Swill

I'm not a beer guy. Beer, as we all know, is urine thickened with sweat. Or at least, that's how a lot of it tastes. Give me a cocktail any day, especially with vodka or tequila, and I'm a happy, happy man. But for some reason as soon as I heard about Miller Chill, a beer flavored with lime and salt based on the Mexican chelada, I had to try it. As a margarita fan, I love me some lime and salt with my alcamahol. I've never had a chelada, but I was intrigued to try it as soon as I joined some friends at a bar.

Color me disappointed. The website says "Chelada Style Light Lager with a Hint of Lime and Salt." Hint? That's being generous. What would be more appropriate? How about "rumor?" "Rumored to be flavored with lime and salt." Their website has more Latin flavor than this bland beer. Luckily, I at least like the flavor of regular MGD, as that's basically what I was drinking. The drink seems to be getting mixed reviews elsewhere, as well.

Actually, it made me even more determined to try an actual chelada to see why a company would go to all the effort of (badly) replicating its flavor. So the following night on my way to a dinner party, I picked up some Corona and limes...and margarita salt. Here's what you do: salt the rim of a highball or beer stein, squeeze in the juice from half a lime, add ice and pour in the beer. It will fizz up at first, and then you have a light summer drink perfect for hot days and balmy nights. The ice and citrus cut the beer so it's not as heavy as usual and the salt...well, salt is just good. I'd salt the rim of my coffee mug if I had enough time in the morning.

Variations differ regionally in Mexico. There's also a michelada which adds hot sauce and Worcestershire sauce, plus, depending where you are, Clamato or some other tomato-based drink mix. (I skipped those versions because I refuse to try anything named "Clamato.")

So two good things came out of this. Not only did I learn about a new drink that's easy to make and so good on humid summer evenings, the trip to the grocery store for the ingredients forced me to enter the beer aisle. After I passed up the towering stack of Miller Chill in the corner, there was a whole wall of interesting choices before me - lagers in lemon-flavored and "summer wheat" varieties, hard iced teas and numerous pale ales that would be perfect for the patio. I'm sure some of them suck, but it's almost like a challenge, finding the one that forces me to skip the vodka tonics and grab the bottle opener.

Ironically, it wasn't until a corporation heavily advertised their sub-par product that I had even heard about this traditional Mexican drink. You could argue that Miller is badly exploiting a cultural tradition for profit (I'm not sure I'd agree, since our grocery shelves are stocked with all kinds of ethnic ingredients that you would not find there even twenty years ago, but you could argue it) but really, Miller did me two favors with their lame imitation. It exposed me to a popular drink from another culture and, more importantly, if I had liked their bottled version, I might not have bothered making myself the real thing.

Also check out: Pringles and Pimpfants.
And: Eat My Cookies.

D-List Divas: Mandy Moore and Paula Cole

Two albums have been sitting on my desk for over a month now. I may have forgotten them because, despite their good intentions and polished products, the artists themselves are forgettable.

Does anyone know why we know Mandy Moore? Why is she considered a star, even remotely? I dare you to name one of her songs. She's always gotten a lot of support from her record labels for albums that sold a fraction of what her poptart competitors sold. She has starred with some pretty big names (Diane Keaton, Hugh Grant, Robin Williams) in some pretty forgettable movies (Because I Said So, American Dreamz and License to Wed, respectively). Her biggest hit was 2002's teen drama A Walk to Remember, and I use "hit" very loosely.

The thing is, I like Mandy Moore. Unlike artists with down-to-earth personas that cover up their demands for gold-plated toilet seats, Moore is all about her healthy body-image and low-maintenance lifestyle. Plus, she starred in the religious satire Saved!, which was just flat-out fantastic. Her last effort, 2003's Coverage, an album of cover songs, showcased Moore's sophisticated tastes and stronger vocals but still didn't go anywhere.

Which is why I was curious about her new album, Wild Hope. She co-writes every song and collaborated with The Weepies and Rachael Yamagata, among others. She told Blender: "This is me, and these are my words, and this is my taste in music." Then, more dramatically: "I feel like in many ways this is my last chance to do a record on this level. If this doesn't work, how many opportunities do I get?"

Shedding her Lolita-with-a-mic past for a folky, earthy singer-songwriter vibe, Moore & Co. come up with pleasant but bland songs that blur into one long Lifetime drama theme song. Heavy on the acoustic guitar, piano and quiet vocals, Wild Hope tips over from subtle to sleepy. For someone who is supposedly free to express herself for the first time and laying it all on the line as if it's her last chance, Moore is sadly subdued. The first single, "Extraordinary," features a repetitive chorus of "Now I'm ready to be extraordinary." That's great. Instead of telling us about it (in an ordinary song, by the way), why doesn't she just actually try?

This is supposedly a grown-up, darker, melancholic Moore, deeper after surviving public break-ups with well-known actors and athletes. But the burning hostility of "Nothing That You Are", where Moore stabs an ex with "I hope you burn in hell," is undermined by the cheesy, random electric guitar and Moore's cop-out follow-up: "Or do I?" She went from day-um! to...damn.

Coincidentally, the other day I was flipping through the new Pottery Barn catalog that features a new focus on "nature" with wood candles and tree-branch wall-art. It reminded me of Wild Hope because not only does its match the album's cover art (sepia-toned photos of Moore in vintage dresses hiking through the woods) but because they both feature pretty, earnestly "natural" yet bland aesthetics that can be found, done better, elsewhere. (Since they're such a good match, I'd love to see her actually in the PB catalog: "New item! Mandy Moore - Chestnut-tressed, with skin like vanilla-flecked creme brulee, this all-American pop star makes the perfect accent to your living room or veranda. Catalog/internet only. $24.95. Free shipping.")

It's too bad the record doesn't work better since Moore can produce a neat phrase here and there ("here and gone, like a decoration for the holiday"), so hopefully any potential shown here will develop by her next album, if she does indeed get another chance.

In the meantime, she could learn a thing or two from talented songwriters who know how to use their voices to create sonic ambience, like Sarah McLachlin or Paula Cole (who Moore will be co-headlining a tour with). Remember Paula Cole? She came out of nowhere in 1996 with This Fire, featuring the moody, left-field hit "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?" and the Dawson's Creek theme song, "I Don't Want to Wait." After an eight-year hiatus due to record company snafus, getting married and divorced and raising a baby, Cole is back with Courage.

Incredibly self-reflective and brutally, sometimes disturbingly, honest, each song on Courage is like reading Cole's mind as she writes in her journal. Her anger, confusion, regrets and fantasies are laid bare before us, creating a portrait of a fascinating, complicated woman.

Nowhere is this more obvious than the opening, "Comin' Down." In this haunting, primal chant/prayer, we know exactly where she is, her view looking both behind her and to the future. "Lord, make me a lighting bolt to burn off this ring," she begins, asking for help in making better choices. It's hard to overestimate a songwriter who can sum up her spiritual evolution in one song, with bridges that start with "I see the greatness above and the smallness of me," then opens herself up to "I see the greatness within; the greatness in me." Far from arrogance, it's actually humility and trust in the universe and her place in it.

Substituting a jazzier, torchy sound for her previous folksy, unshaved-armpit Womyn past, this is an older, slightly mellower Cole. Unfortunately, some of the arrangements veer into undistinguished, adult contemporary mode. For someone who claims "sometimes I'm too bold for my own good" (as Cole does in "Safe In Your Arms"), you wish that boldness would make its way into the arrangements, not just the words. And not one but two songs turn into duets out of nowhere (the vocalists, Ivan Lins and Paul Buchanan, are not credited on the track listing), creating the jarring feeling that an intimate performance has been interrupted by some drunk stumbling into the studio.

Still, Cole has two weapons at her disposal: her lyrics and her voice. She writes as if using lazy clichés are not only insulting to the audience, but denying her own truth. And her thick, rich, gutteral voice can crawl and float through her range with emotional precision.

It probably doesn't appear fair to title this "D-List Divas," as neither Moore nor Cole seem to be especially diva-ish. But both are starting over - one trying to escape her poppy past, the other trying to climb back into the public radar. And, unfortunately, neither of them seem to be breaking onto radio or TV, either. It remains to be seen if either one can (re-)claim their pop crowns, or if their albums will be remembered a year, or a month, from now.

Also check out: Feist Feels It All. A Lot.
And: Soul Sisters: Amy Winehouse and Joss Stone.

You Win

What is it about sassy gay men that make them so hard to write as on-screen characters? It might work if they're sidekicks to the protagonist (and therefore taken in small doses) as in Kissing Jessica Stein or Will & Grace. But if one is the leading man of a mediocre movie, you're often spending two hours with a wannabe-Wilde who very quickly seems brittle, forced, condescending and phony. It takes a very talented writer to make an him likeable and a very talented actor to let the wit roll off his tongue with panache.

Unfortunately, we have no such luck with Nathan, the leading man in writer/director Russell Brown's Race You to the Bottom. Brown seems to like the idea of writing a young, successful, unabashedly sexual man (scratch the above "gay" adjective and make that "bisexual"), but Nathan is also narcissistic, inconsiderate, rude and sexually inconsiderate. And if you're going to make him "sassy" or "witty" or whatever, then you better give him some good lines. That doesn't happen.

For a brief summary, Nathan (Cole Williams) and Maggie (Amber Benson) abandon their respective boyfriends to take a trip to Napa for an article he's working on for a travel magazine. As soon as they leave, they're making out! Sassy! I think we the audience are either supposed to be so shocked (rubbing our eyes in disbelief, "say wha...?) or cheering them on ("Yeah, you go, sexual rule-breakers!"). But all I could think was "Really? She's cheating on her supercute boyfriend with a greasy Clay Aiken clone wearing way too much eyeliner?"

Some people mistakenly believe that they have to "identify" with the protagonists in art. While I didn't mind that I couldn't identify with Nathan (he actually tells Maggie "the taste of another man on your lips makes me hot." Who talks like that? And...really?), I at least wanted to understand what was so attractive about him to Maggie. The movie offers few clues: He spontaneously dances in hotel rooms! He...um...likes to drink wine! He can get erections!

That last quality is apparently what gives him an edge over Maggie's devoted but pouty boyfriend, Milo. When her friend points out what a great guy Milo is, Maggie guiltlessly shrugs it off. Apparently, to her, it's perfectly okay to cheat on your long-term boyfriend if he can't get it up. And it's perfectly okay to do this with a man who has a boyfriend of his own. The movie's tagline is "Maybe their boyfriends should worry..." Yeah, about STDs.

It's too bad, because the movie could really have approached a unique situation. There aren't many films out there that deal with bisexuality as a legit sexual orientation or, at least, worth exploring as such. The fact that she deems Nathan a "70/30" kind of guy is perfectly fine with Maggie, and I know a lot of women in real life who wouldn't mind if their gorgeous gay best friends were 70/30s as well. And I'm sure relationships like this do exist, however underrepresented in film they may be. But Brown can't do his subject justice, and his dialogue bounces from unrealistic to overused clichés. When Maggie's friend explains Nathan's sexual preference with "bisexuality is just one stop on the road to gayville," I was expecting one of the Sex and the City girls to pop in with "that was my line!"

In fact, Nathan is just so gosh darn sexual that he basically whips it out in front of every attractive guy he comes across. (But not around attractive women besides Maggie. Hmmm, maybe he's more 95/5.) Or he encourages them to whip it out. When they visit some friends during their road trip to Napa, Nathan effortlessly seduces the hunky husband, Joe (Justin Hartley, the only man in this movie who doesn't have the skinny, hairless build of a 12-year-old). But as he gives Joe a hands-on workshop in new masturbation techniques, Mr. Overly-Sexed-Up Nathan spaces out and we cut to an utterly pointless flashback. (Focus, Nathan! Aren't Gen Y-ers overly-medicated on ADD pills?) By the time we're back to the present, Joe zips up and gives the most unconvincing "wow" in cinema history. Geez, this movie about sexual boundary-breaking can't even get handjobs right.

As they ascend the hills of their vineyard-hopping adventure, they become irritated and annoyed with each other - he at her clinginess and prudery, she at his pursuits of his 70% side. One review generously compared this to Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? for Generation Y (or whatever the hell we are), but I think that's a bit of an overstatement. They say such awful things to each other (especially Nathan) that you're not quite sure why you want to be around them anymore. You could argue that Nathan is intentionally turning Maggie off after she declared her love for him - to save her, to protect her, to break her heart now because it would be even crueler to lead her on - but that would mean Nathan would have to think of someone besides himself.

First Maggie tells him that his need to seduce everyone is due to his self-loathing, then she accuses him of only loving himself. Which is it? Just like Nathan, the movie tries to have it both ways, mistaking snark for charm. And like Nathan, Race You to the Bottom sorely lacks the latter.

Also check out: Kinsey Sicks Wanna Be Republicans (Or At Least Just Sing About It)
And: Movie review: Rent.

Where Am I?

What is this strange and magical land with its green borders, witty textual phrases and crisp aroma of impending Pulitzers?

Oh, right, it's my blog. I haven't been here in a while so I kind of forgot what it looks like.

So obviously I've been kind of MIA lately. I just had to take a break. A few pop culture/food/media/Chicago things had flashed into my radar, pulsating every so lightly with mild interest. I have been trying recipes (107 down!), listening to new music and reading great books , but I just couldn't commit any of it to the page/monitor.

Blame the bazillion degree weather or the Food Network. Both would be slightly accurate. Really, I just didn't feel like it. Sometimes you just have to take a break from writing; you have to get off cruise control, pull over and just be a tourist in your own strange little life. Luckily, batteries have recharged and I will getting back on the road soon. Stay tuned.