Accounting - Catching up everything

So, it's been a while. Sorry for that. I appreciate the regular readers, if there are any beyond my wife, and I appreciate the people who find this by accident. I hope you hang out. For anyone who wants to keep up, there is the ATOM feed button and you can get alerts when I post new stuff. Any rate, a lot has happened since last I talked to you all, so I thought I would share a little.

First off, Congrats to Taylor for winning Idol. I wanted to write a whole piece examining the commercial prospects of various Idol finalists. In the high of the moment, with the tour and all that, we feel like they are bound to dominate the charts for the next ten years, but as Billy Bob Thornton sagely noted in Bad Santa, "They can't all be winners." So, after the thrill is gone, some of them are going to be big stars (Kelly Clarkson) and some of them are going to be the answers to trivia questions (Ruben Studdard, Justin Guarini, Frenchie). Said piece would be of typical Max's Mail length (>2000 words). But I've got a lot of things to do, even in writing, so I dunno when/if that's ever going to happen. Lemme give you the brief and if I find the time I'll flesh it out bigger. Any rate, my belief is that Elliot Yamin will wind up being the biggest commercial success five years down the line. Taylor's first album will either be icky pop and ballads (like the song they wrote for him, which the judges bagged on, amazingly) or old style soul music. Either way, it's a novelty that probably gets old really quickly. Can you name the last white guy who sang old style soul music and made money at it? Me neither. If they're smart, they will hook him up with the brightest mind in blue eyed soul, and make him like a southern version of Hall and Oates. On Kat McPhee, there's really no need for a McPhee in a marketplace that already has a Kelly Clarkson, who is quantifiably better than McPhee in most every aspect that matters. Hell, Clarkson even won some Best Bikini Body from some magazine like Us Weekly. Best round bikini body or best impersonation of a Dove Real Beauty girl, but none-the-less, that's momentum. Chris, who I championed as the best of them will probably wind up a star in a genre, nu-metal, that you either love or hate. There is the question of how open to an Idol winner (cute and cuddly) the nu-metal scene is gonna be, but the proof is in the pudding, and Chris has a lot of proof in that pudding. That leaves us with Elliot in the top 4. The kid who can sing anything. If they can find the right package for him, he could be the next big thing. That is the question, ultimately. What package? Blue eye soul? Big Ballads? Burt Bacharach type stuff? I don't have the answer there any more than anyone else. But if they can pick one and ride it, the kid could be the big winner of Idol. My wife will be thrilled.

So, I hinted at some big changes. I got a job at Your Department of Labor (assuming you are a citizen of the United States). I will be spending the next two years rotating through various agencies within the DoL, protecting the interests of the American Worker. Very exciting and its forcing me to move out of my wonderful University City apartment in Saint Louis. I hate moving like I hate dental surgery, but I think we found a great apartment in Alexandria, VA. Me, the wife, and her cat will be moving around the 15th of June so I can be settled to start work on the 26th. Spent the weekend driving around Maryland, DC and Virginia looking for an appropriate apartment (hardwood floors, good neighborhood, not so many kids, affordable, etc) and found only one that met all of our requirements. Amazingly, we got the apartment yesterday and now we can begin the move in earnest. Got so excited, took the wife to Harvest, a very nice restaurant here in Clayton, and had a great meal. A very nice time indeed.

While scouting out DC, we saw the DaVinci Code. There has been a lot of ink devoted to how boring and lousy the movie is and I concur. I want to write a little bit about the poor production values in the movie, because I haven't seen a lot of ink given to that aspect of the badness. A lot of the film is shot artistically in bad focus, which just looks bad and not arty. It's like the producers forgot that they were making the biggest book in a decade not featuring a kid with a lightning bolt shaped scar. Just shoot the book, in all the wonder of modern cinema, and maybe people will dig it. Additionally, the people who made the big decisions about what Tom Hanks and Audrey Tatou would look like dropped the ball. It was hard to associate Ms. Tatou with the same girl in Amelie. Gone was everything that made her a star in that flick. And Tom Hanks long, receding hairline mullet was just hideous. Maybe they are described in the book, but take some license and make the stars look good. Again, it's not an art flick. Last quibble here, because I don't want to make this a 2000 word review. There is a tendency in today's films to shoot things with a lot of low light to make it look more gritty and real. For the viewer, it makes things hard to see and really limits the enjoyment of what is mostly a VISUAL medium. I can listen to a good story on a book on tape. I have to SEE a good movie. And this tendency towards darkness and shadow in film and TV today impairs my ability to SEE anything they shot on the film. Hollywood knew and understood this once upon a time, even when they were using a lot of shadow, like in the noir films of the 40's. I wish they would rediscover it.

Any rate, that's where things is at. Catch you later.