For the love of Mimi

I will leave discussion of the zoo of Michael Jackson’s memorial to pretty much everybody else on the planet, but I wanted to mention how cringeworthy Mariah Carey’s performance was. She just didn’t sound good at all. To add insult to injury, Trey Lorenz, the backup singer who appeared with her on her original cover of “I’ll Be There,” still sounded pretty impressive and actually propped her up a few times.

As usual, the commenters on Youtube have shown no mercy for poor Mimi, and are being quite mean about the whole thing. Showing more self-awareness than is her wont, She of the Butterflies wrote on her Twitter account about her performance. She explained that she was choked up with grief, and that her performance suffered for it. Yeah, right.

For comparison’s sake I offer three videos. The first is the performance on Tuesday at Michael Jackson’s memorial. The second is her performing this song with Trey Lorenez at last year’s Save the Music concert. The third is the original from the 90s when she was still really good. Still, I think it could still be said that, even at 50% of her original awesomeness, Mimi can outsing a good 70% of the pop music industry.

The Hunt Begins

The gym and my yoga studio were closed over the weekend for the fourth of July holiday, but I got plenty of exercise walking all over northern Manhattan looking at rooms for rent. I met several cool people, and some strange ones, but ultimately decided that I can’t really contemplate living with another person right now. I’ve made appointments with a bunch of Realtors (must! capitalize! the! R!!!) to see if they can show me anything that I might want to live in.

My mother, who actually leaves me alone most of the time, has decided that she wants to help me find an apartment – in New Jersey. Suddenly she’s giving phone numbers and having me call people. I’ll do it, but if the price is the same for an apartment in New Jersey as one in Manhattan, why would I stay in NJ? What does the Garden State have to offer me anymore? Most of my local friends live in NY, and I do want to live in the city at least one time before my eventual untimely demise.

I have had friends who searched for months before finding what they want, so I know that I may need to exercise patience and caution. I have been looking all over (craigslist, real estate agencies, yahoo real estate), and think I stumbled across my first scam! Whoopee! There’s no way that a one-bedroom apartment in The Magellan costs only $1,000. Here’s the real web site for that property. One-bedroom apartments in that builiding are more likely to cost $2,000+. I wrote back the contact person saying as much, and also forwarded his initial response to me to The Magellan. Wouldn’t it be great if their gratitude extended to renting me a 1b for $1,000? Great, but not likely. I won’t hold my breath!

I’m at the point where my real estate search is still fun and interesting, as opposed to tedious and annoying. Plus, all this walking has got to be good for my legs!

Oh please, oh please, oh please…

My buddy, Sarah Palin, has decided to step down from her post as governor of Alaska. Initially, people thought that this might be to give her time to get her act together, so that she could run for president in 2012. And, seriously: how sweet would that be? With Palin as the Republican nominee, Obama could introduce Hookers and Blow Tuesdays in the Oval Office and still beat her handily.

The timing of this announcement can only be called curious; much like Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey’s announcement of their divorce immediately prior to Thanksgiving, Ms. Palin’s July 3 press conference seems like nothing so much as an attempt to dodge as much of the media as possible during this holiday break. The Mudflats, a web site from Alaska that I visited a few times during the presidential election, linked to a transcript of Ms. Palin’s speech and provided some speculation as to why she would step down as governor (rhymes with “skimbezzlement”).

I wonder, too, if this has anything to do with the tell-all book about Ms. Palin that is being written by Steve Schmidt, her former campaign strategist (and the guy who picked her to run with John McCain; do we really trust his judgment anymore??); Gawker had a juicy tidbit from it the other day, and if the rest of it is as forehead-slappingly stupid as this bit, no wonder the woman wants out before publication. Gawker also speculates as to why the Alaska governor decided to resign her post.

Doing a quick look around the tubes and twitter, it seems that trouble with the IRS is the most prevalent theory. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.