Quest Club of Arizona

Tonight was ladies night and I am learning the names of the performers and I am starting to have some opinions about them. There are six spots in the finals and I think three of them are already occupied by Lisa Tucker, Paris
Bennett, and Katherine McPhee. There is one other lady who should be there, but there are questions. Mandisa reminds me of Joanne Dunlap from two years ago who was dynamite and was voted off in favor of a couple of teeny boppers. That would leave only two spots open if I’m on target. Tonight I paid attention to all the singers.

Here’s who I like for the remaining spots: Kellie Pickler. I hadn’t really paid close enough attention to figure her out, but she has a niche if she can figure it out. She needs to get down and dirty, raunchy….she could have made that Gretchen Wilson song work for her. Or something like Pat Benetar’s Love is a Battleground. If she picks the right songs she could go deep. She does have the likeability factor, and has had it from the beginning.
I also like Melissa McGhee. I don’t know what it is, but there is something about her that appeals to me. I think Melissa is versatile and can sing lots of different music. I also like the basketball player, but she is not a natural singer like some of the others.

I noticed that Simon and Randy are trying to force the teenagers to sing some other kinds of songs. I loved what Paris Bennett did tonight with Wind Beneath My Wings, one of my favorite songs, and she did a version I would buy, so take that Simon. This girl is so far advanced musically, I don’t see how she can lose. Lisa Tucker is also way beyond her years.
I liked Katherine McPhees song, and rendition. She is a very mature singer, but the judges don’t seem to like pop ballads. This lady can sing it all and should be there at the end with Paris, but she doesn’t have Paris’ likeability. She has to watch out that she doesn’t overplay her hand, and just keep it straight. The top singers don’t show off. They sing their songs straight and don’t resort to gimmicks.
Who’s leaving us Thursday? This hurts me to say this, but Heather Cox has to go, and she is drop dead gorgeous. If only she could sing. The others would come from Brenna and McKinnek.

So what do you think? Get your comments in here.

I keep breaking my heart over TV shows that I really like that get cancelled. Anyone remember Freaks and Geeks? Here we go again. Love Monkey is Ed becomes a music executive in a small independent music company after being fired by a national company. Instead of fleeing back home to Stuckeyville to find and win the heart of his high school dream girl, he flees across town to a small start up music company. So who could we get to play such a sentimental smuck? Maybe we could find that guy who played Ed. I hear he’s out of work. So they got Tom Cavanaugh to play Tom Farrell the music producer. This is a buddy show with four buds: one a married doctor who’s wife is pregnant, a business executive, a gay guy, and Tom, with each having his own story.

Tom’s old girl friend leaves him and now is back “out there.” Two ladies vie for Tom’s attention: Brand, his buddy-friend, and Julia who works with him and has caught his eye, and his attention because of her knowledge of music.
I liked it. Of course I was going to like Ed coming back on the air even if I hated it.

This first show really hooked me. In the main plot Tom is hired by a new start up Indie music company that is in process of putting on a benefit for school music programs. Most of the headline groups are backing out leaving only local talent. They need a headliner to draw an audience. Tom’s new boss and fellow workers including the very interesting and flirty Julia look to Tom. Well, big time guy, what can you do? Tom assures them he will get someone like Zoe, the current teenage star who has the nations number one song. But getting Zoe is complicated because she’s under contract to the company that just fired Tom.
Tom contacts Zoe and she agrees to do the benefit with one provision, she can sing one of her own songs, one she has written, not one of the teeny bopper songs she usually sings that are mega hits. Tom agrees. But now he has to convince Phil, his old boss, to let Zoe do it. After a rather contentious scene with Zoe and Tom, Phil agrees to let Zoe sing.

Tom’s new company has signed Wayne (Terry Geiger) who Tom discovered, but didn’t sign with his old company, and now he finds himself working with Wayne after all. Tom has Zoe come to the studio to sing her own song, “My Inner Pain.” She is horrible, but Tom discovers that Wayne is a big fan of Zoe. But they are caught between a rock and a hard place. They promised she could sing her own song, but now they need to persuade her to sing one of her hits.

Tom is torn over his promise to Zoe but after talking to Brand he decides to make this work. He will have to come up with a creative solution. Tom invites Zoe back to the studio where they listen to Wayne. Zoe thinks he is terrific, so Tom suggests that she sing her song with Wayne because of his advanced guitar playing and persuades her they’ll sound terrific together and she agrees to do it.

The benefit comes off and Zoe and Wayne sing My Inner Pain. It was terrific and I wanted a copy of it, but it probably isn’t out there.

So I like the music on Love Monkey, and I like Tom, and now I like Wayne and his music. There are lots of side stories with Tom’s buddies. It is well acted, and it has that same quirky something special that Ed had. I just hope that’s enough.

The Pittsburgh Steelers are the 2006 Superbowl champions. They defeated the Seattle Seahawks 21 to 10. Pittsburgh has been called a team of destiny for the last month and the way they blasted their way into the Superbowl, they certainly seemed to be that team. But yesterday they got some help to continue to be the team of destiny. A couple of questionable calls by the referees really hurt the Seahawks, who dominated the first half but trailed the Steelers 7 to 3. I think there were three other opportunities when the Seahawks could have created a lead and might have changed the outcome.

In the second half quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, who was probably the best player on the field yesterday, and certainly the best quarterback, threw a strike to one of his receivers on the one yard line at a time when the score was 13 – 10 in favor of the Steelers. But the play was called back for holding, and the Seahawks moved back and eventually lost their chance to score and take the lead. The play showed over and over and analyzed by John Madden declared no sign of a hold on the play. And Madden as a former NFL coach should know, and has never been bashful about giving his opinion. but TEAM OF DESTINY!
The second play was not a mistake on the part of the referees, but an example of the breaks the Steelers were getting. Hasselbeck completed a touchdown pass in the endzone, but it was called back for offensive interference. The receiver had pushed off his defender and caught the pass. He didn’t have to push him away because the defender was on the wrong side of the receiver and couldn’t have gotten to the ball. If pushing off was called on a regular basis the Michael Erving wouldn’t be in the Hall of Fame. TEAM OF DESTINY!
Then came Hasselbecks one big mistake as the Seahawks were marching toward the endzone he was intercepted. He made a great tackle to stop the ball carrier (how often does a quarterback make a tackle – Ben saved the Indie game with one too), and got a penalty for cutting a blocker (hitting too low), but he missed the blocker and ended up being penalized for a terrific tackle. TEAM OF DESTINY!

So Pittsburgh won and for many reasons it was a great story…Jerome Bettis retired immediately following the game, Bill Cowher got his first Super Bowl win, and Pittsburgh has now won five Super Bowl, good-guy Heinz Ward was the MVP, and many people have a warm and fuzzy feeling, but not me. Something just doesn’t feel right, but Pittsburgh was the TEAM OF DESTINY!

No doubt Ben Roethlisberger will be a Hall of Fame QB, but not on this night. Hasselbeck was magnificent in defeat, and Seattles no name defense gave Pittsburgh all they could handle. They deserved better, but someone had to lose. This game will be talked about for years because of some of the plays.

Lastly I want to give mention one of my favorite players. Antwaan Randle-el, former quarterback from Kansas State, who came into the NFL given little chance to make it as a QB, so he proceeded to make himself invaluable to his team by playing on special teams, running kick offs and punts back (he’s really fast), and now playing one of the lead roles as a wide receiver. Wasn’t that a game breaker when on an end around he threw a strike to Heinz Ward for a TD. You see what I admire is his attitude. There have been other QB’s come into the league, told they couldn’t make it and basically said if I can’t play QB I’m out of here. But Randle-el has made a great career for himself and I think he deserves a lot of credit for what he’s done.