American Idol Top 9

Katie March 22, 2013 0 Comments

This week the Top 9 Idols will take on the songs of The Beatles.  But first we need to find out who is going on the tour! And it is – Aubrey! Hooray! No more Charlie! Throughout the night we found out what song was Keith’s favorite Beatle song – in fact, he seems to have at least 4 Beatles songs in his top 2!

Kree – With a Little Help From My Friends – Great performance to kick off the night.

Burnell – Let It Be – Kind of shocked that he didn’t know this song! But he got it all figured out and another great performance.

Amber – She’s Leaving Home – I feel like she was pitchy and off key at points, but it was still a pretty good performance.

Lazaro – In My Life – He seemed to start off a little too fast but found his way about midway through. But what the heck do they have him wearing? Yellow jacket and red shoes?

Candice – Come Together – I knew she was going to do this and I knew she would rock it! Awesome!

Paul – Eleanor Rigby – Very boring rendition. Oh – wait – now we get an Adam Lambert scream.  No thanks.

Angie – Yesterday – A little too big at moments, but still a pretty good performance

Devin – The Long and Winding Road – Probably a perfect song for him.

Janelle – I Will – I find it funny that Paul didn’t want to make the song sound country – but Janelle didn’t seem to have a problem with it. I do though. Gross.

Picking the bottom 3 is so hard because I have to put my personal feelings aside and try to think what America is thinking. And sometimes America is nutty.

Bottom 3 – Paul, Devin, Lazaro (as much as it pains me because I l-o-v-e him)

Going home – Paul

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Paul gets his own day and then ends up in the bottom 3!

Devin is also in the bottom 3…

Wow. This is making me look like a genius 😉

Oh wait, spoke too soon, Lazaro is safe (YES!)

Kree is moving on to next week

Candice is also safe!

And Angie too. (Surprise surprise with those 3!)

Also safe – Janelle!

Burnell is also safe which leaves Amber in the bottom 3! Wow.

Paul, Devin and Amber are the bottom 3. I don’t think I’d have picked Amber (Janelle would have been my next choice)

Paul will sing for the save! (Right again! Woohoo!)

And Paul does not get saved and he will be leaving the show.

American Idol Top 10

Katie March 16, 2013 1 Comments

Wednesday night we got to hear performances from the Top 10!  When the judges were announced Nicki wasn’t there – I got excited and thought maybe she left the show but Ryan said that she was stuck in traffic and would be there later. Boo.

This weeks theme is any song from Idol past winners. Not sure I really dig that theme but let’s see how it goes! (I’m always comparing repeat songs to the last time it was performed and often reference WhatNotToSing.com to make sure I am remembering correctly. This is just going to force me to do that no matter how hard I try not to!)

Curtis – I Believe (Fantasia) – It was going to be tough to match up with Fantasia, but he did re-work it a bit… but it still wasn’t all that great of a performance – he had done much, much better in past rounds. (Though when he said he liked Luther, I would have thought he would have gone with a Ruben song!)

Janelle – Gone (Scotty) – The trouble with this theme is that I can’t help but compare to the other Idol’s performance.  This was a big turning point for Scotty if I remember correctly and this performance just didn’t match Scotty’s at all.

And Nicki is back. Oh hooray. :/

Devin – Temporary Home (Carrie) – Probably the best performance of the night (though that’s not saying much) but I didn’t like it.  I am trying so hard not to compare to Carrie but I can’t!  It just seemed like a boring arrangement.

Angie – I Surrender (Kelly) – I didn’t watch Season 1 so I had nothing to compare with this performance.  She did great, but there is just something about her that I don’t like. But certainly one of the best performances and it will probably be one of the best of the night regardless of who goes behind her.

Paul – Amazed (Scotty) – Well, he isn’t over singing like a Broadway star anymore, so that’s good… but it just seemed like it was hurting him to sing that way.  Not a bad performance but hopefully he can find a happy medium between the two.

Candice – I Who Have Nothing (Jordin) – Totally called this one during the commercial break – Jordin did AMAZING with this song. And I think Candice did great too. Maybe not as great as Jordin but damn near close! WOW! WOW! WOW!

Lazaro – Breakaway (Kelly) – There was something off about the performance with his singing and the music – he was going too fast or something, I’m not sure. Not the worst of the night but not his best performance either.

Kree – Crying (Carrie) – Another strong performance from Kree. There’s not much else for me to say lol

Burnell – Flying Without Wings (Ruben) – He seemed to tone down on the hand movements a bit, which was good for me because they are so distracting for me!  I’m not sure I loved this song for him, but it was a decent performance.

Amber – A Moment Like This (Kelly) – I liked how she made the song her own and it was a really great performance. (Though I don’t think it is the best of the night like Nicki did)

My Bottom 3  – Janelle, Paul and Curtis with Curtis going home

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Ryan tells us that they will let us know who was the Top 3 but not in which order. (Gotta compete with XFactor?)

The first in our top 3 is Candice with 42% of the vote in SC.

Kree gets the key to the city in TX where she grew up and then finds out that she is in the top 3!

We find out Charlie was the #6 guy and performs for a spot on the Idol Tour (Based on my 4/5 I thought it would have been Nick…)

And the girl is Aubrey – who was who I thought would make it last week.

The last to make the Top 3 is Angie.

4th. Lazaro
5th Amber
6th Janelle
7th Burnell
8th Paul

The bottom 2 are Devin and Curtis (So I was 2/3 on the bottom 3, kind of shocked Devin is there!)

Singing for the save is – Curtis

And they don’t save him and I am 1 for 1 for the season!

Book Review: Hank Greenberg

Katie March 15, 2013 0 Comments

Hank Greenberg was a baseball player in the 1930s.  He was also Jewish.  The Hero of Heroes starts out with Hank sitting in the locker room on September 10, 1934.  Rosh Hoshanah.  By tradition, Jews should observe the holiday in prayer and not work or play.  Hank spent the morning at his synagogue and then stood up to leave.  Should he go and play?  He did not play the year before, his rookie year and no one noticed.  This year he was am emerging star and the Tigers were in first place – fighting the Yankees for the pennant.  The Detroit dailies were giving updates on his every move – was he home? At the synagogue  On his way to the ballpark? Everyone knew thanks to the dailies.  Hank didn’t like all the attention, he wanted to be private but the way he was playing and the position his team was in thrust him into the spotlight.  Hank made the difficult decision to decide to play and received hell from his fellow parishioners and rabbis.  But Yom Kippur was just 10 days away.

The story continues on with the struggles Hank faced being Jewish in a time when the Nazis were gaining power across Europe.  Being Jewish was very controversial as Hank was learning.  Hank went on to become a legendary slugger – alongside names like Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth.

This was quite an interesting book – it almost seemed in some chapters that the baseball was just an after thought and not the main event in the book.  I had heard of Hank before but never really knew too much about him, so this book was an interesting read.  Most interesting I think was that back when Hank played the sportwriters often did not interview the players but instead made up quotes and attributed them to the players! So there are a lot of quotes out there and in biographies that are listed as fact which may not be. John Rosengren seemed to take great care when writing this book and tried to get everything as accurate as he could by talking to some of the players who were still alive and getting interviews from other sources (that weren’t made up) from players who had passed away before he started writing the book.  Definitely not an easy task by any means but I think he did a great job compiling everything.

I received a free e-copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

Baseball in the 1930s was more than a national pastime; it was a cultural touchstone that galvanized communities and gave a struggling country its heroes despite the woes of the Depression. Hank Greenberg, one of the most exciting sluggers in baseball history, gave the people of Detroit a reason to be proud. But America was facing more than economic hardship. With the Nazis gaining power across Europe, political and social tensions were approaching a boiling point. As one of the few Jewish athletes competing nationally, Hank Greenberg became not only an iconic ball player, but also an important and sometimes controversial symbol of Jewish identity and the American immigrant experience. When Hank joined the Detroit Tigers in 1933, they were headed for a dismal fifth-place season finish. The following year, with Hank leading the charge, they were fighting off the Yankees for the pennant. As his star ascended, he found himself cheered wherever he went. But there were other noises also. On and off the field, he met with taunts and anti-Semitic threats. Yet the hardship only drove him on to greater heights, sharing the spotlight with the most legendary sluggers of the day, including Babe Ruth, Jimmie Fox, and Lou Gehrig. Hank Greenberg offers an intimate account of the man’s life on and off the field. It is a portrait of integrity, triumph over adversity, and one of the greatest baseball players to ever grace the field.