The Five People you Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom

I very much enjoyed reading Mitch Albom's book "The Five People you Meet in Heaven". The book takes an interesting look into what probably is indeed the main thing that we would want to know about our lives and can't find out - why things happened: our lives explained. Although it was a very peaceful outlook as it ignores all the damage we do to those around us - from the killing of a person to the killing of a mosquito, the focus on the positives, and the turning of negatives into positives is very nice.

Not perfect by any means, but short and delightful, and definitely worth a read.

Don't stand, don't stand, don't stand so close to me

Yes, after a sweltering occasion of music, bodies, heat and more bodies I report safe and sound on Sting's concert in Ramat Gan National Stadium, Israel. No, not a sting concert in order to capture criminals under the guise of a musical event, but rather Sting - the famous musician. I went with three friends, and the rest of the world.

There were to be two warm up performances. The first by Sting's own son's band, and the second by a Jewish American rap artist of some kind called Matisyahu (no, not Kinky Friedman). While everyone was waiting for the warm up acts to start, all of us on the grass bank in front of the stage spread out, sitting, and in some cases lying on the ground - this was bloody fantastic, I actually had illusions of being comfortable during the event.

As soon as there was a glimpse of an idea that the first warm up act was about to start, everyone stood up, this of course cleared a lot of space, due to the fact that vertically we are simply larger than horizontally. So, everyone moved in more and more and suddenly we found ourselves closer to the stage, but much closer to other people at the same time. I decided that I hated the person in front of me, and than I realized that everyone hates the person in front of them, and my person in front of me wasn't unique, and anyway - he wasn't in front of me for very long either, as people seem to have been born with ants in their pants and have to constantly move around.

Sting's son Joe and his six pints of beer were indeed a warm up act, but Matisyahu was too big for a warm up. He sang for an hour, and people were getting quite agitated, although he was very liked by the crowd, and why wouldn't he be - who wouldn't like a religious Jewish guy from Brooklyn singing reggae? Anyway, the agitation seemed to get the crowd really warmed up for Sting which I suppose is the point. I myself was suffering so much at that early point that I really couldn't wait for Sting to rock up – warm up act successful. Of course, they had to get the stage ready for Sting, so the crowd needed some form of entertainment. This was supplied by the best warm up act of all - the scanning of the crowed with the cameras and displaying them (Ok, Ok - us) on the big screen so that they (this time it's just they) can wait with a half a smile and a half raised hand and get very excited when the camera was on them - ring any bells parents? Peek-a-boo!

The stuffiness was unbelievable, it just got worse when Sting was performing. I couldn't understand why people found it necessary to move around from place to place and squeeze into places that were clearly impossible to squeeze into. I got to know a lot of people very closely, while I was trying to figure out who on earth lights a cigarette during a music concert, which coincidently happened when a romantic song came on and couples immediately started vulgarly making out as if to symbolize the meaning of the song. Apparently holding hands and hugging is not enough now days. I have to say that couples are absolutely the worst, you would think that a couple would take up less space than necessary due to them being embraced, this is not the case however as they irritate by being very open and free and uncaring of the rest of the world - why would they care? They've found the love of their lives, they need not impress others. Also, people seem to stand like bridges which is extremely annoying and uncomfortable due to the fact that I'm not too fond of their heads, necks and bags which they have on their backs instead of on the floor, or preferably at home (actually bags on the floor could be a good manner of separating people). I must mention the lack of caring for the world by irresponsibly twisting hips and heads. At some point, with someone's head right in front of my face, I turned to my good friend who looked at this, I made a sniffing sound and declared: "Natural Formula".

Sting was great as I knew he would be. He sang around 19 songs, mostly the well known ones naturally. He does seem somewhat over cooked, but that is only natural when you've been singing about a prostitute for 30 years. Talking about singing about prostitutes - Mathisyahu came out while Sting was singing "Roxanne", and they had a bit of a jam together - the good old Jewish boy from Brooklyn singing about putting on the red light, who would have thought. The atmosphere was good albeit from very up close. The performance of the music was every good, although not special (again, how much can you do the same thing over and over again...) and he finished off with one of my favorites - "Fragile" which I was almost worried he wouldn't sing.

The relief of sitting, and in particular lying down in bed later was wonderful - well worth it if you like to torture yourself for the feeling of relief - like not going to the toilet for a long time on purpose.

I had a good time all in all, it's not something you do every day, and I really like Sting. So, with one of the pictures we took that now sits on my desktop, I can happily say that I have seen the two people I most wanted to see sing in concert - Phil Collins and Sting, Next is Johnny Clegg and Juluka, and my everlasting hope that ABBA shall return.

(A recommendation from me – Sting's Jazz style album – All this Time)

The world is one big high school: American Idol

What a disgrace to humanity. I can't really believe it - Paris Bennett did not win American Idol (allegedly), It feels like it didn't really happen. To add to this, and now Taylor fans please skip this sentence, others who are much better than the winner – Taylor Hicks, didn't win either. I always say that "America can't get it wrong" – because it's a song contest that the audience decides who will win, thus the winner is the true winner, but it's just plain odd. My take - written for those who know the contestants.

My beloved Paris
She is in a different class than the others. No doubt that she can be extremely successful, and in my opinion she will be the most successful of all the contestants. She can be big, she will be big. In my opinion, Paris has one of the best voices I have ever heard. It is truly beyond me how the contestants in general, and a few specifically had outlasted her. I'm sorry, but you just can't compare the others to her, and when it comes down to it, they way the others may look or perform are secondary to the voice. I see that she is going to work on her album and tour and that is all that matters, for if she wouldn't, I would have to stop listening to music, and just listen to her audition, singing "Take Five" over and over again in a loop. First Brokeback Mountain, and now Paris Bennett, I think I might give up award shows also - just skip the results from now on.

The others
There is a certain fan base which supports male singers more than female - the women, mainly younger women and girls are a huge fan base for the male contestants. It's simple, most men – don't care. The female contestants were far better for me this year, with singers like Katharine, Mandisa, Kellie, Lisa and of course my one and only Paris. In my opinion, Kellie has potentially, the second best voice of the top 12, and I wish she would have sung "Hopelessly Devoted to You" from Grease. This however, doesn't explain Chris being voted off. I liked him from the beginning, and once Paris had left, he was the only contestant left to have not sung badly through out the competition.

A call for change
Although this would be a financial loss of course, you should be able to only vote once. I felt like throwing something at the television when Ryan said that there were more votes cast than to any American president ever – besides the fact that the amount of votes were for two people, I'm sure that if you could vote more than once for an American President, they would get just as many, if not more votes than American Idol contestants, for heaven's sake... This voting system gives an unfair advantage to a lot of the contestants, and I predict that Carrie Underwood is the last person to win the contest deservedly. As my cousin, who stopped watching the show told me – "it's become a popularity contest".

Also, although the ratings are a big issue here, I wish they would reconsider having a set amount of men and a set amount of women per round after "Hollywood week". This system causes better singers than some of the top 12 not to get in to the top 12 just because of their gender. Take a female singer for example, who maybe rated 7th of 12 women singers, but 10th of all 24 male and female singers. Although she would be rated in the top 12, she would not get into it because she is a woman.

Summary
All in all though, as I've said, that there is no "getting t wrong" - it's a vote, and albeit not a democratic vote, it is the same for everyone, sort of. I do think that America needs someone like Taylor right now, it's just a pity that the best singers didn't win, one in particular.

Links
A written interview with Paris. It amuses me when a question is longer than an answer...

Sound clip of Ryan's interview with Paris after being "voted off" (I'm in denial)