Alexis Cohen is dead

Alexis Cohen, an American Idol contestant from seasons 7 and 8, has died. She was known for her expletive-filled rants after being rejected by the judges in both seasons, her videos becoming YouTube sensations. She was declared dead yesterday after being hit by a car in New Jersey. Here’s her video from season 7…

Karma is a bitch.

Bank of Canada claims the recession is over

Interesting announcement from the Bank of Canada yesterday: apparently the recession is over. At least in Canada. Technically.

In their latest Monetary Policy Report, released yesterday, the BoC predicts that the Canadian economy will grow by a rate of 1.3% in the current quarter. CBC reports that “Growth will accelerate through late 2009 and by the first half of 2010, the Canadian economy will be booming along with four per cent growth”, according to the bank.

So what does this mean for the average Canadian? I don’t think we’ll see the effects of a recovery until well into 2010. Unemployment rates will continue to rise into next year, and as long as the United States is in a recession, Canada’s recovery will be extremely limited. But, I think that this announcement will help boost consumer confidence and hopefully increase consumer spending, which will obviously help boost the economy. But, to me, the recession still ain’t over yet.

Dash Snow

I found out today that controversial photographer and artist, Dash Snow, died in New York on Monday. Apparently, he overdosed on heroin during a relapse (he had gone to rehab in March and seemingly kicked his addiction).

Dash’s work had always appealed to me — I’d actually say that he is in the top 10 on my “favourite artists” list. I was fascinated by his work, his life. To me, he was a dream interview. I spent the better part of the last year trying to schedule an interview with him, but he was notoriously difficult to get a hold of and nothing came together. We had scheduled a time back in November but he cancelled and we weren’t able to line up another time.

Dash’s fame will only grow from here. I can’t help but draw comparisions to Basquiat. Check out http://www.tinyvices.com/dash_snow.html to see some of his work.

How I feel about Michael Jackson

I haven’t really wrote about my feelings on Michael Jackson yet, so here goes. Hopefully this will be the last post about MJ — this blog’s getting a bit repetitive.

I was born the year that ‘We Are the World’ came out, so I never got to experience Michael at his peak. I was too young to remember when Bad came out, so my first memory of him is when ‘Black and White’ was released in 1991. I was a huge fan of The Simpsons at the time and I remember the episode that Michael guest-starred. I wasn’t sure if it was really him or not. I think the ‘Black and White’ video debuted the same night. I remember the first time I saw the video — I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Especially the morphing at the end and Macauley’s rapping (Home Alone was my favourite movie at the time. Hey, I was six). After seeing the video, Michael to me was officially the coolest performer ever. After that, I tried to watch any performance of his I could. I wasn’t a crazy huge fan of his, but he was definitely somebody that I loved and looked up to at the time. My mom bought me the Dangerous cd when it came out and I played it constantly. She hated it. Which is strange because she, too, had grown up with Michael (not too many performers out there I can say that about). I remember looking through her old record collection and she had Thriller and Off the Wall and a lot of the old Jacksons records. Unfortunately, by the time I found them she no longer had a record player, so I never got to listen to them.

My interest in Michael started to fade after 1993. I guess I was pretty sheltered as a kid, so I never really read the tabloids or anything. I remember watching Michael’s interview with Oprah, I guess that was in 1993. I didn’t really know anything about the child molestation accusations, so he still seemed pretty normal to me. I watched him do the half-time show at the Superbowl the same year — it was incredible. Then he married Lisa Marie Presley, and I don’t think it was a big deal to me. It was just kind of like “Oh, she’s Elvis’s daughter. That’s nice.” I remember seeing them kiss on MTV — that was kind of weird. Then HIStory came out and my interest in Michael was revived for a while. I read about him floating his statue down the river in London and thought it was the coolest thing ever. I wished I could float a statue of myself down a river. I must have watched the ‘Scream’ video 500 times and played the song constantly. It combined my two favourite performers — Michael and Janet. Though, I don’t think I actually realized that they were related until ‘Scream’ came out. Janet was my first concert in 1994. She was awesome. So good that I saw her again in 2002. I think I loved Janet more than I loved Michael. I loved the ‘Ghosts’ video that came out a couple of years later — it was required viewing at Halloween.  But after that, Michael never did anything so I lost interest pretty quickly.

The next time I got interested in Michael wasn’t because of his music, it was more because of the newspaper headlines. I wasn’t really impressed by his Invincible album, so all I saw of Michael were the outrageous stories I’d see on TV. The baby dangling, the ‘Tommy Mottola is the devil’ tyrade, the raid of Neverland in 2003. It was at this point that I really paid attention to the stories, I think. I mean, Michael was a hero to me when I was a kid and the allegations just seemed so ridiculous. Every day there were new headlines, from his nose falling off to showing up in court in his pajamas. I think it was at this point that my feelings about Michael switched from ‘greatest performer of all time’ to ‘Wacko Jacko’.

I really wanted Michael to make a comeback, but it never seemed like he was up to it. There were rumours of a residency in Las Vegas, new recordings with Akon and Will.I.Am, but nothing really came to fruition. I was disappointed with the song leaks that I had heard — ‘One More Chance’ sucked, ‘Hold My Hand’ sucked even more. But then came this grandiose annoouncement of the London dates. 10 dates. 30 dates. 50 dates. It just kept getting more and more absurd. Though he looked to be pretty fit and healthy at the press conference, to me the idea of Michael Jackson being well enough to do 50 dates was beyond ludicrous.

And now, here we are. Like I said before, I’m not necessarily surprised that Michael died. But it’s weird. Michael, the performer that I remember from when I was a kid, is a completely different person from the Michael of the last ten years. I guess I should say that I’m not surprised that the Michael of the last ten years is dead. But I’m absolutely shocked that Michael, the performer I remember, is dead. This is a story we’ll be hearing about for at least the next year. This is a guy with plenty of skeletons in his closet and the media won’t rest until all of them are exposed. Plus, there’s the custody of his kids that will be battled over and his financial situation that will have to be sorted out.

The Michael Jackson Memorial

It was a memorial fit for a king. Touching, funny. I think Michael would have loved it. It was surreal to me to see the casket — somehow it finally dawned on me that it was real. Michael Jackson really was gone. I think the most emotional and surprising moment for me was when Paris took the stage and made a statement saying that her daddy was the best father you could ever imagine. It was the first time Paris (and the other kids) has really been seen in public. It was interesting to hear her voice, to see her emotion. I loved that she immediately clung to Janet — they seem to have gotten really close. Janet would make such a great mother.

Aside from that, Usher’s performance of ‘Gone Too Soon’ was really incredible. It was beautiful seeing him walk down to touch the casket and sing to Michael. Brooke Shields eulogy was beautiful — she gave a great insight to what their relationship was like when they were kids, something neither of them had really talked about before. Though she had said that she hadn’t spoken to Michael since 1991 — where’s she been for the last 18 years? I think that can be said for most of the people that have been honouring Michael since his death. It didn’t seem like very many of them were around or supporting him when he was going through everything that happened the last 15 years or so. Jermaine’s performance of ‘Smile’ was amazing — I don’t think he’s really performed in about twenty years.

Finally, the last two highlights for me were Stevie Wonder’s and Lionel Ritchie’s performances. They both chose perfect songs (‘Never Dreamed You’d Leave in Summer’ and ‘Jesus Is Love’) and gave beautiful performances. ‘Jesus Is Love’ has always been my favourite Commodores song — I don’t think I’ve ever seen Lionel sing it live before (though I’m sure he has at some point). The low points for me were number one, the ‘We Are the World/Heal the World’ performance. It was nice seeing the family and everyone up onstage, but they should have had different performers sing the song, rather than the backup singers. There were a ton of singers in the audience — they could have gotten them to sing and had more of an all-star performance. Jennifer Hudson’s performance was hard to watch, just because of the dancing — I’ve always hated liturgical dance. I wasn’t crazy about the kid that sang ‘Who’s Loving You’ — it’s Smokey’s song, why didn’t he sing it? And I was underwhelmed by Mariah Carey’s performance. I had originally thought that this would be a highlight for me, since I’ve always loved Mariah’s rendition of the song. But she just didn’t seem to have the voice for it anymore.

But all and all, the service was incredible and I’m glad I got to see it.

The biggest funeral in entertainment history?

Michael Jackson’s funeral tomorrow will be huge. Gigantic. I can’t even imagine how the city of Los Angeles is going to deal with the crowds. The only funeral that could possibly be comparable is Princess Diana’s, which drew 250,000 spectators. People are flying in from all over the United States and the world to be there — it should be spectacular. The celebrity guestlist will be staggering. Elizabeth Taylor, Beyonce & Jay-Z, Madonna, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, Liza Minnelli, Diana Ross, Jane Fonda, Justin Timberlake, Usher, Britney Spears, Steven Speilberg, Whitney Houston, Stevie Wonder, the list goes on and on.

I hope it will be a real celebration of Michael’s incredible life and career.