Meet Emily David, aka Queen Emily. She’s a 40-year-old single mom, a snappy dresser, and the only talented person on Tuesday night’s episode of America’s Got Talent.

I haven’t heard such a great rendition of Chain of Fools since Turkey Sub from School of Rock. It was proud, soulful, sassy, and confident. It was the voice of a woman who’d worked hard, walked through hell and lived to tell about it.

In her interview, Emily said, “So many times I think it will never happen for me…but then I go and look in the mirror and say ‘Why not me?’”

Why not you Emily? Why shouldn’t you take this show (and this country) by the shoulders and shake us out of a crappy music slump?

We’ve put up with pop starlets too long. Even those with good voices haven’t had the life experience to make their songs really sing. We’ve confused drunk driving, pantie dropping and stage parents with celebrity and even worse…with talent. And what do we have to show for it? Why should we wait for Disney to tell us who the next pop idol/future pariah is when hard-working, truly gifted people people like Emily are right in front of us? Read More »

Who doesn’t love a good train wreck like Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears? For us “ordinary folk” (those of us who wear Old Navy, drink PBR and dream of tetris being an Olympic sport) there’s nothing like a healthy dose of tabloid exploitation on those who live in (what at least appears to be) an alternate universe… where dogs wear juicy couture, cars come equipped with mini-bars, breasts double as flotation devices and pocket lint is laced with cocaine.

Is it true though? Or are the tabloids just running exaggerated fantasies to harpoon mass appeal? It’s hard to know because these grandiose lifestyles are perpetuated by the attention drawn to them (unless the celebrity is actually talented). Case in point — the Kardashian sex tape.

Bad publicity is good publicity, I suppose… especially for the venues that become associated with celebrity attendance (who doesn’t want to go to places where you might see a rockstar in a bar fight or catch Paris Hilton stripping down to… well… a slightly more naked version of her usual self?).

When talking about club publicity, nothing turns up the temp on a particular venue more than the drug habits of the celebrities. The scandalous behaviors of one Miss Britney Spears has made headlines for a variety of clubs in New York including an all time personal favorite, Marquee. Yes, she has been caught using drugs in the public bathrooms all around town and she’s not the only one. The question then becomes, of course, how many drugs are being done in these places? Certainly you run a high risk (pun intended) of being caught abusing drugs if you are a celebrity, but what about us ordinary folk? Are drugs swimming through the clubs as the tabloids would have us believe? Read More »

The inner 7th grader in me is SUPER excited today.Why may you ask? Well its the day before Halloween. And whether I’m fourteen or forty-four the day before Halloween is filled with a sense of excitement.

Decorations are up, candy is in position, pumpkins are carved and costumes are ready. Everything is in its place and the young-at-heart-part of me has ants in my pants and is tired of waiting!

But that isn’t the only reason that today feels a bit more like 1999 than 2007. In 1999, you turned on TRL or the Today Show and who did you see?

Britney Spears or the Backstreet Boys singing to screaming pre-pubescent girls pronouncing their love with tears of adoration.

Flash forward to October 30th 2007: Turn on the Today Show and who do you see?

Post-pubescent girls still screaming their hearts out for the BSB.

Pull out your butterfly clips and Kipling back-pack purses girls:

Britney’s latest release Blackout and BSB’s Unbreakable (both aptly titled) are hitting stores today! Read More »

Dear Britney,

I hope this letter finds you well. Or at least wearing a pair of underwear. I am writing to you today on behalf of all of us 20-something women who spent our high school and college years dancing/working out to your music and thinking of your ridiculous abs as we lay on the gym floor willing ourselves to do one last crunch.

We are worried about you, Britney.

It was only a few years ago that you sat atop the world in a one piece leather jumpsuit. Then along came Kevin. You fell in love, you got married and decided to bow out of the spotlight for a bit. That’s fine. I could have used a few new songs on my workout playlist, but everyone is entitled to a little “me” time. But, somehow, “Britney” time turned into “Trailer Park” time and we saw what can now be considered the furthest fall for a celeb since Michael Jackson started touching little boys.

What happened behind the closed doors at camp Spears? How did you go from the hottest thing on the planet to this?

Britney, while you totally screwed the pooch at the VMA’s (a bra and panty set? Really?!) and, while we’re at it, at raising children, it really isn’t that hard for you to make a comeback. Maybe not as a mega pop star, but at least as someone not totally crazy/white trash and who has a shred of dignity. And who can keep her eyelashes in the correct place while doing a giant interview on NBC. Read More »