Reid About It

We're down to six, and this week it's fan voting that chooses which song each singer performs. Fans choose from songs that the other singers have already performed. I think each should have to sing a song that got somebody else thrown off the show. Somebody should have to sing Zayra Spanish song that baffled millions.

We recap last week's show, just in case everybody forgot that Dilana is a bitch. I hate to break it to the general public, but having an out-of-control ego is not a detriment to being a rock singer. The musicians panel is used to dealing with Axl Rose, Vince Neil, Perry Farrell, and the legendarily whiny members of Metallica. A little complaining about coworkers is nothing.

Lukas starts us off, and sets his sights on doing a Nirvana song better than everybody's arch-nemesis Dilana. I said earlier Lukas is a guy who should be singing for a band with "The" in their name, and now I know why. Just like all of those guys, it looks like his stage presence is taken straight from early Mick Jagger. The tight suit, the pout, the chicken dance, the hands on hips, it's all there.

Dave does that thing where he makes you think he's going to scold the singer, and then tells them that they're awesome. Never gets old.

Magni is next, doing Live's "I Alone." No fair here, I thought Magni was actually in Live. He wanders into the crowd and really nails it.


Up next is Ryan, breaking out the piano to do a Coldplay song. Then, he tosses the piano stool and climbs up on top to sing, showing that he can at least contribute some property damage to the band. His voice is good, but his delivery is cliche.

The band tells him he did very well, leading us to realize that everybody left on the show is good, and it's a crapshoot now. Hopefully whoever doesn't win gets some solo tracks on iTunes within a week, so they don't get a case of "Jordis Syndrome."

Storm admits she doesn't know the Evanescence song she's been chosen to sing, thus reaffirming her as my favorite. When I build our CD collection for me and the new Mrs. Storm Large Kerr, we'll skip from Elvis Costello right to Everclear, and leave Evanescense right out.

Gilby tells her that he probably won't remember her performance. Big deal, Gilby toured with Guns N'Roses. He doesn't remember large chunks of the 90's.

Toby gets Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell." Storm gets a song with a huge range, and Toby gets a song that only seems to have four notes in it, and can even be sung by Billy Idol. Doesn't seem fair. Toby brings girls onstage, showing that win or lose, he's got his rock-and-roll priorities straight.

And finally, Dilana does "Mother Mother," and absolutely kills with it again. She may look like Rob Zombie's daughter, but she can belt it out.

Bottom three predictions: Storm, Ryan, and Magni.

(Aug/2006) The sports world was shocked this week, when formerly nice guy Rafael Palmiero was suspended for being chock-full of steroids. Raffy testified before Congress five months ago, vehemently denying any use of steroids ever in what has become more ironic than Vince Neil wearing a "No Fat Chicks" t-shirt. Palmiero said he had no idea how the steroid got into his body. Here are a few clues, Raffy.

• If your nutritional supplement comes in a jar with a picture of an animal, a bulldozer, or Jose Canseco on it, it's a steroid.
• If the serving instructions include the phrase "jammed in your ass," it's a steroid.
• If the only time you can buy it is when you play a preseason game in Mexico, it's a steroid.
• If the guy who turned you onto it your rookie year is already dead, it's a steroid.
• If the product's slogan is "Hulk Smash," it's a steroid.
• If everytime you take it, you have the urge to beat up the next person you see, even if it's just you in your mirror, it's a steroid.
• If it's marketed by Vince McMahon, it's a steroid.
• If after using the product for a month, you have to replace your batting helmet with a fruit basket, it's a steroid.

Now it comes out that Palmiero didn't take a supplement, but actually a steroid associated with racehorses. Nice. Now I have to point out that Palmiero has had more stolen bases than Secretariat and Seattle Slew put together.

Today is officially the one-year anniversary of the Reid About It.com blog. To celebrate, this week I'll be reposting some of the original bits from a year ago. Enjoy!

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I just bought Jack Kerouac's "On The Road" on a book-on-CD, as read by Christopher Walken. It comes on a boxed set of 232 CDs.

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Well, logic has returned to life. No longer will I have to hear people with bad breath tell me how simply eating bacon can make me live longer. The Atkins Diet is officially dead.

At one point, the Atkins revolution was everywhere, just one step short of becoming the new Scientology. Anyone who dared point out the natural fallacy of thinking you could lose weight by eating nothing but sausage and meatloaf was shouted down.

"This is the new way," they'd bellow, and scarf down a triple-hamburger with no bun. "The face of proper nutrition has been changed forever," they would proclaim while eating a dozen eggs and eliminating all fresh fruit from their houses. "That old way of diet is old and outdated," they'd summarize as the smell of death wafted from their mouths, and they ran to the toilet to rid themselves of enough meaty remains to render a submarine uninhabitable.

Calling this diet the "Atkins craze" was a perfect description of it. The disciples were so sucked in by the prospect of eating semi-normally and still losing weight, they became completely irrational. Giving up fruit, pasta, and bread in favor of eating like a Puma, and expecting the weight to just fall off of your body is not logical.

You want to lose weight, you eat less and exercise. You do not eat fast food burgers without the bun, and pretend you're eating Soylent Green.

There were immediate results, as people did lose weight briefly. So what? Crystal Meth is an excellent diet aid if you're willing to take it long enough to rot out your teeth. You don't see a lot of fat guys on Cops, do you?

I'm not sure if Jim Jones included nutritional guidelines in his plan to bring his followers to Jonestown, but it wouldn't surprise me if he told them the way to heaven was lined with pork chops. They would have lined up and drank the Kool-Aid happily.

We're taking a break from 80's trivia this week, it will return next Friday. Until then, I thought I'd tide you over with a joke. I'm not a big joke kind of guy, so here's really the only one I ever tell.

Noah's Ark pulls out, and the rain starts to fall. Two Unicorns stand out by the rail, looking out as they pull away.

One says to the other, "What do you think, Dan?"

The other takes a deep breath and says, "Frankly Steve...I think we're screwed."

Have a good weekend!

We had a grand total of two winners winner this week, as a lot of people were 4 of 5 but just couldn't get over the hump. Slamtundra of Houston was our first winner, joined by Lisa and Jen in Washington. Here's the answers.



More trivia coming up on Friday!

Friday means it's time for the weekly 80's trivia challenge, tiny snippets from five songs from the 80s. Last week, nobody got all five correct. Can you name them? First one to do it gets to promote their website on ReidAboutIt.com next week. Here we go.



I'll post the winners next Tuesday. Make me proud, you guys. Have a good weekend.

I was at the store, and I saw a man walking towards me pushing his buggy. He was short, paunchy, dirty, wearing a soiled tank top. His arms were covered with poorly-drawn tattoos, the faded greys making him look even filthier. He appeared to be in his late twenties, and already balding, with a bad haircut that drew attention to it.

His wife was with him, a startlingly unattractive woman who could have been slightly Hispanic, or possibly just very dirty. Trailing behind them was their ten-year-old child, a hyperactive, rickets-infested noise machine. He was picking up foodstuffs, looking at the pictures, and then dropping them to the floor below and laughing. He paused at a display of sodas, climbed up on them and pretended to take a poop on them to impress his parents.

As I walked past them, I noticed that among his tattoos was something written in blurry block letters on the back of his neck. He passed me, and I focused on the faded ink to see what he could possibly have believed in strongly enough to mark in such a prominent location.

It spelled out "L-U-C-K-Y".

The only good thing about the summer heat in Texas is that the Jehovah's Witnesses don't have the range they normally do.

Down to eight singers on Rockstar Supernova, and this week's show is the stripped-down, string section version of the band. Everybody's hung over because they went to Vegas. Is that part of Tommy Lee's initiation process, too? Seeing how everybody plays when screwed up? Seems like it would be a good question to ask.

Zayra starts us off with an original song. In Spanish. While wearing a bikini and what looks like a theatre curtain around her waist. Not too bad, although still wrong for the band. She's so weird, I find myself wondering if she really knows Spanish, or if she's just making up syllables as she goes along.

Up next is Magni, doing a David Bowie song. Magni is bald, wearing a white suit and black t-shirt that makes him look a lot like a villain from "Miami Vice".

And for my younger readers, let me point out that before that was a disappointing movie, it was a TV show. That's what I'm talking about. I was talking about it the other day with my pool man, Phillip Michael Thomas.

I've noticed something. I don't even notice when Patrice is singing anymore. You ever start driving, and the radio is on, and then you suddenly realize that you've gone twenty miles and don't remember a single moment of it? Patrice is the soundtrack of that uneventful journey.

Lukas took the stage, and managed to take a song by Nickelback and make it worse, somehow. He was sitting in a kitchen chair, and looked just completely uncomfortable. If you're going to wear pink stuff on your eyelids, dude, don't smear it. It makes you look cheap. I spent most of his song trying to figure out what was on his left arm, covered up with what appeared to be black electrical tape. A misspelled tattoo, perhaps? Fresh gunshot wound? Mark of the beast? Who knows.

Storm gets blonder every week, this time with "I Will Survive." She's wearing a jacket with shoulder pads that makes her look like she bought her stage gear at Taylor Dayne's yard sale. I like the poerformance, but then again, I have a proposal to stick by. The band hates it.

It's quicker becoming obvious that making the singers perform with a string section is boring the piss out of the band. Why make them do this? Chances are, Tommy Lee won't ever perform with an orchestra. The closest he'll come is a group sex evening with four strippers who call themselves the "G-String Quartet".

Toby performs "Solsbury Hill" by Peter Gabriel, an intensely personal song that doesn't seem right when anybody else sings it. Luckily, in an effort to get into the performance Toby again mangles the words so badly you can't tell what he's saying. The first verse was even close to the original lyrics, or even intelligible words for that matter. The two trademarks of a Toby performance are mumbled lyrics and rockstar props. Last week, the bullhorn. This week, the bongos. Just not that impressive, dude. Bongos are toys they give to children. It's not that big of a deal.

Ryan does a Phil Collins song, and the band complements him on changing things up from week to week. Apparently "changing it up" means "sounding more and more like Eddie Vedder".

And finishing things off, Dilana does "Cats In The Cradle." She hits the verses so low, I'm afraid the furniture in my house is going to shatter. She's got the range of Axl Rose, except better, because she shows up on time.

Bottom three predictions: Patrice, Ryan, and Zayra.

I pitched a shutout this week on the Friday 80's Trivia. No one got all five correct, in fact, only one person got four correct.

The correct answers are...



Better luck next week. More coming up this Friday!

For another good example of how famous people don't have any idea of what real people want, here's Nicole Richie, who apparently thinks it's unattractive to weigh more than her clothes. Kids, this is what happens when you treat nicotene and caffeine as food groups.

You know, once upon a time, Nicole's dad saw some people that were her age and looked exactly like her, and he concluded that they were starving to death. He went out and got his friends together, and they sang a song for charity to raise money to get them food.

Friday means it's time for the weekly 80's trivia challenge, tiny snippets from five songs from the 80s. Can you name them? First one to do it gets to promote their website on ReidAboutIt.com next week. Here we go.



I'll post the winners next Tuesday. Make me proud, you guys. Have a good weekend.

Honest question. When you think of a bad artform, who comes to mind? We used to have universal high points of suckage ("Ishtar", "Heaven's Gate", "My Mother the Car", The Starland Vocal Band). What are they now?

Quick examples. When I think of "not funny," Jimmy Fallon jumps to mind. With the exception of SNL's "Barry Gibb Show" and his early musical appearances, I've never found the guy funny. I'd throw Horatio Sanz in there, but I don't think abybody thinks he's funny to begin with.

Musically, I think Nickelback sucks. The way he sings every song like he's crapping his pants bothers me.

I think David Caruso's style of matter-of-fact-I'm-just-reading-my-script delivery sucks. I'd rather watch Tony Danza tell the "Aristocrats" joke than see Caruso do anything.

Take the time, and use the pulpit. No right or wrong answers. This is your chance. Tell us all what sucks.

Lindsey Lohan has decided she wants to follow in the boobsteps of Marilyn Monroe, and go overseas to entertain troops.

"It's so amazing seeing that one woman just going somewhere, this beautiful sex kitten, who's basically a pinup, which is what I've always aspired to be," Lohan said.

Wow. Them's some pretty high goals you've set for your yourself, Lindsey. To heck with acting, singing, dancing, or anything else involving entertainment. There is no higher goal than to be pretty, and to become the masturbatory fantasy of tens of thousands of soldiers who haven't seen good old American fake boobs in quite a while. Seems like a good career plan. Don't bother to entertain, just bend over and shake a little bit.

...adding that she would prepare for her trip to Iraq by taking shooting lessons with her security guard.

And was this part of the plan to free Iraq? Lindsey Lohan packing a hand cannon? If Democracy depends on arming teen actresses, I think Plato's Republic is dead as a hammer, kids.

Down to ten singers left, and nobody wanted to take the song ("Won't Get Fooled Again") that came with a performance by one of the band. Finally, Dilana took it, and pretty much won the contest right there. She absolutely killed with it. Game over. Meeting adjourned.

Jill unveiled her inner Alanis, which didn't suck. She finished by going into the audience. The fact that nobody groped her is a bad sign.


For "Paint It Black," Ryan came out of the crowd, dressed like a hooded Goth-dude, then threw back the hood to reveal a mask painted on his face. That's a little too far into Scott Weiland-artfreak territory for me. When you do creepy weird stuff like that, it just drives home your uncanny resemblance to David Blaine.

Storm got stuck with a Queen song that's not only overplayed, but damn near impossible to cover. Let's see, we've had the Who, the Stones, and Queen. How about a cover song by somebody from the last thirty years?

Not yet, Zayra draws a Mott the Hoople song. Who's picking these covers, Don Kirshner? She performed in a giant top hat, dressed like an Oscar statuette with enormous boots on. The car wreck continues.

Josh got up to sing, and Tommy Lee stopped him to come over and play drums. If you will watch the tape, you can spot the exact moment Josh's testicles recede. He vanished like vapor on stage standing in front of Tommy. Not a good sign.



Magni, in front of his family, performs with just an acoustic guitar, leading Dave to complement him on being the "first singer to stand up there, by yourself, unaccompanied, and deliver a song." Well, except for Ryan, who did the exact same thing last week with a solo rendition on piano. Dave's been on the road a while, he's not much for long term memory.

Patrice decided to wear her brown hair in two pigtails on the top corners of her head tonight, making her look just like a yorkshire terrier.



Not to be outdone, Lukas unveiled his secret weapon tonight, and performed wearing Peter Gallagher's eyebrows.

Toby then played "Burning Down The House," getting at least some of the lyrics out. Then, he pulled out the megaphone and stepped into goofy unintentional rockstar humor.

Bottom three predictions: Josh, Zayra, Jill

Well, they're knocking down the doors in Hollywood to defend Mel Gibson. Patrick Swayze and Jodie Foster have both come out, no pun intended, in support of him.

Really? Wow! Mel's drawing supporters from Hollywood's A-List, isn't he? Swayze hasn't had a big hit since the first Bush administration, and Foster's not exactly a girl to kill the President for anymore. I can't wait to see Mel pulling support from Dustin "Screech" Diamond, Jackee, and Ray J. Johnson. Get me position papers on this from Joyce Dewitt, Harry Anderson, and Gil Gerard, stat! Where do Ian Zeiring, Donna Dixon, and Erin Moran stand on the issue?

My favorite part of this will be when it goes to trial. Does Gibson fight the drunk driving charge, since the alcohol is his alibi for the anti-Semetic comments? Or does he get up on the stand and protect himself against his statements by saying, "Your honor, I was as drunk as a human being can be. I apologize to cops, and Jews, and SugarTits."

It bears watching.

The Friday Trivia Challenge baffled a few of you this time, #2 and #3 had several wrong answers. Our winners of this week were Martha In Massachusetts, and Lisa and Jen in Washington. The correct answers were...



More trivia snippets coming up Friday!

Friday means the weekly free music and trivia challenge. The free download of the week is from my bands, The Caucasian Boys. Here's a stripped-down cover of Prince's "When Doves Cry". Enjoy! Or not, whatever.

The MySpace musician of the week is Steve Vai, a great guitarist who made his first mark back the 80's with David Lee Roth's band. Check out his MySpace site, really expressive playing and some complicated arrangements. Check it out.

And your 80's challenge of the weekend, snippets from five songs from the 80s. Can you name them? First one to do it gets to promote their website on ReidAboutIt.com next week.



I'll post the winners next Tuesday. Make me proud, you guys. Have a good weekend.

Porn star Jenna Jameson has been immortalized in wax at Madame Toussaud's Museum. She is the first adult film actress to be honored as such, but is certainly not the first one to be covered in wax.

Actually, this isn't new. I think you can buy a wax figure of Jenna and have it delivered to your home.

And by "wax", I mean "inflatable". Not that I'm sure about that.

Okay, I'm hooked. I'll admit it. I can't watch American Idol, but its grungier cousin, Rock Star: SuperNova has me reeled in. In case you're not watching, people compete to sing for a band made up of Jason Newsted (Metallica), Gilby Clarke (Guns N Roses), and Tommy Lee (Motley Crue, homemade porn). Where American Idol has the classicially oversinging Star Search moments, Rock Star has the dirty, growling, rock and roll moments, as a dozen singers try to win a job that most of them aren't a good fit for anyway.

Here are the survivors so far, and my predictions on their futures.


Lukas has a certain look about him, which is like saying a blind date has lots of personality. Personally, I like my bad singers to not have quite so much sparkly crap on their eyes. Lukas should be singing for a band that had "The" in their name, like "The Femurs", or "The Blind", or "The Scrotum".


Magni is from Iceland, so we're treated to plenty of shots of him missing his wife, and looking at pictures of his newborn kid on the internet. Yeah, it's real tragic that he's not there for his kid's birth. If he misses him so much, why is he trying to get a job that will require him to miss the rest of his son's life in exchange for touring the world in a whirlwind of sex and drugs with Tommy Lee's band? Let's not make Magni out to be Hugh Beaumont here. He's got his priorities.

Magni should get the jobs the bald Chris guy from last year's American Idol turns down.


Jill has no stage presence, and always seems to be flat as a hammer on the first night. It takes more than nice abs and Pantene to make a singer. Jill should front a Sass Jordan tribute band. If there's not one, there should be.



Zayra is purely entertaining. She fits the "Master P" spot on the show, someone who is so blessedly awful and oblivious to it that she becomes entertaining in the car crash way. You never know what she's going to play, and quite often afterwards, you still don't know what you saw. Zayra should have a solo career, with a lot of weird-looking fans.



Dana , this week's victim, the girl with the five-head proudly announced to the band that she was adopting their rebellious attitude and getting her first tattoo. Yeah, one small outlined tattoo is going to impress Tommy Lee, and his human ink sleeves. Tommy's hardcore. His tattoo needles give you diseases you'll keep for the rest of your life. Dana should find religion and hit the fried chicken circuit, where she can spin her tale of temptation and tattoos.


Storm is so good, I'm rooting for her to not win. She's the wrong fit for this band, but you can tell she's been on stage for most of her life. Good pipes, good presence, and a star quality about her. Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to officially invite Storm to marry me. Storm should be the next Mrs. Reid Kerr.

Ryan finally turned heads when he performed a solo piano rendition of REM's "Losing My Religion" this week. If Michael Stipe had originally done that number with such gut-wrenching, stone-passing angst, the song wouldn't have held us all hostage for that entire summer back in the 90's. Ryan should overdub vocals for Eddie Vedder.


Josh. I'll be honest, I have no idea who this guy is. He stands out like an individual blade of grass. It seems like I vaguely remember him wearing a hat one week. That's my complete memory of Josh. Josh should be the guy we can't remember from this show, like Chris Mullin on the original Dream Team.




Toby. Toby is like Josh, but with a vague accent. Don't think Toby is generic? Did you notice the picture isn't of him, but of professional wrestler Christian Cage? Toby should be playing boat shows next year.


Patrice seems to never get it right on the first show, but she always performs well enough to save herself on Wednesday. Appears to have not washed her hair since Cobain was alive. Patrice should hope next year's show is picking a new singer for L7 or the 4 Non-Blondes.

Dilana should be your winner. She's got the chops, the stage presence, and the weird piercings. She's the only one of the remaining ten I can see that could stand on stage with this band and not back down. Dilana should go on to win, and hopefully have a better career than the winner of the first year's contest.

What do you think? Comments always welcome.

Back with the answers for this week's trivia questions. My first correct answer came from Houston's own SlamTundra. As his prize, Slam would like you to check out Dwight Yoakam's website. Other winners this week were Kimberly in Ohio, Lisa in Washington, Martha and Christine in Massachusetts, Rachel , Caroline, and Tommy in Texas, and Chuck in Florida. The answers were...



More coming up this Friday!