http://youtu.be/rYEDA3JcQqw
I heard Adele flipped her middle finger “after being cut
off during an acceptance speech at the Brit awards” on February, 21, 2012. That was yesterday, by the way. She won…several awards in her home
country. Of which she is so proud and so
wanted to share that pride. By the by, she
won British album of the year for “21”. They
gave more time to other people and awards and performances…she, they cut off.
She won for the same album that garnered her all the
awards in America at our equivalent ceremony, the Grammy’s.
Let’s cut this 23 year old woman a break. Why is the world being so hard on her?
It’s not been an easy road for her, this is no London
princess. She wasn’t raised by rich
people or even by a set of parents. She
just had the music in her and that voice of angels. I cannot believe the people who are dinging
her now, saying her voice isn’t that good, she’s not so good….and the one I
read that added…. “Motown performers behaved better.” Say
what????
Motown performers were black pioneers. They couldn’t have ever given a bird on stage…it
would have destroyed them in America of the day. It would have destroyed a white artist in the
day. Why compare this white young chick
with the history of Motown performers? Let’s
reflect on Roy Orbison and Elvis Presley…my God, I do believe both these
incredibly talented “olden” day performers did things that were scandalous in
their day…think…back. Let’s look at the
vile mouths of some of our performers, all races and sexes today…who should we
compare her act to?
Let’s reflect a
moment on the curse words, the lyrics of some of our popular music now. The bird is kind of quaint by
comparison. And, young people, black,
white, olive, dark, Hispanic, whatever….use language you and I didn’t use in
the day. The best thing that can be said
for our young people, in my humble, though antiquated opinion is they seem to
be color blind…God Bless them and us for finally getting there.
Let’s look at how 13-16 years talk in our day…let’s look
at what we’ve accepted over the last 30 years?
So, Adele flipped the bird. Not
to her fans. Not to get attention. Not just cause she had the stage and could.
A 23 year old performer, Adele has had a life that many
of us could maybe relate to, and she showed frustration. You want to call it a lack of maturity? You have at it. I think I might have done the same and worse. It’s not because I’m not mature, or I’m low
class…it would be for me, because sometimes the world is beyond comprehension
and as a human being…like you…if you think…we react. Sometimes things become too much. Sometimes, it gets to be surreal for all of
us. Don’t you think? Such is life….such are the things that we do
that aren’t perfect. Please let her not
second guess this forever, let it go, let it go…shit happens. If you are perfect, have always been, please
write and publish your book, so we can all worship at your altar and learn….
Mind you, I’m not saying a bird is the best way to
protest…but think…who were you at 23? And
when did you…and all the critics get so special, mature and worldly…almost
saintly, that you feel you can point out to her, “oh Adele, you shouldn’t have,
how poor, how classless, what a showing of utter vulgarity???!!”
In December 2011, Adele became the first female in
Nielsen Sound Scan history to have the year’s number one album, number one single
and number one music video. The same
month, Billboard named her artist of the year.
She won for Billboard Album and song of the year; becoming the first
female to top all three of these categories.
What do young people do?
They curse, they float the bird, they ignore you, they gossip quietly
behind your back…they unfriend you. They
tell other people when you’re not around that you are crazy or bad…cause they
grew up in a generation where they didn’t learn to confront other people, to
address differences in opinion, to deal with the bitter daily trifle and sadness
of the workplace, the utter blatant unfairness that is inherent in life…cause
they grew up making friends on the computer and negotiating all their
relationships there. They didn’t grow…. up
spending long days alone without any adult supervision, hanging with friends,
at 8-12, riding bikes, roller skating, playing odd chase em and catch em games
for hours on end, without adult oversight, intrusion, and intervention. You learned to tell someone when you were
irked, when they annoyed you, when they crossed boundaries. You had to, they were in front of you, not on
a screen you could minimize.
If you grew up like me, you were threatened, you got in
fist fights, you were scared, but you played and you talked … and you told
people what you thought in the here and now or then or there. The younger generation people didn’t grow up
that way. They had a different life than
us.
So, get the hell off the judgment wagon, it’s just
getting too old. One artist flips a
bird, for no damn reason at all at a Major American event…MIA, and that’s all I’ll
say, because it was so classless, it doesn’t deserve comment. It was an affront to the woman who hired her
to be on stage with her. It was an
attempt to upstage and get attention, much like an infant might do.
Now another…flips a bird…when she is trying to tell her
countrymen how much they mean to her and her success. She’s told, sorry, girlfriend, no more time
for you…because Jo Blow went a little long.
We must be sure to play the entire musical number planned to end this
event. Little girl, it’s so much more
important than you, than what you accomplished, than your sense of feeling
good, your satisfaction, your special night and your need to tell the public in
your home land you love them. The show
must go on…right, despite whatever’s on stage in the moment?
Okay, I’d have given the bird and told the host to get
himself away from me. Just saying. But, you know, I’m older. Some things take time to learn.
It’s a small world, Disney said so many years ago, but it’s
also an ever changing world and we can’t keep flipping back and forth and
making decisions as to who and what we are going to judge today…by our standards.
Times, they are a changing. When will we all get and accept that and
apply it to all of our current young people and future generations, to our
children, to the brave new world of performers out there putting themselves out
on the line, front line, for our entertainment?
Let’s reflect, teach, talk about our experiences and stop making judgments.
Adele, is a very young girl, who worked her ass off, who
had the kind of life so many of us could relate to if we thought about it. This is not a rich girl, who grew with
advantages. She’s the child of a single
mother. How many children are there in
the United States being raised by Single women?
How many times have we talked about how the lack of father involvement
is destroying our current young generation?
Well, she’s kind of part of that generation…and she’s making her way. So, women, maybe you can raise a good and
successful child even if the man who fathered the child is absent, unavailable,
alcoholic, mentally ill, abusive, or just gone. And maybe she will be dissed when she’s grown
up, worked hard and made it…what do you teach her?
I feel fathers are
important, especially for young girls, who rarely successfully survive to reach
their full potential without the support and love of a stable daddy. Girls are for a lifetime affected by that
lack of a daddy figure, though the popular culture likes to fault lack of
fathers for our son’s problems.
Adele made a comeback after throat microsurgery in
November 2011. She had her surgery at Massachusetts
General Hospital. She performed at the
Grammys in February 2012. She won in six
categories, making her the second female artist after Beyonce4 Knowles to win
six in a single night at the Grammy’s.
Not too shabby. She’s
all of 23. Sorry…in my lifetime of
advanced years, she’s a baby. No disrespect
intended; she’s accomplished incredible things for a baby. And she has a look, a style and a presence
that is ageless. She will be 24 on May 5th
2012. And, I admire the steel in her
back.
How did she get where she is now? Money, family connections….good fortune, good
luck, incredible family and support, talent?
In 2006…yes, barely six years ago a friend of hers posted Adele’s demo
on My Space. She was 18. At age 19, she released “19”, named for her
age at the time she started recording it.
She received numerous rewards and in March 2008, before she turned 20,
she signed a deal with Columbia Records.
In 2008, she cancelled some US tour dates, as she
explained, for a boy…and she was drinking too heavily. She commented of her action, “It seemed so
ungrateful…” She left her mother’s home in
November 2008 and stopped drinking. Her
album was certified gold here in February 2009.
She’s been involved and contributed to the Keep a Child Alive, a charity
that helps African Children and their families, living with HIV/AIDS.
In 2011, she released her second album, 21. It went platinum in her beloved United
Kingdom 14 times. It held the top
position in the United States longer than any other album since 1993. She rivaled Beatles records. “Rolling in the Deep”, the song she sung at
the Grammy’s was the year’s BEST SELLING SONG here in our country.
So, Monday, this’
horrible wench’ said on stage “…Nothing is better than coming home with six
Grammies and winning Album of the Year.
Nothing makes me prouder to be British.” She also won British Female Solo Artist
earlier this evening.
The crowd booed
when the host gave her the hook and told her there was no more time for her to
talk. It was running late because
someone ahead of her took too much time and evidently they weren’t stopped at
the time.
Adele said she wanted to thank the British public for all
their support, but she was pulled before she could. Next, a long closing performance by Blur. More important than all she’d accomplished.
Has this ever
happened before in the annals of music history?
Hmmm, let me think.
Why I do believe MIA flipped a bird at the Super bowl, here
in the good ole USA, while Madonna was performing, but for no particularly
good, guessed at or for any understandable reason. Except, the usual, for fame, notoriety, to
get attention. Wander what Madonna
thought afterwards? Madonna, who put her
on stage with her.
I actually heard someone say on television today, and don’t
throw up…”well, I wonder if she (Adele...) got a free pass because she’s a
portly white female?” Say what, and what? What?
If I have to explain and pick that statement apart with any of you
reading this, we’re on different worlds and wavelengths, so I’m not going to
try. But, really….portly…really…she got
a pass cause she’s white…really, did she not have at least some reason to
react, and maybe to momentarily let a flash of anger overwhelm her normally
calm, sweet, grateful demeanor? Come
on? And, I know…I wasn’t going to pick
this apart, but since when is having a woman’s body…never mind …. Stupid
statement to begin with. SHE IS neither
PORTLY…nor fat. She is a woman in a
woman’s body. And what does that have to
do with anything anyway?
She looks fantastic.
I say God bless her heart for not
apologizing for not being a toothpick, in a model’s body. Yet is she jealous of her contemporaries with
their fabulous bodies? No, she admires
Katie Perry and Gaga and likes to look at them.
Well, hell, I like to look at them too…it brings me back
to my younger days and it’s all good….and you know what, Adele…. I’m straight, married
and a woman. I think you are beautiful
and I love to look at you. I love that you
feel no need to have your body parts hanging out. That you know who you are and are comfortable
with yourself, you should be. That you
are wearing a long blonde flip, much the same hairstyle I sported in the day…back
when it was fashionable for me…Goldie Hawn…and other women of that day. You look marvelous, darling, to coin an old
Saturday night phrase.
Her inspiration at the tender age of 13 was Pink, who she
saw in concert.
This young lady’s father sold “his life story”
to The Sun last year. She had been
thinking of reconciling with him prior to that. He talked about his split with her mother
and said he had a serious alcohol problem.
Being the daughter of an alcoholic…I know how that legal drug can affect
families and relationships. He took
credit for shaping her musical tastes, but he’d never attended one of her shows
or listened to her music very much. He
stated he loved her so much.
So, she said “it blows my mind”. “Really...why are you telling me that through
a newspaper?” This is a young woman with a past, not an
easy past…and everyone has an opinion…don’t they? The things people have said, “She’s too
cockney, she’s portly, she’s low class, she’s abusing her voice and it can’t
last….” I’ve talked to people in all walks of life,
that don’t know her, that are so ready to classify, downgrade, stereotype, and
write her off cause of the BIRD.
You know, at 58, today, if it happened to me, I’d just
have told the host “I’m not finished…” I’d
have kept talking. I’d have giving him my
most best warning evil old lady eye, the look that would have sent him
trucking. But, we don’t develop that
ability till our 40s, 50’s and 60’s, do we?
I would have given that host interloper the best wide open Tucson/New
Yorker/Irish/Hispanic Warning Eye I could have conjured and I would have scared
the Bejesus out of him. I have no
doubt. But, I’m old…and I don’t really
give a shit anymore. But I do care about
giving a talented young woman a chance, a break, and encouragement. You know what…she’ll make it regardless. You go girl.
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