A singer I’d never heard of was recently a guest on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, Nicki Minaj, a strange-looking woman with flowing blond hair like a horse’s mane. I say strange-looking (although quite attractive) because she was decked out in a way that forced the viewer to regard her as strange, much like too many other musical stars today who try to win followers with their bizarre behavior and dress (Lady Gaga, to name only one). I remember first seeing Bette Midler on the Johnny Carson Tonight Show a bunch of year ago. Bette’s schtick back then was to say and do the most outlandish things to call attention to herself. I guess it worked then just as it seems to work now. I call Nicki Minaj a singer, but I don’t really believe it. She’s one of the rare female rappers. I don’t know if Ellen brings such people on her show because she truly admires their singing abilities or because she wants to expose them to the public for what they are. In either case, Nicki Minaj then performed for us, with two backup singers/dancers, scantily-clad, with flowing blond locks tipped with pink, the two of them simply flying around, doing pelvic bumps and flinging that blond pink-tipped hair around in circles. I don’t remember what Nicki sang/rapped because I don’t remember a single word of it, or didn’t understand a word of it. Which brings me to another observation: that too many current female singers engage in the pelvic thrusts of Nicki Minaj and her backups. Why do they have to say to their viewers and fans that they’d love to sexually hump them? Did this begin with Madonna? Or Britney? I look at Beyoncé, a truly beautiful woman, performing or doing a commercial for Pepsi or her fragrance line Heat, doing her very provocative pelvic moves. Does she need to do that? Are they classy moves? I try to imagine really classy singers from the past doing the same—Lena Horn, Sarah Vaughan, Peggy Lee, Barbra Streisand—from the present—Diana Krall, Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift. Nope, can’t imagine them doing it or needing to do it. So, Beyoncé, please stop doing it. You’re too beautiful a woman and too good a singer to need it.
I've always collected errors in diction, things people mis-hear, like "windshield factor" and "the next store neighbors." Years ago, one of my students wrote an essay in which she described the world as being harsh and cruel, "a doggy-dog world." I've since come to think she may have been more astute and accurate than those who describe it in the usual way. My Stories - Mobridge Memories -
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