After Lee DeWyze was crowned American Idol instead of Crystal Bowersox, an amazing thing happened.  I finally understood why Adam Lambert lost Idol.  It just took me a year to figure it out.  Okay, so I’m a little slow.  But judging from the goobeldygob of irate stories and reviews that followed the competition, a whole bunch of folks are even slower than me.

I’m slow, but I’m not the slowest.  That’s always a comfort. 

Last year, Adam Lambert was amazing on Idol and he lost.  Okay, some of his post-Idol antics made me a wee bit glad that he lost.  But still, the thought remained kicking around in my head until this season. How did Adam lose?  How could he be that good, that far above the others, and still not win the whole thing? 

This season turned out to be deja vu all over again.  There were all the others and then there was Mama Sox.  Just like last year, the judges would periodically slide in a sly comment about her superiority.  Once she was accused of being too certain that she’d win – a charge she protested heartily.  On Tuesday her final songs outclassed Lee’s so easily that she looked like a sure thing.  But then again, so did Adam last year after his final competition performance.

But this year, my feelings were different.  This year, I was hoping that Lee would pull it off, and I cheered when he did.  Last year I just walked away from the finale bummed.  You know what, Simon’s last interviews made me think that he’d had the same transformation as little ole’ me, little Mrs. Nobody from the Redneck Rivera.  (Heck, if I was gonna have something in common with Cowell, couldn’t it have been my bank balance?)

That’s why it took this year to make me understand last year and to possibly predict next season.  Now that I get it, I’ll be able to watch the process happen and chart it in my twisted little brain.  What is it, you ask? 

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I will not eat it with a spoon.  I will not ponder it all through June.  I do not want heartache stew. Sunshine, Sunshine how could you? 

‘Tis said that one of the real deal couples on the show will be calling it quits this season.  The cause of the breakup is “a very serious issue” that they can’t get past.  ‘Tis also said that there’s gonna be a new hook up on the show.  And the new hook-up allegedly involves McSteamy reconnecting with his man whore roots. People are speculating that the break up will not involve the dream team (Mer/Der).  But the grist for everyone’s mill has been the same as the grist churning around in mine – Sunshine says the finale will be a game changer for every single character; see links above and this one. 

So, Grey’s fans, this Thursday’s episode – “Hook Line & Sinner” – will be the first new one in several weeks and it will begin the march to the finale.  Now’s the time for all Grey’s fans to strap on the swami hat and commence speculating.  I’ve got mine on and I’m reaching under the sofa for my crystal ball – man that thing is dusty.  

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This week two couples on Grey’s Anatomy were talkin’ babies.  Will it go beyond the talking stage?  Will the stork drop off a bundle or two to some of Seattle Grace’s finest? 

Yeah, yeah, I know that when Ellen Pompeo was pregnant she and Patrick Dempsey sat down with Shonda Sunshine and suggested that Sunshine write the blessed event into the show. And yeah, I realize that Sunshine said no.  I’ve heard that she’s hinted/said/implied (take your pick) that there wouldn’t be a McBaby.  But I’ve heard other things too, and Sunshine does like to keep the fans guessing. 

Recently, on the March 25th edition of the Ausiello Files, Sunshine did a guest blog post about this season’s finale.  And she who created the McDreamy world says that it’s “the kind of finale that changes everything.”  She called it a “GAME. CHANGER.”  Emphasis and punctuation – Shonda’s.   

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This week’s Grey’s Anatomy was the first after a wee hiatus and it gives a glimpse into where the show is headed down the trail and possibly to the end of its run.  Ellen Pompeo (Meredith) hinted this week that the show would last about 2 more years.  If that’s the case, it looks like Shonda Sunshine is heading it back to where it started.  After all, Derek, on the heels of learning that his wife (Addison) had slept with his best friend (Mark), finally accepted Richard’s invitation to come to his hospital where Derek would be groomed as Chief.  Except, after Derek got there, Richard’s life and marriage disintegrated leaving Richard nothing to hold onto except the power for which he’d traded everything else. 

After years of waiting in the wings, Derek staged a coup and got the job he’d come West to take.   Richard’s fall off the wagon might have justified Derek’s sneak attack if only McDreamy hadn’t traded on inside information from the love of his life to pull it off.  In this episode, Richard sat in a conference room for hours, torn between whether to sign one document that gave up his job and medical license permanently, and another that committed to going into rehab and coming out to resume power.  What had Richard torn was the rehab part – he didn’t want to give up drinking b/c it was all he had left.  Finally though, Richard signed and headed to rehab and Derek got ready to take charge.  By the time Richard returns, there may be a battle, but I bet Derek will have learned that power ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.

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I’d never realized it until yesterday, but I’ve been a literary segregationist.  Oh I’ve never had a mental partition over race, or at least, I’m not aware of one, but yesterday I realized I had one over age.  Books written about high school kids are intended for that age through college age kids, right?  That means they’re not meant for me. 

So a while back Stephanie Meyer started releasing books in her Twilight series.   It’s a romance series and I write romance.  Lord knows, I read romance and I’ve surely been a reader of the genre for much longer than I’ve been a writer.  And I heard good things about these books everywhere.  But never once was I tempted to pick one up.  They weren’t written for me, now were they? 

My eldest son read the books and he flat out loves them.  Keep in mind, Zack doesn’t read romance.  The boy refuses to read anything I write and that’s natural enough – him reading my books would make me a wee bit antsy too.  But my eldest won’t even read this blog.  I’ve given him fair warning that from time to time I write about him, but still, he won’t read it.  Where does he get such stubbornness from? 

Okay, okay, maybe Zack and his Mom have a thing or two in common.

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AOFM here. Mary Anne and I want to wish you and yours a very merry Christmas!

To put you in the festive mood, I am posting a video from my BFF Mr. Brick that he and I did a couple of years ago (warning, may not be suitable for children). Enjoy, and…

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Men like to watch random people having sex. 

They’ll pull up pictures of the act, watch one internet video after another showing a different set of people doing similar things.  A whole genre of movies exists to cater to the male desire to watch generously endowed females wiggle, squirm, slither and squeal in high-pitched tones as the man gives it to her good.  A few scenes later, the same man – we’ll call him Dick - gives it to three different women (at the same time) and they enjoy it every bit as much as the first piece he left behind. 

Women like to read about how Dick discovers Jane – the woman who makes everything in the bedroom so different that he’ll change the way he lives after the orgasm’s over. 

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What theme does Shonda Sunshine want to explore on the sixth season of Grey’s Anatomy?  I think it’s her take on the old adage – You Are What You Think You Are.  Although the theme is rather conventional, I expect that Sunshine’s take on it will be anything but standard.

Who set the theme?  Why, it was Lexie’s question to Callie:  “How gay are you?”  Don’t forget, Callie had been wandering around in states of half dress right in front of Lexie’s beau Mark.  Callie even darted in to speak to Mark while he was wearing nothing but steam from his shower.  So Lexie put the question to Callie who could have answered it straight out, proclaiming herself a lesbian and any future romantic escapades with McSteamy impossible.  She didn’t do that.  Instead, she said Mark didn’t see her boobs anymore and that meant he was committed to Lexie. 

Ahmm,  yeah, right.  So now, Lexie must measure the status of her thing/fling with McSteamy by checking the degree of his boob blindness.  Can he see other boobs today?  Some boobs?  All boobs?  No boobs?    He’s only as into her as he thinks he is.  So she should watch out for the cry - Boobs ahoy!

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Okay, get your mind off of all the weirdness of MJ’s latter years.  As for the criminal charges, don’t go there.  Think about the music and the performances.  Get yourself in that mind space.  Maybe it’ll help if you squeal “Ooh” and “I’m Bad” three or four times.  Okay, focused now? 

 His death was tragic. Having a creative force like his snuffed out so quickly, so needlessly has deprived the world of years of music and magic.  So while it’s certainly his tragedy, his family’s tragedy, it’s also a loss for everyone who ever turned on a radio or downloaded music.  In the wake of the sudden loss there were many retrospectives and tributes.

As one of those tributes Fox re-broadcast the first American Idol finalist show of this season featuring the top 13 performing Michael Jackson songs.  I watch American Idol and enjoy seeing the group working and growing into music professionals.  It’s always fun to see someone working to make their dream come true.  But I’d forgotten about that MJ show because, at the time, it was just another show.  Too bad it wasn’t done later in the season with the gloved one giving the finalists performance critiques and suggestions. 

My favorite contestant of this past season was Adam Lambert.  We all recall that he finished second.  My only explanation for that is that Kris Allen was everyman — the one more like the average American watching on the sofa at home.  Adam has too much creative force to be contained or labeled in any one genre or tradition.  Adam will never be anyone’s everyman — but neither is Elton John and, of course, neither was Michael Jackson. 

As one of the last performances of the show, Adam Lambert did MJ’s “Black or White.”  Adam nailed it, standing out from the others like Sir Elton at a High School talent contest.  His performance impressed the judges too, including Simon Cowell, the one we love to hate and hate to love.  Simon’s comments made me think and inspired this post.  Simon said Adam nailed it because (and I’m paraphrasing here because I didn’t watch the episode with pen in hand) - To make a MJ song work , a performer has to be totally comfortable on stage, and he has to perform the song like Michael – over the top.

Why did that resonate with me? When Adam and MJ perform, they do it over the top.  When I write romance, I write it over the top.  For a writer or performer to succeed, he or she has to do it the way it comes naturally.  If Kris Allen tried to perform MJ over the top, it wouldn’t work for him at all.  It worked for Lambert because that’s how his art speaks to him.  It’s the same for a romance novelist.  You can only write romance over the top and have it carry the reader along if that’s how the story and the characters speak to the writer.  I understand MJ’s approach to music because I know it must have come as naturally to him as my stories come to me. 

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Grey’s – The Finale.  Happy and sad and puzzling all rolled up into a two hour teaser to keep viewers wondering until next season.  I’ll leave the pondering of Izzie and George’s fates to others.  That’s not what started me asking about the rest of the story. ‘Twas the post-it vows and Shonda Sunshine’s tease that did that. 

As you surely know, instead of making a trip to City Hall on a day when two friends’ lives hung in the balance  - even if they didn’t know about George yet – Mer/Der decided to get married by writing vows on a post-it note. Mer had suggested the quick trip to City Hall because she couldn’t live another day without being married to Der.  He agreed, but later, it was Derek who came up with the idea that they’d write down the vows they wanted to make to each other on a post it note.  Then, he said, they’d be married.

They decided to vow:  (1) they would love each other even when they hated each other; (2) no one could leave or run away; and (3) they’d take care of each other when they were old and senile.  Kiss and tender moment and they left and proclaimed themselves married.  But of course, they aren’t. I’m sitting in South Carolina where we have common law marriage where they could proclaim themselves publicly married and make it so.  Grey’s is situated in the state of Washington where there is no such thing.  Mer and Der proclaiming themselves married does not make it so.

In an interesting interview with Ausiello of TV Guide, Shonda  Rhimes says that the post it wedding “will have big reverberations next season.”  Now there, romance fans, is a REST OF THE STORY CHALLENGE. 

Anytime a man you want to marry suggests a post-it wedding, you should worry.  There are lots of shoes left to drop here. One is what they didn’t vow – fidelity.  If Izzie and George do go off into the great beyond, likely more doctors will be brought into the mix.  They’d provide potential romantic threats for Mer/Der’s unorthodox coupling.  There’s the nurse Der slept with a couple of times – what if she was pregnant?  There’s Der’s ex off on another show that lots of folks think should return to this one.  On Private Practice, Addison has been flirting with a romance with a married man.  What if she returns to Seattle determined to get her man back and give marriage another try?  In real life, Ellen Pompeo is pregnant and if her character gets pregnant, there would be a lot of social pressure for a wedding and some issues for the couple to deal with like, whose last name would the baby have.  There will surely be pressure from staff and friends to make the marriage real which is likely to cause Mer to bow up, refuse and stir the pot some more.  Little issues, like last names on medical licenses loom as well.  What if there’s another lawsuit or a trial with the one filed last season?  Mer couldn’t claim marital privilege based on a post-it wedding. 

How would I write the rest of the story?  Der’s Mom gave the couple her seal of approval and even passed along the engagement ring she’d never allowed Addison to wear.  But Mer (which I just do not find realistic) proclaims herself not a ring kind of gal. She’s not wearing the precious heirloom.  Der’s sisters don’t like Mer anyway and once they find out she’s not even wearing the ring – they may change Mom’s mind too.  Implications?  Obvious and many.  The family may bring in some of Der’s old girlfriends.  They may conspire to show Mer in a bad light.  They may push Der to demand a formal wedding which Mer’s decided she doesn’t want because they’re already married.  I suspect the social pressure from the hospital will play a part along with some snide comments from Mark.  Insecurity on both sides will rear its ugly head because they don’t really have papers on each other.  If Mer won’t wear an engagement ring, will either she or Der wear a wedding ring?  That’s bound to cause some internal friction between the couple.  I can see Der not telling his family about the “wedding” and Mer not understanding.  I can imagine his family’s reaction when he does tell them.  Der’s family is much more traditional.  A post it wedding?  Get real.  Clearly, they would say, he staged the farce because deep down, he didn’t want to marry her at all.  Deep down, they’d say, he still considers himself wed to Addison, or wed not at all.     

Where’s it all headed?  One possibility is that Mer will be pregnant on the show and it won’t be a stable pregnancy – which would fit the character.  The medical challenges might bring Addison in for a consult and possibly even some of the temptation for Der I was discussing earlier.  Reunion sex is even a possibility given that a pregnant Mer would be moodier than a non-pregnant Mer and Der would likely spend most of his time reminding himself he promised to love her even if he hated her.  If Der’s not the husband then Mer would call the shots with treatment.  And if it culminated in a life or death decision, then Der wouldn’t have any legal right to tell the medical team to save Mer before the baby.  The one with the legal right to call the shots would be the next of kin, Mer’s sister, or her designated “person” Christina or even Mer’s Father.  Dramatic implications in that struggle are obvious.  It could end with a life or death scenario, with Derrick demanding one thing and the others demanding another.

The medical scenario works the same even if Derrick is in a life or death crisis.  His next of kin would be Mom, influenced by his sisters.  They’d have already had the tug of war – was there or wasn’t there a wedding?  No priest or reverend, no license, no marriage Der’s family would conclude.   In Der’s case, he could be lingering in some unconscious state for which his family blamed Mer.  They might forbid her from even seeing him, calling for some in the staff to break the rules to get her into his room. 

With either scenario,  but especially with Derrick lying ill and near death, I can imagine a court battle between either Mer/Der and the family/friends over the wedding that wasn’t. 

Shonda Sunshine says the post it wedding will cause big reverberations next season.  Now if that doesn’t get your writer’s imagination churning, I recommend a long vacation somewhere tropical with moonlight walks on the surf that end in some grown up games with waves lapping at your legs.  And other body parts. 

How would you write the rest of the story?  Game on, Grey’s fans!!