Talent Show

The Talent Show this Saturday easily eclipsed last week's, mainly for the fact that no Billy Joel songs were sung. Also, this week kicked off the junior portion of the talent show as well, so there were three little kids participating, which kicked up the adorability factor tenfold. The night began with an elderly Jewish woman from New York taking the stage in a song and dance number. She began her act by saying, “Now many of you know that Nelson and I have been on over forty cruises.” Actually, I don't think any of us were aware of that fact, but I was willing to take her word for it. She then proceeded to say how our cruise director and “his merry men and maids” were the best she had ever seen and dedicated her song, “I Can't Smile Without You,” to them. She sang in a high falsetto and did a little soft shoe during the musical breaks. We were all smitten. How could she possibly be beaten?

Well, the answer was possibly contained in the next act. If you ever wondered what I would look like as an elderly woman, here was your answer. She was over six feet tall, had short white hair fashioned in the same haircut that I have, and the same elongated face that I share with John Kerry. She admitted that she hadn't sang the following song since she was eight years old, but that she wanted to dedicate it “to all THE SENIORS!” She said this last part with her fists pumping in the air, and several of the older passengers stood up and cheered in solidarity. Her song was “When You Wish Upon a Star,” which she sang in a clear sweet voice, hitting all of the high notes. With the old age vote clearly split, the night was clearly anybody's for the taking.

My favorite of the night was a young woman who was in her early twenties but looked thirteen. She sang “At Last” and nailed it. I think “American Idol” has trained audiences to applaud wildly at the end of the first stanza of a song and then at any subsequent high notes, so I wasn't always able to hear everything she sang but what I could, I was impressed by. My least favorite performer was this jerk who sang “Georgia On My Mind.” I call him a jerk because he got out of his seat during one of the junior performers songs. I can take someone being disrespectful during a professional's show, but when you are sitting in the front row of an amateur talent show and you leave your seat to talk to your friend while an eight year-old girl is playing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” you are a loser. His jerkhood was further confirmed by the fact that he got up to the mike and said, “Here's some Ray Charles for y'all,” as if we had all been waiting with baited breath for someone to funk the show up with some Ray Charles. Also, he bent and dipped every single note (I believe the technical term is coloratura, but I might be wrong), elongating even the simplest word to several syllables (“Ju-huh-st ay-ay-ay-n oh-ho-ld swe-hee-eet so-yong”). I applauded briefly at the end, but only because it wouldn't have been socially acceptable for me to sit on my hands.

The talent show was ultimately won by a man who played guitar and sang an original song. The winner of the junior talent show was a six year-old boy who looked like Joey Lawrence from his “Gimme a Break” days. He did a magic trick where he made color and pictures appear on previously blank pages. It was pretty awesome and I'm not ashamed to admit that I gave him a standing ovation.