{"id":2348,"date":"2005-01-31T17:39:53","date_gmt":"2005-01-31T22:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=2348"},"modified":"2010-07-12T12:13:58","modified_gmt":"2010-07-12T16:13:58","slug":"please-say-it-aint-so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=2348","title":{"rendered":"Say It Ain’t So, Paula"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. No. I can’t take it.<\/a><\/p>\n

My main response to that announcement is one of stunned silence. (And you have to read the article in order to understand what I’m about to discuss.)<\/p>\n

The next thing that comes into my mind, after the stunned silence has passed, is: “Uhm … world-class<\/i>, Paula? Really? You were a world-class<\/i> choreographer?? Ya ever heard of Balanchine? Mark Morris? No? You were obviously successful<\/i>, hon, I’ll give you that … but world-class?” Also: I wince when I hear someone describe THEMSELVES as ‘world-class’.<\/p>\n

Only people who AREN’T world-class at a craft would ever describe their OWN ART as “world-class”. If you know what I mean.<\/p>\n

It’s kind of like one of the rules of online dating (a rule I stumbled over myself, after some disastrous experiments): If some guy describes himself in his profile as “laidback”, “mellow”, or “easygoing”, you can bet that the dude has a corn cob up his ass. The same is probably true on the female side. Like, any chick who goes out of her way to describe herself as “mellow” is most assuredly a raging Type-A nightmare. It happened to me TIME AND TIME AGAIN. Some “laidback” guy would show up on the date, and I would find him to be uptight, controlling, and no fun at all. Invariably, he would be rude to the waitstaff (I think I’ve described my pet peeve about that in some detail), and reveal himself as a bonehead. So I learned quickly. I would scan the profile beforehand. “Hm. Laidback<\/i>? Oh, he’s probably a dick. Next.”<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong. I love “laidback”. I love other things, too, but I like someone who is relaxing to be around. The problem is with those people who describe THEMSELVES that way … Maybe it’s a problem of self-perception. They truly BELIEVE themselves to be “mellow” … and yet … huh? I’m a pretty good judge of character … and these people were not “mellow”. Their senses of their personalities, and how they came across, was … off. Shall we say.<\/p>\n

What I’m really trying to get at here is – there has NEVER been a time when Paula Abdul would be ranked among “world-class choreographers”. Her name wouldn’t even be on the list. Again: successful? YES. Hip with the latest dance moves? PERHAPS. But come on. World-class?<\/p>\n

Anyone who point-blank says, “I am a world-class sculptor” is probably an idiot. And a bad sculptor.<\/p>\n

My sisters and I watched some starry-eyed retrospective about the gleaming career of Paula Abdul (ehm … a Laker girl? Not that there’s anything wrong with being a Laker girl, but the sepia-toned quality of the special made it seem like being a Laker girl was on the same level of accomplishment as being Bobby Fischer or something). And the special took a completely uncritical view of Abdul. It was very fawning, which confused all of us. I mean, not that she’s heinous or anything, but the special made it seem like she literally had changed the face of pop music, it made it seem like after Paula Abdul appeared on the scene, nothing ever was the same again<\/i>. But … huh? Paula Abdul? What? And she said something like, “My choreography is what I am best at. I am truly a great choreographer.” And then they cut to some BOGUS shot of the Laker girls dancing, doing choreography that looked like it came out of the first 5 minutes of “Zoom” or something. Like … they were all in a line, and one by one each of them jumped up and down That was it. My sisters and I were howling. Like … couldn’t they find some better choreography than THAT in order to prove how amazing Paula Abdul is as an artiste?<\/p>\n

So the lesson is: even if you THINK you’re “world-class” … don’t feckin’ SAY it. Cause … I don’t know. Basically, cause it’s ikky<\/i>, that’s why. And … if you’re Paula Abdul, you should NEVER say it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No. No. I can’t take it. My main response to that announcement is one of stunned silence. (And you have to read the article in order to understand what I’m about to discuss.) The next thing that comes into my … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[31],"tags":[1617],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2348"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2348"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18077,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2348\/revisions\/18077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}