Twitter, Twitter, Tweet.

Do any Green Room readers Twitter?

I do. But I don't really know why.

Why would anyone care what I have to say in 140 characters or less? Who cares if I am trying to decide what kind of bread I will make with my KitchenAid stand mixer? Or what I think about John Hamm from Mad Men hosting Saturday Night Live? Or whether I don't really care to watch grown-ups sledding, no matter how fast they're going?

Twitter seems like a useful and fun tool if you already have a following, or if you have a business to promote. But what if you're just a fame-whore like me? It's just a silly vanity.

But you know me by now. I'm totally on board with silly vanity. I have five--no, six now!-- followers on Twitter. Six people ostensibly care about my minutest random thoughts. My most recent tweets were about Dick Button's shoes (that make him look like a Rescue Hero), the implicit irony of trash-talking in men's figure skating, and Jason Mraz night on American Idol.

Doesn't that make you want to set up a Twitter account and start to follow me right away?

My friend K-Squared, a brilliant entrepreneur and social media maven, gave me a copy of Twitterature, which brought me literally minutes of entertainment and hilarity. The authors rewrote literary classics (and some definitely-not-classics, like Twilight and The Da Vinci Code) "for the twenty-first-century intellect," in 20 tweets or fewer. It's not for young kids, because there is colorful language; but it is sort of brilliant.

Here's a sample, from Paradise Lost, by John Milton:

FALLING UNTO THE ABYSS!!!!! I'll talk more about why in several hundred pages to avoid any confusion.

OH MY GOD I'M IN HELL.

'Tis Pandemonium down here. Would ROFL but it's very hot.

I'm bored. I'm the chairman of the board. My compatriots are r-tards. Inaction? Is that the best we can do? We are fucking demons!

Sitting on our asses waiting for an apology from G-d isn't exactly renegade. Pussies.

OK, that's enough for now. Pick it up at the bookstore, read it while you're on the El, and then hand it to someone as you leave the train. You'll make her day. Or offend her, if she's profanity-sensitive.

Follow me on Twitter @EPeevie!

King of Music

At the end of American Idol tonight, tiny little Seacrest was announcing the special guests that will appear tomorrow night.

"We'll have the World Famous Slash!" he said, and Mr. Peevie and I just looked at each other, all, huh? Slash? But my little Music Man A. Peevie is way hipper than either of us, and apparently way more on top of the contemporary music scene.

"Slash!" he said joyfully, "He's the lead singer for Guns and Roses!" He then went on to name three or four of his favorite Guns and Roses songs, which, wha? When did this pop culture knowledge flood his brain, and from whence? I'm certainly not a contemporary music maven. Until last week I though Pink was just a color.

We were watching another show a couple of weeks ago, and a tune started playing. After literally five or six notes, A. Peevie says, "Hey, it's The Immigrant Song!" Mr. Peevie cocked his head, listened for a moment, and agreed.

Again, I was a musical outsider, and I cogently inquired, "Huh?"

"Led Zeppelin!" A. Peevie and Mr. Peevie said in unison, and Mr. P reminded me, "It was even in School of Rock" which we watched last week for family movie night. Apparently The Immigrant Song has quite the backstory, and even got a shout-out in Shrek the Third.

That kid never ceases to amaze me--and he was so cheerful when Mr. P and I were amazed at his musical knowledge that I thought his cheeks were going to pop right off his face.

"You are the King of Music!" I told him, and then M. Peevie, not wanting to be left out of the royalty-making, announced, "And I'm the Queen!" Princess, maybe; but since she just fractured her wrist on Sunday, and didn't get it x-rayed and diagnosed until two days later, and has been such a non-complainer about it, I'll promote her to queen.

Like how I stuck that little anecdote of continuing family drama into a completely unrelated blog post? It's called segue, and the really great writers know how to make it so smooth you barely even realized it happened. Then there's writers like me who point it out and analyze it in the next paragraph, making the whole thing completely irritating and clunky.

I'll stop now.

American Idol: Predictions and Very Important Analysis

I'll put my Big Prediction right up front, so there's no surprises:

Adam Lambert will be the next American Idol.

Probably every AI blogger in the universe is making this prediction--although when I googled "who will win Idol 2009," I got a little Danny, a little Matt, a little Kris. Not so much lovin' for the girls--except my fave girl, the little redbird Allison. That girl has a smokin' hot voice--but she really is just a girl, and does a 16-year-old have what it takes to win?

I think Adam will beat her--but I also think that the judges will use their "save" vote for her if she gets booted before, say, Anoop or Lil. (Anoop-Dawg is the favorite among the fifth grade male demographic in our completely unscientific poll, however.)

For some reason, there's a little bit of hating going on for Adam out there in the ether. I don't get it. He's talented, cute, and creative--what's not to love? They're calling him a "screaching troll," the "gay screamer," and "over-theatrical." He totally channels Freddie Mercury, and maybe a little bit of David Bowie; some say he's the new David Cook. (But I wasn't done with the old David Cook!)

About the show tonight:

• What's up with Paula and gloves? Does she have really bad eczema or something, and she has to cover up her hands and arms? Tonight she wore long white gloves. M. Peevie, who usually has a great deal of respect for fashion statements, announced the gloves "looked weird."
• Flo Rida was better than I expected, being not a big fan of the rapping genre.
• Kellie Pickler was pitchy, dawg. I mean, she was pretty bad. I was sitting on the toilet (sorry--was that too much information?) and I could hear her hitting notes that were not even close to the mark from the other room. Paula would have had a hard time getting rainbows and unicorns into her critique of that performance.
• Only 30K votes (out of 30 million) separated Anoop and Scott on the bottom two rungs of the Idol ladder. Scott got the axe and didn't get saved even though he delivered a tender rendition of Survivor's "The Search is Over.

One more minor prediction: Anoop will be the next to go. Sorry, A. Peevie.

What do you think?

UPDATE: Please take a sec and vote in the AI poll to the right, because it's so fun to have a little blog interactivity. Thanks!

UPDATE#2: I'm trying to get the poll to work. Any ideas?

UPDATE #3: I never could get the poll to work, so I took it down. I'll try to put up a new one soon. 4/14/09

I'm Done With the Shallow Life

Have you been enjoying 24 this season? Well, I haven't.

In fact, I've been completely disillusioned with the ridiculousness of it all. I mean, come on: one guy who's not even a superhero; who dies and gets resurrected more than once--but isn't actually Jesus; who makes the world safe for democracy over and over again; and who makes blondes, red-heads and brunettes fall in love with him with seasonal regularity--this guy who's so short you can store him up on your mantle, is not even super-great looking. I mean, I want a little more dish in my action heroes, don'tcha know?

Think Jason O'Mara.

And speaking of Jason O'Mara, I've heard that his show, Life on Mars, has been cancelled. They finally get a clever show with a supernatural twist and interesting, believable dialogue (unlike, say Lost, where they talk past each other like characters in two completely different plays), and a hot, HOT lead actor--and they cancel it. It figures.

It's enough to make me stop watching TV altogether. In fact, that's what I'm going to do. Starting today, I'm going cold turkey. No more Vincent, no more stupid Dancing with the Stars, no more Judge Alex. Cold turkey, man.

Oh, and no more American Idol, because Simon is too mean and Paula has too many unicorns dancing around in her cleavage; and also? No more Reno 911, because it's just too crude.

Seriously. What good is TV anyway? Does it help me love Jesus more? No. Does it improve my brain at all? Not really, except I really do feel that I learn some good stuff about rental laws and laws about whether you have to return the engagement ring if your wedding falls through from the judge shows, which could be very useful.

I'll use my new-found hours to better myself. I'll start exercising, I'll stop eating Pringles and Diet Coke for breakfast, and I'll read more. I've been reading Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain for about five weeks, and I'm only half-way through. Without TV, I will become a better person, I will finish The Seven Storey Mountain, and I will blog about the Important Spiritual Lessons I learned, and I will make the world a better place.

I'm done with the shallow life. Stay tuned.

Are You American Idol-ing, Too?

Watching American Idol has become a fun family pasttime. Sometimes all the kids join us, and sometimes just M. Peevie. We try to catch all of the singers and most of the judge's commentary (even though Paula Abdul makes me crazy, and not in a good way).

Tonight, Asi'ah sang a Whitney Houston song, I Wanna Dance With Somebody. She did a great job, but as Simon pointed out, she's no Whitney Houston. Our family agreed that she should have given it a different spin, or used a different arrangement, in order to set herself apart from WH instead of trying to copy WH.

And then a little later, Brooke "Not Quite Successfully Passing for 24" White comes on and sings a Pat Benatar song, Love is a Battlefield. She did the opposite from what Asi'ah did: she sang it raw, with just guitar for back-up, sitting on the edge of the stage, with a completely different delivery than Benatar's. We think it worked.

M. Peevie inevitably contributed her seven-year-old-but-beyond-her-years wisdom: "Here's what I think," she said with conviction. "If you try to be like someone else, you'll fail. If you try to just be yourself, you'll do it right." Not following this wisdom could cost Asi'ah her place in the top 12, dawg.

Two other American Idol comments that I must make: One, What is the matter with Paula Abdul? She cannot formulate a coherent thought to save her own life. She said about someone's performance, "there are just not enough adjectives"--um, whuh? Not enough adjectives? Or not enough adjectives in her vocabulary? She makes vague, surreal comments that often repeat a theme from Randy's remarks, but she rarely contributes any original thoughts or constructive criticism. It rankles.

And Two, I think Amanda is fabulous. Vote her back, readers.

What do you think? Who are you voting for?