b r a v e c r e a t u r e s

So I promised myself that I would write more this year again, and god damn it I will.

I am back from Rio, having had a GREAT time there, and despite feeling like crap from the stomach bug thats been going around in London, I headed out the the SPICE GIRLS reunion concert tonight with three friends.

And I had a really good time. And I am disturbed by the fact that I knew the words to ALL OF THE SONGS. Thats my slightly flakey eidetic memory for you again. Lyrics and plots/scrips for TV shows - I seem to be able to auto recall anything I have ever seen or heard. Not all the time, or on demand, but enough to be spooky.

Anyway the concert was fun. Incredibly staged and art directed - although little could cover up the fact that these girls really do have fairly marginal talent. Victoria Beckham in particular is unbelievably talentless.

No really. Can't sing. Doesn't dance. Walks like a truck driver in heels and zero stage presence. But the gilrs from Essex scream their guts out when ever she comes on stage. Amazing! Its the whole Cinderella thing I think, they are all thinking "That could be me - I am that talentless". Well good for her, she has made a little go a very long way.

I saw her on Ugly Betty the other night and, well, we can add "can't act" to the list.

Bless.

As for the others, Mel B/Scarey who I always thought had the best voice, seems to have not done much with it; Emma/Baby is sweet but again the voice hasnt hed up. I am actually surprised she hasn't parleyed her very good looks into an acting career - she did a pretty good job on Ab Fab; Geri the Media Whore did a good job of stealing the show - she has a combination of an ok voice and seemingly unlimed show mans ship; and Mel C/Sporty, who always has the most interesting voice, has turned that into a pretty spectacular set of pipes. She has had four albums since the break up and they are all very good.

All up the show was ok, without being amazing. There really wasnt much clever in it, but then did there need to be. The one thing that I thought was a disappointment was that they didnt focus on the Girl Power thing. The Spice Girls came along at the right time and cauught a social wave, they represented a new age of girls being more confident and empowered and while there music was marginal, the message they sent was a good and important one.

IF they are still coming to your town, and would want a camp, high colour night out, get along and see them. Relax and enjoy the tack - its worth it.

With a name like G Force it just had to be good - Battle of the Planets was one of my all time favorite cartoons when growning up. It and Doctor Who were the two programs I would fight tooth and claw to watch. My sister stood no chance against my adolecent-mo powers when it came down to it.

I am going to partiually quote Wikipedia here, cause they do a great job of summing the show up 

Battle of the Planets casts five young people as G-Force, consisting of Mark, Jason, Princess, Keyop, and Tiny. G-Force protects Earth from planet Spectra and other attacks from 'beyond space'. Their main ship is The Phoenix, which can deploy four smaller vehicles, each operated by one team member.

A regular plot feature was the deus ex machina transformation of The Phoenix into a flaming bird-shaped craft able to handle virtually any exceptional situation by functioning something like a large blowtorch. The Phoenix's primary weapon was a large supply of rockets. It also occasionally flaunted a powerful solar-powered energy blaster, although the team usually had the misfortune of choosing very cloudy days to use it and fell back on the flaming bird thingie.

Battle of the Palents was very Japanese in it construction and themeing (why does an alient enemy need to make all of its wepons look and operate like earth animals - mythological or otherwise. I never got that), but somehow very American in its moral context. Tedious at times, but as a 10 year old it was like ambrosia.

Although I must admit that I never understood why the aliens from Spectra, in particularly the strangely hermaphroditic "Zoltan", could always lose even though they had such great outfits.

On a similarly homo-theme, I must admit I always wondered why Mark and Jason didnt get together. There was a REALLY high level of visible sexual tension between them. Apparently this, along with graphic violence, profanity and transgenderism was excised from the original Japanese series when it was preped for US and then Australian markets. 

I also had a thing for Marks hawk shaped boomarang doovy, which interestingly enough was echoed years later (and possibly unconciously) in the Spice Girls film clip for "Say You'll be there ", which fyi was the thing that made me appreciate how perfectly and delciously aweful the SG's were. Given the film clips combination of bad outfits, too much make up, cheesy kung fu moves and Vitoria Beckhams trademark rhythmless posturing, its amazing its tongue in cheek self depreciation 

When you look at it, its not all that astounding that all of these things are linked by my some what campy taste, now is it.

YAdda