The show I chose to write about in this blog is "Dancing with the Stars". I chose this show, because I enjoy watching it. I find it interesting and exciting, as I like watching the stars trying their best on the dance floor, struggling or being successful. I also like listening to the judge's opinions and comments, which I sometimes find so entertaining. It is so surprising to see a football player doing the cha-cha or the mongo. These entertainers actually actually give it it their all out on the dance floor I have seen some entertainers hurting themselves during their rehearsal time, because they push themselves so hard. The trained dancers that are teamed up with their star have a lot of hard work ahead of them. They need to choose the right routines to catch the judge's interest, as the judges are really hard core and they want to see perfection. The judges want to see the dancers and entertainer connect to life on the dance floor. With connecting in every aspect of their dance and making a strong connection and also their technique has to be right on the money. As the weeks go by and some of the dancers get eliminated and the competition gets harder, the judges also get harder and they look for the littlest mistakes. The one thing I hate about the judging is that they let the television viewers vote. I feel that isn't fair, because I feel the viewer's vote as with whom they like as a star not the way they dance and that sometimes hurts the real good dancers and we end up seeing the good dancers get cut. Where I feel it should be judged by how well they danced not by how popular they are. I think that is only fair, as I've seen a lot of couples get eliminated that were real good dancers. I feel it's not a fair competition when they let the fans vote, as it should only be left up to the judges. Another part of "Dancing with the Stars" is when they do their free style dancers. i have seen some real good free-styles. They come out with some kind of dancers and they get the audience going, as they go all out. The free style could either help them or break them. The dancers get to choose the right dance that is going to make them look good in front of those judges and believe me that's hard to do in front of these judges. Theses judges are very hard core, they look for any little mistake that the dancers make, but also when they dance real well, the judges gives them the points they really deserve. When I started watching this show I really got into it and after two routine of dances, I would pick me winner the couple I thought would win it all. Sense the show has aired I've had picked two winners. I believe "Dancing with the Stars" is going to be with us for quite some time, as a lot of people seem to find it entertaining.

Teenagers gave Eminem credit for keeping it real, because they see him both as a rebel raising up against a brutal parent and as the devoted father they never had. It is important to me that lyrics are reality based when an artist sings about the truth it gives the songs more meaning. The music touches the person in a big way that listens to this type of music. These types of music touches their heart and soul and it can make them cry or make them very happy. Sometimes this type of music relates what they might be going through at the time or something they went through in the past. Music throughout my life made a big difference in my life, as sometimes when I needed an answer for the mood I would go through the oldies to help me through it. When I was in love or was broken hearted, Karen Carpenter helped me get through it; music had the answer for me. When I found no one to understand me, I found music to understand me. i have music to thank a lot for getting me through a lot in my life. The oldies, blues, country, and pop made a big difference in my life, as music helped me through rough times and great times. For example, when I was a teenager and I wanted to tell somebody something important and I couldn't find the right words to say, I would turn to the lyrics of a song to help me out and it always helped me. I turned to the lyrics of music because the artist lyrics were realistic and it relates with what I was going through at the time and when I hear those same songs now it takes me back in time. Who says we need pictures to remember our past, music does wonders for us. There are realistic songs that bring back our greatest memories, happy or sad. Realistic songs have touched my life in many ways. I'm so grateful for realistic music and I tend to believe that country music has more realistic music than any other kind of music. Country music artists express their lives and feelings so well. When we listen to their music we could tell it comes way deep down in soul. When we hear their songs, we can't help to put feelings into what they were going through. The country greats I'm referring to are, Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lyn, Kenny Rogers, Barbra Mandrel, and Johnny Cash, all of these country greats sing realistic songs, as their very powerful songs. The greatest realistic songs are the love songs or the songs that tell a story. Telling a true story through music makes us think of other people and what they've gone through their lives. It sometimes make us feel that our problems aren't that serious compared to theirs and that is their hope for us. Country music is very powerful realistic music, as it actually makes us fell what they went through by just listening to their lyrics. Realistic music in so many ways touches our heart and soul in so many different ways.

I do agree with Werner's opinion about what drives so many jazz men and women do drugs. We find this to be so true, when the jazz artist himself/herself lost. The audience is unable or unwilling to follow the jazz artist's new explorations within his/her music. The way Werner states: Sometimes jazz finds itself lost, wandering trackless paths where the calls fade into echoes of themselves. When the artist fined themselves struggling the turn to drugs to try to pick themselves up from what they might be going through. Thinking that the drugs they choose to take will get them through the troubles they are going through, or just all together forget the struggles and pain they are going through at the time. Also hoping that the drugs they use will help them come up with a hit single. Chances are that they'll play something the world's never heard and chances are it won't hear it this time either, which is why so many jazz artist turn to drugs. The jazz artist turns t the needles, the pip's, the bottles and for the most part of it only deadens the pain. It just seems so unbearable to these jazz artist. For example, the kind of pain killed Jimi Hendrix in 1970; Hendrix expressed his desire for a deeper audience response. The main thing that used to bug me was that the people wanted too many visual things from me. I never wanted it to be so much of a visual thing. When I didn't do it, people thought I was being moody, but I can only freak when I really feel like doing so. Now I just want the music to get across, so that people can just sit back and close their eyes and know exactly what is going on without caring a darn about what we are doing while we are on stage. Hendrix wanted his fans to love his old and new style of music, but he found it hard to except the way his fans accepted the style of music he played. They didn't like the change of music Jimi Hendrix played, as he lived and died the blues. When jazz artist go through what Hendrix went through they say the jazz greats of the pass seems to haunt us., like Samuel Beckett, Billie Holiday. I have to say these artist that play and sing the blues, come to one point where they themselves are actually feeling the blues. We know what they say about jazz artist that play and sing the blues, that some of that artist actually lived the blues in their past and some at the present, where felling the blues and that made it easier for them to play the blues, but it ended up making them feel even bluer. The depression they ended up getting into made them turn to drugs, but for the most it had to do with the time and the style of music.

It's true that words are instruments of separation and social power. We could see it a lot among are youth in the high schools. During their lunch hour we could see the different culture groups hanging out with each of their own. When there's a fight it is usually over somebody else that doesn't belong in their group. Then they start putting each other down and start talking about each other's culture, which starts a big fight among the two groups. To prove which culture is more powerful and who rules. However, it's not only in the school yards it happens in our communities. For examples, when I was a teenager I lived in the San Fernando Valley in a community called "Arlets" where the people were all different cultures/races. For another example, on the block I lived on my neighbor next to me was Chinese and the other side of me lived a Hawaiian family, then further down lived White family and Mexican families and all the kids of all these families all get along together. Race didn't matter; the color of our skin didn't stop us from being friends and getting along. But I remember y dad warning us about other communities, he would tell my older siblings to stay out of those places. One place was the Barrio where the Chicano's lived and a place across the tracks where the blacks lived. One thing we didn't do was go into these places and have a conversation with them especially if we weren't the right race. As we can see words are instruments of separation and social power and yes rhythm and dance are fusional Media that have no concern with social power. The interactive nature rhythm and dance become successful non-verbal communication. Rhythm and dance seem to have an empathic effect that brings about a sentiment of unity, as it enables people to function on an intuitive level. Rhythm opens the way, however brutally to interior experience and this explains the erasure of external social, cultural and gender boundaries taking place on the dance floor, as it has t do with the crowd effect. The dance floor is a spaced packed with people, where people come together on the dance floor as they are transformed. The conscious personality of each individual disappears and the dancers suddenly become one body. When the music starts and the people gather on the dance floor and start dancing and touch one another and that's when there are no more races, culture or things forbidden. All we want to do when the music starts is get on the dance floor and dance, as our mind is only set on the music. We want to join these groups of people and have lots of fun. Nobody in this group is thinking about anybodies race or color of skin, as their just one big happy group dancing to the music. The music seems to take their minds elsewhere. Maybe after the dance they might go back to their old ways of thinking, but at least for a while they got along on the dance floor.

I believe the king of pop Michael Jackson was portrayed by the press. Michael Jackson was one of the greatest entertainers ever, as he was so talented in so many ways. Anything he did that had to do with music turned into gold and his fans loved him both young and old. He was loved all over the world and he wasn't only loved for his music. He was loved for the person he was and the kind heart he had. The way he opened his heart to all the children of the world, as he showed that by his generosity. Michael opened his heart to the children, as you could hear it in some of his music and how much he cared about children. He himself was a child at heart and it's so sad that this negatively portrayed by the press. It started in the 80's when he came out with his hit album "Off the Wall". The press started to write about his facial features and how he changed his look. They started to print that he bleached his face because he didn't like his dark skin. The press made it to be a big thing and they went as far as to say he was a freak. Michael set the record straight when he let Oprah Winfrey interview one on one at his house. He told Oprah that he had a skin problem and that he wasn't beaching his skin. He had the interview with Oprah so he could let all the rumors the press was talking about to rest, but that didn't stop the press, anything they found strange about Michael they printed. The press found Michael weird and his relationship with Elizabeth Taylor, to his pet chimpanzee. They wouldn't leave Michael alone and Michael got so fed up that he wrote a song. All Leave Me Alone. Where in the music video it showed everything the press had been writing about him and how Michael was frustrated with it and he was telling the press just to leave him alone. After awhile the press layed off for a while but it was too late the damage was already done. People started to see him different as a freak and to me that made me mad and sad. The press didn't care what they were doing to the king of pop. All they could think about was selling newspapers. So what if Michael was different, different is good. He still was a man with a kind heart who wanted to make a difference in this world. He was a person who had a lot of love in his heart and it was so wrong what the press did to him. Just because he was different an like exotic things gave them no right to call him a freak, as he was just different. Then when he was brought up in child molestation charges the press had a field day. All eyes were on the king of pop, even after he was found innocent of all charges. He couldn't handle all the negativity the press was saying, so he did the next best thing he left and disappeared for a while. In Michael Jackson case I think that the press went way over board and cruel, just because he was different. Who made them judge and jury in this case they were way off base.

Negative music influences the behavior of our youth to an extent nobody really knows. The reason for this is that each one of our youth is different. Our youth reacts to negative music different than another, as some of our youth don't even have a negative reaction. What I have observed being around youth, I'm surrounded by negative music and the bad language lyrics. It is our youth thinking its okay using negative language and that it's okay to disrespect anybody with that type of language and that it's the in thing to do. Our youth seem not to care and along with the bad language comes a bad attitude with it. For example, when we tell the youth to lower their music, as not everybody else wants to hear all that bad language. The youth just reply with a, I don't care and a real bad attitude to go with it. The music I'm referring to is rap music, as rap music is so bad. All you hear about when we listen to rap is about violence, sex, drugs, and shootings. Some of the songs are also about abuse, rape and how cool it is to belong to a gang. The kind of music has gotten a hold of a lot of our youth. I truly believe the youth that have trouble fitting among their peers are the ones that take music to heart and think whatever the rapper is saying to do is a way to fit in some where in this crazy would of ours. For example, what goes on in our high schools and on our school campuses during lunch? We can see groups separated by race where-ever we look. The same way gangs are and where do these young adults hear about racism and gangs through rap music? I know for fact music is a big part of a gang's life, as they take the lyrics of music to heart. For example, I have a friend who belonged to a gang back in the 60's. He said " music back them helped him mole into a cholo". He heard music that talked about the riders and what they were all about. How they carried themselves, how they dressed and what they drove and what kind of music they were into. Even down to the way they talked and how they acted. The music he said " was a big part of him joining a gang". He says " if he had a chance to go back in time. He wouldn't let music influence him along with his peers". Listening to what my friend said, I could see the way music could be like a drug, we could get addicted to it. A lot of our youth want to be like the person that the rapper is talking about, as it's a way of trying to fit it. Looking at our troubled youth today stealing and drive by shootings. The kind of things our youth could listen about in some of the music they listen to.

After reading Blooms statement about young people's passion for music and how that music is the only thing that excites them and they don't have an interest for anything else not related with music. I have to agree and disagree regarding his statement. At one point I have to agree with his statement, because our young people live their everyday life surrounded by music. For example, my brother Phillip loves music and he surrounds himself with music, as he listens to music all day. When he's in his room he listens to his stereo and when he's on th ecomputer he's either downloading music on his I-pod or just listening to music. When phillip plays his play station he has video games that have music on the games while he's playing. Phillip also has music on his phone that he down loaded, which he always listens to when he is not listening to his I-pod. He also goes to sleep at night listening to music and he wakes up turning on music to start the day. You could definitely say my brother is one of those youths that Bloom was talking about being passionate about music. I also see that my brother has no interest in anything else, as he does in music. I believe if I was to take music away from him, he would be lost. I also believe there are a lot of other youths out in the world like my brother. There are two famous singers that I believe their only interest is music and those two singers are Michael Jackson and a country singer Barbra Mandrel. They both were surrounded and introduced to music at a very young age. It was in their blood, like they say ans that's why their only interest was music. heir passion for music helped them create beautiful music. I also agree with the fact that we can have a passion for music and also am interested in something else. For example, I have a passion for music, but I also have a passion for poetry and art. I counld be listening to my music and working on my art or writing my poetry at the same time. Just like music, poetry and art have become a part of my life. Music has become a story book of my life, poetry helps me express my ineer feelings just like art makes me feel real good inside. My friend Thomas also has a passion for music and also has other interests and music doesn't get in his way of his other interest. One of Thomas's other interests are sports and just like his music he is so much into it. I couldn't even tell you which one he is into more. I can also tell you of the two singers that they have a passion for music, but also they have another passion. There's Marie Osmond, who loves music and also has the passion for making dolls. The late singer Selena, she had a great passion for music and being a singer, but she also had the passion for fashion.