Double Threats

Those of you who follow the Billboard Hot 100 every week (and of course who doesn't?) will have no doubt noticed that quirky little hit that just won't quit "Cups (Pitch Perfect's When I'm Gone)" by Anna Kendrick from the movie "Pitch Perfect" has made it all the way to an astounding #10 on the charts. Now those of you who follow this blog (and of course who doesn't?) will recall that I posted about my strange fascination with the song in April back when it was at #59 on the charts; which I had thought at the time was equally unbelievable. Despite the movie having been released in September of last year, this unusual tune just keeps on steadily climbing up the charts for one reason or another. Apparently this latest surge was due to the premiere of the film on HBO. Also, I'm sure Billboard's recent move towards counting Youtube views didn't hurt them either.

That being said, I started to wonder if there were any other cases of an Academy Award nominated actor/actress (from the four major acting categories) with a top ten hit in the modern Billboard era to their credit. So I spent the better part of the end of work last Friday thinking up and checking out possible nominees.There were a bunch of nominees/winner that came to mind who were originally successful musical artists (I think they've all had at least a #1 hit) that also successfully dabbled in acting: Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Diana Ross, Bette Midler, Barbara Streisand, Cher, and Will Smith (who I guess is now primarily an actor at this point). I didn't count them.

Then there were a few notable borderlines cases. Best actress winner Gwyneth Paltrow had an Adult Contemporary #1 with her cover of "Crusin" with Huey Lewis in 2000 and just missed when the Glee Cast's "Forget You",which she was a featured artist, topped out at #11 on the Hot 100 in 2010. Dan Aykroyd (would you believe he got a best supporting actor nomination for "Driving Miss Daisy"?) was technically part of charity super group USA for Africa of the chart topping "We Are The World" fame, but I don't think it's fair to count charity singles (this also disqualifies Oscar winner Jeff Bridges who was part of Artists for Haiti which took "We Are The World 25 for Haiti" to #2 in 2010. I assume the lack of Dan Aykroyd this time around caused it to stall at #2). To his credit Aykroyd did have a #1 album with the Blues Brothers and their cover of "Soul Man" was a #14 hit. UK #1's also don't count for Oscar winner Nicole Kidman who had one with a duet of "Somethin' Stupid" with Robbie Williams in 2001 and nominee Telly Savales whose insane, Shatner-esque spoken word cover of Bread's "If" somehow was a chart topper in 1975.

This leaves five actors that I believe fit my requirements. Two time nominee John Travolta had a #10 hit with "Let Her In" in 1976 and of course "You're the One That I Want" with Olivia Newton-John from Grease was a #1 in 1978. Best actor winner Jamie Foxx probably has the most successful music career for someone that is primarily an actor. He as two featured #1's ("Gold Digger" with Kanye West in 2005 and "Slow Jamz" with Twista featuring Kanye West in 2005) in addition to two top 10 hits of his own ("Unpredictable" at #8 in 2005 and "Blame It" at #2 in 2009). Eddie Murphy's lone top 10 hit "Party All the Time" in 1985 came 22 years before his Oscar nomination for "Dream Girls" in 2007. Then you get to two personal favorites of mine. Two time nominee, the late Richard Harris and his gloriously ridiculous #2 hit from 1968 "MacArthur Park". And then there's legendary character actor Walter Brennan who won a record three Best Supporting Actor Oscars between 1936 to 1940, including the first one ever given, whose single "Old Rivers", an old timey mostly spoken word story song, bafflingly reached #5 in 1962.

Kudos to you Anna Kendrick, you're in some distinguish, and strange, company.

Chart It!

My dear friends, I have a confession to make. I have been lying to each and every one of you. Every word that I have ever communicated to you has been a carefully crafted deception intended solely to manipulate. I have knowingly, indeed gleefully, violated whatever degree of trust you thought existed between us and made gullible fools of you all merely for my own selfish personal amusement.

Well, actually all that was an extreme exaggeration. What I did do was little personal exercise for fun with my facebook "friends". For about the same random, inexplicable reason I decided to chart the punctuation of all my last facebook birthday greetings, I thought I'd play a little game with my status updates.

It all started back on September 13th when I threw out a random observation I had about the snack I was eating at work ("For me string cheese always seems to taste better after its been strung. I think the pulling apart process unlocks some special flavor element. I have no hard proof of this so I guess it's just string theory."), it tallied a modest 3 likes and a comment from my pool of friends. Now I'm not a real heavy user of facebook. I probably check it about a couple times a day, use it to receive and send out invitations, and of course relay new blog entries (like this one right now). I usually stay away from the status bar. However the next day I felt compelled to throw another quick observation out there ("'Innocence of Muslims' has got to be the worst received film ever. Even the violent protests over 'Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2' was less wide spread."). 

It was after that I decided to see how far I could keep this streak going. I committed myself to throw out one quick status update a day as long as at least one person liked or commented on it. Considering I was just tossing up whatever esoteric thought I had in my head around lunchtime at work, I figured this activity would last like a week tops. Interestingly enough, despite a few close call days, it actually lasted exactly one entire month from September 13th to October 13th after my criticism about the new Kevin James movie ("Here Comes The Shamelessly Derivative Kevin James Movie") had as poor a debut as the movie itself (though if you ask me, this is the kind of feel good, PG, movie that just sticks around for weeks and becomes a sneaky hit).

Some quick takeaways from all this:

• If I were to give an official name to the activity I was engaging it, it would be "like fishing". I just threw a line out there and later checked to see what nibbles I caught. Some days were more prolific than others and it was often surprising the random people that would give up a like.
• Related to that, there is no way to predict how any update will go over. It's an exercise in futility to predict who will like a certain update; also why are you taking updating so seriously?  
• Facebook "likes" are extremely devalued. They may very well be the weakest form of human contact so no need to get too excited. Can anyone think of a more insubstantial way to acknowledge a person's existence? There is almost no message or significance attached to it other than I suppose at least mild agreement with someone's update message. Compare that to the complex and heavy connotations of the old Facebook "poke".
• Since likes are so casual, it is more difficult to avoid someone giving an update a like; unless you're one of those inane people who update the most mundane details of their daily lives like when they're going to bed or if they're going on a run. In that case most of your friend have likely long since blocked you on their feed.
• Although likes are inherently of little value, the quantity of likes may indicate substantial value. Certain thresholds of likes are usually indicative of substantial updates. I never broke double digit likes during my month and I shouldn't have given how pointless my updates were. But, a new baby update or a graduation post or even some indirect call for sympathy from your friends during a difficult time should garner at least double digit likes. With further research I'm sure someone could make a scale of minimum likes (ex. babies = 15, marriages = 25, etc.) factoring in for total amount of friends.
• Comments to status updates are worth at least two possibly three likes. When someone comments that they wish they could like an update more than once, they have done the equivalent by commenting. It's a huge barrier to cross to actually write something in response to someone. 
• Facebook has the potential to be a tremendous waste of time. 

As for any future status updates from me, I will be going back to my usual schedule of "whenever the mood strikes me", although now that I've made everyone completely self conscious of their liking behavior I'm not really sure what to expect in terms of future likes. Good thing all this really doesn't matter much. 

Chart It!

For no particularly compelling reason, outside of the simple pleasures of writing up a crude pie chart in PowerPoint, I felt like charting the punctuation of all the recent birthday messages that were posted on my facebook wall. Seeing as how birthday facebook messages in recent years have become this sort of crazy personal social barometer, there are countless ways one could measure and interpret all the data from this random yearly poll of your online "friends". I didn't really look that deeply at things, just counted up the punctuations.

As the ugly colored chart clearly shows, of 30 posted messages, an overwhelming 13 birthday wishes ended with a simple (!). It's not really all that surprising, since it's both stylistically accurate and the usual shorthand for showing enthusiasm. I found the double (!!), tied for the second most with 5, to be interesting. I find there to be a real deliberateness to the double. I imagine a hastily written message with a quick lean on the exclamation point key would often yield three or more exclamation points (there were 4 greetings with a trio of exclamation points, unfortunately none with more), a two pointer seems less random. Tied with the two pointers was the no punctuation greeting, which I find to have a classier, restrained quality. It's likely the popular choice for those who eschew the exclamation point, which I have to agree has become far too ubiquitous in modern writing. Rounding out the list is the period, which two subdued well wishers ended their well wishes with. Also there was one emoticon, which would technically fall into the non-punctuation category but I figured deserved individual recognition. I do recall getting more emoticons in past years, maybe it's due to the recession.

I hope this demonstrates that I do pay attention to and appreciate every birthday post (probably more so than you if you're one of those sad people that just rotely send out greetings based on whomever's birthday facebook tells you it is), even the ones by you weirdos I never see.