Chords of StrengthDavid Archuleta is a 19-year-old with a memoir. When he is older and grayer, I hope he’ll write another one. But for now we have his narrative of the many memorable and notable experiences in his young life. Yesterday, when his new book cover for Chords of Strength: A Memoir of Soul, Song, and the Power of Perseverance came off the Long Island presses, David was there and took this photo. Have you ordered your copy or copies yet? It will be available in bookstores and online on June 1. Congratulations, David Archuleta!

Photo of this week is…!

The photo for his book is perfect! David’s reflective expression has a seriousness of purpose that belies his years, while the ‘grunge’ title graphics give the memoir a youthful appeal and is reminiscent of David’s debut album cover. Then there’s that teaser line, “Includes Photos,” which will be another incentive to get this book!

• Photo Credit: David Archuleta at Coral Graphics, Long Island, NY. Posted by him on Twitpic. 15 April 2010

Did you miss last week’s Photo of the Week?

David Archuleta, a Photographer’s Dream

OK, a couple of things are bugging me today. Well, longer than a day, but today’s the day that I am going to break my silence.

Twitter’s 140-word limit!

Come on, Twitter! I know you have a corner on brevity, but pleeeze, I have more to say to David Archuleta. He has written his soon-to-be-published memoir and I want to tell him about my own memoir. Click on the graphic and you’ll see how far I got on Twitter. The 140 character message limit is based on the limit of 160 characters imposed by the SMS on mobile phones, plus a little extra for your name. Recently, though, Twitter sometimes automatically adds an ellipsis (…) to a longer message and links to the full tweet. But…not all the time.

What gives? Twitter is the only direct connection most of us fans have to David Archuleta. Well, I snooped—I Googled—and yes!, there is a way to bypass the Twitter character limit! Get ready, DavidArchie, you might receive a rather long ‘memoir tweet’ from a certain Honeybee. Say, around June 1, when your own memoir is published.

Follow DA Honeybees on Twitter

How to write a longer Tweet

1. Load twitter.com. Disable Javascript, reload the page. You’ll notice that the character counter disappears. That’s it!
2. The geeky approach using Linux command line: curl -u username:pass -d “status=your long tweet…” http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml

SOURCE: Thanks to Thought Pick.

IMDb‘s insistence that Jeff Archuleta is David Archuleta’s father!

Will somebody please correct this error? I would do it myself, but only IMDb members can edit an IMDb entry.

On David Archuleta’s bio page, David’s dad is correctly listed as James Jeffrey Archuleta & his mom as Xiomara Guadalupe Mayorga. And it says his father is a jazz musician. So far, so good.

Then there’s this: “Son of Jeff Archuleta” with a link to Jeff Archuleta! This Jeff is “an experienced & resourceful film maker…and a graduate of Colorado Institute [of] Art with a degree in Music Production & Recording Engineering.” Huh? This Jeff was “born July 6, 1961, married Xiomara Guadalupe Mayorga on 19 Dec 1988, and has five children.” I don’t think so.

The entry also says his birth name is Jeff C. Archuleta. I Googled “Jeff C. Archuleta” and found this:

Jeff C. Archuleta directed a 30 minute experimental short called Tangents: The Voices In My Head starring and written by [Colorado] actor Amy Rome. Tangents explored the inner turmoil of a female torn by unrealistic body image expectations, drug abuse, dysfunctional relationships—all culminating in implied abstraction of suicide and the very idea of what it is to be alive yet dead inside.
SOURCE: http://www.experimentalfilmchannel.com/

Does this sound like David’s father Jeff to you? Please, will someone who is registered at IMDb correct this? The IMDb is a volunteer effort, but this error has been on record for at least a year and a half when I first noticed it.

Amazon.com, which purchased IMDb in 1998, uses the movie database website as an advertising resource for selling DVDs and videotapes. IMDb also ranks its entries’ popularity. Today David Archuleta is up by 32 percent.

OK, I think I got rid of the bugs for today. Thanks for listening.

Now make a beeline to the previous “Type Bee”.

Creating Sweet Buzz for David Archuleta

Songs It is springtime in New England and I am excited to see so many signs of its arrival. The weather is getting warmer and the days are growing longer. The forsythia bushes are in full bloom and I see buds on the lilac trees. Daffodils and tulips are springing up from their long winter’s nap and the robins are out in full force.

But best of all, baseball season has arrived. Oh, how I love to watch the ‘great American pastime’. I am a huge baseball fan. Every year I root for my team, the Boston Red Sox, and my family and I try to watch every game we can. Usually during the 7th inning stretch, there is the singing of “God Bless America.” It is a moment that always leaves me with a lump in my throat. Today, as I watched my Red Sox play Kansas City and the 7th inning was beginning, I was thinking back to a particular Red Sox game in which “God Bless America” was sung so beautifully and with such emotion that I was left with more than a lump in my throat. The singer gave me chills. In case you have not guessed it,

The Song of the Week is…

“God Bless America”

“God Bless America” is an American patriotic song written by Irving Berlin in 1918. Mr. Berlin, who was Jewish, revised the song in 1938, as Hitler began his rise to power. Berlin felt it was time to revive it as a “peace song,” and so it was introduced on an Armistice Day broadcast in 1938. At that time, it was sung by American singer, Kate Smith. She was accompanied by a full band, progressing into a grand march tempo. It was a very emotional performance and the song became a huge hit in the United States. Mr. Berlin gave the royalties of the song to the God Bless America Fund for redistribution to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America.

Here is Kate Smith singing the original “God Bless America.”

“God Bless America” is often sung at sporting events, recitals, and other public events where national anthems suit the occasion. David Archuleta has sung “God Bless America” for many of those occasions, but one event in particular really stands out for me. It was the ALCS baseball game on October 10, 2008 and the Boston Red Sox were playing the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. As I tuned in to watch my Red Sox, I was so excited to see David Archuleta open the game with his rendition of “God Bless America.”

Here is David singing “God Bless America” for the ALCS game, Boston Red Sox vs Tampa Bay Devil Rays. I know David was born in Florida, so I have forgiven him for wearing a Rays jersey! 😉 This is such an amazing rendition, very powerful.

~Traditional Lyrics to “God Bless America” written by Irving Berlin

While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that’s free,
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer.

God Bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Through the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America, My home sweet home.

Hope you are all enjoying many of the signs of spring, wherever you may live.

As always, take care and…
GO SOX! 🙂
Katie

Listen to Song of Last Week.

David Archuleta, the Voice