Pure Derek Hough

It’s that time of the year, gang – time to get organized. Now, Nicole has 50 plus thousand followers on twitter and I have no idea how many of them are clued in to voting on DWTS. So this is for them and for any new DWTS/Derek fans. There is a page on the Official DWTS Web page that explains voting, but they leave a few things out. Now, provided they haven’t changed anything (and I couldn’t find the voting page to check) here’s how it goes:

1. Vote by Phone, number of votes per phone is usually equivalent to the number of dancers.  So, on the first night (if they do voting on the first night) you get 11 votes per phone.  PER PHONE, people. Your cell phone, your boyfriend’s cell phone, your home phone….you get the picture. You only have until 30 minutes until after the show ends to get your phone votes in – but you can start as soon as the show starts. Hopefully either Derek or Nicole will tweet their number BEFORE the show starts. Start early because it’s impossible once the show ends.
2. Vote On-line during and after the show….and till noon eastern time the next morning.  Now, you only get as many votes online as there are dancers… PER EMAIL address!!  So, what do we do? We make more email addresses.  Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, whatever.  Guess what else – you can vote again using the same email addresses the next morning, or even after a period of time that night.

Did I leave anything out, Derek fans??  If you have problems voting by phone – like they say you’ve already voted all your votes using that phone and you know it’s not true – KEEP TRYING because there is a glitch in the system that makes that message says you’ve already voted play if the phone lines are overloaded. On-line issues? Close your browser and clear your cookies. If that doesn’t work, try a different browser, like Firefox or Google chrome or some such thing.  Don’t give up!!

A little more than a week before the show starts – begin organizing your email addresses (and creating new ones, and registering them with DWTS.com).

MOST OF ALL – don’t ASSume that Derek and Nicole will be safe due to a high score.  That is more true right at the beginning, but it’s not fool proof. I did a big write up on scores on PDWTS. Read it. Remember it.  Why? Because we don’t want to see THIS again before the final:

We want to see LOTS OF THIS:

You’ve heard of Design a Dance, now we have Design a Tee (shirt).  One that says Team HoughZinger.  If you want, you can steal Derek’s earlier tweet and do one that says Vote Team D-Zing as well. You saw that Derek and Joanna wore team shirts last season and I would like to see Derek and Nicole do the same. I think it fosters the old team spirit.

Here’s how it will work:

1. Do a SIMPLE design and submit it to heidi@purederekhough.com by Thursday at 7 pm Central time. Keep in mind that it will go on a tee shirt and that to keep the cost down while still looking cool it has to be relatively simple and in only two colors.  See the existing shirts at zazzle.com DO NOT TWEET IT TO ME. Email is your friend. Yes, you can do more than one if you so desire.
2. Once I get the designs I will post them on the site and you get to VOTE on your favorite. Keep an eye on the site because you will have 24 hours to vote.
3. The winning design will be submitted to zazzle.
4. I will do my very best to make sure Derek gets the tee shirts with a little note saying who designed them.  Keep in mind that I will be relying on others to make sure he gets them in a timely manner, so I can’t promise.

Now, get to work.

The Nashville Predators WON!! Yay!! But now I have a sore throat and I just want to go to bed. Of course I missed some stuff while I was out having fun.

First – Derek’s picture.  Were people maligning this picture on twitter? What the hell is wrong with them?? I love it. He is really maturing beautifully.

Then there are a bunch of photos of he and Nicole out to lunch today, from WENN. Click the link. He really looks fabulous when he’s had a chance to rest a bit.

A few more lovely pictures:

From USA Today, a cute little interview with Nicole:

She joked about her partner, saying, “I have been paired with Mr. Derek Hough, and as soon as I can get some personality in that guy and some charisma, then I think we can go far,” she teased. “Derek and I are pretty crazy. We’re probably the goofiest cats ever. We were electric from the start.”

But she’s got a lot to learn, she admits. “The first dance that we’ve been assigned is the Viennese waltz. I just learned how to say that properly — I’ve been calling it the Vietnamese waltz.

Pay close attention to what Conrad says. In fact, go read what he say about all the contestants at EW.com. I see the same thing he does – a cast that has a large number of potentially very good people. We won’t be able to be complacent on the voting.

NICOLE SCHERZINGER, Pussycat Doll
Pro partner: Derek Hough

Conrad Green says: ”For the Pussycat Dolls, she was primarily booked as a vocalist, not a dancer. I don’t think she’s got any more dance background than Mel B. had, or Joey Fatone, or Drew Lachey. We’ve had a number of people like that — Mya, last season — but only one of those people have won. I think the audience does compensate, you know? I think if they see someone come from nowhere and do well, they tend to appreciate that more. So she’s got to overcome that. It’ll be more pressure for Derek, too.”

From RadarOnline:

Now on to Nicole Scherzinger, who is the lead singer of The Pussy Cat Dolls.

She skipped the basics and advanced to doing the Tango with Season 7 champ Derek Hough. She was rocking her pumps with some designer sweats.

Well, it looks like most people like HoughZinger, and since Derek suggested it himself that’s what I’m going with until or unless he (or Nicole) come up with something they like better. I like HoughZinger – it has a jazzy ring to it. Gonna be hell on a tee shirt though.

Thanks to @prettybeaches for the heads up on the Press Release which implies that Derek and Nicole are doing the V. Waltz. Geez, two years in a row where Derek doesn’t get Cha Cha?? I like it!! He can do one hell of a good V. Waltz. ABC Press Release - get ready (again) for Design a Dance, people. We need to win it this year, although they are doing the celebrity thing again, which gives certain other pros an unfair advantage. Ah well – I’m just happy the boy is on the show. Period.

All eleven couples will dance for the first time on live national television on MONDAY,
MARCH 22 (8:00-10:00 p.m., ET), with couples either performing the Viennese Waltz or Cha Cha. In week two, all of the couples will return to dance their second routines in a two-hour show, MONDAY, MARCH 29 (8:00-10:00 p.m., ET). The couple with the lowest combined judges’ scores and public votes for both performances will be sent home on TUESDAY, MARCH 30 (8:00-9:00 p.m., ET) in the season premiere of “Dancing with the Stars the Results Show.”

“Dancing with the Stars” returns with new surprises and all the elements viewers have come to know and love. “Macy’s Stars of Dance,” which features some of the most renowned dancers and choreographers of our time, will be back with performances on “Dancing with the Stars the Results Show.” One of the “Macy’s Stars of Dance” performances will be the hugely popular “Design-a-Dance,” where fans have the chance to select their favorite celebrity dancers, dance styles and wardrobe at www.abc.com. Three weeks of the competition will feature the return of the “Dance Off,” where contestants will perform a dance style of their choosing to fight for their spot in the competition, followed by three consecutive single eliminations.

Okay, I have to say that we don’t get NEARLY enough of our professionals dancing, so the whole Macy’s thing, plus including a celeb in the DaD is pretty annoying to me. I would like to see Derek dance with Cheryl Burke or one of the other women – someone who can dance at his level. Sabrina was fine because she’s so GOOD – but should have been with Derek.

Get ready for lots of ringer talk, similar to what Mya got last year. My view is, if they’re determined to have ringers (and Nicole is far less of one than Evan, Kristi, Shawn or Donny), then it’s about damn time that Derek got one. I’m not going to apologize or even be sorry about that. What I will do is smack any Mya fans, Dmitry fans, Shawn or Kristy (or Mark) fans that dare to complain. Actually, that goes for Sabrina, Mel B, and Erin Andrews fans as well, because Nicole’s “experience” is similar to Sabrina and Mel B’s. Of course, it figures that the season Derek gets a ringer, there is at least one bigger ringer on the show. Evan. Ah well – we Derek fans can get Nicole and Derek to the very end, at least, if we work hard. I included an excerpt from this blog on Syracuse.com because they make Derek part of Nicole’s advantage. Can’t argue with that!!

Nicole Scherzinger & Derek Hough: Famous for wearing skin-tight leather pants? Now that’s something I can get behind. (Oops). But really, I’m not too excited about this choice because she is already a professional dancer and she’s paired with Derek, the show’s best professional dancer and choreographer. I’m not stupid and I realize that many of the “stars” aren’t on the sub-par dancing level of most of them, but really, does this even seem fair?

I have no idea, but if you instead asked yourself “so Kevin, who are your blind final three picks and who do you see as being the first star voted out?” That I can answer! I would be stupid to not pick the team of Nicole Scherzinger & Derek Hough, so I’ll go ahead and group them with Evan Lysacek & Anna Trebunskaya (who I still hold a grudge against for blowing it for Lacey and Mark last season) and Erin Andrews & Maksim Chmerkovskiy as my blind final three.

That’s my final three pick as well.  From the Washington Post.com:

Bringing more than a bit of stage presence and sex appeal, The Pussycat Dolls’s Nicole Scherzinger could be an early dark horse for the title. She will be dancing with fan favorite Derek Hough.

From The Idolator:

While her onetime Pussycat Dolls are running off into the night like felines in heat (Ashley Roberts and Kimberly Wyatt are the latest to jet from the burlesque-themed girl group), head kitty Nicole Scherzinger is stepping in an entirely different direction—Dancing With The Stars. Below, find out who the singer, who was recently voted one of the Ten Sexiest Women In Music by Billboard, will be paired up with in the reality dance competition’s tenth season.

…DEREK!!  People, please read Derek’s tweets again – he used a double negative, which generally indicates a positive. Meaning he will be on DWTS Season 10. Now, unless he’s feeling particularly evil today, I’m assuming that means he will be getting a partner and will be actually competing.  For a minute I worried that he was being a bad typer, but as soon as he told everyone to read his tweet again, I knew he was playing a game.  The Brat.

Derek – very, very bad boy for playing games. Are you bored? Don’t make me come over there!!  Your punishment is to do another dance THIS season sans shirt.

Those of you following me (personally) on Twitter yesterday saw a flurry of tweets about a new male pro on DWTS this season.  I wrote about it on Pure DWTS, go read.  

Now, there are a few things to keep in mind regarding this and how it affects Derek.  We don’t know yet if Derek is on the show or not. It is entirely possible that Derek asked out for Season 10 for reasons that are not yet clear to us. He said in that Access Hollywood interview that he had “new adventures” planned this year.  Which, while great and exciting, would leave us without our favorite pro.  But if it’s good for him and his career, FANTASTIC. Go for it.

BUT, in the off chance that Derek hasn’t asked out for Season 10 and another pro is actually losing their job to make room for this new guy – well, then it might be important to make your voice heard in regard to how much you value Derek’s role in DWTS.  Just in case. Do I need to tell you what to do?    No spamming – just make it clear that Derek has lots of fans. Make your opinion heard on your favorite message boards.

Here’s a very nice interview/article all about Derek (as it should be) on Dance.com.   A very long article, I’ve included only a small excerpt, plus the picture – please visit the site to read the whole thing:

One of Hough’s favorite partners is his sister Julianne. A piece the two choreographed to the song “Great Balls of Fire” and performed on “DWTS” last year was nominated for an Emmy award. Despite the complicated lifts and throws, Hough says the two put the routine together in about 20 minutes the night before performing it. “When I dance with Julianne, we don’t even speak to each other—we don’t have to,” he explains. “We just know what we’re going to do. It’s really great.”

Experiences like that—being challenged to create interesting new dances and perform them on the fly—keep Hough engaged in his work on the show. Will he be back for the 10th season? “I’ll definitely be part of it one way or the other, no matter what,” he says. “I already have some cool ideas for next season, in terms of choreography.” But at this point, the future is uncertain: the show’s dancers have to wait to be asked back each season.

He’s not just twiddling his thumbs and waiting around; Hough already has some other plans under his belt. This fall, he flew to London to choreograph for Cheryl Cole, a popular British singer, and he’ll be heading that way again later this winter to create dances for her music video. The gig will allow him to take advantage of some of his under-used dance skills, and he plans to incorporate hip hop with Argentine tango and paso doble in the video. Meanwhile, he’ll continue playing music with Mark Ballas and keep his creative options open. “People ask me, ‘What’s your first passion?’ For me, there’s no order to what I love; it all falls under the same roof,” explains Hough. “I’m not just a dancer or singer or actor, so I tell them ‘performer.’ I just like to entertain people.”