I usually don't like making fun of people who are obviously mentally deficient in some way, nor am all I that much a bad = good kind of guy. But this woman is fast becoming a major exception. To wit: "Marissa Marchant is a young, enthusiastic singer/songwriter with an eclectic array of original songs inspired by years of real-life issues. They are expressed with much passion and depth of emotion . . . Marissa started singing professionally as a child with no formal training and then she went on to study voice (Bel Canto style of singing) for ten years with a faculty member of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Simultaneously, she studied composition . . . but she was actually a self taught writer. Her instructor didn't teach Marissa how to write music, just how to write it down. She does not write using theory, but from experimentation and improvization. From an early age, she developed her own writing style that can't be catagorized. She is a cameleon-type writer. Marissa is quite a prolific writer . . . [who] will perform for an appreciative audience, who realizes the value of art, not commericalism."

She isn't kidding. On Marchant's music page, she offers her address with this caveat: "I am accepting donations. You can send a dollar if you feel that the music industry sucks and you don't like YEHAA and unsophisticated rock, folk, jazz and classical yahoo musicians. I am accepting any amount of money to fund recordings if you are not happy with low level music that is unsophisticated, and if you are tired of the United States being on such a primitive level . . . I have slews of sophisticated rock, jazz, fusion, world fusion, folk fusion, celtic fusion, classical, blues, r and b and everything on a high level. Very advanced."

Needless to say, it isn't; when I stopped laughing uncontrollably at the first song I tried out, "For You," the only thing I could think of was Florence Foster Jenkins--except FFJ had enough grace not to refer to her contemporaries the way Marchant does: "[T]he music industy has rosters filled up with people like Lil Bow Wow, Lil Kim, Emimen, J Lo, Alisha Keyes ( who has NO talent), Christina Aguilera, Britney, Screaming Alanis, Tori with no songs, and not great vocals, and Sarah Mc.Lachlan with no vocals and no songs . . . Lucinda Williams is a yahoo, and our country is a Yahoo. And Shawn Colvin, Dave Matthews, Sheryl Crow, and John Mayor are unsophisticated musicians who are very country, and very yokel. They have the taste of a worm . . . "All these people are in million dollar studios, with all kinds of computer generated alterations to make them sound much better. I am a live performer. I blow people away with my vocals in person. I can do it with no backup. Aimee Mann has no voice and can't do that and no songs, and either can the semi talented Ani De Franco and Paula Cole. Norah Jones just won several grammies with NO voice and doesn't write most of her songs. She is a trained seal. She has NO talent. Her father is Ravi Shanker a rich famous man. A famous Zitar player." [sic on everything, needless to say]

Anyway, hear for yourself. Try "Emu," about which Dan Perry said on ILM, "She sings the entire song a half-step flat up until the VERY LAST PHRASE. It's kind of awe-inspiring." Then go to the totally fucking fake radio interview she did with herself, and get something very close to the chills.