Nothing really great happens in January. It's cold. It's dark. It's depressing. Sure, on the twenty-eighth day of every January I inch ever closer to my grave, but on the whole it's kind of a blah month. Nobody looks forward to January beyond the 1st, which for a government employee like myself, means paid vacation. Actually, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a paid holiday too, so, OK, maybe there are two days that make January worthwhile.For the past eight years I, and I've been told millions of others, have turned to the American Idol audition shows to yank me out of my January funk and restore the warm spark that only laughing at ridiculously delusional and untalented morons make complete fools of themselves on national television can provide. Yes, each January FOX treats America to a cavalcade of the lonely, damaged, and confused, and I for one salute them. It's not that I'm a mean-spirited old crank, though some may describe me as such, I just enjoy a good idiot. C'mon! Who among us doesn't love watching an idiot do something goofy and unintelligent sometimes? If you say you don't, you're a filthy liar. The Germans have a word for the phenomenon: schadenfreude, or pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.
So it was with great joy when earlier this month I snuggled under the covers with my wife, who pretends to not want to watch it with me, and waited for American Idol to shower me with goofy idiots being stupid. Only as the first hour of the two hour premiere came to a close, I found myself in a state of bewilderment. "What's going on?" I thought. I hadn't guffawed. I hadn't tittered into my upturned palm. I hadn't cracked a smile. Not once. Had there not been as many dimwits, dorkwads, and dum-dums this year? Had I perhaps matured beyond the point of finding bad singers who wholly believe themselves to not only be the next American Idol, but the second coming of pop music itself, not that funny? That couldn't be it. Next thing you know, I'd stop laughing at YouTube videos of fat people falling down.
I wasn't even charmed by Pants on the Ground Guy a few nights later:
I feel like we get a character like this one every year. How is Pants on the Ground Guy any different from whatever retired military officer/probably homeless guy who wandered into last season's auditions and screeched some made up song that Randy Jackson mocked for about ten minutes too long? Pants on the Ground Guy had a point-of-view, I guess, but who gives a shit? What elderly, possibly inebriated, black man hasn't at some point or other complained about the fact that many of today's youth wearing their pants in a less than dignified fashion? Pants on the Ground Guy wasn't breaking any new ground, he was just repeating the same hacky shit you'd expect from any weird old person American Idol producers have dragged in front of Simon, Randy, Paula, and Kara in the past.
I feel like we get a character like this one every year. How is Pants on the Ground Guy any different from whatever retired military officer/probably homeless guy who wandered into last season's auditions and screeched some made up song that Randy Jackson mocked for about ten minutes too long? Pants on the Ground Guy had a point-of-view, I guess, but who gives a shit? What elderly, possibly inebriated, black man hasn't at some point or other complained about the fact that many of today's youth wearing their pants in a less than dignified fashion? Pants on the Ground Guy wasn't breaking any new ground, he was just repeating the same hacky shit you'd expect from any weird old person American Idol producers have dragged in front of Simon, Randy, Paula, and Kara in the past.And another thing! The addition of a different guest judge for each night of auditions after Paula Abdul's exit seemed like a fun idea, but it has been just the opposite. Sort of. I mean, seriously, what did Mary J. Blige or Shania Twain add to the proceedings? If you said nothing, give yourself a gold star. Mary J. Blige wasn't cruel enough--and don't get it twisted, folks, cruelty is a necessity when being an American Idol judge--and Shania Twain was boring. The wife and I were excited for the Orlando auditions, us being huge Kristin Chenoweth fans and all, but were crestfallen when she left at the end of Day 1 and never returned.
Ironically, the two guest judges I was least jazzed about--Avril Lavigne and Katy Perry--have ended up being the most interesting to watch: Lavigne because she is, as I've always suspected, pure evil, and Perry because, frankly, she's easy on the eyes. And she is also mean. Tonight, of course, NPH joins the panel, but I'm afraid it may be too little too late.
What gives, American Idol auditions? You are typically the only part of the show I watch and I usually have such a great time. This year though, I don't know. You've been heavy on sob stories and light on psychopaths, though the guy last night with the giant face and the Twilight-vampire singing "Cult of Personality" made up for a weak start. I'm hoping you've compiled a Best of the Worst special worthy of my exacting tastes and plan to run it sometime in the near future. Until then, consider me deeply disappointed.
