Why I continue to watch ‘American Idol’

I quit watching “American Idol” around this time last year because I didn’t care for any of the remaining contestants. This year it’s different. This year I’m continuing to watch BECAUSE I don’t care for any of the remaining contestants.

For an hour every Tuesday (well, more like 30 minutes, with TiVo), I can fully express my hostility and rage at the losers and idiots who prance around the “American Idol” stage, and who sit behind the judges’ table. I dislike every person involved in the show, from the audience to the contestants to the backup singers who don’t bother to wear matching outfits even though they’re going to be on TV.

Randy Jackson is benign, but his commentary as a judge is paralleled for uselessness only by the inane blather that dribbles out of Paula Abdul’s mouth. Regardless of what you sing, you are declared by Randy to have been “aight,” and to have “done your thing” despite being “a little pitchy.” If you are very lucky, you may be considered one of his “dawgs,” a dubious honor whose job description remains vague.

Paula, meanwhile, has grown progressively more insane this season, with her seal-clapping, her standing up and dancing during every song, and her childish shushing of Simon Cowell. It is clear that she is abusing her prescription painkillers, if not actually smoking crystal meth before each broadcast. The only other possible explanation is that she is mentally retarded.

Until last week’s episode, that is, when suddenly she was subdued, coherent and almost intelligent. Her critiques of the performers made sense, and some of them bordered on actual criticism! I suspect a “Flowers for Algernon” experiment has been going on, leading to a sudden increase in her brain function. I hope this is true, as it means she will soon reach the summit of her intelligence, and then she will get stupid again and die.

Simon is most useful of the judges, but his commentary has become more and more bizarre as he has grown fond of employing odd analogies. “Your performance was akin to a man with a limp buying a banana at 7-Eleven,” he’ll say, or maybe, “That was like getting a carwash and forgetting to thank the girl who brought you the ice cream,” and the contestant doesn’t know whether he has been slammed or praised.

Ryan Seacrest continues to be a tool.

And the contestants? Ugh. As I said, I don’t like any of them. Some of them are talented, but none of them make me want to buy their albums. Some of them earn my outright hatred.

I am glad Constantine has finally been eliminated from the contest, since he is the same person as Bo Bice. If the world has room for ANY more long-haired wannabe rockers who dance around with the microphone stand because they forget that the mic can be removed from it, it surely has room for only one. Do you love Creed? Do you love Nickelback? Then a) you have terrible taste in music, and b) you probably cried, like Paula Abdul did, when Constantine and his face (4/5 handsome, 1/5 chin) were booted last week. If you are Bo Bice, you were thrilled, because it means you still have a chance.

But let me tell you something, Bo Bice. Your hilarious alliterative name aside (it’s actually Harold Bice, by the way), there is no reason for anyone to like you. Your “rocking” looks positively quaint compared to the actual rocking of actual rockers — and none of it proves you can actually SING anyway, which is supposed to be the point of this competition. In addition, you should realize that no man on the face of the Earth has ever looked good with a soul patch AND long, straight hair. In fact, no man has ever looked good with a soul patch OR long, straight hair, let alone both. Do you want to look like Rob Zombie? If so, how come?

(By the way, Bo Bice was once arrested for felony cocaine possession and again on marijuana charges. Read all about it at The Smoking Gun. Hooray for our American idols!)

Anthony Federov continues to get votes because he is cute, young, and sings cheesy love songs. And who votes on “American Idol”? Fourteen-year-old girls, whose fondness for cute, young boys who sing cheesy love songs cannot be overstated. I will continue to be bored by him unless he begins singing through the hole in his neck. But even then I will make fun of him and the way he sings his hard Russian “R’s,” and also for being a soft lady-boy.

And what of Vonzell? Can she overcome her awful made-up name and her Florida heritage and the fact she works as a mailman, and rise to the top of “American Idol”? Or will she continue to wear dreadful outfits and sing good but unmemorable pop songs, like her idol, Beyonce (whose name also isn’t a name)?

Let us next consider Carrie Underpants. She is by far the prettiest person on the show (a fact which makes Ryan Seacrest weep bitter tears onto his satin-laced pillow each night), and she has one of the loveliest voices. But whoops! She thinks she’s singing on “American Redneck,” or whatever The Nashville Network calls its “AI” ripoff. Guess what, Carrie! If the world only needs one more long-haired wannabe rocker, it needs even fewer additional country singers. America is overpopulated with country singers already, so many that the country radio stations can’t contain them and some of them spill over and contaminate regular stations, too. So go back to your Oklahoma farm, marry your half-brother, and spend the rest of your days slingin’ beers for drunks at the town saloon/karaoke bar. If we’re ever in the area, we’ll stop in and say hello.

And finally, there is Scott Savol. Is there a more loathsome person in the world? Then please, introduce him to Scott so that Scott can devour him in two bites.

Where do I begin with Scott? With his Aaron Neville-ish voice, light and airy and frequently out of tune? With his dull, distracting hand gestures and arm motions that remind me of the sign-language scene in “Napoleon Dynamite”? With his unacceptable fashion choices which often cause him to resemble a giant potato? With his unexpressive face, which is most charitably described as “frighteningly, pants-crappingly ugly”?

Or shall I begin with his rap sheet, which includes a domestic violence charge for roughing up his baby mama during a dispute in 2001? (The Smoking Gun has it, of course.) Or his previous charge of trespassing on the grounds of Shaker Heights High School, despite having been warned verbally and by letter not to enter the building? On the “American Idol” Web site, he says he doesn’t have a “most embarrassing moment.” So either those two events are not embarrassing to him, or else he can’t decide which was more embarrassing.

I nominate as his most embarrassing moment the Wednesday night when he shamefully failed to be voted out of the contest — except wait, that happens EVERY Wednesday. Who is voting for this unappealing, unlikable, white-trash (who wishes he were black) Ohio dirtbag who shoves the mother of his bastard son around? Are there other worthless trailer-dwellers who watch “AI” and are pleased to see one of their own make it so far? Are people voting for him ironically, hoping to propel the show’s worst competitor to victory? I know I’ll be watching till the bitter end, hoping everyone loses and we can forget the whole thing ever happened.

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