American Idol is not the Super Bowl

There is an interesting article in the Washington Post by Robin Ghivan this morning entitled, "We Get the Idols We Deserve" that tries to make sense of a senseless circumstance. I agree completely with the analysis put forth by the author, but I ask myself the question, "How is it that people sensible enough to use i-pods, drive cars, and come in out of the rain, can get caught up in the mystery that this injustice can exist in a world smiled upon by a benevolent god?"

I find comfort in the findings of my unofficial, "man-on-the-street", poll in which I asked the probing question, "Who won American Idol last year?" The results of my poll were as revealing as the empty spaces in a high-school graduate's job application. Quite simply put, nobody really knew who won last year...and I even went so far as to load the poll by asking primarily those people who I felt should know.

My first ringer was the guy in the cage at the pawn shop with his eyes fixed to the wall-mounted tv and his ass glued to a barstool that once said "Budweiser." He lied and said he didn't care, but did ask about my watch. I asked the lady up the street with the permanent, plastic-wrapped hair-curlers as she stood in her fuming house coat draining the yappy little fucker she calls "Reuben". Nope. Go figure. I asked the grocery checker with the orange hair, purple nail polish and quarter-horse ass that you KNOW has got to be beating the shit out of her sofa at least five hours a night. No Dice. I had to capitulate however, when I approached a teen-aged skater-punker type as he rolled out of the corner convenience store sucking on a "Huge Gulp" and wearing, of all things, a black T-shirt with the day-glo "American Idol" logo screaming from his bony chest. His answer to my poll question was, "What's that?...hey...hey, um, sir, can you buy some candy so I can go to camp and don't get into a gang?"

And this brings me to the title of this entry, "American Idol is not the Super Bowl." Who won the Super Bowl? The Steelers, Right? Why did they win? They scored more damn points than the other team! Who was the other team? Get's a little harder now, doesn't it? Who did you vote for to win "American Super Bowl?" Oh, you didn't get to vote? You mean that they decide that thing on who is actually better? That's not fair...is it?

I don't mourn the unforeseen expulsion of Chris Daughtry from American Idol. I'm more than certain that he has plenty of viable prospects to sift through in the very near future. I don't know for sure if he is as real as he seems to be, but he does give the impression of having real talent and knowing who he wants to be. And that is a strong start.

Now the remaining three? This is all they are ever going to have so give them a break, okay? And if any of the three were my child, I'd be wearing a dumb-ass T-shirt, waving a hand-painted, glittery sign and jumping up and down in the audience with the rest of them. My heartless and reality-based predictions are that one of them will be a finalist in the new reality show, "America's Next Top Shoe Salesman", one will get a job selling plastic statues of Wayne Newton in Branson, Missouri between auditions, and one will be seen in a tv spot for men's hair darkening products muttering, "Well... I hope THIS shit works." I'm sure that they are all really nice and I wish them all the best, but Idol-hood is not in their future.

But Chris? ...Don't worry about Chris. He'll be fine. Now that he's loose he can resume chasing his dream armed with a load of video showing him a lot of things that didn't work, and some that did. If Chris is to win the REAL competition, it will be because he's better.

Remember. American Idol is not the Super Bowl.