False Idols

I came home and was flipping through the channels and saw that American Idol is on again. I don't know why that surprised me. I suppose it's time to start bludgeoning us out of our post New Year stupor. They ought to sell a line of products for people to use while they watch the show. Included are an anal dildo and a little plastic bowl of frozen feces with one of those wooden ice cream spoons! A $9.99 Limited Offer!

It's not like I should care, because I don't watch it. Except at the beginning, when they show the super freaks. That's pretty sweet. Watching those people always makes me rethink my stance on the death penalty. But then it goes into the "star making" part and I can't take it. Even if I turn my TV off, I get angry. Just knowing it's on bothers the shit out of me. And not because it's crap entertainment or that it's so shameless, but because those judges fucking are so creepy. I can't get past it.

That cross-eyed guy, Randy, is definitely a replicant. Watch him closely. I guarantee if you study his movements and really listen to his voice you will find yourself sitting bolt upright in your bed at 4 am. That guy is fucked.

And Paula Abdul? Wasn't she married to Kiefer Sutherland in 1983? Just before he shot Julia Roberts? (Someone look that up.) Twenty five years later she looks good, maybe even the same. And that's because she was encased in an incredibly thin layer of clear rubber sometime in the mid nineties. I think Michael Jackson's people had something to do with it. And now she is clearly jazzed up on something, booze, pills, some kind of gauze, whatever. With that vacant smile...and you know that English guy is drilling her. And she has no idea because she's catatonic inside her rubberized mind thinking about Keifer or Emiliez or one of those guys as the English guy finishes up and wipes himself off on her dressing room drapes.

Finally there is the English guy, the star. Ian (or Liam, or Neville, or something like that). He wears those black shirts. Unfortunately. But he's clearly the class of the group. He has the British accent, which esptblishes his superiority over us Earthling American rodents. His haircut is sweet- very Mark Allen 1979 (Mark Allen was a kid who lived on my block and he got tons of girls in sixth and seventh grade. Then he mysteriously spun out of control into dungeons and dragons level dorkdom in eighth grade and I never saw him again, although my yearbook indicates that he graduated with our class. The hair, however, is from Mark's scoring chicks years, which obviously this Ian guy knows about.) Ian, who invented American Idol as well as all talent contests, is a star maker. Where did he learn his craft? Oh yeah, someone told me...he was in the music industry. The same music industry that once told me that Oasis is the new Beatles and now tells me that I should listen to Daughtry. The industry that can't sell any records.

So Ian, who is a genuis, makes people into "superstars". But unfortunately there is a by product: despite the fact that we now have all these new "stars", everyone has realized that the music they sing sucks so bad they would rather listen to electronic ring tones. Good job, bro. By the way, they should play Daughtry in prison. No one would ever commit a crime again if they knew they had to hear that guy screaming at them for the next five to ten.

I know regardless of what I say, they can't be stopped. Something like 300 million Americans watch every episode. So I'm in the minority. Fuck it. I can take comfort in the fact that nothing lasts forever (except the Simpsons and Abe Vigoda). But who knows, maybe it will end sooner than we think. Maybe some terrorist group will free Paula from her epoxy prison and brain wash her Patty Hearst style. A week later we will watch in horror as she gloriously castrates Ian on live television with a garden hoe. Then Donald Trump can take over. And get his own set of robots.

Of course it could be worse. They could do a movie version of Quincy, with the Rock playing Klugman's role.

My TV is officially off. Time to read a book. I'm starting a good one, it's called "LT: Living on the Edge. The Lawrence Taylor Story." I'm going to read it to the kids at the orphanage this weekend during book time. I hear it's an inspiring story.

Mick

The New Year

Happy New Year! You know I'm pretty sure I wrote a blog in late December that somehow disappeared from the site here...I don't really remember what it was about but now that it's gone I'm convinced that it was the best thing I ever wrote. Lost forever! Like Hemingway leaving those stories on the train in Spain or France or wherever he was drinking and writing long sentences in those early years when the words and blood flowed like wine and we all went to the Cafe Bernice and had a pernod. But I'll try to recapture the magic.

Let's see what's new in the world of music. A friend of mine recently sent me a disc of Ryan Bingham, folk/bluesy stuff, reminiscient of Townes Van Zandt/Billy Joe Shaver. Excellent stuff. Seriously very cool. Strongly advise you track this guy down if you have any interest in folk/blues/guitar kick ass music. But if you don't like good music, you definitely won't like Ryan Bingham.

I spent some time in Mexico in the last couple weeks. Nothing like being drunk during the day listening to Mexican music. Heard some excellent mariachi players wh went deep into the catalog to play something for my niece and nephew. There is some really great Mexican music out there- I would particularly recommend Los Tres Ases and Los Dandys. Musica bonita.

Pretty pedestrian blog this week. Nothing really to say now that the New Year started and we're all back to work. I promise something better in the next couple days. Something that will really piss someone off.

Signing out.

MU