American Idull

The Big Shanty 8th Grade Lugnuts were doing their usual: losing. It was a difficulty year for Coach Big Ron and myself. The first kid we picked for the team quit due to a medical issue and we had one kid that we were pretty sure had never seen a baseball before.

In the middle of another long inning, I received a call on my cell phone. It was my wife. She wanted to tell me about what just happened on “American Idol”.

Six years later, we are in our second year boycott of “American Idol”. I’m proud to say that we didn’t watch a second of it this year. Not even the “Pants On The Ground” guy.

It looks like “American Idol” has jumped the shark during “Shark Week”.

The star of the show, the churlish Simon Cowell has left. Ellen DeGeneres is leaving as is Kara DioGuardi. They will be replaced by Jennifer Lopez and Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler. Nobody really knows if Randy Jackson will be back. This is not a train wreck waiting to happen. It is a train wreck that has happened.

The show was pretty simple. First show a bunch of people trying out for the show. However, make sure you get a bunch of morons who “think” they can sing to audition in front of the judges. When the crash and burn, have the Englishman crush their spirits because the English do that so well.

Finally, you whittle your way into some talent. You bring them to Hollywood where they sing two minute versions of whatever the theme is that night, and soon, you have your American Idol.

The judges were very important to the show. Randy Jackson was the musician who has played with everyone from Bob Dylan to Mariah Carey. Paula Abdul was the “star”, the person everyone came to see. Simon was the money grubbing record executive who was out for the quick buck.

It all worked pretty well. Randy would give his sensible criticisms, Simon would try to crush their dreams and Paula would be there to nurture them.

Somewhere, however, along the way, Randy became this “dawg” man and would talk about “pitch”. Paula looked like she had just flown in from Planet Paula. Simon began to look like he was bored and would give incredible analogies to the contestants like “your per-FOR-mence was like something you would hear in a podiatrist office in Paraguay”.

The contestants would stand there, listening to this “critique” and tried to please the judges. Mostly, they tried to please Simon, who, let’s face it, had the musical taste of mud.

One of the more successful “Idols” has been Carrie Underwood. The first couple of “Idols” had been very soul/pop in nature. Underwood was the first Country Music Idol and she took the radio world by storm with her song, “Jesus, Take the Wheel” (or how she pronounced it: “Jeysus, Tahke Uh Will”). Her second hit, “Before He Cheats” is a song that promotes destruction of men’s personal property if they play pool with somebody else.

It is hard to imagine anyone new coming along to match Carrie Underwood’s success. It is hard imagine Steven Tyler or Jennifer Lopez could pick it out, dawg.

Do not fear. Cowell will soon star in another one of his shows “The X Factor”, which is “American Idol” under another name.