abbott & costello on american idol

Remember the famous "Who's On First" comedy routine that Abbott and Costello used to do years ago? If you weren't around back in the 1930s and 40s you probably don't. I've seen video and heard old radio broadcasts of the skit, and to me it's as confusing as it is funny. But it is funny. About 40 years after the big-time comics made it famous, Chris Simonsen and I felt it was time for our generation to get its own kicks out of the back and forth, so we decided to sign up for the Madison Central High School talent show. Honestly, it didn't go so good. Thank God it wasn't a Gong Show. We would've never made it to the next base. (What's on second...)

I like a good talent show. It's fun to watch people who don't normally stand in front of a crowd, stand in front of a crowd. Their song or dance or monologue or feat may be crippled by their nervousness, but they stand there and give it all they've got. It's fun to root for the best and cheer on the worst. They're not all winners. But they're all tryers, and usually it's an honest show.

I'll admit that I've had my fascinations with American Idol. Some genuinely remarkable talent and some of today's biggest music names have come out of the TV talent show, and if nothing else, it has proven the old adage; It's not what you know. It's who you know. But the however-many-seasons-the-show-has-been-evolving-on-the-air-show has proven too that it is not completely honest - at least not up front. Still, you've got several million people who carve a notch in the middle of their week to take it in.

I'm sure most people who watch the show know that Randy, Paula, Simon, and now Kara don't take the time to listen to the tens of thousands who show up to audition. We're kinda led to believe that they do. But they don't. The couple of hundred singers who eventually do get to sing to the stars have been strung along and pumped up for weeks by the show's producers, since their first visit to the city. Even the tremendously tone-deaf who get the call-back have been misled into believing that they could possibly be the next amazing phenom in the pop music world. That's why so many bad singers walk away in tears after they were first congratulated and lauded by a phone call from LA , then laughed at and poked with a stick when the arrogant celebrities come to town. But it makes for good TV, and right now, that's what this show is really all about. A more serious look at music is scripted later in the season.

Personally, I think American Idol is as much about humiliating good people who just can't sing as it is finding really good singers. Many of the best who show up at the original audition hoping to be discovered have to be passed over. The show must make room for characters. When the show meets its quota of blond/brunette or tattooed/clean-cut or black/white (and this season Hispanic) good singers, there's no more need for another good voice. Talent or not, when they're full they're full. Now, if your fashion sense is a little off or if you have bad teeth, a skin problem and greasy hair you may have a chance yet. But only if you sing like a wounded banshee.

Several months ago American Idol came to Louisville. Several weeks later the famous faces arrived to tape their parts. After a few more weeks of shooting fields, trees, barns and banjos, then creatively editing the hours of footage, some of the good and much of the embarrassing was put on TV. I'm not sure why, but the producers felt it was necessary to make our state and all of its great citizens look like back-woods hicks and country goons. We're proud Kentuckians, and we're not ashamed of our culture. We're also not stupid. I was, along with many of my friends, humiliated again by a Hollywood that gets a sick kick out of manipulating and misrepresenting good people for a greedy purpose.

On the Louisville show Paula and Simon made a big deal out of a not so talented good old boy's country way of saying goodbye. He said, "Y'all be careful." Paula and Simon exploded, "What! Was that a threat!?" I'm sure that these two judges are like most celebrities that you couldn't get to for a handshake, much less something more sinister. Granted, the simple fella who really meant no harm at all could probably shoot the hood ornament off their speeding Jaguar if he wanted to. But why waste a bullet on such hollow things?