My wife is watching American Idol. It doesn't have the same appeal to me this year as it has before. I admit though, I enjoy the first couple weeks, people slipping out of their tedium to prove their abilities or not to a few judges and the world. I play a few musical instruments and have attempted on occassion to sing. I'm a much better fish than a vocalist. I know this. But I'm not tone deaf. Note recognition I believe plays a key part in one's ability to deal with rejection. Now, this is just a hypothesis as yet, completely unproven in the world of the deaf, but I hearken back to my previous article dealing with global warming. If there is no singing ability in these people's bones, then why have they been so deceived? Not only is it cruel to them, the unsinging, but to the audience of the unsinging. Sometimes it's downright painful.
The auditions were quite an insight into the gimme mentality. Surely people aren't really that obtuse? Don't call me Shirley and, yes they are. And rude. They get worse every year. Before you send me comments about not being able to reach their dreams, realize it takes ability, hard work, and luck to even get any sort of attention. It takes all three, not one or two, and we can't hurt their feelings. Yes we can. We need to. It all starts here. A grassroots campaign to stop the bleeding in our ears. We need to hold our heads across America and support this crippling malady before it runs rampant through the streets and burgs of our towns and parrishes, or what ever they call counties in your neck of the woods.
It's a testament to the discourteous and narcissist tendencies of pop culture that we get these gems of broadcast excellence to while away our evenings and they took Firefly off the air. I blame Kurt Cobain, posthumously of course, for everything. If he hadn't taken his own life, the music may have stayed melancholy and angst-ridden for another decade or so. With the passing of grunge, the cockroaches of pop and rap slither into our radios and televisions, sickening and poisoning us with their filth and disease ridden thoughts and sophomoric and mundane lyrics, vaguely reminiscent of a pre-pubescent Teddy Geisel.
In closing, this show is just another reason why arts should not be taken out of schools. Music, pop or not, teaches us many things. Structure, dexterity, focus, attention, timing, rhythm, passion, humility. There are many, many more lessons, but those are for another time.