AND THE WINNER IS.....

Unless you have been in a coma, you probably know that the winner of Season Five of AMERICAN IDOL was crowned last night. TAYLOR HICKS is his name and SOUL PATROL is his game. My 13 yr. old daughter has lived and died by the weekly vote-off of contestants this season. She hasn't had the fervor for watching the show the last week tho since her Pick for the Idol-Elliot-was sent packing.

I've got to say that I am NOT an American Idol zealot. My favorite part of the whole process and the only part I do make an effort to watch are the audition shows. Basically, I watch those episodes because seeing all those HORRIBLY BAD SINGERS who think they are ready for stardom is funny as hell!

I also think that SIMON is the only judge who is doing any of these contestants a favor with his critiques & I find myself usually agreeing with his opinions.
Life is hard baby! If you as a judge are letting self-deluded people continue on a dead end path by NOT telling them the COLD HARD TRUTH about their abilities(or lack thereof), then you are totally disrespectful of yourself and those you critique.

I caught some of the later shows by accident. Since the tv & computer are in the same room, if I happened to be at the computer while AI was on, I got at least an earful of what was going on. From this old 'not-too-interested' viewers opinion, of the top 10 Finalists, there were only TWO singers who stood out.....Taylor and Chris.
Yes, all of them had good voices. Some of them needed more training or polish than others. If someone has good pitch and a good insrument, you can always coach them to be better technically. And you can always dress them better too. What you can't give them is THE "IT" FACTOR. Call it charisma......call it that certain unexplained something. It's that internal spark that some people have and alot more don't. It gives someone their sense of knowing who they are and projecting their presents out into the world through that tv camera. Katherine McPherson is a pretty girl, with a sultry voice but no "IT".
Taylor & Chris have "IT" in spades....as did Kelly Clarkson.
And if Taylor & Chris both get savvy people behind them guiding their paths, they'll both have satisfying careers for as long as they'd like.

Daughter may be bummed about her Elliot losing, but I got tickets to the AI Tour when it comes to our town so she can take solice in being able to hear him at least 1 more time before he disappears into AI history.

I last thing I want to mention here. A local newscaster, in reference to the AI voting, said that more home viewers cast votes in this Final AI Vote-Off than have ever cast votes in a single U.S. Presidential Election.

Now isn't that a very sad comment on the state of our country & culture.

Perhaps we need to have sing-offs in our presidential campaigning process to get the voters to participate in elections?
Or maybe we should give these AI contestants a shot at our top political jobs??
I don't think they would do much worse than the leaders we have now.....
At least they'd be entertaining as they sent our country to hell.

sluggy