In yesterday’s entry I noted that I watch American Idol, and do so guiltlessly. Here is why I think that it is no big deal.
      American Idol is a game show, not a reality show in the traditional sense. The people on the show are game show contestants. Their prize is “fame”. But WE KNOW. We know that it’s not real fame. Yes, half the USA knows who the winners and runners up are. Some people even buy their records. It is a very successful game show in that way. But when everyone but a small minority of people thinks of Clay Aken or, I don’t know, somebody like Kelly Clarkson, they don’t think about them as “recording artists” or even “pop music hacks”. They think of them as winners of a game show. They won fame. It’s fame with an asterisk. THESE PEOPLE AREN’T REAL. Here is an example: While in practice Kelly Clarkson may be no different than someone like Christina Aguilera, the fact is that many people don’t know how fake Ms. Aguilera is. But with Kelly Clarkson, THEY KNOW she’s fake. They know she is just some regular chick. They like Ms. Clarkson because they realize that she is no different from them. You do not idolize people who are the same as you. She just won a game show. In their minds, THEY could have done that. But when they think about Ms. Aguilera, they see someone who has risen up the ranks of the music industry legitimately, and her fans respect and idolize her for that. They are both equally as fake. Equally as created. Equally as artificial. But while Ms. Aguilera has the benefit of generating the illusion of credibility to some extent, Ms. Clarkson does not. She has the asterisk.
     That is why I can watch American Idol with a clear conscience. I watch it knowing that it is no more harmful to the culture than any other game show. None of it is real, 95% of the music industry isn’t real, but at least with American Idol everyone knows it, and those who don’t know have it coming.

     I was watching the American Idol results show (I don’t want to hear about it. I know it’s a shitty TV show, you don’t have to tell me. I’m hooked. You wouldn’t judge a junkie would you?) The cast of the new hit fox TV show Stacked was in the audience. During a particularly intense moment in the elimination period of the program, the camera shot over to the cast. Christopher Lloyd, who plays a scientist on the show, COULDN’T HAVE LOOKED MORE BORED. He looked more like a man waiting for the bus than an eager audience member watching a highly rated pop sensation. I just thought it was funny.

     LucasFilm has served me with a cease and desist order preventing me from using George Lucas's name and preventing me for referring to his ego, which is as it turns out, a registered trademark. Who knew? I have also been asked to formaly apologize for insulting Mr. Lucas, lest his frothing pack of lawyers destroy me. Sorry.

    There was a big Star Wars convention last weekend in Indiana. I was going to go dressed up as George Lucas's ego, but the hall wasn't big enough. Too bad, I bet it was fun.

    I heard Gallagher on the radio a while back bitching about Comedy Central’s “top 100 comics of all time” countdown. He was number 100.His grievances were not with his ranking, but rather with what he considered to be various irregularities in the voting procedure, that may have, he feared, tainted the integrity of the list. Did I forget mention that this was “COMEDY CENTRALS BEST 100 COMICS OF ALL TIME”? I thought so. I mean it’s not exactly the academy awards or the Nobel Prize. It’s not even of a Billboard Music Award caliber.
     My first thought upon hearing this sad, bitter little rant was, “Whatever GALLAGER, why don’t you go smash a watermelon or something?” I may have even said it out loud, and to no one in particular.
     But then I felt bad. Why was I being so hard on Gallagher?  I have seen a few of Gallagher’s comedy specials, (not that special) so I know quite well that there is more to his act than swinging an oversized mallet at unsuspecting produce.
     This reminded me of what I like to call, “THE ONE HIT WONDER PARADOX”.
     This is best illustrated by example. Conjure up in your mind some young, fairly creative cadre of musicians, although it should be noted that this works just as well with comedians, actors, or just about anyone working in any of the economically lucrative creative arts, (that means no mimes, graffiti artists, people who make sculpture from their excrement, etc…)
     These musicians are artists and take their business seriously. They are driven, have a fair verity of material ranging from mediocre to excellent, and due to much dues paying and touring and sacrifice, find themselves in a position of modest success, consisting of a loyal fan base, at least a fairly consistent schedule of gigs, unusual or ironic silk screened tee-shirts, and maybe even a bright-if-under-realized first album. (I know that this does not apply to ALL One Hits, sometimes PASS THE DOUCHIE is all you have. I am not referring to artists of the ‘I have one successful project then implode due to a terminal lack of creativity’ variety. THIS MEANS YOU, CARROT TOP.).
     Lets say that this band has one song that, for whatever reason, gets picked up on by the ever fickle music consuming population, and becomes WILDLY FAMOUS. Perhaps the song is gimmicky, or especially commercial, or maybe just well timed, it doesn’t matter. For whatever reason it just takes off.
     Now this band is super-mega-popular. Billboard popular. Platinum popular. Fragrance Popular.  They are now so omnipresent that now 80 or 90% of the people that like the band know them from that song. For the band, all is right and just in the world. The band is doing well. They are now playing arenas instead of small clubs. The money is much better. They are knee deep in hookers and cocaine. Life is good.      But what is not know to them at that time, their finest hour, is that in this their moment of greatest triumph, they have presented with the following situation: By what factor can they introduce the largest number of these notoriously transitory fans, to the rest of their material? How do they free themselves from their hit?
     It is a gargantuan task. If they cannot do this, then they are doomed to a career of having to dispassionately trot out that one song (OR SMASH THAT GOD DAMNED WATERMALLON) that the whole crowd came to see (minus the remaining members of the loyal fan base, as they will follow them to their graves and beyond, and discuss the tiniest details of their work an message boards for all eternity. They are my people, and I love them,) every time they play anywhere. It is a life of luke warm audiences and boat shows and county fairs, rib-fests and obscurity, Where Are They Now VH1 specials and of half empty amphitheaters at the state fair. If they are lucky. They will have never broken away from the song, and getting crowds to accept anything else at that point is nearly impossible. Their job has become to try to get them to hear the rest of their material by stalling out the crowd for as long as possible before giving them the decade flashback they came for. Every show has become like putting a dogs vitamin in with its food.
   It’s kind of sad really. Most of these artists can’t do it. They get too wrapped up in money, or break up, or get distracted and spend years trying to catch up. They miss that one opportunity to diversify. Some comedians will forever be tied to that one bit, no matter what they do. Jeff Foxworthy will be telling red neck jokes until his last hillbilly gasp. Rodney Dangerfield wasn’t getting any respect right up till his moment of his death. He still had to say that line during EVERY SHOW, and you can’t tell me he didn’t choke on it, just a little bit. Devo, no matter how cool and brilliant they are, will always be known as “that Whip It band.”

     This is just funny, and improved my whole day. It proves my theory that given enough power, the Republicans will show their true colors and destroy themselves with greed.

Bush Supporter Sues RNC Over 'W' Logo

     Apparently the pope is dead.

     News to me.

     Not really.

     But here is an interesting pope fact: You do not need to be a Cardinal to be elected pope. You just need to be a baptized catholic male. Can you imagine the reaction if the conclave picked some lapsed Catholic lathe operator from Rhode Island? Or how about a devout Mexican strawberry picker living illegally in a California basement? OR ANYBODY BUT AN OLD-ASS WHITE GUY?

     No, I can’t either.

     I must say that I am not catholic. I have no intrinsic interest in who they pick. It makes no difference to me. But the Catholics in Latin America might, as they make up 42% of the Catholics on the planet. Between them and the Catholic population Africa, at 12 %, and Asia  who come in at 10% that makes, lets see, AT LEAST 64 % of Catholics who are not white old men. Maybe God will say something to the collected Cardinals about that. Probably not though.

(Statistics from 'Global Catholicism: Portrait of a World Church' by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University. A full world map is available here. Used with without permission., so go F@#& yourself.)

     Some people have too much money, and will buy anything provided it comes with a certificate of authenticity. Check this out:

Cigarette Butt on Auction for $5,400

     Mike Tyson, showing a truly staggering inability to stop embarrassing himself, will be returning to the ring. I can only assume its for the money.
     I can remember a time, being a child of the eighties, in which Mike Tyson had been PROVEN, scientifically, to be the toughest bad ass on the planet. If any mortal, (a phylum in which I did not consider Tyson a member), was asked during that time the question, ‘Who is the toughest man in the world?’ he or she would inevitably reply, quickly, and in a humble tone, ‘Why Mike Tyson. Everybody knows that.’ And they would have been right. (He knocked a man out in 8 seconds. I mean really.) Comparisons were made to Rocky.

     Then he raped someone, went to jail, and was promptly forgotten.

     The Mike Tyson of now a different man. He is sad and confused, given to rage and monetary problems. No longer does Don King lurk in his shadow. He keeps birds. He got a tattoo on his face. The only Rocky comparisons made about him now, are to Rocky V (and I’m not sure, but I don’t think Rocky ever raped anyone).

    So now, in the face of a fight he will most assuredly lose pathetically, I am forced make this one request:

     Please don’t kick my ass. Mike, I am sorry about calling you pathetic. You may now suck, as a fighter or whatever, and may find yourself out boxed by even the most green and glass jawed of contenders, but I am small, and you could kill me with little more than your thoughts. I LOVE BIRDS. I played punch out, and you kicked my ass there, so I don’t see why reality would go any differently.

     I spent a lot of time when I was a kid sitting in front of my TV, playing with Legos. A LOT OF TIME. But I was never this good: CHECK THIS GUY OUT. All of this is done with just regular legos. Look around his site, its all cool.