“Pure Zevita P0wnAge!!”

“Has anyone been watching American Idol?  This “thing” has taken over the planet.  Seriously.  It’s a plague.  It’s everywhere.  It’s in your laundry.  It’s on the side of your milk carton.  It’s in your soup.   The Nation has Idol mumps.   Seeing as I like to keep up with pop culture, I’ve been watching the show.   Give me a second to complain about it.

For what feels like the last three months every Tuesday and Wednesday, Idol has been drowing viewers in a never-ending stream of garbage auditions.  “Bush Monkeys” galore, honestly.  One reject after another after another.  It’s been the gong show on crack.  They got to the point where they even marched out a few autistic kids and mental patients.  This is labelled as a “talent competition”, mind you.  (Well actually it’s a massive marketing scam, but I’ll get to that in a second).

How was it possible not to get worn down by this constant stream of idiots?  This isn’t revolutionary entertainment, man.  I listened to my buddy Julag-ay Palongpalong and his copilot Kurt “the oompa loompa” hack out better song renditions in a bar 2 years ago.  What’s the big deal?  Every day I head to work and listen to Adam Corolla and Jimmy Kimmel complaining about it on the radio.  It got so bad that they even joked about it on a recent episode of Saturday Night Live.  “Heres 5 minutes of a retard we met in Alamba!  Heres 6 minutes of a Parkinsons patient!  Heres 10 seconds of a good singer, but quick… check out this midget with OCD!!”.   Ugh….

And you know what?… that isn’t the part that bugged me. I could handle the fact that they were marching out crappy contestant after crappy contestant. What I COULDN’T handle was the fact that at this point it is common knowledge that the contestants go through 2 auditions before they even meet the judges. Who doesn’t know that by now?   I figure Simon, Paula and Randy probably show up for an hour or two and go through the motions as the producers send the “most interesting” idiots up for camera time.  It just made the whole thing far too fake and forced.  Idol should just quit making it seem realistic and just have contestants with Superpowers. You know? Kinda like back when everyone realized wrestling was fake so the WWF created characters like the Undertaker. How badass would it be if one of the contestants started hovering out of a casket? Get the producers on the line… I think we can make this happen. Anyways… Also what  I COULDN’T handle was the fact that a hefty amount of these “crappy contestants” seemed to be total acts, perhaps even struggling actors and actresses or performance artists (like that one “mental” girl who kept saying “I can be the first Idol winner who CAN’T sing”). I just couldn’t help but think, “who are these people Idol hired and why did they decide to bore us with them?”  Who let Latka Graves into the audition room??.

“ello my name Latka and I sing you a song”

But despite this “Rampage of the Bush Monkeys” there actually were a VERY few contestants that actually stood out as interesting and unique — such as Rachel Zevita.  Zevita was a stand-out 19 year old opera singer from Manhatta, New York that performed three uniquely different songs in her audition.  She performed all three well.  Suddenly she had legions of internet fans, a loyal following, a registered domain name… and the greatest Youtube Video in the history of YouTube:  “The Rachel Zevita Tribute Video”, created by yours truely, of course.  (Come on… tell me that isn’t the greatest thing you’ve ever seen.   Rachel herself actually e-mailed me and told me it was hilarious.  I mean if it’s good enough for Rachel and the 2000+ people who have watched it, it’s good enough for you.  She’s Rachel F’n Zevita, son!). Finally the zombie Idol fans were brought to the “Hollywood Auditions” round this week.  FINALLY we have an opportunity to actually watch some people who can hold a tune better than Julag-ay Palongpalong.  But instead, the producers of Idol completely dropped the ball.   The “Hollywood Round” which normally dragged on for two weeks was condensed into one 40 minute program.  Many of the “fan favorites” were cut within the first 10 seconds of the show.  What the hell?  On top of that, a few of the most popular contestants, such as the aforementioned Rachel Zevita, were completely ignored.  As far as I can tell, she was just completely written off the show as if she was the missing dog from “the Brady Bunch” or the annoying friend from prison on “Entourage”.  What the heck happened to her? 

You see, basically it boils down to this.  American Idol is one massive marketing scam.  They forcefeed their 33.6 million viewers whatever mindless drivvel they want.  Taylor Hicks was a stand-out performer during the audition rounds last year, and he coasted on his popularity all the way to the bitter end.  They build these “products” from the start and then overwelm us with them at every turn - holdup lemme finish the rest of my breakfast McPhee flakes.. i’ll be right with you…. ok, done…    

And honestly, I’m cool with that.   Brainwashing of the masses has worked for centuries.  Someone might as well profit off it.   But this season of American Idol has me a bit confused.  Why introduce characters like “RACHEL F’N ZEVITA” and then ignore them?  That’s just piss-poor storytelling.  It’s as if the producers of the audition rounds were fired and someone unfamiliar with the previous episodes was forced to slap together a 40 minute “Hollywood Round” in a hurry.   Go figure.  Seems like they dropped the ball.  They should hire me…

K… that ends my rant about Idol.    By the way.  Nedyken Entertainment has officially launched.   The world will never be the same:  http://www.nedyken.com

Well it’s not my show and not my problem. Oh and good luck in the future, Zevita (assuming you aren’t locked in some producer’s basement)…