Confessions of an ‘American Idol’ fan

By Dan Dunkle

     Hello, my name is Dan Dunkle and... (sigh), I’m an “American Idol” fan.

     I didn’t want to admit that. It’s very difficult for a guy who regularly gives A+ reviews to films like “The Hills Have Eyes” to acknowledge that he tapes “American Idol” every Tuesday night.

     I was chatting with the fearless cub reporter, Steve, in our newsroom at The Republican Journal a few weeks ago and we were both trying to figure out how to talk about “American Idol” without admitting we were fans. I said something very general like, “So, I see ‘American Idol’ is back on the air this year,” like I haven’t been watching every minute of it from the first episode. Steve, brave soul that he is, very quietly said, “Yeah, I watch the show.”

     In a gush of relief I said, “Oh good. What is up with Bucky anyway?”

Judges Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson and host Ryan Seacrest , top center, of “American Idol.”

     In terms of manliness, watching what one friend of mine calls “A festival of Soul Yodeling” ranks up there with snacking on French Silk Vanilla whipped yogurt or just ordering a salad at a steak house.

     However, I will say in my defense that the ratings indicate that something like 30 million people watch the show. Come on! Some of those people have to be men!

     The best part is the beginning of each season when all of these hopeless saps start pouring into the auditions to render tone-deaf renditions of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” I love watching the judges tear apart some hopeless young person standing there in a ridiculous get-up with his lips trembling.

     “That was without a doubt the worst version of that song I have ever heard,” judge Simon Cowell might say. “I would rather listen to cats being tossed into ovens, to fingernails on chalk boards, to literally any other sound than your voice at this moment. That was just bloody awful.”

     And then I laugh because, hey, it wasn’t me standing in front of 30 million people being dressed down by some pampered Englishman. He’s kind of like a drill sergeant badgering recruits, only this army’s weapons are jazz hands and high notes rather than rifles and bombs.

     “That was pure karaoke,” Cowell accuses the singers, as if that’s a bad thing.

     Wait a second, amateur musician wannabes singing songs made famous by other artists is like karaoke? Noooooooooo! Isn’t that, like, the definition of karaoke?

     “I feel like I’m at a party and the drunk guy has just gotten up to give us a song,” is another thing Cowell might say.

     And the sad thing is that he’s right most of the time. The thing that makes Paula Abdul so wrong is that she gives these saps hope. She’s the cruel one. Simon understands that if he goes easy on these tone-deaf folks they will literally waste their lives pursuing a career that is never going to happen. He’s like the little boy yelling at Lassie that he doesn’t want to see her ever again just to get her to go away for her own good, except of course Simon doesn’t seem at all conflicted about the process.

     Can I just pose one question here? Who is Paula Abdul to judge anyone’s music? Does anyone even remember her last record? I’m thinking no because it was totally irrelevant. When I was in high school, I would come home, flip on MTV and hope for a Def Leppard video. If Paula was singing her latest atrocity, I just used that as an opportunity to go to the kitchen for a snack. If it came to that, I would almost rather do homework than watch a Paula Abdul video. Almost.

     She’s the most irritating part of the show because she’s fairly inarticulate.

     “You...” she starts in, talking to Ace Young, her bottom lip already trembling, “My heart... It just... You are so...”

     What? What are you trying to say? We don’t have all night here!

     I just fast-forward through her comments.

     My favorite judge is Randy Jackson, though he always seems to say the same thing.

     “Dude,” he says, addressing either a man or a woman (it’s a genderless term in his world). Then he has to wait for the crowd to stop cheering. “Dawg,” he tries again. “Check it out. Just keeping it real, you know, it wasn’t my favorite song for you, it was a little pitchy in places, but it was all right. It was all right.”

     When I first started watching the show, I didn’t even know what pitchy meant. Now I’ll be watching Katharine McPhee trying to sing Elvis and say to my wife, “Ew, that’s really pitchy.”

     My wife, by the way, hates “American Idol”. She’d rather be watching one of those shows where people remodel houses. Wow, they’re painting a wall now. Awesome.

     This season is particularly good, I think. The combination of extremely talented contestants and horrible theme nights (Stevie Wonder night? Rod Stewart night? Come on!) have made for interesting viewing. Queen night was particularly painful for me, since I’m a big fan of Queen. The wheels really came off the bus that night.

     The judges always complain that the kids choose the wrong songs, but they don’t have many options when the theme of the night is “Songs from the year you were born.” If you were born in 1976, what exactly is the good song you could choose?

     I absolutely hated Ace Young, the only guy I’ve ever seen make love to the camera more than Antonio Banderas. I’ve heard the ladies liked him though.

     Kelly Pickler was an early favorite of mine, but after a while I got sick of her apologies. “I butchered it,” she moaned in that irritating southern twang. Don’t screw up a song and then ask us to vote for you out of sympathy. (I should add that though I watch the show, I do not participate in the voting. For me that’s like the difference between watching the Star Wars movies and attending them dressed as Yoda).

     Taylor Hicks, the guy who sings like John Belushi singing like Joe Cocker, is my current favorite.

     I thought rocker Chris Daughtry was going to win, so now my whole prediction is all thrown off. I think it’s anyone’s contest at this point, but I will say that of all the performers, Elliot Yamin is the one who is really playing this game to win. Katherine McPhee is a good singer, but Elvis night was not good to her. Elliot was kind of a dark horse, underdog, which would make him winning all the more dramatic.

     So there you have it. I’m an “American Idol” fan. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a salad to order.

     Daniel Dunkle is editor of The Republican Journal. E-mail him at trjmail@courierpub.com.