Welcome to the train wreck

And we're off! Yes, another season of American Idol is out of the gates, which means millions of hogs will belly up to the trough for more of the slop that passes for entertainment these days. Except on rare occasions, I don't watch the show. The only time it's fun to watch is in the beginning, when they show the auditions--everything from the truly good to the truly awful. Last week's debut of the show had plenty of the awful, more than should legally be allowed. And people watched it, watched by the millions. And why? The answer is easy. Americans love a winner, but we love watching people humiliate themselves in front of a national audience even more. It's reaffirming to our self-esteem to watch people, with their physical imperfections and inability to carry a tune in a bucket, parade themselves before the cameras and fail miserably. It's easy to laugh and point and say, "Look at that poor asshole" when none of us could do any better. And I'm no better.

Who puts these people up do to this? One miserable bastard said his co-workers told him he should go on the show, that he had a great singing voice. Another reason to never, ever, trust your co-workers. You'll only end up on a videotape loop playing constantly in the lunchroom where you work, or even worse, on You Tube. Another contestant's mother said she was impressed by her daughter's singing skills. We all soon realized that her mother is way too easily impressed, as her daughter had a voice that made me embarrassed for the entire human race. And then there was "Red," the questionably psychotic contestant that finished off the first show with his version of Queens' "Bohemian Rhapsody." His falsetto voice led me to believe that either Red is one of the last castratti, or he dressed that day with a strap normally used on the groins of bulls to make them more "lively" for a rodeo bull riding contest.

But for all the awfulness that was to be found on that season premiere of American Idol, none of the contestants, absolutely none of them, can hold a candle to the train wreck that Paula Abdul has become. I think that of all the bad performances that were broadcast last week, none of them comes even close to this jewel.

<