New Year, New "talent"

Sat through the Seattle auditions for American Idol last night. Supposedly the worst bunch of auditions in the entire history of AI, and the cameras and editors had a ball with it. My theory is that all the good talent in Seattle is already happy creating their own music for the hundreds of venues across the city, engaging their talent and knowing that AI is just a crap fest, so why bother. This leaves the talentless, the freaks, those completely in denial about themselves. And most of the freaks they showed were not even FROM Seattle. So don't blame that fine city.

If any of you reading this watched AI, and you remember the "monkey boy" and the really really fat dude who tried to sing God Bless America, who became fast friends... and that creepy dude from Salt Lake City area... this is what shows up to singles groups (okay Space City Mixers is an exception; they weren't too horrid). But church-based singles groups.... yes... the demographic was represented well last night.

I thought that Ryan, Paula, Simon and Randy were exceedingly gracious and showed a huge amount of compassion and restraint. But Simon made comments about people's looks, and if looks are as much a part of it as voice, then the auditioners should be prescreened. I can't help but think that they already are - no way all those thousands of people in line can all get an audience of the golden three in one weekend (but I haven't researched it either). And if that's the case, then why torture them with the freakshows?