Monday, November 21, 2011

Here he is! Your new American Idol!!!

Let’s say you got onto American Idol. What would you do? We are gonna have to make a few assumptions, and here they are: 1) you can sing well enough that you got on the show and 2) you enjoy singing. That’s all. Essentially, you’re just like you now, only instead of being untalented and full of spite and bile, you’re a good singer with an enjoyment of something, dig? Okay. Oh, we need to make one more assumption and that’s that this new season of American Idol, the one you’re on, is somehow still relevant and if you win, you WILL become a very successful recording artist, albeit one that works with Coca Cola and Ford and all that shit, but hey, you’re gonna be singing for a living and that’s better than the shitty job you have now.

Yes, the whole thing is perhaps a little unsavory. While getting onto American Idol is a great opportunity, there’s no doubt that it’s pretty brutal in a lot of ways. You’ll be scrutinized by the world, your appearance will be ridiculed (probably, look at yourself for fucks sake!), your singing will be criticized harshly, you’ll be forced to sing dorky songs with horrendous arrangements and you’ll be constantly judged by three complete dipshits. You’ll have to publically beg America to like you and you’ll be forced into the indentured servitude of doing shitty commercials for the aforementioned Ford Scion and various Coke products. People will speculate that you’re gay, or a little bit too fat. They will, if you proceed onwards, interview your horribly embarrassing parents and your friends and they’ll take a camera crew to the house where you grew up and they’ll exploit every inch of everything that you feel is true and good and genuine about yourself all in the name of revenue. You’ll have to talk to Ryan Seacrest. You’ll watch as the person you’ve always prided yourself on being is reduced to an archetype with questionable (at best) taste in music as you belt out shit like Heard It Through The Grapevine or The Lady In Red. It will not be entirely pleasant.

BUT! You’ll be in LA living in a nice hotel. You’ll be famous. People will want to do nice things for you. Your selection of dicks/vaginas on demand will greatly increase. You’ll have the chance to show the world your talent. You’ll get shit for free. You’ll potentially step ever closer to living the dream of just doing something you like, seeing the world and getting paid for doing nothing more than you’d already do in the shower every day. If you win, or even just do well, you’ll be able to tell everyone in your life that you don’t like to go fuck themselves. You can make as much or as little of your fame as you want once the show is over, meaning that if you decide the limelight’s not for you, you can just not do any touring or recording and you’ll eventually fade back into obscurity. OR you can tour and make records and wind up in crazy hot tub parties with Diddy and Ke$ha and piles and piles of strawberry cocaine. It’s your choice.

So what do you do? Do you try as hard as you can? Do you play the game? Do you show people a really palatable version of yourself and do the interviews and jump through the hoops? Do you really take the criticism to heart and go for it with everything you’ve got? Do you forego sleep and leisure to do everything you can to insure that you’re gonna move forward and give it the best possible try you can?

Or do you just act like yourself, wear the clothes you normally wear, show up, sing the songs you want to sing, not putting any more effort into it than you do with your regular day to day life in the hopes that your “realness” will win over the hearts and minds of America, and generally treat the whole thing like a game?

Or perhaps you actively try to subvert the entire thing, doing things so outrageous, picking such bizarre songs, acting like such a maniac that the show has no choice but to deal with your shenanigans, perhaps forcibly removing you or asking the audience to vote you off? What’s your move? Do you squander the chance of a lifetime because it’s not ideal or do you bust your dick/clam to make the most of it because the ultimate result would be better than right now?

Because when you consider the amount of eggs in your mom’s uterus and the zillions of loads in your dad’s balls (eeew), just getting here, getting born, is like winning the lottery and this place that we all occupy does, indeed feature avenues by which, if you bust your ass, can end in mind boggling success and a life of doing exactly what you want to do. There’s essentially no difference between getting born and going to LA with American Idol. Both offer the chance of insane success and morbid embarrassment and both can be subverted, ignored or squeezed for every precious opportunity. Just being here is pretty fucking exciting. Sure, it’s scary and it sucks a lot of the time and people are cruel and confusion and shittiness abounds on a massive scale. Dickheads like Ryan Seacrest are around every corner being vapidly awesome at collecting money for nothing discernable and self doubt is pervasive and there’s always someone younger, better looking and more talented than you doing exactly what you’re trying to do but just so much better.

But man, what the fuck is the point if you don’t try to give it every single bit of energy you have? This is the only chance you’re ever gonna get at this, this one life, right here that you’re living in. While you sit there in the dark, slowly whacking off over the course of 4 straight hours, you’re literally the youngest and most dynamic that you’ll EVER be again. You’ll be dead soon, and you can definitely subvert existence or ignore it and look back on a life full of bong hits, internet porn, texting and a zillion endless days feeling like a useless shithead. You can. A lot of us will. But that’s gonna be depressing. When you die, wouldn’t it be nice to remember that even if you fucked it all up, at least you did your best to do SOMETHING?

Of course there’s also the argument that if you’re just destined to be a shithead failure, it’s much nicer to just let the current carry you. Fighting only gets you tired, and makes your meat tough and stringy.

Eh, I dunno. I just thought maybe you’d like a little motivation on a blue Monday.

Or not. Fuck it. Who cares?

16 comments:

Kelly! said...

word. thanks for the monday motivation bk.

Unknown said...

Brendan, this is an amazingly well written piece. I keep coming back to your blog because when you knock one out of the park, you knock it way the fuck out of the park. I learned to pick my battles long ago and it's a good thing because a lot of things piss me off these days. I'm not willing to expend a tremendous amount of energy raging against the machine. Occaisionally I will, but I don't get emotionally involved. And American Idol, well it's shite.

moufasacore said...

So... I just turned 26... Weird. I'm close to 30 and leaving 20 behind so I dunno. It was a pretty good party I guess. My best friend is currently on my couch insisting he can drive while his girlfriend of 4 years left 2 hours ago. I'm pretty wasted too but I get to sleep here. The neighbors didn't call the cops. Some Lawrence arms and 90s punk rock on the playlist.A couple of 3 years had a huge weed-infused fight. So I guess it was a pretty cliche thing, good stuff i think. First birthday after I broke up with my gf of 8.5 years and I feel like reading your shitty blog and writing about my shitty birthday party... Chris, Athens, Greece

Dracula's Penis said...

The biggest difference between the one sperm out of 100 - 300 million(!) that won the race and became who we are in life and a contestant on, "American Idol" is that stupid people carry around signs for the contestants with even dumber pseudonyms painted on them while they cheer like they just found out that they aren't pregnant. SOUL PATROL!

Owner Operator said...

this anne character that has started commenting really annoys me.

kylewagoner said...

Love you, BK! Comin' to see you in January! <33333 hahahaha

Anonymous said...

What's this I hear about shows? Details please, some of us need to plan our lives around this shit.

Timex Social Club said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
It's A-Me, Martucci said...

Anne - I know I called you Sarah Palin the other week and I'm still kinda glad I did that but mostly I just wanted to state on record that any irritation I've felt towards you is completely outweighed by the fact you apparently annoy little owner operator, which brings me almost indescribable pleasure. So you're ok in my book. Hang around with any luck "ubiquitous Banksy avatar" will be out of our hair for good, hehee~!

Unknown said...

Thank you Martucci. I will now deal with Owner Operator. I'll take him from annoyed to hatred in 0.5 seconds hehe

Unknown said...

Owner operator stick it up your arse. I see by your profile you're an Aussie. Well I'm Irish and we creamed you boys in the RWC. And by a slim margin of 30 points I might add. Now go ahead and insult me you upper class twit. Let's see what your made of.

Unknown said...

Jesus Christ, I got that score wrong. We beat you 15-6 Owner Operator thingy. The insult just made me feel so good, I almost doubled our win.

Timex Social Club said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Timex Social Club said...

Now yall din gimme no feedback on mah hot cross buns jib jab and persunly I think its reel funny, and Ima remember how yall din even bother reponsin, ill remember that, but im feelin reel nice so fer you fellas if you wanna make it extra special turky day you take yer purty little lady on the lap and you squeeze her nipple and whisper how you're so thankful "fer armpit pussy". And then you just cast yer eyes all sly to the bedroom and thats all there is. If ya say it with luv your lady will feel as speshal as new-born Pampers. An if lil cousin Crawford-Gifford is watchin you tell him he bess mind his fuckin business, cuz its grown ups time, sumthin he wont be able to take part in fer quite sum time. You tell him an you giv em a lil squeze on the penis and he'll lissen

Owner Operator said...

1. you more than doubled the win, not almost.
2. how many RWC have you irish won?
3. how was the last football world cup in south africa for you guys?
4. how about the last olympics, you guys do oright there?
5. how about that GFC everyone chirped about?

Boombox-27 said...

I've got a friend who made it on American Idol. She finished 5th or 6th a few years back (I'm kinda being intentionally vague...) She didn't get much out of it outside of some high profile gigs at coffee houses across Chicago (which she already was scoring) and a salary bump in her wedding singer job. Still, she says she had a blast and would do it again. It was the only season of that show I've watched and, ugh, what a crapfest.