Loathsome Idolatry

A Louisville musician's descent into American Idol

5:30 AM

            These are the lurking, the beautiful young masses.  They slink out from little crevices in Cincinnati, Corydon, Bowling Green with elaborate make-up kits in deep purses.  Their trophy moms wait with them dutifully dreaming of more trophies.  By the time I, we…my attorney and I arrived, the line had snaked from the front of Freedom Hall around the South Wing of KYFEC, across an access road and into a field used mostly for farm machinery and, memory serves, livestock.  Today we've got, I'd say, 500 score sheep, a few dozen asses with guitars braying out John Mayer songs, a thousand or so porcine mommies, countless cluckers.  We are all the cattle waiting for some movement.  I thank my attorney for advising me against bringing my braying ass guitar as the sun begins to peep out over I-65.  It's gonna be a scorcher.

9 AM

            There is nothing more unholy than seeing Freedom Hall with Denny Crum's hardwood removed.  Nonetheless, the air inside is cool and crisp.  At 8:00, doors opened and the great herding began.  We managed to survive the ravenous, regional radio jocks who stalked the line like hyenas looking for a straggler, some attention starved girl to pose for their web pics and receive their sweaty refrigerator magnets.  Perhaps it's why they confiscated umbrellas so we wouldn't smash their faces, Penguin-style.  My motto for the affair has been and remains WWJD, what would Joker do, but I've heard more than a few murmurs that praise be and in Jesus name, ahem.  I tell myself there is no clash in ideology here just loathsome idolatry of which I've chosen to be a part.  Now, group participation has commenced.  The man stands on the concrete spot where Jerry Smith drains threes and drains the crowd with way past his third run through of Louie Louie, dancing his robotic steps that we all must mimic for the bionic arm that swings a camera inches from our heads.  Surely in this sunken panopticon some man sits watching our faces as we fake the useless shimmy, making errata marks each time we do a pelvis thrust when we should jog in place with jazz hands.  I think I might need the toilet. 

Noon 35

            Here it is, friends, my moment of truth.  Thoughts drift from the lyrics of this ol' Wonder I Believe to the man in the pink Superman cape I met in the restroom who in a blue wig and shades told me to sing my own tune.  Is that what he meant when he said he was performing an original?  Vive la Revolution, Superfreak!  Isn't it unity brother, we seek?  My attorney is nervously hiding the fact that he has no ticket or security bracelet to legally be there.  Psychically, I'm wounded by an immense atrocity I witnessed in the concessions hallway where the goons pack in corners with their cronies and together belt out rubbish to warm up their polyped chords.  As I sped through the cacophony, one voice took prominence not by vocal merit but by lyrics alone.  "I was born by the river in a little tent…" with a certain growl on the "river" that sounded honed from hours of the choicest Nickleback karaoke.  Then as I turned the bend, I saw his adorable, scruffily manicured mug with a Hollister shirt and matching blonde.  Rolling a little in my own future grave, I sighed an apology to the ghost of Sam Cooke on behalf of my race.  If you are white, brother, please though you love it, don't publicly sing A Change Gonna Come.  Mr. Cooke has a diverse repertoire of material not about the old wounds of racial oppression that would make a wonderful song choice for your precocious, cracker ass even with a three visit salon tan.  This is the place where all meaning in music is buried and replaced with the eternally youthful undead, blood-suckers who hover around the line of "barely legal" in contempt.  Alright, maybe we've got a slight ideological clash.  But I'm not ashamed to admit I spent a moment in front of the mirror next to the pink Superman seductively gazing at myself in silent soliloquy.  Am I not that guy?  The one that Betsy in Tulsa wants to call in that vote for, gushingly ecstatic.

1:18 PM

            This may be the saddest thing I've ever seen in my life.  Out back past the loser exit, through the tunnel of despair, around the dirt and horse shit path of defeat and across the breezeway back to the North Wing, I saw them sitting in a circle.  A group of idyllic American dears had gathered with their leaking doe eyes to somehow exorcise the anguish by singing Disney tunes.  When a precious Carrie Underwood clone sang a song from the Little Mermaid, I realized that this is the defining cultural moment of the current teen generation, a sort of passive aggressive neo-Altamont where all of their hopeful hearts are stabbed through, one by one.  As for me, this bird has flown the coup long ago.  My attorney says from a distance I appeared stiff.  I'd say that contrary to his advice, I should've avoided tunnel vision and kept my head on a swivel.  If you're a calf on that killing floor, all the wails and shrieks you hear are not some girl's vain attempts at Mariah Carey's high notes, but the dying cry of some cow you'll never meet.  Look for the weakest to surround yourself with and the most merciful executioners.  My judge was some apathetic twat who probably likes indie rock and hates his life.  It didn't help and foo on the guy right after me who also sang Stevie Wonder and kamikazed both our chances but who's counting.  I know I nailed my song from that same spot on the court as so many great Cardinals.  As for the kiddies, that was my only advice.  If the cow's slit throat is yours, don't feel so depleted.  Like in the Little Mermaid, there is a wonderful human world waiting to be discovered where your creepy, one-piece flipper leg gets parted into two fleshy ones perfect for running away from the slightly older guy, probably not my attorney in a blazer, with some mediocre business cards talking about, "you're perfect for the biz."  I'll leave you with this cautionary piece you may remember in the style of Aladdin.  A whole new world, a new fantastic point of view.  You can come back to my place and have your first drink.  Let me share this whole new world with you.

Robert S. Cambron is the lead singer and guitarist for Rondo Sterling