Bone In The Fan

December 8, 1980, New York City: Mark David Chapman murders John Lennon on a street in front of his home.  The world mourns.

May 20, 2008, Los Angeles: David Archuleta murders “Imagine” on national television. I puke in my mouth.

I almost didn’t watch it.  My 11 year old daughter wanted to watch the “American Idol” finals (she’s a David Cook fan thank goodness, given the other option), so I put it on and bailed for Starbucks while a pathetic and insipid version of Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me came on. 

I suppose the name American Idol is apt (which is horribly sad when you think about it), but somehow every year I stupidly hope it will be about originality and depth, not the search for America’s next Pasteurized Prepared Cheese Product.  So yes, I’ll confess to having been sucked into the show in the past.  Last night though,  I asked myself quite just what had become of me that I had bothered to watch more than zero episodes of “Idol” this year.  Sure, the audition process can be amusing in a pathetic schadenfreude way, and it’s certainly always fun to wonder which Paula Abdul will show up (Will she be high?  Will she behave like an over-affectionate alcoholic?  The kind that wraps her arm over your shoulder at the bar and tells you how much she loves you, man. Will she drool over the teenaged contestants like a deranged cougar?) but I’m disgusted with myself all the same.

I got home shortly after the show ended.  My wife Joanna had not shut off the DVR.  Which meant that I could, if I wanted, rewind to the show and watch some of it.  Here’s the thing about me:  a few weeks ago I had the opportunity, while I was speaking with a police accident investigator, to either look or not look at photographs of a particularly bad motorcycle accident.  Faced with the choice of more information versus less information, I always have to choose more (frankly, I’m an information slut) so I looked at the photos.  And last night I rewound the DVR.

It’s not that I think “Imagine” (or any other song for that matter) is off limits to being done by other performers.  Go ahead and give it a shot!  Do a mash-up of “Imagine”, a Run-DMC song and a Mussolini speech (actually an interesting idea, that).  Sing it a cappella while dressed in a nurse’s uniform and holding a speculum. Have the Canadian farting champion play the tune with his ass, accompanied by a string section of midgets covered in chocolate sauce.  I’m not going to bitch about it.  Hell, I’ll pay to come to the performance if it’s interesting.

But last night David Archuleta took “Imagine” outside and shot it like a dog in the street, just to watch it die.  He started with what was a simple and beautiful melody line, and he Boltonified the shit out of it ( Boltonification: the alteration of a song or group of songs in such a way as to make it appear to be written or performed by Michael Bolton.  Closely related to Kenny G-ification). 

The resupt was one of the most sickening things I’ve seen on television in recent memory.  I’m not going to go on to explain why even the sight of that kid nauseates me. I’ll refrain from ranting about the pathetic and transparent fawning that the “judges” did over that soulless, dewey-eyed bag of vanilla crème.  And I’ll probably do a whole other rant on why American Idol may well be one of the signs of the coming apocalypse.

But I will say that the accident photos had less of an effect on my appetite.