One of the problems with "American Idol" is that there is no bloodshed. Bloodshed might make it tolerable. OK, maybe something like "Survivor" or "Dancing with Reptiles" would do it.
Oh sure, it's a great show for those of us who don't mind having our standards eroded and lowered by banal repetition until we think everyone sounds like Pavarotti -- now that he's dead, I mean.
What it needs is bit of real competition, like hand-to-hand combat, everyone armed with 50-pound microphones. At least then singers who actually swallow their microphone would get to suffer right along with the audience. Share the pain, I say. It would be more honest than all that huggy, kissy, friendship between "Idol" contestants, tearfully wishing each other broken legs or sore throats.
Even before "Idol" came along, some of today's "stars" had already helped to lower our standards. I wonder how many of them could compete with stars like Barbra Streisand, Lena Horne, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Peggy Lee, and on and on.
And talking of stars, in old-time theaters, there was usually one dressing room that had a star painted on the door for the few performers in the country who merited the privilege of a better room. Only later did we start to name performers after their dressing room door.
Allocation of that room was a bit like winning the lottery. Just being famous with a hit record wouldn't have been enough to merit a room with a star on the door, but today, everyone's a star.
Al Jolsen -- once known as the world's greatest entertainer -- was singing on-stage when he was around 15 years old. He didn't become a star until he was around 30, and without a microphone or television or film he did it entirely in live theater, one small audience at a time.
Theater performers once stood on the stage almost directly above the noisy orchestra and did their stuff with no microphone and no technology to make the voice more prominent or vibrant or appear to have a genuine vibrato. Oh, yes, and in those days, yelling loudly did not qualify as a loud voice, just a loud noise.
Of course, a few of the newer, old-time stars had relatively soft voices and needed a microphone to perform in a theater. Mel Torme comes to mind, as do Dean Martin and Nat King Cole. But they had something else, something that takes professionalism and experience to do well, which none of the "Idol" contestants have been in the business long enough to develop.
Maybe a few "Idol" contestants will be really good in the future, but it might be humbling to remember that, in the beginning, Frank Sinatra, and later Tony Bennett, worked as singing waiters in Manhattan cafes. Yes, they waited tables for tips. Nat King Cole was an accomplished jazz pianist for some time before he was a singer and became a star. Elvis Presley was still driving a truck when he made his first records. Stardom, step by painful step.
Yes, I know that a few Idols have made it comparatively big but they have been judged by the lowered standard that the show itself has created. Kind of pulled itself down by its own bootlaces.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that, in the old days, performers would only have been booked to appear on something like a national television show because they were already stars, and not so that they could become one.
I wonder how many of us would watch the show if it were just a series of musical acts -- like vaudeville -- instead of a national contest. No judges or viewer voting -- just buy a ticket to sit and listen to unknown singers, week after week after week. Seems to me that the real star is the contest itself, not the entertainers. Horseracing has a similar appeal.
Yes, as a youngster I used to go to a London music hall (vaudeville) to see old-time acts. Collins turned out to be the last music hall in England and maybe the world, unchanged in any way for 60 years. Some of the turns were awful but there was something really genuine about them and everyone joined in the fun, almost as if they were part of the show.
Most of the performers knew there was no chance of becoming rich and famous doing what they were doing --- although Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel didn't do too badly -- but for many of them it was a family business. They could have earned more money waiting tables but they loved the life for its own sake and you could feel it and it was good.
At the end of the show, balloons bearing the name Collins Music hall would float down from on high and everyone would leave, laughing and popping balloons in happy and contented good humor. No losers here, no judges, either. "American Idol?" Huh!
Yeah, OK, music halls didn't smell too good and, in that respect, I guess, "American Idol" could compete admirably -- metaphorically speaking, of course.
Anthony Cicale is a Lemoore resident. His column appears weekly in The Sentinel. Readers can write him at The Hanford Sentinel, P.O. Box 9, Hanford, CA 93232 or e-mail
anthonycicale@hotmail.com.
(May 18, 2008)
