Finally saw a complete episode of American Idol. Like most “reality” shows, it constructs a very specific, detailed fictional “reality.” This particular show’s fabulist conceit is that the banal rehashing of ’70s soul music is, and always has been, the main and only form of popular vocal music in the U.S.
A few years back, some baby-boomer intellectual wrote a book in which she whined about Those Kids Today, whose music didn’t got the same soul as that old time rock n’ roll. I don’t know if that author’s an Idol viewer, but the show’s conceit might fit her idea of a musical utopia, in a “be careful what you wish for” way.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, KOMO-TV anchordude Dan Lewis has started each 11 p.m. newscast on the station’s roof. This serves no journalistic purpose. I can only imagine three non-journalistic purposes for the ongoing stunt:
- To make the broadcast seem Important and Relevant, even though it’s usually a rehash of the most gruesome personal events already exploited at 5 and 6:30;
- To show off how Lewis’s carefully sculpted hair can remain perfectly in place, no matter what the weather;
- To let Lewis repeatedly drop the name “Fisher Plaza,” the station owners’ block-long, massively under-occupied office development.
