Simon Cowell doesn't listen to Bob & Tom

I had to watch the season premiere of American Idol last night. HAD to. The early auditions are the best part. I usually wind up losing interest halfway through the "real" competition, the viewer voting part, and I've never actually bought a CD churned out by any of the past Idols. However, those audition episodes are comedy gold. I'm not sure what possesses all of those tone-deaf halfwits to appear on national television screeching like a howler monkey getting a prostate exam, but I'm overjoyed that they do.

I think that Fox has figured out what the early American Idol audience is tuning in to see. There were supposedly 17 vocalists from that Minneapolis audition who were invited to the next round in Hollywood, but I think that we saw only 4 of them in the entire 2 hour episode. The remainder of it was the musical train wrecks.

I think I now know how the ancient Romans felt when they flocked to the Colosseum to watch hapless Christians being thrown to the lions. You feel bad for them, yet can't look away as they are disemboweled by the lion. Or in this case, a prissy, snide, and vain Englishman.

My favorite moment of the night came when a young man named Troy stepped up to audition. He described himself as "Urban Amish". I suppose it was a fitting description, as he was dressed in a baggy, wrinkled suit, a large floppy hat, and had about a year's worth of crazy scraggly beard going on. I wasn't expecting anything too great when he prepared to sing, but to my surprise, he proceeded to sing one of the songs from the Bob & Tom radio show:

You Can Be Mean to Me

You can be mean to me,

mean as you want to be.

just say anything that you like.

You can be nasty and catty,

and cruel and unusual.

Twist my nose with your fingers,

trip me while i carry liquids.

But as you pin me down,

my arms down on the ground,

and your spit drips into my face,

deep in the back of your mind

remember at some point you'll have to fall asleep.

And when you fall asleep,

into your room I'll creep.

Did something move in the dark 'neath your bed?

And then a voice you hear,

its calling loud and clear,

a voice that is your own,

a voice thats saying "aaaargh!!"

The catalogue I found

sells roaches by the pound

a package of indellible dye

why would a guy such as I

ever buy indellible dye

blue as the sky, don't ask me why

There's things that one can do

with ben-gay, nair, and super-glue

don't the thought just give you a thrill

I think the meek shall inherit

because they'll stay up late and change the will

And when you fall asleep,

into your room I'll creep.

Did something move in the dark 'neath your bed?

And then a voice you hear,

its calling loud and clear,

a voice that is your own,

a voice thats saying "aaaargh!!"

Now, they only let him sing up to the "roaches by the pound" part before they cut him off. I was rolling. Simon Cowell's response was "What the hell was that?"

That, Simon Cowell, was damn good television.