What's with this idol thing anyway? For that matter with any of these talent hunts. During my evening channel surf yesterday, I caught a glimpse of this year's American Idol. I think it was the first episode or something. Now American Idol (or its desi counterpart) is a talent search for a singer. Singer, as in somebody who can sing and sing well at that. Yeah, stage personality counts too and if you can dance then better. But first and foremost, you need to be able to sing.

There were thousands of hopefuls at Washington D.C., where this episode was based. Swarming around and milling around. People of all kinds. When you hear such a huge crowd proclaim in a single, differentiated voice - "I am the next American Idol", you would think that all of these people were singers. They sounded that very confident.

Like every other talent hunt, most of these people had absolutely NIL talent. When I say no talent, I mean people who know only to scream in hoarse voices. There were people who sang like a unruly gang of kids singing rhymes. There were those that seemed to croak. Those that seemed to speak rather than sing. Off keys, helter skelter highs, completely insane howling. These were the talents that most of these *hopefuls* had. Well, there were some good singers, but this competition is for them and they had every right to be there. Not so the others.

I couldn't understand what went through the minds of these people. It was pretty clear that they couldn't sing, yet there they were. Trying to win a competition that searched for pop stars. What were they thinking? It is not like they had ANY talent and fumbled under pressure. They had zilch singing capability. I can only pity the judges that had to listen to thousands of such people "sing". If it were me, I would have run down the street pulling my hair (what little I have of it) apart. It was that bad.

When the judges couldn't help laughing at the charade, these "singers" got mad. They would cry and make a fuss and call the judges names. All this, as if it were injustice to prevent them from showcasing their awful singing to the world. When they were rejected (rightly so), they would get this look of disbelief on their faces. "No, you can't do that. You can't reject me."

What makes these people audition for such shows? Why do people want to make such fools of themselves? Do they really think they have talent? What about their friends? Couldn't the friends and family tell these people that they had horrible voices? Couldn't they be honest and tell them to shut up and get on with their normal lives? Or, in the end, is this just a shot at appearing on world-wide T.V.?

There were some genuine cases of people who could sing but lost their nerves. But most were not.

My sympathies with the judges who had to bear such cruelty. Who had to live with this horror and then were called unspeakable names for keeping the horrors away from us. I don't think Simon is an evil sadist. He does a good job of telling people straight to their faces to go shove it. Keep it up, Simon.

P.S.: I don't dig the concept of such shows. But I think I'll watch American Idol. Just to see how crazy people are.