American Idol Dream

"Um Kalthoum had a 50 year career as a popular singer"

I had the strangest dream about American Idol last night. I suppose the fact that I dreamt about the show at all should tell you that you should be worried about me. No, I wasn’t being chased by a car driven by the Brittenum Twins yelling at me that I’d broken their spirit nor did it have anything to do with Becky O’donahue and her twin sister. I dreamt that the very British Simon Fuller and Simon Cowell who control the franchise decided to sell the show to Dubai Spice World of the United Arab Emirates.

People started asking where Paula Abdul and Elliot Yamin really came from. Rumors spread that the UAE would let some Al Qaeda agent posing as a singer slip in weapons of modal destruction, possibly during a Coca Cola commercial, to undermine the harmony of democracy and the free market. After all, what would America do without the reliability of Western dominant chords? If all tones were equal in a modal sequence, what would that do to the work ethic? Many right wing commentators pointed out that Arab music is often “homophonic” even when sung at weddings.

Bill Frist warned that if singers had to produce notes that fell between even chromatic intervals in the western scale, that the singers’ throats and America’s ears would strain and malpractice premiums for EENT Doctors would go up and there would be no available medical care for the victims. The AMA weighed in.. After all, if we were forced to choose between a system where everyone could afford a doctor and one where no doctor could afford to go into business for himself or herself; which one would America want? The trial lawyers shot back that American Idol singers had been routinely singing tones that didn’t fall on any known diatonic scale even before the sale of the show.

A sixteen year old girl sued AI for making her so tone deaf that she had spent hundreds of dollars on Ashlee Simpson live concert CDs. The show hired the lawyers who had represented McDonalds. Rumors spread that Morgan Spurlock and Michael Moore were collaborating on a documentary about the sale of the show code-named “Fast Food Music and Me”.

Al Jazeera released a videotape of Osama Bin Laden threatening any American Idol contestant who didn’t limit his or her song choices to material that only included verses from the Qu’ran. Osama also said he wanted Simon Cowell’s job, “If anyone is going to go on TV being critical of Americans and making fun of their culture, it should be me.”Worst of all, the Washington Times published an article that there was direct proof that Michael Jackson had met directly with members of the Royal Family of Bharain. In fact, it was said that the one time American pop idol had sought asylum in the UAE where he was no doubt planning to terrorize America with new videos of his most recent cosmetic surgery.

More rumors spread that the Emirates were holding hundreds of forgotten pop idols from Milli Vanilli to Bobby Sherman to David Lee Roth in suspended animation and preparing to spring them on an unsuspecting America as guest artists on the show. “Look at Barry Manilow”, they whispered,”No one even said his name seriously for ten years until he started reappearing on AI in various forms.

Secretary of State Condaleeze Rice appeared on Meet the Press to deny that the Carlyle Group had brokered the sale of American Idol to the international media giant, Dubai Spice World. She reassured America that the UAE purchase of AI was good for American interests. “Without this sale, there would be a Kurdish Idol, a Shiite Idol, and a Sunni Idol in Iraq in open sectarian  dissonance.”

Tim Russert: But Madame Secretary aren’t you worried that the UAE will fall prey to forces who will want not a single Iraqi Idol, but a Moslem Idol across the region including Israel and with plans for distribution to America, albeit on TNN.

William Buckley: (representing progressive Republicans on the panel) If I could offer one exceedingly perplexing concern here, Madame Secretary (taps pencil) if you would be so kind as to give it a moment of your consideration (sighs) It’s well established that most of Iraq still doesn’t have electricity in the evening to watch any kind of Idol, American or otherwise. (stares upwards eyes wide open)

CR: We are making progress. The November 2005 supplementary report to Congress was just historical. It doesn’t reflect current conditions three months later.

William Buckley: But if I might interject, the Provisional Authority’s February 2006 audit reflects substantially similar conditions in addtion to allegations of significant corruption. (sighs) within the Provisional Authority itself with its American contractors.

CR: Can we get back to the topic of American Idol?

Sean Hannity: (the panel’s mainstream Republican) Getting back to the serious questions Madame Secretary. You were both an ice skater and a classical pianist in your youth. Which did you watch, the Winter Olympics or American Idol?

CR: As Secretary of State, I don’t actually get much time to watch television. You listening Bryant Gumbel? You watching this? (she sticks her tongue out) I was at that convention, I had 12 closeups on CNN alone. I used to ice skate.

Tim Russert: But you do get time to shop for shoes. Whoops, did I say that? I can’t believe I said that.

Sean Hannity: Tim, that’s below the belt. It’s clear to me that the Secretary of State herself had no reason to believe that the levees would be breached in New Orleans.

Tim Russert: But the President did?

Sean Hannity: We don’t know that until we prosecute whoever leaked that tape and watch all six days worth of the footage ourselves.

CR: Please, I’d like to return to the topic of the Dubai Spice World sale.

Sean Hannity: Please….

CR: American Idol remains the perfect instrument to teach the world the benefits of American style democracy, the greatest system in the world. What better way to convince the Moslem world of the benefits of our system of elections than through Dubai Spice World?

Bob Woodward: (the radical democrat on the panel) But no one ever sees the actual vote totals in AI vote offs. There’s no paper trail whatsoever. People vote as many times as they want. A cell phone company sponsors the thing. We are simply told the results and America is expected to live with it. Even worse, there’s some English guy who tells American voters what to think. Wasn’t the revolution about just the opposite?

Sean Hannity: You liberals attack anything American. Without America and our allies the British, most of the countries in the Middle East wouldn’t exist in the form they do today.

Bob Woodward: Is that a good thing? You do know that I happen to be a Republican. I have to say that I’m troubled by any show which has an African-American and a woman of uncertain ethnic origins who serve as judges but always get upstaged by their more honest and critical white male British counterpart.  
CR: What I’m saying gentleman, is American Idol style democracy is a good thing. Look at the ratings. You think anyone in America watches Meet the Press except bloggers?

Tim Russert: That’s all the time we have for today.

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