Oh, Paula

The Muse has been watching American Idol some lately. This means, of course, that I have been watching American Idol some lately. I personally haven't watched this before, having been scared away by the idea of rude Englishpeople humiliating deluded attention-seeking Americans. Damn limeys! (And I really like lime. Have you had that natural limeade that they have started selling in grocery stores? As my sister The Force of Nature would say, "Tast-aaay!")

Having started watching the show some, though, I can see some of the charm, especially if you mute the TV when you know Simon is going to start ranting, as The Muse does. Simon and Randy have little appeal to me. Each seems to have basically two modes. Simon say either: (a) "God you suck, I have heard choirs of laughing hyenas and howler monkeys who sound better than you;" or (b) "I quite like your voice, although you need better tone and perhaps more vibrato." Randy says either: (a) "Yo, dawg, you know I liked your totally unjustified confidence that you can sing, but I'm going to have to pass;" or (b) "Wooooo, dawg, 8 million percent yes, you're GOING TO HOLLYWOOD!"

It is Paula, the much-maligned (by me) Paula Abdul, who is the star of the show. The things she says would read as mostly normal on a cold black-and-white transcript of the show. It is her facial expressions and physicality that make the show. I have heard these rumors about her supposedly being intoxicated somewhat and, having watched the show, well, let's say I'm intrigued by them. There are times when, for no good reason, she is wobbling her head around like a well-oiled Stevie Wonder. There are times when she is clipping her words like Donald Rumsfield. (Imagine Rumsfield on American Idol: "Goodness gracious, your voice is like the nails of my fifth-grade teacher Miss Dorothy Gale upon a chalkboard. What is the ultimate level to which you would sink to get on TV? It is unknown, but I believe that it is a known unknown and not an unknown unknown.")

My favorite Paula moments, however, occur when an attractive male gets up and gives a nice performance. Paula starts purring like a cat on a heating blanket. There was one 16-year-old, very good-looking guy who could sing last week. Paula had very complex look on her face as she told him he was going to Hollywood. On the one hand, you could tell that, instead of saying "Your voice has very nice tone and you're going to do very well," she wanted to say something more like "Young man, I would like to lick you." You could also tell, however, that she knew that wouldn't be very appropriate, so she had this slightly embarrassed thing going on. It was very, very entertaining.

The only moment that compared was when the judges asked the hot Long Island girl to bring in her best friend who also was trying out. When the friend came in and she was even hotter, you could tell that Randy wanted to say something like "You two are definitely going to Hollywood . . . WITH ME." Of course, after closing his gaping jaw, he said something much more appropriate. And then the judges sent them both to Hollywood. Shocking.

So good for Paula that she has come back from the celebrity dead. I guess the bad karma flowing from dancing with the cartoon cat in the "Opposites Attract" video finally peetered out.