Hating

I probably should read The Onion A.V. Club more often. Amelie Gillette’s column, The Hater, is sublime. Here she alerts us that Superman is a Methodist; being generally an adherent to Wesleyan-Arminian thought myself, I find this rather reasonable. He is, after all, a hero for all people, not just the elect. Remember though: He’s not Jesus. Here Ms. Gillette (no relationship to the company that gave us Five Blades) nearly sputters, as much as is possible in reasonably print-ready prose anyway, over the advent of America’s Got Talent (an ironic title if there ever was one).

1. Simon Cowell + Desire To Clog The Networks With Crap + David Hasselhoff = America's Got Talent

If you're one of the millions who watch American Idol, I'm blaming you for this. Collectively you've imbued Simon Cowell with so much power, that he can go to NBC and say, "What about a maddeningly non-specific talent show, with no criteria at all, and Brandy as a judge?" and they will give him an hour each week.

Did anyone see this? Honestly, the force of its stupidity is so powerful that it shoots straight through dumb, sails right past funny, and lands smack in the middle of anger-inducing. The first contestant on the first show was a "professional snappist" named Bobby Badfingers (pictured above). He was dressed like fat Elvis, sweated like he was on mescaline, and snapped his fingers furiously into a microphone for 5 minutes. The judges (Brandy, Hasselhoff, and some British guy) couldn't praise him enough. The British guy was especially moved, saying, "Bobby Badfingers, America's going to love you!"

Next up was some guy who had horns strapped all over his body. He played them all furiously for five minutes——but the judges were not so impressed. The British guy leaned back and sneered, as if to say, "Horns? Pathetic. Come back when you learn how to snap."

Stock-conservative-intellectual-highbrow-concerned-citizen-
culture-writer-response: What is our society coming to? Etc, etc. Insert further railing about he decline of culture here, or just go read Siegel (who is, by the way, mostly wrong about Tony Scott).

Anyway, eventually David Lynch makes an appearance in Ms. Gillete’s post, which is not all that surprising considering we ended with a dude playing musical horns strapped to his body.