Now let me explain my relationship to American Idol--I haven't watched a season in it's entirety since Kelly Clarkson was named the original Idol, and that's only because I had been to a Bar-Mitzvah where Justin Guarini was a dancer.

Since then, the shows competition as an American Cultural staple has caused me to always keep tabs on it, even without watching, if for no other reason than the fact that I am addicted to the sociology of Reality TV. Anyone who says the genre is bland, meaningless shlock clearly isn't looking hard enough at the right things.

For those who are unaware, the man above is Kris Allen, the 8th American Idol as of last night. His competiton was his polar opposite, Adam Lambert, an ex-Wicked understudy (seen here as a normal human and here is his more commonplace getup--note the black nails and manscara). By all accounts from everyone and their mom (something I can attest to firsthand, as I got to hear rants from both Kelly's sister and Kelly's mom), Adam Lambert was poised to win the competition by a landslide. The man has a voice like a bat out of hell, as if he is some sort of 70's disco-glam rock diva fused into one, not to mention his supposedly icredible stage presence. (As I have only actually watched the show for the last 10 minutes last night to see the upset occur, I am basing a lot of this off of what I have read and heard.) I can attest, when the two dueted with Queen last night, Adam's enormous vocals nearly blew the tiny and mellow Kris off the stage.

So you are probably asking yourself, "Well Julian, that's all fine and dandy, but why does it matter? You don't even watch this show!"

The answer is that for the first time I've been aware of, the election of a new idol has been swamped with nasty political undertones--thanks in great part to this tiny little fact that really isn't so tiny.

Of course, there are a number of theories to how Kris won over Adam: Kris's folksy Jason Mrazish style is more marketable to the masses than Adam's polarizing glam rock; Adam's fans became so confident he would win that they simply didn't vote; almost half the votes were from Kris's homestate of Arkansas; the votes from 3rd Place finished Danny Gokey aka DeadWifeGuy's fans went to the similarly styled Kris following his ouster just before the finale; Kris was voted for by slews of thirteen year old girls because he is quite frankly, a sexy beast; Kris more embodied the idol dream by exhibiting growth over the season while Adam starting out amazing and just got boring and predictable as the season went on; People became fed up with the show and media's clear favoritisim towards Adam over any other contestant and therefore voted against him just so he wouldn't win, etc.

But the big theory that has people in a tizzy is that America wouldn't vote for a gay person to win the show. Is there weight in that theory? Yes. Do I think it's the case? No, at least not solely. There was certainly rallying from some Christian groups to vote Kris, the married Church singer, because Adam is a dirty heathen (not only does he exclusively toungebang men, but he's also a JEW). Of course, if this were the case, I doubt Adam would have made the final two when it was down him against two good Christians in the final three.

For those of you who are unaware, one of my favorite hobbies is lurking on blogs and newsites and reading comment box debates--and from those debates, I have learned that there are certainly gays who are in an uproar. In equally backwardsminded logic, some called for a mass gay vote for Adam--with one commenter saying something along the lines of "the reason the gay community never gets anything accomplished is because we never pull ourselves together to unite over a cause." When another poster commented that a televised singing competition isn't a cause, the original commenter replied by saying that THEY (meaning the Christian right) turned it into a cause when they rallied together to keep a gay from winning--he continued to theorize that no matter who Lambert was against in the finals, the "Christian Vote" should have gone towards them. They said the "Gay Vote" should have gone towards Adam. (another poster later commented that hopefully, people could see this not as disorganization on behalf of the gay community, but rather, lunacy on behalf of the far right for getting so invested in a talent show, a sentiment I happen to agree with.)

And across the blogoshpere, similar sentiments occur (I'd like to point out that xanga spellcheck does not list "blogoshpere" as an incorrect word, which also reminds me of my favorite new word that I just discovered yesterday, booboisie). There is a mass agreement amongst the gay community that Adam lost because nobody wanted to vote for a gay guy. (You too, subscribers, can read some of the exciting vitriol at such fascinating homoblogs like After Elton and Queerty. If you are worried about being turned gay by going to a ghey site, just remember the old addage--it's not gay if you don't touch peens.)

All in all, I feel really bad for Kris Allen--his winning speech literally began with "Adam deserved this." And now, in the wake of what should be the greatest moment of his life, he is being attacked by people for not being Adam Lambert, as if he had some say in the loss. (Kris and Adam, bee tee doubleyou, have been reported repeatedly to be good friends and had roomed together when Idol relocated them to LA.) In a Monday interview, Kris was asked how he felt about having "the Christian Vote," and he said he didn't want people to vote based on religion in a singing competition. Apparently, some people did. It's gross to see people say that Adam Lambert lost for being himself, while implying that Kris being who he was--an unassuming, cute, Southern, Christian newlywed-- isn't a good enough person to be.

I youtubed some of the best performances from both Kris and Adam as according to youtube popularity (Adam Lambert's rendition of Mad World and Kris's Falling Slowly seemed to be the winners), and after having listened to a bit of both men sing, I can safely say that no matter how much Adam loves the dick or how powerful his voice is, I have been listening to Falling Slowly since last night. Despite the political consequences or whatever, had I watched the show, I would have voted for Kris Allen. We "vote" every day for musicians by buying their music, and I could never see myself buying an Adam Lambert Album. But maybe I'm just being a bad Gay.

/rant


ANYWAY I hope everyone is doing well this summer and I hope to see some of you cats sometime. I got a new Sim Card a while ago and don't have a lot of your numbers anymore, so if you want to message them to me on facebook or something that would be much appreciated. Or just send me a text saying "HI JULIAN THIS IS SO AND SO LOVE ME LONG TIME." or whatever. Yeah.