All is right---American Idol has returned

Willie came to stay overnight last night. I put out a meal of steak, garden beans, Clark Fork Pantry garlic bread, tossed salad with the all new, improved Litehouse honey mustard dressing and Cyrus O'Leary's lemon cheesecake. Midway through the meal, I issued the television rules for the rest of the evening.

At 8 p.m. the family would be watching the season premiere of "American Idol" in the living room. Any naysayers could move to the back bedroom. Willie informed me he'd probably be heading down the hallway at 8 toward his room. Bill said nothing. Toward the end of the season last spring, Bill went to bed later and later on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. He spent more time hanging around the living room TV set as we both watched the finalists sing it out until Bo and Carrie went head to head in that final show.

Now with "Jesus taking the wheel" several times daily on the local country station, we both know Carrie Underwood, the cute, wholesome farm girl from Oklahoma, currently reigns as America's most recent singing idol. She joins Fantasia from North Carolina, Kelly Clarkson from Texas and big Reuben Stoddard from Alabama as American Idol bluebloods. Those runners-up, Clay and Bo and Diane, aren't doing too badly with their record careers.

Anyway, last night I had no doubts Bill would be glued to the set, watching as the talentless took top honors in the preliminary shows. Last night he spent most of his time trying to stifle giggles as the dorks got up and proved they're full-fledged dorks or the singing wannabes, who really should have had a mother like mine before meeting with Simon's seemingly cruel and unusual assessments, screeched out of control.

For me, these early American Idol shows do take me back to seventh grade choir when my mother warned me beforehand that I couldn't carry a tune. I covered up my tonal impairment for most of the year as a second soprano in Dona Meehan's choir. We learned "Bali Hai" from South Pacific and Dvorak's "Going Home" in between those other infamous sessions of removing the screws from the auditorium seats (full story in "The Nuts and Bolts of Junior High Choir").

I really can't think of the other songs we learned because it's been so long ago. For some strange reason, however, I remember clearly the moment when Grace Nordgaarden (Brixen) issued the now-famous line that fully validated my Mother's earlier critiques, which I realized later in life were designed to save me from myself.

"Are you singing the same song we are?" Grace uttered that as we stood side by side on the bleachers at the annual spring music competition in Coeur d'Alene. Grace was an eighth grader. Mrs. Meehan had blended the seventh and eighth grade choirs together for the contest. Grace had never heard me sing until that day on the bleachers. She never heard me sing again after uttering her "innocent" query. I lip-synched through the rest of the contest.

Too bad there aren't a bunch of Virginia Tibbses or Grace Nordgaardens to save all those unfortunate American Idol contestants from themselves and from the ultimate wrath of Simon. The saving grace (no pun intended) is that all the untalented people, who are smart enough to stay home, get to experience a sense of arrogant sadism while sitting on their couches in the safety of their living rooms, watching their singing soulmates go through the humiliating torture of brutal public rejection.

Looks like we have a few similar shows ahead as we learn who's going to Hollywood from those major auditions and who's learning, literally, the message of Dvorak's classic "Going Home." I read recently that American Idol cuts a wide swath in its viewing audience---everything from grade school kids to grannies. I can't explain why I'm so fixated on the show.

Maybe it's that inate desire to pick a favorite early on and follow that person as he or she climbs the steep stairs to stardom. Maybe it's feeling like we've endured the process along with that person, and we can share in their success. Maybe for people like me, who'd give anything to be able to carry that tune in any kind of bucket, it's a way to live out our dreams vicariously through someone else.

All I know is that I have a hard time tearing myself away from American Idol, and during the past couple of years, its annual reappearance on the tube has become one of the few reasons I've found to like the long dreary month of January.