The Monk Bought Lunch

schlock star souper no-soul

Why do I do it to myself? Every night I seem to find myself slumped on the couch, emptily gazing at one "reality" program or another and hating myself for it. And the worst of them all?
Rock Star.

A little history: I was a rock kid. First of the lame-o variety, as in the first music albums I purchased were The Mask by Billy Joel and Cornerstone by Styx (the ones with Movin' Out and Babe respectivley). Then, and I still remember this crystal-clear, a friend played me the cut from the Woodstock album with Jimi Hendrix playing The Star-Spangled Banner, and from that point the aforementioned records went untouched by my phonograph needle.
Instead, I spent most of my free time in front of my full-length mirror trying to emulate the moves of Hendrix, Townshend, Moon, Jagger, Richards, and yea Morrison et al.
So it would seem that Rock Star would be a thing I could relate to, but instead whenever I watch it I feel as though I'm undergoing abdominal surgery without anesthetic. I mean, holy shit, have you seen this thing?
I don't even mind that much Dave Navarro has the biggest, greasiest head since John Holmes after a roll in the butter with Seka (and something tells me he'd take that as a compliment), or that Tommy Lee is, well, Tommy Lee. And by the way, will somebody please ask Navarro if Perry Farrell would have had a chance on Rock Star?
It's really the contestants that give me ulcers. I'm very sincere in my belief in nonviolence, but these cretinous goons cause me to reconsider that. I'm not saying I dislike them, I'm just saying that if they were marched single file into an abbatoir to be slaughtered kosher-style, it would be too good of an end for them.
And it's not just the utter lack of soul or heart exhibited by these cartoons, or that the arrangements of songs, many of which hold a dear place in my heart, are criminal (guitar player: Oh, it's Teen Spirit? Let me just hit the Pepsico Patented Cobain effects pedal and I'll be ready to go! Rawk!), no I think the thing that makes the surgeon who's performing the surgery on me give the rib-spreader several extra twists is the bizarre word pronunciations the contestants use.
When did it happen that it became an accepted practice in rock to pronounce every word as though it's being spoken by the illegitimate love child of Carol Channing and Jim Morrison at his most overblown?
Last night one of the contestants performed Layla. I don't remember the kid's name, but he was the Australian one (although I suspect that, like everything else about the contestants, could be fake). I'll call him Digby Dickbreath. It's not that I think there's anything wrong with smoking cock- I think that's a perfectably acceptable past time- it's just that I think rock has always been shamefully unaware, or unawaredly shameful, of its obvious and inherent fancypantsness, and that makes it more fun to vocally question these guys' masculinity. I also would have no problem if the female contestants were all lesbians- it's just that I think that is no excuse to sound like Melissa Etheridge. I won't accept that excuse from Melissa and I won't accept it from anyone else.
So, um, yeah Digby's singing Layla. And this is probably not the thing I'm proudest of about myself, but I really like that song. But what the hell is coming out of his mouth?
"Lu-Hay-luhrrr, gee-yot me ow-un mah kneee-uzhuh
Luh-HAY-luhuhlowah, gee-yacht meh own mah kneej,
chah-lee-uhn wow-uhnt ya eeedge mah wood my-hindyah"

Huh?

They ALL do this, this Channing-Jo Risin' thing. I try to add some levity to the situation, telling my girlfriend that "AHum gow-uhn chew the feeudgeratuh to gyetch 'nudda Bu-HEE-yah. Jew wu-howuhnt wuh-HUN yeah?", but we both know there's nothing funny.
The girlfriend and I reserve special animosity for this guy:

Last night, while he was "singing", I said "I bet the judge guys are thinking he's too faggy for Supernova" and the girfriend says "I was just thinking 'I bet he really likes to put a dick in his mouth'". Again, Ain't nothin' wrong with that. But If someone thought that about me I wouldn't care at all, whereas I would lay money that this dude would crawl in a corner with his eyebrow tweezer and pout for hours if he knew people were saying such things about him. There's just something about these guys, and him in particular, that makes you think that if he was getting his ass stomped in a bar nobody would lift a finger to stop it.
Look, I'm no starry-eyed idealist. I know that rock has been thouroughly corporatized and stripped of its heart. It's just when they taunt me with it like that, it hurts. It wounds. It marks. Uh-Henny-uh Haht, not tu-HUFF-uh, ow-uh stru-hong eeenuufhuh- well, I'm sure they'll do that one before the season's up.