Every Year I Do This

Ok ... every year I get sucked in with Aus idol ... and every single fucking time I reach a point in the competition where I hit the 'target market' brick wall. Tonight was Rolling Stones night and Roshani picked Wild Horses and sang it in bluesy Torch Song fashion ... a quiet moment of barely controlled desperation ... not cabaret .. what is it with these judges!! Seriously!! Kyle pounced on her for poor song choice ... and then proceeded to rub it in when commenting on the next contestant saying that they were smart in the head ... and the other two comedians agreed!!! Poor song choice because it was not a well known Stones song???? Hello??? Its all about the marketing with this contest now ... even more so than ever ... and considering the dire straits the music industry is currently in ... this all seems like such a facile exercise. So there is always a jumping the shark moment for me and if Roshani gets booted out in the elimination round .. come 7.30 pm next Sunday, I'm reaching for the remote marked DVD. And again, the "country shearer" ends up being the most marketable .. is this because it makes middle australia feel less guilty spending their baby bonus on a plasma tv because they are spectators of a show that celebrates the aussie battler, and just purely the fact that they tune in faithfully each week is validity itself of a charitable work well done .. or it because its much easier to take when said aussie battler is dropped like the proverbial stone after the 3 cd contract expires ... after all the aussie battler exists out on the drought fried plains far removed from the air-coinditioned cardboard walls we exist in .. with our artificial lakes and our quest for the next branded gadget to occupy our stimulus starved brains ... and why are we so starved .. because we're scared of difference ... we're even scared of celebrating difference vicariously .... and the sad fact of the matter is ... those who are prepared, like me, to shout at the barricades "Vive la Difference" ... only ever really do it in our own heads!!

So for those of you out there forging ahead the path less troddened, I salute you. Remember - Ridicule is nothing to be scared of!!

ps. sorry about the rant