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Life & Arts

Poor 'Idol' judges shouldn't be bashed

Stay Sick

Jason Gagnon

I experienced a new kind of terror this week when I was compelled (i.e. duct-taped to a chair with my eyelids safety-pinned open a la A Clockwork Orange) by a friend to watch an audition episode of American Idol. I'm aware of all the bashing the show and its judges, producers, editors, etc. have been taking in the press lately for being too mean to starry-eyed contestants, and I think it's completely retarded. If anything, those folks are being too nice to everyone.

These poor souls are essentially locked in a room for almost an entire day and have to listen to and evaluate hundreds, maybe thousands of William Hung-esque dopes with no talent whatsoever. It's a task few people have the stamina or psyche to endure. If I were in that room, you can bet your life that after an hour of non-stop crap, I'd be slashing my wrists. And to all the interest groups who are appalled at some of the verbal slapping the judges lay down: Just get over it.

Contenstants know what they're in for when they go to the auditions. They are big boys and girls who can take care of themselves and don't need people like the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation making a stink when a judge looks the wrong way at a gay contestant. For all of the group's good intentions, all it's doing is humiliating the contestants over and over again by giving the incidents more press. Way to go!Squashing the beef

This weekend I caught a pretty funny documentary on BET called Beef. It's about hip-hop stars and their petty feuds, and really does leave one with the impression that the genre seems to be collapsing on itself.

I truly believe that 99 percent of these beefs are nothing more than a marketing technique to get more records sold and to get a lesser known rapper's name in the news against a big star like, say, Mushmouth … I mean, 50 Cent. All these jokes do is talk trash back and forth, surrounded by a crew of no less than 20 and then call the other person out to come and find them. Pathetic.

If the Game (who seems to have beef with everyone else in the hip-hop game) or anyone else really wanted to beat the hell out of an enemy, I'm pretty sure they could find that person with great ease. It's a scenario that is disgusting to me and continues to denigrate what was once a vital musical style.

Here is my solution. Almost everyone in rap only cares about making as much money as humanly possible; this is an undeniable fact. So why don't these guys just rent out an arena, strap on some gloves and charge $50 a ticket for fans to watch them go at it for a few rounds? I'm willing to bet both sides would come away with a hefty chunk of change, but wait … egos would still be bruised and then the beef would go on forever. So I guess the real solution to all this crap in hip-hop is for the artists to check their egos and … never mind. That ain't hard or gangsta, which seems to be the antithesis of hip-hop today. What happened to KRS-One and Public Enemy?
 

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