Thank God Adam's not America's idol

It has, literally, taken me days to get over what happened to my boy Adam Lambert. I watched, aghast, as the wrong person was voted American Idol. But after a night spent tossing and turning and wrestling with the meaning of life, I finally understood. They didn’t get it wrong. They got it right, of course they did. America’s idol HAS to be Kris Allen: He is ordinary, talented enough, conventionally good-looking. Very simply, he will not give you any sleepless nights. In the end, Americans want to be safe and secure in their beds. The rest of the planet wants passion, star power, incandescent talent, chiseled beauty and originality.
When the idiots say Adam Lambert screams, I guess they didn’t hear Feeling Good, Tracks of My Tears and If I Can’t Have You.
When the idiots wonder whether he is gay, I guess they don’t know that their brother, sister, aunt, uncle and give a parent or two may be gay as well. (I take it for granted that the idiots don’t know that being gay isn’t a choice.)
When the idiots say he’s theatrical, I guess they have never watched a great play which they will remember for the rest of their lives.
When the idiots say the judges liked Adam too much, I guess what they really mean is that the judges should have lied so they could have voted for Adam as an underdog and not because he was unusually talented. That’s AI for you.
There is a question on the AI site which reads : ‘Does anyone else feel strangely protective about Adam?’ The reaction he evokes is as unusual as his talent.
Here was a boy who was young, focused, bursting with the kind of ability no one had ever seen before, and who delivered a polished apple to his teacher every single week. We bit and were hungry for more. But some saw the apple with a serpent in its core, complete with ebony fingernails and blue-black hair. They wished for milk instead. They got it. But the rest of the planet got more. We have found Adam Lambert and we will remember him for the rest of our lives. Every future success will be toasted by his acolytes from New Zealand to Israel – that is a large swathe of the planet – and he will by then be No 1 on the fan pages set up by E!Online (he is now No 3, and no, the Idol winner is nowhere to be seen).
I have watched AI for years, been a diehard fan, looked forward to those four months more than birthdays, anniversaries or world travel. Now, I can never watch it again, on a matter of principle. Who wants to see injustice, talent ignored? We have enough of that in our daily lives. Of course my abstinence will mean nothing to AI, but that’s ok, now AI means nothing to me.
One of my favourite lines ever is this: “When a true genius appears in the world, you will know him by this sign, that there will be a confederacy of dunces against him.”
‘Nuff said.

What Simon said

I have always disliked Cowell to a certain extent. Yes, when he gets it right, he gets it very, very right. And when he gets it wrong, it’s so very, very wrong. But any man who has the cojones to say to millions of moral dilettantes the following, has my vote: That we can all take it for granted that Adam will sail into the finals but we shouldn’t, so vote. And that people should vote for Adam because of his talent. Now that is straight shooting, if you’ll pardon the pun. What with Adam being inundated with slurs on something that is no one’s business but his own, (that wannabe Perez Hilton discussing his ‘lifestyle’ with Ryan on radio? Gimme a break.) It’s no wonder Simon’s sense of fair play got kick-started. Mr Baggy Tee has never said such a thing before, just as he has never given a contestant a standing ovation before.
There’s just something about Adam, apart from the ease with which he delivers his notes to us - like strawberries dipped in Nutella. He is calm, fun-loving, not a mean bone in his body and so chockfull of charisma that when he is on stage, we have eyes for no one and nothing else. And of course I’m over-reading the sitch, as Buffy would say, but I see in Adam’s mother’s tears watching her son become a worldwide phenomenon before her eyes, the sorrow over the years when she thought he was just a loser.
The fact that this phenomenon is standing with that mediocre talent going by the name of Kris Allen is enough to make my already simmering BP go up, up, up. Yes, Kris sang ONE song well, Kanye’s great Heartless, but ONE song does not a superstar make. Yes, every teenybopper in the country votes for his cute babyface and that should have taken him only so far. To stand next to Adam Lambert? What a travesty. That spot belonged to either Matt G or Allison.
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Another reason why Adam’s the One is because he never gives those utterly annoying fingers up to the camera when his numbers are being read out. I remember Jordin Sparks doing it to the point where it looked like she was having an epileptic seizure, and Danny Gokey’s heart symbol throughout this season has made me want to bring my lunch up. (What in the world, btw, was Sparks' Battlefield nonsense? More epileptic seizures was what it looked like. She needs to hunker down in Biosphere 2 for a few years and figure out how to be somewhat genuine in the talent dept. and not so bloody daft.)
Did anyone, I wonder, notice how Danny’s Joe Cocker song was so like Adam’s iconic Tracks of My Tears? The way he sat on the stool with the musicians on a line with him and tried to be soulful. Oh dear. And his homecoming was marked by nothing so much as Jamar getting his 15 minutes with a vengeance.

Adam Lambert: Kiss of life from a fallen angel

It is for the first time in Idol history that we knew, from the minute he walked into the audition, that Adam Lambert would be the next American Idol. Before, this title was always up for grabs, and sometimes America fumbled with the ball (think Daughtry who says to this day, people yell to him on the street “Hey, man, you were robbed!”). We also knew, from the minute he pranced off with the yellow paper, that when it came to sports, Adam’s interest? “Not so much”, in his father’s immortal words. The unfortunate man must be kicking himself for giving the game away seeing as how America is notoriously puritanical. But I don’t think this will sway the votes for once. I am notoriously puritanical myself and I don’t care which team Adam plays on. For God’s sake, just look at him. Who has ever seen a face so beautiful? All the clichés fall into place. A fallen angel, the dark knight, the starving artist in his lonely garret…..He doesn’t just sing like a lost boy who is finding his way home through pain and laughter, a solitary vision, an everlasting hopefulness through a sense of betrayal (you’ll find all this in his performances), he makes us believe it. This is why Paula, who is really under-estimated, always ‘gets’ it when it comes to contestants, and why when Adam is on stage, she smiles through her tears. It is all, in a strange way, like the Susan Boyle experience. We weep for both Susan and Adam’s pain, one for her lack of beauty (which really opens every door), the other for living in a world where he can never admit who he is. At the same time, they make us reaffirm the joy we are born with and which the world so ruthlessly strips away year after year. I just have to think of Adam’s face and I am happy, again. I just have to hear his pure voice and I feel my heart pierced, the blood beginning to flow, again.