I ran out to the barn last night for just long enough to run a brush over Mitzi and have a chat with her. (And this morning I found a message on my work phone from Lease Girl asking if she could go out and ride. I messaged her my home phone number. Damn!)

Anyway, I got home about halfway through the results show of American Idol. I don't follow that show closely anymore--I used to like the Hollywood rounds but those episodes are really truncated now, and I have an increasingly lower tolerance for the karaoke elements of the show. However, as with a lot of reality shows, I like to watch a few early episodes to get the cast figured out, so then I can drop in at any time of the season and more or less know what's going on.

(I did see part of the performance episode on Tuesday, but... it was pretty lame, and I quit. David Cook singing "Baba O'Riley" sounded hopeful and started well, but he had less time than I thought he would and he ended up completely neglecting the dynamic that is the coolest thing about the song.) (I mean, fuck singing "teenage wasteland" over and over. Come on.)

Anyway, I turned the results show on just as Maroon 5 was finishing their performance and then Bo Bice played his new single. I still watched the show regularly when he was on, and I liked him pretty well then but haven't given him much thought since. Since Bo was the first "rocker dude" to do much of anything on the show I guess I have blamed him a little for the annoying Nickelback retreads who have started appearing lately. I mean, when the judges on American Idol start proclaiming "That's rock'n'roll, baby!" it's a bit like the old Shaun Cassidy single, by which I mean, it's nothing of the sort. Rock'n'roll, according to Idol (and most other musical reality shows including Rock Star) is an extremely limited thing. Rock'n'roll as an actual living thing is... not.

So, I was a little pissed off at Bo on general principles. But at this point I was on the floor doing my physio exercises and I didn't feel like flailing around for the clicker.

And colour me astonished! I had sort of forgotten that, although Bo was the guy who made it okay for all the Chad Whatsisface (honestly, why can I never remember the last name of Nickelback's lead singer?) wannabes to try out for Idol, Bo himself wanted to be the third Allman Brother or something. In fact, it's possible the reason his career hasn't really taken off is, the damned fool plays music he likes instead of trying to sound like everyone else on the radio right now. He's far from original, but the song he played last night put him firmly in the throwback-seventies-rock camp, which places him in the company of a bunch of artists I like very much. It's downright weird to hear an Idol alumnus who doesn't seem to be trying to sound like whatever is popular right this minute. He sounded... like a real guy playing a real song. And then he was charming and gracious in his interview with Seacrest.

I have never bought an album by any Idol alumnus so far, not on principle but because I have never been sufficiently interested. I might... I might be sufficiently interested in this one.

And then we had the eliminations, and I really thought the girl was done for, because the dreadlocked little Texan dude seemed to have such a fan base. I haven't determined whether he's particularly talented but he can sing all right, he's charming, and he's kind of distractingly pretty.

However, when Seacrest was interviewing the two potential boots, I started to really hope the little guy was going home, because he seemed so ready to do so. I've seen some good-sport boots in the course of watching this show, but this kid's whole attitude was redolent of "this has been a lot of fun, but now I'm in really deep water and I don't want to do this any more. Please." He wasn't a bit snippy or passive-aggressive or anything, he was apologetic about his poor performances the night before, he just sounded like he knew he was in the wrong place and he wanted to get out before he couldn't remember the fun parts.

Actually, he sounded like he had figured out that winning this show would be, for him, a fate worse than death, and he was happy and relieved to be out of it.

I can't imagine why I would want to listen to this kid sing anywhere except at a campfire, but I did end up liking him. He would make a dandy character in a story. And you never know, maybe someday he will...

The song list was the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.

Hmm. Given that list, what song would you have chosen?

I am mightily tempted by "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"...

The physio clinic called a little while ago to cancel my appointment for this evening, due to the physiotherapist being ill. I've been doing my exercises faithfully, and though they are wimpy little exercises they seem to be working (the physio thought my spine felt better.) They are also kicking my ass, and I think that's why I'm so sore this week. (The last couple of nights have been rotten, I wake up around two and painkillers and liniment do nothing to help.)

So it's probably okay to have a few extra days to acclimatize to doing the stuff I'm already doing before anything else gets added. With any luck I'll get to the barn tonight and at least try to longe and maybe do a few little carrot stretches.

And then of course I'm going out tonight, but I might as well, considering if I stayed home I wouldn't be able to get to sleep anyway. Also, I need to look for cushions for my kitchen chairs, since all my other seating options are really uncomfortable right now.

Might be time to bite the bullet and replace my older-than-me family-heirloom (;)) couch, too...

Considering how much blithering cheese the contestants are allowed to get away with (or, really, rewarded for) I always find it amusing that the one unforgivable sin on Idol seems to be forgetting the words. Yes, I know--you should be able to memorize one song a week if you're a real performer. And yes, the fact that actual real performers learn their songs a little less cold-bloodedly means nothing. Gloryhound, for God's sake, seems to be able to nail a new song in an afternoon and there are five of them learning parts. Just learning the lyrics should be a snap.

I suspect the attendant bullshit that fills these kids' time can interfere with rehearsal time--I mean, those awful Ford commercials would take a while.

But I also find it awfully hard to get all up in arms about a singer fluffing a lyric every now and then. Bryan Adams once choked on the national anthem. Yes, "O Canada." At a hockey game. Something distracted him, he lost his place, and he tee-totally blew it. And you can't tell me Bryan Adams doesn't know the words to "O Canada."

Adam from Gloryhound--well, I probably shouldn't say this, but I always think he must have been the kind of small child who never got away with anything, because when he forgets a lyric he always confesses--"Shit! Sorry!"--and then regroups. Probably just as well he's not on Idol, actually, but let's just say Jason Castro is not the only Bob Dylan fan to ever muff a Bob Dylan lyric.

My favourite "I forgot the lyrics" moment involved Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor, the lead singers of Blue Rodeo, in a television interview. The interviewer wanted to play a little game called "Name the song," so she read out isolated lines from various Blue Rodeo tunes and Greg and Jim were supposed to name the song the line came from.

And Cuddy could not do it.

Now, Cuddy could name every one of Keelor's lyrics, but he didn't get a single one of his own until the interviewer threw him one from his just-released solo record. He got that one, barely, but the ones he had been singing for years almost didn't register. And yes, once in a while he fluffs a line in a show. Who cares? (Keelor knew all his own lyrics as well as his partner's. And yet he always appears to be the more addled of the two.)

During the tour for The River, Bruce Springsteen got into the habit of letting the audience sing the first verse of "Hungry Heart." That tradition began one night early in the tour when the song started and Bruce dried up totally--just lost all the words, and the audience filled in. I don't know if that's how Greg Keelor got into the habit of letting the audience sing the first verse of "Hasn't Hit Me Yet," but I would not be surprised.

So, while Idol contestants do a lot of things that cause me to cringe, forgetting lyrics hardly registers. It might be unprofessional, but it happens to the pros, and it often has nothing to do with whether they know the song.

Okay, one last post about Jason Castro forgetting the words to "Mr Tambourine Man":

He missed less than a line.

But it was "In the jingle-jangle morning"! Who forgets that line, and remembers all the rest of the incredibly but typically wordy lyrics? (I mean. Dylan packs a lot of words into his songs. And the kid only forgot the five best-known ones. Hee!)

As noted, Dave Marsh (of the Joel Plaskett Emergency) and his solo project (including Paul and Scotty) are going to play a few songs.

There is a slight possibility Joel himself might stop by and sit in.

I would so be there, if I wasn't there already. So to speak.