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...