Mr. Cowell, Mr. Jackson, Ms. Abdul, and Mr. The Bee Gees

My husband/partner/whatever says, “How can it be a new season of this show already? I thought it was still on from last time.”

“You’re a bad payer of attention,” I say. “The excitement is back and more electric than ever.”

Then he expresses a litany of American Idol–related concerns that have been troubling him lately. Like, has it passed its sell-by date? Didn't three former winners just get dropped from their record labels? And what of that Idol-adjacent “next big rock band” show? How’s season 4 finalist Jessica Sierra doing on Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew? And are the new Dreyer’s ice cream flavors available?

I answer him calmly:

1. Yes.

2. Two former winners, Ruben and The Boogie, have been dropped. The Boogie doesn’t seem to care. And Ruben’s family is keeping the news from him. Meanwhile, McPhee was not a winner, she was the runner-up. But yeah, she just got canned too.

3. We didn’t watch the next-big-band show, as didn’t most of America. It happened, but it was inside a big soundless vacuum. One of those bands was composed entirely of the now-grown kids from American Juniors and no one even noticed.

4. Jessica seems to be doing well on the rivetingly distasteful Celebrity Rehab, alongside that girl from the Urkel show who did some lez-porn and now seems to think she’s addicted to weed. They gave her a spot on that show instead of Brad Renfro? On their heads be it.

5. Yes, the new flavors are here. They are "Color Purple Grape,” “Daughtry’s Snarly Bits of Choco Bunches of Oat Clusters and Nuts,” “Taylor Hicks's Smoker’s Cough Crunch” (already recalled from stores), and “Clive Davis’s Foot in Your Ass, Kelly Clarkson,” which reportedly tastes like Clive Davis's ass-covered foot.

Now, some people aren't fond of the first act of each American Idol season. The long weeks of auditions strike more sensitive viewers as needlessly cruel. But clear-thinking people know they’re a public service. They make it easier for families and friends of talentless loons to finally broach the long-festering topic of how their loved ones' singing sucks dead donkey dicks. In fact, it takes the burden away entirely and creates an environment where those hurtful words never need be spoken by anyone close to the “singer.” You get a wealthy British guy with bad hair to do it for you for free, and on national TV, where it will really sting the most. Some people need hard lessons. They just do.

So for this first week they're in Philadelphia and Dallas. The camera zooms around giant stadiums filled with people who think it’s their turn for the universe to bestow on them happiness-giving fame. They come from everywhere and do all manner of things for a living. One young woman is an Air Force pilot; one guy makes cotton candy for a living and has the teeth to prove it. Someone else makes balloon animals. I think the cotton candy–making job sounds like it might be kind of fun. Unless you had to clean the machine. I would only want to do it if I could have a machine-cleaning assistant and I just got to be the guy who did the swirly part all day. One girl in Dallas gives birth while waiting for her chance to audition. She names it “Idol” and considers this “only appropriate.” Then we see a funny montage of people going, “Ahhhhhhhhh!” like they’re doing that exquisite corpse thing, but with a long note in a string of different keys. The effect is that of a huge line of people about to have a giant orgasm.

And that’s just the first two minutes. Then Seacrest says, “This…………………. is A-MER-ican Idol,” the way he’s honed to a reflex over years of at-home practice instead of using that time to form meaningful human relationships. And the games begin for the seventh time. The theme music plays, affording Cathy Dennis another Hermès shopping spree.

[A pause in writing while I go to YouTube to watch old D-Mob videos featuring Cathy Dennis.]