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Opinion: I’ve got the Simon Cowell scowl -- hire me

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I have never watched an episode of ‘American Idol.’

Which makes me about as rare as an AB-negative blood donor. And it makes me the perfect candidate to be the new judge on the show.

Le tout Hollywood is lining up to replace Simon Cowell, the Antonin Scalia of TV show judges.

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What I know of ‘American Idol’ is what I read in the papers, and what I have to sit through on the TV Guide channel split-screen while I’m waiting to see what time ‘Nova’ is on. I don’t have any idea who most of the people on the TMZ website are, maybe because they look so much alike. If I had to choose ‘desert island discs’ to listen to for the rest of my life, they’d be Beethoven’s. Or Grieg’s. No, wait -- Mozart’s.

From all that, I can leap to such sweeping pronouncements as these that qualify me to replace Cowell:

  • There’s a good reason that some rap music is only one consonant away from another, and aptly descriptive, noun.
  • Many of the contestants on ‘American Idol’ rely on an unnerving vibrato that is supposed to conceal the fact that they cannot hold a note for more than a hemi-demi-semiquaver.
  • The karaoke machine is responsible for an epidemic of delusions of musical grandeur.
  • Each performer should have to audition from behind a screen, so that the ears, not the eyes, do the judging.
  • Each performer should have to listen to and watch himself warble on tape before subjecting the rest of the nation to such talents.
  • ‘American Idol’ should extend its search to someone who entertains by playing the saxophone or the violin or the piano, and keeping his or her yap shut.

Cranky enough for you? One thing, though, before you sign me for the gig: I don’t do black Armani T-shirts. But you can cast me as the judge in the black hat.

-- Patt Morrison

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