Alabama Idol

From time to time I watch American Idol. Because I have 4 channels, and it takes up one of them at 7 PM a day or two a week. Today though, it is on all my channels and it's getting on my nerves. Apparently Bo Bice came home today. Home is Helena, Alabama which happens to be in the Birmingham viewing area. Which means that every local news station covered it. The news was interrupted several times for live shots of Bo riding down the streets of Helena in the back of a Ford Mustang. We spoke to numerous traffic experts on how Helena is handling extra people coming to the town to see Bo. And we spoke to the ever popular old-people-who-knew-Bo-when-he-was-young and Bo's preacher. Yes, that's right. Bo's preacher. (They keep getting him to tell us what a good person Bo is and how we should ignore the numerous drug charges from his past. I'm fine with ignoring his old drug charges, I just don't need his preacher to tell me every day on the 5 o'clock news.)

To me, this entire scenario begs the question: What the hell happened to Ruben? The lovable "velvet teddy bear" who won the competition two years ago and was actually from Birmingham proper? Rumors abound that he keeps landing himself in the hospital with a variety of maladies stemming from his obesity. I'm not really sure. I just feel like regardless of what's up now, American Idol really short-changed Ruben. After his season, all I saw was Clay Aiken. Ugh. Clay Ugly-as-a-baboon Aiken. I didn't see Ruben on every frikkin' TV show after he won! I saw Clay! I think Fox stuffed Ruben in a closet somewhere and told him to stay put. Either way, Ruben got the shaft.

Finally, a question for anyone who lives in the North or in a large city: When you guys have an American Idol finalist, does your local media tell you to call in all the time and vote? I'm just wondering whether the Southerners are doing so well because they're well organized. They tell us to vote every ten seconds. Cause it's not like there's anything else going on....I swear, the news tonight? American Idol, American Idol, some high school ranked high in the nation, American Idol, the weather, some sports, Bullnanza, and American Idol. Welcome to my life.