I Wish the Maneater Were Slightly More Successful

I have been away from the blogging for a while. It matters not what lame excuse I might offer. According to WordPress’ little numbering system, this is post number 200, so maybe I just had a little mental block about the double century. Whatever.

The important point is that I have received a clear and unambiguous signal from my psyche and/or whatever Supernatural Overlord of the Universe you happen to believe in that it is important for me to blog. Specifically, I dreamed that Daryl Hall competed on, and won American Idol. I won’t bore you with all the weird and wacky dream logic details; suffice to say that, in my dream, there was this somewhat (ahem) more “mature-looking” dude with long blond hair and a gawdawful black trenchcoat* entered in American Idol. It was Daryl Hall. I knew it was Daryl Hall. It was obvious it was Daryl Hall. But nobody else seemed to notice that it was Daryl freakin’ Hall.

Now I need to be clear about something at this juncture. The old saw goes something like this: “there’s no accounting for taste.” I respect your right to have your own opinion about the degree to which certain forms of art successfully aspire towards the Platonic ideals of beauty. I accept that there is an element of individuality necessarily inherent in any artistic transaction; the viewer or listener brings his or her own baggage, understanding and preconceptions into the mix, necessarily imbuing the piece under consideration with a unique and highly specific meaning, leading to a potentially wide diversity of opinion concerning what is – and is not – “beautiful.” Thus, while you may, for example, quite firmly believe that Nickelback’s latest composition represents nothing less than the sound of angels exulting on earth, while I may quite reasonably believe that it is more representative, aurally, of a pack of mangy feral cats warring over garbage. Importantly, it is possible – according to the above-described paradigm – for us both to be “right.”

As a theorem, this highly inclusive, tolerant and respectful model is rather like the Newtownian system of physics: it satisfactorily describes and predicts the behaviour of the universe, but only within certain limitations. It breaks down entirely though, so far as I am concerned, with the likes of Daryl freakin’ Hall. Daryl Hall is where everything goes quantum. Limitations of space prevent me from elaborating herein upon the theory of art that is analogous to Einstein’s conception of the universe. Suffice to say that there is another such more comprehensive and complicated model, and suffice to say that this theory is able to much more objectively describe the reality of a given piece of art. Please understand, therefore, that the following statement is not just my opinion, it is an inescapable scientific conclusion: “Daryl Hall is to Philly Soul what Kenny G is to jazz.” You would be correct to conclude that I do not like the music of Daryl Hall; this is so not because my tastes differ – reasonably – from yours, but rather because it is an incontrovertible fact that Mr. Hall’s “music” is horrible shite. If you disagree with me on this point, there is simply no other way to put it: you are wrong.

Keeping these background contextual facts in mind, I am sure you can understand my dream-self’s consternation about the (apparently undetected) presence of Daryl Hall on American Idol. America wasn’t sending him home! Each week, he warbled some pap-crap blue-eyed soul abomination and – far from being pelted with the appropriate amount of vegetable material and broken glass – the American public was eating it up. Hall’s fans could be seen celebrating every such performance with Beatlesque sign-wavery and adulation. Week after week, they encouraged him to continue murdering the very notion of music by voting for him in droves. It was obvious to me that the public was deceived; they obviously didn’t recognize the blond contestant “Daryl” for what he was: a malevolent musical assassin with a proven record of musical crimes, bent on destroying joy and making Santa Claus cry with his execrable caterwauling. In my dream, I tried to warn the public: like any good Canadian, I wrote letters to the editor. I rented a billboard by the highway with a two-storey warning message. I made videos to be posted on YouTube, I went on network television and I even took out an ad in the newspaper trying to spread the word about the villainous Hall and his malevolent musical designs.

But I didn’t blog about it.

In my dream, Daryl Hall won American Idol, and – as a result – he started doing something so frightening and fantastical, I was both certain and highly relieved that I was in the middle of a dream. He started recording and selling his “music”. Thank God that’s not likely to happen for real anytime soon.

I awoke with a start, breathing heavily and sweating profusely from my nightmare. It was obvious to me that something, somewhere was trying to warn me to pay more attention to this blog, lest horribly unthinkable consequences be visited upon the entire earth. So here I am, tippy-tapping away again, telling you about it.

For the love of Pete, if Daryl Hall goes on American Idol – don’t vote for him.

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*I have this recollection of a Daryl Hall music video in which the criminal Hall appears in a long, black trench coat, gyrating awkwardly and emoting away with clenched fists as he lip-synched to his latest piece of inveterate garbage. This particular composition, I believe, was one in which the equally egregious Oates was not complicit. I have spent more time this evening than I care to admit (to either you OR myself) pawing through the video evidence of Mr. Hall’s detritus on YouTube, but I haven’t been able to confirm my very vivid horrific recollection. It is a process that is complicated by the fact that I can’t remember the name of the song in question. Is anybody able to help me solve the mystery?