Cognitive Dissonance

It's that time of the year. Yup, Idle Americans is subjecting us to truly awful singers. I have a slight confession to make. I never watched until last year and I only watch the auditions. That's probably because I don't care who wins as I am not a major purchaser of karaoke music. I'll stick with rock and roll, thankyouverymuch.

So I'm always amazed at the outrageous indignation of people who truly suck. Last night I really enjoyed the girl who knew she was tone deaf and couldn't sing and then cried when after she demonstrated she indeed couldn't sing was surprised none of the judges wanted to select her for a singing

competition. The logic seemed to have been that if you select someone who can't sing for this singing competition, you can make it the best signing competition ever.

Now, I don't truly have unfulfilled dreams. (Oh sure, there's that one about me and Maddie Hayes and a case of baby oil, but that's not the point). Let us take, for example, a scenario in which I had decided to quit my job and become a member of the French Lumberjack Competition circuit. I am fairly confident that I know what my friends would do. They would dissuade me from such a course of action.

They would say, "T2ed, you don't speak French. You are not, in fact, a lumberjack. You don't own your own ax. You don't drive a pick up truck. You don't own a big blue ox. And you don't even really care for flannel." Of course this would occur after the peals of laughter had dissipated and they were done kicking me in the ass. In fact, given the size of my town, I'm quite certain complete strangers would come up to me and tell me French Lumberjacking is never going to work out.

So I'm astounded when people who seem supremely confident are quite shitty at what they profess to be aspiring professionals in. (This applies to the Detroit Lions as well by the way).
People who couldn't carry a tune with two handles routinely tell people who have been in the music profession for years (even subtracting the time spent in duets with MC Skat Kat) that they don't know what they're talking about.

Even more sublime are the folks who have just been told they can't sing so their response is to start another song. Hello... is this on? Earth to McFly. I read somewhere that most plane crashes occur because the pilot sees on the instruments that a crash is imminent and instead of making the adjustment that would save the plane, the pilot instead refuses to accept what the instrument says and misses the chance to take corrective action. I think it's the same thing with shitty singers.

So I've got a question. Is there something that you think you're really good at and no one knows about? And have you never demonstrated this talent to anyone else? Is it your secret special skill? Or is your Mom the only one who tells you how good you are at it? Maybe what makes it such a secret special skill is that it's secret. Maybe if it's public, it's not special. Maybe it somehow gets changed and warped and ruined if it's not secret.

Or at least that should be something we tell folks who are waiting in line for the audition.

Either I don't have that kind of outrageous confidence in my special skill that no one knows about and I've never demonstrated publicly or I'm not motarded. Please note that it is completely inappropriate for you to be thinking "Yeah assbag, your secret special skill which should be kept private is your writing!"

Now where's that axe I just bought....