Tonight, I came the closest I’ve ever come to killing myself. Unfortunately, at the moment of deepest disdain, I couldn’t get my hands on any ice picks that I could shove into my eye and then further into my brain.
What would cause such angst, you ask? Sometimes, the simplest thing can set the most optimistic person over the edge. It’s just like for those of you who may have read the classic (one of my favorite books), Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (by Doug Adams) — I never could imagine what Adams meant or at what he was driving in his book via the description of the alien race, the Vogons, who could put someone through the most unimaginable torture and drive them to suicide by merely reciting poetry.
Tonight, I understand the metaphor. It was when my husband and I were FORCED to sit through the entire 2.5 hours of my younger daughter’s elementary school “talent” show. I use quotes there, because I definitely question the English definition of the word after tonight.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if 21 out of the 35 “acts” weren’t vocals — if you want to call them that. Bad karaoke is what I would call them. One time — and only one time — when my husband and I were first dating, my husband, in a drunken state, got up on that bar stage and sang “The Immigrant Song” (yes, by Led Zeppelin) with a bunch of his Navy buddies, thinking I would a) be impressed by his courage/idiocy, or b) take such pity on him and think he was so terrible, that I’d think he was cute. I went with a little bit of both. But see, here’s the point — getting up on that stage, my one-day-to-be-husband KNEW he couldn’t sing. He didn’t even try to hide it. But it was all in good fun, and he didn’t even pretend he thought he could sing. And that drunken night, years ago, he was about par with 95% of those 21 acts that got up there and really thought they were good tonight.
I recall my daughter (the one in the show, and one of the few acts that were NOT singing) telling us about tryouts. Tryouts? Really? You mean, there were some who DIDN’T make it into the show? Afterwards, upon prodding my daughter about that, she told me that the “tryouts” were just to make sure there was a legitimate “act.” I guess I question what the music teacher (the one who put this abomination on) thought was legitimate.
So, in struggling to keep myself from running out of that auditorium (well, actually, it’s what they call the “all-purpose room” these days — forget about a separate auditorium, gymasium, and lunchroom!) screaming and pulling my hair out, I pondered why, oh why, these kids would think they were THAT good. I’m serious; you had some kids in 2 or even 3 acts mixed up with a combination of 1 or 2 other kids, “singing” song after song.
And then it hit me, like a light bulb.
Part of why I disagree wholeheartedly with our socialistic “no child left behind” thing today in the U.S. is that I think in a big part it causes our children to lack the drive to get ahead in the world. Remember the idea of capitalism? That the idea that the person who works the hardest and has the best outcome deserves to have the most and get the most recognition for it? In case you’ve forgotten, it was one of the ideas on which this country was founded. And it’s one of the reasons that the U.S. became a world leader. And now, we’re faltering on a global scale… isn’t it a bit too coincidental that it’s when we now have a generation of kids who aren’t allowed to show any differentiated points of view, in case of offending SOMEONE? Or, when they play T-Ball, baseball, softball, or whatever, ”no one loses, everyone’s a winner”? Or, better yet, growing up with an elementary school grading system that is structured (at least in our state) to just show a child is “at grade level” (with 85% or more of the rest of the children), instead of how well they actually stack up to other kids? Then, they wonder why the children get so stressed about the “End of Grade Exams” — when they actually have to be GRADED on their work.
I remember in middle school, when we had a talent show, that we DID have to try out, and we DID have to have some iota of talent to be in it. And then, someone actually WON. Which means…. gasp…. that someone LOST. And then, during the rest of my performing arts years — dancing, acting, cheerleading, and the like — trying out for something actually meant you competed to win, which meant that some people DIDN’T MAKE IT. I didn’t even make it sometimes, and I had quite a bit of training. And you know what? If I really wanted to do it, that made me try again. And try harder. Usually, it would make me dig in my heels and cause me to become better at whatever “it” was. Or, I would move on to something else, knowing I tried my best and it wasn’t good enough to compete.
That’s reality. That’s life.
Today, everyone’s afraid of telling someone they’re not good enough, or that they’re just not good at something. There are all of these school-aged sports where “nobody loses.” And there are talent shows where nobody wins, with music teachers telling children whose singing should be limited to the ears of the immediate family — or even just the bathroom walls — that they’re worthy of standing up on stage in front of the whole school and parents and singing into a microphone, with the illusion that they are worthy of doing so.
When I was growing up, we took lessons. Music lessons, dance lessons, and yes, voice lessons, if you wanted to get onto stage. Yes, there was a lot of natural talent in the mix, but raw talent almost never made it without SOME training. Would I have ever tried to break a cinderblock with my bare hands if I’d never taken extensive martial arts training? I think not. Would someone who’s never trained in diving try a triple flip, jackknife, or anything of the sort? Probably not. And my parents would never have let me just join a diving competition without it. And when I tried that jackknife and floundered badly, my parents would at least say something like, “… but you swim really well!”
Today, things are different. All this lack of competition, lack of training, lack of honesty, and lack of WINNING and LOSING is what feeds into the mediocrity we see more and more. And we marvel at the poor souls who, never having LOST at little, local talent competitions (though never having won, either), take a huge jump from their protected, everyone-is-the-same hometown disillusionment to the REAL WORLD and try out for American Idol, only to be crushed and confused when the judges give them the boot.
When watching those painful shows of personal disillusionment, I never understand if and how those people actually think that they’re even close to worthy of trying out for a national TV show like American Idol. It had to all be an act — no one could actually be THAT clueless about themselves, right? And so many.
But now, I understand.
And since I couldn’t find any sharp objects with which I could end my misery while enduring this masquerade of a “talent” show tonight, my wandering mind finally put together that long-pondered mystery of those terrible American Idol tryouts with these evil, group-think practices that promote mediocrity and sameness.
I get it. Simon Cowell, where are you when we need you???
