Adam Lambert

I never watch American Idol.  I wouldn't be caught dead watching American Idol.  The fact that my poetry instructor this past semester started every class with a commentary on American Idol made it difficult for me to be polite and inhibit my sneering, eyeball rolling, knee-jerk reaction to the recent invasion of television by pop-trash reality shows instead of dramas with plots, good acting, and good writing.  (Just as well, actually, as I still spend too much time following the shows I still admire.)

Somehow, against all odds, I found myself watching the grande finale with one eyeball while playing computer solitaire.  This happened only because I was visiting my cousin in Tulsa, who despite her uniquely quirky down-to-earth rational intelligence and no-bullshit personality, watches American Idol.

My eyeball flicks upgraded to full head-twisting when Adam Lambert performed.  Glamorous, cocky, daring, yet devoid of pissed-off in-your-faceness -- he sang, and I tuned in.  Here was no ordinary crowd pleaser.  I just heard a commentator on NPR refer to him as the "gay Elvis" that America needs right now -- an original.  The other guy was so blah, so everyday, so all-American nice guy that off course he won, but now the rest of us are all ears to see what Adam does next.