Here we are, in a room full of strangers

So last night I'm reviewing a paper and I get a phone call from my roommate on the other side of Wisconsin. "Turn on channel 8," he says. Certain that I would be turning on a program about somebody with a really gross birth deformity, I flipped it on. The station was playing American Idol.

Now, I pride myself on only watching good quality TV. I had never watched more than two minutes of American Idol, and I demanded a compelling purpose for the atrocity burning on my television screen. "Just watch," the roommate responded.

Watch I did, and I saw the reason for the hype. The contestants were being mentored by none other than Mr. Barry Alan Crompton Gibb, the greatest thing ever to happen to music, politics, and the world. I was disappointed that the contestants chose to butcher songs by the great Barry when they did not sing in his signature falsetto...assholes! Also, it was weird to see Barry with so much gray hair, but I guess even Jesus would have grayed if he got to be Barry's age. Although the contests tried mightily to sing "to love somebody," "Stayin Alive," and "How do you mend a broken heart," they all flopped in my book. This just serves as a reminder to everyone out there that the only good decade this world has ever experienced was the 1970's. Now that I've wasted a good twenty minutes, back to Bus Orgs...you know, the UPA was last revised around the time Jive Talkin was a hit...

The great man himself.