Belly Buttons and Talent

[I wrote this one many years ago, but, since I’m a little blocked and have a new video game to play, I’m going to post it. Background: Ashlee Simpson, a pop singer, was caught lip-synching on a live show when her microphone started singing without her.]

Was Ashlee Simpson lip-synching on Saturday Night Live last weekend or not? And, why is this important…?

In case you had the good taste to miss Saturday Night Live last weekend, singer Ashlee Simpson was the musical performer. Her first number went off without a hitch to uproarious and solicited applause; however, during her second performance, the microphone started singing by itself and singing the wrong number, I might add. Apparently, Ms. Simpson had purchased one of the stupider microphones because it sure wasn’t listening for comprehension. It was singing the song that Simpson had just sung…or had she? Perhaps it was the microphone all the time…

This was very frustrating for the pop star because it was impossible to convince ANYONE that she had actually been singing from a small hole in her lower torso. After a few ungainly dance steps…she wandered off of the stage in search of the persons responsible; surprisingly, they turned out to be the following people: Everyone but her…

Lip-synching has been around ever since the music industry began trying to convince people that attractive people sing better than the ugly. For years, ugly people like Sarah Vaughn, Roy Orbison and Meat Loaf have gotten a free ride in the music industry just because they had exceptional voices. But, where were the hours and hours on the soloflex and the treadmill. Where was the plastic surgery? Where was the glamorous wardrobe? ANYONE with great vocal talent can sing…who wants to see that?

Unfortunately, the more attractive a person is, the less they can do. Look at the world’s geniuses and the most attractive of them all is Stephan Hawkings and he is already married.  Look at the world’s plumbers, artists and mathematicians and you will find a group of people SO ugly that there is a danger of diminishing the world’s talent pool due to poor reproductive rates. Attractive people understand two things well: Body-sculpting and finding really good cosmetic dentists.

And, they don’t all have to lip-synch to distract from their lack of talent. Cher compensates for her lack of musical ability by wearing a g-string and feathers. When a fifty-five year-old woman has to sing a love ballad on an aircraft carrier with no pants on, you know that she’s gotta be covering up for a lackluster voice; either THAT or she’s got serious emotional problems. When Ella Fitzgerald was asked to perform wearing a crocodile hat, she did the right thing and refused.

And look at Britney Spears! Look at her! That’s pretty much where the enjoyment stops ‘cause she really hasn’t marinated too long in the river of talent. Her voice is so overproduced that, in concert, she comes off sounding like three Britneys. Three voices but with a single navel staring like a dead shark-eye from her chunky little torso. Basically, the crackdown on kiddie porn has forced the music industry to create personalities like young Britney. But, just as white men cannot jump, white girls cannot sing; the only exception to this is those who sing in church choirs; however, it is difficult to convince someone who has built her life around Christ to dry-hump a microphone stand…at least at first…

So lip-synching is essentially a way to give the listener something attractive to look at while someone with talent and no looks or perhaps a computer produces vocals. The voice could just as easily be simulated as coming out of a person of a different gender, a dog, a cat…or even a volcano… Of course, videos don’t use dogs, cats or volcanoes as rock stars. It would be nearly impossible to have a tour with a real volcano and those tiny baking soda volcanoes are so FAKE. Dogs and cats tend to defecate on the stage; which, hasn’t been done in concert since the Sex Pistols…although Courtney Love seems, at times, about to do it…

An exception to this is Mr. Ed…not the defecation part, but the lip-synching. Mr. Ed was very popular and could’ve easily had a recording career with his beautiful baritone voice; unfortunately, aside from the television show’s theme song, Ed was apathetic about recording music. Without a song for the ‘B’ side of a forty-five, his singing career was doomed from the start. Instead, he filled his remaining years acting as stud for the studios many mares and running around a pasture in loose circles. Much the same way that George Hamilton has been spending the last decade of his life…

But, the most important reason to have an enhanced voice come out of Simpson’s mouth is essentially the fact that, sixteen inches below her mouth are her knockers. I know that you are saying to yourself, “What! She has breasts? And she’s been trying so hard to keep that a secret” But, it is true! Sex sells. In fact, sex sells better than talent sells. Ashlee is hot; however, only someone with exceptional powers could concentrate on her image alone for more than a minute or so. But, add music, and suddenly your brain has something to do while you gawk. You might even IMAGINE that you are Ashlee Simpson.

And, if it turns out that she lip-synchs most of her music, then her fans, who lip-synch to her albums, are gonna be lip-synching to a lip-syncher. And irony will reign supreme…