William Should Be Hung

Ever heard of William Hung? No? Good. Don't read any further. Look away from the screen...in fact, turn it off right now and go put some music on. Something nice. Something soothing. Something in tune. Leave the television off, the newspaper on the chair, and read a book. Perhaps settle in and tackle that War and Peace thing you've heard so much about. That should keep you out of the pop culture loop for a while.

But if you should ever come across the name William Hung, drop what you are doing and run. Don't read anything that has to do with William Hung (you're still reading!), or watch a program that involves William Hung. If you know a William Hung, even if it isn't THAT William Hung, ignore him. Turn away and shut the door. And if your name is William Hung, change it.

And whatever you do, don't listen to William Hung, or you will risk losing your hearing, your mind, and possibly some very expensive crystal.

Ah, but here you are, reading away, ignoring all my advice and sensible suggestions for Hung avoidance. I bet you just can't take your eyes off a good traffic accident either, can you? Well, you're not alone, because if William Hung is anything, he's the anthropomorphic embodiment of a fifty car pile-up that people just can't seem to get enough of.

This is a man who is to music what a staph infection is to good complexion. He makes the choked strains of a drowning cat sound like the sweet tones of Pavarotti. He might classify as a weapon of mass destruction.

In short, he's a rotten singer, yet people seem to lap him up faster than a bowl of electric Jell-O.

To realize just how horrible this man is, consider the fact that not only did he get his dubious start to fame and fortune on American Idol, a show long on neon and short on anything resembling a budding Aretha Franklin or even a hand-me-down Pee-Wee Herman, but he was kicked off the show before he could even finish his melodic massacre of Ricky Martin's "She Bangs."

Forcefully, I might add.

Yet, there was the American Idol reject himself, stepping up to the microphone during the seventh inning stretch of a recent Blue Jays game to belt out what I'm fairly certain was "Take Me Out To The Ball Game," though it was a little hard to be sure given that it was also reminiscent of a congested bull elk calling to its mate. But what was not hard to miss was the applause that followed. Yes, applause. A little Canadian thank you for having our eardrums turned into cheesecloth.

Dogs can still be heard whimpering under porch steps miles from the epicentre.

This man has taken fifteen minutes of national exposure, of the kind that would have most people applying for the witness protection program and disappearing to a farm in Idaho, and turned it into an industry. He had a top ten CD on Billboard last week, which sold 40,000 copies in its first week alone, and has since topped 100,000 in sales. Wal-Mart is already taking preorders for his new DVD, "Hanging with Hung," which I can only guess is a full-length feature of our main man sitting back and laughing at the sheer stupidity of people.

And then there are the marriage proposals. What Mr. Hung is to the ears, he is also to the eyes, but this has not stopped a virtual stampede of desperate women to post pictures of themselves on his website (and I'm not giving you the address!), begging for his hand in marriage, saying how much they love him, and perhaps hoping that whatever mojo he's got working for him might rub off; a pass of the baton amongst the talentless, if you will.

Not that they're likely to need it, given an age of reality shows where we venerate the average, the mediocre, and the downright dangerous. Soon we'll be having programs like National Shower Singing, The Olympics: Last Place, and American Piano, First lesson. Every lackluster, run-of-the-mill fool with enough guts to stand in front of a camera or microphone is not only given a polite round of applause when they ought to be gang-whipped for even thinking of sticking their heads out in public, but encouraged and strutted around as another fine example of people following their dreams.

Well, stop dreaming! My ears hurt!

As for the rest of you, quit encouraging your children to grow up thinking they're just a PR rep away from stardom. Because they're also three warbly notes removed from a public lynching should their sonic sacrilege ever reach my tortured ears.

And William is a lot closer than that.