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There are a few things that really suck about living in LA. And right up there at the top of the list is when something gets edited out of a tape-delayed live broadcast and we don't get to see it. Today, while everyone in the world is talking about Ashlee Simpson's big Saturday Night Live lip-synch snafu, many Angelenos are scratching their heads. That's because NBC4 aired an edited version of the incident, in which Simpson's prerecorded vocals were not audible. And if you want to see the full version, you have to go somewhere like here and deal with a massive download crunch. Phooey!
All we here in LA saw was a confused girl dancing a jig, which is funny enough in itself, but not quite the whole story. So if you watched SNL in LA, or you missed it altogether, and you're wondering what all the fuss is about, the answer is simple: nothing much.
Seriously, America. In a world where the president takes the country to war under false pretenses and most of the population just shrugs, are we really ready to lynch the singer of "Pieces of Me" for phoning it in one night? Doesn't the blame really fall on us, the American public, for routinely expecting the very least of our public figures? Isn't that how her boring reality show became a hit in the first place, and how her cookie-cutter pop -- oh, excuse us, "rock" -- topped the charts? And if memory serves, this big-shot singer caught lip-synching thing has happened once or twice before, hasn't it? Isn't there an old saying that goes, "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me a hundred billion times, shame on me"?
Simpson's big mistake was blaming the screw-up on her band, admittedly a major dick move. But a bad PR move shouldn't end someone's career. Nor should the revelation that they're not talented. You don't want to open that can of worms. It'd be a shame if Simpson's career really ended not because she sucked, but because she was one of the few unlucky enough to get caught. And if her fans really do turn on her and her next album tanks, all isn't lost because of this one silly incident. There's always the chance she'll be able to transition smoothly into a career as a headliner for Riverdance.
After all, it was a good jig.
