American Idiot

America has long been at the forefront of new developments and inventions -- technological or otherwise. Our cup runneth over when it comes to brilliant individuals with brilliant ideas that have the tenacity to see a product move from the idea stage to store shelves. Some of these ideas start out fine, but lose their luster as more and more people are allowed input. Take the Ford Mustang as an example. Ford got it right with the first generation 'Stang but then screwed it up for the next 40 years. Same goes for Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers. When Dave Thomas was still around, Wendy's had a simple menu, great service, and quality was the recipe. Now, when you visit a Wendy's they will ask you if everything looks right on the screen as if that somehow translates to getting everything you ordered into the bag. But both Ford and Wendy's had it right for a while, and that's all that matters (yikes). Let's take a look at a five American ideas that are antiquated, overdone, or just plain lame.

1) American Idol

American Idol is a televised singing competition in which viewers decide the program's outcome by calling or texting as many votes as they can before their parents take away their cell phones. The person with the lowest number of votes per week is sent home with nothing more than their pre-teen dreams crushed before an audience of 30 billion people in Utah alone. The losers sob and hyperventilate on stage when Ryan Seacrest tells them their 15 minutes of fame has ended 14 minutes early. The winner gloats and is crowned with Apollo's granite-imbued diadem of the ranunculus (+4 to beauty), the magniloquent microphone stand of euphoniousness (+3 to melody), and a record contract (+5 to all skills). But the dumbness doesn't revolve around the awards or the pageantry, but that America rarely votes for the best singer. In fact, this past season the best singers in the group didn't even make it to the final two. It's unfortunate, but America is casting votes for who they think is the best looking, or the nicest, or who has the most comprehensive foreign policy package. Sorry, wrong election. Anyway, if it's too difficult for America to elect the best singer in a singing competition then the contestants should take up the sword and fight Christopher Lambert for the title.

There can be only one.

2) The Shake Weight

The Shake Weight is a dumbbell that you shake rather than lift. That alone should be enough for anyone to see that this is pure nonsense, but I'll continue anyway. The makers of the Shake Weight claim that a six minute workout is all you need to look like whoever Leonardo Dicaprio's current girlfriend is. The real rub of the Shake Weight is that anyone using it looks like they're training to be a world champion masturbator. But everyone knows that by now -- except for everyone on television that is. Nearly every talking head with a television show, from the prickly David Letterman to the glib Matt Lauer, has marched out the shake weight to make a jerk-off joke without saying the words. Congratulations, you've made a joke about the Shake Weight as funny and relevant as a joke about Donald Trump's hair.

This costs extra.

3) Subprime Mortgages

The subprime mortgage brokers recognized two important facts. 1) That not all Americans can afford the American Dream and 2) that they could make even more money granting home loans to people hoping that they could afford to pay them. Well, as we all know, hope doesn't pay the bills or generate any income whatsoever. After a bazillion foreclosures, Gordon Gecco's wildest dream hurt nearly everyone in America except for the rich. That's probably why Thomas Aquinas added greed as one of the seven deadly sins, ranking right behind wrath but slightly ahead of the atomic bomb (another American invention).

Greed is better than the sequel

4) The Flatulence Deodorizer

It's very rare when a fart smells like roses or a puppy or anything other than air over poo. With that in mind, this invention sounds like a good thing -- especially if you're one of those poor souls whose farts smell worse than average (remember that the average smell is shit). Simply attach the product, which looks just like a maxipad, to your underwear and begin farting. The offensive air is filtered through a thin charcoal membrane that eliminates any foul odors (as well as your dignity) upon contact. If you have a medical condition that prevents you from holding your farts (fartus continuous), this invention is for you. Unfortunately, the people that can't hold their farts due to medical complications probably can't hold much of anything else. Giving them what amounts to a fancy shaped napkin to plug a leak of this magnitude will leave any one's pants looking like the New Orleans levee district after Katrina. Based on that analogy, it's quite obvious the target demographic for this product is the type of people that buy their toiletries at Chevron and get their meals from Hostess. When you fart in elevators, airplanes, or movie theaters because you can't be inconvenienced to hold it, you definitely aren't the type of person that purchases fart pads.

Fart pads don't protect you from anal probes.

5) God

Before you get your flatulence-deodorizing-equipped panties in a bunch, let me say that I know God wasn't invented in America. I’m well aware that the history of God is long and complicated and differs between cultures and religions alike. When I say that God is an American invention, I'm simply referring to the American conception of God: imagine the business acumen of Donald Trump but better looking.

As far as I can tell from listening to various religious leaders give commands (or is it commandments?) to their followers (or are they soldiers?), American God has shed the silly Western European and Greek ideals of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and omnibenevolence in favor of attributes much more worthy of a supreme being such as elitism, celebrity, power, and money. Crazy bits of moral tripe, like the Golden Rule, are meaningless if the "others" just happen to be racial minorities, women, gays, or (American God forbid!) non-believers. It turns out that messages of love and compassion for our fellow man really only includes men -- white men.

And just like Karl Malone, American God gotta do what American God gotta do, even if that means being unfair. As of late, American God has committed the ultimate injustice against some of his own followers by allowing The Book of Mormon (a musical!) to run on Broadway. According to most experts who haven't seen the show yet, the musical is full of lies and tarnishes whatever image the religion has left after polygamy, proposition 8, and Mitt Romney. Many are taking to Facebook, Twitter, and something called MySpace to let the world know that The Book of Mormon musical is simply another form of persecution they must endure with Job-like submissiveness -- boils and all. Before there's too much weeping and gnashing of teeth, I'd like to point out to the LDS faithful that having to put up with a single Broadway musical (and a few South Park episodes) is small time compared to the persecution the Catholics had to endure at the hands of Monty Python for over twenty years (not counting re-runs).

How to skewer religion: Volume 1.