My Name is Kris and I Blah-g

Yesterday the governor of Utah, the mayor of Salt Lake County and the mayor of Murray City each proclaimed it to be David Archuleta Day. I knew it would be pandimonium as the build up of David Archuleta’s return has been perculating for weeks. And having a vested interest in the show, I kinda feel like I know the kid and have been amused by all the fuss and commotion. He’s been one of my favorites on the show this year and of course having him be a hometown boy is a little exciting. It’s easy to get caught up in the hype. So, it was with great interest that my Mom and I watched the coverage of David’s Day yesterday. There were throngs of screaming girls, 10 year olds declaring his hotness, bands of  teenagers proposing marriage and Moms eager to get close enough to pinch those cheeks. And true to form, he humbly accepted the praise and graciously answered the questions – lots of them – that were thrown his way. His appearance at the Gateway shopping center in downtown SLC was epic. By the looks of the news coverage, he attracted more people than the Olympics and it moved him and his mother to tears. The rally at his high school a few hours later was about the same – thousands of screaming girls, lots of big body guards and my personal favorite moment – a couple Murray city cops “guarding” the stage with camera phones clicking away! By all looks of it, it appeared that he had a great reunion with his hometown.Then controversy struck. The timing is odd and this year more than most, there seems to be something a little amiss with AI. Perhaps Paula’s strange behavior is not enough. This year it seems that the victim of reality TV foul play is our own David Archuleta. Stories have been swirling around the blogs and online bulletin boards for months about how his father, Jeff is some sort of crazy stage dad. We’ve seen how out of control these parents can get. But let’s get real here. Lindsay Lohan’s mother was recently recognized for her parenting skills so how bad can Mr. Archuleta be if he’s helping make decisions about David’s song choices? I can see this both ways, actually. Having had a child involved in an arts program recently, it has been difficult to refrain from speaking my mind about how the arts program has been run. Children run amok, there is no discipline, there is not enough help for the teacher and in the end they have to know enough in order to perform a whole play. The class my daughter was in was so chaotic and confusing there were many times that I wanted to pull her out of it. I would ask her if she was enjoying herself hoping to hear her say that it just wasn’t that fun. That’s all she’d have to say and we’d be out of there. But she stuck with it to her credit and today performed a great play and won an “oscar” for her efforts. It was a satifying conclusion to an eight month long ordeal. What kind of parent would I be if the example I set was to tell her to quit? On the flipside, however, there were times that I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. Several times there were pushy kids in her class that insisted on changing my daughter’s blocking or telling her what to do. My daughter isn’t one to rock the boat. I hate to see her picked on and pushed around. So I made sure those kids didn’t do it anymore. No. I didn’t threaten them but gee, if nobody said anything they’d just continue to do it. What gets me about this whole David Archuleta stage dad thing is that everyone is so quick to judge him when they don’t know him at all. Could he be as much of a nightmare the tabloids make him out to be? Sure. But couldn’t he really be an over-protective dad looking out for his kid? You bet. I couldn’t blame him for that. The industry is tough. The public is unrelenting in their opinions and those with dollar signs in their eyes wouldn’t hesititate to exploit an honest naive boy like David. I can see myself acting the same way.  There have been a lot of assumptions made about this man that I perceive to be unfair. If he’s truly causing problems, I would hope that he would graciously step aside and perhaps allow David’s mother to be with him instead. But if he’s feeling that his child is being taken advantage of or exploited, then he has every right to protect David’s interests.So, back to his day yesterday….I had to wonder if any of the attention was getting to him. I have had one moment in my life – although much smaller in comnparison – that was kind of a taste of what he went through yesterday. When I graduated high school, I produced a show that was, for the time, ahead of its time, and it was shown during the graduation ceremony. There was a lot of buzz about the show and the response was tremendous. In a moment, my standing with my classmates changed. I remember arriving at the school later that night to attend a Grad night party and I was in the back of my friend’s truck. When people saw me, they literally were chasing after me in the parking lot. Many of these people had never been nice to me all through high school but here they were all of a sudden singing my praises. It was confusing and very artificial. Now, put that in a much grander scale such as what David Archuleta went through yesterday and I have to wonder if he is being confused, too. It’s time to cut the kid some slack and just let him compete without that stage dad cloud hanging over him. The pressure he is under must be tremendous. And judging by how he handled yesterday, he’s in pretty good shape – clearly, not the a kid under the thumb of an overbearing father. But perhaps more like the kid of some pretty protective parents who are looking out for him. Sure, I’ll play devil’s advocate on this one. I am more likely to be on the side of a protective parent than on the side of someone publishing stories to create a controversy that may not really exist anyway. Those who cast the first stone….I stumbled upon an early DA performance video on YouTube. It looks to be a year or two old but it’s really good. He should have performed this on AI: