http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/chronic....xml&coll=7

Life after `American Idol'A busy David Cook fits in time for plastic chickens and ficus plants

Thursday, September 10, 2009
Kalamazoo

BY SIMON THALMANN

Special to the Gazette

ALLEGAN -- There's a video rock singer and ``American Idol'' alumnus David Cook had uploaded to his Web site in August featuring Cook, a ficus plant and a small rubber chicken.

One of series of videos from the road titled ``Pork Beans,'' the video -- ``A Ficus Flows Between Us'' -- shows Cook and the chicken in their own respective armchairs with the ficus plant between them on an end table.

In talk-show format, a deadpan Cook asks the chicken -- all but obscured by the plant -- a number of questions, ranging from the ``Idol''-heavy mundane (``What are your thoughts on Paula Abdul leaving `American Idol'? Is Simon really that mean in person? Who do you like better from Season Eight, Adam or Kris?'') to the outrageous (``Out of a five-star scale, how many stars would you give Kevin Costner's performance in `Waterworld'?'').

One gets a sense early on that the shrill, nausea-inducing wheezes that serve as the chicken's answers when squeezed by an off-camera hand are a kind of metaphor for the journalistic burden one must suffer at the hands of reporters as the result of being crowned champion of one of television's most-watched shows. The ficus a metaphor for ``Idol'' as an obscuring force between Cook and reporters everywhere.

But the 26-year-old Cook, during a phone interview from a recent tour stop in Montana, said analyzing the video gives him too much credit.

``It was literally just that we've been wanting to interview the rubber chicken for a couple weeks for `Pork Beans,''' Cook said. ``It all kind of happened organically, and I read something on mtv.com I think after that fact that said that I may have come across as too jaded, and I thought that was the funniest thing is that people were taking it seriously. The thing about `Pork Beans' is it's the last thing in this whole production that we would ever take seriously.''

Yet part of the package that comes with the ``American Idol'' brand of fame is precisely just that -- the brand. From the minute Cook stepped on the ``Idol'' stage to the minute, he walked off as Season Seven champion in May 2008, he was perpetually branded ``American Idol David Cook,'' a license which comes with the assurance that the things he says and does will be analyzed.

A well-established regional musician as vocalist for the Missouri-based band Axium for the better part of a decade before his stint on the show that made him famous, Cook doesn't seem to mind the possible costs that may be associated with his exposure to the masses.

``I just kind of look at it as it's where I came from, you know? I spent 10 years kind of DIY-ing it and it is extremely, extremely difficult to get anybody to pay attention,'' Cook said. ``What's funny is now we've been fortunate to have a platinum record (2008's self-titled `David Cook') and we're touring the country, but I don't really feel like I'm doing anything different. I think it's just a matter of I put myself out there in a position where people heard me. There's no shame in that game.''

Touring in support of his album for more than the past 200 days hasn't offered Cook much time to work on a follow-up, though he said he currently has three songs knocked out. And with the positive way things are going on tour, he doesn't seem too concerned about what's next.

Besides, the real question is, out of a five-star scale, how many stars would he give Kevin Costner's performance in ``Waterworld''?

``Sorry Kevin,'' Cook said, laughing. ``I'm gonna go with two-and-a-half stars.''