Elliott Yamin’s formerly stagnant career is about to crack wide open! (Too soon?)

The American Idol also-ran just happens to be in Chile right now, at the heart of the earthquake damage. He had recently wrapped up a performance at the Competencia Internacional in Viña del Mar, the largest music festival in Latin America, when the earthquake hit. He did what any reasonable person would do in that situation: he Twittered. (ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME, LITTLE SIS? START TWITTERING HOURLY PLEASE.)

“Huge earthquake just now in Chile!!….I swear I thought this was the end of my life!!!!!” he wrote, and then continued to post updates on the situation regularly. Later, he wrote: “I’m totally calm now….were all 2gether…got blankets from our rooms, and we’re all hudled on the street..no aftershox in a while..” A couple hours later, he was worried about his insulin situation: “Imma Type 1 diabetic, and was sppsd 2 leave sunday.I only packed enuf insulin pump supplies 2 last til then….airports r closed!”

But, mostly, at this point, he’s Twittering about the TV interviews he’s doing as a result of being the closest thing to a U.S. celebrity we have in the entire nation of Chile right now. “Interview is gonna air on abc’s good morning america at 7:30 est…please tune in!!” and then “just got done w my 2day show interview on nbc.. gonna air at 8am EST, hope it helps get the word out..I am prayin 4 those in hard hit areas!”

I am praying for them as well. But, you know, if there’s any small ray of joy to be found in this terrible catastrophe, it’s that you might, sometime soon, hear “[insert the Elliott Yamin single I can't recall]” on the radio again. And definitely expect him to make a “very special” via-satellite appearance on Idol next week, before [insert list of female contestants who don't sing well and bore me and consider dreadlocks to be a musical style] perform and then [seriously I fucking hate that show without Paula].

Ummmmm….

Didn’t Elliott Yamin release a semi-successful album last year?

So could someone please explain to me why he’s at Mel’s Diner “surprising” the unsuspecting children who showed up to the Oscar Mayer “Sing the Jingle, Be a Star” contest?

Okay, so, to answer my question, I — for the first time in my “journalistic” career — did some research. And by “research” I mean I typed the words “oscar mayer sing the jingle” into Google and clicked the first item that came up. It turns out AmIdol is co-sponsoring this contest, so Elliott was probably contractually obligated to be there.

I spent the subsequent twenty minutes of the life I only get to live once watching submitted videos on the contest website. It’s addictive. My favorite is the three adult women singing while reading the lyrics from a crib sheet. Like, really? You don’t know the Oscar Mayer Weiner song by heart? I mean, okay, fine, let’s allow for the distant, distant possibility that you somehow haven’t already heard it 80,000 times over the course of your life. But you’re now going to be singing it. On camera. For national distribution. And the song is four lines long. I mean, honestly, how little faith do you have in your own intelligence? These women should not be allowed to procreate. And if they do have children, the state should take them away. These women will never get them back. They’ll show up at Social Services all like “I’d like my kid back” and the receptionist will be all like “Okay, what’s your kid’s name?” and they’ll be all like, “Uhhhh. Shoot. I wrote it down somewhere.”

Geez.