Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Bo Bice is the New Clay Aiken, Part III
By Jacob Clifton | Season 5 | Episode 3 | Aired on 01.30.2006
David Mandzak (18, the Vegas) is...of diminished mental capacity. The audition is unbelievably long, but I don't feel like talking about it, because it's not funny or clever or interesting, and just makes them look like fools. Again. Then there's one of those Frankensteinian mixed-up themed edits, this one called CSI: Criminal Singers Investigated, about some brutal crimes against music. One guy with terrible scream-singing, one molester-looking dude sings "Toxic" and mimes weirdly with the lyrics, a weird East European chick sings "Lady Marmalade" in a peasant dress with boobs all over, a man in a beautiful suit hums "I'm Every Woman." This one dude does a terribly frightening hip-swirling hula action like a male Shakira, just really, really disturbing, with a bad accent, shaved head, and is just mesmerizing in his grossness. A big fat gay clone with bleached hair squeals and jumps around idiotically, and a big girl with a quadrupa-fupa dials 1-900-Mix-A-Lot and laughs at what a joke this show is.
Under the fake Statue of Liberty in Vegas, Ryan talks a mess about how our country opens its arms to anybody, and then we meet Haggai Yedidya (28, the Vegas), who is one of those shockingly beautiful people you see getting refugee-related stress in Bosnia or Czechoslovakia or the Russian republics and realize that in some places, the proto-Wildenstein crazy person Michael Jeffries is right -- some places, almost everyone is gorgeous. He's that mix of broken-English and clueless friendliness that keeps the hippest bars in bouncers, and we watch him first hit on the interviewer, then on Ryan, who smiles sweetly on being told he has beautiful eyes. The thing is, the guy himself has beautiful eyes, wears pants in a way that can best be described as "magic"...and will not be continuing on the show in any way, because whatever his talents, they do not include performance or singing. He walks in talking about his dreams and shit, shows them his amazing keychain or something, and he's got flags all over his shirt, American ones, and he sings "Proud To Be An American" in this weird, dramatic way, does some half-hearted blink-182-as-boy-band dancing. He's what you call a moped, and you don't let him talk if you can help it. Randy says the voice is "just not good" and Simon and Paula agree that he was terrible. Having missed the point entirely, Haggai tries to explain that you can learn to sing well, that with a vocal coach, "in two months you become a good singer, a year you are a great singer," because he has perfect pitch. The judges freak out because his pitch was awful, but I get what he's saying, and he's right and they're wrong, but he will never be a good singer, because that's not how it works, and he should pick up the fretless bass or something. Viola. Outside, he explains that they weren't impressed at all, that there was no "eye connection," that you can't "get to people" without eye contact, that "the white judge" whose name he doesn't remember was "most impressed," but mostly stared, and Paula "looked at my dancing more, and my body," and that if they change their minds, they can call him.
Princess Brewer (22, Miami) would like you to know that she is both "conceited" and "good at what I do," which is latterly nice but formerly obnoxious, like those trashy women who get all overheated explaining to you how I don't care if people call me a bitch, I am a bitch, I don't care what people think and you're like "just two more stops until I get off this bus" and during the day they are day care workers who say things like "tough titty." To children. ["Ivette?" -- Joe R] She bugs me from moment one, is what I'm saying. She tells Ryan that she sounds like Aretha Franklin and if you have TiVo, you can see him actually quash his initial reaction, which was "Oh no you did not." She smiles sweetly and in a humble fashion at the judges, nodding that her actual, literal name is actually, literally Princess. She describes herself as "blunt and sassy, but also a perfectionist" and Randy is like, "Kind of like Simon." It's not even a bag on Simon, just like noticing that they are alike. She starts singing "That's What Friends Are For" and it is awful, terrible, this nervous, nervous voice that is horrible to hear -- she keeps trying to catch it and get hold of her horses but she's just getting more and more nervous and shitty. She knows she's fucking up, and does that thing they do where they stop, look at the judges, then re-launch. Several times. Simon is about to face-plant, whimpering quietly, "Shut her up. Shut her up. Stop it. Stop it." It's the funniest thing he's ever done in an audition, just staring at the table and whispering like he might kill himself and massaging his old-man temples. "You're giving me a headache. You really are." She apologizes for her nerves and Paula lies that there were "sweet moments in there," but Simon levels that it was one of the worst all day. Randy: "Really painful." Simon's like, "Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...it did. Don't apologize." She leaves, and they bug Paula about her needless lies, and she reveals that the sweet moments mostly involved her being "quiet," and I don't know if she means "silent" or "singing quietly," because in fact her voice was much more approachable and enjoyable when she wasn't screaming her ass off.