Cornelius Edwards (24, Boynton Beach, FL) is a giggly and funny security guard and hangs with strippers, which is where he gets his moves. That's pretty awesome. I bet in Florida the strippers are a whole other thing. Like if you draw a line from "schoolteacher" to "stripper," that same distance gets you to "Florida stripper." Then he sings "Proud Mary" and does the splits and his pants rip and he's adorable a lot more, and they all decide that they adore him and his hanging-out penis. It's fantastic. Every part of this is fantastic. Outside, Ryan does a little dance with a weirded-out kid; inside, Kara's doing some kind of... Character, I think. Like this Staten Island aspirational bitch who says things like "That was hilaaaarious" while sipping from a straw. Or maybe that's actually Kara, I don't even know anymore. On the other hand, I'm finally loving her again this episode, and that's the first time that's happened this year. [Also, Ryan chastised the producers for wanting Corny here to do a split again given his torn crotch situation because this is ostensibly a family show. Oh, Ryan, so sweet thinking about the children, who are subjected to at least twelve minutes of angry rage and cussed out bleeping each and every episode.-- Angel]
: Seriously gross people Bernadette and Amanda Desimone (Cherry Hill, NJ). Sometimes stereotypes are real, it's not your fault when that happens, don't worry about it. Brightly colored dresses, flowing stretch fabrics of every description, hair out to here, bullshit about how they're equally talented, they have a hair salon in their house, it's just awful. They crawl all over Ryan and make him feel like a pimp for a second, then head inside and waste everybody's time for a million years.
Bernadette (27, looking 40) goes first with a tuneless and weirdly pronounced shouting "Hit The Road Jack," then comes Amanda (23, looking 45) with "I Wanna Dance With Somebody," and... For the first time, that claim to being equally talented actually bears some merit. Hilariously, they bop around in the background of each other moaning along with how amazing they are, it's so stupid and gross. Simon finds them hideous and Kara's like, "I think you're from Jersey." They are amazed like she is Henry Higgins. Simon tells them the "crazy nodding" of support for each other made them look like buttholes, and Kara's yes is... Randy pulls it out like yucky taffy once more, begging for attention as long as he can get it, before finally saying yes to both of them. Then they go through, which makes me want to vomit. They won't last. I hope they get into a fight with somebody really rough and get thrown in the pool. Or a busy street.
Some kind of trash is what I would call Jarrod Norrell (28, Marietta, GA) as he drones on stupidly at length about God knows what, with sound effects and whatever. This is twice as horrific without Chenoweth to take the burden. Kara hates him before he even says anything about choosing "Amazing Grace" because you have to "give it up to God," which is so gross and obnoxious I don't even want to hear him sing. But then it turns out none of us do, because it is awful. Two more fucking weeks of this.
He's clearly very impressed with himself. Kara goes, "Oh, good Lord!" Then she asks him if he's fucking kidding, and he starts to lose his mind and asks the boys to confirm, and he starts crying and talking like Matt Saracen about how he's trippin' and flippin' it and losin' it and whatever, and then busts back into the horrible singing some more. Finally Randy calls for security, which is good because he starts to go kind of nuts at this point. The guys escort him away, making Ryan a little bit nervous, and then he goes apeshit on security and ends up getting handcuffed. The best part about that is how you can see his white trash ponytail so clearly. Then they march him past the bullpen, who finds this hilarious, and the music tries to make it seem like a much bigger deal than it is. After they've all sat in stunned silence, Simon goes, "...Yes or no?" And for one beautiful second Simon Cowell realizes how adorable he can be, as he bathes in the love of an entire room.
Oh, for... Florida, if you don't want people to think you're the nastiest state in the union, stop acting like this. Guess what, if you go to jail for four years, that is not a personal tragedy. Get over it and shut up about it. That's not a sympathy plea, it's a red flag. And I'm saying that liking this guy, but still. I'm not putting my creepy shit on your front lawn and I'm certainly not doing it to make you my friend. Jail isn't something that "happened" to you, it's something that happened.
Matt Lawrence (25, Starke, FL) is huge and hot and looks like Michael Pitt on steroids. He was once led by the "desire for adventure" to rob a bank with a BB gun. Now, he was 15 and that makes it fucked up, but it's still not something you should talk about. Especially if you're thinking talking about how much it "hurt" and how somehow we should be more sympathetic toward you. I'm not saying the story makes me like him less, I'm saying that shit should not come up.
He sings "Trouble" by Ray Lamontagne, and has a beautiful voice and a whole gigantor style that I really like. He's the kind of mountain you might think about climbin'. The judges are very quiet for him, and slowly get into it. They talk about how sincerely nice -- and I think wise -- he seems, and Simon calls him "brilliant." He says it feels like Matt wrote the song, which he means both as a signal of authenticity and also a joke about his trashy narrative. Kara loved the subtlety and control of his higher notes. Then Randy repackages everything they just said for them. Simon calls him the easiest yes of the day, and he goes through.
Day Two brings us 31 tickets in total: A guy in a hat, a cute screaming girl who does a dance with her tongue hanging out, a girl from before that we don't know about, a dude who high-fives Ryan so hard he slams into the wall, a girl with a big family of screamers, Kara and Randy manically hugging Ryan, a horrible girl in day-glo everything who literally jumps in the pool with joy, the grinning face of the Banana Republic girl... And that's it. I don't understand any of this. What is the point of Auditions again? We saw maybe five minutes total of any of those 31 people. This week was ridiculous. Just thick with stupidity.
week: Dallas with NPH and Joe Jonas, then LA with Avril and that girl who kissed a girl and pretended she liked it so boys would think she was sexually confident instead of what she was, which was: Drunk, and desperately slutty, and a hater of women.
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