Randy calls the Brittenum twins (27, Memphis) "dudes," and they squeak with laughter and then do that creepy Sarah Silverman same-voice-at-once talking that twins do. They sing an original song that does not suck at all -- they have great voices, wonderful harmony. There are not many people ever on this show that I would listen to on purpose, but these are two. Unless they stole my identity, then it might get awkward. Paula also thinks the whole act was really cool, and then they do their solo thing. First is Terrell, who interrupts her accolades to start singing "My Girl," beautifully, with this very old-school Nat King Cole stuff happening, and then Simon asks the other one if he's going to sing "My Guy," which is admittedly funny, and everybody laughs because everybody knows the real deal here. Derrell sings "Ain't Too Proud To Beg" and Randy and Terrell clap along, and Terrell joins in on harmony a little bit, like he forgot it was a solo, but it doesn't really matter because they are both really good singers. They talk about how most twins on the show suck, or are creepy in other ways, and they get through to Hollywood unanimously. As the first successful audition in the season and the show, they are within their rights to run screaming through the streets about it, but I can't really join in. There's a middling funny bit where they run back and forth in front of the camera with different groups of randoms running and screaming along with them, but I bet those passersby stopped laughing when they found out their credit history was trashed.
Randy and Paula bitch at Simon about how mean he's being, which would make more sense if we'd seen him being mean yet. It's weird. This dental assistant girl talks about how hot Simon is and how she loooves him and whatever, whatever lady, because her boyfriend is ten times hotter than effing Simon. She tells us there's more to dental assistance than "the suctioning of saliva," which if you even say it stops being true, and we see her performing in a band called Catfight. Yeah. Meet Gina Glocksen (21, Naperville IL), and see her sing "The Power Of Love" by Celine Dion. She's got a good voice, a lot smaller range than she thinks, but mostly I'm just concerned: why you wanna sing Celine Dion in front of people? There's not a damn thing right with the woman except her obnoxious voice, which is technically awesome, so why go there? (Oh dude, have you seen that Anne Geddes book where Celine Dion dresses up like vegetables and poses with other people's babies also dressed up like vegetables? It's the most fucked-up thing in maybe the universe. You can find it in your Photography/Fine Art section; at least, that's where I find it every time I'm in a bookstore.) Gina teaches me that "The Power Of Love" is the same song as the "I'm your lady" song, which thing I did not know, because I could have sworn they were two different songs. Like, you could have made an easy $20 off me in a bar bet with that fact. Too bad that now, you cannot. Thanks, Gina. They put her through and everyone cheers, even an infant. The infant is not dressed as a vegetable. This child is not incredibly well-dressed or anything like that, it's just a normal baby, but at least it is not a food.
Then comes the bad singing of Gina Noriego (21, Chicago), who sings words from "Blue Moon," the few of them she knows, in no particular order, maybe twenty times before mixing it up with some other song's words, scaring Paula, then goes back to the random gerunds and adjectives from "Blue Moon," then starts crying and runs out. Mandisa Hundley (28, Antioch TN, cool as hell) opens with, "It's just Mandisa. The first name is enough to deal with." Normally a one-name person gets smacked, but that's such a good opener that I love her. She sings "Fallin'" and for once I don't mind hearing that song, which means Mandisa is more powerful than even she herself knows. Simon is deeply in love with her: "Everything I hoped you would be, you were." They all attempt to say yes on Hollywood simultaneously, and fuck it up, and they applaud. Simon cracks a fat joke, and Paula attacks him. Paula compares her to Frenchy, and Simon cracks another fat joke, and Paula attacks him again. Randy laughs like an imbecile the entire time. That one laugh he does, you know it? That's all he's got right now.
Whoa. Okay. Combine Adam Pratt and Gabriel Koerner, shrink the result, and you have Kevin Brenneman (21, Cuyahoga Falls OH). Needless to say, I am utterly smitten. Since we last spoke, I took over as the Battlestar Galactica recapper, and yeah, it's the best show on television and I love it, and the fans, and I love writing about a show I love, but the honest real truth is that I only took the job because it gets me one step closer to Gabriel Koerner. Life is a both a chess game and a highway, people. Kevin attempts "The Wait," by The Band, and it is terrible. Terrible, terrible. I love him so much and he is wearing a tangerine polo under a stripy coral t-shirt. It goes on and on and he's singing his ass off and the judges just look at him like he's killing them. They really should have stopped him sooner, but I want to marry him on top of a mountain, so I don't mind. Simon calls him a tiny "buzzy energetic thing" and compares him to a wasp, and then Simon and Paula do their whole bullshit Rugrats deal from last year, and it makes just as much sense, which is none, and is just as funny, which is a negative amount. Basically, Paula says he has a good voice for voice acting and the like, funny voice-overs, and Simon translates this to her calling him a rat, and it's maybe even stupider than last year, and Kevin almost cries and I nearly Hulk out, all, "Jacob fix it!" Paula loses her word control for the largest time so far: "You know what Simon I'm going to just try to shut your mouth right now." Having said her piece, she then...stares into space for an unlimited time. It was like the season hadn't really started until this happened. Hi, Paula! Hi, Paula's Crazy! Kevin leaves, and even Simon is chastened by his sad little face. That's pathos, dude.
Charles Berry (23, Darby PA) went to two auditions last year...and that's all you need to know, you know? But he continues, saying that he's learned from the judges' comments and is following their tips for this year. They seem to recognize him, and Paula remarks on his very smashing outfit. Then he screws it all up by singing a song of his own horrible invention about being the American Idol which is terrible both in concept and execution, sounding like an alternate National Anthem, only about the show, and sung by your mom. Randy's like, "Doesn't get any worse than that," and Simon advises him to shave his beard, put on a dress, and become the best female impersonator the world has ever seen. Paula interprets that Simon's saying Charles "should be a woman," which is not what he was saying at all, and Charles starts crying and leaves. Paula calls Simon an ass as Ryan is wrapping himself around Charles outside and trying to Horse Whisper him. Charles shrugs off the Seacrest love and runs outside, talking on the phone about how he has been humiliated. It's pretty sad. I don't guess we'll be seeing him year.
Amanda Rabideau (25, Hoffman Estates IL) enters hilariously with her goofiness all on shout, screaming her greetings, and then she and Simon have a contretemps about what is and is not interesting about her, and she talks about selling furniture and showing cattle, and it's boring but she's so cute and awkward and funny. She sings "Something To Talk About" and her voice is not bad, it's like if your mom was singing at first, but then it all goes to hell, just goes haywire painful and out of control in a nervous kind of way. Simon starts in immediately with hurting her feelings, and it's the way she keeps smiling that makes me like her, because she's clearly slapped by all this. Paula and I applaud her "passion" and Paula simply says she's "not right for the competition." Simon tries to force her to say "no," and even Randy's like, let it go, dude. "Simon I just want to squeeze your neck and pop it off your head," Paula says, then stares into space. Randy tells Amanda to name one of her cows after Simon, and Paula suggests she call it "Mad Cowell." I've never in recent memory wanted anything so badly as for that to have happened off the cuff, as edited, but I doubt that highly. Good on Paula either way. Amanda leaves, gracious and sweet as ever, and the other judges turn on Simon for being a dick. Amanda cries in the interview booth, and it's sad, and meanwhile Paula calls the "yes or no" thing that Simon just pulled "the weirdest thing you do" and says it drives her insane. And yeah, it's a dick move, because Paula cannot get to the point, ever, and making her do it is like asking Seacrest to kiss his sister. Or any girl at all.
The violently boring Deputy Brandon Groves (25, Wheeling WV) doesn't get Seacrest's stupid CHiPs joke, doesn't get the judges' banter, doesn't get the point of singing, doesn't know the words to "I Shot The Sheriff," doesn't care -- upfront he says this -- to sing any words but what he calls the chorus. Which amounts to him singing "I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy" seventeen times in a row without stopping or varying his tone in the slightest except to fuck it up, and every time you think he's done, he goes back for one or two more. Repeat eight cycles of this stopping, then starting again. The judges, unsurprisingly, are as bored as I am, but the real question is: why isn't Deputy Brandon yet bored with himself? Paula: "Oh Brandon, no." He leaves and she whispers to the producers: "Oh my God. For real. For real? For real!" It's like the most authentic she's ever been on the show. The most "for real," rather. I guess.
There's an unfunny and unending thing with Ryan and Derek Dupree, the guy on one-hour reprieve, begging strangers to let him sing for them. Nobody will, and we go around and around with this for a long time, and finally there are people around who don't care either, and this guy tells Ryan he likes his show, and it is super-cool how fast he flips to his other persona, production schmooze guy, all, "Would you like to be on it?" and with the eye contact, and poise, and just general demeanor, whom we won't be seeing for weeks and weeks, and without whom this show is nothing to me. The guy's like, "Not necessarily, no." Ryan drops his interest in this guy immediately. "Thanks anyway!"
Christine Davis (17, St. Peters MO) comes in wearing a frothy wedding dress, and there's a whole boring conversation with Paula and Simon about how American kids dress for prom and it's dumb, and then she sings "My Heart Will Go On" -- why? -- and generally I like her voice, although there are some bum notes for no reason. Simon is unimpressed and smirking, and after one particularly easy note that she biffs super-bad, even Randy has had it. Paula says she has a nice voice, but lacks experience, and Simon says that he hated everything about the audition, the dress, everything, and calls her version of the song "mediocre." Paula asks her to pursue voice lessons, and reminds her she's only 16. The girl says she'll be seeing them in the city, and not unkindly, Simon tells her to save the airfare. Again they fight about how mean Simon is being, and I still don't see it. Seacrest makes a dumb joke about how "Any time Simon sees a wedding dress you have lost him." Trust me.
More tourists laugh at Derek's awful singing, and then Blake Boshnack (20, Hewlett Neck NY) comes in dressed as the damned Statue of Liberty and only gets two words into "Start Spreading The News" before Simon dismisses him. That's what I'm talking about. Blake can't believe it and Simon has to tell him to leave about eight times before he does, visibly stunned and very pissed. Derek finally returns to the building. Why is Ryan even giving this dude the time of...oh, Ryan rolls his eyes at the camera. Ryan hates this storyline as much as I do. Good. Paula laughs out loud when Derek walks back in, and the judges are all clearly not feeling it. He sings this creepy song about "Susan in the bathroom stall" and "Constance on the make" which if you Google it, it's just bloggers talking about how creepy Derek Dupree is. He admits that he does not know the name of his awful song, making them laugh, and Simon floats the theory that Derek has been possessed by a six-year-old. In the interview booth, Derek admits the possibility that he is not "the music type," and then fills us in at length about how he is trying not to cry. I hate it when actual crazy people get through. It makes me feel like an ancient Roman or something.
Oh boy. Here we go. Meet Erik Lawhon (18, Maitland MO), the poster boy for all "American Idol is evil and homophobic" rhetoric until 24 hours from now, when a whole other mess of problems walks into the door. He's got red hair, pretty skin, and a slightly google-eyed gender ambivalence. Erik's grandmother and mom talk about how he has a great voice and how his music teacher, a reckless individual indeed, has said that he will "go a long ways." The grandmother talks about how she will, if necessary, "pull Simon out of here" and will "hurt his body." Which is funny, but not as funny as the sproing sound of Ryan's giant boner hitting denim just then.
"There's something about that that's exciting to me…" he begins, then trails off, trying desperately to back up time just five seconds and self-edit, "…in a way where, uh, I mean, like, in a way where he would have...um, bruises?" She asks if he'd like to help her "hurt Simon's body" and he actually chokes on the mouthwatering thought: "God, you don't know how badly." He says this last not unlike Pat O'Brien might on your voicemail, weird and accidentally salacious and aggressive and awesome. It's so, so rough when you read this much of your own press that you have to remember that you're you, and not the thoughts of people that don't know you. Like, he was just having his day, talking to people, said something innocuous, realized it was the first thing marked for the final edit the second he said it, then just dug himself into a weirder and weirder hole trying to cover his bases. It bums me out because he is a nice guy and the last thing he needs is to have to live simultaneously inside his head, my head, and the heads of a thousand fan-fic writers at once. There's not enough to Ryan Seacrest, to spread it that thinly.
Inside, Paula asks Erik what makes him different, and Simon and Randy giggle. Erik laughs too: "That's not nice!" He's kind of charming, and at least he knows he's got some baggage going on. His voice is out of this world weird, very high and friendly and strange. And he's not started singing yet. He's going to sing Simon's favorite song in the world, "If You're Not The One," the least of an unimpressive catalog by the very attractive car-flipper Daniel Bedingfield. This should be vile. Outside, the mom's talking about how she doesn't want to hear him singing because it makes her cry when he sings, and Ryan gets choice paralysis about what to say about that. Erik begins to sing, and it's so much weirder and scarier than you even thought. Just quavery and unmoored by your silly categories and all over the place and...you know Anne on Arrested Development? The girlfriend? Erik sounds like how she sang in the office party episode at her parents' creepy Christmas party. He's so, so young and there are so, so many things he urgently needs to know. Ryan should explain some things to him, stat. Simon gets bored quickly by the giant farce of this, and Erik blames the terrible performance on his nerves. Paula: "At least you knew that." What else are you supposed to say? Not what Simon says, for sure: "You sing like an auntie...your auntie? That used to sing after lunch rather badly?" Randy and Paula give Erik firm no votes, and Simon dicks around: "Rather harsh. I would have said yes." Paula attacks once again. Who knew that all this time, the chronic pain was all that was keeping her from being a mugger?
Ryan sics the grandmother on Simon, who gets a little scared, because like most grandmothers on this show, she is obviously slightly bats. She demands to know why he is so rude, and Simon is actually confused. "All I said was, he sounded like an auntie." She does not deny this, but asks why that would be a problem. "What are you looking for?" Not him. "He's unique." Simon explains to her that she's giving Erik "false hope," but does admit that that is "what grandmas do," then takes his leave. "He's short," says the grandma. "And he's aging," mentions Ryan.
Welcome to the Barrettsmith sisters, Brooke (23) and Leah (19), of Spring Grove IL. They look like two very different kinds of sorority girl. We visit their tiny town for a good long while, and get to see: some cars, a stoplight, and a "corn maze" commemorating the time the Bears won. They scream and run around and a banjo goes crazy as they talk about how they will support each other no matter what happens. In the audition room, Simon asks for a verse and chorus from each. Brooke goes first, singing the "It's In His Kiss" song from Mermaids, and her voice is very beautiful, but in that tricksy tic way of Scott Savol where you're not sure if it's real. Luckily, she seems able to back it up so far. Simon's almost immediately like, "Okay great, ?" Leah sings a song I don't know, about wandering through wind and rain and finding the sun eventually, on which she goes nuts, and it is beautiful. They sound similarly, but have different styles and personalities. That's how low this show sets my bar. Paula pulls some lame shit about how she'll say yes to both or neither of them, Simon says no to both for no reason, but extends Randy's yes to Leah to both of them on Randy's behalf -- one of them goes "Drama!" at this point -- and Paula decides to say yes to both because she loves her sister or something. Something stupid and utterly unrelated, to be sure. Paula tells them to work on their vocals, and Leah helps Brooke figure out that they are going to Hollywood, and they both scream and jump around and are cute.
The repulsive Crystal Parizanski (16, Palatine IL) stands with her disgusting mother (Anna: "Which one's the mom? I dare you to tell me which one's the mom.") and talks about nothing, absolutely nothing, and they are so effed-up-looking and dead inside, and she's got fake blonde hair and a pound of makeup and skin like walnut trailer paneling and nothing happening inside, but she says "I listen to music every day" and that she is practically the Xtina because she has "attitude, like, [she's] going to do it no matter what." Mom looks like Anne Rice after fucking the National Football League on top of a tall mountain of cocaine. She wanders in and babbles stupidly for awhile before asking if she needs to explain anything. Right then you could bring her mom out and they'd go, oh, okay. Yes, says Simon, the tan. "Okay," she says, "My name is Crystal, I just turned…" No, I want to hear about your suntan. "Okay, I'm singing 'And I'm Telling You by…" No. No, no. I want to hear about your suntan. "Oh, my tan?" See, right then I would say, "Get out," but that's not how this show rolls. Paula just laughs and looks utterly creeped out. I am sorry, Mikalah Gordon. I love you. "[The fake tan] is not of main importance here," she giggles. She's like if Paris Hilton and Elizabeth Pha had a crack baby. A baby made of crack.
Simon's like, "It kind of is? Because you're scary to look at with the eyeballs." She giggles, "Yeah, whatever." Randy's like, "Just sing. God." Then a horrible screeching mess happens. Even Paula starts looking like Carolyn Kepcher in the face of this. After a long, long time she says, "I'm going to...have to...stop you." She shakes her head, and Randy also begs. Simon asks where the mother's place is, in this, and whether her mom is okay with the Prostitute Barbie look, and Crystal gets even more attitude-y with him. They send her out for her mom, and Paula whispers that she was afraid he was going to do that, because she saw the mom outside, and she's just as bad if not worse. The gross mom comes in -- doped up or naturally near-comatose, hardly matters at this point -- and the judges start laughing because now it's just gotten horrific, and the mom has worse conversational skills than her daughter, and they fight the judges about nothing at all, just about life, and Paula's getting more and more irritated, and finally when Crystal starts yelling at the judges, Paula throws them both out -- awesomely! -- and the judges all just stare at each other and shake their heads, and are sad about America.
The very appealing Simmons twins (16 going on 25, Inkster MI) enter happily, wearing polos and being utterly charming. They do a double act with "Superstar," and chatter twinly about how it's going to go down. Joshua, in the brown, starts first, and it's very beautiful but a little tricksy. Jarrett, in the black with the tie, is...identical to the other one. Twins, you know. They walk up and take Paula's hands, and then both of them sing and their harmonies are very different from the other twins, but nice. Joshua's harmonies are beautiful, and his higher range is very sweet. Paula admits that the whole thing was corny to start, but got cool -- I think they got her at the same point they got me, which was towards the end. ["Yeah, it started off creepy, but then it…shifted, kind of." -- Sars] Simon's iffy about this, because of the twin thing, but Randy and Paula are both full-on into it. He shrugs and they usher the boys to Hollywood, Paula making a point of congratulating them on...being 16, basically.
There is bad singing by several people and the judges are exhausted, but then something stupid happens. David Hoover (28, Wexford PA) enters the picture. He's the only Pennsylvania person I've not liked, in this life. He explains to Ryan that he can speak to animals, and that they have "cartoonish" voices, and that this started when he was 16. (Anna: "But my psychotic break was not to be diagnosed for another two years.") Ryan is surprised by David's ability to speak to animals. David is not wearing shoes. This is because he did not like his sandals. Actual crazy people, guys. Come on with this crap. He enters the audition room screaming and hopping and yelping and wiggling and dancing around like a fool. He sings an original "song," and his voice may or may not be good, although it is somewhat lazy and nervous, and the song may be boring, but the actual problem is that his ass is crazy.
As he sings, his eyeballs roll around like in Equus and he stomps and his eyes roll back and his body shakes and he yowls and peels his lips back like the guy from Toad The Wet Sprocket and Randy makes the sign of the cross and Randy and Paula wobble around like he's going to start shooting pieces of crazy at them, and he nearly falls to his knees a couple of times, and his hands go all Leonardo in Gilbert Grape and his fingers pluck, pluck, pluck at his clothing, and his grin is shifty and fleeting, and it is an absolute nightmare. I think the lights actually go dim in the room at one point. Finally, he finishes, and Simon's like, "Catchy." Randy, of course, laughs, because what the hell are you going to do. David continues to writhe and jump and wriggle around silently, which is somehow worse, throughout the whole conversation, occasionally breaking into yelps and dog-barks. It's funnier than you'd think, but not at all as funny as it needs to be for this to work. Fuck homophobia, sure, but whatever the hell you call this bothers me more. Simon basically asks him what the hell he's thinking is going to happen, and he barks, and Paula's got this sympathetic bouncing crazy thing happening, like they are in synch, and Randy says he'll put him through if he'll talk to the animals for them. Simon: "Categorically never." Paula continues to weave and dodge and wiggle. David Hoover is kinetic. "For reasons of my own," Paula drawls, "yes." (Too easy, that joke. Let it slide, dude.) Simon is appalled. David screams and bounces and acts crazy and Simon, finally, throws him out. The crew and Simon make fun of Paula for putting him through. Outside he screams and howls. It's so fucking tiresome. Plus, plus the fact that you're not just punishing your future selves by sending him to meet you later, but also an entire plane full of innocent people. That's verging on evil. Then, in antidote to this bad, bad call on every level, there's a preview of the upcoming terrible montage of people singing "Lady Marmalade," which is comedy in the making and a welcome tonic. There's a guy with a lisp like Poet, the guy in the dress with the legs, and hot mess Crystal, and that's just for starters.
Oh! No need. Lisa Tucker is in the house! Lisa Tucker (16, Anaheim) is the star of a movie we now get to watch, entitled Lisa Tucker Blows Your Brain Out With Love, and it's all about a girl named, coincidentally, Lisa Tucker, who is super-great, was a joy to her parents and anyone who met her from birth, who is loved by her parents. She has a gorgeous mother, and is really sweet and entirely too self-possessed and well-spoken for such a youngster. She sings "One Moment In Time" by Whitney Houston, a role model on whom we could all once agree. This deep smoky voice comes blowing out, accompanied by a National Anthemic echo, the first time this season, as though merely by singing she has freaked out the concept of acoustics. Luckily, she's good enough that nobody minds. Simon is flabbergasted, admitting that he "loathes" 16-year-olds on principle, but that she's the best one they've ever had. She graciously thanks him. Randy and Paula are equally blown away, although less eloquent about it, and they give her a "thousand percent yes." Simon refers to her as "sailing through to the round," and outside, Ryan is clearly and legitimately happy for her -- she downplays the critique and he corrects her to her parents proudly: "The best 16-year-old. Ever!" He loves her.
Patrick Fletcher blows my mind with his geographic skills, drawing a map of the United States from memory. I can't even find Austin on a map of Texas. We keep seeing Patrick's face in the crowd and shots of auditioners, but never his audition. He has a lantern jaw and generally looks like those Superman and Batman cartoons. Like Nissan made a boy. This hot gymnastics enthusiast tries to teach Ryan to do some kind of flip in the air, and then a creepy boy does a creepy dance. We meet Amanda Berg (17, Northglenn CO), who very seriously explains the gymnastics move she herself invented, the "Banana," which she describes as a "Worm" that went awry on her once. Basically it looks like those rolling Escher bugs. She tells the judges that in ten years, she aspires to be Whitney Houston, and everybody needs to have a dream, but you should be more specific. She sings through her nose and looks really uncomfortable, shaking and pivoting back and forth about twice a second as she sings. It's nerve-wracking, but she seems nice. She's singing about how you "Can't Fight The Moonlight," but it seems clear she's fighting something. She has a country look. She gives herself a six out of ten, Simon subtracts five and a half for her, and really: how awesome would it be if she broke out the Banana right now?
Brett "Ace" Young (24, L.A.) is the spitting image of one Scott Petersen. He was raised in Boulder, and music is his life, and he is a good-looking kid. He sings some boring Westlife song and is immensely breathy and annoying and he has one million teeth. He's much better looking when he's not singing. Singing, he's annoying. Randy believes that he is a "really, really good singer," and "one of the best in the auditions so far." Randy makes reference to the difficulty of keeping a controlled connection between "chest voice" and "falsetto." Now, either Randy literally has no idea what he is talking about, or we didn't see that happen in the audition. I'm willing to concede that the latter is the case. I like Randy, and I generally agree with much of what he says, and it's rare that he speaks this specifically, but I don't think he's trying to impress us or anything. Simon tells Ace that it is more about his personality than his voice, and I agree, and Paula says "as a woman," something something something, it's pointless and is not related to her as a woman so much as it is to her as a horndog. Simon gives him a yes, but with a "very very very small 'y.'" Ace gets through, everybody claps, his arms are a foot around.
Rochelle Elaine Dye (25, Kansas City KS) has one hundred family members, all wearing t-shirts about how great she is. She tells a long story including not one but several evictions, some family members, depression, and a loss of all hope. Luckily, even on the verge of getting her cousin evicted, she and one hundred family members managed to scrape together not only airfare but money for matching t-shirts. That's the spirit of a winner right there. She sings "Chain Of Fools" and has a very pretty voice, gives a good performance -- even wearing a denim shrug -- and you can hear the nerves, but she's good enough that you can ignore them too. Randy claps along with her and Paula wiggles around. (To be fair, it doesn't seem related to the song itself, but she's clearly excited.) Simon says she's "great, great" and he can't "fault that voice" and that he liked it a lot. Randy says it's the best they've heard so far this season, and Simon agrees. She gets a 100% yes, and Ryan and the family go crazy, and then Ryan is physically knocked over by one hundred thrilled family members full of love and excitement.
Trollish rocker, trollish rocker, hottie with a beard, hungry tattoos, totally trollish rocker, The Bravery hair, hot surfer, creepy mullet, Yeah Yeah Yeahs wannabe in not-conceptually ugly clothes, nasty rocker, blonde frat guy, incomprehensible cheering, gross hair, gross hair, very cute guy with purple hair ("Bored by me? I'm bored by you!"), troll guy who gets through, scary vampire guy singing that trashy song about "love lies bleeding in my hands," awesome hipster screaming weirdly and shaking his head around all about chickens, skinny creepy suicide girl, not-so-skinny corseted suicide girl, gross dyed red hair with lots of bracelets, Elvira's niece somehow again, Cousin It pushing 40, a woman with a tattoo on her face.
Erik Mena (23, Monterey Park CA) seems nice. He talks in a charming way, and his body is very huggy, what we called a "sweater guy" in college, and he seems to mean well. Sadly, though, he looks like a toucher. Like a person who will touch you when you're not ready for it, like on the subway or at a grocery store, or like you shouldn't let him babysit. That may or may not be his fault, and I hope it's not true, but them's the breaks. He is also a horrible singer, singing "The Way You Look Tonight" with a weird accent and some strange tea ceremony movements and a general inward-turning lack of presence. He trails off and he and Simon stare at each other for a million years while Western movie face-off music plays, and he refuses to leave or think, and finally asks, "Should I go?" and Simon nods and winks not unkindly.
There are a bunch of weird cowboys that talk strangely, like Idaho Mormons, like a religious sect that only trades and mates in its own small area. They are there in support of Garet Johnson (18, Veteran WY), who is...immensely uncomfortable at all times. Talking to Ryan, talking to anybody, you keep thinking he's going to cover his face and get it together, but he never does. We learn that he sings to a turkey. A particular one. To be honest, I only understand about 30% of what he says. He's like one of those feral children who had to invent being human from scratch. He is adorable, and I like him, but he's got a ton of disadvantages coming in. He's wearing Wranglers and boots and a hat and the whole thing, and he spends like five minutes trying to come up with the name of the song he's going to sing. He knows it's by Elton John, but that's like all he knows. He has a squeaky little voice and is incredibly squirmy and squirrelly. He's painfully nervous and just keeps mentioning that he only sings to a turkey. Finally they're like, "Just sing it." And a freaky different voice comes out of him -- and gets the echo -- a deep, powerful voice that's clearly wonderful, if momentarily fucked by nerves. Simon levels with him that there's "a good voice in there somewhere," and they string him along for a while about how he is too poor for voice lessons, forcing him to admit to his poverty over and over, and Randy brings up a really good idea that would never occur to me, which is: church. Garet admits that this is the first time he's ever tried singing in front of a non-turkey human being. Paula tells him how proud she is of him; they bug him some more about how poor he is, and ask if he's ever been on a plane. He geeks out majorly and admits that he has not. Randy gives him a yes because he's incredibly likeable, and they let him through, causing him to freak out and shriek and act weird and stumble around. I've never seen someone like this before. He's like a clone. He's completely new.
Nineteen people made it through on day one in Denver, including: a screaming black girl, a man with shark teeth, a pretty girl with lots of hair, a very tired blonde, a super-tall guy in a black hat, a crying girl and a screaming one, a guy who's in the Dog Pound, Jada Pinkett Smith, Horatio Sanz, a boring white girl, a girl in a fedora, and a cute blonde.
April Walsh (27, Laguna Niguel CA) enters in a kicky red and black dress with a red flower in her hair and sings "It's Oh So Quiet," and it's quite dramatic. She has no problem with projection, and a lot of character. I think theatre would love to have her. There are movements, and she makes hysterical faces, and the judges kind of giggle, and afterwards she admits how much fun singing that song turned out to be. Simon offers that if somebody in a restaurant started that shit up, you'd tell them to shut it right down, and he's right, but I beg you to tell me the song of which this is not true. Other girls get through, including the girl with creepy dyed red hair, a girl in capris, and a girl with a complicated necklace, but not many guys, including the very gracious hot gymnastics guy from the beginning of Denver.
Okay, here's the part I didn't want to talk about, and then we're done. Zachary Travis (18, Denver) is wearing a girl's top from Wet Seal, straight-leg jeans, high heels, about a 12-inch waist, bad acne scars, hair like a drama girl, and a white belt. Lord knows I don't like to diagnose, but this is a lot of XXY signage to be looking at, which usually comes with a bunch of dysmorphic bullshit that gets you beat down, and usually causes your parents to turn into assholes. This is very much an obstacle that we should respect, because yeah, wear your love like heaven and all that, but knowing the difference between reaching for utopia and thinking you live there is what will save you from getting your ass killed.
Wearing girl's clothes, while still demanding to be called a boy, puts the onus on every single person you run into, and it's not only an unfair demand, but a stupid one. Relying on thinking you can complain later about your rights, and everyone else's ignorance, doesn't mean a damn thing if you're in a ditch somewhere. Prior restraint doesn't apply to social relationships, and it's asking a lot of the world at large to suddenly evolve just for your self-expression. If you have nine out of ten gender signifiers happening, it's not that I'm an idiot for filling in the blanks, and it's not because I'm "prejudiced" or hateful in some way; it's because you haven't done your semiotics homework. Which should be like your purpose in life. This is the whole Second Wave/Third Wave feminism argument all over again: I would love it if you created the rules of the society in which we live, and maybe one day you will, but it hasn't happened yet, and pretending that it has so that you can bitch later is only hurting yourself. If you're going to be a gender pioneer, at least have the attitude to go with it. But we're getting ahead of things.
He's tall enough, and skinny enough, with enough muscle mass -- kid's packing some guns -- that maybe these kind of clothes are his only hope, but still, we're talking about actively choosing the most feminine gear possible, which makes this an identity issue, and you have to fight for those like a motherfucker.
Randy opens with the usual question, "Tell us something interesting about yourself." Simon's like, "Really?" Zachary offers that he is a "very talented person" and that "people" often "confuse [him] for a girl," which makes him "just laugh [his] butt off." He describes various bathroom incidents of confusion, and smiles hugely. Randy: "Wow. So what are you going to sing?" Zachary will be singing a Whitney Houston song called "Queen Of The Night." Randy: "Wow. Okay." Zachary then sings this song, and nobody can really look at the stage, because it's hard to look when somebody showing you all their stuff at once. The singing is terrible, the moves are bizarre. When he's done, Randy notes the "interesting lyrics" of the song, and Simon simply calls the whole thing "atrocious" and "confused." Zachary thinks he did "awesome." Paula loves his self-confidence -- and at this point, so did I -- but explains the "reality," which is that "the voice isn't up to par." When Paula Abdul feels moved to explain reality to you, that's a sign.
The Boy George version of "The Crying Game" starts to play, and it's for nasty reasons, but if you've seen the movie, it's not entirely inappropriate. Mom's white lipstick says, "He's eccentric, very...he puts it out there for anybody to see, and [is] totally fine with anybody's reaction." He comes out crying and is hugged by Mom, Grandma, and his girlfriend or social worker. Walking away, and this is where he loses me, he gives the following camera speech: "American Idol fits America, and America is prejudiced and racist and...I think it's totally prejudiced to not accept someone because someone's a boy, and they're singing girl songs, and they don't fit the song, and the vocal range of the girl...I think that's total prejudice. I'm surprised that Paula said I suck...and Randy was just trying to make it all right...fuck America...I guess they can't handle it. It just shows their own ignorance, and stuff, and...I don't know."
One: Simon Cowell is not American, but he is a capitalist, and you are not on the demand curve at any point right now. Also, you cannot sing. Two: America is prejudiced and racist, and that's awful, but neither of those have to do with this situation, except in the most distant way, and frankly, linking them to everyone else's inability to take part in your drama is a little bit insulting to people without options. Three: Singing a "girl" song was not the problem, and neither was transposing the song for your voice. You cannot sing, no matter in what key the song might be. Four: Even if that were true, that is not "prejudice." It is "music." Five: Paula did not say you suck, she said you rule, but have a bad voice. Which you do, and which you do. Six: Randy was treading a very fine line of being condescending, and was being a good bloke, but he was no more interested in you than Simon was. Seven: Saying "Fuck America" is incredibly stupid, and will get you beat up. Yes, America is not ready for you. But you, my friend, don't seem to be ready for America, so it's a stalemate. Eight: there's institutionalized ignorance, racism and homophobia and non-standard gender issues, and they're related, but you seem to think that this is related to your bad singing. It's not. That's a fight for another day. Today, you lost mostly because you couldn't sing, frankly. And trust me, I want you to be very, very happy, and seeing the path you're on scares the hell out of me, but I also know that being this resistant to the fact of other people is a good way to make yourself crazy and very, very unhappy.
You can own the room and get respect for yourself, but this guerilla-attack "What do you mean? Of course I'm a guy! You should know that despite my many, many efforts to persuade you of the contrary!" crap is not going to fly, because for you to be happy, you need to accept not only yourself, but everybody else too. It's this vague appeal to "everybody sucks in the entire country except me" defense that killed my sympathy, because 18 is too old for that shit. There comes a point where the various spheres of baggage, identity and gender, and sexuality and clothing and the rest of it, though they overlap over a good deal of the map, do not cover the map. It's too easy to apply this poorly thought-out complaint to absolutely everything: bad grades? Prejudice. Tax audit? Prejudice. Car accident? Prejudice. And yeah, a lot of times this will play into it, I'm not blind to that. But there's an easy fix, or at least a way to soften the blow. You can be yourself and play the game at the same time, at no cost to your soul. It's not an all-or-nothing game, but it is one that demands you participate in some way. Choose happiness, please. It's your duty to yourself, as a living person.