Luckily, the song sounds fucking amazing and Kara flips her wig and says how Paula would be "screaming and yelling and dancing and dying" -- I assume implying that she would be doing these things because of the song and not, you know, just generally -- and Kara compares Andrew to Adam because of the "taking a song" and "just flipping it," I guess referring to Adam in the context of the show, where he did that. Sometimes the things that amaze Kara are really astounding.
Vanessa's heart is dying right there onstage and making her look even more desperate and crazy and freaky. I don't think this is going to go well. I love her and all, but if she fucks this up I won't blame her, and honestly I don't see it going any other way. Either she biffs this first round, or gets in a fight with a black girl tomorrow. Those are the two possibilities. So her montage of flying to Hollywood is accompanied by the Shins, which is sort of counterintuitive but not really -- "I'm looking in on the good life/ I might be doomed never to find/ Without a trust or flaming fields/ Am I too dumb to refine?" -- and her mom cries at the aeroport which is sort of heartwrecking, and then she is amazed by the hotel and stuff, but not in a "concrete pond" kind of way like you might be afraid of -- although she does get weirded out by the concept of microphones -- and finally starts singing "No Rain" onstage. And there are lovely bits in there, the whole Loretta Lynn thing, but on the whole she fucks it up and she knows it and the judges studiously avoid looking at her the whole time. Simon can't even look at the stage at this point, because she fucked up so bad. Oh, Vanessa.
Then they call Andrew forward, which they all know means the front row is safe, and Vanessa doesn't get through. I think a total of three people get through from that group of eight. Vanessa pulls through it fairly well and acknowledges that she blew it, and continues to be severely likeable. Then a bunch of, I mean a bunch of people cry and get cut, and "What Hurts The Most" plays, and they keep bugging Vanessa to talk about her misery some more. I would like to do something for her, but I don't know what that could possibly be. Kindness becomes condescension like instantly if you don't plant your feet just right.
Cornelius who split his pants sings "Cowboy Take Me Away" -- sort of -- and it's terrible, just a murder, and then Maegan, who is most memorable for her name and the fact that her brother's name is Dawson, plays the piano and is boring. We're told that Amadeo "charmed" us with his family? That's news to me. He charmed me with his personal self, but I was creeped out by the way the show presented his family. But then it doesn't matter because he fucks up his audition and is totally hot and charming some more, but not enough to keep Simon to tell him to quit "begging," which strikes quite a sour note and is I think the reason more than anything that he must head on out to sweet sympathetic Ryan and process a bunch of feelings with him. With Ryan it's like when you're here, you're family.
Lovely Janell Wheeler (24, Tampa) plays the guitar and sings a very strummy cover of "American Boy," which is just gorgeous. She's a pick, obviously, not to mention the show continuing to show us her way longer than anybody yet, and then they continue to play her song even after we're done watching her onstage. Congratulations to her! Have we seen her yet? Yes. I like her a lot now. Funny that she was lumped with another "American Boy" singer in her original audition split-second that we saw her. So some cute but maybe old bleach-blonde guy can't play his dang guitar right, a very cute blonde girl gets serious crazy-eyes all over you, a boring skinny girl screams some unknown horrible song, and then darling Bosa... Duffs it majorly, fucking up on the keyboard and cracking a sad falsetto, and he's done. That sucks, I loved him!
Rounding that mess out, sweet precious lovely black country-pop Haeley Vaughn comes up and plays her guitar and sings some song while being so fucking adorable you can't believe it, and freaking out the whole crowd with her tweener vibe of awesomeness. You know how Miley pretends to be clean?
Ugh, there it is again. Fucking nasty Mary Powers sings something stupid and looks stupid some more. And I mean, she has a lovely voice... If this were Rock Star: Stuporblova where trash like her belongs, but I can't abide the idea that we're going to have to deal with that any more in 2010. It's shit like this that makes me nostalgic for five minutes ago. Ellen says one of the people is going to get boring and one of them won't, and they call up some girls we've never seen, and send like five people through, including both Haeley and Mary Powers, who gives a whole fucking blow-ya-mind speech about how amazing her narrative is some more, because that's her brain. This is why we don't date lead singers.
This is how it works, all the time: Like you're smoking pot but like permanently, so everything that happens around you is suffused with tremendous meaning and an unbreakable spirit, because of how you live up your own rectum and assume everybody else is robots that are interested in what it's like to be you at all times. Those amazing moments where you put on your one sock and then your other sock and then your one shoe and then your other shoe and then you were just like, "Yeah. Yeah, I get it." Like the universe is a special greeting card God picked out just for you. That's why Ani DiFranco can write thirty-seven songs about the same ten-minute period in her life where she got her period while washing the dishes, and why it feels so new and fresh and not-at-all cynical each time: Because of these moments, you guys. They're all we have! We must live them! As soon as I finish telling you about my moments and how they made me feel.
Then we see a group of four people we've barely seen, Zac Efron is there, skinny boring girl from before with the woggly voice is there, Ellen fucks with them forever -- like if Heidi Klum started jerking and spitting sparks and going, "You are in, you are out, you are in step forward step back you are in step forward auf Wiedersehen bring out the models kk-kk-kk" -- and then sends all four of them through, and it manages to be adorable instead of gross. I know that if Kara had done that I would have fucking barfed. So Ryan quickly says a bunch of names we don't know about, and then Big Thing Ashley Rodriguez gets through, adorable as ever, and a bunch more unknown people that add up to forty-six -- out of about ninety -- and Ryan forces a tech or producer to hug him to celebrate the end of Day One.
Day Two, we're getting through the latter ninety and basically cutting the 181 in half. Ellen's wearing denim if you're wondering. What a beautiful woman she is! What a horrible pair of crotches those Jersey Girls are! What a hot-as-fuck longshot that beatboxing Jay Stone will always be! His mic is all kinds of gunked up while he makes his amazing wonderful noises, but Simon doesn't realize that and when Ellen points it out he thinks she's joking. I hate to think that there are things that are further along than dear Simon, but then he's also a good barometer to people, so maybe we're in the Jay Stone minority and we will all carve out a place for ourselves independent of the robots and talking dolphins and whatever the future has in store.
Weirdo stoner girl Lilly Scott (20, Littleton, CO) sings Ella Fucking Fitzgerald in exactly that annoying way I keep going on about, and her hair is dyed fake gray and she's wearing triplet ostrich earrings and those gross Am App tights. Everything, everything you should not do, Lilly Scott will go ahead and do it. It is a tossup supposedly between her and fucking Mary Powers which one is more offensive, but you know they're both getting through, and the death knell is when Kara not only calls her both "refreshing" and "unique," but says she was "doing her own thing." I mean, in one way that makes me want to box her ears, but on the other hand it gives me some amount of hope to know that Kara doesn't necessarily always know how bad things can get. I tend to think of her as having a hard time of things, but if she's never run into a Lilly -- or her compatriot in same-style bullshit and in triumph, dread-bag stoner-hottie Sam -- before, that means there are parts of Kara DioGuardi that are still untainted, and I delight in them.
Big Mike Lynche, who may or may not be joining us in the Top 24 later this month, is that fantastic personal trainer with the pregnant wife. On Day Two, that's when his wife goes into labor, like her water breaks at some point before he goes onstage, and although I don't get as uppity about that kind of thing as some of us, it's still always dicey about how they're going to sell that, because it's the easiest harpy thing to be like, "Why would you leave your kid" and that stuff. I mean, it's a valid question, but one that's been covered in detail. So how he does selling that is: Admirably, considering. He tells everybody straight-up about that onstage, in a way that just grazes sob-story before heading into a whole other, "But whatever, let me play my song" thing, and then he does a truly amazing, wonderful cover of "Waitin' On The World To Change," like, the whole audience becomes an orchestra and starts singing along and clapping and sounding like a studio recording even though it's just him and a guitar. It's amazing. Simon loooves him, of course; he gets through as well as that crypto-Castro kid with the silly hair.
4 PM. So very close. Hot Cancer Mormon Justin Williams has somehow become both less talented and less dreamy. He looks sort of gross now, actually, breathing into the microphone and slightly moaning and playing some whiny piano song and looking like he's been dusted by a fine powder. I don't know what happened there, but he's dunzo.
is Tim Urban (20, Duncanville, TX), whom we've never met before but is lucky enough to share his name with my favorite Apprentice person of all time (besides the actual love of my life Jim Bozzini, whom I didn't get to recap and thus doesn't count), all of which is a lot of words to say very little, because in this case: The name similarity is the most interesting thing about wee Tim, who sings some David Cook song in a lovely fashion and has nice Mraz-like cheekbones and a bunch of hair and looks like every other teenage boy who ever existed in this world.
David Cook, for real. It's so weird to think about all the people from this show actually having songs and records and concerts and things that musicians have. It's like finding out Grimace and the Fry Guys are actually T-Pain.
7:30 PM and we're almost done. Ryan tells us this whole round has just been "riddled with drama." Really? Because riddled means, to me, something more than the total lack of drama that this round has actually comprised. You can't have drama without characters, and we don't really have any characters yet. I really think I could recognize more people at this point last year. Like for e.g. Didi Benami, with whom I fell very much in love last week. This week, she'll be playing "Terrified" by Kara herself, which is not only a slick move but also a really lovely song. And the camera starts licking her feet before she even starts, so you know you're going to enjoy what happens , and then what happens is that it becomes totally wonderful.
The song is really pretty, but maybe the best part even than Didi's beautiful voice is the look on Kara's face, which you recognize but is hard to describe. Basically, something that she, Kara, did at some point is now being presented in front of a lot of people in a very beautiful way, which makes the moment very large and not in a selfish or self-aggrandizing way but just that: large. And the tears that spring up, they made me feel really wonderful about Kara for today. Ellen is almost crying too, by the end. It's just a wonderful moment. After awesome Didi is done, Simon says how much he liked the song, and they all give Kara a huge mental bearhug and it's so great. I feel like Ellen made this happen somehow with her presence. I'm so in love with this! Simon goes on at length about how great she is, and it's just wonderful. Just a lovely little thing for an artist to have a moment like that.
Blonde-dreaded and face-pierced denizen of Bartertown Crystal Bowersox (24, Elliston, OH) was also from last week, and just a host of more things I can't stand, so in her package it's like oh, let's get a fucking tattoo on her back because she loves her son so much and needs his name in cursive on her back so that she will get on American Idol or whatever stupid fucking thing. She reminds me of that horrific not-blind girl on ANTM that cried about her crystals that take away her negativity and named her son Jah Wolf and thought it was so beautiful that he was conceived at the moment of 9/11. Christ, what an asshole.