Tuesday
It's a mash-up of both Cleveland and Orlando auditions tonight, which means only about a half-hour of L.L. Cool J, but all he does is hug people anyway, so it's no big loss. I had all kinds of theories about why they combined these cities, like maybe the weather or something, but no: there's just not a hell of a lot of talent in either of them.
The Good: Jaclyn Crum (16, Cahanna OH), while emotionally unstable and possessed of a bat-like scream, is adorable and has a great, scratchy, pretty voice. She is the first of 31 (out of 15,000 auditioneers) to make it through from Cleveland. And while Scott Savol (28, Shaker Heights OH) looks like a brain-damaged thug, he sings like a fucking angel. Seriously one of the best voices this season. Maybe ever on this show. A horribly orange young man named Patrick Norman (17, A Farm, OH) is breathy, contrived, shiny, a square-dancer, and a pearl-clutcher. Briana Davis (18, Thornville OH), despite looking like a indigo-haired Wiccan Clown from the circus, is super-delightful and sweet, and has a magical, beautiful voice that I think in person might choke me up. Anatole "Anthony" Federov (19, Trevose PA) upholds the Pennsylvania tradition of being supremely likeable, in addition to looking like Harry Potter as a blond and having a truly amazing, surprisingly deep teamster voice. He even has a miraculous congenital victory story that doesn't involve Neil Diamond.
Vonzell Solomon (20, Fort Myers FL) sings "Chain of Fools" incredibly well after jumping and kicking a lot. Dezmond Meeks (21, Pineville LA) convinces Paula he's the actual James Brown and she throws a damn wobbler to get him through. Lots of people pretend to have failed, then shock their friends and family and Seacrest by having won. Maybe it's an Orlando thing, I don't know. Maybe people from Florida are secretly huge liars or something. Anyway, only 16 of the 9,000 Orlando auditioneers make it through, which is weird, because that's where they grow them. I think they just haven't checked Lou Pearlman's crawlspace yet.
The Bad: This very cool girl named Sarah Sue Kelly (18, Hillsdale IN) sings a show tune in a technically perfect but still clearly show tune way, but Simon makes sure to point out that the real problem is her looks. Which sucks, but she totally gets love from L.L., which rocks, and besides, she is way more realistic about the whole thing than the other judges. Derek Fenningdorf (22, Brighton, MI) has spaz hair, a sad teenager mustache, and bad singing. Edwin Smith (17, Cleveland) chooses to read the words of his song off a card, but since he is illiterate, there are definite drawbacks to this plan. Christopher Quick (17, Frankford WV) has a cool name and a great future ahead of him, if he lives through high school in West Virginia. This future, however, does not lie in music.
The Ugly: Andre Pittman (27, Cleveland) should not be singing, ever, and Randy tells him so. Pigeon head Ebony Lewis (18, Ashtabula OH) sings like she's terrified of something only she can see. Sampson Ingram (18, Cleveland) -- I don't get Sampson Ingram. I think he's singing in Japanese or something. Marissa Ganz (24, Spring Valley NV) sings a show tune in a terrifying, senses-disarranging, disturbing way I've never heard before. It's like having a hundred tiny people in your frontal lobe, all independently singing and dancing crazy. Eschine Orcel (24, Malden MA) admits that sometimes, "when I hear the sound that comes out of my voice, I wonder if it's coming from somewhere else." Oh, that it were.
The patriotic young lady that was the first thing we saw this season auditions with her sister, and we get to know her whole family, and hang out in their house, and all for no reason, because while the sister is not terrible like she is, she's not good enough to be on the show. Farewell, Leandra and Lashundra Jackson, of Cleveland. Don't know why I know you as well as I do, now, but I wish you both luck. Ryan Miller (23, Elm Grove WI) sings "I Believe In A Thing Called Love." Fired.
Wednesday: San Francisco, with Moesha. If you've never been to San Francisco, let me tell you what it's all about. It's just queers and stripper chicks with piercings from here to the Bay. That's all there is to San Francisco, and you know? I always hoped that was true. So now we know, thanks to Seacrest and the clips from tomorrow's show. Thanks, American Idol. No, I really mean it. Bring on the homos and suicide girls, you stupid show!
Wednesday
We join Seacrest now in San Francisco's "Cow Palace," apparently a stadium or something. An even more hyped-up set of flashes takes us through many of the auditioneers -- a trombone player, some acrobats, a girl grinning maniacally in a ballgown, a Michael Jackson impersonator, an Asian guy wearing an awesome shirt that says "I'M NOT HUNG," a tool pretending to be auditioning for Ryan's job -- and tonight's celebrity guest, the lovely and talented Brandy, who has a bit more snark in her than expected, but keeps quiet about it.
The Good: ADAM PRATT! Only for like two seconds, but still. A couple of "crooners," Jamie Koehler (28, Gillette WY) and Ross Williams (26, Portland), who both sound likeâ¦crooners. I can never tell the difference. They all just sound to me like my archenemy, Harry Connick, Jr. Ross is boring, while Jamie is loveable and ineffective. Albert Minero, Jr. (24, Petaluma CA) does not blink and is a jerk-off, but gets through. I can't even remember what he sang and it was like an hour ago. Justin Clark (17, Atlanta) sings "Ma Cherie Amour," gets through, and then has to physically carry his mother out of the building because she completely loses her shit altogether. Can you imagine if he wins? She'll die. Nadia Turner (27, Miami) is incredibly magnetic and beautiful, well put together, and has giant hair that all the judges love, but not as much as her wonderful voice singing an Aretha song. Clearly inveterate jackass Ivan Ganchev (27, Martinez CA) sings "We Are The Champions," and the judges all freak out about how he sounds like Freddie Mercury. He doesn't, but then where Brandy and I disagree, Simon super-agrees, to the point where he calls Ivan an impersonator and karaoke star, which Ivan only admits after he's left the room. Hee! In total, there are 32 winners through, for an audition-round group of 193 going into the workshop. Meaning 145 people crying before we even have to make them do it with the phone!
The Bad: She got through, but I find this Elizabeth Pha (24, Stockton CA) offensive, so she's here. Everything I hate is what this girl is, all baby-doll retarded sexuality and little-girl voice and SVU victim working the pole. This is what I feared on Vegas night (not that she outshines the awesome disgust evoked by Mikalah, which is perpetual, but she just might equal it). I think Simon puts her through simply from perversity, because I can't come up with any other reason. She's kind of screamy, too. Later on, I'm going to feel sorry for her, probably, but right now? Gross. Then comes Christopher "Wylde" Noll, my ultimate HITG, undercover tonight as a male nanny-slash-rapper, and is just as equally repugnant and charming as usual. You know who I'm talking about -- he was on Trading Spaces and Strip Mall and looks like the even twitchier twin of Steve the Dell kid. Then J.P. Molfetta comes by for some failure, looking better this time around, but acting, sadly, like a completely desperate freak.
The Ugly: James Mohr (24, Sacramento) is a completely uninteresting dork with a stupid mohawk and sings a song about how he's an elephant. Michael Garcia (20, San Francisco) comes back this year looking twice as gay and half as cool, sporting a stupid mohawk of his own, and singing just as badly as last time. Victor Mercado (23, Mercer Island CA) is completely deluded, both about his abilities and about the terms of a certain bet Simon offers him to prove what a loser he is. Jackass. Also a jackass: Jessica Murphy (16, Watauga TX), who comes out of her rejection with a completely made-up version of the things that happened in the audition room, and totally lies about it as though there were no cameras in the room with her during her audition.
The Unethical: Chris Ciompi (27, West Hollywood -- clearly) has a fucking freakout like he's possessed, talks crazy about how he "went to" (not graduated, necessarily) Rice University, for opera, and sang on a cruise ship for six months. He is perpetrating either a big joke on us, or a big joke on himself, in which case he's crazy and should not be on the TV. Then came Mathew Miller (20, Fresno CA), who has always wanted to be a singer. Specifically, come to find out, a female singer. Specifically Kelly Clarkson, actually. And he goes for it, and I mean he goes for it, and everyone except Mathew is ashamed and has little to say. It's kind of confusing, but I'm glad Mathew has grown up in an environment where he gets to be himself. That's all I'll say about that -- he's inner-directed.
week: Boot camp! Laughter! Bonding! Hugging! Dreams dying left and right! That awful clique thing where they form teams and then choose one person to ditch so that they get cut! Good times! Bad times! Fighting! Stripper girl getting Mean Girled, and whining about it! Simon and Paula, fighting! The Fonz, crying! A girl might die! But I doubt it!
Tuesday
Tonight we're going to both Cleveland and Orlando. Which is weird, because of all the boyband guys in episodes. I mean, isn't Orlando where they grow them? There was some kind of thing where half of the Florida people got flown to New Orleans after last summer's hurricane, I think, so who knows where we actually are at any point tonight. But who cares? What matters -- this week -- is that we will actually see people make it through to Hollywood, rather than just hearing about them later from Seacrest as they whiz by so fast you can't consciously remember them.
And speaking of Seacrest, he spins some boring information about how back in 1952 ("about the time Simon was a teenager"), a radio DJ ("like myself," as though it helps his image to remind us of that) named Alan Freed coined the term "rock and roll" to describe the "new R&B sounds that were exploding at the time." Making Cleveland the heart of rock and roll, I guess. Except rock and roll sounds nothing like what it sounded like back then, and we are not going to be hearing anything like rock and roll tonight, and Seacrest is using terms like "R&B" completely without regard to the current context. So basically, due to something that doesn't exist anymore and has nothing to do with something else, from over half a century ago, we're now in the heart of rock and roll, Cleveland. But I mean, what else are you going to call it, the heart of Howard the Duck? It's Cleveland. "So is the heart of rock and roll still beating in Cleveland?" Oh, Ryan. Sometimes I weep for you.
There were fifteen thousand auditioneers in Cleveland, so they were in a stadium, but then there was a big storm, and everyone got put down in the tunnels to "sweat it out," according to Ryan. Ew. So they're all cramped together and snitty, and this one bug-eyed guy complains, "They got a hotel in St. Louis, they're getting one in DC -- but we get a stadium! It's a conspiracy!" Ah, entitlement. I do love it. Too bad you're being forced to be here doing something voluntary, not to mention stupid, and aren't being treated like a king. Too bad you can't count to 15,000. Too bad 14,999 other people have created a conspiracy to audition for this show, just to fuck you over. Or maybe he's joking, I can't tell because he's a bit wild-looking.
We will be joined tonight by hip hop legend LL Cool J, who is possessed of six straight multiplatinum albums, and has been in over seventeen films, although that has nothing to do with anything. Ryan is just going on what the fact checkers gave him, because he doesn't know who LL Cool J is. Weird mix of numbers coming at you and pictures of LL looking fine. "But will he send anyone 'Back to Cali'?" Okay, that's funny.
The first girl up is crying before she even comes in, for no damn reason. This'll be good. Meet Jaclyn Crum (16, Gahanna OH), a tiny bit off, but pretty sweet, very silly, spaced-out girl. She's very cute. She immediately starts telling Paula how much she loves her, and then begins to sing. There's a nice tone to her voice, kind of smoky and cool. I'm way too pretentious to know who Joss Stone is, on the record at least, but that's who she sounds like. "You look scared to death," they tell her, and yeah. They really like her voice and think she needs and deserves training. LL brings up Joss Stone, because he's keeping it real and is not pretentious like me, and says that American Idol would be a good place for her to make her start. Randy likes her, but doesn't think she's ready, and Paula votes her through so that she can prove him wrong. Then Simon gives the final yes and she comes shooting out the door screaming like a bat; it's startling and almost inaudible. Then she cries again, still for no reason. Yeah, she's 16. She'll calm down one day.
Sarah Sue Kelly (18, Hillsdale IN), this cool girl with cat glasses who is very happy to be here, tells us that she's a college student with her own business. She's very personable, clearly intelligent and well-spoken, and she's also awesome, because she's an 18-year-old college student who runs her own business. Especially since it's a gig-based business (karaoke), which gives me hives because it's all sales and gigs, and I hate both concepts. It's why I write: other people suck. (Not to mention karaoke is also involved, which also gives me hives.) Man, she's like my hero -- total confidence, total competence. She does not need to be here, she needs to be on The Apprentice, Junior Edition. So she sings "I Could've Danced All Night," from My Fair Lady, and she sings in a perfect Julie Andrews enunciated trilling way. It's good, but not so much appropriate. It's pretty and measured and classic. It's stagey. Her arm movements are very…she reminds me for some reason of a teacher at Hogwarts. She moves and waves herself around like she's trying to teach a class on "Dancing All Night." Paula also waves her arms around.
LL calls Simon a jerk, basically, for asking him to comment first, because none of them know what to do, because there's not really a criticism you can make of her voice, because it's lovely and good. So instead LL says the weirdest thing he can think of: that when she sings, "I feel like you have…a secret." What the fuck does that mean? He does not explain further. What an odd thing to say. We'll let that be his secret. LL says that he's on the fence, but only because he can't say a reason she shouldn't be going to Hollywood. Randy tells her to go to the stage, and she admits that she loves the theatre. Simon wants to be honest. Fuck. The rest of us were going to lie and let the whole thing slide right by, but no, Simon's gotta be honest. Oh, Sarah Sue. I love you. I hope this doesn't hurt too much.
So Simon points out the actual issue: it's the way she looks that's putting them off. And okay, she looks like Michael Moore. With even worse posture. She's not really on the list of any kind of physical ideals, and this is a visual industry. And I don't even care anymore whether that's evil or whatever, because there's a difference between recognizing something is occurring, and assuming that it's evil. Along with the rest of the economy, the music industry is for shit, and so people have to package themselves appropriately, because you're buying not just their $0.99 iTune, you're also buying the thing that is them. If it were solely about talent, there would be no lip-synching, there would be no vocal manipulation, and the industry would collapse entirely. Which is never going to happen, because of the hundred pit stops between us and that artist where that money goes, and those pit stops represent income for families. It's self-sustaining, this system, and is not directed by malice, but by the evolution of the companies that bring you the music, whose only directive is to stay alive and grow bigger and stronger, just like any other company.
What's horrifying about the body image issue is not that people like to look at pretty things, because that has always been the case. What's horrifying about the body image issue is that we have not necessarily been raised with the proper defenses against these false images taking over our own sense of self and power. Because the truth is that they don't care about your life, and they don't care how you feel about yourself. They just want your money. (Jenny Craig, L'Oreal, Gold's Gym, these are people that want you to hate yourself, but only enough to want to help yourself, too.) The best defense isn't bitching about it, but believing in yourself and your beauty, and your own strength, and not buying into something that makes you feel shitty. And this is what Sarah Sue Kelly has done, and that is beautiful.
So she acknowledges Simon's point, and she knew it was coming, and she says that she wanted to prove that you don't have to be a Barbie doll to be the American Idol. Which is not necessarily untrue, exactly, but she's also smart enough to know there's no chance in hell she was going to Hollywood, so she makes her point even more eloquently by not getting put through. LL loves the Barbie comment and praises it like a hundred times, because he has not ever had to think about what it's like to be unattractive until just this second. So Simon and Sarah agree that the music industry is shallow and bullshit for awhile, and he seems pretty apologetic, for him. But then of course Paula is missing the subtleties here, and wants to gain yet more Juliana Hatfield points for herself, so she jumps on the "you're so shallow" train, attacking Simon, when the truth is that he and Sarah (and Randy, although he keeps quiet here) are the only people in the room who know anything about anything, apparently. But, like, are you going to explain it to Paula? No, because she just likes being known as the nice one, and she'll be damned if she's not going to start knee-jerk bitching at somebody the second an ugly or fat girl walks up, because she's not adult enough to actually take part in the conversation that's going on. Which is actually more insulting than anything Simon could ever say.
Cool James gets up to hug Sarah Sue, because she's wonderful, but also because it is how he makes the pain go away whenever anybody feels pain, which is a good plan, because it works, because he is fucking hot. At this point Randy yells, "Barbies are people too!" off-camera, which I found hilarious. Then she comes out of the room and everybody starts clapping for her, and then she goes and makes a million dollars because she's awesome.
, the "unbelievable" voice of some chucker they've talked about on all the ads. But first, losers: A guy in a khaki version one of those trench coats from The Matrix that looks like a man wearing a dress, and then a girl in a shapeless piece of yellow clothing that makes her look like a jelly bean, and a very disappointed cute boy. Then Edwin Smith (17, Cleveland) sings poorly while reading the words off his card, just a few at a time, phonetically. Christopher Quick (17, Frankford WV) has 17-year-old fake dyed hair, a cool burned-looking long-sleeved henley, some ugly hair along the chin area, and sings about how "for five long years I thought you were my man," which makes LL nervous. He forgets the line and apologizes sweetly. He sings thinly and kind of with a goatish edge to it. He seems quite nice. Get out of West Virginia, Christopher Quick! With a name like that you could be a star! Just don't do porn, please!
Andre Pittman (27, Cleveland) sings with these weird little pauses where the note wavers, like he keeps remembering things he's left on in his apartment. Randy: "Dude, you shouldn't ever be singing. It's not for you, man. That was horrific, man. Come on." He's not smiling or laughing as he says this, because he's not kidding. This woman with extreme pigeon head, Ebony Lewis (18, Ashtabula OH), sings like there's a sinister monster standing behind the judges. The judges find her off-putting and funny. Sampson Ingram (18, Cleveland) -- I don't get Sampson Ingram. He face is creepy and it looks like he's a quietly got a secret that could rival Sarah Sue's. I think he's singing in Japanese. I have no idea what's going on here. It's like Super Milk Chan or something, this weird mix of English and something which is other. It's like "Rock Me Amadeus." Simon tells Sampson that he has been reincarnated, and Sampson gets offended by this. The posters say it's a video game song, so he deserved worse.
Derek Fenningdorf (22, Brighton MI) seems to be wearing Mary Roach's shirt from Week One. And his mustache looks incredibly fake -- maybe it's Mary Roach! Maybe she decided that "Fenningdorf" had even more star quality than "Guilbeaux" and pulled a Shakespeare in Love. I adore you, Mary Roach Guilbeaux Fenningdorf, and your little schemes. But no, I'm wrong. Derek is -- I don't know where he got the balls to do this, but he's pretty cool, he sings at the top of his lungs like the judges are a mirror and he's holding a hairbrush. It's nice. Not good, but nice. Simon makes the judges (and me) laugh when he says sarcastically, "That sounds like a hit." Derek looks at him in this very "they know not what they do" kind of way, but the high ground is lost due to his spaz hair. Between the hair and the mustache he's very much like Freaks and Geeks, but not in a good way.
Ryan calls Cleveland "the Mistake by the Lake," which I'm sure their Chamber of Commerce will be using officially at some point, and introduces us to…um, this guy is…like, really. He's mentally deficient. He has a syndrome. This is not funny. He walks along with his mom and she's -- oh, why bother. It's all one horrifying thing. She seems like she is used to protecting him from the cruelty of children. Scott's huge, and his eyes are continually at half-mast, and he seems prone to violence in a very Lenny and George kind of way. He pets the rabbits until they go to sleep. He likes watching American Idol, he tells the judges, and they're very accommodating, because they don't know if he's going to flip out or what and he has the strength of an ape. He says that Randy is the coolest man on TV, and Paula is the prettiest, and Simon is still cool in his book no matter what people say, and he kisses his hip-hop fingers -- each the size of a bratwurst -- at Cool J in a mortifying way. Cool J smiles uncomfortably. Simon congratulates him on sucking up. I'm starting to get angry at this point, because it's like all he does is sit at home watching this show, and thinking about it, and telling his mom about it even though she's right there watching it with him, and petting his rabbits. Welcome to the William Hung. I hate this -- all the "voice so amazing" bullshit that is just so mean-spirited and…whatever. Just whatever.
He explains that his dad has no confidence in him, always telling him he "wasn't going to be anything," but that he is going to prove him wrong. "I've got the voice, the look, the confidence, the personality." This is a bloodbath. Simon gives him three out of four of these, due to the fact that he looks like "the muscle" in an episode of Law & Order.
And then a curious thing happens: Scott Savol (28, Shaker Heights OH), begins to sing.
Oh, God. It's like the sun coming out. It's perfect. He sings "Superstar," a song I really love, and he's one of the best natural singers I've ever heard in my entire life. It's really weird to hear this voice coming out of this guy. It's like Clay Aiken all over again, except he's not cheesy at all, just perfect and beautiful. It's like the Gomer Pyle thing. He jumps a fucking register change like he's Dolores O'Riordan sitting bitch on Evel Kneivel's motorbike. It's amazing. I kind of can't get over how awesome it is. Simon tells him that he wouldn't even get a record company meeting, and would never get anything like a contract, and that's why American Idol exists. To give people who are not Sarah Sue Kelly a chance to shine. Cool James tells him "they would never see you coming," and says he would like to give America the chance to decide on Scott. He's going to Hollywood, and then Simon says, "You've just proved your dad wrong." Wow. How amazing. That's so validating for him. See, Simon can be cool sometimes. American Idol just got me, you guys. Hook, line, and sinker. I know it's all fake and scripted and shit, but damn. Although maybe it's just the shock of seeing a good audition, or something in my eye. Maybe both.
: A mime. A gay farmer. Harry Potter. I wish we were shown more things that I could put in that list: "A Tiffany lamp. Australia. Djb. Traylor Howard. Ontology."
Day Two: the judges become totally uninterested in this entire process. We hear Simon voicing over lots of faces, "15,000 people auditioned in Cleveland, and yet the odds of you getting through are a million to one." We see faces, faces, faces as the judges' echoing voices turn down lots of people: A dude in glasses. A cute kid with the sad wig of Kevin Girardi. A scary mistress of the night girl in a blue bandanna top. A squinting guy in a matching shirt and hat of orange plaid. A girl with unfortunate bangs and tiny Sloth ears. A lip-licker with a sparse mustache. A girl with a tattered visor that screams "ANGEL" and a see-through black blouse that whispers "with low self-esteem." A bland white kid who bites his lip. A man in a very orange turtleneck. A grinning girl dressed like a newscaster whose grin becomes a grimace as her plastic earrings swing and sway. A nice guy in a blue sweater. A lesbian. A guy in a black suit with a black shirt. A guy in a hemp necklace and bleached hair who looks like the very embodiment of Austin, TX. A redhead who would look like the Man Currently Known As Ben except that his head is so grossly out of proportion to his body that he might well be wearing an inflatable David Byrne suit. I can't tell what's going on here -- it that his real body? It's like a teenage person popping his cute little head from inside the scooped-out remains of Lou Ferrigno. Ew. Sorry.
Then the most objectively wonderful young man so far -- he talks like a Fargo character with peanut butter in his mouth, and he's wearing a red track suit with some buttons on it (probably something about mime rights) -- explains that the mime he is standing to is unique because "she's the only mime here." He alerts us: "She has a message." She watches him deliver the message and they both very subtly almost lose it right there, and he continues to read it as she enters the audition room: "This is not a gimmick. She wants to prove to the world that even mimes can be pop stars. She's a voice for the oppressed mimes of America." Somehow none of this makes me want to punch somebody. I think it's because this guy reading is terrific, but mostly it's because I know if I'd gone to high school with this girl, we would have been best friends. So as her best friend, I'm rooting for her little foray into Situationalist critique, even as it's wasting my time and yours, not to mention Paula's buzz. The show is really meta this year, like, half the auditions are not about singing, they're about commenting on American Idol as a phenomenon. It's a win-win, except for us, because we already know this show is dumb.
The judges stare for awhile at Jennifer Page (20, Brecksville OH) -- "Paige" is my sister Jennifer's middle name, by the way, so see? It's fate! -- and she writes to them that she is going to sing an Aerosmith song. So they watch her for a while, and she's silently busting out, crazy hands, lots of emoting. It's pretty awesome, especially since the sound guys cut all sound at this point, it's dead air, no mic sounds or anything, which makes it funnier. Finally Cool James goes, "Is it that song from that movie?" and Paula's like, "Yeah, yeah it could be." It's like something from CSI, the way they say this, like they're saying, "Does it match the fingerprint from that other body we picked up last week?" "Yeah, yeah it could be." (Note: I've never seen CSI, but I think that's about right.) So they're all amazingly serious during all of this, and it's really funny, because: What the fuck? They stare at her and she continues to perform but none of them are kidding, just watching. She's quite animated. Is this one of those "Paula is strange on purpose sometimes" things, or something weirder?
Randy stops her as she hits her "crescendo," and Paula says, again quite seriously, "That was good." Simon says it's one of the best they've heard so far, and Paula agrees, still completely serious. Randy goes on his own private joke about how her pitch was spot on, but Simon won't be denied, he wants to stick with the "Mistake by the Lake" joke about how he'd rather listen to her than most of the other people. This is just a joke from Pootie Tang dressed up in a pretty girl with pancake makeup. He's cheapening it. Then she suddenly falls down dead on her face. Paula tells Simon to give her mouth-to-mouth and Jennifer jumps up to point at LL, nodding dementedly. It's awesome. Even mimes want to make out with LL Cool J. He's a modern-day Johnny Mathis. They tell her she's very cute, and Simon waves goodbye to her like a little kid mime would, and well…it's cute. Sorry. I know he's a gross, mean old man, but he's affected in this very particular way that I really like.
Seacrestiana I can't remember -- even though it's playing right now -- about Farm Boi. (Normally I hate the "boi" because it smacks of le cybersex and le jailtime, but it's appropriately scornful here.) This shiny, orange, Oompa-Loompa-looking mathlete tells us that Ruben can step aside, and that Fantasia and Kelly should call him. So he doesn't yet know he's gay. Well, he lives on a farm. Good luck to you, Pat. Is that what a real tan looks like? He's the color of red carpet people, like all of the Friends, and I always thought that looked kind of fake, but hey, he lives on a farm, right? I mean, I'm rarely out in the daytime because of my busy writing and bar-hopping schedule, but I thought I remembered tans from before. On the other hand, I heard the "farm" thing is a Roswell-level hoax and the farm animals in this bio section were rented for the occasion, but that's just what I've heard alleged. So Patrick Norman (17, "A Farm," OH) lives on "a small 'farm'" and is very nervous. He loves "camping" and "square-dancing." I already want him off my TV.
He sings Nat King Cole's "Smile," and they do the usual reaction shot thing where they jump to every black person in the room any time a white kid sings a song by a black artist, because they assume that we, and Randy, and LL Cool J are idiots. His voice is breathy and contrived and I kind of hate him, and yet I'm somehow sure he's getting through. He's like the stunted gay orange clone of Jessica Simpson or something. His head bobbles around, and his hands flop about, and his skin is not great. Closer up he's better-looking, he's got very soothing blue eyes, but there's still an artifice about him where you know he'll never really be, like, authentically Patrick. Which is too bad, but then I guess he's 17, so anything can happen. So LL and Randy adore him, for some reason, and he's coming to Hollywood, and I don't care. Then he completely loses his mind and the pearl-clutching begins. Then a beet-red guy the color of Hellboy (real farmers? Don't get sunburns. FYI) picks him up and swings him around outside. "I love my orange gay son!"
Terrible, terrible ersatz human interest thing now, where Leandra Jackson (the first person ever on this season, and thus the first recapped by me, for you) and her heretofore unmentioned sister, yelling fakely all about "I'm the American Idol!" "Uh uh, no, I am!" and ugh. Plus, stupid show, you already blew Leandra's spot, at least, because we already know she's terrible. Evelyn, their mom, tells us that they often sing. There are shots of the girls' adorable little brother and sister dancing around and singing. Then shots of everybody clowning in the kitchen. I'm glad the whole family gets to be on TV because they seem like that's an awesome enough thing for them. Leandra tells us how she loves to "sing, act, model" -- unnecessary record-scrape sound -- but her sister kind of gives her the up-and-down eyes on that one, in a loving and somewhat humorous way, which cuts the ickiness of the record scrape.
Anyway, up: A Magical Clown. Paula Abdul freaking out. Jermaine Jackson. Harry Potter, again. Um, Emma Goldman. Burlap. The Invasion of Normandy. Zoroastrianism.
Seacrest talks about the Hall of Fame for awhile. He's wearing whiskered jeans and a tight light-blue button down. I don't know what he says because nobody, especially Ryan Seacrest, cares. Then Briana Davis ("call me 'Bree,'" 18, Thornville OH, and of course she's from somewhere called "Thornville," because she's working the Emily the Strange with Boots Made for Kicking vibe way, way too hard) walks in. Here's the deal: black catsuit, pink-and-blue striped leg warmers on her arms, one thousand chains from Hot Topic, a purple-and-white jacket with the sleeves ripped off, and under that a red-and-black striped top. Her hair is crazy blue, like Illyria blue, and she has black roots and gray lipstick. She is also wearing what seems to be two skirts: one white, one rainbow-colored (which Paula points out matches her own rainbow-striped shoes, which the girl loves), salmon-pink tights, and some…dirty black Keds. Cool. "I'm nervous as heck," she says, and she's suddenly great to me. She's very sweet and nice and I like her tremendously. It's like she was on the train and missed the stop for "Normal, Boring, AP classes, School Spirit" and only awoke after it was getting on towards "Weird, Rebellious, and points west." She and Simon agree there's no reason to be nervous, really, but she still seems scared to death. And then a curious thing happens: she begins to sing.
She sings total fucking glasses-cracking operatic unending range up into the amazing rafters. It's the eponymous song from The Phantom of the Opera, which is lame, except in this case it is not, because she is incredible. Paula's tits fall onto the table as they vote her through, making two of this type of girl with the Punky Colors hair. I'm interested by all this because I like her, and because it's interesting: Cleveland tonight is all about showing us unlikely or fucked-up-looking people -- just like every other audition episode -- only tonight they somehow have awesome voices and get through, for the most part. So it's the thing they for some reason most want to show us, which is stuff to make fun of, ostensibly, combined with the thing they most need to show us, which is people with a chance in hell of winning. Cleveland broke the auditions. That's so awesome.
Then there's the highly-pimped blond Harry Potter-looking kid, Anatole Fedorov ("Call me 'Anthony,'" 19, Trevose PA), clearly a producer favorite, only he's surprising in his own way, in keeping with the Cleveland deal. He looks kind of like Leonardo DiCaprio's little brother to me. He kisses his girlfriend, and then explains that when he was little he couldn't breathe, so he had an infant tracheotomy (which concept is almost as terrible and sad as Huntington's Disease), and to make a long story short, the doctors said he probably would not ever speak again, much less sing. Well, I doubt that the doctors said that precisely about an infant, but it's implied. So his voice is three octaves deeper than his face, and also he talks like a teamster, like that guy in Moonstruck, all, "I lost my hand! I lost my bride!" But he sings like…a professional tenor. It's great. I really like it, and I was all prepared to hate it because of the commercials and the selling him to me before the test drive and all that bullshit. The judges say he reminds them of Clay Aiken but I really don't see it. Because he's skinny? Because his voice is different from how he looks? I see no resemblance at all. Not even to say anything rude about either of these guys, I just don't see how you can draw a line or discuss it meaningfully. And how can that help? People that hate Clay are going to hate you, and the people that love Clay? Are going to hate you. Trust me, I moderate the boards. Clay Aiken is a wedge issue.
Anyway, 31 people made it from Cleveland, and "Cleveland Rocks" plays as people jump onto other people jubilantly, having made it through. They are too happy and fast-moving to catalogue, I guess, but we know how many of them there are, so I guess that's all that matters. Hey, except for we never got to see the mime's assistant guy I liked. I bet he had a story.
Orlando! Sunshine State! Theme Park as Residential Area! Ryan rides around in one of those box-fan on a flat board with a really tall chair "boats" from Wild Things. Then Ryan is attacked by a flamingo, and then gazes enviously at a giraffe's blue tongue. I don't know. It's lame. Nine thousand people auditioned here, and there are the usual uninteresting shots. Nobody does anything interesting, they just scream and wave and look similar. There are signs that say "Polk County Represent" and "We Survived Charley So We Can See Simon!! [sic]" Which took me a second, since this was taped last summer and there's been some more violent weather since then, but also: I beg your pardon? So you could "See Simon!!", is it? Well, are you going to use this second lease on life to do anything else important? Like meet Star Jones in person, perhaps?
Randy and Paula talk crazily and unmemorably about fashion, and we finally head to the big room. Marissa Ganz (24, Spring Valley, NY) walks in and interviews that she likes how these auditions require the judges to give you feedback instead of just telling you "No." I get it, but she seems confused about the resemblance of this to what you call "auditions." She's got a Romans-in-space thing happening -- a black toga dress, with a sash and strappy silver sandals. She's going to sing "White Boys" from Hair. Now, as part of a period piece about a time that happened to be a turning point in American civil rights, this song makes sense. The white girls sing about black boys, and the black girls sing about white boys, and everybody fucks everybody else, and it's all very transcendent and amazing or whatever. Sex as equal-opportunity sport. But if you fast-forward to 2005, what this is is terrible and spooky, because you've got a blonde chick singing about how she prefers the exclusive intimate company of white men. Which, whatever, it's an artifact, it's a song, music plays and there are words, but it's also a show tune, and that's a strike or two. And we're not even to the singing part.
Which is…it's horrifying. It deranges the mind. Ordinarily I think the "judges staring" thing they do is disingenuous but in this case…I mean, it took me five minutes to write this sentence. I feel like Charlie Gordon right now. Thinking is hard. Even Marissa calls it a "blur." None of her words make sense, and she jumps from note to note and key to key like a tiny Romanian gymnast and it all happened so fast, then slow but still fast, it was like it twisted your brain up, on the inside, you know? Like how every record player has a song that will make it explode? Only the record player is your mind.
The first girl is very convincing, actually, which is precocious considering she's wearing a tattered denim skirt and pink top and looks like every teenage girl you saw at the mall last week, who…stops weeping and screams she got in! A sad emo boy comes out all sad and then…shows his friend (who it seems also got through) and his mom his yellow ticket! And they start shrieking. This mascara guy calls his mom and lies to her. This cute girl screams and can't even fake it. Some guy comes out all sad and then…twirls around ecstatically, and another guy slams into him, screaming. A guy in a striped shirt comes out crying, even making the L of Loser to the camera, before…pulling out his ticket! Some guy with curly hair cheeses all out. A chirpy girl collapses all over Seacrest and then throws her jacket on the floor and says, "Gotcha!" I hate this girl the most, out of all of them, but it's funny, because Ryan so obviously doesn't care at any point during this bullshit, just stands there while she snots on him, and then stares impassively past her as she screams and points in his face. : Paula threatens to quit. I'm sure.
There are lots of animals, because there's a zoo and it's stupid, and then Seacrest compares Paula to a lion. What? Meet Dezmond Meeks (21, Pineville LA), who has been in Orlando for four weeks, and simply cannot stop dancing. He just can't! He informs us that he is "an artist" and prefers to call himself "an artist" and that he can't stop dancing. His friends make fun of him all the time because of the nonstop dancing he cannot control! He is going to get through, and then he is going to dance all the way home! I've heard of these "Crazy Feet" before, but I don't really think it's a treatable kind of thing. I think it's more like being so boring and affected that you have to give your own self a nickname: "Can't Stop Dancing Guy." I hate the desperation of people like that. I call them the Low Blood Sugar Migraine girls. "You know I love pictures of anime characters! That's my thing!"
He looks like a nice person, Crazy Feet aside, although he does have the '70s Jheri-curl look, like a short Ashford and Simpson-meets-Thriller? So he's going to sing a James Brown song and Paula tells us she "loves" James Brown. He sings, but mostly he dances. He can't stop, you know. Paula is into this enough that maybe she thinks it's actually James Brown, she makes these goofy fake-tan faces like your parents at a luau or something. It's boring and there's lots of falsetto; to me there's something a little bit sleazy about it but I can't put my finger on why. He seems nice enough. So anyway, Paula loves it. Randy found it entertaining and mysterious, and I don't know what he means by that but whatever, but he feels that ultimately Dezmond was made for something other than this show. Paula offers that Dezmond is unique. Simon calls it something you'd hear "outside of Magic Mountain," like a stage revue, and of course I agree. That's exactly what it was like.
So now Paula is suddenly devastated and wants to quit the whole show. God, this lady is nuts. Randy agrees with Simon and me, and Paula freaks out on him so bad. She says that Dezmond "did James Brown" and then pushes it too far, saying that he "did it better than James Brown." Way to make sure they take your feelings seriously. Nobody's going to think you're being overly dramatic now, honey. Randy says, caught in Paula's web of bullshit, "He didn't even do the splits!" and the guy immediately does the splits, thereby completely proving Simon and Randy's point. Paula: "Have you ever seen me this upset?" Simon: "Yes." Randy laughs. She is really fixated on this kid. If she had any credibility before this, it's gone now, and she's just not getting it. Paula's kind of pissing me off this week. Simon is bored by all of it. Randy finally sides with Paula and claps for him, and Paula can't clap because, as she tells Dezmond, she'd kill for him right now, and is so upset about what might have happened, that he might not have gotten through, that she cannot even summon the strength to clap for his success. Suck it up, Paula. Jesus. Outside, Dezmond says he got "two nos and a yes," but then he got through because Paula fought "to tears. Literally." Literally she did this. He is very touched. I am more bored than I have been since we went to church with that one guy.
Sixteen total make it through from Orlando: this girl with short black hair and lots of tattoos, a boyband-looking guy, Mercedes from America's Top Model, a screaming girl with large breasts, an inbred goatee guy with chest hair who says, "Thank you my brothers," a very pretty girl with long cornrows and a white suit jacket and black t-shirt. I like her instantly, remind me I liked her: she's the one with carriage and breeding that looks a little like Lauryn Hill but not insane. Wednesday: San Francisco with Moesha. But first: A bonus recap in the middle of the recap!
Also Tuesday
Paula Abdul was on The Daily Show a couple of hours after the foregoing, and this was how it went: she didn't blink at all, and she didn't actually speak too much, just stared at Jon Stewart and repeated the last three words of everything he said. I think she was nervous, in addition to being high, because even Paula Abdul has to know that he's going to eat her alive. Well, not exactly: Jon helps you eat yourself. And in this case, he gave her a whole lot of leeway, since she was clearly wicked out of it, to just say whatever she wanted. The problem was that she did not really feel that it was necessary for her to say anything, really. So he had to keep asking her questions, but that's incredibly uninteresting, since you can't very well ask her about her eating disorder (despite the pin that she wears entreating you to do just that), and you can't ask her about her musical career or MC Skat Kat, or else you get the hose again, and you can't ask her what you really want to ask her, which is what she's on and if she's carrying.
So it started with talk about American Idol, and he blatantly lied right up front and said he was a fan of the show, which is hilarious, and then she started up with the computer chip in her brain that activates whenever anyone mentions Season Four to her: "Oh, it's going to be the best season yet: it's bigger and brighter and low-carb and shiny and blah blah blah and it's going to be magical." To which he kind of giggled and asked quite seriously, "What have you added that makes it magical?" and the unspoken implication is that he knows the answer here, and it's Oxycontin. So she just repeated his words for him some more for awhile, and then he said the word "mall," and that tripped another errant switch in her head, and that's when things got fucking awesome.
Paula said, "I've worked at many malls," and then Jon started to talk about where he'd worked in the past, and she went like this: "Woolworth's? That's great. Okay I've worked at Contempo Casuals, I was at Standard Shoes, I was cashier…first day of work I got…held up. Ha like got held up like look my held good that's my. Gun! Gun! No. Yes. Not for shoes. He came with he came nice African-American gentleman with a credit card that said Sy Hoffman Sy Hoffman with a fourteen pairs of shoes and I didn't think he was a Sy Hoffman kind of guy and so I went I think I was a little too obvious with my and so he saw me hit the secret button and he went with his secret hand." She held an imaginary gun to her head at different points throughout this conversation. "With a gun!"
And then Jon Stewart made a crack about mall security to wrap it up, because of the scary racial profiling humor, but there was no stopping her: "The best is my manager came from the back of the room he my manager was maybe three inches short taller than me he came he came little bit taller but anyways he came came walking towards and he saw and he turned around and went right back the teeth ha pretty walk but the police came real fast and it was really scary but that was a that was exciting I worked at Burger King and Carl's Jr. that's but that's what makes my good judge I understand." Then Jon Stewart brought up Simon, calling him "mean": "He's he is he is um you I've acquired a taste for him like the butter on the bread with the cucumber."
And then she clapped like a seal.
Wednesday
Seacrest welcomes us several times to "Saaan Fraaan Cissssco," which is irritating, and he points out the Golden Gate bridge which is standing hugely and obviously behind him, and then we see the huge crowd of wannabes at the "Cow Palace." In the very middle of the sea of people is something that is blurred out. I think it is a finger. So there's a guy groaning along to his Walkman and another guy playing a trombone, then lots of people doing flips, and then Sookie in a ball gown smiling crazily, and a Michael Jackson impersonator. Gross. This great guy in a big shirt that says "I'M NOT HUNG." I like humor that works on several levels. This blond fauxhawk chucker dude named David tells us he's auditioning for both the show and for Ryan's job. Ryan voices over that he is not worried. Why, because the guy's such a tool? Yeah, the producers would never let somebody like that host the show. For four years.
Brandy introduces her children to Simon, but they hate slash don't care whatsoever about him. It's cute. Seacrest points out that her children are smart, and also that Brandy started her career younger than American Idol's lower age limit. Lots of clips of her videos. I like Brandy. She's very pretty, and that song "The Boy Is Mine" is totally, totally rad. She carries herself really well -- I think this is the first time I've seen her not in a music video. Well, I met her briefly when I married Shar Jackson's baby daddy and started walking around public restrooms barefoot, but it was kind of strained. Anyway, I really admire the way she, like, is. She seems like she'd be cool to hang out with, and a giver of good advice. Brandy has a certain amount of gravitas, is what I'm saying.
First up: a total jerk-off. Meet Albert Minero, Jr. (24, Petaluma CA), who does not blink or stop talking or breathe, ever, and wants to tell you how very great his personality is, and outside, his sister cries about how cool he is, which is dumb because he's totally not, and so anyway he comes into the audition room wearing a red shiny shirt and a red shiny tie and still not blinking, by the way, and then he goes into vastly much more detail than necessary about how he's just as good as any winner of the show, because, what, because the judges have been such huge fans of the winners, I guess, and then he growls at them and he's very excited and he sings "Wanna Be Starting Something" and I'm like, "What the hell?" because that's now two people already that didn't get the memo, like, we're at like 8:04 EST and already two Michael Jackson people, I mean, why not just sing the "fiddle about" song from Tommy? So anyway, like, Dear San Francisco: Give it a rest. Seriously.
Albert's breathing is very shallow and like a dog, it's very yippy, and his higher voice is not bad, I guess, and obviously affected by nerves, and anyway Brandy is somewhat confused by all this, but you can hear her cutely supplying the yeah-yeahs in the background and afterward, he points out how hard it is to sing and dance at the same time, as Paula and Brandy would know, specifically, he says, and Simon replies, "Yes you have a personality, but dogs have personality. That was terrible," which is a total burn, and Randy and I agree with him, but of course fucking Paula says she enjoyed it, and outside, the sister is still crying, and honestly, the problem with Albert Minero is that he just goes and goes and it's really aggressive, really Boiler Room or like Glengarry Glen Ross, very sweaty and yappy and you feel like you're being attacked, only instead of selling something, he's selling…Albert Minero, which is what's called a loss leader in my book, and then he tells the camera that he was just too much personality for the judges, since I guess he hasn't figured out that you also need to be able to sing, and also he still has not blinked.
Oh, no. So the gayest child ever comes into the room and tells them all that he adores Kelly and has always wanted to be a singer. To us, these are two different things, but to this kid, they're both really just two parts of the same thing. This is Mathew Miller (20, Fresno CA) and his gender is not an either-or kind of deal. He's clearly a sweet guy, and the voice is good, for a lady, but…the world is not ready for Mathew Miller. I am not ready for Mathew Miller. Randy is amused by Mathew but still unprepared for all that he implies. Brandy and Paula both exclaim, "Oh my God!" when Mathew is done singing, and then they look at each other due to the jinx and yell it again at each other. Brandy is utterly a trooper here, trying to get out of saying anything at all but ending up confessing that she's just very confused by all of this.
Upon being asked if he's aware that he sings exactly like a woman, Mathew smiles and admits that he gets that a lot. Then he tells an interminable story that takes place in a church where this woman had her eyes closed and thought that Mathew was a skinny black woman, rather than a mesomorphic white boy, and had the utter lack of class to inform him of this fact, on the way to complimenting his voice. Mathew doesn't see any of this as an issue, it's just some stuff that happened. Simon says that Mathew may well indeed have more important decisions to make at this point in his life than anything having to do with being the American Idol. Or with being Kelly Clarkson. Mathew offers that, were he in reality a skinny black woman, he would like for his name to be Shaquiqui or Shaquanna. Oy. Paula makes a valid -- albeit softballed -- point that it might be a good idea to maybe emulate more male vocalists. Like, just as an experiment. He agrees, then he goes out to the foyer and immediately gets lots of hugs from lots of really hot boys. For he is crazy like a fox.
James Mohr (24, Sacramento) is a dork and has a stupid mohawk and sings about how he's an elephant that gets what he wants. Sometimes this show is such a waste of time I don't even know what to do with myself. Later: there are the hated crooners and Brandy getting more and more horrified, a half-naked girl of mind-blowing grossness, and a woman loses her shit completely.
Seacrest looking pretty good as he makes an awkward dickheaded joke about Tony Bennett leaving his heart here "both famously and rather carelessly." up are two "crooners" who sell cars and hardware. The thing about "crooners" is that no matter how good your voice is, you're always going to sound fake to me. Like you're doing an impression of the Rat Pack, who I can never keep straight because I hate them and I hate that kind of music and I hate the whole Vegas Swingers mobster Breathless Mahoney jive turkey concept. We meet the two of them all mixed up with each other, because there's no difference, because they're both just doing Dino. Well, one of them is sweet and loveable and the other one is sleazy, but that is the only difference. Jamie Koehler (28, Gillette WY) is wearing a hideous shirt like my dad would wear, and he's very gay in an appealing, apple-cheeked, chubby club manager kind of way. There's something very expansive and old school about his gayness, like he would hang out with Veronica Lake and dish about her poor choices in life, but have a wife and kids at home that he loved very much and would bring them home steaks from the club. Jamie bursts into tears within seconds of appearing, talking about how he is going to sing "I Left My Heart In San Francisco," in the memory of his dead uncle. So he does, and the judges love him, and he sings with a lot of joy and has cute baby cheeks and lots of eyelashes happening. He starts crying again as they give him a unanimous yes, and he's clearly out of his emotional depth with all of this. He should have a glass of wine.
Then there's this also at the same time other guy with red hair, Ross Williams (26, Portland), and he looks like Beavis, with an ill-fitting brown fedora. He sings "There I Go," which annoys me anyway because it's repetitive and unending, and his singing is very soothing and boring and nice, I guess. I could not care less about this kind of singing. It's not bothersome or anything, I just…whatever. They like him: Randy gives him 100% yes, Brandy 150%, and Paula, because she's competitive when it comes to praise, gives him "a million bazillion times yes." Underneath it all she just wants to be liked, people! Simon thought it was "style over substance," meaning that the voice inside the impression and the tics is not that strong and he'll fall apart when asked to sing, like, a classic disco hit, but Randy gleefully explains that Simon's vote doesn't matter. They each come out and are outrageously cheered by everyone.
Now some people who have no confidence and must make spectacles of themselves: the Michael Jackson in black plastic pants fucking again, a giant guy with no shirt, a guy wearing a white Muppet hide as a sort of wrap, and this scary girl in braces wearing that wide-hole fishnet all over and not much more. She's got the adhesive bindi "piercing" of Gwen Stefani's worst fashion moment, and also braces. She screams at the judges that she wants to be a superstar. Simon points out that she also wants to be looked at. She agrees, and yells, "Look at me!" to one of the off-camera crew in a somewhat self-aware way. She wants to sing "I Have Nothing" by Whitney Houston. She twirls around and talks in a particularly abhorrent little-girl way that just screams stripper. She is the poster child for why you must be a good father.
She's hungry, you know? Fake contacts, too, and you know how I feel about that. She could not be doing more to piss me off. Elizabeth Pha (24, Stockton CA, pronounced "Pah!" as in, "I'm having these implants put in for me." "Pah!") has a voice which is boring and fake, no clothes on, and self-hatred too big for one little girl. She gets to the belting part of the song and I am sickened by her, and Paula just stares slackjawed. Brandy is amazed that Elizabeth is so small but has such a big voice. You guys, it's because she was screaming. Paula agrees that Elizabeth Pah! will throw you off guard if you're not ready for it. Simon says it's "all hideous," and Randy calls her "stripper-clubbish." She lies from the diaphragm now as she tells him she never thought of her outfit "that way, because [she's] very like flamboyant."
Now, I hesitate to even go here, but honestly? How it is, is that at the end of every sentence she speaks, even to Brandy or Paula, there's an unspoken "…Daddy." Well, if she acknowledged Brandy or Paula at all, which of course she does not, because she's paper-thin and male-identified and sad. "I want to be looked at, Daddy." And that is fucking disgusting and shameful and that is the state of things. So Paula wins some award from me this week for saying not only what I would have said here, but in precisely the words I would have chosen: "Did you think that wearing this, you would stand out? And people would remember this look? Because you have achieved that. But it's not in a positive way." Elizabeth Pah! is like, oh, okay. Like, she doesn't see Paula's point. Which she does not, because she's all about the negative attention. Brandy and Randy say no, obviously not. She needs counseling and intervention, not a trip to Hollywood. Paula thinks Elizabeth Pah! deserves another chance, and I totally agree, but I don't mean on TV. Simon finally puts her through to Hollywood because even if you're dressed like a pedophile's fantasy, loud is still the new good.
Seacrestiana about how throughout the audition tour, a lot of the contestants brought their moms, and that they were sometimes "quite vocal." They also kiss their grown children on the mouths with an astonishing frequency. Including, of course, fucking Mikalah, who makes out with her terrifying mom as another girl looks away full of shame. What did I tell you? An awesome woman up in the stadium seats yells, "Hey lady! My son sings better than your son!" Then something beautiful and amazing and all-too-brief, because nothing gold can stay. ADAM PRATT! Then he goes away again. His mom hopes "the odds are in his favor." I know I am. Some other mom says her son "can sing…sometimes." Hee. Evelyn of the two gigantic Jackson sisters from before sings effing terribly. Then there's a pretty funny part where the whole auditioneer group goes completely silent as Leandra Jackson "sings" VERY loudly and VERY horribly. It's more like an assault-prevention class than a song, because she's just screaming, "No! No! NOOO! AAAH!" while waving her arms around in a panic. Everybody stares. Annie Potts yells, "9-1-1!"
Anyway, the point of all of this was threefold: A) Show more of that awesome Leandra Jackson footage so that it goes back around to being funny again, B) hit me with some Adam Pratt so I don't quit before the actual real show even starts, and C) prepare us for the horror that is Justin Clark's mom. Consider that a check, check, check. Well, nothing can prepare you for Justin Clark's mom, except maybe the unrelenting and fake way they keep flogging it: "Isn't she crazy? Check out how crazy it is! After the break: Crazy momma! Don't touch that dial! Mommy craziness is on the way!" Which honestly has leached what follows of a good bit of its real reality, because now I know what she's going to be: what they call a "Casket Climber" on Six Feet Under, and what the posters are calling "Sista at a funeral."
Mom starts out looking quiet and put together -- a good trick considering she's mumbling to herself and skulking outside the audition room door, as Justin Clark (17, Atlanta) sings "Ma Cherie Amour." Simon immediately says yes, and then everybody else says yes. He's quite good. I say yes too. They smile and say they'll see him in Hollywood and you can already hear mom wigging out in the bullpen. She screams and runs around bumping into shit and howls and grabs him and moans and smacks the shit out of his back. He smiles at the camera and even he, who grew up with this behavior, can't believe how fucked up she is acting. She just keeps screaming and he grins adorably and thanks everybody and you can tell he's been through this many times before. The cool thing is that he's not mugging for the camera, exactly. I mean, he is, but it doesn't come off as silly or disrespectful, because he clearly loves her and thinks she is hilarious. If he acted like it was a huge burden and that he wished she were dead, I don't think it would play nearly so well. I'd still laugh, but not everybody would think that was funny. So then she totally keels over backwards screaming, and he mugs for the camera even as he's picking her up off the floor. He thinks she's adorable and embarrassing and he's really cute about it.
Michael Garcia (20, San Francisco) shows us the "look" he was kicking last time he auditioned, and we learn that he's had a makeover and is now more in touch with his essence -- his "true essence." And that essence? "Fashionista" is now apparently what he is. Hell. He's got a stupid fauxhawk and one of those clubby clingy seamless pullover gay shirts and…some bling, and…he still looks like a dork. Actually, he looked a little better before, although he has a very engaging, very nervous mouth that you couldn't see with the goatee. His whole kicked-puppy routine works around that mouth, so maybe this is good. But on the whole, it's bad. He looks like a theatre dork who came to a party dressed as, like, a punk crossed with a…what do you call this look? Right, "fashionista." So he came to the party dressed as a "fashionista" and it turned out it wasn't a costume party, so he sat with a sad mohawk all night drinking Grasshoppers and vowing never to stray from his community theatre friends again.
"Why are you here?" asks Simon. I'm the American Idol. "Who says so?" My friends. My soul. Randy says, "Oh, that's nice." I can't tell if Randy's kidding or what. I've watched it like ten times and I can't tell if he's abruptly telling the kid to go to hell, or being patronizing and nice and all LL Cool J about it. And if I can't tell after that many viewings, then Randy is in the right industry after all. Well played, Mr. Jackson, sir. Michael sings a Daniel Beddingfield song and much like last year, he sounds like he's having a stroke. And that sucks because I really do like him, his ways are cute and adorable and nervous and shy and ineffective. Well, I liked him until he started singing, and then it sounded to me like he was in a K-hole and like it sounds normal to him but nobody else. Paula shows she's capable of rote learning as she says she's going to "abandon" Simon for a second, knowing what he'll say. She turns to Brandy, who begs to be "abandoned as well." Hee! Turns out I love Brandy. Who knew? I could've been watching Moesha all this time! Uh. Maybe it's best that I find this out now, on review. Randy straight-up tells Michael Garcia not to sing anymore. Outside, the very neat and naïve sweetheart Michael, in his stupid clothes and inability to fake anything, says sincerely to the camera: "I guess I'll stop singing, and go." Good. I really like him? Like, as a person? But good.
Now: bullshit happening on so many levels, we're going to have to take this slow. Once there was a boy named Chris Noll, and what he wanted was to be sooo famous that nobody could ever call him a dork again. A common fallacy for dorks. He was confused about how that worked exactly, and is still a dork. But he shows real initiative and auditions his ass off hardcore anyway. So after high school Chris left New Jersey for DC, where he was a drama major at American University, and even had his own little TV show on their network. But that was not enough for Chris. So he changed his last name to "Wylde" and moved to L.A. You know, where dreams come true. He was in some commercials, including for a kind of pizza that seems to have been delivered by a pizza place, but in reality has faked you out by being baked in your own oven. He got onto a short-lived and mildly funny series on Comedy Central which also starred Julie Brown -- the mean one, not the dumb one -- and then all manner of doors started opening to him: He was in such movies as Space Cowboys, Joe Dirt, and Evolution. In the middle of that was a TV movie called Spring Break Lawyer. Yeah.
Then it all happened! He got himself what they call "China White" in the ghetto of the attention-starved: a national TV show! Named after himself! The Chris Wylde Show! But where do you go from there? That's the question, and the answer is nowhere. There were like three episodes, and let me tell you: if you debut alongside Insomniac, with the supremely icky Dave Attell, and it's your show that fails? Okay? So but anyway, all was not lost, the year he got a deal hosting a TV game show, but see, now that he'd had a little taste, it wasn't enough for him! He went call-crazy! He auditioned for every single thing he could find! He wanted jobs so badly he'd do anything! He started hiring agents under fake names so they'd find him more jobs! More jobs! And soon it wasn't even really about getting paid, it was about wanting to be on camera. And that's where you lose me.
He got his apartment on Trading Spaces: that was the methadone amount of fame he was willing to accept. And I remember making fun of him for it at the time. And you can always hear the little voice in the back of his head: "It's all just exposure. It's all just exposure. No publicity is bad publicity. I will be That Guy. I want to be That Guy. I can be That Guy. Now, surely someone will recognize me under this chicken suit and offer me another gig." He got a gig on Just Shoot Me!, and a place on the ensemble cast of an MTV prank show last year, with Justin Guarini, okay, which -- if I'm being honest -- was pretty hilarious. And nobody knew where he'd strike , but everyone knew he'd bring his signature mix of magnetic charm and skeevy repulsion with him when he came.
But Jacob, you're saying, what on earth does this little story have to do with American Idol? Well, I'm glad you asked.
Meet Christopher Noll (28, Los Angeles), who's wearing big Buddy Hollys and a green and orange polo shirt. And he looks kind of familiar. There's something awfully engaging and attractive about him, paired up with something desperate and off-putting. Quite a curious mix! I feel that I've seen him before…are we soulmates? Were we buddies in another lifetime? As extras in an Annette Funicello beach blanket movie, perhaps? There's a feeling of friendship here, and a little bit of disappointment. Strange. Ah, well. I'm sure I'll remember. So this guy informs us that he's the nanny for two little girls that he loves and thinks of as his own kids -- and the punchline is that he would drop them in five seconds to be the American Idol. He's funny, it's a cute bit, and the judges like him. He is magnetic. Then, he starts…dropping ill rhymes. For like ten minutes he raps about each of the judges in turn. This is awesome mainly because he namedrops Ganesh on his way to calling Brandy "hot candy." I pretty much love that. If you ever find yourself in an arena where you must freestyle in order to impress me, you better start at rhyming "Ganesha" with "TV's Moesha" and then reach higher from there. My standards have officially been raised by Chris Wy-- er, "Noll."
He continues to rap in response to the judges rejecting and rejecting him. Paula says he's original and wants him to go through. That doesn't even make sense within the context we're supposed to be dealing with. Simon tells him to go back to being a nanny. Then Chris, still in character, wanders around staring at things. "Fuck that shit. We like you, but…you're not right. You're the most original thing we saw all day, but…it was great, and I was feeling it, but…whatever. [Bleepathon.]" Then Seacrest takes something beautiful and just fucks it up completely: "Yeah, I'm sure he's great with the kids. Christopher Noll: the hand that rocks the cradle and the language that rocked the audition room." Started strong there, Seacrest, but you duffed it at the end. I wanna hear Ryan say "the mouth that rocked the audition room." Don't know why.
: Irulan, looks like. And J.P. Molfetta, with a very funny exchange between Simon and J.P.
First, meet Nadia Turner (27, Miami). Seacrest says some shit about how she has "big hair but not a big head." He totally skips the part where she's the prettiest girl to audition this entire season. She has really big hair, but it's not contrived or stupid because she's so graceful and cool. She says that she hasn't even really thought about what they're going to say to her during the audition, because she doesn't want to be working on false assumptions, be they good or bad. She performs an extended explanation about how she's going to be singing an Aretha song ("Until You Come Back To Me"), but somebody else's version. Which at first I thought was dumb, but then realized that if they thought she was trying to sing in Aretha's style, it might be confusing. I mean, she'd still freaking rock, but it might take longer for them to give in. Simon says she's got a good look and voice, and stood out from the rest of the people today. Paula loves her "presence." Brandy loves her voice -- and her hair. Randy used to have her hair, back in the day, and loves her. Outside, all the gay boys run up to fawn over her. I'm feeling that.
Boring Victor Mercado (23, Mercer Island CA) sings "Build Me Up Buttercup," which is a fun song and a fine one to sing, but like, in the shower. I hope it's a joke, and I wait for him to bust out laughing, but then he addresses the song to both Paula and Brandy. They are his "buttercups." Gross. Randy counts to three, and they all yell, "NO!" Which is hilarious and mean. Simon explains carefully that Victor is "a terrible singer, and a terrible dancer, with no charisma." To prove him wrong and show how much charisma he has, Victor calls them all assfaces for letting some of the other total losers through, but not him. Paula says that ultimately what's important is not what the judges think, but his own beliefs about himself, and while that's true in the grand scheme of things, it's totally irrelevant and untrue as far as the actual thing she's in the middle of doing, right now, as she's saying this.
Then Victor somehow starts simultaneous rumbles with all three judges (Brandy, due to the fact that she has class, is not involved in this). Paula begs him to leave the room, which is hilarious. Randy gets into a fight with him about his lack of talent. Simon offers him $50,000 if he can get a #1 record within the six months. Paula and Randy immediately both offer $100,000. Simon reiterates for I think the fifth time that Victor can't sing, and then Victor runs out yelling that he appreciates their honesty. Paula says she appreciates his too, for some reason. Outside he starts in immediately, and it's kind of awesome: "They are assholes. That's all I've got to say: they are a bunch of assholes. This is bullshit. I can dance, I can sing, I just…right now I do not want the cameras in my face, I'm a little pissed off right now." So the cameras follow him elsewhere in the building: "I made a bet with Simon, he's going to pay me 100,000 dollars if I can get a record contract in the six months."
Then, awesomely, he makes a plea to the camera, saying that if a label offers him a contract, he will give them half of the money. Canny. He's so upset that it's surprising that he's thinking so quickly. I kind of love him right now. Except for how it wasn't a contract, it was a number one record that Simon was talking about, and we flashback to him saying this even as Victor begins to cackle like a cartoon villain. I really thought he said contract the first time, too, by the way, so I'm not going to judge too harshly. I will retract, however, my statement about him thinking on his feet. "I'm not all fat like Ruben! I'm better-looking than Clay!" He's really flipping out now. His eyes are big as saucers! "I will take his money!" More Ming the Merciless laughter, and on to the jackass. Sadly, an even bigger one.
Jessica Murphy (16, Watauga TX) is dressed like Britney Spears of a while back -- newsboy cap, et cetera -- but in all black, like she's the Serena to Britney's Samantha. She's not that great, and it's super-boring. So Simon says she's pretty good, until she hits the high notes, and that the public is even less forgiving than they, the judges, are, and that she needs a lot more work. She's cute as hell, by the way. She even looks a little like Britney did, back when she was pretty. She has a nose ring, but nobody's perfect. She seems to take it pretty well, but not because she's so terribly stable. In fact, quite the opposite. She takes it well because it never happened, as far as she's concerned.
Outside, her fat trailer trash family with her image silk-screened on their sweatshirts says they're going to cry because they are just so positively sure that she's going. So she comes out and says, "They told me that I'm 16, and like wow I have a voice like that." Which didn't happen. And "Simon said that I'm 16 and that I have an incredible voice and out of everybody here, you have the most talent." No he didn't. "Simon said that I'm above everybody." The editing starts going back and forth with her saying huge lies and Simon saying the opposite of the huge lies. Then the mom starts making up the giant lies. Then Jessica freaks me out a little bit because she's confused by her own lies: "They said that I have the most talent, but if I do have the most talent, then why am I not here?" This is how that whole "chiffarobe" thing happened, y'all. Lying does not ever help because it cuts you off from what's real, which is all you've got to work with. See what can happen? I also heard that this is a regular thing for Jessica, that at 15 she had "a some-odd thousand-dollar recording contract with Sony and was starring in commercials and movies with Jean Claude Van Damme," and that she later transferred to another school "due to the number of 'death threats' she was receiving." I think her entire high school emailed me at some point this week, basically just to laugh at her and say, "Payback's a bitch." Crazy trailer mom has a bleach-roots ponytail that is coming wildly undone as she freaks out about how confusing it all is. Jesus, these people.
Anyway, now let's meet another jackass. Hi, Chris Ciompi (27, West Hollywood [duh!]), whom we first meet as he's shaking out the sillies. When he walks in, his eyebrows jump in a cute but kind of flirty way at Brandy. He looks like every gay guy ever: skinny but defined, self-conscious jeans, basic Queer As Folk short-back-and-sides, nice burns, nice eyebrows. Tiny little beady eyes, but good-looking enough. He looks like your blind date. Seems nice, blandly nice-looking, not a huge conversationalist. Went to Rice. For opera. He sang on cruise ships (Brandy's own eyebrows jump a little here), then gave up singing for awhile, and realized that he misses it. But does it miss him? Then something curious happens: his eyes roll back in his head and he begins to freak right out.
It vibrates thinly through his nose, the song, and I can't…it's like the sound of a hyperoxygenated cocker spaniel. Its thoughts. That's what it sounds like. I'm sorry I can't be more precise. He keeps startling Randy and making him jump. His face flips back and forth between cute and normal and then freaked out and possessed. He's taken leave of everything that makes him okay. IS this a joke? I think he might be laughing on the inside. Simon is…"puzzled." Puzzled that Chris was a singer on a cruise ship. For how long? Six months. Simon imagines that he filled a lot of lifeboats in that time, and they all laugh at him, and I don't think it's exactly a joke because he seems actually crestfallen and disbelieving. Welcome to reality, Chris. You're adorable unless you are singing, and then you are scary.
Ivan Ganchev (27, Martinez CA) sings "We Are The Champions." Paula closes her eyes and wiggles happily like it's a bedtime story. I hate Queen. They didn't write any gimmick songs, not really, but all their songs have this…this feeling of cheesiness. Like they were played out the second they first vibrated through the air into someone's ears. I mean, I know that you like Queen, dear reader, but that's just me. Oh, except I like "Fat-Bottomed Girls," which I guess actually is a gimmicky kind of song. I like "Girls" by the Beasties too. Basically I like songs about hating women, it would seem. Interesting. Mental note to deal with that. So they tell him that he sounds exactly like Freddie Mercury. I don't agree, but they all think that he does. I mean, I want to kick him in the nuts, so maybe something in me is responding to the resemblance, but I don't get it. He stares at them like his whole life hinges on this. Maybe it does. Everybody but Simon votes yes, and Simon calls him a stupid karaoke impersonator. Outside, Ivan admits that this is true. Which makes me a lot more comfortable with Ivan as a person, but I'm still mystified as to why he's going to Hollywood, or why he's on my TV.
Then a montage of bad singing, but none of them are that interesting; it's nothing we haven't seen before. Well, there's a girl in a cow suit gripping at her udders while singing, "Hold onto my love," and I've not seen that before, except in the first episode when we saw this exact same clip. The sad part about this, besides that it's happening, is that she has a really nice voice, in my opinion, but like, whatever, she's an idiot for dressing like a cow and fondling her teats in front of people. Simon asks if, since she's not right for this competition, what she would be good in. "Best in Show," says Randy, which gets a laugh even though it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, and then a dark bloody-eyed look of real, true, strong hateful rage takes over her face, but it isn't all that imposing or noticeable. Because she's wearing a cow costume. Fool.
Now more Seacrestiana all about the Molfettas. I feel like I live door to them at this point or something. Like I am the triplet that wasn't into the whole thing, and moved away after high school. Hey, watch this part never, ever end. Richard: "Our whole lives we've been writing and recording music together, we're always together, kind of best friends, ah, musical, uh, partners, up until this point." J.P. and Rich went to New Orleans with the idea of competing individually, got grouped together, and unfortunately did not make it through to Hollywood, he recaps. "Then I went to Vegas by myself and I wound up going to Hollywood. I'm completely hoping that he makes it in San Francisco." Over all this is footage of the Molfettas in their home studio, writing songs and singing into microphones. The lyrics seem to be your basic Korn/Jimmy Eat World stuff about how you're just a special teenage girl who feels locked up inside a house with your stupid parents, but one day you will be free, and until then we should have sex outside of marriage, but with Usher-esque backup tracks. Generic and pretty, just like the Molfettas.
Simon starts in bugging JP (27, New Windsor NY) immediately about how much shit he talked outside the auditions in New Orleans. JP is bashful about all this and they finally let him sing "Secrets" by Babyface. Generic and pretty, see? He's wearing a tight bunch of shirts and a denim vest and has clearly unnatural lighter hair. It looks like it came out of a box, which it did, but it is after all quite flattering. He looks tons better. Brandy stares at Randy as he says that JP has pitch problems, because Brandy liked him a lot, because she's coming into this audition with no preconceived bullshit.
Paula says that he's better today, but is still not good enough for her, and that Richard was better in Vegas and had more stage presence. So, that's effed up, because they're going to a lot of expense and trouble to get away from the stupid twin thing, which they said they didn't want to deal with in the first place, and I believe them, and it's all coming to nothing. They've collectively made a total of eight airplane flights to get out of the twin stigma, and he's still getting screwed on it. "Your brother was better in Vegas." That's like picking some random person and being like, "Well, in Orlando there was this person who has nothing to do with you, and they were pretty good, so the answer is no." I mean, I know you can't ignore it, exactly, but you can at least try to restrain your comments and decision to the person standing in front of you singing, instead of a bunch of crap that has nothing to do with right now.
Simon, rightly by this point, says he senses a hint of desperation about JP. JP begs Paula, and she says yes, because she has noticed a change in his performance, but Simon says no, so it's a no. And JP just will not let it go. He starts to openly beg them, reminding Randy that he'd voted for him before. Air of desperation, dog. Then he leans his head against the inside of the door for awhile before leaving. Hint of desperation, dude. He looks into the camera and says that even though he'd said earlier that he was going to jump out of a window if he didn't make it, that is in fact not going to happen. Poor guy.
Winners: There were 32 total. Mary Lou Retton. A giant. A hopping girl in a Blossom hat and gross pink pants with cameltoe. This Asian mom. A thug life guy with sideways cap and a cool black jacket. One fella with striped shirt and almost a goatee. A shrieking scholarly black man.
week: All 193 semifinalists go to Hollywood boot camp. Lots of shots of people we've never seen before, because it's only now time to care about people who sing well. People we've never seen singing onstage. People we've never seen getting cut. Cutting cutting cutting. Lingering shots on most of the few people they've tried to sell us already. An airplane, and people in an airport, including the blue-haired girl hilariously dubbed "Rainbow Brightman" by the posters. Bonding. Laughter. Disposable cameras. People you've never ever seen before. Hundreds of them. Per Seacrest, the judges will "make it a nightmare," even though they've all come to Hollywood "full of dreams." See what he did there? Judges looking harsh. Paula looking stoned. Simon looking vicious. Singing singing singing. Oh, right. That's what this show is about. I forgot!
Stripper girl from tonight looking like a normal girl but still acting like a fucking victim. The goatee guy from -- I think -- the first week saying he is ready to "pimpslap" somebody. He might be the "Thank you my brothers" guy from this week. Anyway, screw you, idiot. Stripper girl fighting a geeky girl with poor posture who tells her nobody is there to hold her hand, and then saying that her team doesn't have a chance in hell unless they dump stripper girl. Dude, I totally forgot about the "divide into teams" part. I'm looking forward to this, actually. It's the real, human nastiness, instead of just the producers being mean and gross. For some reason I find that easier to deal with. How every year there's that one team that lies to a girl about where they're practicing and she ends up wandering the hotel until 3AM, and then looks like an idiot the day for not knowing the routine, and gets cut. Love it.
People we have never seen. Girl I've never seen, with a boss eye. Paula with cute, cute hair waving her hands all around and yelling at somebody I can't see. Simon looking disgusted and full of ennui. Simon explaining something slowly to Paula. Randy looking amused and pissed at the same time. Paula drunk, leaning into his face like she's going to bite him. Some girl crying. Some girl yelling, earrings all a-twitter. The Fonz -- that guy whose dad is the governor of New Jersey or whatever, I think -- crying. People hugging, people crying, people hugging and crying, people high-fiving. There's Angel Kay Letourneau. Some girl needing fresh air. Don Cheadle? Ozzy Osbourne? The hell? That guy Paula fought for with the Jhericurl. This is so long and pointless. Simon telling someone he looked like a fool onstage. Some girl being rushed to the ER. Baby doll stripper girl complaining that something is "unfair." She should know.
Jamie Koehler having a fucking heart attack -- should've left it in San Francisco. Some guy being disappointed who additionally hasn't slept in a week. Crying and hugging, crying and hugging. Some happy laughing. Bonding. None of this matters, they're just random people. You could have just extras for this part and nobody would know. People freaking out and walking offstage. Someone on a gurney going to an ambulance. Spicy! Amazingly fast shots of…I counted them for you? In slow-motion? And there are just about 48 of them. That's all I'll say, except that everybody we've seen backstory on over the last three weeks is in there. Do with that what you will. The important thing is that week starts Boot Camp, and that means we get to watch almost 150 people get their dreams shattered, without even picking up the phone! Seacrest out.