Tuesday
Ryan is dressed like an idiot, Scott is trash, and the theme is Broadway. The forum poll is really split this week, which makes me happy, because normally it's just Bo and like one other person. Anyway, Scott sings "The Impossible Dream" (Man of La Mancha), which both his mother and Paula find to be completely accurate, and poignantly so, which is HILARIOUS. Even though this was the worst he has ever done, we are subjected to ten minutes of apeshit about how fucking amazing it was. But it wasn't, it was terrible, and I say that without prejudice and without regard to my total disgust and hatred of Scott: it was bad. There were bad sounds going in my earhole.
Singing "My Funny Valentine," which is less a musical number (Babes in Arms) and more of aâ¦songâ¦Rocker-Constantine confronts Theatre-Constantine, which is like Alien Vs. Predator in that no matter who wins there, we all lose. The faces, the stroke-out eyelid flutter, the mushmouth, it's all there, but his voice continues to improve. Except for the last note, which sounded like someone on an iron lung. All the judges make out with Constantine because he's so fucking magnetic.
Carrie sings "Hello, Young Lovers" from (The King and I) and...I don't get it. There's, like, no time signature? Or some kind of AutoCAD guy made it so complicated that it's smarter than me? Staying with the beat not only drives my brain crazy, but seems utterly beyond Carrie too, Ruxpinning it all to hell this week, and I can barely watch -- not like on a Constantine level with the fingers over my eyes, but there is wincing. The judges congratulate her on singing an incredibly boring song better than expected.
Vonzell sings "People" (Funny Girl), and it's highly enjoyable, of course, even though the schmaltz on that could lube an eighteen-wheeler and diva standards are the opposite of my cup of tea. It's somehow more believable coming from Vonzell, because I can totally see her driving her mail truck and just kind of thinking about people who need people, how lucky they are, stuff like that. Also awesome is Paula: "Barbra is Barbra, and Vonzell is now Vonzell." And Paula is now Horatio Sanz. The hell?
A-Fed dedicates this vomitous Tesh take on "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" (The Sound Of Music) to his hole and its determination, and it's horrible, with the snapping fingers andâ¦what the fuck, Fedorov? The judges are right, that was hideous. You're still adorable, though, and I do love your voice, and I think somebody should buy you a puppy and a PS2. Or a nun to baby-sit you so you can start making better choices for yourself.
Nikko sings "One Hand, One Heart" (West Side Story), and it's a little itchier than normal, for him, but whatever. He starts out not so much in key, which is too bad because the song has these really awesome, like, haunting minors and weird intervals and it's beautiful but you have to sing it right. I was never allowed to see West Side Story when I was a kid because my mom thought Natalie Wood's bullshit accent was offensive. I didn't see that movie until I was like 20 and I agree about the accent, but not because it's racist, just because it's dumb. This boring memory brought to you by a very beautifully Nikko Smith performance about which I know not what to say.
Anwar sings "If Ever I Would Leave You" (Camelot), and he's better this week than he has been. Paula tells him he's technically the best singer, which is awesome, because it means four things at once and all of them are true. Maybe Paula is always talking in poems all the time and that's why she's hard to get. Anyway, he acquits himself well here. Then Cowell calls all Broadway people homos, starting with Anwar. I guess that's just him being pissy because musicals are yet another kind of music he hates.
Bo sings "Corner Of The Sky" (Pippin), which isâ¦a lot of people thought he was going to have trouble with this theme, but it's like Carrie: any song can be a Bo Song, if you hold it right. It takes him like five phrases to get in tune, which is sad, but the total Captain and Tenille accompaniment is awesome. I need to find out more about this Pippin, I think. Does it always sound like that? Simon is kind of a little bitch about it, but the other guys love the whole thing. Me too. That was fun.
Nadia sings "As Long As He Needs Me," (Oliver!), which leads me to note for the first time in 27 years of life that Pippin and Oliver! are not the same thing. Which I just figured out this very second. But aren't they both about A-Fed in the big city, really? Stealing to survive and dodging artfully andâ¦I really know nothing about anything. I'm like this empty pit of ignorance. Simon likes it better than the last few weeks, and then calls all Broadway fans homos again, this time starting with Seacrest. I'm glad Nadia's in the last spot, although it kind of reeks of desperation to keep her in the competition. Which is too bad, because she tried crowding Vonzell's box this week and that's dumb of her.
Altogether: the Carrie song threw off my circadian rhythms for good so now I'll be sleeping every third hour for seventeen minutes at a time, Bo Bice is unmistakably Bo, Simon thinks calling somebody queer is a put-down instead of a total compliment, and I will one day wed Nadia Turner and we will live in a huge house and Constantine will clean our pool and I will train our children to wait until he's balanced at the edge of the pool and then hurl insults and tuna salad at him from the second story. And when he cries, we will point and laugh, because pouting is for suckers.
Wednesday
Tonight's episode starts with Ryan welcoming us to "the show that will end another dream." Which is awesome and just shows what a thrill ride tonight's going to be.
Bo made up all the words of his song and the whole thing was a terrible effing idea, Carrie sang some kind of tempo-less freak-out, Vonzell was Vonzell all of a sudden and dimpled her gruntled self through a divalicious Vonzell experience, and Nikko was fantastic. Scott and Anthony were terrible, terrible, terrible, Anwar yelled his ass off, and Constantine was fucking filthy.
You know what freaks me out? Like, the only negative thing you can really say about Carrie Underwood is that she's unemotional and a scary robot. But if you said that to her, it wouldn't bother her? Because she wouldn't know what you mean.
The winning Tsunami Tsingle was "When You Tell Me That You Love Me." The other songs on the CD will beâ¦the other Tsunami Tsingles. So this whole thing has been an exercise in futility, not to mention that they're singing the song again week, which makes me sad. Philanthropy's nice and all, but this kind of thing is why I hate charity: the experience personally has been mostly hearing horrible songs sung with fake cheer and a hand sticking up in the air and now I have to hear it again. I'm implicated.
Then Fantasia's spaceship lands and she squats out of it in pants of such tightness as to make her scream her ass off and prowling and prancing and bobbing up and down like she needs to go to the bathroom or like she's going to lay an egg. Which is kind of what she does. And inside that egg? Is not "Baby Mama" like I was promised, but one or more songs about dreams coming true or something. I think she sings six songs because the song keeps changing instead of ending. I don't ever want it to.
There are parts where she just plants herself and shrieks. Just screams. Then she rambles at the Idols about how they need to act ugly. It's the most amazing thing I've ever seen.
Then some total bullshit. The pimpomercial is not intrinsically offensive, like it was last week: whilst singing that Nikka Costa that wouldn't go away, they put their hands up in the camera and turn into each other. It's cute, everybody but A-Fed looks good, they all sound like ass, but whatever. There's like one shot of the vehicle they're shilling in the whole thing, which is awesome because somebody got carried away with their concept and forgot why they got the job in the first place.
The bullshit is the faked-up, not-real screaming audience applause that happens when four of the nine contestants appear in the pimpomercial. There is ZERO crowd noise as the commercial starts, but then the second you see Carrie, Constantine, or Bo, or Scott or Nikko, the levels of the audience freak-out are amped like a hundred times. That's a nice send-off for Nikko, I guess. That's all I'm going to say about that, except to remind you that just because you hear applause does not mean people are clapping. Nobody actually cared that much whether Rachel got on the plane, either. You're not alone.
Then it's interesting because instead of saying all the safe people and dicking everybody around, Ryan just goes down the line: Nikko, you're in the bottom three. Vonzell, bottom three. Dumb. Dumb as all hell, but I get it.
When Anna called me to talk about the Fantasia Incident, and the results, I assumed Scott was eliminated, due to the fact that he now has literally nothing to recommend him whatsoever, she was like, "Nope." And I said, "A-Fed?" Nope. "Oh, God. Nadia?" No. And I swear to you that I went through all seven of them before I finally asked, "Who's left? Vonzell andâ¦did I say Nikko?" And the moral of that story is that it's my actual job, my livelihood, to remember Vonzell and Nikko, and I couldn't do it, so how I can expect anything more from America?
The crowd freaks out and Ryan points out that it's their fault for not calling and voting. Scott's also in the bottom three. I wish he were on fire. Ryan asks Anthony and Bo why they aren't in the bottom three like they should be. Bo says musicals aren't his "gendre." Mine either, buddy. A-Fed rambles about how the doctors told him not to sing show tunes, and for once they were right. Randy and Ryan both secretly hate Scott but don't say it out loud, they just talk about how shocking it is that "two of the three of them" are on the Seal. Simon and Paula make no sense collectively or separately, and Randy dogs Ryan for bringing up how Simon is always right. Vonzell goes back to Suffragette City and then more commercials.
Nikko explains that he was out of his element, which isn't true because he did a great job and covered an R&B version of the song, and then Scott rambles at length about nothing in particular but I didn't really hear him because I was too busy beating my girlfriend. Asshole. There's Video Journey and then, thanks to Scott's bullshit ranting, we don't get to hear like a single note of the song, to which I was looking forward. I'm bummed but his talent is legitimate and I'm sure we'll be hearing more from him. I would like it if he had a fashion line? Because I think his Little Old Man style of dressing could be the big thing. In fact, I'm going to start dressing that way immediately. See you Sunday.
Tuesday
The lights are really, really aggressive this week, and keep cutting off people's heads so everyone looks like their faces have been replaced with tiny suns. First to have this happen is, of course, Ryan Seacrest, who speaks from his glowing headless neck about how only girls have been eliminated thus far, and how freaky weird that is considering that before the first audition took place, the show's producers decided a guy should win, and have done everything they can to make sure that happens, up to and including letting train-wreck ringers like Mikalah into the competition. Not to mention that they've flat-out, on-record admitted that they only care about the guys this year. So really Ryan's just pointing out that the evil plan is working.
There's a whole thing here every week that is very reminiscent of a certain cola company's general rule of marketing, which is that you have to keep saying you're the best even when you might have competition. Every time they tell us a guy is going to win, it increases the chance that a guy is going to win. Every time they compliment a female contestant by comparing her to Carrie, they up the chances of both people getting ahead. It's the "four out of five dentists" rule, and it works, because people are sheep. It's why they keep amping up the applause for certain people, too: if other people like them, overwhelmingly, and you don't, it solves the cognitive dissonance if you just go ahead and like them too. So I've solved at least half of the Constantine conundrum there, but the other half is I think advanced juju I'm still working on. I'm up against the smurfiness of the whole deal, and how silly and unreal and inauthentic it is, and not that I'm so hardcore and genuine, but it's a specific kind of shallowness with which I haven't been acquainted in a really long time. I'm not his wet-nap like he thinks, and to pretend otherwise is what it will take. That and a couple shots of tequila and some Rilo Kiley to wash it out later.
Ryan's wearing the weirdest sweater; it's dark green and has all these confusing squiggles and ugly words on it and large pieces of negative space. It's like when you walk into Diesel and there's pieces of t-shirts stapled onto other t-shirts and first you think, "Björk made this!" and then you think "Oh. I could make this." Jersette called it a "visual representation of ADD," on the forums, and that's the best possible way to describe it. If you reached into Ryan's head and pulled out a sweater and made him wear it, that's what would happen.
We travel again back to Fake Wednesday, where Ryan bestows fake congratulations on the contestants and then they all fakely try to guess the theme. Ryan talks about how the theme is going to challenge them vocally, and I don't think it's unkind to note that Anthony makes a somewhat grim face at this. "Henry Higgins," says Ryan, and Vonzell looks confused, fakely, and then of course Constantine figures it out and that's fake too, and Ryan fakely tells him to shut it so he can give more stupid clues, and finally Carrie fakely figures it out. Everybody's really gamely pretending that this is actually happening, except of course for Constantine, who smiles disgustingly into the camera the entire time because he literally cannot help himself.
I remember back in college we had this one friend who, whenever there was a camera around, would get this totally fucked-up, fake smile face until you put it away, and she honestly did not know this was happening, and in order to take pictures with this girl around you would have to put the camera in the middle of the table, wait until her grimacing face muscles got tired, and then snap the picture before she noticed what was going on. She was a smart girl, and a beautiful girl, and a cool girl, but she was a girl who was not comfortable with cameras. Constantine is smart, and almost cool, and a big old girl, but he expresses his discomfort with cameras in much the same way: by defaulting to what he (incorrectly) thinks is the best way for his face to be, and sticking with that, and obsessing on the camera until it goes away. And since he's on a reality TV show...you see where I'm heading with this, but I think the most unfortunate part of it is not that he has a fake frozen camera face, but that it's so deeply horrible. I think the same thing is going on with A-Fed, too, but in his case it's not so much a problem because he's not Constantine and doesn't make Constantine faces. It speaks to a deep insecurity within Constantine himself which, when paired with the total self-obsession and simultaneous and paradoxical utter lack of self-awareness, means a total meltdown whenever he's on screen, which is always, because this is TV. So who knows what he's actually like? Not that I wish to do so. I'm just saying.
Ryan notes, on the way to introducing Scott's performance, that these are not your ordinary show tunes like your mom sings, the kind that are safe for the layperson to attempt without professional guidance; no, these are super-complicated and difficult and esoterically arranged show tunes. They are like the calculus of show tunes. It crosses Ryan's eyes to even think about how very tightrope the hour is going to be. And we're live, people. They are singing without a net. Without graphing calculators is how this is going down. I hope nobody hurts him- or herself. Well. Maybe Scott, maybe that would be okay.
Scott doesn't know much about musicals, because they covered that the week after he'd been verbally and in writing asked to stay off-campus, but his mother dimly remembered this one "play" called The Man Of La Mancha and a song therein called "The Impossible Dream." Of course, this is a musical about Don Quixote, who is famous for trying to do things that are utterly futile and stupid and pointless, so merely by suggesting that Scott perform this song, his mother is calling him a dick who will never amount to anything. I remember being really touched when I heard about Scott's dad and how he didn't believe in Scott's dream. Remember that? So weird, considering how very much I personally do not believe in him anymore.
But, like, I cannot deny that Scott's voice is freakishly lovely. I can deny, quite passionately, that I want him to be famous or retain the use of his limbs, though, and that is why I'm glad that he's too ugly and thuglike to attain this dream of his. Which is -- I don't think he's really into being beloved or an Idol per se, or else he would do something about his creepy, flat affect, so I don't know exactly what his goal might be, really; I just take comfort in the fact that it is unreachable. Simply taming his crude and vicious-seeming facial tics is only the tip of the iceberg that will prevent Scott from attaining his dreams, but until then he's just looking at one huge windmill, and the fact that he has not taken step one toward becoming acceptable as a pop star means to me that it is not as much of a priority for him as he thinks it is. He is stupid and lazy and will never amount to anything. Score one for Dad.
Anyway. He's wearing a suit and looks very nice, except for his hideous thugly face. He sounds his usual good about half the time, but the vibrato is shitty and lazy, and he continues to breathlessly clip the ends of most of his phrases. I'm convinced he's going to have a myocardial event onstage before he's eliminated. I hope we're live when he goes down. I'm trying to be fair here, but coming off really biased because if I'm honest about my feelings about him personally, I just said I want to watch him die on TV, but all I can do to balance it out is to say that he used to have this really awesome voice that is sneaking out the back door before our eyes as he loses interest in even this, his so-called "dream."
It's hard to pay attention because the song itself is intrinsically cheesy, and he's not even doing anything interesting with it like he usually does. He's just...kinda singing it. There's some pointing fingers in the air, a little bit of what Paula terms "showmanship" and what I'm sure he thinks of as "cardio." His Eminem way of talking has finally crept into his singing, which bugs, and then at the end he fucks up two notes in a row, all in the last word of the song, and at the end he chokes on it so bad, it's kind of like he maybe needs a little Heimlich action.
To be fair, though, and cross-apply this to everybody else too, is that whether or not you like show tunes, you must admit that they are certain kinds of played out, in that you hear a song and you go, "Oh, that song." Like effing "People," for example. How you gonna make that shit pop? You can't. Show tunes are the Kryptonite of the Nikko Effect, if you know what I mean. And the other option is songs that nobody's ever heard before, which have the problem of sounding like show tunes, so it's twice as weird, because you feel like you've heard it before, but not like an old friend, because you've in fact never heard it. And all show tunes fall into this trap: you can't sound new without fucking it up, and you can't sound old without boring me or sounding like karaoke. So the theme this week is actually the Chaka Khan Principle, which is "Randy and Simon are right every week when they bitch about how nobody sounds good singing classic tunes that sound a specific way inside everybody's head." Which is kind of the theme every week.
Randy starts out calling it a pretty tough song to sing, so you know this is going south already, and notes that there are a lot of changes going on in it. That's so hardcore when they start out telling you that you're a brave little soldier for trying something so hard. Randy then notes some pitch problems, and says that the beginning was out of tune, the middle was boring, and he ended with a "bang." Paula yells the word BANG three times like a crazy person, which translates to "The only reason I'm not dead is that I can turn anything into a compliment. Give that a shot." Man, I never thought my Tori Amos translation powers from high school would have a real-life application. The best thing ever was when she and Alanis Morissette were touring together and they'd be interviewed by Kurt Loder or whatever and he'd ask this straightforward question and Tori Amos would be all, "I really think you have to have tea with the devil in the dreamtime of our voodoo, you know?" and Kurt would just look over at Alanis and she'd go, "Because Sarah MacLachlan is Canadian, Kurt." And he'd thank her and move on.
Paula goes on to backhand him about how much she enjoys how his songs always fit his life, like how she and his mom are allied in thinking he's an elaborate joke on America, and how that rendition was one of the most heartfelt in this competition. Which isn't true -- he was clearly doing a good job on a bad choice while in the middle of some health issues, but whatever. Simon calls it as ending with "less bang than tap," and says that everything, from the presentation to the vocals, were ordinary. Which is mostly true. Paula screams the word EXTRAORDINARY four times, which translates to "My entire identity is The Nice One and I'm happy to play to that." Simon replies that Scott is "ordinarily extraordinary," and I don't even know for sure what he means, but I totally agree. Scott is usually really great, or once was, and he's an amazing amount of common as a person, and is so not at all of interest or note that it's almost extraordinary. So that's three different ways I agree with Simon, but I think honestly I'm putting multivalence in his mouth because I'm guessing that he was just responding in kind to Paula's lack of coherence.
Scotty and Ryan commiserate about how difficult and challenging this theme has been for everyone, and Scott specifically mentions that this was probably the hardest song, vocally, that he's chosen this year. Ryan's more touchy-feely than usual with Scott, which is interesting, because I guess the spin for the abuse stuff is mostly no comment, with some extra love and fake applause on top. That's smart. That's what I would do. If I were evil like them, I mean.
Ryan's mind is blown by the amazing amounts of "signage" all over the place, and I agree that there seem to be a lot more signs. The show has taken some kind of jump up from being the number one show in America, somehow, because I've noticed a lot more baseline interest creeping up each week, but this week it hit like some kind of critical mass and now everybody seems to be not only secretly watching the show but also talking about it openly and coming onto the site to discuss it. I don't know, it's interesting.
Constantine was really "psyched" about the theme this week, you know, because he's an actor. And because it was specifically chosen for him, I think. I'm becoming more sure than ever that this whole "pulls off his rocker mask to reveal a theatre geek" routine has been planned all along, and the reason it looks so incompetent as to be organic is that Randy Jackson is the one carrying the banner (after Paula mismanaged the big reveal with the tongue-in-cheek stuff a while back), and he makes no sense when he talks so every week it's like this big epiphany and anybody who didn't catch on to the basic mendacity at the heart of the Constantine Issue the week before, or the week before that, gets to figure it out right here live. Like, week Randy's going to talk about how he's just figured out that Constantine is not a rocker but some kind of theatre guy. Mark my words.
Constantine sings "My Funny Valentine" from Babes In Arms, which is not only a musical I've never, ever heard of, which is no rarity, but is also not a show tune, as far as I knew. That's interesting. It was also featured in a Sinatra movie. That's not interesting. You know I hate his ass. However, I do love this song, the Chet Baker version, and thus I despise this version already, because it's hip and sexy (as Constantine of course points out) and is too far from the kind I like. Anyway, Constantine goes all breathy between every couple of words and stares yearningly at nothing. Disgusting. He fake laughs about "is your figure less than Greek," and he thinks the joke is that he's Greek (WE KNOW) but really the joke is that he's a fat-ass monster with sixteen chins and his figure is less than acceptable. He gets really aggro again and some more, and bites the ends of his words like all silly bad theatre guy-yuh and his eyes rolling around in his head. And okay, I've figured it out.
This is sexy, if: you don't know what "sexy" is actually like, because sexually you are cookie dough; it's all outer. It's explicit. Like, the faces of sex, that would be sexy in this world. Really tight pants. Sex toys. Public restrooms, maybe. Like if you say "sexy" but you're thinking of porn, that's what this is. Like actual sex. Like that's what sexy is: having actual sex, making sex faces and getting sweaty and gross. In front of people. He's the Morganna the Kissing Bandit of American Idol. The Juggs magazine of what's sexy. Missing all the underneath stuff, like...you know how period porn like Dangerous Liaisons is sexy to adults? Because of what you don't see? That's one kind of sexy. And the opposite of this is what Constantine thinks is sexy: naked people.
And it's working, dude. Because the other side of letting your junk hang out is that it's more accessible, which for a certain kind of person who's not sure if they'll ever get laid, this combination of unattractive-but-not-prohibitively-so (so, not intimidating), plus the sexual desperation he's trying so hard to telegraph to us, means that he's attainable, and if you add in the weird bisexual vibe, that makes him even less threatening. That he just might love you and make love to you and get you out of wherever unhappy place you might find yourself. And if that's appealing to you, you are a Weiner Dog and he's counting on your vote. He is human fan fiction, sprung to life and ready to serve. And that's the other half of the case, and I'm done trying to figure it out because it's so far removed from my own life, I find it difficult to even think my way there. Also because I don't like understanding stuff like this. It's like when I watched American History X. I am similarly discomfited.
Randy didn't buy the rocker thing ever, y'all. He says, and I totally agree, that this is the best Constantine's ever performed anything, that this kind of thing is what he should be doing each week, something like this. Paula loses it, and must admit that she is falling in love with him -- she loves the twist on the song, and thought it was all quite romantic. Then she says the awesomest thing of the night, which is that Constantine is the "perfect role model for guys to get into musicals," and, like, I don't even know what the hell she means by that but it's so fucking funny. She wishes she could get up and hug him, but for some reason she can't. And I don't know, but I'm guessing it's the drugs. She's kind of lucid tonight, at least physically, she's not falling over like last week or anything, but her words aren't holding themselves together so well. I don't know. I'm not so degenerate that I can diagnose what she's on each week, based on just looking at her. I know she's on something, that's all. Simon notes that Constantine has grown in confidence, which is pretty much true, and he gives the vocals a 7, while the "pouting" gets a 9.5. Mike points out that even when he goes for "smoldering," all he gets is "kind of rapey." Constantine, who wasn't looking forward to hearing from Simon to begin with, gets that he just got called an ass. Ryan asks, as if we should ever be allowed behind that particular curtain, who the real Constantine is, and Constantine says he is many different flavors but they are all disgusting. I'm paraphrasing.
Carrie found it hard this week, she tells us, because musicals are their own thing, so she can't automatically warp it into country. Which she totally did, but I imagine it took some doing. She sings "Hello, Young Lovers," from The King And I, wearing a ridiculous teal dress, and her hair is again gigantic and on one side of her boring, dumb head. She sings it in country voice, and clearly cannot hear the band very well, because she's singing to her own personal tempo that has nothing to do with the music; there's a part where they stop together, which should let her get it together, but soon enough she's out of there again. She only flubs two notes, but it's Carrie, so that's two too many. She's great, you know? I really dislike her.
Randy points out how amazing it was that she chose the most boring song in the entire universe and he almost got mad at her about it, but in the style of truly great singers, she ended up singing it well, in tune and with great control. She sang it brilliantly, even though it was a terrible song to sing. That's almost exactly what I think, except I am also troubled by her deep inner creepiness. Paula compliments her look and her elegance performance, and agrees with Randy. Then she talks crazy and non-verbally about how "the audience is swelling with you." I don't know. I think she means that we're all waiting for her to hit the giant note Carrie always signals she's about to hit. Paula calls her a "well-oiled machine with [her] vocals," which ordinarily -- coming from Simon, for example -- would be snarky and so dead-on as to be devastating, but it's Paula. She doesn't know what the hell she's going to say until it's already out there. I can't give her the benefit of the doubt as far as being secretly bitchy. Simon admits she sang it very well, even though the song was totally boring, and he was reminded several times of a 1950s "dish soap commercial" (I'm redacting a lot of bullshit here having to do with how British people and American people don't always use the same words for things), and I agree with that too, especially with the outfit. She always looks so empty and dead and creepy, you know? He settles on "old-fashioned." Ryan, in order to make her look more and more awesome until your eyes bug out, points out how she only learned the song last Thursday, and asks how on earth she could learn it and then OWN IT like that. He's not even really selling this amazement on his own personal behalf, but whatever.
Vonzell will be singing "People," from Funny Girl, and tells us it took her three hours to choose her song, which she ended up singing because it's very "challenging" and she knows it will show off her range. Which it does, if you can stay awake through it. She sings it beautifully but there's an intrinsic narcoleptic, like a sleep-inducing back-masking, that is a clear downside. It's so cheesy you can't even really hate it. It's as banal to say "I hate the 'People' song" as, like, I don't know. Yelling, "I'm Rick James, bitch!" or those refrigerator magnets they have in trailer parks that say things like, "This isn't Burger King! You can't have it your way!" The cool thing, though, is that she is actually thinking about the boring, sentimental words she's singing, so she gives them life, because she seems to be the only one who understands her songs on a basic word-definition level. Also currently making her special is the fact that she's rocking the Kimberly Caldwell faux-hawk with the high sides and teased back, and it's not enraging me. I can't even handle Summer when she does that shit. Ladies of the world, please cut that out. Do you really want to emulate Pink? I thought not.
Randy says how she keeps getting better every week, and tosses a little Carrie stroke in there about how between Carrie and Vonzell, it's possible a "girl" might actually win this year. Argh. This stuff is like plastic surgery: I'm not offended if it's not obvious. If I can't tell you've had plastic surgery, I'm not going to judge. It's bad plastic surgery I'm bothered by, and it's obvious and stupid and repetitive pimping that I have an adverse reaction to. Paula then gets all smart and interesting, talking about how Vonzell was singing in the same key as Barbra Streisand herself, noting that "Barbra is Barbra, and now Vonzell is Vonzell." And I'm comforted and confused about why that needed saying, but then Paula's off and running about how Vonzell hit this high E-flat that not even Barbra goes for, and that's very interesting. Paula leads a personal standing ovation on behalf of this high E-flat. And to her credit, I'm told that she was right about all that, and further to her credit, it only takes her a little while to remember to sit down again. Simon says that Vonzell did a very good job, but that singing a song like that requires a certain amount of mind-blowing "wow factor" in order to keep us interested. I agree. And I'm sad to report that I think she could have used a bit more of that to keep my interest, because I spaced a whole bunch of the time. Ryan tries to use this criticism against Simon, saying that Vonzell is rubber and Simon is glue and the fact is simply that it is Simon who is too cold and too clinical. And how Simon doesn't hold him anymore, or ask about his day.
Anthony sings "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" from The Sound of Music. Okay?
He talks about he was touched by this, because it's about determination and achieving your dreams, and that's why he's here. They should issue a warning before he or Anwar get onstage so that diabetics can take measures. His hands are very expressive tonight, as is his cameltoe. Ugh. Every other word, his hand sings along with him like he's demonstrating some kind of gadget onstage with him. Slowly he begins to mix in the swaying bouncing Disco-Anthony moves. How can you sing this cheesy song in a faux-disco way? There are actual "doo-doo-doo" backup singers. His very powerful voice is back, and that's nice, and he's mostly in tune, and I like hearing him sing, given that writing these each week means I have to listen to lots of people singing, a lot of voices happening all the time, and his is one I count on for being loud and clear and okay to hear, but, like, this song is retarded and he's standing like Fantasia.
Like the rest of them, Anwar introduces his song, "If Ever I Would Leave You," from Camelot, with some parroted and deeply uninteresting information about how this song is from a musical and some musicals are made into movies and who stars in those movies sometimes and blah blah blah, and it's totally dumb that they all do this because it seems calculated to make us think they know a damn thing about anything, but then Ryan keeps hitting the "they've never heard any songs at all, they're just nine little Nadias being introduced to music for the first time" button so it just becomes boring and educational for us. Anwar's looking into the camera and I think giving us his version of sexy, which is exactly what you think: very earnest and not unlike a very bright cocker spaniel. I imagine it's very effective and unthreatening when he does this in real life but it's boring and cheesy to me.
Ali: Now, will he be leaving me in the springtime? Or will he not be leaving me in the springtime? What happens in the springtime?
Jacob: I keep not paying attention. He makes me space out. Shall I run it back?
Ali: I just want to know when he's leaving.
Randy notes yet again, not that it doesn't bear repeating, that Anwar is hands-down one of the best singers, and one of the best voices, here, and therefore the best weeks for Anwar personally are when he, you know, demonstrates that fact and doesn't dance and wiggle around and sing through his nose. Paula says that his smile melts America's hearts, and also that he's "technically" the best singer on the stage, and the sentiment is nice but the implication is not only harsh but also right on target. Simon says only that Anwar "seemed very comfortable," before Ryan interrupts him and causes Anwar to laugh abruptly like a camel. A girl camel. Then Ryan and Anwar get a whole lot of jumpy like they always do around each other, and we limp to commercial.
Ryan calls Bo's song choice method "quite the science," and Bo explains that he closed his eyes and pointed his finger at the list, coming up with "Corner Of The Sky," from Pippin, and really, there are like five songs I can think of that he would rule on, and I don't even know musical theatre, so I'm guessing this was even more just ass-dumb of him than I think. Weirdly, this version of the song incorporates the "doo-do-doo-do-do-do" of "Love The One You're With," which I was willing to let slide because I don't know anything and for all I know that song came from the musical Pippin so wouldn't I look dumb if I made fun of that, but apparently it's just cracked that this was in there. Also, he seems to have made up most of the words he was singing, maybe even on the spot, which is awesome, although my spies tell me there's an older version of the book that's a little closer to the Bo lyrics on this one, so I don't know for sure. I prefer to think that he didn't even practice, just heard the melody and then went up there and just made up some words. That's hot.
Sartorially, he looks tonight like the seat of an eighteen-wheeler, wearing a shirt made out of a swirly red bowling ball fabric and looking less than completely comfortable. His voice is flat and weird and he looks more stoned than normal. He doesn't know what to do, just points to people and holds his little fist up in the air. His disinterest is showing, and for the second week in a row. I don't know, he was terrible tonight, but, like, do you judge as a whole, or how far they come above or below their personal bar they've set? Because by Bo standards, he was AWFUL, and Mike and Ali have never seen the show before, and thought it was AWFUL, which means nobody thought it was good, but compared to the other people, and most people really, it wasn't bad. Just a bad fit. Which is still his fault, because he decided it was more important to be so hardcore as to not pick a good song, because that would damage his cred. There's a whole lot of secret Nadia in that gesture, to go with what would make a cred story out of it instead of a good performance: "I'm so lost here I just had to drop my finger down on the page because they're all the same and I'm resigned to sucking this week because that's how much of a fag I am NOT, that my body rejects show tunes out of hand and I couldn't even look at the page or remember the words." And that is some dangerously un-hardcore behavior right there, because what I appreciate is you doing your best, and that includes thinking at least a little bit about the best song for your voice.
Randy calls Bo consistently great, says he's in Bo's corner and that Bo is "one of his dawgs," to which Bo barks, which is cute. Paula says...something. I don't know, we listened to it like a hundred times, and personally I think that it is this: "Bo, inthepackageearlieryousaidyouwerekeepingyourfingerscrossed," although other top vote-getters included elements like "packer drill," "pachyderm," and "bag of drills," but the gist is that...no, the gist also makes no sense, no matter what the part above actually was, because basically, she tells him that in addition to crossing his fingers, he could also cross his toes and his legs, because he is a winner. Okay? That's what she said. Simon then allows himself to tell the truth, which is that Bo has had two bad weeks in a row and needs to drastically overhaul the direction he's heading. Paula shrieks the completely unrelated "IT'S SHOW TUNES!" as if that has anything to do with it. Bo smiles yuckily and he has no idea how much cred he just lost with me, simply by trying to retain it.
Then speaking of credibility, Seacrest is involved in a very confusing cell phone commercial for some kind of highlight DVD of the show that you can only get by buying things at the store where the cell phones come from. And William Hung is there, to give you some indication of how over this particular commercial I am.
Nadia will sing "As Long As He Needs Me," from Oliver!, and gives the best introduction: "It's about loving that person, right or wrong, good or bad, no matter what they do. And...I've actually felt that way. At one time in my life." And the eloquent apostrophe here, the man about and to whom she is talking shit as she says this, is beautiful and fun. There's a whole unspoken "So suck it, because I'm on TV" thing here. A "call Tyrone and come get your shit" thing that is gorgeous to watch. As is Nadia, of course. She starts with this weird posture that would be great for a photo shoot, I now know, but looks really wrong and painful onstage. She makes some more ugly faces, but whatever, because she gives a huge pretty smile every time she does it. This song? Is damned boring.
Her moves aren't as compelling as they have been, because she can't move around too much, but also because her hands go to a diva place sometimes and that's going to be a problem for me. There's some stalking around the stage and singing her heart out. Well, if she had one. She doesn't. Her rib cage is where she keeps her, like, letters of recommendation, and a pistol. I love her so much. She looks like a million bucks and has some fun at the end, turning her head away from the mic and camera on each downbeat. "HE!" (BOMP) "NEEDS!" (BAMP) "MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE..." BOOM "...EEEEEEE!"
Randy and Paula are scared of getting cut short by Ryan, so basically they give a "Good job" and Simon doesn't even address her really, just says that Ryan picked the song list this week because it's show tunes and Ryan's a fag or something. Ryan exudes class by first pretending not to have heard him, then points to Nadia all, "Exuding class on this stage, Nadia Turner."
To review: Scott was pointless and futile and idiotic and the review goes on forever. Constantine, screaming his stupid ass off and sounding unfortunately good. Carrie, having no emotions but making a good show of it. Vonzell is reviewed during a part where she was down at the bottom of her range and hitting all kinds of great notes and sounding crazy good. Anthony and his cameltoe had a lot of fun and were no amount of fun and there was bouncing and a strong Claylike voice. Nikko sounding awesome and great at what he does: singing a song nobody remembers and will never remember. Anwar trying to be Constantine toward the camera, and hitting that target right about exactly where you think he would. Bo sucking all over the place for him, but still better than everybody else. Also high. Nadia fucking ruling. Her tone was much more clear in the actual performance, we note. The rehearsal voice is much more growly and awesome. It's anybody's game, I guess.
Wednesday
So it's the second show of the week, but the last show for somebody, and the votes are in but someone is out, black is not white and vice versa, there are four lights, blah blah blah with the this is this and that is that. I notice Ryan has some real trouble tonight disengaging his eyes from the audience. Normally there's the professional smile and not really locking eyes with anybody, but this week he focuses way beyond the safe point and has to jerk his eyes away. Then Ryan is utterly awesome, and I hope he adlibbed this or wrote it himself: "Welcome to the show that will end another dream." And he says this with a smile. Awesome. So awesome. He says that we're not looking forward to losing somebody, but those are the breaks. It's not all bad news tonight, because Fantasia has come to visit and sing live for us. None of the other Idols or quasi-Idols could come because we're locked in pitched legal battles with all of them, but Fantasia hasn't gotten sick of the 19 Entertainment mismanagement yet so she's still safe and we still like her. He's all, "She's BAAACK..."
Simon's wearing his Baby Blue sweater again, or something like, as Ryan tells us that, just like last week, we have gotten the highest non-finale voting numbers ever: 32.8 million votes. Jeez. That is so many people. You know? All the Idols look totally bored and kind of bummed because the ennui is finally setting in. Well, Anwar's giggling again, but that's it. Everybody's getting tired of this shit and there's like nine weeks left. Poor kids.
"Last night American Idol was alive with the sound of musicals," says Ryan. That boy in on tonight, you guys. Maybe it's Fantasia-adjacent excitement. Remember how it all went: how Carrie sang a song without a time signature, to the degree where there's no part they can clip where that's not happening. Bo found his corner of the horrible. Vonzell diva'd out so amazingly and was "brilliant" and Paula standingly ovated. Paula called Nikko "the comeback kid," which I thought was a bad idea but couldn't tell you why, and Simon thought Scott was extra-extra-ordinary, and that A-Fed was "hideous." Anwar went all over the place and sounded better than in past weeks, but was possessed of a smile that Paula felt would possibly melt the very heart of America. She's nuts, yeah. She also admitted to falling in love with Constantine, making her dirty. They were both wearing pirate booty. Nadia was very dramatic indeed, and the fake crowd went insane.
Then a lot of filler bullshit, first thing being that "When You Tell Me That You Love Me" was the winning Tsunami Tsingle, but the actual CD will have all three of them on it, so the whole thing was stupid in the first place and I effing hated all three songs, so this does nothing for me, and plus they're singing it again week. And then, abruptly, it's Fantasia time. And I will say at the outset that I'd enjoy the world a lot more if it were Fantasia time a little more frequently, because it's good to lose your mind sometimes.
This huge FANT ASIA sign slides open to reveal a headless figure that is most likely Fantasia Barrino, albeit with her head replaced, like most heads this week, as noted, by a bright white light. She's wearing stupid boots with, like, cartoon characters on the top of them, and some pants doing something I've not seen pants doing before. She's very clearly enjoying herself, squatting and dancing around and singing her ass off. I don't know much about these things, but it's my understanding that singing like this will give you a problem with your vocal cords. Nodes or nodules or something. Friction burns. But given how much I hate when people lecture me about the health issues associated with smoking, I'm not about to complain about that. You know, now that I've heard this song like eighteen times, I like this song. The starter song, I mean. It's called "Truth Is," and the titular truth seems to be something about how she got played but is not going to let that stop her from having fun and/or singing a pissy little song about it. It's nice.
If Fantasia Barrino were a dude, these pants would be very revealing. What they are instead is inhibiting. As long as Fantasia is wearing those pants, it's going to be hard for me myself to walk properly, much less dance. Then things go ABSOLUTELY INSANE! There is SCREAMING AND KICKING! And YELLING! And FREAKING OUT! It's amazing. This is so crazy. I wish I'd watched this show last year because if this kind of thing was going on and I missed it, I will kick myself. I knew she was adorable and had a fucked-up-sounding voice, and I am in love with the "Baby Mama" song, but somehow everybody forgot to tell me she was additionally completely out of her tree and sang like she was having a 'sode. I didn't know that part.
This is crazy. She keeps, like, picking specific areas of the stage to scream at. She's great. Just dancing around and acting a mess, and letting the backup singers take over whenever she feels like it. That part's very cool; she just drops the mic and stares and smiles and wiggles while they sing. Fantasia Barrino seems really...urgent about things? There's an urgency. It's compelling.
Then, she loses control altogether and her eyes cross and her head is bobbling around and her arms are flailing and she is fully out of hand and then she squats one more time and just screams. Like a tantrum. Like a murder is taking place. It is so fucking rad. And then she sings right to our nine Idols about how you've got to BELIEVE! BELIEVE! AHHHHH! I gather that these are two different songs that have nothing to do with each other and the atmosphere is so intensely insane that I didn't even notice the transition, so while I'm assuming it wasn't seamless, neither was it noticeable. Even after the song is over, she still capers around like a damn goblin. Fantasia is amazing. America is amazing. I feel like A-Fed right now.
Ryan comes out to hug her and congratulate her on successfully freaking the fuck out. Simon looks bored as hell but clearly affectionate, Paula is wordlessly clapping, but not like her normal wordless self. She has no words. Me neither. That was the hardest part of a recap I ever had to write. Harder than any Constantine sequence. Harder than the Muppets. Randy is very happy with all of this, because it was awesome, and then Ryan sends the cameras over to the Idols, who are variously camped out, so they all have to get it together and very quickly compose themselves. I am so glad there were no cameras on me at the conclusion of that performance. I don't imagine I myself looked very composed.
Then Fantasia talks crazy to them and gives them advice, including that they need to "act UGLY" and have a good time and not really care about this show because everyone on her own season has a record deal at this point, so they should just think of this as a stepping stone to actual success. Which would be an awesome thing for, like, anybody to say, but especially the actual winner. She's awesome. Ryan gets this very His Master's Voice look on his face trying to compute whether it's okay that she said that, then suddenly points out in a very "Hey! Look over there!" way the fact that Ruben and Kim Caldwell are in the audience, not to mention appearing on Life On A Stick and making their sitcom debut. There's too much Ruben, though, for us to see Kimberly Caldwell. Not that I'm complaining, but it's funny. We never see her.
Then there's a cute moment where Ryan kicks the whole "back after the break" thing to Fantasia, and even though she flubs it, it's adorable and very in-jokey and fun. I imagine this was one of the best nights of her life, just because the experience itself seems very hellish and "hurry up and wait" and then having your entire life and self and voice and work critiqued all over the world, and made into an object, so I imagine once you make it out into what you think of as your actual life, it's fun to go back to something that was your whole life for like over a year. I bet the Seal seems smaller from that side of it. Or would, if this year it weren't actually bigger. Maybe even then. She's loving life and that makes me very happy.
Pimpomercial. This is basically the best one yet, because it's simple and fun in concept, the song is not that irritating, everyone looks fantastic, and the song ("Everybody's Got Their Something") is not really about singing, so the fact that none of them sound so great is not even a problem. Nadia starts it, getting out of the vehicle we're supporting, and singing as she walks toward the camera and looks beautiful, and then she claps her hands and turns into Anwar, who gays into A-Fed, and then Vonzell, and then -- right then a curious thing happens where the clapping comes out of nowhere -- Constantine, with this florist despising him in the background, and then Carrie, who is being cuter and realer than ever before, and then Bo driving by, with crazy cheering, and then Scott thugging around and then Nikko being awesome, and then the mysterious cheering starts as A-Fed and Anwar drive away in the vehicle we're supposed to buy, and God knows what those two are heading out to do, but I guarantee it's something very nice and well-mannered.
We then review the contestants for a thrilling spin on the reveal: Ryan calls the bottom three down to the Seal right away, one after the other, and then totally leaves them to twist while he bugs the other contestants and jaws with the judges. Seems a lot nicer, but it isn't really. Nikko was pronounced legit contemporary R&B by Randy and Paula, but seemed partially out of tune to Simon. Nikko's face is very sad and I think he knows. Or at least figures he's in the bottom three. He seems really resigned, and it kills me because I thought he was awesome and I always think he's awesome, but I always forget he exists, too, like five minutes after he's gone. Vonzell gets better every week, received a one-person standing ovation, but was maybe too controlled and cold. The crowd freaks out a little bit here, although the camera cuts to one guy who's not really feeling the abject horror and disappointment that the audience is supposed to be feeling, so he's just mouthing along to the "No" screams, and he looks really uncomfortable and more than a little disinterested in this charade. "Uh, boo. Boo." But to chill the audience out, Ryan sends up a not-that-thinly veiled "These are your votes, America." Then there's Scott, who was "a'ight" and a little shaky, ordinary, and/or heartfelt. Vonzell immediately grabs Scott's hand, because she's nice but also because that's what you do on this show, and she reaches for Nikko's, but he's not looking, so he just leaves her hanging.
Ryan goes to the other kids. Well, the two of them that sucked ass last night and technically belong on the Seal.
Bo, you were absolutely terrible both by your own standard and by that of your fellow competitors. Aren't you shocked you're not there? (Only kind of rewording it, by the way.) Bo is pretty awesome here, because he says, yeah, he's surprised he's not on the Seal, but even more so is he shocked that those three are. That's an awesome thing to say. Ryan's not interested in that, though, so he bugs Bo to answer the question, and Bo says that he had a hard time because it wasn't his "gendre" and that he could have done better, but then reiterates that people who didn't need to do better, because they're not afraid of getting the Broadway stigma on them, are the three people at issue. And I've already discussed the whole thing, above, but I would like to point out that A) "gendre" is not a word; B) not to be a theatre apologist, but both Bo and Carrie are wrong thinking there's a "show tune style" so narrow that it would leave them out; and C) a good singer can do anything and make a song work no matter what. So what you've done is prioritized distancing yourself from Constantine, which is not only a good idea but a hygienic necessity, over doing your best, and that is dumb as hell. It's lazy and I am cross about it.
Anthony, you were hideous in every way. Do you suffer any survivor guilt? (Okay, I took more liberties with that one.) A-Fed agrees with Simon, that it was hideous and didn't really come through for him at all last night. He felt sure that he would be in the bottom three, and he knows and is perfectly humble admitting that it's only his fans who have kept him on the show this long, especially after last night. Which was, I'd like to reiterate, difficult to deal with for everyone concerned. And I think Anthony's awesome and I like his voice all right, and I have issues with his awkwardness but I don't blame him for them, but I still had to have Anna explain the A-Fed fans to me, and what she said was that if she was thirteen, she'd already have her wedding dress picked out for the day she'd finally become Mrs. Anthony Fedorov. That makes sense to me; that I can deal with. Because I forgot that just because the boy bands went away for a couple of years doesn't mean that boy band fans don't continue to be born at a phenomenal rate; nor does it mean, to be honest, that I am not one of them. In the same way that if a junkie is on a desert island with no drugs to be had, that does not mean he is a healthy individual -- it means that he is an addict in abeyance and will probably become obsessed with some pregnant girl and die six times before it's said and done. The whole time they're talking to Anthony, Simon is playing with his neck. It's interesting because when it's Ryan, it's the lips, but with Anthony? The neck.
Scott is wearing weird, weird clothes. His whole outfit is strange. There are pointy saddle shoes involved. Ryan asks Randy to confirm that he's a "big fan of at least two of the people" up there, which is code for "Scott is a freak and his time is up." Randy confesses that he's amazed by how confused America seems to be this week, because, again, "two of them up there" were amazing, last night, so..."I don't know, dude." And I know it is just my hateration on the subject of Scott that makes me see all of this as a way of distancing themselves from his horrible ass, but also, like, even if they're not trying to hurt his feelings or make us hate him, it's good enough that everyone's being honest: Vonzell and Nikko do not belong there, and Scott does, based on last night alone.
Paula's "gotta be honest." Oh hell. "At this stage," she starts, and then parrots back what Fantasia said earlier, which is that they're all going to be getting contracts anyway, so it's really beside the point. Simon, who's a producer on this show that's suddenly irrelevant, bristles at this, but she continues, saying that she doesn't even care who wins, and she keeps saying they're all "deserved" of having a record contract. Which is like calling someone your "beloving," to my ears. So according to Paula, we might as well just pack it all in because just like the last half of this season, the half is going to be a pointless circus. Way to go, Abdul.
Ryan asks Simon about this, noting how candid he was about the suckiness of Anthony and Bo, which is interesting considering that the other four people (the Chosen People, you'll note) haven't been spoken to once this entire episode, just stroked and smiled at and told to act UGLY. Simon, desperately trying to reverse what Paula just did, goes on and on about how in fact it is important, like to a huge degree, like it's sick important that we care about who wins, and that is because -- get this -- it's the most fair way to decide, this system we have, with the voting and the eliminations, and that's why this show is awesome and will always be relevant. So basically, purge your minds of the fact that everybody's coming out a winner, because American Idol is what democracy is all about. And vice versa, that the American ideals of representational pop stardom and democratic selection of candidates and diversity in the workplace are what lie at the heart of American Idol. Huh. And here I thought it was about money. My bad.
Ryan asks whether, given what Simon's just said, he can in good conscience hold to his theory that America is his puppet and votes for whoever he wants. Which is a weird way to go with that, but in context, Simon is justified in saying yes, in that while two of the three people don't belong there, Carrie and Constantine are sitting pretty, so therefore we're all doing exactly what he wants. Think about it. Meanwhile, Randy feints left and complains that Ryan is puffing up Cowell's already grotesque ego with this talk, and Ryan's got his eye on the clock anyway, so he drops it and sends Vonzell back to Suffragette City. Meaning that Scott (hate) and Nikko (love) are who's left on the Seal with Ryan (other). This is shaping up to be damned stupid. Nikko and Scott fake hug.
Scott thugs into the camera when we return, and Ryan decides to ask Nikko -- after some expository word-chucking about how first there was Osborne but then there was Nikko, and then there was no Nikko, but then there was -- as the Comeback Kid who gets better every week (he does!), what the hell is going on? And instead of saying it's because America is a little retarded -- although honestly you can see him saying this with his eyes into the camera -- he goes the nice guy route that he always does, talking about how last night was really hard for everybody, Bo, and they all felt out of their element except for Constantine and he did the best he could. Which is two lies and a truth, but not the answer. The answer is that he's not memorable. He's the guy in your math class from sophomore year that you see years later on American Idol and it takes you five weeks to figure out that you went to school with him. Because he thought being awesome and having a wonderful and interesting voice and a real love of music would be good enough, and nobody told him the truth: that at this point you have to be an actual freak to get any interest because this is not a singing competition, it's a carnival show. And that sucks, because somebody should have told him. And Vonzell too. She needs to shave her head or come out singing naked or something, and with a quickness.
Ryan tells Scott he knows he's been nervous this week, partly because of "the theme we had to go through." Huh. Was that a nod to the abuse stuff? Interesting. Scott responds in some Grade-A bullshit word salad on subjects as sundry as: this necklace Paula gave him, the sentiment expressed thereon ("embrace your imperfections"), the words "imperfection" and "perfection" repeated sixty-eight times in succession, Fake Jesus and his Fake Jesus Plans For Scott Savol, doing one's best or fooling oneself that one is doing so, tonight as a possible "downfall" for his "career," the progressive nature of time and how other things will happen in the future, some good and some bad, and how he'd like to see America embrace him in spite of his imperfections. Which are all he fucking HAS, so that's probably a good idea. Then he's safe, and the whole bullshit humility goes away and he's up and talking to Fake Jesus like he'd even put him on hold. There is no raising of the roof, but neither do we see the other contestants welcoming his ugly ass back to Suffragette City.
I'm going to miss Constantine in certain ways, because he's fun to write about. I will not, however, miss Scott, because he's a dullard and doesn't do anything I can make fun of without feeling like I'm part of the problem and not the solution, which makes me feel dumb, which makes me hate his ass. And his voice is getting worse every week, and his face is too, and the allegations and the hateful ungratefulness of him, and his clear stupidity, and his laziness and the self-importance with which he believes himself to be fighting for this impossible dream against all odds and how he's the star of his own personal fucking Horatio Alger story and everybody judges him because he looks like somebody's fist. When the truth is, he's stupid and not a great guy.
Anyway, this should be about good old Nikko, so screw it. There's Video Journey, back to when he dedicated his ticket to Hollywood to "everybody that's been held back in St. Louis," to him talking about trying not to think about the viewers and concentrate more on the audience in the studio (which I think is one of the things that made him a better performer, but also harder to connect with, for us). We remember how much Simon praised his voice, and how he was dedicated and focused, and wore a succession of Little Old Man outfits. He wanted to give the world something new, something they haven't heard before. And he did, in that we're all too young to remember those songs in the first place, because he's awesome. Then I'm sorry to say that TiVo fucks up and I don't see him sing, which I was really looking forward to, just a tad more even than I was looking forward to seeing where everybody ended up onstage.
Mike: TiVo is a harsh mistress.
Jacob: So's Ryan Seacrest. It's his job to get these in on time.
Seacrest out.