No Doubt is like haunting me. They're going to be on this show tonight, and then on Gossip Girl singing Adam & The Ants on Monday. Which is a whole lot of No Doubt for a band that is over with. And if you tell me they are not over with, I will smack your smart mouth, because Return Of Saturn was a very, very long time ago, and that's the only No Doubt I can even deal with. On the other hand, I am willing to suffer No Doubt and a DAUGHTRY in order to get some Paula Abdul, because A) she used to be my favorite thing, and B) what on earth will that be like.
The pimpmercial is pretty amazing, actually. It's a fairly decent and fairly different version of that All-American Rejects song "Move Along," that's very soft and not rock at all, but pretty in a whole other way. Good harmonies. So they're all on billboards and newspapers and stuff, but like from new design world; they have those graded tones of like a Twitter background or a cereal box, and there's saint rays coming out of their heads. Then they see a car and they climb off the billboard or newspaper and chase the car; of course, Allison can't even run convincingly. The best part, though, is how Adam and Allison are on billboards, right, and Kris is on the top of a pile of newspapers, but once he becomes two-dimensionally real he does this Care Bear Stare and shoots Danny out of his chest, and then Danny walks all toolishly toward the car. This is awesome mainly because why would Kris ever wear a Danny Gokey T-shirt except in a fantasy.
Um, right, there's not actually anything to accomplish this week, so here's some more useless crap. Adam -- looking awesome in a rocker scarf and with uncomplicated hair -- and Kris take the first vocals on "School's Out," guitar courtesy of Slash and other dirty folks. Kris, of course, is completely out of place with this song, and with the other three rocking out; once again Danny is way better than he has any right to be. Maybe he will scream again and the cognitive dissonance will go away. Allison smacks them around, Danny gets hit the hardest, which is nice. Then there's a whole -- I hate this song, I don't know it very well -- thing where they yell at each other about "no more teachers, no more books," and that is not very pretty. Once again, everybody but Danny, and yes I do include Adam here, sounds kind of awful.
Ryan hops around with Slash about how maybe he has eyeballs, maybe he doesn't, and then barks out this hilarious goatlike meeeeeh that might be the cutest thing Ryan's ever done, and then he asks Allison why she hit Danny so hard. Her mouth says it was an accident but her eyes say, "Are you fucking kidding me?"
Ryan puts the kids on the couch and asks if -- eighteen weeks in -- they're getting used to Wednesdays. Danny offers the observation that "Wednesday nights are the most tiring of all the days," and he's almost asleep right there on the stage. Well, I'm so fucking glad I could tune in, Danny. Kris gives a speech about how bizarre it is for him to be in the Top Four. Ryan and Simon pull this whole daddymommy about how Kris should feel like he deserves it, and to stop being humble. Everybody cheers about how Adam sang "Whole Lotta Love" for the first time on Idol, which is sort of pointless because there's never been a point until now where that song would be appropriate or even exist in the same universe as this show. Although that does deserve applause in and of itself.
Then Ryan's like, "Danny, you know more than all of us, so why don't you tell us how you did last night?" Danny explains that it's the stage's fault, and the crowd's fault, that he was so fucking horrible last night: he couldn't hear how terribly he was doing, so of course he had no choice but to treat the judges like imbeciles. Of course, having "watched it back," which in this context means "read the entire internet making fun of his retarded ass," he has decided that it's a fun, laughable performance and we're all having fun together. Wasn't it so funny? It's so fucking funny and likeable! People are making ringtones of his shitty performance! It's his funniest moment on American Idol, in fact!
And everybody cheers, which is depressing, except I have realized a thing lately, which is that nothing means anything anymore. You know the thing about the storm that is gathering called gay people? That horror movie video where the gay people are coming and they want to ruin your life for you and take away your freedom and your livelihood and God somehow? And then a bunch of Hollywood actors got together and made a fairly funny -- if Andy-Sambergian and repetitive -- video about building a giant umbrella to save us from the gay people. (There's a way better low-budget one here.) And the comments on the video were really astounding because they were all about how "hateful" the giant umbrella video was, and how liberals are full of hate. And I mean, nobody's more obnoxious than a really angry liberal, and the Dawkins people are way too angry and self-righteous, but hate? So it sort of pricked up my ears, and I started noticing that the "hate" meme is suddenly everywhere, like, there's this portion of conservatism that's now playing the victim and throwing these Tea Parties all about how the liberals are coming after them. Which, I'm more conservative than most people I know, and that seems really weak. But that's not what conservatism is about, ever, so it's confusing.
So I called my smartest friend, Alison, to ask her why the conservatives were suddenly so paranoid and why me calling Miley Cyrus a hillbilly is my ticket to this intensely hateful conspiracy against families and churches, and she explained to me that we have finally broken words. Which is why liberal responses like the anti-NOM videos are pointless exercises in elitism, because if you call somebody stupid for acting stupid, you're just validating their insecurities, because you're right but that was never the point. So it just hardens the thing on both sides instead of fixing it. And so the "hate" meme, I sort of love it, because I've been in love with Frank Luntz forever and ever, because he is brashly in favor of ruining communication. But the thing behind the thing is that ideologically it's not even a downgrade to respond to the feeling behind words and not the words themselves, so you can change the words to whatever you want as long as the feeling gets across.
I think the partisan split at this point in history comes from the disconnect: liberals want words to mean what they say, and conservatives are completely over that, because they know that the emotion behind the words is what's important. Both sides have an agenda that's understood but never talked about, because it's all put forth in symbols and powerful concepts. It makes as little sense for the rich ex-hippies of Austin, Texas, for example, to vote democratic as it does for incredibly poor farmers to vote republican, unless you look at this, and the way the leadership behind the messages gets exactly what they want at the expense of their constituents, who are voting on message and not on the facts.
And I don't necessarily think one is better than the other, because you can jerk liberals around just as easy by playing with the meanings behind the words and they're even less likely to own up to it because intelligence is all they have, but I think there's a whole shadowplay going on with this sort of deconstructed language that might be insurmountable, because the things behind the words are so different for liberals and conservatives, which is how you end up being one or the other. The one thing liberals can't handle is being accused of anything remotely smelling like bias or hatred or intolerance, because that means they don't get the moral gold star, so some brilliant conservative went there. It's pretty sexy, but most especially brilliant because it takes excellence out of the equation altogether, and calls you a petty bitch for even considering it.
You know that I don't necessarily think that intelligence is the most important thing -- unless you're talking about public office -- but what's been going on since before the election seems, in this light, to be more about each side trying to play off the other side's weaknesses and fears. Liberals are afraid to outright tout the importance of intelligence and education, because that activates the insecurities of the conservative voter base, while conservatives are finally learning to play the victim, which plays on liberal guilt, while finally getting away from the whole "stupid is good" Sarah Palin thing. Which, I think, was just a ruse anyway, like gay marriage, to take the heat off the actual leadership, and pretty much mimicked the Lynndie England thing -- pin all your mistakes on one retarded white woman who can't defend herself, and the leadership stays clean -- down to the ongoing Bristol/Levi tragedy. So last night, while enjoying the Danny performance for what it was, I was also sort of mystified by the non-Danny response, which was that he would somehow lose votes. No, he will not lose votes for sucking, because we've never been voting for Danny's actual (very high, usually) quality of singing, but in fact for America.
Which is a vote against Adam Lambert, to be honest. Sucking last night was the smartest thing he could have done, not that I would accuse Danny Gokey of any kind of guile or basic intelligence, because it gets you more votes, not less, in this scheme. And playing it off this way -- "aren't we all having fun with how adorable and fallible I am" -- is what the cheap seats want. And I don't think this is somehow masterminded in any way, I just think Danny's genius is like Tyra Banks's genius: giving us not what we want, but what he wants, which turns out to be the same thing, because he just happens to be as unthinking and insecure as we are. So he's pulling a Luntz here, because what he's saying is that it's less important whether he was good, and more important that he's on our side. Which Adam is not, because Adam is elite and in league with Simon, who hates America. So this is either a show about who's more awesome, or a show about what America means.
You know I've always looked at it as both, because America herself is in fact awesome, but I would direct you at this point to what Danny's saying, which is that it's not about ideology at this point, just psychology: either Danny deserves to be praised simply for existing, or Adam deserves to be praised for doing something you and I cannot do. I think they're both valid, but I also think we cannot fix ourselves until we understand that the conflict lies here and nowhere else: not in tax breaks, not in people's wombs, not in my big gay bedroom, but in the fact that everybody does their best to live in the house of their best accomplishment and not leave it, no matter the cost. It's about the question of aspiration versus the question of satisfaction, which are two measuring sticks that will never equal out. If you pride yourself on intelligence and fairness, you're not going to hear the words coming out of anybody else's mouth, and if you pride yourself on success and values, you can't hear anything but that. It's tricky to see the validity in both, and I'm really bad at it, but I think that's the goal.
Anyway, the applause goes wild and even Simon approves of that bullshit, and Danny talks about it for a bit longer, and then everybody cheers for Allison and her feistiness last night, and she says that Simon was asking for both barrels, no disrespect. Which is all true, as far as it goes. So now we've got the queen of the Idol family, who has never performed on the stage, and we'll see how that works out. They show a lot of her awesome videos and play a few of her awesome songs. I still get a little flustered when I see the cover of Spellbound, because it's the best album ever written, and now we'll see her performing "I'm Just Here For The Music." The lights are all red and she's got a head mic going through a serious autotuner while she dances with a thousand dudes dressed like Adam Lambert.
It's an awesome spectacle, with scary smoke and words on the stage screens like ENOUGH and FINAL BOW? I don't understand the semiotics of this whatsoever, but I like the song, which is basically that she doesn't care about anything but dancing. Dancing and narcotics. They hold up big newspapers of Paula vs. Simon, which she's been selling for a while now and is just entirely irrelevant, and then she stage dives onto the homosexuals while barely even pretending to sing her song. Not the best song ever, but it's got good choreography and there are sparks falling, which is fun. It's a pretty amazing moment, no matter how fake it all is. Then the dancers turn into paparazzi and she goes, "Gentlemen! I'm just here for the music!" It's weird like Melanie Griffith's website.
Paula tells Ryan that the Idol stage is the most undeniably happy place in the world, which is debatable in the extreme, and then No Doubt sings "Just A Girl." I feel like the asylum is being run by monkeys at this point. I mean, this song is wonderful and it's nice to see No Doubt accept the fact that their day is reaching sunset, and Gwen Stefani is very sexy, but this is like Babylon in terms of all the ideas flying around. First the willful brainlessness of Danny and the willful brainlessness of Paula clearing the decks of all thought in favor of dancing around with gays, but now this song, which is like an ideological hand grenade but has been used and misused so much that it doesn't mean anything.
If "Imagine" is the worn-out anthem of humanism, "Just A Girl" is the worn-out anthem of third-wave feminism, and just like "Imagine" if you can reach a Zen place and pretend you've never heard the words before, it's still totally awesome. (This is also the case with Lady GaGa's "Just Dance," which if you actually read the lyrics is, while not a meaningful statement in any way, pretty much brilliant: "God, I'm fucked up. Where is my purse? I must remember not to leave my drink unattended. These drugs have a statue of limitations, which means if I keep dancing long enough I will get my shit together. Don't fall down, don't get raped, don't lose your phone, and everything will be okay." And that's just so true.)
"Just A Girl" was a good antidote to second-wave feminism, indicting that victim call while still radicalizing the continued inequalities on a social level: everybody needs to try as hard as they can because if even one person gets lazy, everybody loses. Being vigilant not about the things we're used to being vigilant about, but about the things we're not, which is the point of the millennium. "Just A Girl" was an important moment, because it acknowledged that while nobody in our generation can really be accused of seeing women as this bizarre other anymore, there are still issues on the level of particular interaction to be addressed. Not "please stop hurting me" but "can we please agree that we have a little further to go before any of us acknowledge me as a grown woman." It's a sublimely subjective declaration, and an indictment as much of women taking the easy way out as of men only allowing women the easy way out. I like that. I can't think of another song that expresses that much honesty, or is that timely even ten years later. Well, Return Of Saturn seems to continue that concept, but I have blinders about that album. Anyway, it is fun, and Gwen tells Ryan that they're touring now to get themselves together for a new album down the road.
But this week, of all weeks, when Allison the big dumb girl is going home? This week when we're down to that point we get to every year where the actual men are competing? When that whole "Bonnie Raitt and lesbians are the only women that can really play guitar" thing is happening? Allison Iraheta is not Jordin Sparks, or at least she does a good job of not being Jordin Sparks even though really she is Jordin Sparks with a whiskey voice. So you have this sort of idea about tiny pretty Kris being sort of a girl, and Adam being pretty much an awesome girl, and then there's Danny, who despite his glasses and prancing is not a girl. It's weird. I'm not sure of the message there. You were just a girl playing on a field with men? I don't like that and I honestly don't believe it, but come on you guys. Think harder. Be better.
Then there's a weird montage of various past Idols going to various places. Did they explain the point of this or what? I don't understand. I remember these people, vaguely. Archuleta worrying about parking, Jordin squeaking about something, Blake still trading on his fratboy charm, Bo Bice managing to hold onto life, Elliot's wonderful mom, Syesha having a nervous breakdown, Cook smiling and smiling. That was nice. What was it? I'm so confused.
Okay, there are three stools: that's the Top Three. So the stools mean the opposite of usual, and whatever happens now, Ryan tells us will be happening in random order. It's so obvious that Allison's going home that I don't even really understand the pomp and circumstance right now. "Cry Baby" was soundalike, but larger than life and fearless. "Dream On" was out of Danny's element, a horror movie, and risky. "Whole Lotta Love" was terrific, one of Simon's favorites, and befitting of a "rock god." Kris's "Come Together" was tryhard, artistic, but also like eating ice for lunch. Ryan will send one person to safety. Please God let it be Danny so we can drop this pretense at anything mattering. Or... KRIS. That's well-done, I like that. Send his ass to the stools and it makes everything a little scarier. Although Allison's gotta know at this point, even in her dumb little skull, that it's over. Kris almost weeps, and Ryan beams and tells us we still have to deal with DAUGHTRY before anything else happens.
Chris Daughtry, who three years ago this week was shock-booted, and has apparently become legit since then. He talks about how he put a real live band together and called it DAUGHTRY, and the first album had three Top Ten hits and was the best debut of all time or something. The band talks about how they have a new album coming out. I'm sure it's very good, in the same way that I can intellectually understand that people find him attractive despite looking like a police sketch artist's composite drawing of every guy in a band in the whole universe.
Not my kind of thing, because I always liked his voice but had very little in common with him otherwise. He likes things I don't like, so everything coming out of that, I am not going to like. Like now, very nice voice, regrettable eyeliner, douchebag line-beard, and sounding exactly like what he is: a blender smoothie of everything he likes. Three Doors Down, Live, Nickelback. Whatever, I know like four bands and those are three of them. Switchfoot and Lifehouse are in this same ghetto, but have actually compelling melodies that at least give them a better shelflife. DAUGHTRY, not so much. Bleep-bloop, platinum record in a frame, congratulations Chris, sorry we didn't invent the PoV early enough to save you, bleep-bloop.
Kris still can't believe he's safe after the walloping he got last night, and now who else is safe? It's in "random order," but at this point it's all just pretending it matters anyway. The person is Adam, which I guess makes sense if we're pretending Danny's fuckup last night had any kind of real impact on his future. Danny awkwardly puts his arm around Allison's shoulders, and they stare at Ryan for awhile, and then he's safe and they hug.
That's too bad. This has been like the best Top Six ever, so it's going to be a bummer every week because they all deserve to be there. And I mean, I understand voting and democracy and math, so I get it, but it's still a bummer. Oh well, Allison. The video journey is kind of painful because it contains a lot of voiceovering from Allison. Live Allison watching her history is much older-looking than she ever has been, and they do a good job of showing the best things about her: her voice and her incredible talent, her cuteness, her goodness. I wish they'd dropped in at least one or two references to the way she was constantly imperiled, because I do believe that voodoo worked on me. I love, love her voice, but I think I took her more personally because for so long it felt like nobody got that.
And then, of course, the more she toned down her true weirdness and roughed off the edges, the more people liked her. Which is the truth about every single thing in the whole world, but I feel like she kept her shit together really well. Considering where Adam started and where he is now, I feel like Allison possibly stayed truer to her shit. But then, where Allison started was not a very interesting place to begin with, so the road to accessibility was shorter. I never thought she'd make it this far, and that's nice to see her do it. Her singout is really powerful, and Ryan is more solicitous than usual with her, because she's awesome and very young, and she climbs all over Adam, and it's over.
week: Judges' choice, and personal pick. I predict we're going to be dealing with a lot of clichés in the Judgery pick because we always are, but I also think this sort of enforced limitation is the kind of thing that pushes artists into wonderful work, so for the first round I'm actually really looking forward to Adam, and I think Kris will do an awesome job with that too, depending on their choices. I'm more worried about Kris's choice, because it's going to be in that Jack Johnson/DMB/Jason Castro vein and no matter how good it is, I won't care about it. Danny, they are going to pick the most obvious thing they can think of, like Archuleta, and it's going to be a showstopper.
Personal choices, I think the standout for votes and awfulness will be Danny for sure, obviously, because he will pick the most obvious thing too, which works, and of course this will be the reason Kris goes home, but I'm intensely curious as to what Adam possibly will choose. It will either be something random and counterintuitive that he does something cool with, like Roy Orbison or something; something deeply personal and weird that will succeed based on his passion, like I don't know, "Flying Dutchman" or "Suspended in Gaffa," or something from Wicked, I can't say because honestly I still don't know what he's actually about because he's good at everything, but I'm thinking along the lines of Cook's "Innocent" or Giraud's "So Small"; or finally something completely hysterical that will get him talked about, like "Don't cha" or "Toxic" or "Umbrella."
Any case, I predict a sudden freezeout from the judges for one but not both of Danny's songs, underplayed damning-by-faint-praise of Adam's choices and huge audience response to both his songs, and Kris dying not with a bang but with a whimper. See you then.