What was that t-shirt line in like 1990, early '80s, a goofy face with Tintin hair that went straight up? It was a line drawing that looked kind of like Doug. I never figured it out. I remember seeing Ellen wearing it so I thought it had to do with LA. Any case, Ryan's hair is looking more and more shellacked into that hair every week. Usually I want to pat him on the head but lately? Not without some kind of bleach-infused baby wipe or something handy. Also, Paula Abdul is wearing long black gloves and looks like a bad guy from Masters Of The Universe.
The theme is The Year You Were Born. I remember this from last year and I said it would be "Magnet & Steel." I stand by that. In fact, on Saturday without even knowing or caring about this week's theme, I sang it to myself for my birthday. Ramiele was a troublemaker of a kid, and a biter. Cool. After she turned three, her mom tells us, she got her shit together and started singing karaoke. Then she and her mom both say debut the Pinoi way, "deboo," and settling a long-standing argument between me and my friend the Stove about whether or not that was a Filipino thing, a Canadian thing, or a Degrassi thing where the actors on Degrassi just don't know how to say it. (Shout-out to my girl Duana Taha! Represent!) Obviously it is the first one, but you can't tell Stove anything. I wonder if Ramiele also took a drug dealer to her debut and later fake-married him even though he caused a school shooting and gave everybody throat gonorrhea and made a teenage father kill himself and dated lesbians, like on that very awesome show. And if so, I wonder if she can introduce me to Spinner and Paige, the two secret loves of my entire life.
Sadly, none of the above, but she sure can take a crap all over "Alone," last seen proving Carrie Underwood's worth on a stage much like this one, only smaller and not a space rocket. Her voice is thin at the beginning, not like she's starting at the bottom but more like she's nervous or not feeling it, and then the band comes in and it's not that great, and then she just kind of screams, and then she clashes with the backup singers, and then screeches and sounds like shit some more. Check out how Paula's totally going to say how cute she looks, first thing. And I mean, she's pretty cute but she's not looking particularly cute tonight.
Randy laughs nervously and notes that she is ill, and he is ill, but that doesn't excuse her awful perf...I mean, hold up. Because Paula looks easily fifty times spookier and crazier and stupider than ever before. I'm talking silver mesh one-shoulder top, long black gloves, weird battle pony, and her makeup is like, her makeup...she looks mentally ill, like someone has been hitting her in the face. She also seems to be ill physically. One "big voice/tiny girl" later, and then Simon's like, "It wasn't as bad as Randy said." It was worse, Simon. Come on. He tells her that the shrieking was pretty bad, but then, she was totally appalling last week too and got through it, so whatever. Ramiele smiles like that was a compliment, because she is sick and doesn't know what the hell is going on. Randy says that Simon is going to understand how totally crap it was, after the fact, but can't co-sign Simon's statement that at least it wasn't as bad as last week. Ramiele baby-talks and it's stupid and let's do this already.
Jason can't pronounce "Aries," and also it's his birthday. When he was a baby, he was freakishly beautiful, in case that shocks you. He goes on to talk at length and it is very hard to listen to, because Jason Castro is kind of boring and I don't know that he has the talking kind of intelligence. I bet he's a fucking master at hugs, though. He then sings my very favorite Sting song, "Fragile." Let me give it a listen. Well, it's kind of earnest, and I still don't think he understands like every single word of the song, but at least he's not grinning like a fucking asshole for no reason, like last week. Instead, he's singing the chorus twice in Spanish like an asshole for no reason. He still has one of the best voices and as far as him getting it, the "it" being like light and sound and the world and stuff, I try to grade on a curve. There's obviously something that he's good at, and he has discovered it. I'd toss a fiver in his guitar case at least.
Randy is like, "Yet again that was quite nice." Paula says the same thing in crazy talk. Simon tells him this is his second bad week in a row, and mentions that it was total buskery. It was clumsy, too laid back, and too much up his own ass. Please, they all three beg, and I do too, that he will...Sara Ramirez! AIEEEE! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! ["Seriously, that's how I reacted to that too. Way to sit in the audience and show up the entire program, girl." -- Joe R] Sorry. What were we talking about? Oh, I don't know. Neither does Jason. Ryan asks if he understands what the judges just said to him a moment ago, and Jason is like, "Seriously? Not really. Did they say something? Where am I?" Okay, kid. Get some rest.
Syesha was born, verbatim, "in Bridgeport CT on a cold winter's day on January 22, 1987. Heh heh heh." You can either be born in Connecticut, or you can be born on a "cold winter's day," but if you do both you're a certain kind of jerk. She also does the baby cry thing again, and she still thinks it's cute. I have no patience for these children today, I need to be nicer. I just can't. "I'm still a kid! I have a mellow side and a mature side! I am also goofy! Just crazy!" She's the least cute cute girl I have ever seen in my life. I used to think she was boring but now I just think she's Carly with a better voice.
And I mean, it's a much better voice. One of the best in the group. Her "If I Were Your Woman" is very lovely, technically proficient, beautiful, controlled, pushes every button you are supposed to push. It's practiced and impassioned, in a fake way. And it is very, very boring, and reminds me of why I used to hate this show until this year. Because -- she's going to be going on for a while, I can already tell, so let's talk -- I am very excited about the show this year. I enjoy watching it. I watch the ones I'm not recapping, brother. That's intense. I mean, I'm not picking up the phone or trolling the David Cook thread or anything, but I'm down. And then there's Syesha. Randy tells us how great it was, and Paula says it's about how memorable it was and how she has flipped the script on America and everything, and says it was pitch perfect and brilliant, and it was. Simon tells her that we have found her limits. And I guess so? But she didn't break the limit or anything, it was awesome, and Paula is weirdly right. Ryan notes that Paula knew it was a home run from the first note, which answers the question of what does Ryan do inside the cuckoo clock when he's not popping out at you. He watches Paula. I would have rather watched Paula than that lovely, boring performance.
Chikezie! His song selection journey this week was pretty crazy because he was "tore apart" last time he did a ballad, but the band and Byrd and everybody told him to follow his heart and not the judges' recommendations. The song he will be singing, "If Only One Night," resonates deeply with him. He was born at the end of September to totally cute parents. He is adorable squirming around during the interview, simultaneously chilled and wiggly at once. And the song? Technically beautiful, he has a great voice and he's really charismatic, but it's a boring as hell song, and the Muzak of the strings and the big notes and the whatever. What I would not give for a banjo at this moment in time. He doesn't even have to include it in the song, he could like, throw it at a target while he was singing and get $50 for charity every time. Or he could throw the banjo at Kristy Lee Cook and I will give him $50. Because I have heard a thing, not having watched the episode yet, about the Colonel, and if it is true, I am going to fucking. Freak. Out.
Randy tells him that it was boring and uninteresting and old-school, and also old-school, and not the creative Chikezie of years past. Paula, again, is stuck on how great he sounded. Girl, we are so past that. Simon agrees: cheesy, no touching the audience like fucking Clay Aiken, and Chikezie talks back again about how he is singing for the audience and isn't that beautiful, and Simon's not fucking buying that donkey for one hot minute, and then calls him a copycat. Eze, if you had let it go he would have stopped at cheesy, but no. Chikezie, make it easy on Chikezie!
Brooke was born June 2, a Gemini, the eldest of four. Her mother is freaking gorgeous, and they tell a story about how Brooke did the whole weird thing piano kids do with the playing by ear instantly like a freak. Do you ever think about how you might be freaky good at something that won't be invented for many years? I bet you are. That kind of sucks for you, actually. I'm sorry I brought it up. I'm sorry this episode is happening, and I'm sorry I'm telling you about it. Let's just pretend it never happened, okay?
"Every Breath You Take." Brooke starts at just a tiny little, a bijoux tiny amount of off. What is that, like a half-step? She gets it immediately and starts over, which she can do because it's just her and piano at the beginning. It's not perfect, but it's not like it's going to cost her votes, because her Brookeness I think has transcended the actual performances to a certain extent. Her voice sounds like Brooke's voice, which means it's totally beautiful, and her timing and phrasing are nothing special or out of the ordinary. Which kind of bums me out, because it's like...the creepiest song in the universe. ["Ask me sometime about when I was a kid and thought that song was about God. Which probably explains why I'm no longer religious. Anyway..." -- Joe R] And Brooke is like the opposite of that. She is the uncreepiest thing in the universe, and when they meet, there should be an explosion, and instead it's like at the Four Seasons when the girl plays the piano. Technically beautiful and totally boring. The difference between her and everybody else tonight is that I might listen to it again.
Archuleta. Ryan's like, "People think you're gay. This is something I have been dealing with for a while, so I'm going to walk you through it with a minimum of awkwardness and total suavity, because I have the key to defeat this misapprehension. By the time we are done here, you will have people scoffing that anybody ever thought you were gay, just like with me. I have got this one covered." What occurs is not fit for human eyes, but let's just say it involves making not only David but the poor little girl sitting with David's Dad out in the audience both nearly barf from the fear and total awkwardness that Ryan will never understand, because he thinks that's just how life is. Then poor little soulless wind-up David Archuleta tries to tell us about himself, but all that there is to him is the voice, so instead he just names his siblings and then shows us a video of him dancing with his sister when he was little, and Ryan comes back to this fantasy Prom date he has invented for David, and it's weird, and finally the song.
"The Voice" is not a song with which I am familiar, shockingly enough, but I could believe that David wrote it. "We're all someone's daughter or someone's son/ Please don't shoot another person with a gun/ Aaaaaaaah Oooooooh/ We are not going to live in silence or in fear/ The thing about daughters or whatever again/ Please don't shoot each other." Idol gives back every fucking second thanks to this kid. The funny thing about his performance this week is that it totally sucks in a way that has nothing to do with the stupid sucky song. The pitch is off, he misses like ten notes altogether, and then screams. Randy calls it a strange choice, but it proved that David sings songs. Paula doesn't know the song either because it is Australian, and laughs that he didn't pick an American composer, which would make sense except for the two-week ass-beating by the Beatles we all just went through. Simon points out that the performance totally sucked and was like a theme park show surrounded by animated creatures. Um, just like every week? Simon says it's not him, and then totally calls David's scary Dad out for picking that shitty message song for his son in between beatings.
Kristy Lee Cook. Here we motherfucking go. KLC says that her parents won't tell her any details about her birth, I'm assuming because Ruth Gordon was involved, or else just because they're as bummed about it happening as we are. She tells us about this one time that she wore a bathing suit. Why are these people so boring? What the hell? She's like, "Eventually I stopped annoying my family." That's nice that they let her think that.
Even Ryan has a hard time keeping his salad down when introducing the following monstrosity: "Singing 'God Bless The USA,' Kristy Lee Cook." And she does the fucker right, dude, with like red white and blue shit happening everywhere and a serious no-kidding stars and garters flag waving in the background. She heads over to one side of the stage and saves some puppies from Nazis and knits a doily for our boys in Iraq and paints a sign saying "Cancer Is Bad," and then on the other side of the stage, Our Lord Jesus Christ gives her a high five and he's like, "Remember that time I was walking on the beach and then there were those footprints? Thanks, Kristy Lee Cook."
America is awesome. When you trot out this bullshit sentimental warmed-over brainless hateful crap, you are seriously disconnecting yourself from America and why it's great. It's like Hallmark cards: the opposite of caring. You cannot let somebody else tell you what your heart says. Just by singing this song, the Colonel is saying that she hates America. The real America that is made with blood and bravery and strength and love, the real America that demands that you draw your circle as wide as you can and spend every day serving it with your hands, that goes right out the fucking window when you pass the buck to some stupid shit song like this. And you know who eats it up, because it's always the same fucking people that eat this vomit, are the people who are too lazy to think about America or love her in the first place. I hate this fucking song, I hate this stupid girl, and I hate that this is happening, because my whole theory about how this show reflects the wider culture cuts both ways and I don't want to think about that. These are our people and they deserve to be loved, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let anybody tell me that this is the best that we can be. We are more than this.
And the funny thing is, it was her best performance, musically. Randy takes it that way, Paula takes it the idiotic way you knew she would -- "poignant" and "reverent" are two words she uses -- and Simon calls it "the most clever song choice I've heard in years." Word, and gross, but whatever. She sang it good. Ignorance and unthinking sentimentality are the very idolatry that keeps America in the mud, but hey. She got 'er done.
I have never looked so forward to David Cook in my life. Born a Sagittarius (duh) in 1982 with a giant stupid head like a melon monster, and his parents took pictures of him every five seconds. His hair has never once looked good in his whole life, but at least we know his head started out that size. Singing Chris Cornell's version of "Billie Jean," it begins: tuneless and sad and exactly like every other song he's ever sung. Which is to say that it's dependable and takes a while to get started. I don't want to compare him to DAUGHTRY because that goes to a "cover of a cover" place, which the show is finally over worrying about and which was never the point in the first place, but in terms of him taking any old song and doing it exactly the way that he does all songs, that's very DAUGHTRY. And I suppose if you've not heard a lot of music in your lifetime, this is probably very interesting, but to me it just sounds like a chopped and screwed version of a pretty distinctive song that manages to leach everything enjoyable out of the original (the original-original, I mean) and turn it into a big fucking wizard rock show like every other time. Lots of screaming and dirgelike stomping. I wanted to smack him last week with the rock-god poses and everything, but this is almost worse just because it's so boring, for no good reason.
The judges: brave, and original. And it was neither, it was exactly what he's been doing all along. Kind of like how "You Give Love A Bad Name" was boring for me with Blake, because it's that same kind of unsubtle deal where it's the same thing you always do, turned up to eleven so that people who are on the fence or I guess not onto the game are like, "Now I get on the bandwagon because I understand what you are doing here." And just like with Blake, it's kind of disappointing because "Hello" was so very good, and Brooke's falling apart after "Battlefield" to a certain extent, so maybe this isn't the year after all. Maybe year is when the future starts. I am getting so tired of waiting! Maybe week is the future, though. That's a possibility too. I still have a great deal of faith in David Cook nevertheless. I'm just going to be staring at my new Harold & Kumar 2 poster until he fixes this. You know the one.
Rewind! Ramiele was "Alone" with her illness and her voice that went, regrettably, "bye-bye," with Ramiele, also regrettably, to possibly follow; Jason Castro proved how "Fragile" his charms might end up; Syesha sang a very shocking-elimination joint; Chikezie went backwards to his boring self; Brooke did the second-worst she's ever done; Michael Johns did his best with what God and Queen gave him, which also meant going back to when he was good; Carly was a total eclipse of enjoyment; David Archuleta might never recover from the past three weeks; KLC can eat an entire bag of dicks with Thousand Island; David Cook managed to be unoriginally original yet again. Maybe this was the worst episode of the whole series, maybe last week holds that privilege, but I really hope week is awesome. I just started liking this show!