Scene 1: A modestly appointed theatre in Los Angeles, California.
Seacrest: "Jennifer Lopez, given that each step in the journey to this stage has been marked by your self-dramatizing emotional undoing, my question is threefold..."
Tyler: "Wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?"
Seacrest: "...Threefold. First, are you going to make it. Secondly, are you suffering from the loss of control over this process now that America Decides. And third, what has happened to Carla Gugino. Nobody can tell me."
Tyler: "Why are you hitting yourself? Stop hitting yourself, America!"
Jackson: "Yeah, America! Why are you hitting yourself?"
Seacrest: "...The question stands."
Lopez: "I want to go home."
Scene 2: Pointless Badgering.
Seacrest: "How much did your earrings cost?"
Lopez: "Let me put it this way: My husband has not eaten in six years."
Seacrest: "Steven Tyler, you look like you're in need of some attention."
Tyler: "I just pretend they're clapping for me."
Seacrest: "You are just the worst, aren't you?"
Tyler: "Say the F Word, Ryan. Say it."
Ryan: "Fuck. Fuck. I can say that word, I don't care."
Scene 3: Arrival of the Children; Junebug sets the Tone.
(Junebug looks more like William Hung than ever before, should Mr. Hung ever find his way to Urban Outfitters. A heavily accessorized Jovany can't stop whiteboy-pointing from the second he steps onstage. Jordan is a part of the Rhythm Nation, Suckass Division, Bitchiness Regiment; heavily decorated after the Mai Lai melee that took young Jacee's life.
(Tim, he's just doing Tim. Brett as tee-niny Southern Belle. Durbin with everything louder than everything else, style-wise. Robbie Rosen's doomed smile -- little-known fact, his gums actually produce their own lanolin analogue, which operates much like petroleum jelly -- already beginning to ache. Scotty, still no reason. Stefano, whoever that is. Old McDonald, having some kind of EIEIO fit already. Jacob Lusk, somehow overdoing it just by waving. And Casey Abrams, looking remarkably vital. By which I mean awesome.)
Junebug: "Karaoke. Quirkiness. Portlandia."
(He sings "Superstition" without pronouncing a single word the way you say words. The influence of Tori Amos. Radical red kicks. A great deal of energy to match the dumb Mondrian color blocks shining out of every surface. Clearly having the time of his damned life. If Paula Abdul were here she's be twitching like Paul McDonald right now. In a post-Lambert world, we will all scream everything. We will communicate through screamings.)
Jackson, Tyler: "..."
Lopez: "You sure are spastic to sing so good. Maybe you can calm down now?"
Junebug: "Not a chance, little lady."
Jackson: "I agree with things that people say."
Seacrest: "Neat, nobody is tinier than I am. I feel like a giant! It reminds me of when Simon used to let me drink out of his tiny teacups. If I'd known how much that little kindness would come to mean to me, I would have been much less naughty."
Scene 4: Jovany, the Ship-Builder with Eyes at Permanent Half-Mast
(He sings, to his credit, the "crying shoulder" song from the Clifton-Leery Nuptials. Less to his credit, he sings this in the fashion of a person with a wasting disease. For such a physically powerful person he sure does seem to be inches from death... Even his showboating key change doesn't exempt him from J. Lo singing along as though to help him care about what is happening.)
Tyler: "You have muscles."
Lopez: "We're going to miss you, you big boring mountain of vest."
Jackson, verbatim: "I hate to be the one to kind of, uh, break up the apple cart..."
TiVo: bleep-bloop!
Jackson: "Why are you singing cover songs on this show?"
Jovany: "...What?"
Tyler, something indecipherable about: "Biscuits!"
Seacrest: "I cannot care about any of this."
Jovany: "If I'm as dumb as I look, then okay."
Scene 5: Let The River Run
(Even the music is confused as to whether Jordan is on American Idol or Project Runway during his package, discerning which is made all the harder by his content-free diva statements. He sings... Not sure, because he sings way too low to hear and then modulates this into a Muppet voice. Then he takes off his shirt and yells for a while, dancing like an uncomfortable gay stripper at a private bachelorette party. In the third act of the song he shots some more and tells us that he is sexy. The time signature changes for a fourth time, and he goes back into singing into his armpit, then falls on his knees calling out for his Lord. It is impressively awful.)
Steven Tyler, Age 74: "It wasn't like OMG OTT 4 me."
Lopez: "Um, who are you fooling?"
Jordan: "Absolutely nobody. I realized that early on, actually. It was a little wrenching."
Lopez: "It's kind of insulting, too. Because you're awful as a person, and then you also don't deliver. To make it in this business you have to be able to cash the checks that your mouth writes. You bounced this check. Ego theft-by-check. Rehabilitative seminar."
Jordan: "I was already thinking that. I thought it before you thought it. Also, my dad is Luther Vandross and he lets me fly his plane and also I can speak to the animals."
Jackson: "Why are you singing cover songs on this show?"
Jordan: "...What?"
Seacrest: "Do you think that you are Usher? Because you're more like a hotter version of Sisqo. Or Chris Tucker in The Fifth Element."
Jordan: "I think that mostly I was concentrating on my dance moves, because I don't know if you know this but Usher is mostly sound effects and dance moves."
Seacrest: "It's true, he is a hoax. But you're not even that, you're not even Usher. By any measure."
Jordan: "That is even meaner than you think it is."
Seacrest: "I bet you never even purchased an underage YouTube sensation from his Canadian mother and kept him in your basement like a Dennis Cooper novel. As if there is anybody in this audience who hasn't done that. Anyway, are you planning to improve, or just continue coasting on your ridiculous sense of self?"
Jordan: "What could I possibly say in response to that question?"
Scene 6: Whether You Love Tim Or Capital T-I-M
(Some damn Coke thing that is even dumber and more pointless than usual.)
Seacrest: "Please tell me that you have a personality or at least can appear interesting or lifelike."
Tim: "AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS? WELL I CAN TRY RYAN."
(He does that cute dance that Rob Thomas did in his first solo video where his feet are over a shoulder-length apart, plus wiggling. He sings some lame song about how we should always be happy and smile so we look deranged. I'm guessing this is that Mraz person or one of his brothers in that Mraz-type world. It's not Barenaked Ladies or Gin Blossoms insta-horrible, but it's in that zip code. Pointy pose. Ugly voice. Sad signs in the audience.)
Tyler: "That was lame as shit. Good thing you're hot."
Junebug: "Word, girl!"
Lopez: "For such a shitty song, you did a great job. But why didn't you do the Matt Giraud thing you are here to do? That was some ADD Abdul shit."
Jackson: "Why are you singing cover songs on this show?"
Tim: "...What?"
Seacrest: "That was actually a Rob Thomas song, yeah?"
Tim: "That's why I did my little dance."
Seacrest: "Everything was horrible for a little while, but it's over now. Check this shit right out."
Scene 7: Sea-Nymphs Hourly Ring His Knell
Thunder and lightning. Enter BRETT, like a harpy; claps his wings upon the table; and, with a quaint device, the banquet vanishes.
(He sings a Doors song like a kitten attempting to seduce a backhoe.)
Judgery: (Bemused.)
(Cupcake hands, hip thrusts, gender flipbook.)
Brett: (Still singing. Finishes singing, goes abruptly roaming around the stage and into the wings, giving Ryan Seacrest a case of the Horribles.)
Tyler: "Honey, it gets better."
Lopez: "You are a better woman than Beyoncé and myself put together, it was fucking awesome. I think this might be where America is at right now."
Jackson: "I'm unsure about so much at this moment."
Seacrest: "Brett, you... Oh, where are you going?"
Brett: "Ryan wants a hug? I am so there!"
(Runs into his outstretched arms, whispering how much he loves Ryan Seacrest like any sane individual; Ryan does not have the heart to explain that while hugs are dandy, it's more important that we all stay on our mark until he goddamn says otherwise.)
Brett: "I just kinda do whatever I want."
Seacrest: "I'm cool with letting you do whatever you want. But you need to understand how rare that is. Simon's still got pictures of the bruises I inflicted on Mikalah Gordon in the guise of a hug. And that one had meat on her bones. I could break you like a twig."
Brett: "I made little frogs! Hoppity-hop!"
Seacrest: "...Guys? I just realized that Brett Loewenstern is bonkers."
Scene 8: Do Not Sleep With Your Autistic Nephew's Therapist
Lopez: "Seacrest, don't question my Billboard standings. And don't you touch my shoulder bones ever again. I could break you like a twig, in turn."
(James Durbin has a baby, many neckties, and all the diseases that there are. Luckily, he is gorgeous, and not just a little bit charming. The song is very yelly and cock-rocky, but somehow it's still one of the best performances so far. The song is about how you have another thing coming. I think the Thing is: More chains for your chain wallet, Mister Rockstar. A perfectly executed rock jump, a standing ovation.)
Tyler: (Jealousy. Profanity. Ignoring the twitching.)
Lopez: "Watching you is like watching magic. From the inside to the outside of you. It is insane. INSANE!"
Jackson: "Thank you for singing a Judas Priest song I didn't recognize, freeing me up to judge it without inappropriate bias like I have been doing all night. Also, why do you have a scarf coming out of your ass, and can we see Ryan pull on it."
Durbin: "There is no real significance to this scarf." (More weird talk.) "I'm not sure I understand why we are discussing the scarf."
Jackson: "Help! Ryan! Conversational Viet Nam! No exit strategy!"
Seacrest: "...Thanks for waking us up, because you're insanely appealing and very good at this."
Durbin: "Let me tell you exactly what it is like to sing and perform under various circumstances and what was going through my head tonight before the performance versus now after the performance and then just the basics of music theory and then how to play the banjo before I answer that question."
Seacrest: "It was not a question. But you are great!"
Scene 9: Robbie The Robot Meets The Hooded Fang
(Long Island's own giant mouth-child puts a harmonica in his giant mouth and plays an entire symphony without using his hands. Then he sings the Sarah McLachlan song about how many dogs and kitty-cats are being murdered in their beds as we speak, and he sings this like a little boy would sing a song, if he were suffering an abdominal discomfort. Shoots for a run, whiffs it. Forgets how to use a microphone. Sounds like if you could get drunk at a Bar Mitzvah, how much better everything would be. Shoots for falsetto, basically nails it. Regains his confidence in the last eight bars. So much eyebrows.)
Tyler: "That was pretty, little lady. What I loved was that the audience was in the same room with me."
Robbie: "...What?"
Lopez: "Your singing tells a story. About cats and dogs being made into sausage."
Robbie: "That's the story I was trying to tell."
Lopez: "You are a better singer than Sarah McLachlan."
McLachlan: "Yeah let's have that fight, J. Lo."
Jackson: "You came off super dorky and squeaky and weird, like a little child."
Robbie: "Well sir, you are always super dorky and weird. At least I've got puberty in my future. Plus this all-ages poon pass I get from being everything anybody knows about Long Island."
Seacrest: "Well played. And mee-ow."
Scene 10: The Thunder Rolls & The Scotty Strikes
(Smoldering, thrombling, flibbertigibbet-inducing. Sets off car alarms outside the theatre. Birds take flight, confused. One of those goddamn A-Fed songs where the guy is writing to his kid a letter about how hard it is to be a trucker and then about sixty different towns and cities the truck might be driving through. Super cute faces, boring song. Which he thinks is sexy, when in fact it is just the banal facts of what it is like to be driving a vehicle.)
(But yet. This must be how you guys feel when the Ryan Starrs and whoever get up there and just blatantly boob themselves at you. It doesn't feel all bad but it doesn't feel all good either and also he's like ten.)
Stupid America: "We drink the sand because we don't know the difference!"
Tyler: "That was a good song for you to sing, despite showing no range and being the most boring song."
Jackson: "Can I bring up Jacee yet? And how Scotty killed him but tenderly?"
Lopez: "Not yet. I just think this is fun. I don't really care right now."
Jackson: "Your voice. It's low. I like that."
Scotty: (No idea but you can feel it in your sternum from a mile away, like an oil rig blowing out your arsonist stepson's eardrums.)
Seacrest: "We're going to work out our relationship eventually."
Scotty: "Not until I've pulled off about sixty Maroulises all over everybody's face."
Seacrest: "Yeah, we're gonna be fine."
LA's Hottest Club is Scene 11, which finally answers the question: "Stefano?"
(And the answer? David Archuleta, fifteen minutes after his testicles have descended. The performance is good, I mean the vocal is not great but he manages to play with the song -- about how girl you are amazing just the way you are -- in a fun way. And he is charming, for all the fact that I am going to forget him in five seconds.)
Tyler: "Your voice cut through the room. And you have a vein in your forehead!"
Stefano: "...What?"
Lopez: "You are consistent, in that I remember who you are halfway through the song every time. And I love how you're not awkward like everybody else this year."
Jackson: "Your face is like a peach I want to take a bite out of. Let's talk about your cracking ridiculous attempts to sing in your 'false,' which is my technical jargon for falsetto. I would like to hear you on the radio."
Seacrest: "Are you dating anybody or is there anybody you think is amazing just the way they are?"
Stefano: "All of the ladies out there. Love them just the way they are."
Seacrest: "That is exactly how I feel about the ladies."
Scene 12: Paul Struck Dumbass on the Road to Damascus, Or: Wake Up Maggie I Think I Got Something To Twitch At You
(Sometimes I have this dream where I'm just hanging out in my living room and I hear a horribly loud cough, like it shakes the rafters, and I look over there and something gigantic and shaggy and beautiful is not only sitting in the corner but has in fact always been there. It's not scary, or threatening: More like a really big responsibility. I always wake up from this dream exhausted.)
Tyler: "You dance around and act weird. That's what makes me interesting, too. You should try acting like a chronic masturbator on top of it."
Lopez: "Your fake-looking tan makes your giant white Chiclet teeth look like neon. This is distracting, because you are an attractive young man who seems bent on being unattractive: Forcing your face to do tricks it doesn't naturally want to do. It was also distracting in that you never stop smiling, because you are a desperate person."
Jackson: "I am wearing a leather jacket, so I totally know where you are coming from. You are totally different from everybody we've had on the show, such as Taylor Hicks who was never on this show. I also can identify the song and the artist of the song that you sang. Allow me to demonstrate."
Old McDonald: "You know what, I just love everybody and whatever. Whatever fairyland crap Brett said, only super cynical."
Seacrest: "This thing that is wrong with you: Is it catching."
(No, it is pot.)
Scene 13: Lusk, Caution
Team Seacrest: "You motherfuckers deserve this shit every week you vote for him. My disdain grows with every tortured note. Plus it throws off the recapper's Google Alerts, which are second only to Diet Coke in their life-giving nutrients."
Lusk: "I really just have no idea what my options are. This is the only way I know how to be."
(I don't make a practice of watching the RuPaul shows, but I think they are like this.)
(Also though, he fucking kills it. Burt Bacharach was born to write songs for Jacob Lusk. I will never stop talking shit about the guy, because he is ludicrous, but: Damn. I think a house literally became a home just now. I may have teared up a little.)
Tyler: "...Are you kidding me? WHY ARE YOU ON THIS SHOW."
Lopez: "Luther Vandross is my favorite singer. And I used to be sad he was dead, but now I don't really care anymore."
Jackson: "Trust! You're like him? But better. Also alive. Also the word 'false.' Also, that was just phenomenal. Normally these Top 12 shows are sort of a drag because everybody is still a human person and not a star yet, like they all just seem like somebody's cousin, but you seem more like a guest star from some future where you are already a millionaire and you're doing us a favor just by singing to us."
Lusk: "I am the most authentically nice person, also. If Ruben and Clay had a well-mannered giant drag queen baby, it would be me. People just hug me all day long, the width and girth and breadth of me, because I am so darling. It is a good life. Please stop being mean to me."
Team Seacrest: "Done. Dunzo. Dunhill. Dunkirk. Book Of The Dun Cow."
Real Seacrest: "Yeah, I'm a little intimidated by your star power. I feel like Ed Grimley right now."
Lusk: "I just feel like all the Care Bears."
Scene 14: The Tao of Dawson, the Te of Casey
(Casey Abrams is wonderful.)
Seacrest: "Don't you love Casey, everybody?"
Everybody: "Heck yeah we do!"
("I'll Put A Spell On You" is the song; I have no strong feelings about this song other than dislike, but look! It's Casey! The Judgery cannot look away from him; he becomes an underage bear bar James Brown. Where did he come from? Magic Town. Wonderville. Everybody goes ballistic. Tiny dogs hurtling through the air. Ladies gnawing on turkey legs. A woman removes her own head.)
Tyler: "I don't know what to say. I mean, I really don't. Let's keep talking until I say something. It's not working. That is because you are awesome. I wish I could tell you."
Lopez: "You are sexy, Casey. You have come back from your abdominal grave to reinvent this show. You are like a giant grinding us to make your bread. That is a metaphor."
Jackson: "You are like a shaman who transforms yourself into music. You are a three-wolf moon transforming into a car transforming into music. You are like Michael Jackson when he could be a panther, only your panther is different musical styles that are basically the same."
Casey: "Well, that's true enough."
Seacrest, impatient: "What, like you can't come running into my arms?"
Casey: "I weigh three Bretts and some change. Also, I have digestive problems. I was in the hospital moments before right now."
Seacrest: "Fart jokes are fun. In some ways I'm more advanced than most of humanity and you're all just evolving into me, but not in all the ways."
Casey: "Agreed. Plus, I can do whatever I want. I am so awesome I don't even know how awesome I am. It has yet to become the burden it is clearly fated to be."
Seacrest: "You are sexy, bro!"
Casey: "For that I'd like to thank our nation's burgeoning obesity epidemic and the flexibility it has lent the current male standard of beauty. Too long have men suffered under the cruel yoke of lookism. Tomorrow starts today. With my big old sexy gut."
Seacrest: "I'd like to thank my very serious girlfriend Julianne Hough and her very insane-looking brother, who is less of a friend and more of an acquaintance of mine if we're being honest."
Casey: "So what you're saying is, you think I'm sexy."
Seacrest: "Insofar as everybody thinks you're sexy, sure. We live in a consensual reality, and I live at the nexus of that reality and I'm comfortable with whatever that reality tosses my way, yeah, I'm secure, sure, I can admit I think Brad Pitt is an... Wait, what were we talking about? Fuckabees."
Casey: "Aww yeah. Baby, that's exactly what I'm talking about."
Seacrest: "You are a stealth playa, my friend. Mad props."
Casey: "You really are the Wonderwall. Perhaps all of Jacob's prophecies will come true this year. Quick, where's Colton?"
Team Seacrest: "Too soon, bro. Way too soon."
Scene 15: Reprisals & Recollections
(Junebug got the night started with some old-school Paula Pandering; Jovany was a soulful meat cabinet; Jordan choked at just the most ironic moment; Tim is a haircut; Brett is whatever the fuck Brett is, whatever Stevie Nicks shit he's on; Durbin was surprisingly fantastic; Robbie was confirmed to be the Chicken Little; Scotty drove a truck through the lowest parts of the audible spectrum while licking your face suggestively; Stefano I can't recall; Old McDonald had a farm, full of tremors and whines and the illusion of character; Lusk pulled it out and successfully avoided waving it around; and Casey was Casey all over your business.)