So since we last talked some shit has happened in Japan. You know how we bombed them that time, and it was the worst thing probably that ever happened on this planet? And it is on us still? Well, what happened is that nature recently decided to do about sixty awful things at once to top us. So it's real bad. I would say that of the information available to us, I am aware about maybe 5%. I don't feel great about that, I'm just telling you. Compared to Steven Tyler, I cannot feel terrible about that.
Mostly I'm afraid less about my NPR cache and more that the entire archipelago will become untenable and they'll have to move to China, where either they will be victim to weird Chinese shit and then no more Japan -- which sucks because Japan has always been its own little badass planet with the power of 100 bigger countries to create its own culture, history, crazy, etc. -- or it'll be more of a Middle America situation, where China and Japan become one single bad-idea superpower, like a generation from now. Which, in that case, it's pretty much the end of our bullshit entirely. Also kind of sad, in its way.
So luckily Ryan Seacrest and the Judges of American Idol are going to fix that. After a horrible moment where Tyler goes, "There's something wrong in the world today... hey there." I don't have one thing against charity, as you know, but I also don't have much to say about what it takes for a monolith like this or BP to get their asses in gear, because it sounds like I'm bitching when I'm not. The only thing I hate more than apocalypse/conspiracy talk is looking a gift horse in the mouth, even when that horse is owned by Rupert F'ing Murdoch.
Ryan welcomes "officially" the Twelve, and don't you know they're the same kids this week and Lauren Alaina is still here and James Durbin is still twitching and on the far right of the stage is Lusk, which gives me a not-safe feeling frankly, even though as you know I have decided to support him despite being, like literally, everything I usually hate about this show. He's just so nice and he's just so... Doing it.
Jacob Lusk to me is like: You have a urinal, okay. And then Marcel Duchamp comes along and puts that urinal in an art gallery, so now it's art. I'm not like trying metonymically to link Jacob Lusk and urinals, I just can't think of a better example of art: How on one side of the glass you're like, "This is barf" and on the other side you're like, "China Chow, you are right, Jackson Pollock is a genius. Thanks for explaining it. Now I can marry Jerry Stahl like we all assumed would happen." You know? I don't think Rothko is art in any way, it's not earned, but I do like looking at his paintings, so who's the asshole. Usually it is me. Same deal with Jacob Lusk: I hate absolutely everything he does and what he is about, from what I can tell, but damn if he doesn't get it just under the wire.
So Lusk being last right now makes me really nervous, because they arrange them in terms of what makes the best show, not -- I feel like I say this one thousand times a year, so I apologize -- who they want to win or whatever, which means somebody looked at whatever wondershit he's going to perpetrate tonight -- that I should hate but probably will love -- and said, "That's our showstopper." Yikes, right?
Naima's family: "We are the most 5% of all the Five Percenters that ever existed."
Naima: "I do all the family things that my family does, plus even more."
Generally: "We strive."
Pre-package: "This is going to be absolutely fucking awesome. Trust."
By Any Means Naima
Naima is the way to start a show, I would say, totally. But it can't happen every week, so it's nice that it's happening this week. I don't know if you've noticed, but I kind of love Naima. Her whole thing, her shtick, the whole deal: Love it. She has some chat with Jimmy Iovine and her mom ends up being the most interesting person of the three of them. Also, gorgeous. The actual performance is, once again, so about the amazing production elements -- Rihanna beats, onstage behavior -- but she's learning.
And she's so talented, and admirable, and plain delightful, that I hope we give her the time to figure out the cheesy, whorish things this show actually requires. Because in a season chock full of self-consciously authentic people -- which is to say painfully earnest people, which is to say my people -- I still worry more about Naima than even Casey. Because I think she thinks she's got it gamed, and I am not so sure, so she might be overstepping at the same time she's doing exactly and precisely what I always wanted? I maybe can't explain it. Her performances have not, not once, borne out my love of her, and I say this knowing that the only person with more full-blooded belief in Naima than me is Naima. Which is not the best-case scenario.
Tyler: "You've got a sorcerer's grasp for melody, girl."
Lopez: "I am tired of letting you slide on singing not-great while being awesome."
Music: "Yeah, let's have that fight, J. Lo."
(But seriously she's not wrong.)
Jackson: "Honestly though, I have insightful things to say, and not only that but also to build on what my fellow judge was saying, which is that you are so into performance that you let the actual singing slide, and hello Blake Lewis, that singing part is important."
Yours Truly: "Nice. Well done. Well done, Randy Jackson. You are being awesome."
Yours Truly: "This night is starting off splendidly! Everybody is behaving great, which is my way of saying that everybody is doing what I think they should do. Because that way everybody wins."
Ryan: "The only person that is true for is: Me. I am the Joan Holloway of reality. up: Paul and Thia. The most and least interesting people, in the most and least offensive ways respectively."
(Naima admits that singing is part of singing; Old McDonald has always been this adorable and has always fought it this hard. Picture of Paul's face imposed on a picture of himself as a child dressed as a cowboy; surprise, it looks like a fucking nightmare because that is what is actually happening. Fake laughs, fake smiles, fake everything.)
I don't know if I mentioned this yet but it's the week where they sing the song from the year they were born. Since I decided for New Years' that I would no longer consider year of birth for people, it's tough. Especially here because I do love the song of Old McDonald Baby's birth, "Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues." Not for the gross "laughing like children, rolling like thunder" thing which was interesting ten years ago, but the whole scope at once: Falling in love, laughing like children, ending like grownups, the whole thing. I do not think Old McDonald really understands the scope of this song.
Diary Of A Wimpy Paul McDonald
(A mask of a baby giving birth to a baby through its baby mouth, underneath the clown-diamonds painted on its cheeks; the sound of cracking porcelain as this song comes pouring out of its face and slow-motion smashes its baby clown face and pours gelatinously down the wall underneath the clown-baby-mask from which it issues and it burns through the wall and into the concrete and what's left is just corroded wisps and this smell.)
Lopez: "That was totally awful."
Old McDonald: "I know!"
Lopez: "But I loved it! I guess."
Jackson: "It was shitty and you are gross!"
Tyler: "I am shitty and gross also!"
Seacrest: "I have no time for any of this. I hate touching Paul."
Paul: "The reason I sound totally sick and gross like a vomiting ghost is because I have an illness! Specific to this week -- not the illness from which I usually suffer that makes me sing that way at all times."
Thia Retical Legitimacy
(Was born literally three minutes ago, and we talk forever about some Whitney Houston song called "I Will Always Love You" that is not the one you're thinking of, and her parents are awesome, and then Jimmy Iovine talks to her about the song she's actually singing, which is the theme song from Avatar.)
Nah. "Colors Of The Wind" is an important song to me because of the worst/best date I ever went on, which was this cowboy dude at this cowboy dude bar, and I was pretending I didn't know how to play pool because that is how you do it -- always, but especially when you're on some cowboy fantasy date that is ridiculous already -- and then suddenly it was karaoke night in this cowboy bar?
And so then suddenly, another kind of suddenly, this giant dude formerly crying about his dad -- because welcome to dating -- is like, singing to me about the colors of the wind and the frigging blue corn moon and I'm like, "Sold. It cannot get more retarded than right now, so you are allowed to take me home. Tonight I can handle this, because it cannot get weirder, so let's see where this white rabbit is headed."
Fast-forward past some equally amazing things we don't need to talk about but were pretty eye-opening as far as what might happen to a person once he signs off on the line that says ok whatever, and then there was a part where I thought maybe dude was dead, but then he woke back up and said, in this exhausted Ennis Delmar voice, "Well. I guess I better put my boots on."
And that's what this was kind of like.
Lopez: "Are you kidding me? You're already this Sacagawea bullshit and then this?"
Ryan: "I think we should all remember that awesome vocal coach that knew for a fact Thia both couldn't handle this show, and might win it. The roadkill one 'From Hell.'"
Everybody: (That was intense. She rules though.)
Blue, in the audience: "Love me, hate me, you're all idiots."
Thia: "No, she was awesome. TV is funny because they made it look like she was Myra Hindley but really she was just kind of awesome. Did you not see the hot mess I was with in auditions? I wanted to hit her twice as hard as Blue. Don't be silly, TV. Silly TV!"
Ryan: (Thirty-seven adorable things. I can't even.)
When People Were Smaller & Lived Near James Durbin
Does Durbin know who Kate Hudson is? And more importantly: Who cares? Durbin, Stefano, Casey and Paul have formed a pretend band, it's super interesting. Mom talks about how he had a doll, and we pretend that Free To Be You & Me never happened.
Seacrest: "Wonder how James happened? Let's watch a video that doesn't really explain it."
Iovine: "You gross bitches have given everybody on the show diseases, so stop kissing people in your mansion."
Durbin: "Literally the only thing I am about is how married I am. Also watching ceiling fans."
(Crazy hot James Durbin sings a pitchy but inventive version of "I'll Be There For You" by the Bon Jovis. It doesn't matter because he's the quasi-straight version of Adam Lambert this show needs desperately for him to be.)
Tyler: "Your name is James Durbin. You sang songs. Homophobia. Let's talk about me!"
Durbin: "I learned it by watching you."
Tyler: "Stop singing pop music! I prefer music more like my music! Which defines pop."
Durbin: "Fine, I will sing Aerosmith in the finale."
Tyler: "Profanities! I wish I was not elderly!"
Lopez: "Since this isn't about you, Steven, let's say this was good."
Jackson: "Thank you for not screeching."
(For real.)
Durbin: "Let me tell you all the details of everything that I am wearing and where the things were made and how leather works and how denim works and how music works in detail before I answer your question."
Seacrest: "There actually wasn't a question. But you are adorable!"
My Name Is Not Groupermouth So Watch What You Say
(Comes from some kind of adorable bluegrass band of a family; is great. Not singing Alicia Keys: Also great.)
Haley: "I have inherited Ashthon's ability to not talk sense."
Iovine: "Also me."
(She sings "I'm Your Baby Tonight" and it is forceful and great but weirdly off-pitch and also baby-voiced in parts. I think there's a problem with the monitors because the people who don't usually have a problem with the singing part of the singing, are making the majorest problems. Nice, jazzy finish; still too much face.)
Lopez: "Let's talk about how she looks in the third person because I have nothing nice to say at this point. Please act real for a moment. Being legit should be like breathing. Imagine that you are from The Block."
Jackson: (Sounds and noises.)
Seacrest: (Fixes her makeup, it's rather cute.)
Jackson: (Turns this cute moment into a gay joke; repeats this stupid joke one million times, because nobody is laughing, because it is dumb.)
Seacrest: "Whatever, okay. Her makeup was fucked up and she's on TV right now, so I don't really think it's worth commenting on."
Jackson, between still making that one joke: "Haley, I wish you would pick one song and keep singing it instead of being talented and interesting."
Tyler: "Do more things. But also less things."
Haley: "That is all I am trying to do. Also my face, same deal."
(After the break, Haley makes a joke about how her giant mouth is in charge of our lives; we continue to pretend that Stefano is a thing.)
The Zipless Tefano
(Totally awesome sequence where he jokes about the horrible songs he had to pick from like Milli Vanilli and NKOTB and other things that are not relevant. He comes off as very, very clever and super cool. His parents also seem great. And then he duffs it because the song is "If You Don't Know Me By Now," which is a great song, but kind of answers the question nobody asked as far as lameness, and also the question of, "How many unnecessary heh noises and ho noises and shouties and lip-licking opportunities." And the answer to that question is: "All of them.")
Lopez: (Sings along with the entire song in a ridiculously heartfelt manner, like her brain is exploding.)
Stefano: (Same deal.)
Tyler, even though it's not his turn: "Overthetop overthetop overthetop."
Jackson: "Best performance of the night!"
Lopez: (Noises.)
Are they kidding: (Nope.)
Tyler: (Uses the word "famouser," which is not a word, but okay because he's a nightmare creature from the Henson workshop anyway.)
Lopez: "Keep singing to me! But not in the first-person sense of 'me,' because I just realized how that sounded!"
Seacrest: "Yeah, Stefano's mom. Fuck up my whole night with your getting involved. Come up onstage. It's not like the donations to Japan will suffer."
Pia Zasnora
(Is the pretty Snookie. So tired of her.)
"Where Do Broken Hearts Go?" is pretty much the same song as Stefano just sang, so fuck it, let's do this. But like, a gay house disco club version, because that doesn't sound annoying at all.
Pia: (Nails it, for what that's worth. This joke of an idea? Great job. Bit of a theme with old Pia. Don't you wonder what would happen if she actually was a person one time?)
Tyler: "Horrendous, typical overstatement!"
Lopez: "I just invented coke and now I can't stop talking!"
Jackson: "I love yelling too!"
Everybody: "Please keep watching this show!"
Seacrest: "This is fun. I like how stupid everything is right now. Give me a hug."
"Okay But That's The Only Think I Know How To Do Is Lock Them Doors!"
Seacrest: "What if Scotty sang Travis Tritt? Would that fuck up your mind with how unbelievable that is?"
Scotty's dumb sexy face: "Uh-huck, yep! Yee-haw!"
Tyler: (Some folksy piece of shit epigraph that means less than nothing, of which he has proven himself to be the unfathomable source.)
His parents: "Babylockemdoors and turn the lights down low! That's the only words we know! Or can read."
(Scotty is the hot disingenuous boy-version of Pia that we've come to expect. It sounds like you think, he's dressed like how you think, he does his weird smug smirky face thing he does. Remember that old black and white show of Dennis The Menace? He doesn't look like that kid at all, but yeah.)
Lopez: "You were better in rehearsal."
Jackson: "I met Travis Tritt!"
Both of them: "I love how you're experimenting and doing all kinds of different things!"
(With a straight face they talk about this like it's real.)
Karen, visiting this week from the Phantom Zone
Seacrest: "What Selena song will you be singing this week and why are you dressed like a crazy witch from space?"
Karen: "I am from MySpace, which doesn't even exist. Don't confuse yourself."
Seacrest: "Karen. Why are you really here? This macabre façade has gone on long enough."
Karen: "It has to do with Nick Jonas."
Seacrest: "I'm not sleeping with him."
Karen: "Wait, what?"
(Weird Celtic music while we meet Karen's parents, for some reason; surprise, her parents are awesome. Karen goes from ten to fifty to twenty to thirty, always very frisky and always very confusing.)
Iovine: "So does Taylor Dayne speak Spanish? What's the deal?"
Karen: "No, I am doing a whole thing where I don't sing in Spanish this one time."
Iovine: "Impenetrable metaphor about horses and blindness. We good?"
Karen: "I still don't know who you are."
(Sings "Love Will Lead You Back" like it is a Selena song, while dressed as a crazy witch from space. How come?)
Jackson: "Yo. You started singing good right when you hit the chorus and I remembered what song this was."
(He's not wrong.)
Tyler, verbatim: "Hey you! I love it when you break into your ethnic what-it-isness."
Jackson: "That is actually racist. What you just said is fully racist."
Tyler: "I'm just like this clueless pointless nerdy dad, please don't judge me."
Lopez: (Busts into her ethnic what-it-isness.)
Karen: "I don't know what you mean, but thank you."
Lopez: "Basically, I'm saying don't suck and stop sucking. Essentially, do something other than sucking."
Seacrest: "You know Casey Abrams? And you know how nobody has ever sung Nirvana on this show? Do I really have to tell you what's about to happen?"
CORPORATE MAGAZINES STILL SUCK STILL
(Tamyra, doing nothing with her life as usual; sitting also with that screaming woman from the dancing show that everybody keeps telling me isn't the horrible half-hour cooking yummo EVOO monster lady.)
Parents, Which Is To Say The People That Gave Us Casey Abrams: "Casey was born about ten years later than is appropriate, considering he is the perfect boyfriend for a person. And the real irony is that, as his weirdo genius adorable parents, we waited until we were fifty thousand years old to have Casey. When we could have had Casey at any time."
Casey: "I would also like to have children one billion years from now."
Team Seacrest: (Can handle that.)
("Teen Spirit." Not his best, but also not the kind of thing I feel okay talking about. This song disqualifies me. He plays electric bass and is awesome Casey some more. Casey, your existence continues to be unfair to those of us that you know what, whatever, new topic. Happy to have met your parents.)
Tyler: "That's the goop the great stuff is made for."
(Yep.)
Lopez: "That was balls out, wasn't it."
(Yes sir.)
Jackson: "You're still sexy."
(...Yeah. No comment.)
Jackson: "Speaking as a person who has [bleep-bloop], my opinion is [surprisingly insightful and valid]."
Seacrest: "I am so into this right now and I don't even know why."
Casey: "I have this shit so on lock it's like I got Crystal and Kris voting for me on special phone lines that only they know about."
Seacrest: "Yeah and now we have to listen to Lauren Alaina."
Casey: (Thirty-seven adorable things, I can't even.)
(Let's go down to the hospital and watch Lauren Alaina get born and we can listen to her sing some kind of womb-song with a nasty face she'll make because babies can't handle criticism, which is a bummer because I gotta say Randy Jackson is the best part of this episode. Girl is on it tonight, sorry.)
Seacrest: "Lauren, you are the worst."
Lauren: "I know! Play along."
Seacrest: "Honestly for the first time in my entire career, I can't. How much I hate you is that you are the wall I am hitting my head against. I could deal with Paris Hilton, with Lindsay Lohan, with so much bullshit. I can hold a conversation with Sean Combs. But you, my dear, are a cut above."
Parents: "She has always been like this. She won't stop. We have been trying for all five minutes since she was born to make her quit it, and she won't."
Iovine: "We've put a lot of faith and hope into you. So will you fucking cut it out?"
Lauren: "Nope."
Her parents: "One day we'll be on varsity and then maybe you'll listen to us and fucking cut it out."
(Lauren Alaina, born so recently that she has not been born yet, sings "I'm The Only One," and it's probably the best vocal of the night. But it is attached to something that is terrible, so what to do. Let's ask the judges.)
Lopez, correctly: "You stayed true to the structure and genius of the song while still making it your own. Also, Melissa Etheridge is Luther Vandross."
Jackson: "But seriously, I hope you have this cold forever."
Tyler: "Me too."
Seacrest: "I know what they're saying and I agree, but if you give me this cold I will fucking kill you. You are already the worst, I don't need your asshole cooties on top of it. I have a goddamn country to run."
Where did Jacob Lusk get all his talent? Theirs is the most hilarious he said/she said thing with his mom where she can't sing and he thinks she's the cutest thing and she totally is, and I love them. And I love Jacob Lusk. Jacob Lusk who will be singing "Alone," which is normally the kind of thing I would just ignore entirely because that's like the one thing Carrie did (on this show) but somehow, the Lusk keeps getting me, so let's actually see.
Iovine: (Explains the concept of covers.)
Lusk: (Sings the entire song through his lady-nose.)
The Song: (Does all the heavy lifting. This song is undeniable; even if you deny it.)
Jackson: "I love how even when you fucked up you changed it so you stopped fucking up. Also you 'caressed' it or something."
(Gross.)
Tyler: "This is your mother's fault."
Lopez: "You really don't know any other way to be."
Seacrest: "You totally said this would have a Lusty Stank. It affected me in many ways, mostly in being scared ways. But then you sang it and it didn't really have a stank of any kind. So is that the Lusky Stank? Having nothing interesting going on?"
Lusk: "At its worst, Ryan, yes."
Let's recap. Naima was as usual starring in her own separate TV show, Naima: The Show About Naima where we investigate the dwindling industrial sector and what we can do about it as a community and how we can make Bulworth be a real person; Paul McDonald succumbed to a disease; Thia was kidnapped and forced into Christianity by the white man; Durbin same deal; Haley's still here for a while no matter how hard she tries to be Paul McDonald; Stefano is becoming a fucking frontrunner somehow; Pia will be with us until we are all dead; Scotty still has not revealed that he is Andy Kaufman in disguise; Karen, my God what's to say about that little badger except that I want to hug her super tight and buy her some gum; Casey Abrams is God and bigger than Jesus and the one that has already gotten away; Lauren Alaina is the opposite of Casey Abrams; Jacob Lusk stanked it.
Tomorrow: Fucking Lee DeWyze shows them how it's done: Mediocre! Maybe he'll pull a Steven Tyler and get all man-jealous of Casey and scream and tap on the table like he needs Viagra to be invented, because Casey is the thing that Lee was pretending to be, plus actually appealing as a human.
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