Up , Ryan says: "David Archuleta taking on Phil Collins...live!" If only he meant a fistfight. David Archuleta's most embarrassing moment is the time that he bought these really cute jeans and wore them for a week before somebody told him they were girl jeans! And then he was like, "Fuck." No. David Archuleta's most embarrassing moment is the time he was petting a kitten on his local morning news, and it peed! And then he choked it to death, on live TV. No. David Archuleta one time went to his drug dealer's place to score and the guy was real high and made him stay around for like two hours watching St. Elmo's Fire and he totally missed Scout Jamboree! Nope, actually it was this: he was supposed to sing at this fundraiser, because he's actually already totally famous because he's so awesome, and he sang this song in Spanish but lost his voice in the middle of the song, and then his mom ran up onstage and finished the song for him. Which, yes, is embarrassing in all ways simultaneously.
Also embarrassing: taking all that sincerity for another spin on "Another Day In Paradise," by Phil Collins. The most obnoxiously self-satisfied, fake-sentimental bullshitty song ever written. I mean, you read the Idol Gives Back stuff, you know how I feel about this. It's like a magnetized yellow ribbon sticker: the least you can do. The literal, technical, absolute least you can do, is listen to this song, shed a fucking tear for the plight of the homeless, and then go vote on your cellphone. He starts on the effin' piano, okay, and then moves to the mic for the big show, and it's so perfectly planned out and bullshitty that it makes you want to kill your TV. However, on the other hand, I love David Archuleta precisely because of this shit. David Archuleta is twice as punk rock as Sanjaya, because not even David Archuleta knows what a fucking bullshit masterpiece he is.
Is he for fuckin' real? For every Blake/Amanda/Bo/Nadia that is too good for this, for every Gracie Lou Freebush who wants harsher punishment for parole violators, there is at least one truly demented individual who actually gets down on his knees every night and prays for world peace. Do you know what I mean? There's a Carrie/Melinda/Pickler that just takes it that fucking far. And I love that so much. The only thing I respect more than Simon Cowell's truly cynical approach to the universe is something like this, where it works out to the same way, but the person is so very mental and naïve and boring and sweet that they're not even doing it on purpose. It's like the awesomeness of Tyra Banks: she's not a genius because she gives people what they want, she's a genius because she gives people what she wants, which just happens to be a cross-section of what people want, by virtue of the fact that she is shallow and pointless.
The performance itself is gross. Grotesque, actually, but in a way that I can't even blame him for. I mean, his ass is committed to the performance, and that's nice. Taken on its merits, it's one of his best performances to date, and he's a solid competitor in a lot of ways so that's a great thing. I can't imagine being in that room but if I were I think I would totally love it. My problem with Danny is not the unique persona he's chosen, but the fact that it's completely unoriginal. Every high school has ten of him, and now every reality show has at least one of him, and I can't figure who is served by this. I spent all day painstakingly watching every Chris Crocker video because I was thinking about what it was like growing up and that probably this is what crazy looks like to a gay kid in the aughts. I know very well what crazy looks like to a gay kid in the '90s, but in the '00s I have no idea. I do know that I knew kids like Danny in high school and I didn't approve, but in the same way that I didn't approve of anybody who took the easy way out that way, boys or girls, jocks or queers, and I still don't, but that's me being a judgmental prick and doesn't say a lot about them. I'm not making a big deal out of Danny because I'm taking it personally, I'm making a big deal out of Danny because I know what I'm talking about, and it's stuff most people don't feel empowered to talk about, because nobody knows where the line is. "Stop acting like a fucking queen" means two very different things depending on whose mouth it's coming out of.
When you're a teenager, you feel like a monster, very unique and very uncomfortable and very out of tune with the world. What nobody tells you is that everybody else feels the exact same way. So you start looking for ways to make people happy, to shave off your rough edges and mold yourself to an acceptable way of thinking: to balance the part of you that is a monster with the compromises you are willing to make. And what I can't fucking abide is this idea that some dumb kid is going to see Danny on the screen -- Danny whose choices were taken away before he knew he had choices -- and realize that this is a way to get approval, attention, and acceptance. Taking the Danny route means putting all the scary things about gay people and stuffing them into a tiny little asterisk, while magnifying all the childish, feminine, negligible things -- all the things that put you in the category of not mattering -- and expanding them so that they cover your whole personality, with just a tiny little asterisk of things that we can, as a culture, forgive. As long as we don't have to see them, think about them, or otherwise confront them in a way which isn't hilariously powerless.
David Cook is wearing an old-man hat in his package, because that's just as cool as having interesting hair, and because of Super Tuesday or whatever holiday this is, we Texans miss part of his embarrassing moment. I bet it has to do with this one time he was stupid and in pretending not to be stupid actually looked even stupider. How should I know? I was caucusing. He starts his performance with a guitar. And you know what, David is not a simple thing to me. It was easy to go off on the crossword thing last week because it was embarrassing and ugly to watch, as an American, and it's easy to make fun of him for looking like a grumpy infant with a full diaper, because he does. But I don't hate his voice, and in another life I could see that he is a very attractive human being, in a very Austin way, and that in his or my native environment, I would probably give him a lot more leeway. But then he does shit like this. Unconscionable!
Because what he's doing, my dear, is singing "Hello," by Lionel Ritchie, in an ironic rock-emo way. Which is funny and interesting -- I do love mashups; just the other day I sang "Genie In A Bottle" to the karaoke tune of "Back In Black," and it was like the coolest thing I've ever done after drinking an entire bottle of tequila and dressing up like Avril Lavigne and being dragged to a karaoke bar. I'm like so totally into irony. And yet. Is it good?
Fuck yeah it's good. Spare electric guitar in the first verse, that impeccable Daughtry sound in his voice, the bump into the break with the lights going wild, clever guitar, key changes at smart times, the ending before its time. It's memorable and stupid, but it's also nice to hear in your earhole. I don't think he made this idea up, I heard that Incubus covered it and whatever, I'm not spending the time to listen up because I know this song and I know Incubus and I think I know what they would do here. It's not a hugely original concept out on the Blake edge of what this show considers music, because that song is up there with "I Just Called" in terms of how throwaway bullshitty it is. So all of those things are givens and we're left with the question, "Would you listen to this over something else." And my answer is, "Yes, probably." So no, I will not do crossword puzzles with David Cook, but I sure will be downloading this song and listening to it again, because it is fun. It's pabulum because it was already pabulum, but I love the Ronettes and the Crystals and the Supremes and I'm smart enough to know the difference between pabulum with a little cayenne or ginger, and pabulum without. I'm proud of his stupid ass.
Technical Best of the night: The perennial and completely pandering Jason and David A. I want beyond all reason to pan them, because I really did think Blake signaled a new era in this show, but I can't criticize their compelling performances, even with all those handicaps attached.
Actual Best of the night: Danny and David Cook were both weirdly wonderful, and mesmerizing -- if hard to physically stomach -- and I hope that they are justly rewarded. They -- along with Amanda -- are the true heirs of the more original path chopped out of this show by Nadia and Blake, and I couldn't be more impressed or ambivalent as a result.
Should Go: David H., Michael, and Chikezie, just for being boring and exhausted, and thus exhausting. Mild-to-terrific performances, sure, and all about this show, in a negative way, but it's not good enough: they aren't what this season is about. And Luke, for finally proving to even my thick ass what Josh Gracin and Matt Metzger could not.
Will Go: Luke, plus either Danny or Chikezie, although again, I'd rather see David H. or Michael gone, but that's mostly down to me hating this show and all it symbolizes or whatever. See you Thursday for the results, and let's all join Joe R. tomorrow for the Ladies! I dunno about you, but I personally cannot wait to see what Brooke and Ramiele do.