Honky Tonk Blahs

Ryan "Something's Burning" Seacrest greets us from the audience for tonight's show, and if he looks a bit flustered, it's because he just barely escaped Janice Dickinson fellating him live on television during his own syndicated show. He even glances off to the side, perhaps fearing she's going to come tearing down an aisle shrieking, "Ryaaaaan! I want you! You're much prettier than that Yoanna bitch!" Maybe the whole incident was some sort of "tough love" lesson to get Ryan to stop making sex jokes. As we pan across the eleven remaining finalists on the Seal, Ryan recites the worst poem ever: "The contestants continue to go, / as the pressure continues to grow. / They're fighting to stay on the show, / and they all need your vote." And it would have been so easy to finish properly, too: "And my punch lines continue to blow"; "And Matt's hair didn't really grow"; or "And Paula is still a little bit slow."

Credits. I think I have analyzed every single second of the opening.

Ryan heads out onto the Seal alone in a slate suit with a pale blue shirt. He starts off the show by wishing Aretha Franklin a "speedy recovery," as she was hospitalized briefly last week. ["What, did she watch last week's performances?" -- Jim Mullen] The audience applauds vaguely, pretending they know who the hell Aretha is, then turning to people to them and whispering, "Wasn't she one of the girls fired from Destiny's Child?" Ryan reminds us that there's an audience, then reminds the audience that they're the audience, then reminds us all that Leah was ejected last week. The audience doesn't even bother to try to care.

This week's theme is "country." Which country? Is it India? I hope it's India. I want to see a big Bollywood number. Ryan tells us country music isn't all about "your dog doing you wrong" or "your man getting hit by a pickup truck." Nope. It's about the same thing pop music is about -- getting laid. Or whining about not getting laid. Or whining about how getting laid got you into trouble. Ryan tells us that country music is really big in this country (that's really how he says it), so the kids will have to "bring it" and do a good job. Because people like country. As opposed to week's theme of "emo," which nobody cares about much anymore, so the kids will actually literally phone in the performances from their mansion. Or from whatever hotel room they're staying in while exterminators make another sweep through their apparently vermin-infested new home. Or so rumor has it.

Ryan introduces all the kids out to the Seal again. Then he introduces the judges. He says Simon "It's All Wrong, But It's All Right" Cowell is wearing chaps and spurs tonight, and he didn't even know country music was the theme. Simon probably did it to tease Ryan over what he's not getting anymore. Paula "Why'd You Come In Here Lookin' Like That" Abdul is introduced as their very own "darlin'." She's wearing a black jacket with shiny lapels. Ryan, like the rest of us, doesn't really have anything interesting to say about Randy "I Don't Need You" Jackson. Randy "woo"s himself, as he does. Randy's wearing cowboy boots. Thanks for sharing.

Our first contestant to perform tonight is Diana Degarmo. Our clip show theme tonight is a look back at the childhoods of each of the contestants. Which is pretty much the same as the clip show theme from last week. Diana's childhood clip show immerses us in a cascade of pink, sugary cutesiness. I always wondered what it would be like inside the cotton candy machine. Now I know. She tells us she's been performing since she was five. See, I'd like her better if she'd have a childish Jacob Underwood-style hissyfit. We see various clips and pictures of her in horrible outfits singing at horrible talent shows. Then she got into singing the national anthem at various sporting events in Georgia. She calls herself "the national anthem girl." We see her sing the song in question. She's not bad. She's not very interesting either. Diana says she's managed to put her own smudge on the song. Er, "thumbprint," she calls it. Her mom tells us that she asked Diana why she liked to perform so much. She says Diana told her that "she loved the fact that people loved what she did." Ah. Another one of those declarations that would make any armchair psychologist (like me) go, "Hmmmmm." She doesn't say that she loves to perform; she says that she loves it when people love her performances. That's a very telling statement, assuming Mom is remembering correctly. Diana concludes her profile with some pageant blather about seeing the country and meeting people. Honey, we all do that. It's called "vacation."

Ryan introduces Diana to the Seal to sing Martina McBride's former hit, "A Broken Wing." Diana opens her performance sitting on the edge of the stage by some stairs. Maybe Industrial Light and Music (the special effects company that produces Diana) wanted to show off advances in their "clipping" abilities? I think I got the right term for that. She's wearing a denim skirt and pink jacket decorated with grommets along the front and sleeves. If you had some nylon rope, you could suspend her from the ceiling from her jacket for this performance. That would have been more interesting. She beauty pageants her way through a song that is apparently about a woman escaping from an abusive relationship. Awww. Isn't she just so adorable? In addition to her not understanding the song, as usual, her voice isn't as solid as it normally it is. She's all over the place in the verses before the first chorus. But she ends the song on one massive glory note held for twenty seconds, so who cares about the rest?

Judges. Randy thinks it was her best performance so far, entirely on the basis of that one last note. Paula suggests that they have a contest to see who can hold the note the longest. You do and I'll have you killed. Eh, actually, it would be easy to recap. What the hell is on Paula's hand? She's got a chain mail bracelet that attaches to a ring on her middle finger. Did she elope with one of the surviving Riders of Rohan? She declares that Diana is going to have a career and sing for a long, long time. Which may be true, but it doesn't necessarily mean that she'll be famous or ever produce an album. Simon says that Diana picked a song that worked for her voice, but he's concerned about her clip show, because it made her look like "a product of a pop farm." Snerk. Okay, there, Simon. Rage against that whole awful manufactured pop industry. Irony and I will just sit over here in the corner complaining that people are just too cynical.

Needless to say, Randy and Paula don't understand what Simon's talking about and make fun of him. He tries to point out that Diana looks like she's been "bred" to be a pop singer, and Randy keeps interrupting him and saying that Simon was bred to be rude. Shut up, Randy. Paula gives Randy a high-five. Shut up, Paula's hand. And the rest of Paula. Simon repeats his comments that Diana isn't "connecting" with the music and audience. Randy witlessly argues that this is how the song is supposed to go. She's not supposed to feel the song? Randy, this is why you just play the guitar. Shut up. Idiot. The audience boos. Shut up, audience. You didn't vote for her, either. Diana heads over to Ryan on the drinking fountain stools. Ryan declares that Randy won the argument with Simon, which he didn't. Shut up, Ryan. He continues to play Diana's defender and claims that the audience connected with Diana, which I find so very amusing in retrospect. Somebody should inform him that he wasn't looking at the audience during her performance; he was staring in a mirror, which is why he saw that "connection." Ryan insists that Simon give her advice on the whole "connection" thing. Simon snarks, "It's what you don't have, Ryan: A connection with the audience." Ryan: 0; Simon: 200,004 and counting. Ryan gives the blah blah blah text-vote-message-after-the-show-cakes.

Commercials. When we return, Ryan introduces former 49ers quarterback Steve Young, sitting there in the crowd. What a freakishly bizarre coincidence. I just mentioned him in last week's recap as part of a joke. Of all the names that I toss around in my recaps, that's the last guy I would expect to actually see. Well, I might as well strike while the iron is hot. I'm just gonna suggest some things I'd like to see throughout the recaps in the hopes they show up week. I'll put them in bold, so you know they're my suggestions. Because you just know that my suggestions are going to be that subtle. Anyway, Ryan asks Steve for some advice. "Just ignore all those gay rumors," he says. No, not really. Ryan does call Steve a stud, though. Uh oh. Matt's going to be really conflicted. I'm sure he idolizes Steve, but then to have his boyfriend flirt with him on television? How does he respond? Steve says, "It's all about harnessing the creative tension in your performance." Creative tension? Doesn't "creative tension" generally involve more than one person? And conflict? Andtension? Does this statement even mean anything? Am I stupid for not understanding what he's talking about? Will I stop recapping in question format? Have I turned into Donald Rumsfeld? Steve continues that Randy "gets it," but he's not sure Simon does. I find that amusing, inasmuch as the best example I could think of "harnessing the creative tension" of a song would be if Diana actually recognized the dramatic conflict within it, but she didn't, and Simon was the only one who even cared. Shut up, Steve. You, too, Randy. Randy is his own biggest cheerleader, both in volume, andwell, volume, if you catch my meaning.

up, Adam Baldwin and Ben Browder will wrestle in baby oil. Or, perhaps George Huff will sing. George grew up in the projects of New Orleans. Still. He loves music. Still. He sang in church. Still. He studied opera in college. We see a hysterical shot of him in costume for an opera, complete with a big waxy mustache. If his outfit was any indication, he played the title role in an opera about the meteoric rise and tragic fall of a famous marching band drum major. George talks about his former mustache, which he pronounces "mush-stash." He and his mush-stash had lengthy relationship ever since puberty. Sadly, they recently parted ways. All his friends called George and told him they like him better without the mush-stash. Meanwhile, the mush-stash was most recently seen in an item on Page Six, drunkenly making out with Paris Hilton on the sidewalk in front of Spice Market in New York.

Out in the audience, Ryan borrows Matt's brother's cowboy hat (I think that's him, anyway) and puts it on. It's too large to fit on Ryan's tiny squirrel monkey head. Ryan then introduces George to sing "I Can Love You Like That," one of those songs that is so generic that it's been produced as a successful country song, and then later as a successful pop song. George is already on the Seal, wearing a brown leather jacket, dark blue shirt, and black pants. "I Can Love You Like That" is a slow, romantic song, so we will not be seeing the Dip tonight. He starts off a bit rough, but gets into the song relatively quickly and croons out the rest. He's got a good, solid voice, as is typical. The hoarseness of his tone might become tiresome in the future, but I'm okay with it for now. He goes for a glory note, which I'm assuming is becoming part of the official rules, right after the part where the contestants each agree to give Simon Fuller a kidney if he needs one. It's okay, but he was doing just fine without it. The glory note, I mean, not the kidney. Anyway, George's performance shows that he can sing ballads just as well as up-tempo songs.

Judges. Randy says that this was the "serious George" without the church dancing and such. He says he didn't feel the "energy" of George, because he tried to get out of his box and must be punished. Stay in your box! Don't try to convince the judges that you're capable of a multi-faceted, nuanced repertoire! They don't want somebody who could have a lengthy career. They want somebody who can be quietly disposed of by this time year. Stay in your box! Paula disagrees with Randy and tells George he has the "sexiest voice ever." Simon says George is an example of somebody who has a connection with the song. The audience cheers. Simon adds that he has a problem with George's look. He says he looks like George is "totally in the hands of the stylists." Well, George dressing himself was one of the reasons everybody thought he was forty-four years old in the first place. Paula interrupts Simon to insult Simon's fashion sense. Shut up, Paula. Randy interrupts to ask if Simon wants George to dress like Ryan. Shut up, Randy. Simon says he means that George needs to find his own style, much like Ruben had his own style. A style that apparently resulted in lawsuits. I'm not sure we want to go that route. We cut to a cute guy in the audience holding a sign that reads, "Simon sez the truth." I guess the cameramen aren't fond of George's jacket, either.

George heads over to Ryan, who wipes the sweat off George's brow with his hand. Ugh. Ryan's sweat fetish returns. Maybe that's why he likes the big guys? They sweat more. Ryan asks George if he was at all worried about the theme being country. Because George is black and must therefore have never heard a country song anywhere, ever. George says he looked over the list and recognized this one song. Okay, well, maybe he doesn't know any country music. But still. Assumptions! They make an "ass" out of "u" and "mptions"! Ryan brings up the style issue. George admits that he does let the stylists pick out his clothes. Ryan blathers on about his own "style" and mentions he's got a pink handkerchief, which he's probably wearing to support some goofy kids in Newport Beach who got in trouble for wearing that shade. Because of dance gangs or something. I don't know. I read the story and couldn't stop laughing. I'll be very disappointed if they don't work a reference onto The O.C. Anyway, Ryan gives George's numbers.

up, Vin Diesel comes out wearing just a jock strap to announce that I've won the Pulitzer Prize. And after that is Fantasia Barrino. Fantasia comes from a musical family. Still. They all sing gospel music together. Still. The family tried to get their music produced, but apparently nobody was interested. Fantasia describes the problem as a "curse." She thinks that her success on American Idol has broken the curse. Don't get too ahead of yourself there, Fantasia. Anybody who cared about last year's post-season baseball might have some words of wisdom.

Ryan introduces Fantasia to the Seal to sing "Always on My Mind," by both Willie Nelson and Elvis. Actually, it turns out that Fantasia will not be on the Seal tonight, which is probably good for the whole "curse-breaking" thing. She's off on one of the wings of the stage wearing an elegant, sparkly black evening gown. And I've figured out my gimmick for the season. Certain contestants have awellpolarizing affect on viewers. The whole "love 'em or hate 'em" thing. Last season we just had Clay and Ruben causing all this. Now, it seems like half the finalists are in this situation. So I'm going to do two performance recaps: One for folks who like the contestant, and one for folks who hate the contestant. Just find the one that matches your opinion and read it. After all, isn't the point of criticism to validate everybody's opinions?

If you like Fantasia: This is a huge change from Fantasia's performances. She's not bopping around the stage, hamming it up for the audience. Instead, she stands at the microphone and sings and elegant, nuanced performance. Her personality still shines through with her gestures and facial expressions. And she, unlike Diana, understands that this song has a melancholy edge to it and it shows in her eyes. Her vocals are excellent -- she holds a few notes, but doesn't go overboard and try to be melodramatic. Her best performance so far on the show.

If you don't like Fantasia: Fantasia shows she can still be overdramatic while standing in just one spot. She croons "Always on My Mind" while waving her arms around -- even gesturing along with lyrics at one point. Always inadvisable. The reason why Debra tries to undo the "gospel jaw" becomes clear every time Fantasia holds a note. Vibrato seeps in due to the wobbling, making her rather shrill voice even more unpleasant to listen to.

Judges. Randy will allow Fantasia out of her box, even though he wouldn't let George. He thought it was an amazing, controlled performance, and thinks Fantasia could sing anything well. Paula loves Fantasia's dress and the way she gave a more subdued performance. Since Randy doesn't order Fantasia back into her box, it falls upon Simon to do so. He says that Fantasia has proven that she's not a "one-trick pony," but he says the reason everybody loves her (assuming you love her) is because she's fun and youthful and loud and quirky. Which is also the reason that everybody apparently hates her. He says it looks like Fantasia's mother dressed her tonight. Fantasia shoots back, "Simon, you don't know class!" If you like Fantasia: She's being playful. If you don't like Fantasia: She's being an uppity bitch. Everybody talks at once. Simon tells Fantasia not to be "old" in her performances, while pointing at Paula for emphasis. Heh. Fantasia gets in the last word, saying she proved she can sing something different and "get down with the get down." She heads over to Ryan, where she pretends as though Simon's comments made her cry. If you like Fantasia: She's just having fun. If you don't like Fantasia: She's just pretending at the pretending and is really pissed that Simon would dare criticize her. We cut to Simon, who is giving us The Middle Finger That Rocked The World. Or maybe just The Middle Finger That Rocked The Drudge Report. He's resting his head on his middle finger again. It's clearly unintentional. He's been doing it since the first season. Ryan gives us Fantasia's numbers.

Commercials. FOX announces that Futurama has been uncancelled.

When we return, Ryan shows off that big fancy monitor in the background. He asks the techs to put something up to show us that it works. Because, you know, we haven't seen it in action or anything. Pong magically appears. Ryan asks them to put up something that would cause "sensory overload." Hey, it's Un Chien Andalou after all! Oh, actually, it's that skit from last season featuring Simon and Paula kissing. Well, at least watching it makes you feel as though your eyes are being sliced open.

up is John Stevens, whom Ryan calls "teeny tiny," like he's one to talk. John's mom tells us that John was born with red hair. Shockingly, John's family tree is full of redheads. Do you think that might be more than just a coincidence? I wonder if science can explain this strange trend of inheriting certain features from your ancestors. John tells us he hated having red hair because old ladies wanted to touch it. And now everybody wants to touch it. He must be thrilled now. He says he's gotten more "confidence" because more girls are noticing him and responding to him now that he's famous. This will end in tears, I tell you. He says he's gradually coming out of his shell.

Ryan introduces John to sing "King of the Road." John is sitting at the front of the stage right in front of the judges, wearing a dark blazer, blue shirt, and jeans. If you like John: John has found a great song to work with his voice. He's a lot more comfortable in front of the camera, and his performance has a bouncy, confident tone to it that has been missing for the past few weeks. We even see Simon snapping along to the performance. John improvises the last verse with some mild scatting.

If you don't like John: Has somebody been taking ham lessons from Matt and Jon? It's hard to look like you're giving an effortless performance when you've meticulously choreographed every single look and gesture. He out-robots Diana in this performance. In fact, it looks like somebody took a televised performance from Roger Miller and used technology to replace him with John instead. His vocals are okay and certainly smoother than they were last week, but he's still boring. He forgets the words at the end, probably because he's trying to remember exactly when he's supposed to turn his back to the audience and sing rakishly over his own shoulder.

Judges. As the audience cheers, we can actually hear Simon say, "So what are you going to say this time, Jackson?" Somebody turned on their microphones a few seconds early. They should do that every week. Be interesting to see what they say. Randy says that even though John forgot the words at the end, Randy really enjoyed his performance. Also, he forgot the words at the end. Paula is proud of John's performance, even though he forgot the words at the end. They're the ones bringing it up over and over again. I'm not being a jerk about it. Well, not this one time. Simon says, "Well, on the bright side, you only forgot the words in front of thirty million people." Hey, that's not a very bright side at all! Smart-ass. Simon reminds us that everybody either loves John or hates him. God, don't I know it. Simon still likes John, though. He adds that John is probably the worst dancer they've ever had on the show. He also says John really needs to get his personality out there more on the show, because this season is as much about personality as it is about performance. I wasn't aware that "pink" now qualified as a personality. Simon's doing that middle finger again while he's talking. Slowly he changes fingers to his index finger. I can almost imagine one of the producers just off-camera, waving furiously to Simon and pointing to the finger.

John heads over to Ryan, who asks him how he's feeling. He's fine. How's the mansion? It's fine. Yeah, he's really showing off that personality, isn't he? Then Ryan does that bad interviewing thing of starting to ask John about forgetting the lyrics and then answering the question himself by pointing out that John has to think fast. This pretty much leaves John agreeing that yes, he has to think fast. Ryan gives us John's numbers.

Commercials. Management announces to all those annoying losers in the Burger King commercials that their jobs have been moved overseas. Buh-bye!

When we return, Ryan pimps the web site to the judges table as Randy flashes the "hang loose/devil horns" sign at the camera repeatedly. Shut up, Randy's hands. It's time for Camile Velasco. Camile was born in the Philippines and moved to America when she was a year old. Camile's mom says that Camile was her first-born and is therefore very "clingy." I thought it was the youngest child who was supposed to be clingy? Camile's biological dad lives in Japan and is in the Navy. We see a shot of him watching the show on television, so they must have a cordial relationship. But now she has a step-dad, and they get along well, too. That makes me feel so zzzzzzzzzzzz. Sorry. I want a Jerry Springer family here, people! Does he wear women's underwear? If not, I don't give a damn. Camile's younger siblings zzzzzzz. When Camile comes into a room, her younger sister zzzzzzzzz. Her younger sister sings along with the zzzzzzzzzz. Little sister wants to be a star just like zzzzzzzzzzzz.

Ryan introduces Camile to the stage to sing "Desperado." Eeh. She sits on a drinking fountain stool wearing jeans, a green shirt, and gray jacket. Behind her, the monitor appears to be giving us close-up of cobblestone sidewalks that have been painted bright pink. Yikes. Did they go to Amy's house or something? Camile's performance is weak. Really weak. She can't hold a single note steady, and I'm not talking about melisma. She's vibrating everything all over the place. I'm afraid she's going to fall off the stool or something. I can't understand a single word of the lyrics in the bridge. "The queen of hearts is all eeshoobabaaaates." It should be "The queen of hearts is always your best bet." I'm sure the captioners are thrilled to have the lyrics in advance.