Mentally Ill Is The New Hilarious, Part III

Tuesday

Tonight we're going to both Cleveland and Orlando. Which is weird, because of all the boyband guys in episodes. I mean, isn't Orlando where they grow them? There was some kind of thing where half of the Florida people got flown to New Orleans after last summer's hurricane, I think, so who knows where we actually are at any point tonight. But who cares? What matters -- this week -- is that we will actually see people make it through to Hollywood, rather than just hearing about them later from Seacrest as they whiz by so fast you can't consciously remember them.

And speaking of Seacrest, he spins some boring information about how back in 1952 ("about the time Simon was a teenager"), a radio DJ ("like myself," as though it helps his image to remind us of that) named Alan Freed coined the term "rock and roll" to describe the "new R&B sounds that were exploding at the time." Making Cleveland the heart of rock and roll, I guess. Except rock and roll sounds nothing like what it sounded like back then, and we are not going to be hearing anything like rock and roll tonight, and Seacrest is using terms like "R&B" completely without regard to the current context. So basically, due to something that doesn't exist anymore and has nothing to do with something else, from over half a century ago, we're now in the heart of rock and roll, Cleveland. But I mean, what else are you going to call it, the heart of Howard the Duck? It's Cleveland. "So is the heart of rock and roll still beating in Cleveland?" Oh, Ryan. Sometimes I weep for you.

There were fifteen thousand auditioneers in Cleveland, so they were in a stadium, but then there was a big storm, and everyone got put down in the tunnels to "sweat it out," according to Ryan. Ew. So they're all cramped together and snitty, and this one bug-eyed guy complains, "They got a hotel in St. Louis, they're getting one in DC -- but we get a stadium! It's a conspiracy!" Ah, entitlement. I do love it. Too bad you're being forced to be here doing something voluntary, not to mention stupid, and aren't being treated like a king. Too bad you can't count to 15,000. Too bad 14,999 other people have created a conspiracy to audition for this show, just to fuck you over. Or maybe he's joking, I can't tell because he's a bit wild-looking.

We will be joined tonight by hip hop legend LL Cool J, who is possessed of six straight multiplatinum albums, and has been in over seventeen films, although that has nothing to do with anything. Ryan is just going on what the fact checkers gave him, because he doesn't know who LL Cool J is. Weird mix of numbers coming at you and pictures of LL looking fine. "But will he send anyone 'Back to Cali'?" Okay, that's funny.

The first girl up is crying before she even comes in, for no damn reason. This'll be good. Meet Jaclyn Crum (16, Gahanna OH), a tiny bit off, but pretty sweet, very silly, spaced-out girl. She's very cute. She immediately starts telling Paula how much she loves her, and then begins to sing. There's a nice tone to her voice, kind of smoky and cool. I'm way too pretentious to know who Joss Stone is, on the record at least, but that's who she sounds like. "You look scared to death," they tell her, and yeah. They really like her voice and think she needs and deserves training. LL brings up Joss Stone, because he's keeping it real and is not pretentious like me, and says that American Idol would be a good place for her to make her start. Randy likes her, but doesn't think she's ready, and Paula votes her through so that she can prove him wrong. Then Simon gives the final yes and she comes shooting out the door screaming like a bat; it's startling and almost inaudible. Then she cries again, still for no reason. Yeah, she's 16. She'll calm down one day.

Sarah Sue Kelly (18, Hillsdale IN), this cool girl with cat glasses who is very happy to be here, tells us that she's a college student with her own business. She's very personable, clearly intelligent and well-spoken, and she's also awesome, because she's an 18-year-old college student who runs her own business. Especially since it's a gig-based business (karaoke), which gives me hives because it's all sales and gigs, and I hate both concepts. It's why I write: other people suck. (Not to mention karaoke is also involved, which also gives me hives.) Man, she's like my hero -- total confidence, total competence. She does not need to be here, she needs to be on The Apprentice, Junior Edition. So she sings "I Could've Danced All Night," from My Fair Lady, and she sings in a perfect Julie Andrews enunciated trilling way. It's good, but not so much appropriate. It's pretty and measured and classic. It's stagey. Her arm movements are veryshe reminds me for some reason of a teacher at Hogwarts. She moves and waves herself around like she's trying to teach a class on "Dancing All Night." Paula also waves her arms around.

LL calls Simon a jerk, basically, for asking him to comment first, because none of them know what to do, because there's not really a criticism you can make of her voice, because it's lovely and good. So instead LL says the weirdest thing he can think of: that when she sings, "I feel like you havea secret." What the fuck does that mean? He does not explain further. What an odd thing to say. We'll let that be his secret. LL says that he's on the fence, but only because he can't say a reason she shouldn't be going to Hollywood. Randy tells her to go to the stage, and she admits that she loves the theatre. Simon wants to be honest. Fuck. The rest of us were going to lie and let the whole thing slide right by, but no, Simon's gotta be honest. Oh, Sarah Sue. I love you. I hope this doesn't hurt too much.

So Simon points out the actual issue: it's the way she looks that's putting them off. And okay, she looks like Michael Moore. With even worse posture. She's not really on the list of any kind of physical ideals, and this is a visual industry. And I don't even care anymore whether that's evil or whatever, because there's a difference between recognizing something is occurring, and assuming that it's evil. Along with the rest of the economy, the music industry is for shit, and so people have to package themselves appropriately, because you're buying not just their $0.99 iTune, you're also buying the thing that is them. If it were solely about talent, there would be no lip-synching, there would be no vocal manipulation, and the industry would collapse entirely. Which is never going to happen, because of the hundred pit stops between us and that artist where that money goes, and those pit stops represent income for families. It's self-sustaining, this system, and is not directed by malice, but by the evolution of the companies that bring you the music, whose only directive is to stay alive and grow bigger and stronger, just like any other company.

What's horrifying about the body image issue is not that people like to look at pretty things, because that has always been the case. What's horrifying about the body image issue is that we have not necessarily been raised with the proper defenses against these false images taking over our own sense of self and power. Because the truth is that they don't care about your life, and they don't care how you feel about yourself. They just want your money. (Jenny Craig, L'Oreal, Gold's Gym, these are people that want you to hate yourself, but only enough to want to help yourself, too.) The best defense isn't bitching about it, but believing in yourself and your beauty, and your own strength, and not buying into something that makes you feel shitty. And this is what Sarah Sue Kelly has done, and that is beautiful.

So she acknowledges Simon's point, and she knew it was coming, and she says that she wanted to prove that you don't have to be a Barbie doll to be the American Idol. Which is not necessarily untrue, exactly, but she's also smart enough to know there's no chance in hell she was going to Hollywood, so she makes her point even more eloquently by not getting put through. LL loves the Barbie comment and praises it like a hundred times, because he has not ever had to think about what it's like to be unattractive until just this second. So Simon and Sarah agree that the music industry is shallow and bullshit for awhile, and he seems pretty apologetic, for him. But then of course Paula is missing the subtleties here, and wants to gain yet more Juliana Hatfield points for herself, so she jumps on the "you're so shallow" train, attacking Simon, when the truth is that he and Sarah (and Randy, although he keeps quiet here) are the only people in the room who know anything about anything, apparently. But, like, are you going to explain it to Paula? No, because she just likes being known as the nice one, and she'll be damned if she's not going to start knee-jerk bitching at somebody the second an ugly or fat girl walks up, because she's not adult enough to actually take part in the conversation that's going on. Which is actually more insulting than anything Simon could ever say.

Cool James gets up to hug Sarah Sue, because she's wonderful, but also because it is how he makes the pain go away whenever anybody feels pain, which is a good plan, because it works, because he is fucking hot. At this point Randy yells, "Barbies are people too!" off-camera, which I found hilarious. Then she comes out of the room and everybody starts clapping for her, and then she goes and makes a million dollars because she's awesome.

, the "unbelievable" voice of some chucker they've talked about on all the ads. But first, losers: A guy in a khaki version one of those trench coats from The Matrix that looks like a man wearing a dress, and then a girl in a shapeless piece of yellow clothing that makes her look like a jelly bean, and a very disappointed cute boy. Then Edwin Smith (17, Cleveland) sings poorly while reading the words off his card, just a few at a time, phonetically. Christopher Quick (17, Frankford WV) has 17-year-old fake dyed hair, a cool burned-looking long-sleeved henley, some ugly hair along the chin area, and sings about how "for five long years I thought you were my man," which makes LL nervous. He forgets the line and apologizes sweetly. He sings thinly and kind of with a goatish edge to it. He seems quite nice. Get out of West Virginia, Christopher Quick! With a name like that you could be a star! Just don't do porn, please!

Andre Pittman (27, Cleveland) sings with these weird little pauses where the note wavers, like he keeps remembering things he's left on in his apartment. Randy: "Dude, you shouldn't ever be singing. It's not for you, man. That was horrific, man. Come on." He's not smiling or laughing as he says this, because he's not kidding. This woman with extreme pigeon head, Ebony Lewis (18, Ashtabula OH), sings like there's a sinister monster standing behind the judges. The judges find her off-putting and funny. Sampson Ingram (18, Cleveland) -- I don't get Sampson Ingram. He face is creepy and it looks like he's a quietly got a secret that could rival Sarah Sue's. I think he's singing in Japanese. I have no idea what's going on here. It's like Super Milk Chan or something, this weird mix of English and something which is other. It's like "Rock Me Amadeus." Simon tells Sampson that he has been reincarnated, and Sampson gets offended by this. The posters say it's a video game song, so he deserved worse.

Derek Fenningdorf (22, Brighton MI) seems to be wearing Mary Roach's shirt from Week One. And his mustache looks incredibly fake -- maybe it's Mary Roach! Maybe she decided that "Fenningdorf" had even more star quality than "Guilbeaux" and pulled a Shakespeare in Love. I adore you, Mary Roach Guilbeaux Fenningdorf, and your little schemes. But no, I'm wrong. Derek is -- I don't know where he got the balls to do this, but he's pretty cool, he sings at the top of his lungs like the judges are a mirror and he's holding a hairbrush. It's nice. Not good, but nice. Simon makes the judges (and me) laugh when he says sarcastically, "That sounds like a hit." Derek looks at him in this very "they know not what they do" kind of way, but the high ground is lost due to his spaz hair. Between the hair and the mustache he's very much like Freaks and Geeks, but not in a good way.

Ryan calls Cleveland "the Mistake by the Lake," which I'm sure their Chamber of Commerce will be using officially at some point, and introduces us toum, this guy islike, really. He's mentally deficient. He has a syndrome. This is not funny. He walks along with his mom and she's -- oh, why bother. It's all one horrifying thing. She seems like she is used to protecting him from the cruelty of children. Scott's huge, and his eyes are continually at half-mast, and he seems prone to violence in a very Lenny and George kind of way. He pets the rabbits until they go to sleep. He likes watching American Idol, he tells the judges, and they're very accommodating, because they don't know if he's going to flip out or what and he has the strength of an ape. He says that Randy is the coolest man on TV, and Paula is the prettiest, and Simon is still cool in his book no matter what people say, and he kisses his hip-hop fingers -- each the size of a bratwurst -- at Cool J in a mortifying way. Cool J smiles uncomfortably. Simon congratulates him on sucking up. I'm starting to get angry at this point, because it's like all he does is sit at home watching this show, and thinking about it, and telling his mom about it even though she's right there watching it with him, and petting his rabbits. Welcome to the William Hung. I hate this -- all the "voice so amazing" bullshit that is just so mean-spirited andwhatever. Just whatever.

He explains that his dad has no confidence in him, always telling him he "wasn't going to be anything," but that he is going to prove him wrong. "I've got the voice, the look, the confidence, the personality." This is a bloodbath. Simon gives him three out of four of these, due to the fact that he looks like "the muscle" in an episode of Law & Order.

And then a curious thing happens: Scott Savol (28, Shaker Heights OH), begins to sing.

Oh, God. It's like the sun coming out. It's perfect. He sings "Superstar," a song I really love, and he's one of the best natural singers I've ever heard in my entire life. It's really weird to hear this voice coming out of this guy. It's like Clay Aiken all over again, except he's not cheesy at all, just perfect and beautiful. It's like the Gomer Pyle thing. He jumps a fucking register change like he's Dolores O'Riordan sitting bitch on Evel Kneivel's motorbike. It's amazing. I kind of can't get over how awesome it is. Simon tells him that he wouldn't even get a record company meeting, and would never get anything like a contract, and that's why American Idol exists. To give people who are not Sarah Sue Kelly a chance to shine. Cool James tells him "they would never see you coming," and says he would like to give America the chance to decide on Scott. He's going to Hollywood, and then Simon says, "You've just proved your dad wrong." Wow. How amazing. That's so validating for him. See, Simon can be cool sometimes. American Idol just got me, you guys. Hook, line, and sinker. I know it's all fake and scripted and shit, but damn. Although maybe it's just the shock of seeing a good audition, or something in my eye. Maybe both.

: A mime. A gay farmer. Harry Potter. I wish we were shown more things that I could put in that list: "A Tiffany lamp. Australia. Djb. Traylor Howard. Ontology."

Day Two: the judges become totally uninterested in this entire process. We hear Simon voicing over lots of faces, "15,000 people auditioned in Cleveland, and yet the odds of you getting through are a million to one." We see faces, faces, faces as the judges' echoing voices turn down lots of people: A dude in glasses. A cute kid with the sad wig of Kevin Girardi. A scary mistress of the night girl in a blue bandanna top. A squinting guy in a matching shirt and hat of orange plaid. A girl with unfortunate bangs and tiny Sloth ears. A lip-licker with a sparse mustache. A girl with a tattered visor that screams "ANGEL" and a see-through black blouse that whispers "with low self-esteem." A bland white kid who bites his lip. A man in a very orange turtleneck. A grinning girl dressed like a newscaster whose grin becomes a grimace as her plastic earrings swing and sway. A nice guy in a blue sweater. A lesbian. A guy in a black suit with a black shirt. A guy in a hemp necklace and bleached hair who looks like the very embodiment of Austin, TX. A redhead who would look like the Man Currently Known As Ben except that his head is so grossly out of proportion to his body that he might well be wearing an inflatable David Byrne suit. I can't tell what's going on here -- it that his real body? It's like a teenage person popping his cute little head from inside the scooped-out remains of Lou Ferrigno. Ew. Sorry.

Then the most objectively wonderful young man so far -- he talks like a Fargo character with peanut butter in his mouth, and he's wearing a red track suit with some buttons on it (probably something about mime rights) -- explains that the mime he is standing to is unique because "she's the only mime here." He alerts us: "She has a message." She watches him deliver the message and they both very subtly almost lose it right there, and he continues to read it as she enters the audition room: "This is not a gimmick. She wants to prove to the world that even mimes can be pop stars. She's a voice for the oppressed mimes of America." Somehow none of this makes me want to punch somebody. I think it's because this guy reading is terrific, but mostly it's because I know if I'd gone to high school with this girl, we would have been best friends. So as her best friend, I'm rooting for her little foray into Situationalist critique, even as it's wasting my time and yours, not to mention Paula's buzz. The show is really meta this year, like, half the auditions are not about singing, they're about commenting on American Idol as a phenomenon. It's a win-win, except for us, because we already know this show is dumb.

The judges stare for awhile at Jennifer Page (20, Brecksville OH) -- "Paige" is my sister Jennifer's middle name, by the way, so see? It's fate! -- and she writes to them that she is going to sing an Aerosmith song. So they watch her for a while, and she's silently busting out, crazy hands, lots of emoting. It's pretty awesome, especially since the sound guys cut all sound at this point, it's dead air, no mic sounds or anything, which makes it funnier. Finally Cool James goes, "Is it that song from that movie?" and Paula's like, "Yeah, yeah it could be." It's like something from CSI, the way they say this, like they're saying, "Does it match the fingerprint from that other body we picked up last week?" "Yeah, yeah it could be." (Note: I've never seen CSI, but I think that's about right.) So they're all amazingly serious during all of this, and it's really funny, because: What the fuck? They stare at her and she continues to perform but none of them are kidding, just watching. She's quite animated. Is this one of those "Paula is strange on purpose sometimes" things, or something weirder?

Randy stops her as she hits her "crescendo," and Paula says, again quite seriously, "That was good." Simon says it's one of the best they've heard so far, and Paula agrees, still completely serious. Randy goes on his own private joke about how her pitch was spot on, but Simon won't be denied, he wants to stick with the "Mistake by the Lake" joke about how he'd rather listen to her than most of the other people. This is just a joke from Pootie Tang dressed up in a pretty girl with pancake makeup. He's cheapening it. Then she suddenly falls down dead on her face. Paula tells Simon to give her mouth-to-mouth and Jennifer jumps up to point at LL, nodding dementedly. It's awesome. Even mimes want to make out with LL Cool J. He's a modern-day Johnny Mathis. They tell her she's very cute, and Simon waves goodbye to her like a little kid mime would, and wellit's cute. Sorry. I know he's a gross, mean old man, but he's affected in this very particular way that I really like.

Seacrestiana I can't remember -- even though it's playing right now -- about Farm Boi. (Normally I hate the "boi" because it smacks of le cybersex and le jailtime, but it's appropriately scornful here.) This shiny, orange, Oompa-Loompa-looking mathlete tells us that Ruben can step aside, and that Fantasia and Kelly should call him. So he doesn't yet know he's gay. Well, he lives on a farm. Good luck to you, Pat. Is that what a real tan looks like? He's the color of red carpet people, like all of the Friends, and I always thought that looked kind of fake, but hey, he lives on a farm, right? I mean, I'm rarely out in the daytime because of my busy writing and bar-hopping schedule, but I thought I remembered tans from before. On the other hand, I heard the "farm" thing is a Roswell-level hoax and the farm animals in this bio section were rented for the occasion, but that's just what I've heard alleged. So Patrick Norman (17, "A Farm," OH) lives on "a small 'farm'" and is very nervous. He loves "camping" and "square-dancing." I already want him off my TV.

He sings Nat King Cole's "Smile," and they do the usual reaction shot thing where they jump to every black person in the room any time a white kid sings a song by a black artist, because they assume that we, and Randy, and LL Cool J are idiots. His voice is breathy and contrived and I kind of hate him, and yet I'm somehow sure he's getting through. He's like the stunted gay orange clone of Jessica Simpson or something. His head bobbles around, and his hands flop about, and his skin is not great. Closer up he's better-looking, he's got very soothing blue eyes, but there's still an artifice about him where you know he'll never really be, like, authentically Patrick. Which is too bad, but then I guess he's 17, so anything can happen. So LL and Randy adore him, for some reason, and he's coming to Hollywood, and I don't care. Then he completely loses his mind and the pearl-clutching begins. Then a beet-red guy the color of Hellboy (real farmers? Don't get sunburns. FYI) picks him up and swings him around outside. "I love my orange gay son!"

Terrible, terrible ersatz human interest thing now, where Leandra Jackson (the first person ever on this season, and thus the first recapped by me, for you) and her heretofore unmentioned sister, yelling fakely all about "I'm the American Idol!" "Uh uh, no, I am!" and ugh. Plus, stupid show, you already blew Leandra's spot, at least, because we already know she's terrible. Evelyn, their mom, tells us that they often sing. There are shots of the girls' adorable little brother and sister dancing around and singing. Then shots of everybody clowning in the kitchen. I'm glad the whole family gets to be on TV because they seem like that's an awesome enough thing for them. Leandra tells us how she loves to "sing, act, model" -- unnecessary record-scrape sound -- but her sister kind of gives her the up-and-down eyes on that one, in a loving and somewhat humorous way, which cuts the ickiness of the record scrape.

Leandra tells us she's a real people person. "So, the opposite from me," says the sister. Heh. I like her. The little boy calls Simon a knucklehead and everybody laughs. The sister, Lashunda Jackson (21, Cleveland), sings "Why I Love You," a Monica song with which I am not familiar, to the judges. It's nice. But it's not that great, I mean, we went and had breakfast with them, and neither of them are going? We already know Leandra is terrible. Simon calls her "sweetheart," and Randy and I agree that she needs more "experience," only what I mean is "practice singing." I'm not sure what he means, but I just want her to keep singing until she does it really, really well. Paula says she has a good voice but needs to work on her stage presence. It's a no, and Lashundra comes back out and Leandra's crying a bomb.

Leandra comes in for her own audition, and she sings "Summertime," which is a dumb idea, because isn't that how the girl won last year? So all it does is make it seem like you only know songs from American Idol or something. And it's awful, but not quite as awful as the first thing, the song about America. Lots of hands flapping all around. She sings with heart. LL just can't help but laugh. She's dangerously close to tears the whole time. Me too. They're all amazed and it's quiet. Then she explodes, "And I love ya'll!" LL is sad to say no, and Randy makes some lemonade, congratulating her on really trying. Paula tells her to come back, which is like her whole new thing she always says. No matter how shitty you are, she'd love to see you in a year, when she's forgotten all about 2004. How Scarlett O'Hara. LL gives her love, and then they all jump up and give her a group hug. LL makes the love flow, y'all. Even Simon, although he maneuvers it in such a way that it looks like he's only touching LL. I don't care to comment on that, because who could blame him? Then the little sister says that Simon is a knucklehead, and everybody laughs, which bookends this wretchedly pointless segment nicely, I guess.

But THEN! Seacrest voices over, "Holler, sister." And maybe this was my favorite part tonight. I certainly rewound it enough times to qualify. "Hollerr, sisterr." I just somehow got whiter. You know, we should introduce Ryan to Michael Jackson. Hear me out. I'm sure they'd get along: Seacrest is used to being molested by Merv Griffin, and MJ likes little, young-looking blond people, plus they're both confused about what it is like to be black, or what it is like to live in what I call "reality." They probably have a lot in common. And sitting around listening to Seacrest saying things like "crunked" and "Holler, sister" is a lot less invasive than whatever scientific procedures -- er, "vitiligo" -- Michael's currently using to get rid of those hated pigments.

Anyway, up: A Magical Clown. Paula Abdul freaking out. Jermaine Jackson. Harry Potter, again. Um, Emma Goldman. Burlap. The Invasion of Normandy. Zoroastrianism.

Seacrest talks about the Hall of Fame for awhile. He's wearing whiskered jeans and a tight light-blue button down. I don't know what he says because nobody, especially Ryan Seacrest, cares. Then Briana Davis ("call me 'Bree,'" 18, Thornville OH, and of course she's from somewhere called "Thornville," because she's working the Emily the Strange with Boots Made for Kicking vibe way, way too hard) walks in. Here's the deal: black catsuit, pink-and-blue striped leg warmers on her arms, one thousand chains from Hot Topic, a purple-and-white jacket with the sleeves ripped off, and under that a red-and-black striped top. Her hair is crazy blue, like Illyria blue, and she has black roots and gray lipstick. She is also wearing what seems to be two skirts: one white, one rainbow-colored (which Paula points out matches her own rainbow-striped shoes, which the girl loves), salmon-pink tights, and somedirty black Keds. Cool. "I'm nervous as heck," she says, and she's suddenly great to me. She's very sweet and nice and I like her tremendously. It's like she was on the train and missed the stop for "Normal, Boring, AP classes, School Spirit" and only awoke after it was getting on towards "Weird, Rebellious, and points west." She and Simon agree there's no reason to be nervous, really, but she still seems scared to death. And then a curious thing happens: she begins to sing.

She sings total fucking glasses-cracking operatic unending range up into the amazing rafters. It's the eponymous song from The Phantom of the Opera, which is lame, except in this case it is not, because she is incredible. Paula's tits fall onto the table as they vote her through, making two of this type of girl with the Punky Colors hair. I'm interested by all this because I like her, and because it's interesting: Cleveland tonight is all about showing us unlikely or fucked-up-looking people -- just like every other audition episode -- only tonight they somehow have awesome voices and get through, for the most part. So it's the thing they for some reason most want to show us, which is stuff to make fun of, ostensibly, combined with the thing they most need to show us, which is people with a chance in hell of winning. Cleveland broke the auditions. That's so awesome.

Then there's the highly-pimped blond Harry Potter-looking kid, Anatole Fedorov ("Call me 'Anthony,'" 19, Trevose PA), clearly a producer favorite, only he's surprising in his own way, in keeping with the Cleveland deal. He looks kind of like Leonardo DiCaprio's little brother to me. He kisses his girlfriend, and then explains that when he was little he couldn't breathe, so he had an infant tracheotomy (which concept is almost as terrible and sad as Huntington's Disease), and to make a long story short, the doctors said he probably would not ever speak again, much less sing. Well, I doubt that the doctors said that precisely about an infant, but it's implied. So his voice is three octaves deeper than his face, and also he talks like a teamster, like that guy in Moonstruck, all, "I lost my hand! I lost my bride!" But he sings likea professional tenor. It's great. I really like it, and I was all prepared to hate it because of the commercials and the selling him to me before the test drive and all that bullshit. The judges say he reminds them of Clay Aiken but I really don't see it. Because he's skinny? Because his voice is different from how he looks? I see no resemblance at all. Not even to say anything rude about either of these guys, I just don't see how you can draw a line or discuss it meaningfully. And how can that help? People that hate Clay are going to hate you, and the people that love Clay? Are going to hate you. Trust me, I moderate the boards. Clay Aiken is a wedge issue.

Anyway, 31 people made it from Cleveland, and "Cleveland Rocks" plays as people jump onto other people jubilantly, having made it through. They are too happy and fast-moving to catalogue, I guess, but we know how many of them there are, so I guess that's all that matters. Hey, except for we never got to see the mime's assistant guy I liked. I bet he had a story.

Orlando! Sunshine State! Theme Park as Residential Area! Ryan rides around in one of those box-fan on a flat board with a really tall chair "boats" from Wild Things. Then Ryan is attacked by a flamingo, and then gazes enviously at a giraffe's blue tongue. I don't know. It's lame. Nine thousand people auditioned here, and there are the usual uninteresting shots. Nobody does anything interesting, they just scream and wave and look similar. There are signs that say "Polk County Represent" and "We Survived Charley So We Can See Simon!! [sic]" Which took me a second, since this was taped last summer and there's been some more violent weather since then, but also: I beg your pardon? So you could "See Simon!!", is it? Well, are you going to use this second lease on life to do anything else important? Like meet Star Jones in person, perhaps?

Randy and Paula talk crazily and unmemorably about fashion, and we finally head to the big room. Marissa Ganz (24, Spring Valley, NY) walks in and interviews that she likes how these auditions require the judges to give you feedback instead of just telling you "No." I get it, but she seems confused about the resemblance of this to what you call "auditions." She's got a Romans-in-space thing happening -- a black toga dress, with a sash and strappy silver sandals. She's going to sing "White Boys" from Hair. Now, as part of a period piece about a time that happened to be a turning point in American civil rights, this song makes sense. The white girls sing about black boys, and the black girls sing about white boys, and everybody fucks everybody else, and it's all very transcendent and amazing or whatever. Sex as equal-opportunity sport. But if you fast-forward to 2005, what this is is terrible and spooky, because you've got a blonde chick singing about how she prefers the exclusive intimate company of white men. Which, whatever, it's an artifact, it's a song, music plays and there are words, but it's also a show tune, and that's a strike or two. And we're not even to the singing part.

So now Paula is suddenly devastated and wants to quit the whole show. God, this lady is nuts. Randy agrees with Simon and me, and Paula freaks out on him so bad. She says that Dezmond "did James Brown" and then pushes it too far, saying that he "did it better than James Brown." Way to make sure they take your feelings seriously. Nobody's going to think you're being overly dramatic now, honey. Randy says, caught in Paula's web of bullshit, "He didn't even do the splits!" and the guy immediately does the splits, thereby completely proving Simon and Randy's point. Paula: "Have you ever seen me this upset?" Simon: "Yes." Randy laughs. She is really fixated on this kid. If she had any credibility before this, it's gone now, and she's just not getting it. Paula's kind of pissing me off this week. Simon is bored by all of it. Randy finally sides with Paula and claps for him, and Paula can't clap because, as she tells Dezmond, she'd kill for him right now, and is so upset about what might have happened, that he might not have gotten through, that she cannot even summon the strength to clap for his success. Suck it up, Paula. Jesus. Outside, Dezmond says he got "two nos and a yes," but then he got through because Paula fought "to tears. Literally." Literally she did this. He is very touched. I am more bored than I have been since we went to church with that one guy.

Sixteen total make it through from Orlando: this girl with short black hair and lots of tattoos, a boyband-looking guy, Mercedes from America's Top Model, a screaming girl with large breasts, an inbred goatee guy with chest hair who says, "Thank you my brothers," a very pretty girl with long cornrows and a white suit jacket and black t-shirt. I like her instantly, remind me I liked her: she's the one with carriage and breeding that looks a little like Lauryn Hill but not insane. Wednesday: San Francisco with Moesha. But first: A bonus recap in the middle of the recap!

Also Tuesday

Paula Abdul was on The Daily Show a couple of hours after the foregoing, and this was how it went: she didn't blink at all, and she didn't actually speak too much, just stared at Jon Stewart and repeated the last three words of everything he said. I think she was nervous, in addition to being high, because even Paula Abdul has to know that he's going to eat her alive. Well, not exactly: Jon helps you eat yourself. And in this case, he gave her a whole lot of leeway, since she was clearly wicked out of it, to just say whatever she wanted. The problem was that she did not really feel that it was necessary for her to say anything, really. So he had to keep asking her questions, but that's incredibly uninteresting, since you can't very well ask her about her eating disorder (despite the pin that she wears entreating you to do just that), and you can't ask her about her musical career or MC Skat Kat, or else you get the hose again, and you can't ask her what you really want to ask her, which is what she's on and if she's carrying.