"I Woke Up And One Of Us Was Crying"

Monday

Tonight, the "guys."

On that good old stage, Ryan's head looks weird somehow, and he's talking about how there have been one hundred million viewers, and then says some dumb things we've heard one hundred million times, and all this time only certain parts of his face are moving. He's got L.A. face bad, y'all. Worse than Paula. "After suffering through the likes of Mary Roach and Leroy Wells, apparently you can dig it!'' And also, "good thing you're hooked! Because now you are in control." Not so good come Wednesday, I wager. Lots of people wanting to avoid a massacre.

Now, some embarrassing crap: they do this "dancing" as they're introduced. Remember Fame? With Debbie Reynolds, and they would come out and go, "I'm Ryan Seacrest! And I'm here to work!" Remember that? It is the essence of cool compared to this. That's like Karen O doing body shots off the Arcade Fire, is what that is like. Nikko Smith is relatively cool with it, even though he's surgically attached to his horrible hat. Scott does a terrible white-boy dance with the revolving white-boy fists. Anthony does a gay stripper dance. Bo does no dancing at all, but does give us some rock horns and pretty much carries it off. Travis does a not-at-all-cute eye-fuck and frankly, in that moment it's over between us, for good. Speaking of: Constantine is too cool for this, by which I mean not cool at all. Cool comes from within. Ask Anwar or Judd. David Brown does a silly funny loveable dance. Jared is embarrassing and Anwar is embarrassing but lovely. Judd is wicked crazy adorable. Joseph is okay, and doesn't muff it like most of the others. Mario is just fine. They're here to work. I'd quit right then, when they sat me down and explained what was going to happen. "Jacob out," I'd say.

On the sidelines are the "girls." Urgh. Seacrest talks about how there's gonna be three weeks of this crap, and he fully admits that Wednesday is going to be a whole lot of filler and bullshit, which is hilarious. Or at least it was, when he said it. He didn't say what kind of filler or bullshit. He left that part out.

Seacrest greets the judges and asks Randy about how during the auditions he kept saying liked the boys. Randy's sticking with it and says it's "time to prove it," and how they are "the best group of guys we've ever had." He smirks as he says this, because the seams are showing. On to the performances because there are just thousands of contestants.

Nikko and the entire black-and-white history of him and his stupid hat, and then he sings "Part Time Lover." Open your eyes! He looks all squinty. It's kind of nasal and the higher notes are pretty forced. There are good parts, but the bad parts arenot great. I like him, he's immensely likeable and seems really nice? But I don't care what happens to him. He's fun to watch but I think the deal is that I don't feel all that connected to him because of the glasses, the hat, the squint, all of it. I'm not terribly sure what he looks like. Some bad notes, some yelling, and we're done. It's a good ending, though. The crowd goes nuts. I can't trust this show at all. The clapping could be partially canned and we'd never know. That bottom third where they say the number you should call seems to have been sponsored by a cell-phone company. If you didn't notice, don't worry -- there are twelve commercials for it this week. I can't wait until they just say "fuck it" and shave the Sonic Wave of a certain cola into the back of Ryan's hair. And you know he'd let them do it, too.

Randy says Nikko would make Stevie proud, and that this is one of the best boy performances he's ever seen. He's hitting that whole thing so fakely, I can't even trust what I think about it. I honestly go left when he goes right, when it's shit like this. Paula is wearing a weird shawl and she's going to go ahead and "ditto that." She likes that the song was "upbeat to start out with" or something. Also, "Stevie would be proud." Do you think Paula's actual life is this Technicolor? How exciting. "This is the best pancetta I've ever had!" "This piano bar is amazing -- that guy did Elton John and he did it better than Elton John." "These jeans feel great, and they made it their own."

Simon thought it wasokay, and he says that the viewers will most likely forget about Nikko after a few more singers. I agree with that. Except for the baseball fans. He calls it a "background singers performance," and says he has "no star quality." Ryan's wearing some kind of gold family crest on his t-shirt like he's in Romeo + Juliet, or is a dancer on the Maya Rudolph skits about Donatella Versace. One of these days, dude.

, memories of Scott Savol and that whole bag of bullshit. Then, his perfect, perfect voice. Just don't look! It's too weird to deal with both things at once. He's a little pitchy in the beginning, and not as assured as we've seen before. It's throwing off his vibrato super-bad, but he's still better than most people I've heard sing, like, in my lifetime. There are stupid dance moves. He's singing "If You Were My Lady." I've not heard this song. It is wicked boring. There are lovely nice jumps into falsetto and back down again. He's a natural and it's like watching the Olympics. Has he ever performed in front of people before? I don't know. He's wearing lovely earth tones, but there are some terrible facial hair atrocities happening. Just horrors. Tiny little penciled-in mustache. He looks like a procurer. The crowd goes nuts.

Randy calls it "not his best performance" (DRINK!) and says that it didn't show off his range, but was just "all right." He notes "a couple of pitch things." Paula likes the song choice, because people would not expect that voice coming out of him. True, but whatever. He could sing any song at all and it would still be weirdly wonderful. He could sing the song that he looks like, which is that Meatloaf song about "Will you walk with the wolf in the pale moonlight?" or whatever, and it would still sound eerily beautiful. "Pitch problems, but so what?" she says. Sothat no longer matters? This singing competition no longer takes that into account?

Simon says he's interested in seeing what the audience makes of him, because he doesn't look like the American Idol. The translation is, "I triple-dog-dare you to vote for him," and turns out America took that bet. Randy -- because if you're inside the show you have to pretend that this is real -- mentions Ruben and Clay as also not looking like an American Idol, and Simon pretty much ignores that. Paula is also wearing some weird Wonder Woman armor on her arms. Ryan reassures Scott that Simon doesn't look like someone that should be on TV. Which is funny, because heaven and earth have changed places and the snow's coming down in June and somehow Simon is now better-looking than Ryan. I don't know when that happened and it makes me uncomfortable to think about, but there it is. I said it. Scott smiles insanely into the camera.

Bo Bice puts down his joint long enough to have a quick meeting with Ryan, who refers to himself as "overly made-up." Hmm. Botox, I'm saying. Bo admits he was amazed that he's made it this far. He's wearing a hippie shirt that his grandmother actually made for him, and his long stupid hair, and then Ryan forces Bo to implicate himself in the whole wincingly dumb "rocker" thing, and Bo goes so far as to admit that being there is somehow both amazing and stupid, at once. He's obviously a really nice guy, and a pro. He mentions wishing he could play his own original songs, being completely confused as to what this show is about, and sending the posters into an absolute tizzy.

Before Anthony even starts singing, the crowd loses their minds. Anthony sings "Hold Onto The Night," swaying back and forth and constantly searching for the right camera into which he can smile and into which he might lick his lips and at which he will twitch his tracheotomy scar. It's kind of gross. It keeps winking at me. Cover that shit up! You're splitting your vote! There's the grossness of the winking, and the grossness of the Guarini Effect he's going for, and they are contradictory and collectively gross. Especially combined with the geeky swaying back and forth: it's like he's singing a Christmas song on the porch of a mean old lady. Voice-wise, he's so concerned with being sexy that he kind of forgets to keep the grip on his horses. Also, he does Richard Marx one better in terms of wussiness. It's nice, and he's hot in a very specific way, to which I am mostly immune, and there's a cool part at the end where he really hits it.

I wonder if he acts younger than his age because people treat him like he's younger than he is? He seems really professional onstage, and when responding to the judges, so who knows. I heard that his girlfriend Queer-Eyed him to make him dorkier so that he would catch more of the Clay vibe, but I don't really have a problem with that. The judges agree that he is boring and safe and dull. He's super cute though, so I think he'll be okay. He smiles utterly blankly in that empty, scary way of staring-smiling that Tobey Maguire rode all the way to superstardom. He's freaked, clearly. This will be better once they've had some experience doing this.

Now, Bo Bice I think always dresses like this, like we are stardust and we are golden and we've got to get ourselves back to the Garden. He sings the obvious choice of "Drift Away," SO AWESOMELY, but you know, he looks like a cult leader. Like a leader of cults. He holds his microphone like people who pretend to be smokers when they are smoking to look cool. I think this voice, which is very nice, is pretty affected. He also makes scary, scary Meatloaf faces. His lips don't know what to do some of the time. He hits the part of the song where there's clapping. It's fine. He's certainly got his whole thing happening. I kind of adore him, honestly.

Randy loves how he's a "rocker." STOP IT. It's like how when somebody calls you the wrong name, they don't just do it once, but eleven times, and it's so embarrassing for everyone. And also Randy thinks it was "hot." Paula loves how he's a "rocker." DRINK! And he "feels like a perfect pair of jeans." Paula, get it together. Simon thought he did absolutely everything right. Bo doesn't smile right, when he smiles. Smile and sing and talk into a mirror a half hour every day, Bo Bice. Work it out. You're cute. Don't hide it under a bushel of no upper lip and scary grimaces.

Travis now. The last guy to make it onto the show. Misty monochrome memories of Paula blathering on about how he's perfect in every way. The crowd goes nuts because he's so hot. They just scream and scream before he even starts singing, and what he's singing is "Ma Cherie Amour," with the biggest grin you ever did see shooting right into the camera. I don't even know if he can sing because he's working it so efficiently. It's tiring and pretty icky to look at. I'm not feeling it. It's like getting hit in the face with a flyswatter of sexiness. It's like he's wearing an entire bottle of aftershave. That's exactly what it's like: Too much. Plus the fact is that his natural expression is very open and nice and smart, so it seems so fake to have him cheesing it up and making you feel sick and intrigued. Just be yourself instead of acting like you just did me. That's why I hate Gavin DeGraw too. No subtlety. Now I'm listening and not looking, and it soundsnice. It's boring and perfectly passable. Honestly, though. Can you actually sing this song and blow my mind? Is that possible? I don't think it is. I wish it were over. It's totally not, ever. I'm tired. Oh and now with the "LA LA LA" crap. Finally it ends and we wake up again.

Randy tells him that he was boring and not being himself. Check. Paula thinks he's magical and she wants todo something to him. I don't know what she wants. It's some kind of crazy gesture that she thinks says what she wants to do but is in fact as incomprehensible as if she had actually said it. Simon says he's out of tune, boring, and not even good enough for a hotel lobby. They half-assedly bitch at him. Travis smiles as Ryan says the number you should call, and his regular smile is ten thousand times sexier than that fake fuck-me shit he's been doing all night.

Effing Constantine. God. "KISS FROM A ROSE!" Hilarious! He's got this stupid scarf happening and he's making out with the mic stand. He makes gross faces into the camera and he's creepy and such a "rocker" and his stupid voice and acts like he's getting electrocuted and his weird pronouncing everything wrong and his stupid double chin and total intensity and emoting while singing maybe the dumbest song in the history of the world. What the fuck is that song even about? More creepy, more staring, more mouth-sounds that aren't words, more gross.

He sings so very much without enunciation that I can understand no more than half of the words. Considering he's a conservatory boy with a theatre background, I assume that the complete lack of lyrical clarity is a choice. Bad choice. He strokes the pole, you guys. And not just like he always is, but I mean, the mic stand. Up and down. Like Luke that time on the golf course. He gets so into himself that he forgets some words, expecting us to believe that when it snows his "eyes become a large." You can see him flinch when he does it too. If you are being so incredibly affected that you throw your own self off, that means you're not qualified to be so affected. Anna says, "This person looks like Darlene Connor." It's so true. He's just filthy and, like, if you think about being his girlfriend? With the "artistic" moods and the self-abuse and the whiny baby-acting bullshit? So deeply uncool. "Because I need a Grilled Stuffed Burrito and if I stop writing now I'll forget this song completely and my life will be over. Just put down that book you're reading and do it! Please? God. Why are you such a bitch?"

Randy liked the song choice, but he was out of tune and tried WAY too hard (word). Constantine asks which note in particular he was overshooting, and Randy sings it, poorly (but in tune), and they laugh at Randy, and Randy points out that he isn't the one in a singing competition. Ryan tells him to "stick to the rapping" and they all share a chuckle. Half of all viewers get way ahead of themselves thinking that it was Constantine that said that, causing a whole other pile of bullshit on Wednesday. Paula likes how he has his own style and he "stays to it." Horrible though it may be, it makes him "unique to himself." Ugh. Everybody cheers him just for being Constantine.

Simon groups him with Bo for the producer-influenced rivalry that made Season 2 such a rousing, boring, unending success, and Paula freaks right out about that, for no reason. Bo outsang Constantine, while Constantine has more charisma. Half right. Paula goes on and on for no reason about nothing in particular. While Ryan gives the number you should call, Darlantine looks half human for a second and then back to the whole affected rocker mess. His awful fat face on my TV. He's so much cuter when he's being a dude and kind of hating this show, and being nervous and ambivalent about it all. I can almost see it when he's nervous, because that's when he's real, because in all actuality he's not a rock star, he's a dork. I have no issue with that. Now sing in English for me and we'll be better off. And I totally saw you on Elimidate, okay? The jig is up.

Seacrestiana: "In order to avoid overexposure, we're coming to you three times a week." Hee. I mean, when you talk about how much something sucks, that does nothing to make it stop sucking, but I love how he's the only one that ever can say it. At least until Melinda loses her shit. David Brown is up now. I like that guy, let's see what happens. He sings "Never Can Say Goodbye," which I already said I really like, and he pronounces it like Anita Baker (how he never can "shay" goodbye), whom I love. He's fun to watch. He locks and unlocks his knees on the downbeat and bounces around and it makes it more fun even though it's just a tiny little thing. He doesn't seem to be putting much into this. I mean, his voice is really good, but it's all very laid back, and I guess I want them to work for it -- he seems kind of wiped and doing this well because he's professional and talented, and not because he actually cares, and all the goodness is what is there all the time. There's an awesome set of glories at the end. He has very lovely teeth. He's just beautiful, in a classic way.

Randy calls it a "safe" song, and "pitchy," but he likes David's voice. Paula feels they're being extra harsh, and she is also slurring her words, but I think that she thinks he "fell into his groove" midway through, and also "found it at the end." Simon would be fifty/fifty if this were his first time seeing David, and he says something not even closed-captioning can understand about how he should "watch his back," I think, and how Simon was disappointed. Randy and Paula are still big fans of his voice. Me too.

Monochrome Jared Yates and his fake eyeballs and his "presence," and then singing some mystery number. This is the slowest song ever, and his dancing is weird, but at least he's got his actual eyes on tonight. I like him twice as much for that now. He is boringly pretty. "How could I turn away from the one I love? When I know what my heart's made of?" He's cool with the whispering and groaning and having all the tics of Enrique Iglesias. I don't even know who that is and he reminds me of him. Or, since it turns out this is a Marc Anthony song, Marc Anthony. I never thought to wonder if those were the same guy. Is one of them related to Don Ho? I know nothing about this kind of music -- slow, dickless love songs for loveless people -- after, like, the era of John Secada. I just dropped out of that industry. I guess I like him, though. I like anything that reminds me of my favorite word from fourth grade, "antimacassar." Which he indubitably does.

Randy looks very nice tonight. He finds the whole thing "average or slightly below average" and he marvels at how "weird" that is. Paula thinks that their nerves are causing the kids to pick random sucky songs. That literally makes no sense. Simon points out that that is, in fact, an excuse, and that all of them were picked because they're good, and so who cares to give them excuses? He says it was "a boy-band audition" and "ghastly" and that Jared wouldn't have made it into the boy-band in question. His teeth are perfect. Everything on him is perfect. He looks a lot like Scott Hope, a.k.a. Fab Moretti, only scientifically perfected. It's kind of boring to look at, but at least there are no fake contacts, though. Good smile/eye contact/handshake with Ryan. Professionalism gets you so, so far with me. Also though is telling the whole machine to fuck right off, which both rejected female performers will do on Wednesday.

Ryan sitting on a stool suddenly, out on the Seal. I wonder if this is for someone sensitive. I wonder if it's for Anwar. Yep! Sitting on a stool in a big stupid jacket singing "Moon River." How dreadfully earnest. He looks somehow worried when he sings. He's going for the soft pantry boy angle here, and then stands up for the sounding like Stevie Wonder part. His jacket is weird and distracting. It's all kinds of boring. I like this song and he's doing a great job but I keep thinking about how I need to do dishes. Kind of yelly and not at all what he's about, it's false somehow. He's still gorgeous and nice and deeply sincere but I hope he doesn't sing something so terribly on the nose week. I wonder if -- being a theory person -- he arranged this himself. That would rock. Not least because it fits his voice and range perfectly, but also because it's a totally counterintuitive jazzy remix of the song, which is one of my favorites of all time, and you'd have to be ballsy to pull that off -- which he does. I wonder.

Paula stands. Randy talks about how it was a weird choice but he immediately loved it. Paula wants to buy the recording of that. "Bless your heart, Paula." Ugh, see what I mean with the earnestness? That's a thing particular to me, I know that, but come on. Simon thinks where he made the right call was not falling into the trap of doing a bad impersonation of a Stevie song, and he made the right call in showing originality. Huh. Is that a burn on the guy earlier? Or just generally? Or is he saying that's something Anwar would or could do? The last thing I agree with. Then Anwar stares creepily into the camera. He's so neato and serene that I can't tell if he's being weird because he's nervous, or what.

Judd Harris! Judd! Everybody freaks out. Paula thinks his humility is very attractive. He sings all freaked-out awesome and he sounds like a whole new thing I've not seen or heard before. That's awesome. I've watched this part about a hundred times because It's My Job. And yeah, he kind of yells, but you can hear the quality of his voice. How it is, you know? Good. He's very guileless and funny. He's the one that enters the frat party dancing and saying hello to people he's not yet met and just being generally friendly. His crotch is kind of up in my face, but that's okay sometimes. It gets the point across. It's Creedence, apparently? About "playing in a traveling band." I like his dancing and his faces and his weird little scrabbling hopping around in circles. It's awesome. He's pretty sexy all of a sudden. There's a lot going on. It's the best of the night, to me.

Randy loves it, Paula calls it his "niche" and points out it was a crowd pleaser, and Simon calls him an entertainer. (Not in a good way.) He also points out the utterly obvious fact how he's slammin' hot. Then he's cute all over the place with a big old smile and crouching and bouncing and jumping and Ryan giggling at his antics. They are buddies.

I have a favorite. I don't even like this show and now I have a favorite. Dude.

Joseph throws the horns. If you do that, boys, I hate you. I just decided that. Ryan's back out there on the stool. Monochrome Paula says he has a unique sound that is good. Tonight he sings like a scary ghost, all scratchy and not right. This is not how you sing. And then suddenly, it's nice because he's just singing perfectly. It's really wonderful, and nice to hear with your ears. He looks like an Oompa-Loompa, and not just the orange thing -- which is lessened -- but also his, like, features. He's getting cuter, though. "How Am I Supposed To Live Without You?" he sings, without any irony. His voice is incredibly strong, even if he doesn't do a damn new or interesting thing with it. He's the male Janay. Still, it is worthwhile, just like she is. A little of that nasal Michael Bolton in there. He sings right into the camera, in the right way, like he's singing right to you. And not feeling on your booty while he's doing it, either. He looks a lot less plasticky-creepy tonight than he has. I didn't get all the squeeing before, but now that he looks like a normal dude I can understand it. He's a nice guy. Little old ladies touch him whenever they can? He's that kind of guy.

Simon scratches his left biceps repetitively like he has scabies, completely zoned out. Randy calls it "All right, not your best." Paula loves "the tone to his voice." Me too. Simon: it gets you therebut it's not very exciting. Joe really wants Ryan to like him.

Why?

Mario prances around and wants them to get crazy in the audience. Stupid damned hat. Still, though. He sings "Do I Do," a pretty song with dumb words. His hips are all over the place. This is kind of boring. His chinny-chin-chin-hairs are not at all okay. How can you be either good or bad with this song? It's yelling and fast talking, and that's what it is. He is immensely likeable, though. The singing parts that he throws in there, on his own initiative, are awesome and immensely technically proficient, but, like: the singing should be the ice cream, not the jimmies. You know?

The judges lose their shit. Randy's all, "That was the bomb! That was the best of the night!" Paula screams, "TOUCHDOWN! TOUCHDOWN!" Man. This is so fake! Simon calls him "Mary-O," rather than "Marr-io," which is kind of funny. He says it wasn't the best vocal -- that's true, but the others disagree anyway because they're afraid of the producers -- but it was the best performance, thanks to charisma. I love how they're just blatantly telling us over and over that vocal quality is no longer an issue. They're over it, and we need to catch up and stop caring how these people sound. I love that. Also, though, maybe it means that they're going to kill off Scott Savol before the end of the month.

Review: Nikko, who I forgot, just like they said I would. Scott with his facial-hair issues. Anthony concentrating on charisma to the detriment of his voice. Bo being wonderful. Travis selling it, knowing that it's all he's got. Constantine being horrific in every way -- my TiVo stalls on this. I take those TiVo stalls very seriously. It often happens when people tell lies on TV shows. I'm not kidding. I trust my TiVo to malfunction when it finds things too painful to record -- like Mr. C. David Brown and his gums and singing. Jared with his squeaky Marc Anthony voice. Anwar singing awesomely. Judd being so damned amazing I could die. Joseph powering his way though the ceiling and being very controlled and good -- very telling, though, is how he elides the /t/ at the end of "without," all, "how am I supposed to live withou' you," which is exactly what Michael Bolton does there too. Mario sing-talking fast and driving everybody nuts.

Ryan then resumes to teach us how to send text messages. Seriously. And to remember that the two lowest will be voted out, so "make those votes count." There's a quick run through the girls dancing around like assholes to prepare you for tomorrow night, then everybody onstage, with the "rockers" and David around Ryan on camera, staring out at you creepily.

Tuesday

The thing is, I don't know which night to resent; all I know is that this show is on all the damn time. This week, of course, it's Wednesday I resent, because it's bullshit, but like Wednesday is the only one that matters, in certain respects. Anyway. Tonight, per Seacrest, you should "prepare yourself" for the "girls."

Vonzell raises the roof, and she's here to work. Amanda, Carrie, and Celena do the sorority shuffle, and they are here to work. Janay is cute, as usual -- that's the flavor she comes in. Melinda, Nadia, and Aloha all think they are so fucking awesome and they came here to work, and one of them is actually right. Not to be a hater: Melinda is a fun, likeable person. For now. Mikalah is slutty, although to be fair she looks kind of gorgeous tonight. Sarah and Lindsey are the same person, who came here to work. Jessica is crazy and scary but I'm starting to like her, a lot. She looks a little bit like Scarlett Johanssen playing Bridget Jones.

Seacrestiana all about how two of these "girls" will disappear faster than a strudel in Randy Jackson's dressing room. One, I don't think my father, the inventor of toaster strudels? Would find that funny. Two, Randy's gone to a lot of trouble to lose weight and I would think Seacrest, of all people -- with actual poison injected into his fucking face as we speak -- would cut him a break. "There's a live show Wednesday," he says, as Randy laughs good-naturedly about the strudel crack. "Four people in tears: your fault, not mine." And he's so right, in some ways, but I'll get to that.