Monday
Seacrest looks fit, with some shirt I can't read that looks like the opening credits of At Home With The Braithwaites. "King of the Scene"? Oh, Ryan. Then there's a whole deal with how we're live for some reason, and how they all "felt it" up there when they kicked out the people, whom we see in stills of varying flattery. Anyway, with some not very interesting body language, the ladies are just "watchin' and hangin'," off to the side.
The crowd goes wild when Federov waves sweetly into the camera like a sweet little baby. I guess you work with what you've got. Then the crowd goes wild for the judges too, and dude, like, they just loooove the judges. I wonder if any of that has really all that much to do with what's actually happening. The cheering, I mean. I trust nothing. I'm so the truth is out there after last week. You can't be sure Ryan Seacrest really exists until the day you shake his hand. His tiny, tiny hand.
Randy tells Ryan that he expects "no nerves tonight," and that the men must "bring it on." Ryan calls Paula on how she adds nothing of worth to the competition, asking her if she'll be harping on song choice to the exclusion of anything else, or just gabble on randomly, or pick a new thing to go on about, or what. Her reply? "Well it's down to let's see showmanship you know I wanna see how they perform and see a individual unique performance." So what she'll be looking for this week is whether or not they, um, sing. She's a harsh taskmistress, but fair. I'll give her that.
Then: gay. "Cowell, at this stage…" Simon cuts him off: "It's Simon, actually." Then he buys Ryan a drink. "Whatever," Ryan says, in this pretty cute way that reminds me of ADAM PRATT. "You should be happy I'm giving you more camera time right now." Then the whole thing kind of breaks down and Ryan puts one hand on his little hip and they wink and giggle and blow kisses and pass notes that say Ryan I like you do you like me? Circle one Yes/No and You're funny and I like you but I don't like you like you but do you like me? and Paula is a stupidhead and Constantine smells like a dog's butt. And then Ryan climbs on the desk and there is tongue and they simply can't stop laughing. "Have you picked out the person you think will win this year?" Of course he has. Ryan wants to know if it's a guy or a girl that Simon likes, but Simon's not telling, because that would be the end of their relationship, and plus Simon doesn't like to draw those kinds of lines, because we just like who we like and there's no explaining it. Welcome to my entire stupid college experience.
Continuing on this "clearing up misconceptions" thing, Mario interviews to draw a strong line in the sand: he is not in fact bald and he hopes to show the top of his head at some point this season. What the fuck? Why would they…what is the point of…what internet site was so crazy about the fucking hat thing that…well, by tomorrow night we'll see what he keeps up there, and…please find some new hats instead of taking them off altogether. Then he sings some song I don't care about, same kind of thing like last week, all sing-talking and yelling and finally singing some parts, and those parts are good, of course. The backup track is so intense, like, acid reflux intense and loud, and that'll be true all tonight and all tomorrow night, but I'll keep bringing it up. He's working the camera in that oh-so-credible way of his, and dancing all crazy, and he seems generally more laid back. His jeans are not that flattering. Frankly, they make him look a little fat, which is weird, because he's totally miniscule in every direction. This song's all about how he loves music -- any old kind of music, and the point of it is to show Mario's range, which is too bad, because there's not really a lot. There are all these creepy girl voices in the back going "la la la la," and it's spooky, and they're way too loud. Then Mario begins to sing just awfully, and all the low notes are out of his range and all his high notes are out of his range and his hat looks like the liner on a dude's swimming suit.
After, Randy says something cryptic about how he "knows where [Mario] got those shoes, man." Off a dead guy? The hell? I bet Randy knows a bunch of industry people with their own fashion lines. Maybe that's the deal. Paula "admits" the she lied before, about something, and that he picked a good song. They agree that even though he sucked tonight, they want to keep seeing him on the show. Just fucking openly like that. How come they always do this with Mario? "Oh, what the hell. You should suck, it's fine." Even Simon is like, "You sounded like shit but looked nice. And professional." Which is true. But you know? Why not bring your A game? Why not just do that instead? Then, there's more "we've discovered the internets" bullshit about Ryan asking Mario to pronounce his last name (vass-KWEZ), so we'll stop making fun of him for saying it "wrong" and start making fun of Mario, I guess, for pronouncing his name the way it's pronounced.
One thing I did not know for sure until this week is that Paris Hilton is awesome. Thanks for screwing up my TiFaux so I had to watch that Simple Life show on Wednesday, FOX. Your lack of gumption once again renders unto me most delicious and auspicious results.
After the break, Ryan and Mario are just clowning. Then Joe's up and he and Ryan play another game of "Let's Clarify Things For The Internets We Just Heard About," all, how come Joe was grabbing all over Ryan during the results last week, and was he going to fall down or offer to go home or what, and Joe says some unconsidered crap about how he was at that point "getting ready" to do his sing-out because "I thought it was over and then you told me to sit down and it was like I didn't want to sit down," meaning his body wasn't feeling that because he was dreadfully nervous, and then he admits regarding his knees that "they buckled a little bit," and then Joe grabs on Ryan some more and thanks him for being there for him, and in fact for all contestants in all contests in the world -- See? He wasn't being mean to those kids, you remembered it wrong, America! -- and then Ryan says, "I'm here for you, man. All 142 pounds of me." And oh, how Joe laughs.
Anwar interviews that he wants his students to "remember him as Mr. Robinson first, instead of American Idol Anwar," because then they'll be able to "see access" for themselves, as in, points of access for themselves to realize their own dreams, which is nice because sometimes little kids shouldn't know better. That's fairly awesome; I like the train of thought that got him there, a lot. Then he sings nasally in a strange camouflage hunting jacket, and what he is singing is "What's Going On," and what that is? Is stupid. He's wearing a Desert Storm jacket and singing an anti-war protest song, okay, but he's bouncing on his heels and grinning and being gold old Anwar the entire time, so it's incredibly, insultingly half-baked, like a stab at a statement, and even worse than that, his tone is very thin and weird. He just sounds like a guy singing. Any old guy. Also, he has admitted to fudging the lyrics by accident, which ironically undercuts the jacket thing even more, because he rhymes "crying" with "crying" and in the war he's singing about, ain't nobody "dying." I will say, though, that he has some very nice moves, is generally quite appealing and very good at going like this: "Woo!" Which he does many times. Then there is an unending, tinny, terrible-sounding note at the end. Another lovely, professional, semi-memorable performance, with a side of self-righteous liberal half-assery.
Randy says it was "really, really good," and points out Anwar's "great" control, which is totally true. He also calls the performance "hot," which is totally not true. It was nice. Just like Anwar. Nice and pretty and right there in your face. Paula repeats everything Randy just said and adds that he's technically "the best vocalist." True, he's a technician, but I haven't heard a whole lot of interest or passion so far, just the sound of him asking eloquently, "Like me? Please?" Plus which, tonight? Didn't sound that great. Which is not completely his fault, because of the weird mics and sound mix, but is mostly his fault, because welcome to performing. Simon didn't like last week's performance when he "watched it back" (I learned this phrase recently from the posters, and not from Simon, because I couldn't understand what he was saying), and that he thought tonight was a risk (How? Why? Because the song is played, and has no rage left behind it forty years later?) but that on TV he thinks it will sound good. Thirtieth shot already of Carrie clapping.
Here's the thing, and Simon himself will kind of explain at some point, but the deal is that the whole "watching it back" ongoing thing this week in particular is because not only is the band too loud, and the mics all weird, and the voices barely understandable, but also the monitors are knackered, I think, so that the judges have sound coming at them all wrong and way loud from every direction, and basically have no way of knowing how this is going to sound to us, or in fact how it sounds, period. Which increases their pointlessness by a million, but that's not the point, because the point is that every time Simon points out the difference between the live performance and his impressions upon "watching it back," there's a teeny-tiny passive aggressive "fuck you" point to be made to the production team, and a request to have the sound guys fired and replaced with people who understand acoustics. For which I cannot blame him, but it seems oddly subtle or sneaky for a guy like him.
"up, if he can stand up: it's Joe Murena." Joe interviews his really deep thoughts about how this is like singing into your bathroom mirror, only there's no mirror, and instead of being in the bathroom, you're surrounded by a bajillion people, and you're on TV, and you might get sent home, and people on websites get paid to make fun of you. So just like that, only totally different. The orange is back, y'all. He looks good, in his wide-collared suit and the whole thing he's got going on, but if you knew him you'd laugh, I think, because it's kind of Night at the Roxbury. He goes the crazy all-too-refreshing route, singing "Let's Stay Together." I mean, he sounds really great, but it's Al Green, you know? Like the stuff Paula will say to the girls both nights, regarding Alicia Keys: Change it up. You are never going to sound like Al Green, and even if you sound better than Al Green, we will still hate you for not sounding like Al Green, because that's what we want: Al Green. Singing this song. And many others. He's just one of those guys. Kind of like Otis Redding. About whom I still know absolutely nothing, and I'm loving it, but thanks for the very polite and gracious emails calling me a fucktard. But we'll get to that.
Joe Mureno should play Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar. What a strange thing to say. I don't know. I really love his voice, and he can do the register-change thing that the leads in that show have to do to make it listenable. The movie soundtracks to this and Xanadu were all I listened to when I was little, and I don't like musicals and I really don't like Andrew Lloyd Webber, but I loved those songs, man. ["It was one of my family's go-to cassettes on car trips…and my introduction to the concept that the villain is usually cooler and gets better songs than the hero. See also: Band, Charlie Daniels." -- Sars] Plus, that movie was my first ever introduction to Jesus and all the stuff that happened to Jesus, actually, and I was quite fascinated by Jesus for a long time, but I didn't really know that there was more to it. I just thought he was this cool, nice guy that got to have a movie about his interesting experiences, like Tommy, or Charlie Bucket. True story.
Anyway, you can see and actually hear Mikalah screaming for him, which is nice. His voice is so, so strong, and while it's not quirky or unusual, that's still something. He knows how to use it. Ditto on the pants, which are very…stretchy. I don't know. All the pants are stretchy and tight and you can see everybody's details. Ryan especially. I don't want to look, but there it is, all in your grill. Joe Mureno is doing a really good job singing, but still just like this guy you know. You know? Some nice guy you went to high school with that can sing well. Amanda Avila, I think, has started this bullshit in the Girl Pound where they snap their fingers like beatniks, which is dumb, because the mics can't hear it, so it doesn't exactly create the pounding applause that might, say, move a person to pick up the phone. That's foreshadowing, I read about how people do that sometimes.
Randy wasn't blown away, and Paula liked the song choice (drink twice, because she totally said like five minutes ago that the "song choice" era had ended), and loved the tone (drink!) and pitch of his voice: He was in command. All true, and why I liked him best tonight. Cut to Carrie clapping. Seriously. Simon agrees with Randy, and then says that Joe sounded okay but that we could have been in a Portuguese night club in 1974, and…what? I don't see the relevance to the competition. Wow. I mean, I get it, but it's the song really, and with a voice that strong and control like that he could really do anything with it, I think. Not just take part in a Portuguese sing-along or whatever the hell. Simon hasn't heard an actual man singing in so long that he thinks it sounds dated and old-school, I guess. Of course Paula freaks out on him, even though she doesn't really know what he means. It really undercuts the few times I agree with her, when she does this. Calm down! I now look stupid for agreeing with you! Hate that. Then cut to Constantine who's up after the commercial, and he makes a stupid ugly face, of course.
Back live, Seacrestiana: "You do the voting, we get the blame." Huh. The Chris Carter on my left shoulder is like, "Not that the two are connected." Man. This is the best I think Ryan Seacrest has ever looked in his entire life. He jokes that Simon is now banned from every Portuguese nightclub in L.A., which whatever, and then David interviewing about this monstrous and ridiculous piece of bling hanging from his neck that is shaped like a giant microphone which weighs six pounds and reminds him of "where he comes from, what he does, and who he is. Which is a singer." And not, I hasten to add, an actor, because dude, that was the most horrible line reading I've ever seen in a person over the age of six. His face goes all crazy and tic-ed up and he's like Ashlee Simpson when she was on 7th Heaven. I think I just fell out of love with David Brown, you guys. It's so false and makes him look so dumb, like he's actually reading it off the card, like he's a tiny child selling grape juice, and even though I know they made him say it, it's still ridiculous. At least I'm fairly certain he's going to sing the most boring song he can.
"All is fair in love," he sings, really unevenly. "Love's a crazy game," he sings, with more of these strange child-actor faces. "Two people vow to stay in love as one, they say." God forbid I talk shit about a single song I've ever heard, but dude: I couldn't sing this with a straight face, but more importantly, he can't sing it with anything like a normal face. It just makes him seem like he doesn't know what the fuck he's saying. I hope he goes home. This is absurd. I didn't watch last year, but this is kind of what I remember people talking about when they talked about…was it Jasmine? Like cute faces and pretty feet and the Voice of Huckabees. It gets really good for a second, then really bad again, then more faces. Faces faces faces. Like it's actually happening to him right now, but he's singing about it instead of saying it. Like we're in a musical performed by a high school for aspiring thespians under the age of puberty. Then, Carrie clapping.
Randy's all, "Listen, it was better than last week." Just like last week, they explain that he's never, ever been as good as in his audition, which from what I've seen is true. And, of course, drink, because it was "pitchy in spots," but at least this time that's obviously true instead of whatever. "Please stop singing Stevie Wonder songs, it's too hard," they say, and I'm paraphrasing, but not by much. Paula just knows "the best is yet to come," and that at least he was marginally better this week. Simon agrees with the other two, not to mention me and I'm guessing David himself, saying that he has "left whatever sparkle you had behind," and hasn't "brought it to this part of the competition." Simon and Randy single out in particular the beginning, which was utterly rough, and they warn him that there are guys who are vastly better than him in the competition, and he can't coast forever, and honestly I think that was the final nail right there. Randy mentions that it's a competition (I love when he does that, because it always seems like a total PSA), and Ryan hopes he'll be able to come back week. Now that David's not "acting," I like him again. You can tell it hurt, though. Nice boy.
Ryan says, "He quit his band to do the show," and there's the fear. Right there, because I know what's about to happen. Cut to effing Constantine, looking drugged out and smarming into the camera about how he "likes to live life a little dangerously and this [American Idol, you mean? Really? Snapping your head back and forth all sassy and ill-mannered like that? Really?], this is as dangerous as it comes, you know, people might not think so, but trust me…" and even though there was obviously more to that sentence, even the editor has had enough, and we cut to the performance.
Well, not exactly. Because I have a few things to say about a certain show I like to call Elimidate. Yeah, I'm going there. Because I can only do the whole Cider House Rules thing with Constantine, all, "I hurt because I love, and because it makes you tough," for a certain amount of time before I just admit that I hate his ass and enjoy this part of my job more than any other. Not that I was fooling anybody but myself.
In the hierarchy of reality TV, there are some truisms, number one being that The Amazing Race is good and everybody should watch it. I like The Amazing Race and Big Brother because I would be good at them, so that means to me personally that they are for awesome people. Then there's Survivor, at which I would totally suck, which means to me personally that it is for losers. But that's where it stops being all YMMV and starts getting real: Fear Factor is for people who want to be on TV so bad that they will eat a bug. The Real World is for people so pointless that they cannot even bring themselves to compete for anything in particular: the bug that they eat is their own dignity, but because they are all emotionally and sexually prepubescent, it's only the dignity equivalent of a lower-back tribal butterfly tattoo. Regrettable, but nobody's really going to blame you for it, because you clearly were living in the Now, back when you got it. Many years ago.
Then there's Elimidate. And this is a show where you go on a date with four men, apparently, who hiss and spit at each other like total bitches and insult each other right to their faces, and pretty much ignore you altogether. And I would say there's a hint of musk in the air, but none of them are men in that way. For example, you might find yourself with a real estate salesman (commercial, I should point out, so he's not like an apartment hunter or anything), some kind of nerd in a turtleneck, a self-described (!) "boy in a man's body," which body is tubercular and weird-looking, not to mention a huge fucking red flag, and oh, let's say there is also a creepy bug-eyed brownie hound who says all smarmily that he goes to the "Boston Conservatory," which he says like it's fucking Julliard, which to him it is, and then one of them gives you a key ring with two rubber people fucking. And you agree to go along with this instead of walking away from the whole stupid mess when you meet these tools, because you're getting scale, and more importantly because you're on TV. And now everybody knows you're desperate.
And then the creepy one bonds awkward/painfully with you over how you're both Greek, and then you go ice skating, and the creepy one won't blink or stop staring or use some kind of cooling cream on his disgusting eye bags, but looks one million times cuter than he will one day not far from now when he's on another reality show singing like two cats fucking in a garbage disposal. Which is turned on. And all the boys bitch and moan about each other like they're fighting over the plumber that just moved onto your street. And if you're the kind of person who digs the shtick of the "I'm five" guy, not only the whole adult baby thing but also the pornographic keychain, you deserve all of this, and all you will be getting yourself into soon. Then you go ice skating and they try to impress you with their masculine ice skating skills, and it's so ugly. Then the other guys break off and flirt with each other a whole lot, and it's nice because the Greek guy falls on his face (and interviews how awesome he was and how he was the best one when he was the worst one, which is just like on this one show I recap for you each week), but one of the guys starts flirting with other girls while on a date with you and three other guys. Like this isn't confusing enough already.
Then all the guys vote? On who should be "elimidated," which is here a made-up word meaning "gets paid without having to awkwardly kiss the cross-eyed girl that none of them are interested in anyway because sexually they're a little bit lost and they really just wanted to be on TV and maybe get a blowjob, but from whom not one of us can say." But I don't understand that part because she seems to be the one who picks, so the voting was just more bitchiness. Then the Greek one talks some shit and is "hip."
Then you go to a "hot spot" bar and you are described as "mint," physically speaking, and then you add alcohol, which is what separates the mere reality TV from the really good reality TV, and then the men, emboldened by liquor, keep bitching openly at each other, like that's going to make them look better. And then the Greek one talks about his vintage leather pants, and the other ones talk about how gay he is, like they aren't, but more importantly, like that's the worst thing you can say about somebody. The drunker they get, the gayer they act, but that's not surprising. Then one guy answers a question, and the Greek one -- you know what, let's call him "Constantine" -- can't handle that somebody is getting any attention at all, so he pretends to snore loudly, and then brings up the damn Greek thing again, and gets called on it, and then he sings to you, and it's startling and barfy and loud and in public, and the other guys are mortified, but "Constantine" just thinks it's because they are haters. Then the real estate guy kisses you and "Constantine" is totally grossed out because he's not there yet in the workbook. Then the boy-man does gross stomach tricks, and it's just awful, and then the boys talk about how horrible it is to be in the same room, city, or state as Constantine, who "flirts" a bunch more with the camera because that's why he's here. And then you drunkenly "elimidate" the real estate guy -- who's actually the best one of the four -- because he kissed you when you asked him to, about which kissing "Constantine" is still horrified. Kissing! Real estate guy points out to us that you are now on a date with a five-year-old and a gay man. Ouch.
Then you ask a stupid made-up question about how if they had one minute to romance you, and "Constantine" licks your arm and the other guy stares at his crotch, and then the boy child does a gross dance while "Constantine" stares at his crotch. Then everybody dances in a big stupid threesome of dancing and it's the most disturbing thing in the world, and then the child-man takes off his shirt because he thinks this is a strip club. "Constantine" gives a "talk to the hand" and says about the dancing, "I didn't love it." Then he takes off his shirt, and then they just stare at and investigate each other's bodies, like sweaty beasts, and the pants come off and even you, yourself, the girl on the date, are amazed at what an orgy your life has become, and how it "happened so quick," and how much the two boys seemed to be "getting off on it." But you kind of like when the pants come off. Then "Constantine" hops up on a table in his leather pants and no shirt and does a very minimalist and "I'm drunk so I think this is quite sensual" dance and doesn't look at you once, although the other guy on the date just stares and stares and finally puts his pants back on because there's a finite amount of embarrassment in this world.
How can this show not be gay like this? I've got to watch more and see how they get away with it. I know Elyse from America's Top Model Cycle One (New season started this week! The recaps are awesome!) likes this show, so I trust that it's awesome, but this is, like…awesome. It's like going on a date with Queer As Folk crossed with, like, Family Feud. Which is actually a fair description of also-awesome The O.C., come to think of it.
Then you totally screw me by "elimidating" the boy-child-man, meaning I can't erase this shit off my TV without seeing the whole damn thing like I thought I was going to when you got rid of "Constantine" . Although Little Kid Man also notes that "Constantine" is gay, and wishes you joy in your upcoming misery, and then "Constantine" scats at her, and grooves out to your name. But then they don't show your date with "Constantine," so I guess it's fine, but how weird that they don't show the actual date, but just the creepy homoerotic dates leading up to the point of the actual date.
Anyway, that's what that show is like. Back to our show, which is comparatively better in many ways. "Let's rock this thing!" screams Constantine. Oh Christ. Now more of that indecipherable non-enunciation, and of my least favorite song in the whole entire world, no less. It's "Hard to Handle," which was written by Otis Redding, who has nothing to do with any of this, because he's not singing that version, he's singing the Black Crowes version, obviously, which is the one I hate, and plus I'm psychic so I already know that you know that the song was originally written by Otis Redding, whom I also already know you totally love, so don't even bother emailing me, because I'm totally respecting you from right here where I am sitting, psychically, and also by the way please tell Todd Louiso and John Cusack hello for me at your work tomorrow, but it's funny, because nobody knows the words to that song anyhow, and they're sure as hell not going to learn them by watching this show, because it's Constantine, who sings everything like Jack McFarland singing a Cher song only not ironically. So it's the unknown and unknowing confronting the unknowable, and what that equals is incompetence and a horrible marriage of -- in a nod to Constantine's heritage -- deimos and phobos. Why not just fucking sing Barenaked Ladies and get it over with? There are sixteen gross smarmy smiles, two flat notes per bar, ongoing nasty porn mouth stuff and Axl-Rosing drawn-out vowels, and eight occasions of nasty looking me in the eye like he knows both that I want it and how I want it, which is: dirty.
Then: a horrible, awful sound. Like the evil hobbit guys that keep almost finding the hobbits and stabbing them or whatever. In the black cloaks, that made Elijah Wood always look like he was about to vomit. Skrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeaaaaaagh. It seems really unrehearsed and spontaneous, but not in a good way. He waggles his finger at me and calls me "Mama." I'm not your mama, boy. He pulls his jacket open on one side like he always does and goes on about how he's so very hard to handle. And then a little stuttering and then…the sound again. I'm looking pretty Frodo right now. Oh, the sound. It's Very Fucking Dire, like Lemony Snicket tragic, and hypnotically, like, bad news, only not funny, and it won't stop. Three times the sound! I start getting all "the ringing of the bells" so like now when I kill the lights and I'm lying in my bed, Constantine and his horrible voice and sounds, like, fill my head, and I only see him and his minions. Ring ring ring, and now I'm a chicken in my own home.
Randy tells him that it was much better than last week. That may well be. I don't even remember last week. I don't even remember last night, he's freaked me out so bad. Randy says it was a "little" pitchy, which is a big fat nice-guy lie, and because he's a fucking asshat, Constantine goes, "You like that word." And smiles like he just made a joke. And yeah, Randy often says that, but how disrespectful was that, Guarini? We're live, jackass. Could you not be all "eyes on me" for like five seconds while these people tell you how you did? Because that's their job, and it turns out your job is to sing, rather than telling them how they are doing. I just hate you so much. Randy finally shuts him up by desperately saying he liked the singing this week. Lie. Although I admit I do really like the way Constantine takes the hint and immediately stops trying to talk over him and thanks him quite graciously.
All the crowd goes nuts and the Girl Pound smiles secretively about how dumb this is. Paula is sickened by having to say something, but I don't remember what she said because I'm freaked out and I don't want to rewind it again just in case. But I'm so sure it was incisive and interesting and well-put. Simon says that Constantine is identical to the lead singer of every cover band in every bar in America. WORD. Ryan talks about how the girls go crazy for him, irrelevantly, and then Ryan turns to the screen and addresses his own mother about how he's short compared to Constantine. Lord. I wonder if she belittled him and told him he'd never be anyone special…and this is how he's proving her wrong. This is his revenge.
Then Constantine with his stupid buck-toothed inbred smile pointing at Ryan, and a commercial, and then Ryan admits to doing "fly check" on all the contestants to make sure their zippers are up before they go onstage. Jesus, Ryan. Awkward. Don't make the talent uncomfortable. Go work for Lou Perlman, because that's not how we do business. He asks Travis how he picked the song he's singing tonight, and Travis…doesn't know. Basically.
Now, though: Scott Savol, talking about -- get this -- his appearance. Shut up. This is the gay marriage of American Idol: a voodoo doll to get everybody up in arms on either side so that everybody forgets the actual point and just bitches back and forth:
"He doesn't look like an American Idol."
"Who are you to say what an American Idol looks like?"
"The head of a music label."
"You are the robber baron of a pirate industry and A&R is carpetbaggers screwing artists out of all their money and that guy from Metallica is very upset about something and Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes is dead! Dead!"
"Shut the fuck…Hey, did Mario Vasquez just win American Idol 4?"
"Fucking A. How did that happen?"
"I blame Howard Dean. And Scott Savol's appearance."
Scott looks twice as special this week and he's wearing sunglasses at night and lots of accessories. The Girl Pound looks bored, frankly. Why are they dressing him like a TV gangbanger? Are they trying to confuse us? "Never Too Much," which is an awesome song, is not being served well here. I mean, he's singing perfectly, of course, and it's lovely to hear and to listen to and to be a part of, but I don't really care to be implicated all that much. He's less than engaging. I sure do like his voice. I think I prefer him a cappella, and that's mostly true all the time tonight, when the background tracks are so very frigging intrusive. I think they're even throwing him off. I mean, yeah, he's still amazing. He looks a mess, but his voice is good as ever. The music -- how can you even hear him? I expect to dislike a dumb song like Mario's, but this is a good song sung by a great singer, and yet the arrangement is deceptively irritating and makes me feel negative somehow.
Randy calls it a better song choice, but still "just all right." He says Scott still hasn't lived up to his first audition, which is somewhat true, but I don't know what song he could sing wonderfully looking like that. And I don't mean the way he looks, generally, I mean specifically tonight, which is like a chop-shop-ring-running vampire on Angel. Paula freaks the hell out all over herself and thinks he raised his game, and the crowd goes insane when Simon agrees with her.
Mikalah looks lovely tonight, continuing the trend where she causes me to freak myself out. Her huge hoop earrings are the size of my entire head. Also during this part there's an issue regarding Ryan's pants. I don't really want to talk about it? Except as a fashion hint to the fellas out there, to say that I -- and you -- want pants like this. I have pants like this from Guess?, and they get the job done but they aren't pinstriped, which is I think the key thing that makes these particular pants do this certain thing, which is basically to add a certain something to the pants thing, as a whole. They are the leader of the pants revolution that is going on tonight, which is making my job a bit more interesting and a lot more uncomfortable. Any lady will tell you that if you have a big ass, you shouldn't wear pinstripes, because they draw attention to things, while making them look larger than they actually are. But it turns out that you can use that knowledge for good as well as evil, which I did not know, and now I am officially done talking about it.
Travis is singing "All Night Long" and dancing all around, and it's kind of neat and very likeable and all kinds of cheesy, but has nothing to do with singing. Or subtlety. Like, this is the kind of dancing that he does: he lifts himself up by the shirt. Physics says, "No." He has a lovely smile and he throws it out to the Girl Pound. It's so weird, like now I have seen Janay and Aloha and fucking Amanda Avila going, "Jambo jambo." You know? What do I do with that?
Randy tells him he "worked it out" (drink) and calls it a "far hundred percent" over last week, and Paula "dittos," which I love, because it's so content-free, so Paula, and she says she's "proud" of him, and then Simon apologizes to him for bitching last week because he liked it on TV, and calls him "good for this competition," because he is a "born performer," even if he's not the best vocalist, and I'm so sick of that and I want to keep making fun of it even though I agree with it. Because I would buy a Travis album (I recommend the song "Writing to Reach You") before I would buy an Anwar album. Unless Anwar covered, like, "Valerie Loves Me" or "Suffragette City" or something like that, but you know if he did any covers he'd be all Ani DiFranco and Toni Morrison poems set to like a mandolin. Which would be awesome, but I don't know if I would buy it at a store.
So that's what Nikko Smith looks like. Robert Townsend. Cool.
First Anthony smiles all flirty and weird at Ryan as he asks him about Clay. Anthony says the obligatory blah-blah about how it's flattering to be compared to such a successful singer. But no, he's not trying to emulate him in any way. They stare meaningfully into each others' eyes as they talk about this. It's…kind of weird. Not weird, because there's a certain Molfetta thing happening with Anthony where I'm sure that's gotten him a lot of hall passes, in his time. From, like, the drama teacher. So I don't blame him for going directly there every time. It's effective. I can't say I haven't done the same thing. I've even waxed philosophical about it before.
Anyway, Nikko sings "Let's Get It On," and it's…really, really good. I just listened to it again without looking, which I recommend generally with this show, and it's definitely one of the best of the night. His falsetto is not as thin and crappy as the other guys', and although the scary backup singers are totally overpowering and irritating, he makes it work, which the other guys with this problem haven't really dealt with. He sounds really good, really smart and clever in his phrasing. How hard is it to sing Marvin Gaye and sing it like you've never heard that version before? You know? And to rock? Because I have completely turned a corner on this guy. Now if he'll just back-flip onto the Seal each week, I might actually vote. It's really great. This is five thousand times as good as last week's. Way to be, Nikko! You know who loves it? Carrie. You know how I know? Clapping. But so is everybody, clapping. They're amazed!
Randy calls him an example to everyone: no matter what song you sing, you have to sing it. So word. The girls should have listened to this. Paula is a little sweaty here; I don't know, she seems like she is on LSD for real, but talks about how she is horny. When you're with a man-dwarf like Emilio for so long I imagine the experiences are somewhat similar. Like a porn of Billy Madison. (Which, side note: if you can't remember which Adam Sandler movie is which, don't think Googling "Adam Sandler midget hallucination" is going to help.) The only thing Simon can say is that he's looking like Bobby Brown. He's way cuter than Bobby Brown ever was. Ryan is all, "Why are you carrying on?" because there's a fracas at the judges' table and we're live, people, and he finds out that it's because Randy just said that Simon looks like Whitney Houston, and everybody giggles. All four authority figures giggle because Simon looks like Whitney Houston. Ryan, quietly: "Where has this show gone?" If Ryan Seacrest is admonishing you to stay on topic, take that as the very serious warning that it is.
Anthony interviews some kind of Russian folk tale about fortune cookies with a crazy accent all of a sudden, then sings…well, it doesn't matter. Just that he's awesome, that's all. And on repeated listenings, it's not as awesome as it was the first time, but it's still awesome, and I loved it, and I love the song that he sang, and that's all I want to say. I don't hate him this week and he's one of the best ones, and you know? I like to hear him. He sounds somewhat less like Clay in ways, and more like him in others, and I'm tired of parsing that shit so now he's just him, for me. The twitching of the scar goes on, but that's not the scar's fault, just the shirt's. His jeans are kind of bleached with tiny holes all over like a bird made of bleach pecked him here and there. Fine, he sings "I Wanna Know What Love Is." Although it's kind of creepy song choice what with the whole kiddie-porn thing he's got going on, but he pulls it off, because he talks and sings deep like a turnpike trucker. His glory note brings all the people to the yard, and he ends it a little stupidly, but whatever. He throws some kisses to the Girl Pound, but whatever, because I'm sure they carry him around like a doll and constantly want to play with his hair and it's really annoying and he's like, "I'm an adult with a girlfriend" but they just giggle all "oh, Anthony" and it's pretty much okay because he likes having them in his corner because girls have always been his staunchest allies.
Randy says he was a little worried when it started -- and yeah, it was a rough couple of notes -- but he "worked it out in the end," he "brought it home." Yes. In terms of having a BFG of a voice, he and Joe and Bo have this locked. Too bad we're not looking for people who can sing, i.e. people with strong voices that are familiar with the best use of those voices. Although even then, Bo wins because he doesn't wobble at the beginning like his nine co-competitors. Paula says he "raised his game" and "kicked it into a higher gear" and shuts up instead of whatever other phrases might have popped into her little head. Simon "was a bit worried when I saw the jeans, actually," but doesn't really get to explain this or his other weird, cryptic comments because of Mr. Live Tick-Tock Seacrest. I'm a bit worried about how you can tell his details, but only because that'll inhibit his fertility one day.
Anthony starts some other folk tale w/r/t the pants about how he fell down the steps and I'm like, "What, did you almost die and the doctors said you would never walk again, and yet here you are dancing?" but Simon cuts him off and says that the producers did absolutely right by giving him the sea at dawn as his background, and everybody goes, the hell? Maybe because it was cheesy? But that's the point! Anyway then there's the Shut Up music, and Ryan runs up onto the stage and is all, "Whatever, explain it to Jackson," and gives the numbers you must call. I hope a lot of people called. That was one of the best performances tonight, regardless of the whole Anthony thing.
Bo tells some Appalachian folk tale about how he quit his job so he could go on the show, but then he couldn't quit because he wouldn't get on unemployment, so they fired him instead, and now he's on unemployment. He laughs like only a 29-year-old "rocker" on the dole can laugh. I love that, kind of. He's singing the "Whipping Post" of the Allman Brothers, and that reminds me that I can't get too attached because it's just Bo songs, Bo songs, Bo songs and he's been practicing them and performing these songs with his band since before I was born. There's lots of cult leader hair all over the place as he sings, and he does the regrettable mime-sing thing of making "folding money" gestures about how she took all his money. He looks more like Jesus than Joe, but in more of a Godspell way. What the hell am I talking about? This is what happens when you read too many Djb recaps: you learn about musical theatre through osmosis. Anyway, you already know how it sounds before he starts: perfect and awesome and wonderful and magical to watch and no different from any other performance from inside the Bo Bice Box. Dear Bo Bice: Please sing some Jeff Buckley, which is basically the same thing, only I like it. I love your singing and performing, but I feel totally left out because I don't like working-on-your-car-in-the-yard music.
Randy tells him that he is "keeping it most real," which earns quite the giggle from yours truly, he loves the outfit, the song, Bo, he loves Bo, he loves the Allman Brothers, and "dude that was the BOMB." We pan across Bo's crazy cult leader clothing. Paula loves him too, of course, she's "proud of him and of this show." He's "so real; so very much." Simon says that last year, with Fantasia and LaToya (drink!) for example, there's someone that comes across the stage with something so fantastic it just blows you away, and tonight was the first time it's happened at this stage in the competition. He really was that good. Still smiles like a freak, though. Did you ever see Vulgar? Never mind, I don't want to talk about Vulgar. He looks like he lives out in the swamp. Bo gets cuter every week, though. Soon he will look like his parents are not related.
To review: Mario gaying it up all over the place and pointing at people in the audience in lieu of singing to them. Anwar getting carried the fuck away and hopping and jumping around and being awesome but a little flat. Joe and his personal details and a vein in his neck rocking out in a very polished performance. David and the one part of his performance that was not stultifying. Constantine: THE SOUND. I just hate him so much, you guys. Scott being perfect and totally forgettable. Not so much with the pants and the details, this one. Travis: his nice dancing and lackluster voice. Nikko rocking the fuck out and outsinging the horrible background singing. Anthony singing to randoms in the audience and being all cheesy and awesome and strong. Bo being incredible, just incredible, not to mention "most real." And "second most creepy-looking." Ryan Seacrest and the girls doing their "I came to work" thing from last week so we know what is happening tomorrow. So dancing like assholes is how it's going to be every week? Man. Vonzell is pretty.
Tuesday
Aloha looks beautiful. Beautiful with a giant flower. Beautiful with giant hair. Beautiful with a giant pink shirt that makes her look like the main sail on a clipper ship. Beautiful telling a pretty cute story about how much she loves chicken. Beautiful singing that fucking Alicia Keys diner song I hate, "You Don't Know My Name." Does that song even have verses? Or is it just the chorus over and over? What about "Fallin'"? Does that song have words, or just that one part? I can't ever remember. Beautiful as she inserts her name into the song so arrogantly. The tone is nasal and stylized and comes up short, but she clearly has one of the best voices. And to her credit, there's no Alicia here like last week with Beyoncé -- if anything, there's just a natural Beyoncé thing going on, that she fucked up by displaying last week. She's so young, and I think part of the issue between me and Aloha is that she's skewing much older than she actually is, so when she does stuff I'd let a younger person off scot-free for, I blame her for acting the fool, when in fact she's just doing her thing. She's some kind of prodigy without the experience to see past it, so everything that she says and does on camera I'd imagine is, or will be, very instructive for her.
She was very popular in high school, I've been told, and was crowned the queen of some dance, and all the people in the school thought she was smart and funny and "full of vinegar," which is just the other side of the "I hate her" coin I've been spending so liberally. But still, how are we to know she's awesome? We've never seen her ass before last week. She'll never be as baseline irritating as Mikalah, but we have gotten to see what else Mikalah's got to offer otherwise, such as it is, so it didn't seem as bad to me: Mikalah's bullshit was old hat by the time Aloha up and flowered onto the stage. But in the fullness of things, they're not really all that different. They're just better at it in different ways.
Randy calls the performance pitchy, and didn't like it. Paula calls it like it is, which is that it is tough when you pick a song by Alicia Keys, who's right this second at the top of her game. Simon agrees, saying the song didn't give her a chance to show any originality, and thinks the performance was affected, and not as good as last week. Which, by the way, was also a song that couldn't help but be a certain kind of deal for her, for the same reason. You guys, I think that's just how she is: high on Aloha. I don't even think that's bad anymore, I just think it's a big fish/little pond thing. She sang at a lot of school assemblies and stuff. That's good, she should keep that bullheaded confidence, because it'll keep her strong in the industry, but age will temper it with at least a frigging smidgen of humility, and then she'll be unstoppable, because she's gorgeous and she can sing. It's pretty painful to watch her getting all this criticism, but she's so class it's right here where I think I get her, and like her. She's a down girl.
We interview Carrie a little bit about how last night when the guys were up onstage it was like watching a concert: "We were enjoying every minute of it!" You can tell by how I clapped the entire time because the producers told me if I didn't give them lots of clapping footage they'd kill my parents because one of the interns found this thing called the "interweb" or something, we don't have that on my farm, but it's some kind of machine where people keep calling me a cold bitch who doesn't clap. Anyway, the "guys were excellent" and the "judges were in a good mood," and Ryan encourages this kind of talking which can only put me in a bad mood.
Lindsey talks about strawberries or she's the Queen of Corn or something, then she bounces her head around as some awful song starts. Well, it's Patty Loveless, "I Try To Think About Elvis," and I looked up the lyrics (since I couldn't hear them over the terrible din of accompaniment) and they're pretty random and funny, but I can't so much identify a tune, just a bass line as digital music notes float around on the screen behind her. She talks about how there's all kinds of things she tries to think about, like "hairdos" and "the creature from the Black Lagoon" and random shit like this. And there's a weird and lame talking part where she really shows how young she is, and then she does a little bit of the chicken dance. She's such a cute girl, and Bo is digging it, and out of what we've got I really love her voice, because this is not what I would want her to sing -- I want her in Sade, or Tanita Tikaram or something -- but still I like this despite the fact that it's basically every other country song ever, and that's quite an accomplishment. She's fun. She can do different things, even though obviously this is the kind of thing she most wants to do. Way to fool me into liking you, honey. It worked.
Randy says it was better than last week, and energetic, but he wants her to stretch more vocally. I personally won't be satisfied for sure until she just goes all Marlene on me, I think. (Or, dude! Leonard Cohen! How fucked-up slash awesome would that be?) Then Paula says how much she likes the voice, low and sexy, but she also likes that the song was up-tempo and didn't really show any of those characteristics off, so it's a zero sum for good old Paula. Simon simply didn't like the song, and whatever about that, but he also says something interesting, which is that he earlier asked Paula what Lindsey sang last week, and neither of them can remember, and you know, neither can I. Bring it, girl! Apparently I like you! And here's what I wrote on actual Tuesday night: "You're so getting kicked out. Which I think means the opposite?" Check. I told you guys I was psychic.
Jessica Sierra likes to "line dance," and she wants to live out on some "property." I grew up in small-town Texas and that's a legit thing for a girl like this to say. She has a great voice, singing a nice little abuse ditty called "Broken Wing," which: come on, that's what she sings. She's wearing a piece of satin that looks pretty good on her despite being a ripped-up piece of satin poncho. Giant shirts for the women to swim in is the new tight pants from last night. Did something happen with her eyebrows? She's back to being really creepy-looking. But if I don't look she sounds really good. Man, the women are kicking boy ass tonight. Randy laughs, because apparently he's glad to see she's "returned," and to hear her big old voice again. Paula says that she "made the song her own" (drink!), and Simon calls it "without question the best vocal female performance we've had so far," and it was "amazing." She's totally safe.
Mikalah is 60% annoying, 40% cute interviewing some premeditated shtick about "I would like to be famous because I can't cook, I can't clean, and I can't walk my own dog. Thank you." And then I look the abyss full on in its empty face, because she kind of blows my mind. She's wearing a red turtleneck, and the pinstripe pants from last night have moderately boomeranged on her, but not bad, and her makeup is like what a pretty girl would wear instead of a super-specialized clown-fetish prostitute, and her hair is in a lovely ponytail which does absolutely nothing except point out how damn pretty she really is (although it sticks up a little in the back due to the fact that her hair is straight-ironed and utterly destroyed, so she looks kind of like a unduly-processed rooster from certain angles). She's got me already, because she looks like a human being instead of one of those roughly-used child-bride characters Jodie Foster would have played back in the day. And an incredibly beautiful one at that. I feel like a traitor to my own self even typing these words.
So she's sitting on a stool singing, with her affected Taylor Dayne voice, and what she's singing is "God Bless The Child," which, I'm not a jazz person, we've established I don't really care about music from before I was born, but I got crazy about Billie Holiday when I was in grade school, so this is like a total test of all my shit with Mikalah, about whom I have said many contradictory things, in our time together. And you know? I listened to it about six times so I could be sure, including retiring to other parts of the house, and her voice is totally not a liability here. I end up listening to these songs so many times than your average viewer, because I keep the episode playing on a loop as I write, and knowing how drastically my opinion -- like Simon's -- changes after multiple listenings, I often completely lose touch with my original take on the performance. Not here. I thought I loved it, and now I know I love it.
So too did Randy love it, and Paula praises her, calling her "very subdued" (which: word, and that's half the deal, I think, and also please listen to that part, young lady), and saying she "nailed it" and "showed versatility." I hope she doesn't continue to do so -- I just want her to stay right here at this version of herself, so she can get further and further in the competition before she does the inevitable something that will help me to hate her again. Simon calls it "just a joy to watch and listen to," and says he's "proud" of her, "that you just took a risk and showed talent. You didn't come across as precocious, and you weren't annoying at all." And just when you're thinking he's about to start smelling toast or oranges or whatever you smell right before you stroke out, he winks for the punchline: "…Because you weren't talking." And she takes it like a champ. I mean, she thinks he's a dick for that one, but she smiles and thanks them and laughs anyway. How nice all of this is for her. I kind of want her to make it as a singer because I don't think there's a lot she would consider out of the question, in terms of making money to survive.
Celena Rae isn't after "fame," she's after clothes by famous designers. Which explains why she's been on every reality show ever. She immediately sounds like crap. Do they not find a key with these kids? Isn't that the function of Bird the Vocal Coach? I plead out loud with her to stop singing, but she instead starts singing very prettily, if still too low. ["The living room I watched this in had been bitching nonstop about how we could barely hear them singing. Celena opened her mouth? Bitching stopped." -- Sars] It's apparently a Faith Hill song called "When the Lights Go Down," and it sounds like all the other Faith Hill songs I've ever heard, even though this one is not an hortatory subjunctive command to her army of followers ("Breathe!" "Sing!" "Cry!" "Defenestrate!" "Squelch!") like all the others I personally know of. It's well-controlled, it's just out of her range. The crowd is forced to cheer for no reason after she hits…no note at all, really. Nothing special. It's gross and manipulative. I could not care less about this one. She is pretty and nice.
Randy agrees, saying the classic "it was just okay," and that she didn't take any risks. It was a nice performance of a nice song, but what's special about her? Why should she be the American Idol? Paula didn't "click in" with the song. Basically, I think, it was boring, is the problem. Simon says she looks great (ouch), and sounded okay, in parts. He explains again how there's a line between being a pop star and singing in a hotel, and that he thinks she is going to end up in a hotel. The crowd ooohs, but only a little, because he's right. And she knows it, so she just laughs sweetly and in a pretty cool way that a "hotel would be good." Because in addition to clothes by famous designers, she would like some money.
Ryan's sitting with Janay and her dead, soggy-looking extensions. She looks like Rick James. She looks like somebody poured beer in her weave. She's going to be "her" tonight, whereas before, she wasn't being herself. I doubt both parts of that. Try it without those bullshit contacts, for starters.
Now Nadia, in a lovely red skirt and more crazy shoes. And it's not great, y'all. I think I ruined things between us by loving her too much last week, and it's entirely possible that there is literally nothing she could do tonight that would satisfy me. But, like, she could try to come close. And to be fair, on repeated listenings it's a lot better -- she's singing "My Love," by Wings, okay, which is starting on so the wrong foot because not even Paul can sell that one -- but it's still not the glorious Nadia I seem to have invented in my own mind. It's boring.
Randy laughs and kids her and talks about how she can use what she's got -- the Mario thing of how she doesn't necessarily have the best voice, but that's cool. Paula and Nadia giggle with each other like Simon and Ryan last night, but it's way cuter and less weird. She wants Nadia to "marry the risk," and doesn't need to be convinced: "We are believers and we believe in you." And if Paula's brain hadn't shit the bed at every opportunity since I started recapping this show, I'd take that as the real comfort she intended. Simon thinks it was a weird choice, like she had been forced to sing it and made the best of it -- but she was the one that picked it. He also thinks, and it's weird but I get it, that the song made her seem "older" and "more cabaret" than she actually is. Which is true: the dynamic, overwhelming performance of last week was not accessible through such a low-key song. Not that she couldn't sing something slow or whatever, just that it's kind of limp and not intense enough for the amount of stuff going on when she's onstage. He politely requests that she never sing it again, but they still do the awesome flirting thing they've been doing the whole time, which is really effective at making them both seem so very much above this. The same way that Bo seems like he just wandered in to rule the whole thing, that's what it's like when Nadia's talking to Simon. And 50% of the time, from available data, when she's performing.
Boring uninteresting dumb old Amanda Avila. Who, it turns out, has tried out for the show twice before. Also, you probably know this, but she dated Josh Groban. Dude. My grandma would date Josh Groban. Anyhow, thanks to "God's timing" something something I stopped listening. Please don't tell me that God got you here, because it's obnoxious, and you seem to have forgotten the two times before that God screwed you out of being on the show that you just told us about. And because she's the most uninteresting person I've seen on TV in a while, she decides to go all punk rock hardcore and sing "Turn The Beat Around," which one would think at this point should just go ahead and be legally subtitled, "Please Completely Check Out For The Four Minutes Of Your Life." I don't want to waste much verbiage on this because it's like Mario but not as cool, okay, like not singing, just mostly fast-talking and then some singing, and I frigging hate the sound of her voice anyway. It's piercing. "If I don't get on the show this time, I think I'm just going to give up on this singing thing." SHE SAID THAT! DON'T VOTE FOR HER! I KNOW SHE'S HOT! STILL!
Randy lies to her beautiful face that she's more than a beautiful face. Well, that might be true, but the more has nothing to do with the shared enterprise in which we're all involved right now. Cut to the Dawg Pound, where we see what's under Mario's hats, and it's terrible. It's an (Eeeeeeeek!), and now I understand why the hats, but it's still better than that mess on Janay's head. Paula "wasn't sure about it" until she started singing, and "then it was the perfect song. You did a good job." Simon says that the problem here is that "it's so loud I'm not sure how much of that song was in tune!" No, babe. That's not the problem here. The problem here is that boys want to fuck her and girls want to be her because the intelligence and strength and skill of women is, here in 2005…still not the main issue. Not in terms of the people making this show, and not in terms of the people who are calling to vote. What matters is that she's pretty and she's on TV. Anyway, "I don't think the whole song was." It wasn't. The whole song was not in tune, and it's a gay-ass song to begin with, and people say Anthony or Carrie are vanilla, but this is a song which is an ode to different parts of the drum kit, okay, and that's what Amanda likes. Sounds. Some of them are pretty! And some of them are exciting! And that's awesome because remember, vocal quality could not matter less. You know who sings really great, I bet? Glorified strippers from Vegas. Up : Carrie and Janay. Great.
I'm so grumpy. I hope this performance…nope. So Janay has "learnt" a few things while she's been here, but they're trite and not worth mentioning. She's going to sing "Hit Em Up Style," which I'm surprised she knows, because it was popular before she was born. Blu Cantrell was the Lamaze coach at Janay's birth. She's totally pulling for this "I'm so sassy and girl I might cut you" thing, with her little baby belly showing and her icky fucked-up-looking hair and her jeans tucked into boots and name-checking Paula and Mikalah as her "girls" in the middle of the song and going for cocky but -- her voice and her face are still fucking terrified. It is awful. Not completely, upon listening more than once, but mostly.
Randy straight up says it wasn't very good, and gets quite the violent BOO from the guys ("You've even got my own Dawg Pound booing at me!"), but he's not wrong. Paula says it wasn't so much "bad" as it was "disconnected" and "not committed to the performance" and "kind of shitty." Well, no, but how awesome would that be? I'll tell you what, though, little Janay's sure enough "committed" to looking at Paula like she's the biggest bitch in California and she wants to pop her synthetic parts with a stiletto heel one at a time. Simon earns the biggest effing WORD yet from me: "You're like a little doll who's been programmed to be a pop star, and you're not experienced enough [as some awesome cameraman pans up her fake-ass poseur rock-out outfit]." Then he says another something with which I fully agree, which is that in two or three years she will know what she's doing, and rule, but she scrunches up her mustache and gives some sassy face and is all, "I'll prove ya wrong." Please don't. Please follow his instructions to a tee. Prove him right! And get the hell off my TV, little girl. If you won this -- which you never, ever will -- that bad old AI machine would eat you up and spit out tiny little bits of baby fat everywhere. Just go home.
Carrie talks about how she's become known as "farm girl" and how she's cool with that, because she'd rather be known as the innocent farm girl than other things that she could be called. What does this mean? Does she mean "plastic product of the pimping machine"? Because what I think she means is that it's better than being called all that stuff I call Mikalah -- and one of the posters came up with a far more horrifying possibility, that she's talking about single mothers that might have won last year. So very yikes, but I can't entirely discount it. Do you think this is a coded message to other smug holier-than-thou types to vote for her, because a vote for her is a vote for innocence and a vote for innocence is a vote for America? Because Mikalah's kind of gross, yeah, but I'll still vote for her all night long if that's the alternative. If I knew precisely who Fantasia Barrino was, I'd probably say that about her too; from what I've heard she's simply adorable, and you know I love the "Baby Mama" song, not least because you can sing it to the tune of "Surrey With The Fringe On Top," as Anna immediately pointed out when I sent her the .mp3 at work last year.
Carrie sings "Piece of My Heart," which…tomorrow night they'll clear this up, but the fact is that Carrie and I are on opposite sides of the musical knowledge fence on this one (which I think is a first for me), because she doesn't know who Janis is, and I certainly didn't know that Faith Hill had done a cover of it. So who's wrong and who's right? In the final analysis, the problem is not that the judges and me, or anybody really, might not grasp that more than one person or group can sing a version of a song, which by virtue of the fact that they consist of words being sung while music is being played are just as valid as any other "songs," without respect to their respective qualities or lack thereof, and are only interested in the one they know, which they consider "definitive," because they don't believe in other people, just their own beautiful knowledge of musical trivia, and that they are clearly right, and everyone else needs an email about how they don't know anything about anything whatsoever, when the fact is, you and I have no right to expect Carrie to agree with us that the Janis version is the better or more real version, even though that's self-evident, because you're exposed to certain music which is popular during your lifetime, because that is the nature of time. Or even that she should necessarily know the other versions of the song, although you could make a case for Carrie's responsibility, being that she wants to enter the music industry, to know a little something about music, and songs she picks off a list to sing, but that point holds ten times truer for the judges, whose whole damn job is knowing this shit.
So as the judges basically call her a huge fake one by one, it's become a de facto "older stuff is automatically better," which really means that "older people are better," and I'm on the older people's side in this case, but I still think it's bullshit, because her job this week is knowing one song, while their job every week is knowing every song. And to speak personally, the whole "older people and things are automatically better" thing is about my number one rage trigger. We live in a time where hip-hop, particularly, in the last twenty years, has changed the discourse to a degree that is decidedly -- and I make it a point never to use this word unless it's really important, like the Def Con launch codes of pretentious dialogue -- postmodern, meaning that even if I don't know the song by the Police, I can still cry for Biggie. If it's the first version you heard, or the one you like more, that's the song, and you love it, and you want to sing it on the TV, and I'm not going to take that away from you. Or else Dianne Warren and Karla Bonoff and Jules Shear would be household names because we would be rocking out to "their" songs all the time. ["The living room kind of got into it with this, not fighting but just discussing why we had such a negative reaction to the performance, and we agreed with you, but the problem isn't that there are two versions and one has to or 'should' be better. The problem is that one of the versions…is Janis, and if it were between Faith Hill and, whatever, Grace Slick or Joni, then it's a different discussion, but putting yourself in the position where you're being compared to Janis is untenable, because it's not about better or worse. It's about Janis and not-Janis, and Janis is dead, so you'll need to sing something else. I've never heard the Faith Hill version, but I'd say the same thing to her. It's not a generational issue. It's a lost-in-translation issue. …Hi, this isn't my recap." -- Sars] And the fact I just had to spend ten minutes on Google trying to figure out if "Dianne" had one "n" or two tells me something, because that shit was not readily available. And I hate, hate, hate that I went over all this in service of Carrie, who bores me to tears, but whatever. She then becomes the first person to physically touch Ryan this year, he says, because he forgot about Judd. But we won't, will we?
Vonzell looks of course wonderful. Singing yet another goddamned Alicia Keys song. WE GET IT. WE GET IT. WE GET IT. I like this song better when Alicia isn't singing it, apparently, separate from the fact that I love it ten times more than even that when Vonzell is singing it, because she rules. The control, the vibe, the spectacle, it's all happening, and that's why they put her last. I just really like her. Pink-and-green Payless shoes and all. She's gorgeous and talented and I like hearing her and watching her, which puts her automatically in my Top 6 at least.
So you know that Otis called me during this song earlier in the week, but I thought about it, and I was like, way ahead of you there, buddy, as far as not associating your name with Constantine, but not because I meant to, so sorry, because I'm a self-admitted ignoramus when it comes to music, and I think it's endearing. So there you go. But then Kate Hudson called me and said basically the same thing, not to associate her man with Constantine, so I'm just going to go ahead and call "Hard to Handle" a Constantine Maroulis song, since nobody wants to be associated with him. Constantine was the kind of kid that would lick every cookie so nobody would want one. And now he's doing it again. To Otis.
Randy tells Vonzell she didn't exactly "make it your own" (drink!) but he likes the effort and skill she put in. Paula says she started good and had an ambitious arrangement, was fun, and a likeable performer. She wants her to "focus on watching your pitch and holding your center together so that you stay on pitch," which once I ran it through my Paula translator, I agree completely with, which means I've agreed with Paula more this week than anyone, even Simon. Hey frying pan, I don't like the way you make me feel about myself. Simon totally and without pretext or bullshit openly agrees with Paula, and then the crowd goes a little nuts and ruins it because there's a certain amount of commedia dell'arte about this show. We want the performers to stay in their little boxes, but we need the authority figures to do so, and when they don't, we laugh about it because we're so in on the joke. How many times have I gone all "(drink!)" in this recap alone? How many times did we laugh about it together? And they play this: Paula's functionally retarded, Simon's a dick, Randy's ridiculous and mercurial and sometimes makes perfect sense and sometimes doesn't, Ryan's the embodiment of everything we know about Los Angeles, plus gay. (Drink, drink, drink, drink.)
So Paula's right for once, and Simon thinks it's overcooked, a little, and would have worked really well with just Vonzell and a piano, but it sounds gorgeous. He also makes the point I was too bored to notice (as was Paula -- I love how she only remembers the beginning of songs before the lights and her shiny bling get the better of her), which is that she oversang at the end, and went out of tune as a result. He does not point out, however, that this happened fully 75% less tonight than it did last night, during the supposedly "superior" men's performances. "Sometimes less is more." Paula hasn't caught up, emotionally or verbally, and still thinks she's supposed to be mad at him for saying this. Or for agreeing with her and ruining her perception of how things go. Or something.
Ryan presumes once more to teach us how to send text messages.
To review: Aloha is great but sometimes out of tune, and she sang last time too much like Beyoncé to have sung any song from the last twenty years tonight. Lindsey is nearly impossible to hear, and I really like her all of a sudden now that there's no confusing albeit wonderful Sarah Mather, but I'm scared for her. Jessica is very good, and they even go so far as to pipe in extra applause over the footage. Mikalah doesn't sound that great in the recap footage but she's still awesome and a sneak attack. Celena Rae sounds thin and cruddy but she's very pretty, but, like, "Who?" Nadia is totally boring and all kinds of out of her range. And element. And my good favor. No, I still love her. Bad night, y'all. Amanda sang some karaoke version of a ridiculously contrived song and is an advertisement for booty. Janay sounded as good as usual but also as terrified as usual, and dressed like a really ill-advised hooker with a fear of success. Carrie got everybody on their feet and was dependable like the family goat. Vonzell was awesome and pretty and made the end a happy thing.
Wednesday -- blink and you'll miss it!
Okay. Ratings-wise, it's not exactly fair to do the comparison with last week, because of the incredibly quick response the show made to last week's outraged internet, but quickly, let's talk about it a little bit. Remember that the first number ("rating") is the percent of all TV's, the second number ("share") is the percent of all turned on TVs, and e.g., 8/12 is pretty good for a regular drama on one of the four main (not UPN or WB) nets.
The Wednesday on which the final 24 were revealed, FOX averaged a 10.5/12 for the night. Last Monday, the first men's show averaged a 10.7/15 for the night and a 13.2/19 for the AI hour. The first Tuesday ladies' night averaged 12.8/19 and had a huge 15.9/24 for the show hour (almost twice the -highest). Finally, the first big horrible (Judd) elimination Wednesday scored a 10.5/18 for the night and a 15.6/23 for the hour. (Against Alias, and not Lost like I said, but then, I don't know when anything comes on because like most of the recappers, I TiFaux everything, and I have no idea when anything actually comes on. It's all just the Jacob Channel when I turn on my TV.)
So this week: FOX averaged an 11.1/18 for Monday, when a few more million people remembered to watch even though it's the wrong night. (CBS scored with a lineup of all reruns, with an 8.1/12 score.) For adults 18-49, the FOX 8.1 average was well above the NBC 5.1. For the hour alone, FOX got a 13.4/20, which was better than double the NBC "reality stars" edition of Fear Factor (5.9/9), which I think might have been the Nikki McKibbin one, which is funny. New ways to screw with her, I guess.
Tuesday's second women's performances scored a monster 15.6/23 (NCIS on CBS was second, okay, with a 8.8/13), a tad bit lower than last week's, but which meant an average for the night of 12.7/19 -- over ABC with an 8.0/12. To show you how weird and sick all that is, the first half of the season premiere of The Amazing Race (which is, you know, good) was a 7.5/11 on CBS, which is less than half of the viewers.
Wednesday was interesting, ratings-wise, because it was the last night of February sweeps, which means while everybody else was bringing it, FOX decided to cut back on the sicko circus maximus shit at the last second and basically pull some kind of anti-sweeps maneuver. Maybe they were hoping to get better ratings for lead-out The Simple Life? It's called "shooting the moon," in card games, and it's a time-honored tradition. How'd they do? Well, NBC won the night, beating FOX for the first time this AI season with an 8.4/13 to FOX's 8.1/12 (although FOX led in total viewers, 13.23 million over 12.25 million for ABC and 12.23 million for NBC). FOX was still best in adults 18-49, even though its 5.8 is a huge drop from last week, and in the half-hour alone AI was at a solid 14.2/21, and won the hour along with the Simple Life premiere, but that's still a bit of a drop from the 15.6/23 of the first week's hour-long elimination. Not that dramatic a change, really, but the experiment we were going to try last week was somewhat screwed by the fact that the format utterly changed due to your voices and mine.
But hey anyway -- what did those people see? No opening sequence that I see, just credits and then straight to live, for the third night in a row. Everybody looks very happy. Bo looks like he is wearing a stupid crocheted dreadsack hat. So does Mario. One of them isn't. Celena is wearing the lowest-waisted jeans I've ever seen, with a bunch of, like, rosaries hanging from the waist. Joe looks deliriously happy, and Mikalah and Jessica wear twin looks of derangement. Keep those two separated, please. Can you imagine the Gregg Araki-meets-The Banger Sisters bullshit those two would perpetrate? In keeping with the backtracking and eating of shit, there will be no sing-outs, just "our" results like a bullet from a gun.
The judges all look very nice. Paula kind of looks drunk, but still very nice for all that. "No one likes losing people: not me, not the judges…except maybe Simon," Seacrests Ryan, and we cut to Simon chewing gum like he's Mikalah's soul sister in Fran Drescher solidarity, and then David stares creepily into the camera, and so does Bo but he's wearing sunglasses indoors which is a whole other worse offense.
Now: some lies and some truths. Amanda sang "the perfect song," per Paula. Mikalah was "a joy to watch and listen to," per Simon. (Not a lie.) Nadia was terrible, and "takes risks," per Paula. (Not a lie.) Aloha and Vonzell also took risks, with Alicia Keys. Vonzell was good, Aloha kind of wasn't as good as Vonzell. Lindsey may or may not have sucked, but nobody could hear her, and Simon didn't like the song. Me neither, but I really like her. I'm not completely familiar with this "Reanimated Corpse of Julia DeMato," but I hope she's better than a dead person. Celena was told by Randy that she is not special, and by Simon that she's going to end up working a hotel. Janay had the hair of Rick James, ugly fake contacts, and a mustache, and was dressed grossly, and everyone hated it, but I guess not enough. Carrie's bitchface was around, but we cut off Randy in his criticism because we don't need to know anything about her. Jessica was quite beloved, and deservedly so.
After being teased by Ryan for his ignorance of a song which "sold millions of copies," Randy does a total 180 and says that it doesn't matter which version of a song you sing, because you make it your own, and it's totally fine with me that this doesn't even take into account what the judges actually said less than 24 hours ago, although there's a huge difference between going for and muffing a rock song (Janis Joplin), when you're going for a country version (Faith Hill), and more importantly, they bitched her out precisely because she stepped out of her box. Not that she'd know what you meant by that.
Ryan calls Paula out for saying it's a bad idea to sing songs by current artists, and she corrects him, first of all, reminding him that her criticism was more about imitating or being compared with incredibly awesome current performers. Which is a good point, and the point that she actually made last night. She then serves up some crazy, which appears to be a piece of good advice but is only half a piece of good advice: she tells them to pick a song by the opposite gender.
Which is true of the girls, and would be awesome, but if a guy tried it? Unless it was really old? Come on. Picture A-Fed singing, like, "Who Will Save Your Soul?" Dude, that would be awesome. But like, look at the female artists currently on the Billboard Top 50: You can drop Kelly and Fantasia, of course, and the above way-better-singer issue still applies to Destiny's Child, Mariah Carey, and Alicia Keys, so you're left with J. Lo (not a singer), possibly Ciara (if the DNA tests prove she's really a chick), Ashanti, and Gwen Stefani. Okay? Take a chance, you stupid ho, is basically what she's saying, by inference, to the guys. Which is so Paula, to focus on the thing right in front of her beautiful face instead of considering the non-ADD universe currently spinning and growing and changing all around her.
More unnecessary lowest-common-denominator damage-control bullshit: "Simon, you don't like country music." There's some kind of thing here where Ryan talks about how he knows Simon doesn't listen to country in his car or something. "There are good country songs and terrible ones," and Lindsey sang "a gimmick record." Not satisfied with that amount of mealy-mouthed equivocating bullshit, Ryan presses on: "It's not about if you love dancing to a song with your girlfriend," right, and the camera jolts away from Simon's impending scoffery. Then Randy gets the Cowell/Seacrest double-team, all, "If you sing Alicia Keys you automatically become a bad impersonator." And since this is neither a question nor specifically a declarative, Randy simply asserts that you should "pick the song you can sing best." Which is good, and meaningless, advice.
Time is short. He calls Celena up…and tells her she got the lowest number of votes. Wow. Abrupt much? Amanda acts sad, Lindsey actually is sad, Jessica and Mikalah seem sad but I don't know for sure. Ryan asks her if she prepared for this, and she's like, "Yeah." He says she killed in rehearsals, so what exactly happened? Mikalah holds it together, just barely, and I believe it. Celena says honestly that she thought she rocked last night, and had no idea at the time that she was screwing up. She wasn't, dude. She just wasn't the best. She was the opposite of the best, technically, but that just means out of 100,000 people or whatever, she was the tenth best woman, right? So how does that make her a fuckup? Stop borrowing your hyperbole from Paula, she's a bad model. The judges tell her she's fine, just fine, and to keep moving forward, which is worthless. Ryan brings up the hotel thing, and she rolls her eyes and then cocks a hate eyebrow at Simon, who tells her that the odds are against her, but millions of people have now seen her, so it's cool. She's very classy about it, and the tears are fine. Mikalah finally lets a tear out, while Carrie pretends to do so. Commercial.
Seacrestiana: "Dramatic start to the results" and what does he mean? Oh, he's talking about Celena. Forgot about her. The "girls" onstage are "fearing the worst" and the guys in the red room "aren't exactly partying." A-Fed does that sad little kid wave again as the camera swoops across them. Ryan asks Nadia what the fuck was up with that last horrible note when she was singing live. She was anxious and hyped up in rehearsal, but with the hugeness of the performance with the adrenaline of the crowd, and something about God's will and I stop listening because I think it's great that she's religious and that she's in a Christian band in the real world, but it's disrespectful and glib to me to go there with something profane like AI, especially if you do it every time. I hope she rocks on Tuesday or I'll have to consider trial separation. She's pretty awesome then, though, all "I figured I would hit it in the performance. I didn't. You move on." Like if your talk show tanks, for example.
Jessica is worried. Amanda and Carrie aren't, with their fake asses. Of course they're all three safe. Good thing this isn't an acting competition, is all I'll say. Nadia seems resigned. Janay seems…terrified. Duh. They're both safe. I believe in both of their respective reliefs, because Nadia was put on the spot and Ryan basically told her she sucked, and Janay because she's Janay and she's like a guinea pig, scared of all things all the time. Lindsey and Mikalah both seem to think they're going home, and Mikalah does that little irritating jump again when told she's safe, but she doesn't look at the crowd at all like last week, just stares at something a thousand yards away, so I believe that too.
Ryan calls Aloha and Vonzell down, and I really can't believe either of them did that badly. This is about the Alicia Keys thing. Aloha responds to Ryan's queries that she changed her song about four times, at least once due to clearance, and that last night she was very uncomfortable for the whole performance. And I've gotta say, if that's Aloha rattled, I want her in charge of something important for the government. I really wish we'd heard her speak before this, because it puts her whole deal in better context. Vonzell is asked about her song selection, but she responds to another question, all, "Rehearsal went way better, I wasn't focused enough…I'm hopeful I'll get the chance to redeem myself and do better." Vonzell is totally classy accepting her defeat -- and then he tells her she's safe.
Then it's goodbye Aloha and her gigantic hair -- flowerless, I might add, which is nice -- and she smiles very nicely through the tears, and the camera jiggles around again. Paula thinks it's bullshit, in terms of eliminations, and I hope she means that it was over Janay or Amanda. Randy thinks she "definitely sang better than some other people last night." Simon doesn't think she would have won, but should have stayed one or two more weeks. She's like, "Wow," and that's a shitty thing to hear, I think. Ryan smiles at her, kind of horrified by that one, and is like, "It's not fun." She reassures him and is total class and strength. He asks if she learned a lot, one of those Ryan questions with no answer, and Aloha addresses the world at large, in true Aloha style, that if you are trying to do this kind of work, keep going, and that she's going to keep going. She's very pretty, and she has fantastic posture. I think I'm pissed she's leaving. Weird. I'm so fickle. You know, I had dinner at what we call the "sit-down drive through," where I haven't been in like eight years, the Olive Garden? It was last week and what I had was very good. I don't know what I'm doing in my life these days. I used to rest on the strength of my convictions, but those are eroding week by week. Aaaand because there are still certain things I will never be wishy-washy about, we head back to the red room for a quick swoop. Where Constantine is making the most horrid fucked-up face, for so long. It's so "Want some candy, little Ryan?" Oh, it's terrible.
Ryan explains about week, which is the same as this week but not last week because suddenly the results are a half hour, and there's some kind of bullshit contest, and you might get to be in "an American Idol music video." I can literally think of nothing dumber than that, and I totally want it so bad! I'm going to go register right now.
Mario, see, "started off strong." They show the part that he actually sang, and he still goes flat at the end. They can't find a part he doesn't screw up. Anwar sang about his pointless and least-you-can-do idealism, and then smiled like a crazy freak. A-Fed was weirdly great. Constantine "chose a better song for his voice" -- I'm so sure. Scott looked like a drug dealer but stayed on pitch, of course, because he is a freaky wonderful singer. Paula masturbated under the table to Nikko, and it was gross and stupid, and Simon mentioned that this is a "family show" even though he said the disgusting thing to Amanda which was thirty times as troubling as even Paula Abdul touching herself. Travis moonwalked and then Simon apologized for calling it wrong at the time, but Travis did not apologize for moonwalking. David was boring but good. Joe was really neato and had a strong voice. Bo blew everybody's circuits on the entire planet and we had to learn to live without electricity and became an agrarian society and there were no websites, no 'zines, no check card, no Pottery Barn. No O.C.
Constantine is horrible, Nikko is minorly worried, Bo knows he's just fine, A-Fed looks a little scared, and of course they're all safe. Then Anwar is safe, and he smiles blankly and earnestly. Scott gets jerked around again but he's safe, but then he raises his prayer to the heavens and it's so dumb and Constantine-esque and he looks like he's davening in the background of a high school performance of Fiddler or doing some kind of Maybonne Maydelle Mullen interpretive dance where he's supposed to be like, "Why? Why?" and then the last four get called up and Scott keeps thanking God with his hands in the air. Ugh. Take another little piece of my heart, Scott Savol. With a nice Chianti.
Joe is supremely irritated when we go to commercial with him, Mario, David, and Travis called onto the Seal and standing stupidly. The camera cuts away the second he starts sliding into the full-on "Fuck This," but it's to a full shot of all five of them, so you can still see him rolling his eyes. It's cute. Maybe he's just nervous? Then Ryan gives Mario and his hair a big old hug for no reason at all.
Mario hugs Travis and acts all thankful and won't leave, when he finds out he's safe. Ryan turns to Travis, breathes a heavy sigh, and then turns to David and Joe. Travis does a rehearsed-looking "this clown, I tell ya" gesture to Ryan's back. Pretend the audience isn't there, Travis. You act like a dicksmack every time you think about that. David looks sad at Ryan, looks sad at Travis, sad at you and me. Ryan sends Travis back and he wanders and moseys all over the place. Which leaves David and Joe and Joe's tiny tight clothing, and it is they who are collectively going home. I think for a second that Ryan's not going to say who got the lowest votes, but he does, and it's Joe. Which honestly surprises me a bit. His voice is good. Maybe I have the wrong idea about how this works. I mean, Constantine should make that disconnect clear, but still.
Ryan says it's weird that both of them are there, and Mikalah is freaking out because she admires Joe for actually being from Long Island, when she can only pretend to be from Queens. Joe starts talking about how he didn't get any airtime and goes through the whole Melinda spiel, and maybe she already said it, but that doesn't make it less true. Just more irritating, maybe. Ryan says, "Where did you go wrong?" And I'm actually kind of feeling it, regardless of the words he uses: "I don't think I did." I kind of agree, although it's an iffy proposition to say so, because there's a line you cross when you say shit like that, because he's right. Come on, Aloha and Joe? In the second week? And Janay's still there looking like the dog from Fraggle Rock and singing like she's at gunpoint? And Constantine getting his mess all over everything? No. David lost it, and Celena only kind of had it, but the other two. No.
So Mikalah's been crying this whole time, right? And do with that what you will -- if anybody else covered her face like that, I'd call bullshit, but it's like the least natural reaction imaginable, for her. Everything she does says, "Look at my face! My creepy, painted face! I am the clown of your nightmares!" So for her to cover her face is, to me, a sign of something actual and real going down. And it's happening to her alone, all by herself. Sad Mikalah, alone in a crowd. But then a camera focuses on her, right, and somewhere in the sightline of those women, there's a monitor, and it shows the camera focusing in on her tears, and Vonzell, Amanda, and Janay see this, see the camera zooming in, and of the three, only Vonzell is able to avoid climbing rabidly into position to be seen comforting her with a sweet hand and a soft embrace. Even Vonzell starts mouthing a disbelieving "Oh my God." It's like on Letterman when the camera swoops over the crowd and they start screaming and waving. They all spring to life as one, like those cartoon birds when a call comes zooming down the phone line. And that is the most sickening thing I've seen so far, in some ways. Because they'd hang her ass out to dry, and you know that's true because they just were, until the camera swung round that way. God. Like I didn't hate the two of them enough.
Now, a poem by Ryan Seacrest, entitled David Brown, We Hardly Knew Ye.
I remember meeting you
At home, having breakfast
At your house, with your mother:
The biscuits she made.
All in one breath, very "Red Wheelbarrow." Very Anne Sexton. But yeah, Ryan was so excited about him. Me too. So was Paula, which she will now demonstrate by talking crazy: "It's just some of the performances have not been that magical spark that we saw prior to coming to Hollywood." Feeling that. For some reason both boys look over simultaneously at the side of the stage opposite the judges. I wonder what they're looking at. Ryan calls everybody down and Anwar gets up for a big on hug on Joe. First onstage for goodbye is Scott, and the last Constantine, who just diddles around for a long while on the risers. I imagine he feels out of place like a temp on somebody's birthday, because I imagine that everybody hates him, because that's the only thing that makes sense to me.
Nikko takes a second to figure out what just happened. A-Fed cuts Anwar off, but not in an elbowing-Carrie-out-the-way way. Mario gets in, gets his hugs, and gets out again. Anwar almost cries hugging Joe. Ryan starts shuffling to the left so he doesn't get crushed by all the man love -- and so that nobody's in his shot. He looks a little sad as he turns to enter the hug fray, and refuses to say "Seacrest out," which makes me crazy sad.
Constantine and A-Fed are all over David -- and then Constantine pushes himself way off to the side, staring straight into the camera and standing alone in a sea of people to applaud and look at the camera some more. He finally hugs somebody -- Amanda? God -- who then inserts herself in the Nadia spot (i.e. center of the screen, so you can see her comforting everybody), although here Nadia's too busy brushing Constantine the fuck off to get around and hug David. Bo feels left out on the periphery, because he could be the father to any or all of them, because he's wicked old, people. Then there is Janay's stupid hair and then there are logos in the darkness. This show makes no sense. Seacrest out.