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So last week was the Mario thing, and I honestly thought Friday -- when Vonzell was celebrating her birthday as only a cowgirl can -- while I was driving back from my rainy New Orleans vacation, that the storm of controversy would leave with him and everything was going to be okay. Blue skies. Not so. The taped broadcast this week aired at its usual time, Tuesday at 8 PM EST, and again three hours later, on the west coast, and the bottom-third graphic at the end gave the correct 866-IDOLS number, but the translation number beneath it -- I guess for those grandmas with rotary phones or people who dial TV shows so terribly often that the letters have worn off -- was incorrect for Anwar, Mikalah, and Jessica.
I don't blame them for not fixing the PST numbers, because they'd still have to scrap the results, but I do blame them for fucking it up at all, because the solution was two identical performance shows, Wednesday "including new live elements" and signs begging TPTB not to fire whoever screwed up the phone numbers. I lost an hour of my life, but I understand there wasn't really any other option. Anyway, they're jerks.
Tuesday
Simon tickles Paula as they're being introduced, and then she grabs him and laughs and Ryan fake-smiles at their antics. He very professionally does not vomit. We flash back to last week's post-elimination clubhouse hangout, again, and the kids are all opening their "gifts" and Anwar is unwrapping his carefully to preserve the paper -- which is totally a joke I would have made, had he not beaten me to the punch by actually acting out the joke I would have made, right before my eyes -- and it's the Billboard #1 Hits book. Then the author of this book appears out of nowhere, as if by magic, and tells them they get to pick this week's song from any of the 930 songs in the book. Man, that's way too narrow. How ever will they fit in their little boxes?
First up is Anthony singing "I Knew You Were Waiting For Me," because it's about "having faith in what you do, no matter how tough things get in life," and you and I both know what he's talking about: the doctors said there wasn't anybody waiting for him, but he knew you were waiting for him, and there you were waiting for him, and now here is, singing about it. Also, he's singing to superstardom, because he believes that "in the end, something special is waiting" for him. Does that make him Aretha? Or George Michael? Neither, I think, is really what he's going for.
Which seems to be�Clay, this week. He dances around and makes some Clay faces. His jacket is kind of cool -- the lapels are frayed like Jessica's old hobo clothing. His pronunciation gets more Ukrainian each week, it's fascinating. He's kind of a Clay impersonator this week, only with really bad singing. This is terrible, Anthony! The strength and clarity of his voice, which normally I mention, are not an issue here. The issue, rather, is this incredibly fucked-up, affected performance: weird breathy emphases on weird places, and cheesy hands out to the crowd and creepy hip-dancing and fake smiles and�it's all so "sassy" and painful. I think if this was the first thing I saw of little A-Fed I would hate him, instead of just feeling warm and protective toward him like everyone else he's ever met. This is just like a weird�it's like MTV Europe. This is like MTV Europe when you go, "What the fuck goes on over there?"