"I Cannot Do The Smurf"

Tuesday

The lights are really, really aggressive this week, and keep cutting off people's heads so everyone looks like their faces have been replaced with tiny suns. First to have this happen is, of course, Ryan Seacrest, who speaks from his glowing headless neck about how only girls have been eliminated thus far, and how freaky weird that is considering that before the first audition took place, the show's producers decided a guy should win, and have done everything they can to make sure that happens, up to and including letting train-wreck ringers like Mikalah into the competition. Not to mention that they've flat-out, on-record admitted that they only care about the guys this year. So really Ryan's just pointing out that the evil plan is working.

There's a whole thing here every week that is very reminiscent of a certain cola company's general rule of marketing, which is that you have to keep saying you're the best even when you might have competition. Every time they tell us a guy is going to win, it increases the chance that a guy is going to win. Every time they compliment a female contestant by comparing her to Carrie, they up the chances of both people getting ahead. It's the "four out of five dentists" rule, and it works, because people are sheep. It's why they keep amping up the applause for certain people, too: if other people like them, overwhelmingly, and you don't, it solves the cognitive dissonance if you just go ahead and like them too. So I've solved at least half of the Constantine conundrum there, but the other half is I think advanced juju I'm still working on. I'm up against the smurfiness of the whole deal, and how silly and unreal and inauthentic it is, and not that I'm so hardcore and genuine, but it's a specific kind of shallowness with which I haven't been acquainted in a really long time. I'm not his wet-nap like he thinks, and to pretend otherwise is what it will take. That and a couple shots of tequila and some Rilo Kiley to wash it out later.

Ryan's wearing the weirdest sweater; it's dark green and has all these confusing squiggles and ugly words on it and large pieces of negative space. It's like when you walk into Diesel and there's pieces of t-shirts stapled onto other t-shirts and first you think, "Bjrk made this!" and then you think "Oh. I could make this." Jersette called it a "visual representation of ADD," on the forums, and that's the best possible way to describe it. If you reached into Ryan's head and pulled out a sweater and made him wear it, that's what would happen.

We travel again back to Fake Wednesday, where Ryan bestows fake congratulations on the contestants and then they all fakely try to guess the theme. Ryan talks about how the theme is going to challenge them vocally, and I don't think it's unkind to note that Anthony makes a somewhat grim face at this. "Henry Higgins," says Ryan, and Vonzell looks confused, fakely, and then of course Constantine figures it out and that's fake too, and Ryan fakely tells him to shut it so he can give more stupid clues, and finally Carrie fakely figures it out. Everybody's really gamely pretending that this is actually happening, except of course for Constantine, who smiles disgustingly into the camera the entire time because he literally cannot help himself.

I remember back in college we had this one friend who, whenever there was a camera around, would get this totally fucked-up, fake smile face until you put it away, and she honestly did not know this was happening, and in order to take pictures with this girl around you would have to put the camera in the middle of the table, wait until her grimacing face muscles got tired, and then snap the picture before she noticed what was going on. She was a smart girl, and a beautiful girl, and a cool girl, but she was a girl who was not comfortable with cameras. Constantine is smart, and almost cool, and a big old girl, but he expresses his discomfort with cameras in much the same way: by defaulting to what he (incorrectly) thinks is the best way for his face to be, and sticking with that, and obsessing on the camera until it goes away. And since he's on a reality TV showyou see where I'm heading with this, but I think the most unfortunate part of it is not that he has a fake frozen camera face, but that it's so deeply horrible. I think the same thing is going on with A-Fed, too, but in his case it's not so much a problem because he's not Constantine and doesn't make Constantine faces. It speaks to a deep insecurity within Constantine himself which, when paired with the total self-obsession and simultaneous and paradoxical utter lack of self-awareness, means a total meltdown whenever he's on screen, which is always, because this is TV. So who knows what he's actually like? Not that I wish to do so. I'm just saying.

Ryan notes, on the way to introducing Scott's performance, that these are not your ordinary show tunes like your mom sings, the kind that are safe for the layperson to attempt without professional guidance; no, these are super-complicated and difficult and esoterically arranged show tunes. They are like the calculus of show tunes. It crosses Ryan's eyes to even think about how very tightrope the hour is going to be. And we're live, people. They are singing without a net. Without graphing calculators is how this is going down. I hope nobody hurts him- or herself. Well. Maybe Scott, maybe that would be okay.

Scott doesn't know much about musicals, because they covered that the week after he'd been verbally and in writing asked to stay off-campus, but his mother dimly remembered this one "play" called The Man Of La Mancha and a song therein called "The Impossible Dream." Of course, this is a musical about Don Quixote, who is famous for trying to do things that are utterly futile and stupid and pointless, so merely by suggesting that Scott perform this song, his mother is calling him a dick who will never amount to anything. I remember being really touched when I heard about Scott's dad and how he didn't believe in Scott's dream. Remember that? So weird, considering how very much I personally do not believe in him anymore.

But, like, I cannot deny that Scott's voice is freakishly lovely. I can deny, quite passionately, that I want him to be famous or retain the use of his limbs, though, and that is why I'm glad that he's too ugly and thuglike to attain this dream of his. Which is -- I don't think he's really into being beloved or an Idol per se, or else he would do something about his creepy, flat affect, so I don't know exactly what his goal might be, really; I just take comfort in the fact that it is unreachable. Simply taming his crude and vicious-seeming facial tics is only the tip of the iceberg that will prevent Scott from attaining his dreams, but until then he's just looking at one huge windmill, and the fact that he has not taken step one toward becoming acceptable as a pop star means to me that it is not as much of a priority for him as he thinks it is. He is stupid and lazy and will never amount to anything. Score one for Dad.

Anyway. He's wearing a suit and looks very nice, except for his hideous thugly face. He sounds his usual good about half the time, but the vibrato is shitty and lazy, and he continues to breathlessly clip the ends of most of his phrases. I'm convinced he's going to have a myocardial event onstage before he's eliminated. I hope we're live when he goes down. I'm trying to be fair here, but coming off really biased because if I'm honest about my feelings about him personally, I just said I want to watch him die on TV, but all I can do to balance it out is to say that he used to have this really awesome voice that is sneaking out the back door before our eyes as he loses interest in even this, his so-called "dream."

It's hard to pay attention because the song itself is intrinsically cheesy, and he's not even doing anything interesting with it like he usually does. He's justkinda singing it. There's some pointing fingers in the air, a little bit of what Paula terms "showmanship" and what I'm sure he thinks of as "cardio." His Eminem way of talking has finally crept into his singing, which bugs, and then at the end he fucks up two notes in a row, all in the last word of the song, and at the end he chokes on it so bad, it's kind of like he maybe needs a little Heimlich action.

To be fair, though, and cross-apply this to everybody else too, is that whether or not you like show tunes, you must admit that they are certain kinds of played out, in that you hear a song and you go, "Oh, that song." Like effing "People," for example. How you gonna make that shit pop? You can't. Show tunes are the Kryptonite of the Nikko Effect, if you know what I mean. And the other option is songs that nobody's ever heard before, which have the problem of sounding like show tunes, so it's twice as weird, because you feel like you've heard it before, but not like an old friend, because you've in fact never heard it. And all show tunes fall into this trap: you can't sound new without fucking it up, and you can't sound old without boring me or sounding like karaoke. So the theme this week is actually the Chaka Khan Principle, which is "Randy and Simon are right every week when they bitch about how nobody sounds good singing classic tunes that sound a specific way inside everybody's head." Which is kind of the theme every week.

Randy starts out calling it a pretty tough song to sing, so you know this is going south already, and notes that there are a lot of changes going on in it. That's so hardcore when they start out telling you that you're a brave little soldier for trying something so hard. Randy then notes some pitch problems, and says that the beginning was out of tune, the middle was boring, and he ended with a "bang." Paula yells the word BANG three times like a crazy person, which translates to "The only reason I'm not dead is that I can turn anything into a compliment. Give that a shot." Man, I never thought my Tori Amos translation powers from high school would have a real-life application. The best thing ever was when she and Alanis Morissette were touring together and they'd be interviewed by Kurt Loder or whatever and he'd ask this straightforward question and Tori Amos would be all, "I really think you have to have tea with the devil in the dreamtime of our voodoo, you know?" and Kurt would just look over at Alanis and she'd go, "Because Sarah MacLachlan is Canadian, Kurt." And he'd thank her and move on.

Paula goes on to backhand him about how much she enjoys how his songs always fit his life, like how she and his mom are allied in thinking he's an elaborate joke on America, and how that rendition was one of the most heartfelt in this competition. Which isn't true -- he was clearly doing a good job on a bad choice while in the middle of some health issues, but whatever. Simon calls it as ending with "less bang than tap," and says that everything, from the presentation to the vocals, were ordinary. Which is mostly true. Paula screams the word EXTRAORDINARY four times, which translates to "My entire identity is The Nice One and I'm happy to play to that." Simon replies that Scott is "ordinarily extraordinary," and I don't even know for sure what he means, but I totally agree. Scott is usually really great, or once was, and he's an amazing amount of common as a person, and is so not at all of interest or note that it's almost extraordinary. So that's three different ways I agree with Simon, but I think honestly I'm putting multivalence in his mouth because I'm guessing that he was just responding in kind to Paula's lack of coherence.

Scotty and Ryan commiserate about how difficult and challenging this theme has been for everyone, and Scott specifically mentions that this was probably the hardest song, vocally, that he's chosen this year. Ryan's more touchy-feely than usual with Scott, which is interesting, because I guess the spin for the abuse stuff is mostly no comment, with some extra love and fake applause on top. That's smart. That's what I would do. If I were evil like them, I mean.

Ryan's mind is blown by the amazing amounts of "signage" all over the place, and I agree that there seem to be a lot more signs. The show has taken some kind of jump up from being the number one show in America, somehow, because I've noticed a lot more baseline interest creeping up each week, but this week it hit like some kind of critical mass and now everybody seems to be not only secretly watching the show but also talking about it openly and coming onto the site to discuss it. I don't know, it's interesting.

Constantine was really "psyched" about the theme this week, you know, because he's an actor. And because it was specifically chosen for him, I think. I'm becoming more sure than ever that this whole "pulls off his rocker mask to reveal a theatre geek" routine has been planned all along, and the reason it looks so incompetent as to be organic is that Randy Jackson is the one carrying the banner (after Paula mismanaged the big reveal with the tongue-in-cheek stuff a while back), and he makes no sense when he talks so every week it's like this big epiphany and anybody who didn't catch on to the basic mendacity at the heart of the Constantine Issue the week before, or the week before that, gets to figure it out right here live. Like, week Randy's going to talk about how he's just figured out that Constantine is not a rocker but some kind of theatre guy. Mark my words.

Constantine sings "My Funny Valentine" from Babes In Arms, which is not only a musical I've never, ever heard of, which is no rarity, but is also not a show tune, as far as I knew. That's interesting. It was also featured in a Sinatra movie. That's not interesting. You know I hate his ass. However, I do love this song, the Chet Baker version, and thus I despise this version already, because it's hip and sexy (as Constantine of course points out) and is too far from the kind I like. Anyway, Constantine goes all breathy between every couple of words and stares yearningly at nothing. Disgusting. He fake laughs about "is your figure less than Greek," and he thinks the joke is that he's Greek (WE KNOW) but really the joke is that he's a fat-ass monster with sixteen chins and his figure is less than acceptable. He gets really aggro again and some more, and bites the ends of his words like all silly bad theatre guy-yuh and his eyes rolling around in his head. And okay, I've figured it out.

This is sexy, if: you don't know what "sexy" is actually like, because sexually you are cookie dough; it's all outer. It's explicit. Like, the faces of sex, that would be sexy in this world. Really tight pants. Sex toys. Public restrooms, maybe. Like if you say "sexy" but you're thinking of porn, that's what this is. Like actual sex. Like that's what sexy is: having actual sex, making sex faces and getting sweaty and gross. In front of people. He's the Morganna the Kissing Bandit of American Idol. The Juggs magazine of what's sexy. Missing all the underneath stuff, likeyou know how period porn like Dangerous Liaisons is sexy to adults? Because of what you don't see? That's one kind of sexy. And the opposite of this is what Constantine thinks is sexy: naked people.

And it's working, dude. Because the other side of letting your junk hang out is that it's more accessible, which for a certain kind of person who's not sure if they'll ever get laid, this combination of unattractive-but-not-prohibitively-so (so, not intimidating), plus the sexual desperation he's trying so hard to telegraph to us, means that he's attainable, and if you add in the weird bisexual vibe, that makes him even less threatening. That he just might love you and make love to you and get you out of wherever unhappy place you might find yourself. And if that's appealing to you, you are a Weiner Dog and he's counting on your vote. He is human fan fiction, sprung to life and ready to serve. And that's the other half of the case, and I'm done trying to figure it out because it's so far removed from my own life, I find it difficult to even think my way there. Also because I don't like understanding stuff like this. It's like when I watched American History X. I am similarly discomfited.

Randy didn't buy the rocker thing ever, y'all. He says, and I totally agree, that this is the best Constantine's ever performed anything, that this kind of thing is what he should be doing each week, something like this. Paula loses it, and must admit that she is falling in love with him -- she loves the twist on the song, and thought it was all quite romantic. Then she says the awesomest thing of the night, which is that Constantine is the "perfect role model for guys to get into musicals," and, like, I don't even know what the hell she means by that but it's so fucking funny. She wishes she could get up and hug him, but for some reason she can't. And I don't know, but I'm guessing it's the drugs. She's kind of lucid tonight, at least physically, she's not falling over like last week or anything, but her words aren't holding themselves together so well. I don't know. I'm not so degenerate that I can diagnose what she's on each week, based on just looking at her. I know she's on something, that's all. Simon notes that Constantine has grown in confidence, which is pretty much true, and he gives the vocals a 7, while the "pouting" gets a 9.5. Mike points out that even when he goes for "smoldering," all he gets is "kind of rapey." Constantine, who wasn't looking forward to hearing from Simon to begin with, gets that he just got called an ass. Ryan asks, as if we should ever be allowed behind that particular curtain, who the real Constantine is, and Constantine says he is many different flavors but they are all disgusting. I'm paraphrasing.

Carrie found it hard this week, she tells us, because musicals are their own thing, so she can't automatically warp it into country. Which she totally did, but I imagine it took some doing. She sings "Hello, Young Lovers," from The King And I, wearing a ridiculous teal dress, and her hair is again gigantic and on one side of her boring, dumb head. She sings it in country voice, and clearly cannot hear the band very well, because she's singing to her own personal tempo that has nothing to do with the music; there's a part where they stop together, which should let her get it together, but soon enough she's out of there again. She only flubs two notes, but it's Carrie, so that's two too many. She's great, you know? I really dislike her.

Randy points out how amazing it was that she chose the most boring song in the entire universe and he almost got mad at her about it, but in the style of truly great singers, she ended up singing it well, in tune and with great control. She sang it brilliantly, even though it was a terrible song to sing. That's almost exactly what I think, except I am also troubled by her deep inner creepiness. Paula compliments her look and her elegance performance, and agrees with Randy. Then she talks crazy and non-verbally about how "the audience is swelling with you." I don't know. I think she means that we're all waiting for her to hit the giant note Carrie always signals she's about to hit. Paula calls her a "well-oiled machine with [her] vocals," which ordinarily -- coming from Simon, for example -- would be snarky and so dead-on as to be devastating, but it's Paula. She doesn't know what the hell she's going to say until it's already out there. I can't give her the benefit of the doubt as far as being secretly bitchy. Simon admits she sang it very well, even though the song was totally boring, and he was reminded several times of a 1950s "dish soap commercial" (I'm redacting a lot of bullshit here having to do with how British people and American people don't always use the same words for things), and I agree with that too, especially with the outfit. She always looks so empty and dead and creepy, you know? He settles on "old-fashioned." Ryan, in order to make her look more and more awesome until your eyes bug out, points out how she only learned the song last Thursday, and asks how on earth she could learn it and then OWN IT like that. He's not even really selling this amazement on his own personal behalf, but whatever.

Vonzell will be singing "People," from Funny Girl, and tells us it took her three hours to choose her song, which she ended up singing because it's very "challenging" and she knows it will show off her range. Which it does, if you can stay awake through it. She sings it beautifully but there's an intrinsic narcoleptic, like a sleep-inducing back-masking, that is a clear downside. It's so cheesy you can't even really hate it. It's as banal to say "I hate the 'People' song" as, like, I don't know. Yelling, "I'm Rick James, bitch!" or those refrigerator magnets they have in trailer parks that say things like, "This isn't Burger King! You can't have it your way!" The cool thing, though, is that she is actually thinking about the boring, sentimental words she's singing, so she gives them life, because she seems to be the only one who understands her songs on a basic word-definition level. Also currently making her special is the fact that she's rocking the Kimberly Caldwell faux-hawk with the high sides and teased back, and it's not enraging me. I can't even handle Summer when she does that shit. Ladies of the world, please cut that out. Do you really want to emulate Pink? I thought not.

Randy says how she keeps getting better every week, and tosses a little Carrie stroke in there about how between Carrie and Vonzell, it's possible a "girl" might actually win this year. Argh. This stuff is like plastic surgery: I'm not offended if it's not obvious. If I can't tell you've had plastic surgery, I'm not going to judge. It's bad plastic surgery I'm bothered by, and it's obvious and stupid and repetitive pimping that I have an adverse reaction to. Paula then gets all smart and interesting, talking about how Vonzell was singing in the same key as Barbra Streisand herself, noting that "Barbra is Barbra, and now Vonzell is Vonzell." And I'm comforted and confused about why that needed saying, but then Paula's off and running about how Vonzell hit this high E-flat that not even Barbra goes for, and that's very interesting. Paula leads a personal standing ovation on behalf of this high E-flat. And to her credit, I'm told that she was right about all that, and further to her credit, it only takes her a little while to remember to sit down again. Simon says that Vonzell did a very good job, but that singing a song like that requires a certain amount of mind-blowing "wow factor" in order to keep us interested. I agree. And I'm sad to report that I think she could have used a bit more of that to keep my interest, because I spaced a whole bunch of the time. Ryan tries to use this criticism against Simon, saying that Vonzell is rubber and Simon is glue and the fact is simply that it is Simon who is too cold and too clinical. And how Simon doesn't hold him anymore, or ask about his day.

Anthony sings "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" from The Sound of Music. Okay?

He talks about he was touched by this, because it's about determination and achieving your dreams, and that's why he's here. They should issue a warning before he or Anwar get onstage so that diabetics can take measures. His hands are very expressive tonight, as is his cameltoe. Ugh. Every other word, his hand sings along with him like he's demonstrating some kind of gadget onstage with him. Slowly he begins to mix in the swaying bouncing Disco-Anthony moves. How can you sing this cheesy song in a faux-disco way? There are actual "doo-doo-doo" backup singers. His very powerful voice is back, and that's nice, and he's mostly in tune, and I like hearing him sing, given that writing these each week means I have to listen to lots of people singing, a lot of voices happening all the time, and his is one I count on for being loud and clear and okay to hear, but, like, this song is retarded and he's standing like Fantasia.

Randy, in terms of "just keeping it real, man," gets right to the point, admitting that he "did not like that." Me neither. How you gonna sing that song and not come off like a vapid child? Paula thinks it's an interesting choice and there was a cool twist on the interpretation, and she liked how it was a pop song. So basically she's full of compliments for the band, but short on Anthony criticism. Although she does tell him that he "made [her] listen to the lyrics." Which is, like, totally tragic. There's nothing to grasp, Paula. It's exactly how you thought it was before he started singing. Please don't start having these leaps in comprehension on my watch. Also, why do you have pirate booty on your finger? Did you marry a pirate? It's like this eight-pound Jolly Roger on her finger. Simon calls it "hideous" and Paula yells, awesomely, "You're hideous." I can't describe how lovely that moment was. Then Ryan cuts him off before he can say much beyond the fact that every single thing about the entire performance was horrible.

Commercials: "If you thought Simon was toughbrace yourself for House."

I don't even know what to say about that. It bugs me in a specific way. Ryan asks whether we think Nikko can even top his "show-stopping" performance from last week, which is great, because whenever Ryan uses "show-stopping" or "show-stopper," he always also means it was the last performance of the night. I've been keeping track. Nikko tells us that he first saw West Side Story when he was ten, and immediately thought of singing "One Hand, One Heart" when he found out the theme. That's awesome. I also really like this song, because one of the interesting things about that show is how the songs don't really do what you think they're going to do, they're melodically kind of counterintuitive and interesting, and for me personally, a lot of those risks go south, but this song really pulls it off, and I love the way Nikko feels about music and the kind of song he likes. He's great, creative and interesting, and I've heard this is very close to the TEVIN version on some tribute album somewhere, and I'd like to hear it, because this is cool. The original is a duet, and the backup singer here is perfect for this: fantastic, a great match, plaintive and quiet. It's great, awesome really, and I don't really mind that he's back to dressing like a weird old man.

Then a lot of filler bullshit, first thing being that "When You Tell Me That You Love Me" was the winning Tsunami Tsingle, but the actual CD will have all three of them on it, so the whole thing was stupid in the first place and I effing hated all three songs, so this does nothing for me, and plus they're singing it again week. And then, abruptly, it's Fantasia time. And I will say at the outset that I'd enjoy the world a lot more if it were Fantasia time a little more frequently, because it's good to lose your mind sometimes.

This huge FANT ASIA sign slides open to reveal a headless figure that is most likely Fantasia Barrino, albeit with her head replaced, like most heads this week, as noted, by a bright white light. She's wearing stupid boots with, like, cartoon characters on the top of them, and some pants doing something I've not seen pants doing before. She's very clearly enjoying herself, squatting and dancing around and singing her ass off. I don't know much about these things, but it's my understanding that singing like this will give you a problem with your vocal cords. Nodes or nodules or something. Friction burns. But given how much I hate when people lecture me about the health issues associated with smoking, I'm not about to complain about that. You know, now that I've heard this song like eighteen times, I like this song. The starter song, I mean. It's called "Truth Is," and the titular truth seems to be something about how she got played but is not going to let that stop her from having fun and/or singing a pissy little song about it. It's nice.

If Fantasia Barrino were a dude, these pants would be very revealing. What they are instead is inhibiting. As long as Fantasia is wearing those pants, it's going to be hard for me myself to walk properly, much less dance. Then things go ABSOLUTELY INSANE! There is SCREAMING AND KICKING! And YELLING! And FREAKING OUT! It's amazing. This is so crazy. I wish I'd watched this show last year because if this kind of thing was going on and I missed it, I will kick myself. I knew she was adorable and had a fucked-up-sounding voice, and I am in love with the "Baby Mama" song, but somehow everybody forgot to tell me she was additionally completely out of her tree and sang like she was having a 'sode. I didn't know that part.

This is crazy. She keeps, like, picking specific areas of the stage to scream at. She's great. Just dancing around and acting a mess, and letting the backup singers take over whenever she feels like it. That part's very cool; she just drops the mic and stares and smiles and wiggles while they sing. Fantasia Barrino seems reallyurgent about things? There's an urgency. It's compelling.

Then, she loses control altogether and her eyes cross and her head is bobbling around and her arms are flailing and she is fully out of hand and then she squats one more time and just screams. Like a tantrum. Like a murder is taking place. It is so fucking rad. And then she sings right to our nine Idols about how you've got to BELIEVE! BELIEVE! AHHHHH! I gather that these are two different songs that have nothing to do with each other and the atmosphere is so intensely insane that I didn't even notice the transition, so while I'm assuming it wasn't seamless, neither was it noticeable. Even after the song is over, she still capers around like a damn goblin. Fantasia is amazing. America is amazing. I feel like A-Fed right now.