Welcome to Dallas, home of Kelly Clarkson, who has succeeded all over the place. Is she the "lone star" of Texas? Somehow I doubt it, but Ryan loves saying that. I was saying to Joe last night that I wasn't sure if I could even apply myself to watching the show, much less writing about it -- but my hope was that once I heard the song, and saw Ryan Seacrest's little face, I would probably come back. "Let Ryan bring you home," Joe said. And you know? He was right. Some gross Dallas girls welcomes us to Dallas and we get a proto-Dallas intro to the city, and then some screaming. Has anything happened here "since we've been gone?" Heh. It was hot in Texas, everybody says, and then they talk in those accents.
...And right into the crystal meth, complete with mugshot meth-face. Pretty blonde girl, who of course has a billion children, etc. Meet Jessica Brown (24, Longview TX) who sang in recovery, starting with "Jesus Take The Wheel." Which we get to hear while the girl drives around with her child in the backseat. I hope that that little girl is not a bastard like in the song. Mom praises her -- and her so-very-Dallas highlight/lowlight stripes -- for becoming human again, which I love, and then she tells us that her mission is to inspire people to quit with the meth already. Given the little story, I'm guessing she has a great voice. And she does: her "I'll Stand By You" has such clarity and smokiness that her kindness really comes through. I don't trust anybody, really, unless they've been in the shit. She has that trustworthy energy. It's great. Simon says she made it interesting, and her mascara-running little sister outside stresses out and nearly loses consciousness. She gets through, of course, and there's a giant recovery hug with screaming. Aww. "They didn't think that I would ever be here," she cries. I like that girl. I like this season. I like how somebody can go from Jessica Sierra back to Kelly C., and we get to see it.
Some big blonde Army dork with a charming smile does a gimpy dance and is cheered -- spotted: Jessica Brown, totally bored with his antics -- and then tells us about his sad mentally impaired life in landscaping technology. It's a good life, but not one I feel great hearing all about. Ryan asks him once again to dance like a moron, and the music thumbs its nose at social programs. Paul Stafford (25, Crosby TX) is a member of the American Rollercoaster Enthusiasts, among the other less-visible groups to which he clearly belongs. Randy and his cute facial hair talk about how American Idol is also a scary ride, and Simon gives Paula props for her "ups and downs" pun relating to the scary ride that is this awful show. He then sings that boring Elliot Yamin song about how you have to wait for the song to end and it never, ever does. Most especially tonight. Paul Stafford makes me sad, I would like to be his friend but don't want to talk about him anymore. Paula talks at length about how "joyful" he is; even Simon corrects the lack of joy we feel watching Paul, with whom we are both quite taken, by the end. He leaves with grace and poise, and that goddamn retard music plays him out with a stupid trombone. Luckily, Paul's attempt to give props to Simon, for showing such care and restraint, results in the glorious and unintentional bon mot: "Simon didn't come down on me like I thought he would, so that's always good, because he goes down on just about everybody." I LOVE you, Paul Stafford.
Everything's bigger in Texas, we are reminded for the second time by a giant drag queen of Pink, who is discernable from Pink not so much. Some girl with an eyebrow ring...the end. Beth Maddocks (18, Coppell TX) will be singing "Beautiful Disaster," half-appropriately enough. She's screechy and wearing parts of a black potato sack. They stop her quickly enough, and Randy and Simon agree that it's only half-right. They discuss how she sings while waitressing, Simon gets bitchy about it, they kick her eyebrow-ring-wearing ass to the curb while her mean girl stripper friends watch her freak out and Ryan holds the door closed. Then there's an hour of bad auditions, a guy with thirty family members, a chubby girl who clearly loves horses, and a screaming woman in strange garb.
Then comes pretty blonde Alaina Whitaker (16, Tulsa OK) and all of her teeth, telling us how she and Carrie Underwood kind of look alike, in her mind. She busts out "Stronger," by Faith Hill, and it sounds very much like good singing sounds on this show; I don't know the song so I have no idea how much of the ornamentation on it was her idea, but it sounds great. Simon says she isn't as good as she thinks she is, although she's good, and blows her mind by using the word "latter." ("OK Fraaasier LOL," texts her brain.) Unanimous yes, and she's through. What we needed was more Carrie. Her family goes crazy and Ryan restrains her Reba-like grandmother, then that Crest commercial where Ryan flirts with heterosexuality while Sela Ward smirks behind her voiceover and looks thirty-three for the eighth decade running.
More untrue Texas bullshit stuff involving cattle, and then these scary inbred high-schoolers, boy and girl with the same long hair, that are tall like pine trees act totally freaky and sing one of those musical theatre songs where you're singing two songs at once. Or maybe they are actually singing two different songs at the same time. It's mind-blowing, like Clay Aiken, but you don't really want to investigate further, like Clay Aiken.
more so? Perhaps all-time all-star championship mind-blowing? Bruce Dickson (19, Bastrop TX), who has never kissed a girl or had sex with a woman, and cannot stop talking about it. At 13, his dad gave him a Promise Keepers locket and they got all virginal on each other, and God was like, "This is not what I intended at all." Bruce tries to explain the weird mechanics of their creepy incest lockets, like, the dad has the "heart" and the child has the "key" and one day the "heart" will go to a "lady" but until that day, they're both content with the boy shoving his "key" in the dad's "locket" whenever he feels the urge. Even the show is like, "This makes me want to throw up." If this were a girl and her dad, the authorities would be there in a hot minute, but instead the world is like, "I don't get it, I don't want to get it, the kid looks like everybody in a gay porn anyway." High school wrestling looks up from the floor and asks, "Anybody finding this inscrutable but upsetting nonetheless?" And as if I needed to tell you this, the boy walks exactly like Ryan Seacrest. He is also pretty classically victim-beautiful in that helpless blonde Dennis Cooper way, like you don't let this kid on Greyhound without a chaperone, but the dad just managed to make the whole thing somehow even grosser. Suddenly I was like, "What is A-Fed up to these days?"
Ryan tells the dad showily, "If he meets the girl in Hollywood he'll be in big trouble, don't get me started," which is funny, as if Ryan's five-minute ride on the carnival bones of Terri Hatcher was ever real. But then! Then, the dad is like, "Ryan, you'll be kind to him?" And Ryan just about explodes with this face of, "You mean like...while I'm fucking him? What are you talking about?" before spitting out, "Trust me, you don't want that either." I am just...so...deeply uncomfortable with all of this. "I've kissed a girl today," Ryan says philosophically, staring off into the sunset, and then the dad helps him put the fire out on his tiny pants. Inside, the kid sings a beautiful "Ain't No Sunshine," while Paula thinks about what if she was alone with him behind bars. Simon and Randy aren't convinced, and Paula tells him to quit with the R&B, because he's so violently white. Unanimous no, because I cannot deal with this kid at all. I have a locket around my neck right now and it says Dateline Is Watching. Bruce asks for advice and Randy tells him to kiss some girls, and Simon tells him not to let Ryan fuck him. What is going on here?
Wow. Just wow. I need a violent and talented young lady with a mohawk right now. Oh, good! Welcome to the Ororo Munroe Memorial Dungeon of Pia "Zpia" Easley (24, Chicago), who looks like she just took down the entire Thunderdome. Sparse orange mohawk, frilly shirt, pugnacious and professional attitude. She's like Nadia's punk-rock dominatrix lesbian sister. (Which personage I always thought was Nadia, until just now.) Her rendition of Gladys's "I Have To Use My Imagination" is confident, clear, not too obviously sassy, and strong. She has some jacked up teeth and, Simon notes, well more confidence and style than the usual backup singer types that come through. She's...a fine singer, nothing too special but good, and they all love her, which makes me happy. I was so obsessed with Blake Lewis last year because I thought he represented this show finally getting its 21st century shit together -- and it's that which at least gives me hope for Pia, even though she's more like some far-flung century to which I cannot yet count. One day we'll all look like Pia and have knife-fights underground, which is pretty much what I've been waiting for all this time.
Ryan is so totally interested in Brandon Green (21, Lucedale MS), even though he's totally boring and collects his fingernails in a baggie. That is like an eyebrow ring times three. They discuss the shit at length, I don't know what all they say because I was barfing, barfing, barfing. Ryan's grossed out too, and thanks the Lord for his twice-weekly manicures. Brandon offers Ryan a commemorative fingernail and then tells the judges that he wants to be a role model and not Britney Spears. You're well on your way to Britney Spears, you gross troll. The judges discuss the nails with him also, earning him Paula's eternal hate and Simon's total disinterest. He sings "Rich Girl" by Hall & Oates, which Randy thinks is funny, and sounds pretty good and Mississippi-ish, but I will never forgive him for the nails. I hope he makes it to the finale so I can figure out new ways to call him disgusting. Simon calls him "forgettable" and Paula likes his gross ass -- "You would," Simon snorts -- and Randy likes his tone, even with occasional nasality. That's two, yeah? Come on! He kisses Simon's ass a while, and has really delightfully beautiful teeth, and whatever, he's in. Screw you, Brandon Green, keep that shit at home. This is why TV is good for you, it's so you don't get weird and save your waste products. I'm convinced Howard Hughes just needed him some Gossip Girl.
Pretty, wispy Kayla Hatfield (24, Campbell TX) has two kids and some kind of debilitating illness...there we go: she got t-boned a while back, lost half her face, kept her heterochromic eyeballs, and so now she's got a Victoria Williams vibe about her. Black boots, a black skirt and shrug, and a lovely dress with matching headband. She lectures the judges about nothing whatsoever for a while, about the Iraq and like such as, and then busts into "Piece Of My Heart." And it would be really good, if she weren't obviously so fucking nervous all over the place. Which bums me out so bad, because she's sweet as hell. Simon flirts with her about how exhilarating and exhilarated and nuts she is; Paula says no (!), but they put her through even though there's pretty much no chance of her making Top 24, because she's cool. Her whole family is wacky enough that I think she's a Hatfield of the Hatfield-McCoy Hatfields, like she might break into an Irene Ryan/Gold Rush Moonshine jig at any time. So I guess watch for that!
Ryan -- fresh from a dismount off some filly, we presume -- introduces us to more shitty auditions, including a scary song from a hugely fat black guy about his mommy, a semi-cute big guy who cannot sing, a little child-man who looks like Napoleon Dynamite out of costume and cannot sing "Think" and whom Simon pronounces "creepy." Last audition of ... whatever day this is: Kady Malloy (18, Houston TX), who looks exactly like Alaina-the-Underwood from earlier tonight. She's clearly an intelligent and funny girl, despite her mall-rat looks, and I find her extremely likeable. I wish her hair were just a tad healthier, but that's it. She does an "impression" of Britney that sounds about fifty times better than the reality -- biting from her baby-voice moaning and weird stop-start phrasing -- and then heads right into "Before He Cheats" and sounds great...if exactly like Carrie herself. They stop her immediately and she goes into "Unchained Melody," which doesn't sound like anybody in particular except the way everybody sounds on this show. She does some neat tricks with her registers, though, and Randy and the rest agree that regular Kady flavor is the best flavor of all. Awesome. "Super, super talented," Simon says, and Randy totally scoffs, but they love her. Paula and Simon agree that she's the best they've seen so far. I can't disagree. Paula and Randy caution her to be herself only, at all times, like all eighteen-year-olds on Earth are so good at; Paula claps like a seal, yes, but dude, she's so together tonight I can't believe it.
Eleven in all made it through on Day One: Kady, a man in a hat, a girl with stripey hair and big boobs, some blonde girl with hips, a dude, a man who believes in himself, an Asian girl, another guy, whatever. Gift horse: the fact that we've seen mostly good auditions is lovely. Coming up: some horrible shit and some more horrible shit, apparently, which might explain why my TiVo cut off at the 77-minute mark.
Day Two: Everybody's irritating. Paula looks a little wobblier than yesterday. Some awful chucker with dreads, we already know, is going to be around at some point; this weirdo refuses to scream along with Ryan's pointless jabber, to save his no-doubt awful voice; Ryan compares him to Xtina Aguilera because that's the only person he knows of. Meet Douglas Davison (28, Austin), who has been hobby-singing since sixteen, and believes in Xtina's advice to not fuck up your voice by singing crazy. One time he got beat by his father for singing, who hates him. Not like he really hates him, just like he totally hates him. What a sad, boring story. In the judges' chambers, he does some weird vocal warmups and then has a seizure which is, he assures us, another cleverly disguised warmup. He then sings "Living On A Prayer," which sounds like if you went down on an ungulate, should you be led to do such a thing. Simon and Randy are grossed out by all this; I'm just wondering if he has other hobbies. I bet he's got mad inventions to share.
The unappreciated weird guy wanders around moaning crazily, causing Simon to spit profanities and bleeps all over, and Paula's like, "Pull it together." When Paula Abdul needs to explain that you're fucking around and wasting time in a weird fashion, go home and invent something. He keeps freaking out and screaming and mumbling and being gross, and pisses Simon off like crazy. "You're whispering and panting and doing all this strange stuff..." he says, and then pretty much threatens to beat the shit out of him. Paula looks totally pretty, you guys. She's dressed like Blair Waldorf with the headband and all, it's great. I'm done, Simon and Randy are done here, why is this happening? The guy continues to wander the floor and screech, and Simon finally gets the security to carry him out -- still singing -- "They're going to take you to a safe place, Douglas." Outside, he shrieks into the camera and Randy notes what we have always known: that Dallas is totally weird.
Meet the totally obnoxious and gross-looking Angela Reilly (24, Dallas), who just got married and whatever, her husband knows how to count, the husband is a professional model, she brings him in, he is hot but obviously does not know how to count, so that's a lie. I hate this girl and she can't sing, thank God, so we won't have to look at her fake tan and scary teeth and Ginsu face. She's one of those Dallas sorority types that is so good at looking hot that you never look close enough to reveal the vampiric, bony Monet concealed within. She shakes and shivers and wiggles and screeches and acts like a ho, and her husband Chad goes WOO! and whatever, get these people out of here. Can we have the mental case from a second ago back? Or make Chad do some pushups or something?
End. END IT! This is painful. Awful! Chad calls out "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," because he's in charge apparently, and she craps all over that one too. They are the most perfect couple in the whole world, and I hope that they don't burn the sausages. Thank God the holy institution of matrimony is protected in this country, or else I would be forced to marry an Alsatian hound and move door to them in their trailer. Marriage is so, so beautiful. I hope they have one hundred stupid babies. Fast-forward three years when they realize that even love and their three shared brain cells can't help you make sense of subprime mortgages, or how to count to ten. I can't remember the last time I reacted this toxically to just a few seconds of dealing with a person. Coming up: what if Chris Daughtry were gay and even more off-putting?
First, this adorable squinty nerd boy with an awesome Oklahoma accent and wants to one day be the Governor of his state. He also likes to look at fat girls' boobs, apparently. OMG this kid. What if he could sing? He's so great! He's awkward and weird and hilarious. Kyle Ensley (21, Valliant OK) immediately impresses Paula with his demeanor and the fact that he's honestly one makeover from being an actual hottie. He's what we've agreed to pretend Clay Aiken is. After Paula trumpets her "optimism" about him a million times, he sings a Queen song in a very choir-inflected way. I like it. It's not Idol really, but it's nice. I find myself actually leaning forward while the judges screw around and then...Tivo dies. Man, see, this is what happens when you care about anything. Back in a few.
Whew, with minutes to spare. Thanks, Boomer! Kyle believes in character, and in values, and Simon thinks he's better than he appeared -- instant yes, blowing Randy and Paula's minds. Randy calls it "glee club" and Kyle dorks out a whole bunch; Paula decries "academic" as a terrible thing to be, and Simon says that she's looking at the possible future President of America. "If the President smiles like you," she says, and leaves the ending open. Then Kyle cries, and they talk about what a freaky disappointment Clay Aiken has been for America. Ouch. Paula puts him through, and he gets even more awkward. I can't tell you how exciting it will be when they fix his looks. So exciting, is how.
Tammy Tuzinski (24, Grapevine TX) sings R&B-pop, she says, and then compares herself to Celine Dion. She has a froot-loopy art teacher vibe that goes well with her middle-parted, glossy brown hair, spaced-out lack of anything to say, and general Swamp Thing-inspired ellipses. She's darling, and very lovely. They are going to eat her alive, as the editing tells us. "The Power Of Love" is...brutalized. This is not a song I love, or can even handle at all, but man what she does to it. And she just gets more and more nervous, and prettier, and spacier, and then just stares at them. Apparently this song is called "If You Asked Me To," which is...I can't blame her for getting the two songs confused. I really, really like this girl, as does Ryan, but it's not enough. Take the crap that is Celine Dion, and then take a crap on it. Unanimous no.
Is this dude hot? Colton Swon (18, Muskogee OK) is mysteriously cartoonish and his hotness is like a cat in a gedankenexperiment box. He's got Howie Day hair, always ambiguous, and all of his cute little features are clustered in the middle of his giant head, like a Cabbage Patch doll. Luckily, he's got an eye for Urban Outfitters and Diesel fashions that are flattering, and he sings pretty well. Paula has nothing to say beyond the fact that Dateline is watching her right this second, and that he is kind of squinty. Simon thinks he's okay, doesn't sing awesome, but is totally hot and salable. He plays this last close to the vest but I know he'll be okay with him in the end. And then it's unanimous.
Ryan gives a speech about cowboys and how men are men, and so of course there comes the usual parade of gender estrangement. Fat Pink, gay kid in a Chippendale's outfit, some dude in a wig and muumuu, tranny getting tranny with it, showing us she's "versatile" with a photo of herself as a guy. Whatever.
Total farmer hottie Drew Poppelreiter (24, Saltillo MS) drives a tractor around with some song about how sexy tractors are, and then talks some crazy country talk I can't really understand. I bet he sings like a bomb. This is the first home visit, so watch him. He sticks a fucking piece of straw between his teeth and says the word "farmin'" about eleven times. He is also dressed as a farmer at the audition. Are you telling me this is what America is wanting? Because he'd be hot in anything, without all the creepy farmer sparks flying everywhere. Also, he sings exactly like George Strait. Great, I guess. I'm in. Fuck it. Simon's an instant no, because of country music, and Randy loves him, also because of country music. Paula correctly notes that he is a secret squirrel of the Scott Savol variety, with no discernable approach specific to himself, but then puts him through because that's how this show works: he's totally hot, accessible to a freaky degree, and this show is a joke.
Kyle Reinneck (20, Edwardsville IL) is a hardcore rocker who likes rockin' and guyliner, as well as having sexual relations with men in a homosexual way, and is too depressing to really talk about. Suffice to say that the main emotion he produces in me is gay bashing. He's got a "rockin'" poster of the kids he counsels (scary) with his awful fake tan, who are "rockin' out" with him, and then..."rocks out" all over "Never Again." The last time I saw a man do that to a person, it was in the back room at the Chain Drive. Please, please get this kid off my screen. It's scary, his face is weird and manic, on which Simon calls him, and he agrees that he is intense. (Perhaps it is the guyliner?) Mostly I think that he is awful, and I think he should sing less and be cool for like five seconds. This behavior is unconscionable. How inappropriate. Paula's like, "You're off-putting in every way, to a degree that you're not going to fix this with any amount of therapy or rehabilitation." Simon just about pulls out a gat. Why are we wasting time on poor Kyle? I bet he's nice. And I bet his boyfriend is forty years old, and mostly hates him, and they fight a lot about things that aren't actually very important.
Awful dreadlocks guy intros us to a long montage of "Since U Been Gone," including a bunch of people not interesting enough to highlight anywhere else in the episode. Did you know some people can't actually sing that great? Because this stupid show is here to show you that it really is true. Dudes doing the splits, falsettos, a mime, Elphaba, little girls from Sunday school, a nerd, an overenunciating person. I love that song so damn much but now I'm not sure I want to marry it anymore.
From Kelly C's Burleson, TX, comes Nina Shaw (24). She's got legs down to here and is totally adorable, even with the flower in her hair. She sings "Run To You" and boy, is it annoying. Simon calls her "old-fashioned, overthought and overdone," and Paula calls her "pageant-like." She then annoys her way through "Summertime," I think, and Randy decides that she is jazzy and that it reminds him of Amy Winehouse. Nina responds by shooting needles of bleach into her eyeballs and then jumps out the window screaming, while cutting herself. It's still not as annoying as her singing. So of course they put her through, for some stupid reason. Maybe she'll get better, maybe I'm grumpy. I don't know. Two hours is a long fucking time, you guys.
The sun is finally setting on Day Two, and like why go out on a high note or with any effing class, so of course we get this creepy dude in a pimp cape who looks stupid, talks in broken English, and gets his cape fluttered by Ryan, who asks why a man dressed in white fur and silver cape would get bows from passersby. Renaldo Lapuz (44, Reno NV, of course) whines that nobody ever bows to him, so the dude bows to him, super low, and Ryan loves it like only a short man can. It gets to a point where Ryan becomes uncomfortable, but that point is way further than you think. Inside, Paula wonders why the dude's hat says "Simon," and his answer makes no sense, and Simon laughs angrily for awhile about how his life is a dumb-ass joke for three months out of the year. Randy one-ups the dude in boring blather, and then the dude sings a song he wrote himself, about him and Simon, and everybody else. "We Are Brothers Forever," he sings. And yeah. It's kind of catchy, but still. I mean, this is the biggest show in the history of television. Do we not, as Americans, owe ourselves more than this? Everybody leaves during the fifteenth verse, and Simon is left to send hate vibes at Renaldo all alone. I'm not exaggerating. It goes on for seriously ten minutes, the same two lines that make no sense, about brotherhood and shit.
Ryan, Paula, and Randy wander around like that moaning freak earlier, laughing and singing alone. Paula finally busts out with some of her storied dance moves, and the dude finally fucking quits with that awful William Hung racist stupid bullshitty...bullshit. Simon shakes his hand and then gives him a big hug, which we see from lots of angles before he launches into a truly crazy insane speech about how wonderful Simon Cowell is. I want a hug from Simon so bad! He is "Heaven's Chosen"! Just as Renaldo says! So like the speech slash love letter to Simon is something that I totally love and agree with, but the show of course treats him all villainy and ironic, and we cut to clips of people flipping him off. Anyway, it's funny, I can see that, and I can't really figure out a way to argue that what we need is to listen more to grumpy old white dicks. This particular one that I adore, even, I can't really make the case for that, so: Twenty more people make it through, Simon is awesome, we get it. week, San Diego and somewhere else. Wake me when it's Hollywood, if you please.