Omaha, Nebraska. A place I could not have less of a feeling for; it's like asking somebody to describe the difference between tourmaline and onyx. I'm sure there's something that differentiates it but I have no idea what it is. They have gay blonde people, it's clear, and scary hard girls. Lots of the latter. They all look like they have lots of kids, even the preteens. Maybe that's prejudice and in fact that's just what healthy people look like. They do look hardy.
Ryan cracks jokes about Simon and Randy flirting in Paula's absence, and it's just as grody and weird, from as many thousand directions, as you imagine. Also grody and weird, although adorably so, is the squirrelly and wriggly and grammar-deprived giggle monster Chris Bernheisel (24, Fremont NE), in case you were thinking he's not a little baby child girl-man, he brings gifts: stuffed animals for the judges, and a picture album focusing mainly on Kelly Clarkson, whose "Since U Been Gone" he destroys immediately. All this in addition to his very shiny face, completely vapid, lovely, deeply needy eyes and his shaky, warbly, awful voice. I don't know what to say about him. If you draw a line from Tamagotchi to Gigapets to Nintendogs, at some point in the future I think you get Chris.
Well, okay. You know how sometimes you get a very strongly bred, um, like a golden retriever or a Lassie dog, you know. Genetically strengthened through inbreeding in order to produce specific effects in the breeding stock or whatever, I don't know exactly how that side of things works. And maybe somebody didn't carry the one in their big breeding notebook, or made some other kind of simple mistake. And you look into their eyes: very excited, very happy to see you. Very, very excited and happy about life. My best friend Will calls it the Hasselhoff Look. And if you keep looking, then further down it's just sparks and a light golden haze, and you realize that the absolute happiest people in the world are probably totally insane. And this is Chris Bernheisel.
But then the dancing, and the handstand, and the scary moves, and the pointing at the ceiling, and the boys begging him to admit that he's kidding, and then some wiggly attempts to explain what the fuck he is up to. I don't know. He's a cutie, there is no denying it, but in the same way that you can say Paris Hilton is hot, but would you really have sex with her? No. No you wouldn't. Oh, and so now what he's doing is auditioning for Ryan Seacrest's job, with this crazy long speech introducing the finale. His voice keeps getting higher and higher, and Simon promises that he can do a live feed at the finale from Nebraska. Randy swears that he is the Ryan Seacrest. I can't say he's wrong. The kid seems excited. I can see him throwing this joyful hissy about, like, "This tastes more like regular Dr Pepper!" "October Road is back with new episodes!" "It's not really a team, it's just a bunch of guys who like doing gymnastics!"
Dumb cheerleader, scary blonde people, dorks with horns, a good old cow costume, total hottie Jason Rich (21, Stout IA), who works on a farm or whatever. Interestingly, he also has the Hasselhoff Look, and also the biggest diamond earrings I've ever seen. They are bigger than the pupils in his beady little eyes. His voice (Keith Whitley?) is breathy and proto-sexy, and he forgets everything after the first five words of the song. Not like just for a second, like he forgets them permanently. Oh, nerves. We are ever your bitches. Simon tells him to pull it the shit together, and he tries for the third time, and somehow punches through...for a sec. Simon begs him to not suck because he can smell the money coming off this kid, but if he's this nervous right now, what are you supposed to do? Give him some of Aiken's Paxil? ["Aiken, I believe, is now taking 'Asexuil.' Or at least that's what he's selling." -- Joe R] I don't want to commit to the concept of being cool with watching this kid for twenty more weeks, because I got burned on the Ace Young thing, but at this point I'm not saying no to him. No matter how much he begs, and the boys agree; Simon totally lets him in on how that was the audition equivalent of thirty-seven hugs and a twenty dollar bill, and he won't be getting more passes like that. Jason's girlfriend squeals when he heads out the door, and Simon assumes that Jason has stepped on Ryan.
Paula shows up, and they watch a bunch more untalented Nebraskans forget all the words of all the songs in all the languages of all the planets in all the universe. None of them are that interesting, most of them are mysteriously sleazy looking in some way, all of them add up to an unending mess of mumbles and nasal moaning.
Rachael Wicker (23, Richmond MO) arm wrestles some girl and is a total hoss, super cute, with that uncrackable makeup job they teach women to do in towns where they wear boots. She is also wearing a shiny, shiny unflattering tunic, a brown leather belt which matches nothing, and is quite hippy, which is only notable because she has that cognitive dissonance kind of face that is not proportional to the rest of her stuff. Ryan basically has to brace himself against a wall in order to take it to a draw. She is actually an arm wrestling champion, in addition to being totally adorable...and also having the Hasselhoff Look. This is so weird. Normally you spot them like once a week! She sings a Lee Ann Womack song about love or some shit, in a perfectly passable country lady singer voice with a really nice yodelly upper register. She's got a whole Dolly Parton thing going on, actually. That chipmunk deal. Simon says she acts like a sad woman at the end of a fifty-year career, even though she's only 23. Randy calls her a yodeler and she tells him that's natural, Simon says no, but Paula puts her through. Then she arm wrestles Paula, who compliments her on her beautiful skin and is trounced.
Why is Ryan dressed like a fifth-grader? He looks cute but not particularly present. Maybe the Hasselhoffs are catching? Some total loser screams and strums his guitar for the cameras... Oh, but speaking of losers who are desperate for attention, we have found their queen. Meet Lady Morgue (25, Council Bluffs IA), a former professional wrestler with a fake British accent, an eye for Matrix gear, and a blue ribbon I just gave her for Most Off-Putting Person Ever Recorded. She's like an overweight, camel-toed Juno MacGuff with a Magic: The Gathering player's discomfiting self-confidence. She smacks Ryan and then shows the judges her camel toe, while singing like a weirdo jackass. This is the reason I believe in bullying, this right here. Nobody ever understands that when I say that, but seriously: two weeks of serious mean girling would knock at least ten pounds of this bullshit off her. Her eye makeup would seem to be from the house of Crayola, her stubby little arms look Tyrannosaurian coming out of her stupid shiny jacket, the camel toe, I don't know if I mentioned that but she's still rocking the camel toe, she's got a kickin' turtleneck happening with her lopsided boobs... It's a travesty. It's a goddamned travesty. It's the worst... The pure, unmitigated evil bastards that even put this on the show. She won't quit singing, or laughing, or being creepy looking, or acting stupid. She loves being interesting and different, she loves smiling when people are mean to her, she deserves every horrible thing that ever happened to her in her entire life, and there is no fixing her, goodbye, goodbye Lady Morgue, goodnight, sweet Lady Morgue. Your My Other Car Is A Broom bumper sticker is in the mail, you total asshole.
Ryan comes in to ask why on earth they didn't put her through, but the deadpan gets by Simon completely, and Simon tells Paula to switch places with him and be insincere for five minutes. Paula sends the one in and then flirts with Simon for awhile, which is distracting, because Samantha Sidley (22, LA) is totally cute, even with peekaboo sleeves. She's pretty, sincere, and ready to rock. She sings "Don't Know Why," which as you know is one of my Kryptonite songs, but actually this doesn't bother me, because sometimes you get tired of hating things. Ryan tells her to work on her confidence, but Simon liked her performance, and Paula drunkenly piles on and tells Ryan that he's not a good judge, it's all very weird and time-consuming, and Paula's too fucked up to have this conversation anyway, so then the little girl sings for Paula and Ryan calls them all douchenozzles, and gets the Other Door from them, and even poor Samantha is bored with them, blah blah, Simon and Paula agree that she needs to work on her showmanship, and even Simon loves her, so she's more than unanimously through because she even got Ryan's first and only vote. Simon says he would hate working that much with Ryan, which nobody can say and truly mean, and then Ryan is totally cute with the girl.
Elizabeth Erkert (19, Springfield IL) sings "Heard It Through The Grapevine" and is likeable but hardly memorable; Denise Jackson (17, Madison WI) goes way overboard with some song but impresses Simon; the hideous Michael Sanfilippo (19, South Barrington IL) goes overboard with some other Stevie Wonder song but impresses Simon; and then those three people, by the editing here, continue to win six or seven more times. I swear one of them comes out of the door screaming at least twice. Day One is stupid. Oh no wait! Then it's awesome: some girl doing her speech down the escalator with her parents about how she's going to make the judges proud totally flubs it and says, "I'm going to prove to Simon that I am America's Top Model." She immediately busts out a crazy laugh, and everybody goes nuts. It's the funniest and most sincere thing that has happened this season. And it's not even that funny.
Angelica Puente (17, Kenosha WI) lives with her grandmother, not her parents, because families are like, sometimes they're like this, sometimes they're like this, she got into it with her dad to the point that she moved out. Her dad's not a bad person, but she went to see Martina McBride this one time, whatever, let's all cry and die or whatever, she played a Martina McBride song on his voicemail and he decided to pay her way to audition. This would have been so totally touching the first week, but after that graverobber with the stupid dead drug-dealing wife tried to make us cry, I turned to utter stone. She sings that Celine Dion song about how she is your lady, and does it just like Celine Dion, and Randy begs America to stop listening to good singers if they want to be good singers and not copycats. Paula and Randy put her through, and Simon says she has great potential. They caution her again to stop listening to famous records and stop being nervous, and welcome her to Hollywood. I would be surprised if she made it much further than that. And of course the effing show is like, "We just put a family back together." I don't believe anything anymore. That could be like a key grip and we would never know.
up: a whole bunch of trash with a whole bunch of heart. Nebraska, you are really not impressing me. Before, you were a cardboard box labeled, "Nebraska," with not really anything inside, but now for the rest of my life whenever I hear about Nebraska, I'm going to picture some bullshitty people and one thousand gay retards. We get a quick runthrough of all the "rockers" we've seen so far, and some we thankfully haven't, and then there's David Cook (24, Tulsa OK) who seems like maybe the most boring person in the whole wide world. From his argyle sweater to his red-highlighted emohawk to his breathless and uninspired "Livin' On A Prayer" straight from the DAUGHTRY soundbook, he seems like a very nice boy who, in another context, might well be somewhat beguiling. If you ran into him at the counter of the Barnes & Noble, possibly, you might find him interesting. Here, with the stink of DAUGHTRY on him, I can only wish him well, but not so well that his boring ass stays on the screen forever.
The shiny, shiny golden shirt of Johnny Escamilla (18, Scottsbluff NE) complements some amazingly flat hair like a flapper or procurer, who volunteers at the local zoo, who performs "Shout" at a frenetic pace with scary moves. Paula hiccups like little cartoon bubbles are coming out of her mouth, which causes Simon nearly to run out of the room in disgust. Like he throws his paper down on the floor and refuses to look at anybody. Paula raises her head from the desk long enough to take a pass, and they toss him out.
But first: more Nebraska losers. I swear this is the most depressing episode I can think of. Scary blonde with chest tattoo, a guy who touches kids, some Ren Faire losers, a vampire from the Buffy movie, a cowboy, the molester guy again, Simon sucking his soda out of a straw, a dude in an angel costume, a cute kid in a bathrobe, one of Gwen Stefani's pet Harajuku girls, a possessed young lady, a loser with bleached bangs, a different molester, a bushy dude, all singing "Stuck In The Middle With You," Paula climbs up on the table like a poodle wagging its tail, Randy making fun of people, molesters crying.
: American Idol admits that gay people exist. What will happen after that is that his hopes will be dashed. I didn't know you could say "gay" on this show. Where was that word when we needed it? All those many, many times we needed it? And why is it wearing a vest? Oh, it's Leo Marlow (23, Charlotte IA), aka Joe R's total boyfriend. I'm not sold; he kind of has a Ray Liotta thing happening with his mouth. There's actually, now that I'm really looking, this carved-out-of-clay thing happening with his face. Maybe a little bit, a touch, a slight bijou amount of the Hasselhoffs going on there. But you know what, even with the chromosomal question marks he's cuter than most every other person we've seen tonight, he's likeable, and he's nice. His voice, his speaking voice and his singing voice too, have a lovely rough tone to them. You could listen to him read the phone book. If in fact he is able to read. So I'm very excited for him, actually, with his crazy face. Paula just loves him to death too, but I've been hurt before. I would like to see his SAT scores before I make up my mind.
All in all, some number of people made it through to Hollywood. A town which I'm starting to believe no longer exists, and this is just the way they're letting us down easy. Which used to be how I felt about Nebraska. I wish I could say I held onto that dream, but thanks to American Idol, I can never say that again. Tomorrow, join Joe R and a bunch of burping whores in Miami. [God damn it!" -- Joe R]