What I know about Louisville Kentucky is that I like the way people say it. You know that way that I'm talking about? Like they're speaking French and they elide the first half of the word? I thought it was just people from Indiana that said it that way, but now it seems like more people say it that way than the way you might think... And never mind, because that's what the show is talking about, so whatever. Scooped again by Seacrest. I wasn't really going anywhere with it anyway, to be honest. Kara blows a horn at the Downs, nerds are outside with their moms, and then: a whole family of vampires, walking around in the Kentucky sunlight. Her mom and dad talk all slow and creepy, and she looks like a dead person. Their whole family looks like the bad guys in a Chick Tract, like they move into the neighborhood and start celebrating Halloween and tempting you with candy and they put on magic robes and play Dungeons & Dragons and it's all fun and games until suddenly they're making you eat razor blades for Satan in their basement when all you wanted to do was watch some MTV and maybe have an abortion. Shoulda thought twice.
You know how the fingernails and the hair keep growing when you die? A little-known fact is that sometimes it's ears. Tiffany Shedd (18, Cincinnati) is skinny as hell, with a string of pearls around her neck and the whitest sparkliest eyeshadow spackled on up to her eyebrows, giving her a sort of Divine's Bastard Daughter look. She sings really not that great, and Randy laughs in her face. It's warbly and what they call pitchy, and at the end Simon goes, legitimately curious: "Tiffany, what was that song?" You honestly couldn't tell. The really gross thing about Tiffany, like the thing that doesn't make me feel bad about talking smack, is that if she doesn't get onto the show, she's going to college. That's fucked up. Then she fucking freaks out on camera about how she is not a nerd or a freak which is all they really want, and bleep you sit down you don't know me you don't bleeping know me kind of stuff, and then all three of her vampire nest or coven or whatever walks around talking all low and fucked up, and then she sings some other mystery song into the camera while her mom fucking grooves along beside her. This family makes me angrier than it makes me upset. They encourage her nasty, weird bitching and playa-hating all the way out to the car, because they don't care that she sucks, because they suck, and I can't care about that.
up is a sweet- and weird-faced hungry girl who has vaguely struggled and sort of could cry at any moment, and clearly has found emotion-stabilizing medication to be of tremendous help in her life. Kara recognizes her name and we learn that she was on A&M Records at one time. Simon welcomes her to Idol and she thanks him, adding the deathblow "I think" to the end of it, like, "Yeah, this is pretty much pathetic and we should all be embarrassed that this show is a stupid karaoke contest." Not that I disagree, obviously, but what a winning attitude. Simon's claws come out immediately at that point, and he asks her what went wrong with her record deal, and her non-answer prompts him to supply her with, "It was everybody else's fault." And she agrees! Man, I hope she has a great voice because what is going to happen if she doesn't, I'm predicting, is that he will pull a Twelve Angry Men on any of the other three who likes her, and force them to reverse their decision right in front of her, just to smack her down for dissing the show. Let us see.
Joanna Pacitti (23, Philly) sings "We Belong," a wonderful song, and the voice she sings it with is pretty much the voice 90% of people use to audition for this show. But it's nice, there's a sweet tone and pretty good control, Simon says yes, Paula calls her "worthy" and she cries, and Kara's like, "Yeah, it's been rough for you," and Randy says yes as she slowly flips the fuck out, and Kara's proud to be part of helping advance to Hollywood and no further, then gets into a debate about whether her tears are real. "That was awful!" she laughs to her family, and I don't think this experience is really what her emotional equilibrium is begging for right now, but who knows.
Dumb segue from the horses to the dorks, and then to a terrifying piece of something with crazy in the eyes and two car accidents and five near-death experiences. He says that like it's something to be proud of, rather than a sign that he is a fucking idiot. His ancestor was the guy who fixed Booth's ankle after he shot Lincoln. Then he bitches about how offensive it is that they put his ancestor in prison for ten years for that act, giving the distinct impression that the mitigating factors there are a separate issue he's also pissed about. Ryan tries to make awkward conversation about that, completely out of his comfort zone, and then Mark says he hopes today will change his luck. I think not.
Mark Mudd (25, Coxs Creek, KY, where they're so poor they can't afford an apostrophe) will be singing "White Lightning," entirely through his nose, while wearing a studded belt, chain wallet, bolo tie and western shirt. Somewhere last night this all went from diverting to deplorable. It's fun to laugh at the silliness of it all, but this week seems to have been mostly about the deeply unlikeable, peppered with the occasional walking joke. Like this guy, it's not even funny and I don't even want to make fun of him: I just want his trashy, dead-eyed, brain-dead ass off my screen. Simon asks if his holster is for a gun, but no, even more tragically it's for his phone. He sings the song, and it's awful, and he doesn't meet Randy's eyes one single time, and when he's done they all laugh at him for awhile, because he is inbred and gross. It's not ha-ha funny, but there is sort of a gallows humor to the fact that Mark has managed to escape unscathed through all these almost-deaths. Looking at him now it seems clear that his problem is not bad luck but in fact a curious kind of felicity that's kept him alive well past his Darwin expiration date.
Paula suggests that he's not "bad" but that there are competitions to which he might be better suited. "Like what? Wheel Of Fortune?" asks Simon, and once this reaches the part of Mark's inferior frontal gyrus called Broca's area -- which takes a good fucking long time -- he cuts mean Bob Ewell eyes at Simon, wondering if this was a burn. Simon's waggly eyebrows confirm that it was, and inquire as to what Mark plans to do about it. Mark tells them all to "take care" and -- with a creepy glare -- to "be careful." And if this is a regional thing and they're overreacting, I do not care, because he's already gross and should have just left, or not shown up in the first place. Although considering how often he nearly dies, "be careful" is probably the nicest thing you could say to him. "Don't fucking kill yourself doing something stupid" is a bit wordy. They all kind of react, because this was not said without forethought, because Mark does nothing without forethought, because he moves and thinks so slow. "In whatever you do," he tries to explain, and they all freak out, and he keeps digging the hole, and Paula's finally like, "That's just not a normal thing to say," and then follows up with a "You be careful too!" Kara assures his back that they will be extra careful tonight, which is hilarious, but kind of sad that she one-upped and thus stepped on Paula's most lucid moment in years. Kara, this is why golfers invented the handicap.
Hello there, boring bl/bl hottie and "traveling musician" Brent Keith Smith (28, Blanchester, OH). (I can't believe there's a place called "Blanchester." It sounds like the retort of a jealous ex-boyfriend. "Where's he from?" Manchester. "More like Blanchester!" What does that even mean? "Yeah, more like Schlamschlester!") He's like, there's something he reminds me of, besides a Christian Youth Group Leader. Who was that sort of hot young kid from Blake's year that wanted to be JT? Chris something. This guy's thing is the same as the Chris thing. I get it, but I don't care about it one way or the other. Some people go nuts over watercress, or butterbeans; me, I could take 'em or leave 'em.
As for this song he's singing, I could leave it more than take it, marginally. They like it, he's sort of growly-Bicey, Paula's so down, Simon thinks it was ridiculous (but obviously likes the guy) and would have liked more of a like Edwyn Collins thing I think, Kara gets shit on by Simon who feels threatened by her and whines about it instead of punching him in the face, and then it turns out all the fucking around by Simon was futile because he was into the guy in the first place. So then Kara and Paula hide under the table, and Randy's weird ass starts giggling and trying to be prurient about it, except there's never going to be anything horny or sexy or titillating about two girls under a table if one of them is Paula Abdul, so mostly it just makes him seem like this weird ... virgin.
And it occurs to me that all this -- his weird perseverations, that sort of stuttering awkward demeanor, the inability to find the actual humor of anything and instead substitute his sort of lame and clueless form of humor instead -- all the strange things about Randy Jackson make a lot more sense if you assume he's never known the touch of a woman. The world is suddenly thrown into sharp focus. Simon flirts with Brent for awhile and then blonde people pile all over him because he is in!
Awkward Ryan segue from Louisville Sluggers to people striking out: Irene Angueloba (28, Moorestown, PA) compounds the interest from her choice of song ("Over The Effing Rainbow") by singing it horridly and looking like the night manager of a Taco Bell with six kids and raging lupus; Obianuju Omwurah (19, Mocksville, NC) sings like she's being dragged over a cobblestone street in a small metal bin; Wil Heuser (20, Louisville) is ten feet of sexy in a six-five bag but has decided to augment his not-terrible vocal stylings with weird eyeball tricks; Ryan Benningfield (23, Louisville) manages to gay-bash mid-audition whilst wearing a dumb vest, pink belt, and singing a Tori Amos deep cut ["Dressed as a zebra, singing 'Mr. Zebra'... it sure was unique." -- Angel]; Patrick Warner (28, Columbus, OH) does a weird Michael Jackson dance to "Billie Jean," with such a rotund midsection that it's like if some Brylcreemed Dapper Dan who just lost all his monocles and spats in the Last Great Depression and is now forced to go around in a barrel with suspenders began doing hip thrusts, complete with stovepipe hat. Hey: you are never fully dressed with a smile and a top hat.
Painfully earnest "dueling pianist" and autodidact Matt Giraud (23, Kalamazoo) sings a bleaty version of that song about how Gavin DeGraw honestly expects you to believe that -- given the choice, no strings attached -- he would choose to remain Gavin DeGraw. He's cute and charismatic enough that the judges are into him; I can see a makeover doing a lot of good because there is much positive to accentuate there. Simon compares him to Elliott, which explains why I got bored the second he walked in, and they put him through. He cries and his giant weird-shaped cranium explodes with tears. Then when he comes out to tell his family and cry some more, he randomly grabs his crotch at them, which made me like him a little more.
Ross Plavsic (26, Crestview Hills, KY) is one hardcore orthodontic overhaul from being adorable, but I will tell you this: As a Linguistics major, and minor dork, it takes a lot to bore me with linguistics talk. And yet, Ross does it. Several times in a row, actually. Then he sort of lectures you weirdly about just about every subject there is. The problem here is that he thinks he's being goofy to like a Four, like a nice aubergine on the Goofy Scale, but that's only a modifier to his base-level automatic full-time goofiness? Which is more like tangerine to start with. So Ross is right, but Ross is also wrong. And if you mix purple and orange together, you get a big old mess, which is what this is.
Paula puts on her serious face while he lectures them about linguistics, because that's what you do when people say words you don't know, and then he still won't shut up, so she puts on her glasses. Literally, I am not kidding about that. Serious face, more words, the glasses come out. Finally he sings his song, which he says is a song they all know, but I think is some kind of Native American Windtalker Codebreaker Navajo shit that I'm not even qualified to care about that makes Paula belch. I am so in love with Ross Plavsic it is ridiculous.
I don't even need to know what Ross is talking about or what his overall goal is, I just want him in the corner of the room for the rest of my life going, "Furdeedle schmeeple schnur," and all I have to do is look up and nod and act interested every ten minutes when it goes up at the end. Paula offers him a glass of water, and he takes her up on it by snagging her glass and totally sipping on the straw while saying: "I have a Bachelor's Degree in Physics. I made the Dean's List three times. Slurrrrrp." So at least we know he can hold his liquor. He decides to sing another song to them, and it's totally weird some more and he lectures them about that for awhile, and Kara just shakes her head. Then outside, he sings a song to us about how he fucked up, and leaves. He is lovely. Lovely!
Day One = 10 tickets: Crying earnest guy; a very sad-eyed but cute blowsy blonde with adorable chipmunk cheeks; this sweaty ruddy gelled guy with the eyebrows, a spunky-as-hell black girl whose friends seem to be mostly transsexuals; a cute hopping blonde dude with weird friends and sparkly eyes whose name could be Brad; a pink-striped Pussycat Doll with a giant neon sign over her head saying INSECURE + DADDY ISSUES GET ME DRUNK ASK ME HOW; Ryan herding all the transsexuals out of there with brute force; that loser girl that had the record deal; Boring Brent; Chipmunk Cheeks some more; someone my notes refer to "same girl or different girl," which is actually more descriptive than describing the girl because there are about twelve Nikki McKibbins mixed in throughout all this; blonde guy's still hopping into the air wildly with every step, and yes, we see you. Chill.
Day Two. A girl whinnies like a horse, cute guys, signs that make no sense, Randy in a big dumb hat, bad duets, and maybe some true talent. "Walking In Memphis" plays over our introduction to singer-songwriter Alexis Grace (20, Memphis), who had a baby at nineteen, whose father she plans to marry, once he gets back from military school in Pensacola. While she meets the judges, Ryan meets her infant blonde daughter Ryan, identical in size and demeanor, and the two of them pull off the switcharoo of the century. Our Ryan goes to Pensacola and baby Ryan goes back to Hollywood, and once their ruse is discovered there's a rousing duet with little toy guitars and those two crazy kids finally tie the knot, in a ceremony officiated by Haley Mills.
Alexis sings a lovely song that has a lot of yelling with her giant mouth and teeth, cute low-maintenance mom-bob swinging all over the place, and Simon tells her she has a commercial face. Kara agrees, and likes her talent. Randy tells her to come out of her shell, and Simon puts her through, and the ladies don't stall for too long before they put her through. "I love you," she tells Paula, and Paula of course reciprocates, and Simon's like, "No, you don't love her, you don't know her," and Randy -- of course -- asks if she loves him, and she says straight up that she has loved him since a second ago, when he said yes. Simon gets bored and hurt when she thinks he's not into her even though he is, and they tell her not to wear pink. Kara congratulates her on her boobs, and while she's grateful for everything right now she is uncomfortable with her boobs being discussed on TV, and then out in the foyer is so excited she doesn't even notice that her baby has been replaced by an adorable radio personality.
All the fat wannabees are crashed out on the floor while they tell a bunch of poorly styled and occasional hotties no, no, no. Randy is so bored by one guy that he starts singing "I've Been Working On The Railroad," which is sort of insane, and then all four judges sort of wander around walking into the walls because they are exhausted. Ryan and his braided belt get very excited about the screeching, whooping contestant, because it will mess with them.
Aaron Williamson (27, Louisville) arrives looking to become America's Top Model and Simon says something nasty and nonsensical about Tyra Banks. Every time somebody talks shit about Tyra Banks, an angel gets lipo. Doesn't matter if they mean it when they say it. He screams at them so loud that Paula nearly loses her seat altogether, and Kara loses control and sings along with him. Simon is deeply unimpressed by all these hijinks. He keeps screaming and screaming, and the other three judges just keep yelling and dancing around and acting drunk, and it's awesome, and Kara loses her shit entirely, and Simon's about to cry, and then Ryan comes in looking shellshocked, and they scream at Ryan for awhile about nothing whatsoever and he leaves, sobbing from the intensity. In my house we call this The "Daddy & Shirley Didn't Come Home From That Old People Party Until 11:30 And They Are Crunk As Hell, Come Look!" Hour. We live for it.
Rebecca Garcia (24, Nashville) is a supercutie, as was the local Fox correspondent interviewing her outside the Downs yesterday morning, which interview Paula saw this morning, because she watches to see herself on the news, because she likes to experience that exquisite philosophical moment of self-abnegation the German for which I've forgotten where you are confronted with somehow existing both inside the TV screen and right here in front of yourself. Rebecca sings "Before He Cheats," a wonderful song with a powerful video, by our own Carrie Underwood. What's not wonderful is Rebecca's portrayal, which is laughably bad. Kara points out that she was voted Most Humorous in high school, and tries to bond with her about that, but Simon asks what Kara's really implying, and she's got nothing, because that was a joke that went down like a lead balloon. This is the precise moment that Rebecca's heart breaks right there on your TV screen, and everything becomes fucking horrible.
Oh no! Kara asks Paula to slug her, because she feels like a total dick, and Rebecca is like, "I know! You're like a bitch! I thought it was going to be Simon!" Simon is sweet to her and she goes outside and cries, and it's pretty brutal. I love you, Rebecca Garcia. Trust that Kara D feels worse than you do right now. She asks her mom if she should just give up completely, and mom fakes her out and says a noncommittal no that sounds more like it's working toward a nice mom-like way of saying yes.
People we like: Kris Allen (23, Conway, AR) has his shit together, newsboy cap notwithstanding, and a nice soulful voice to boot; Felicia Barton (26, Virginia Beach) hasn't quite lost the baby weight but has a lovely instrument and an absolutely gorgeous face; Ryan Johnson (27, Cincinnati) has dumb hair and a fine voice, but an annoying way about him. Shera Lawrence (23, Bowling Green, KY) dresses way too young but sings fairly beautifully, and does the annoying "I didn't get through"/"I got through" thing, but cutely. They all get through. Ryan's way less annoying when you see him in the context of his family, because you see how far he's come from how annoying the rest of them are.
God, I'm in a foul mood. I don't know why I'm being such a miserable ass, honestly. I think yesterday really did just break me, you guys. I'm like that frog in the hot tub, I think, like I didn't really notice how pissed I was getting last night until today, actually, but like: that awful Tatiana? And that guy with the kids? And the dork with the couch jacket? That's a lot to deal with. By the time I noticed how hot it was getting, I was frog soup. And this tonight is almost as bad, because even the good people are still just kind of boring, and up is like the pain of homelessness, and it's just unrelenting. One more week of auditions, and then Hollywood. One more week of auditions, and then Hollywood.
Day two is coming to a close. Two charming southern gents leave with class, and then two young ladies do the same. Then this pretty girl is there with her pretty mom, and they talk about their awful lives. The mom is hilarious, she's like, "I told her two years ago that she needed to make a great deal of money so that I could live off of her. I have now been waiting way too long. Let's do this." She says it where it's adorable mom-talk, but also sort of true. Then she gets pensive while her daughter explains their shitty single-mom homeless lifestyle, and how she had to drop out of high school or something to help because her mom is "awesome," and they start crying, and her mom thanks her for all of that: Forgiving her, helping her, singing to her. That is the saddest, shortest story. Lord, they got me again. One more week of auditions, and then Hollywood.
The judges applaud her essentially for not lying down in the road due to her tragic life, and she is totally sweet, and sings them a song she wrote herself. Meet Leneshe Young (18, Cincinnati, OH... Oh! College Student! Good!), who sings a song called "Natty" that is pretty much awesome, and lovely to listen to, sort of Motown and modern, and includes the line "I like your thuggish ways," which cracks them up. Simon loves her and the song, and Kara's amazed by her songwriting chops. Simon says "I like you because you come in current," and Paula loves the lyrics. They are all about her. And if my Kara D theory is correct -- that they're looking for people like this the most -- then we're going to see a shitload of her.
I cannot believe that it's taken eight years for somebody to write a song that's actually good. You know? Anyway, "Breakaway" plays over Paula telling her no, then screaming that she's kidding as Leneshe crumbles, and then Leneshe goes out and has a good old fashioned breakdown with her entire family. I am so proud of her. This show has got to be kidding, that was awesome. I wish Leneshe had shown up in my personal life about 25 hours ago.
up: Jacksonville FL, which falls somewhere between Louisville and San Juan Puerto Rico geographically, chronologically, and on my personal list of places I will never, ever be going in this lifetime. Given that Florida -- like Texas -- is around three different terrifying states all clinging to one location and jostling each other for semiotic weight, hopefully we'll see enough of that Tatiana del Toro-esque skankiness and slovenly sloppy circuit-party banana-hammocky nip/tucked giant-nipple drunken jello-shot horniness that makes Miami feel so alive, instead of just being Part III of a KC/Louisville triptych tour of the Real Untalented America.