We begin with Simon and Ryan in the back of a limo, babbling incessantly and giggling and holding hands, talking about Florida and how Simon has repeatedly requested that Ryan not use his radio voice in front of him. "Here we are in Florida," they say one hundred times, in many different voices ranging from deep cop porn voice to slightly less deep porn voices. It's at the same time very improvised and very practiced, authentic and fake all at once, which is after all precisely where the magic of Ryan resides. It's fun, sort of flesh-crawlingly weird, and over all too soon.
There is much footage of Randy Jackson in Journey, wearing those sad clothes he used to wear when he was in journey, although I'm unsure of the... Oh. Jackson. Jacksonville. Got it. "Don't Stop Believing." Back in the limo, Simon and Ryan dish about how they've got a police escort and how Randy has just changed because of his fame. I don't know about this, I don't know about focusing even one second of our time on Randy, but it takes an ass to fill every seat.
Here's one now! Joshua Ulloa (22, Beverly Hills, FLORIDA) is oft compared to Justin Guarini and doesn't seem to think that's a problem. He sings "Let's Get It On," playing a pretend sexy harmonica, and does a few b-boy moves. He's fairly irritating before he starts to sing, and then the faces that he makes while singing complete the transition to fully annoying. His voice is boyband and whiny, out of control, and a waste of time. He makes a variety of noises, from screeching to record-scratching to skatting, and eventually winds down. Randy praises his sound effect abilities; Simon -- who has traded places with Randy -- says he actually started out okay before he became obnoxious; Randy says it was entertaining, and they put him through. He puts on his sunglasses and makes more sounds, and Randy sings a little song for himself.
Sharon Wilbur (25, Jacksonville) is very cute and very dumb, and brought her ugly dumb Shih Tzu, and tries way too hard while laughing into the camera and into her boyfriend's face about how she doesn't want to try too hard. Then she brings her dumb dog into the audition and wastes everybody's time with it, and Simon holds it in his lap while she performs a breathlessly weak Britney Spearsy "Superstar." She's a totally adorable girl, but that doesn't make it any less pointless. Kara brings up the Britney thing, and Simon puts her dog on the floor and then puts her through. "Girls, girls," Sharon says after Randy agrees, and then... Kara and Paula randomly start making out and talking nonsense, and Paula puts her through. "Kiss Me" plays over this latest cannon fodder, and Kara says kissing Paula is fine, but she's still waiting for Simon. Ryan's like, "Girl, talk to me after eight years."
Ryan drives around looking adorable in a golf cart for awhile. The thing about the auditions is that it doesn't really matter what's going on in these episodes: singing, jokes, weird segues, golf carting: it's all just stuff happening until the hour is up, so who cares. I'd rather watch Ryan Seacrest talk to himself in the Everglades and get a gnat in his mouth than most of these fools singing any day. But alas, nothing gold can stay and before you know it we're back in the audition room, Pony Boy.
Dana Moreno (24, West Palm Beach) is wearing a hat and has a face like a truncheon. I don't know what that means, exactly, but it was in my second-favorite Elvis Costello song and I've always wanted to say it, and it seems like now is the time. She has a voice like a truncheon, that's for sure. Simon finally shuts her down, and Dana explains that she's willing to "take as much direction" as these judges want. Simon's like, "Great, the only direction I want you to take is out that door, face first." She bows and takes off.
Ryan's still wandering around and flirting with security guards, and finally makes it back on his cart to the auditions, where he meets the auditioner and her mom and takes a moment to praise her for her self-possession at such a young age. Anybody, though, can be confident; it doesn't make them good at anything in particular. Kaneswa Finnie (16, Jacksonville) confidently walks into the audition, confidently sings a variety of noises through her nose, confidently does a boring dance, confidently rolls her eyes crazily while singing a variety of notes unknown to music.
Simon says he was surprised by her song, which got progressively worse, and she confidently giggles. He lists all the wonderful things about her, and says that really the only thing she doesn't have going on is her voice, which is terrible. She thinks this is a Simon thing and not the truth, because they always do, and Simon summons her mother in just to waste more time. He explains to mom that the audition was terrible, even though she's adorable and has a great smile and these things, and mom doesn't really get it either, so he lets the bit die and tells them to leave. In the blue box, they talk about how great she is some more.
Wearing a tiara, a beauty queen sash, and an annoying smug smile, Julissa Veloz (19, Orlando) comes in and sings "I Have Nothing" in one of those lovely Scott Savol impersonation voices that may or may not be good, but is good enough -- especially when she gets to the yelling Whitney part. Simon says it was better than he thought it would be, but she still failed one of her objectives, which is in this case to make the song "sound nice." That's actually a perfect description of what she did there. She gamely launches into something else, and they make fun of her weird zombie laugh, and Kara says she's curious as to what she'll do . Paula randomly starts whining about nothing at all, and then gets up and wanders out of the room with the contestant, pissing Simon off beyond the telling of it. They make out behind a curtain and Paula comes back. Paula puts her through because she is likeable, and I guess that's enough. Simon reluctantly makes it unanimous, and then they play "Hot Hot Hot," I guess because she's Latina, or maybe because she's got teeth like Buster Poindexter.
The opening strains of "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" brings us back to the auditions, and a scary friendly bad-dancing nerd who becomes very sad when his new friend Devin gets cut, and he starts crying in Ryan's lap. Darin Darnell (28, Houston) tells the judges that he's sad about Devin, and then refuses to sing his song so that he can have a weird overemotional freakout for no reason, because if you couldn't tell by the weird jokes and random, compulsive handshaking all over the place, he's sort of unstable. He sings a terrible rendition of "It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday," while crying, and the judges collectively get more uncomfortable than we've seen in a while, but soon enough it's just so lame and bizarre that they lose interest. Simon kicks him out, but before we're free, Kara's like, "What are you crying about? Nothing? We are doing you a huge solid by telling you to stay out of the music business. If you can't take it in this room, you're going to end up dead in the real world."
Then there's a montage of crying trashy girls who disagree with the judges' decisions, and then Ryan sends in a pretty blonde girl who is obviously also emotionally unstable, and compares herself to Mariah Carey and hops around all weird and brings her friend in so she can meet Randy Jackson. Kara's like, "Do you have ants in your pants? I'm going to do you a huge solid and tell you that in the music business, those ants will be on fire." They bring in the skanky chubby friend to meet Randy, and he acts like it's the most awesome thing that ever happened, and finally Simon's like, "Just sit in his lap for the audition, whore." I remember last week thinking that Jacksonville was going to be skanky like Nip/Tuck, but I don't think I realized what I was saying.
So the gross friend sits in Randy's lap, and to get attention Paula sits in Simon's lap, and that's the yuckiest part. Then Ryan comes over and sits in Kara's lap, and she bounces him on her lap while playing with his nipples, and I ... just don't know what to do right now. Naomi Sykes (25, Tampa) sings "Loving You" terribly, which causes Simon to almost start crying, and Kara plays with Ryan's head like he's a puppet, and the song won't end, and it's terrible, and everybody sings along, and she looks like somebody from the '60s. I can't tell if this is a nightmare or the very best thing that's ever happened. Then she starts crying like she didn't know she sucks, and Kara hugs her, and Randy hugs her, and then Paula gets in there, and Simon looks like he's about to pull out a gun.
Nine Golden Tickets on Day One: Guarini guy that won't last, a tiny man in a vest who can jump high, a cute little muscly kid, a girl that looks like Lily Allen, the tall and draggy Miss New York USA, that "Hot Hot Hot" girl, a psychedelic pregnant girl with tons of hair, a giant-smiled dorky dude with an insane family, and that cute idiot with the dog. Simon pronounces -- after a quick, funny montage of people sucking edited together so close it's like an Aphex Twin song -- Jacksonville just as awful as one might imagine. "Mostly they were terrible." Ryan tells him Day Two is going to be great, maybe, and they... just sort of have their secret little club together that we don't usually see until Top Twelve. I was actually just last week thinking about how long it takes to get to a place where Ryan and Simon interact each season, and now here they are, macking in limos like Chuck and Blair. What shall we wish for ?
Jasmine Murray (16, Starksville, MS) is the baby of the family, with three older sisters and a brother who clearly adore her. She is seriously cute, and when she sings Pink's "Big Girls Don't Cry" it's lovely to find out that she's got a great voice, too. Simon calls her cute and commercial, loves the voice, and Paula agrees. Randy obviously agrees, but acts cagey about it for no reason, and she goes through. "We Are Family" plays her out, with the screaming of her sisters and mom, taking the previously established bar on these brainless musical cues and setting it just a bit lower.
up: the very excellent and aggressively bearded George Ramirez (18, Jacksonville), who studies Physics in Tallahassee, and manages to babble about science to such a degree that he freaks out both himself and Ryan. "A lot of people fear Physics," Ryan prompts him, and he's like, "Only the stupid." Then he does a robot dance, and acts totally weird. Ryan worries about his future a little bit, I think, because he is totally bizarre and sort of wonderful. He refuses to answer Simon's question about where he'll be in ten years, because in terms of Physics, that is essentially a question without an answer. Then he starts crying about how if allowed to dream -- to dream wildly -- he would dream of a simple house with nice floors, perhaps of marble. The judges realize that he is one of those nerds who is never coming back, which scares them, because if LA has an opposite thing it is George.
George sings a jittery, weird, typically Idol song at the bottom of his range. WTF is he thinking, they ask. Well, previously he has sung songs with his friends, and gone rock climbing with them. Kara's like, "You are a very special young man, are you not," and Simon tells him this is not for him. He is surprised, but low key. Kara" That's was... so weird." He comes out sort of sad and needing a hug, and the judges try to recover from how weird he is. ["And it makes me wonder if Kara ever watched an episode of this show before she signed her contract because she seems constantly surprised by the freaky contestants." -- Angel] Outside George assures Ryan he'll be seeing him around, and Ryan's like, "Cool. No I won't, but cool." He is super cute! This is one of those heartbreaking nerd scenarios where all he needs is a patient friend to drag him around and dress him and make him act right until he can do it on his own, but he's too scared of normal people to go get one for himself, so somebody's going to have to go in after him, and I'm busy, so: if you're reading this and you go to school in Tallahassee, the time you see George you should go all Clueless on his ass, because he has an awesomeness. It's not even that hard to see.
Anne Marie Boskovich (22, Nashville) comes in and tells Kara that she is unbelievable and heroic, and has loved her since a performance in Nashville. Paula makes little cuts on her leg, right, but then the girl busts into a Kara DioGuardi song that nobody's ever heard except for her, and she has a great voice. Randy wonders if she can't get some more confidence, because her vibe is singer-songwriter and not American superstar, so Simon sends her to go get a fifteen-minute makeover. She puts on some makeup in the parking lot and is amazed at her transition to hot little momma, and I guess we'll see her again shortly.
"Imagine," as performed by TK Hash (23, Concord, NC), is a soulful lovely song sung by a lovely young man, so much more about the vocal acrobatics that the worn-out boring lyrics are beside the point. Which is now officially the best way to sing that song. Paula remembers him from last year's auditions, and says he's gotten even better. Randy says maybe his version was a little too version, Paula calls him "inspired by David Archuleta," and I mean both of these things are true, but his voice is awesome, so it's all sort of not worth talking about, and then he goes through.
There's a montage of people talking about how great their kids are, and then there's Michael Perrelli (18, Orlando), a big vacant crybaby who sings Plain White Ts -- huge red flag -- and then loses his entire fucking mind when they tell him he can't bring his guitar to the audition. Has he seen the show? You know what makes me want to cry? His stupid trashy Ed Hardy t-shirt. So he sings "Jumper" by Third Eye Blind. Remember them? I loved and still love them. They made crystal methamphetamine seem like a low-risk holiday in somebody else's misery, sort of like having sex with Kellie "Becca Thacher" Martin in a Lifetime Original Movie. Six months later I had learned beyond the shadow of a doubt that meth really is like that, but it's not as awesome as it sounds. Thanks, Third Eye Blind, for a summer I won't soon forget.
Michael's voice sounds eerily identical to Jesse Bradford's voice when he writes that song for Torrance in Bring It On, which is to say: nice enough, but nothing special. This is what happens when you grow up in Orlando: how do you tell a kid they need a little extra something, when literally every third kid is famous for doing not that much different stuff? I guess the answer is to not live in Florida. And never, ever let your kids listen to Plain White Ts. That shit is bad for America. They discuss how he's sort of nice and interesting, but his voice is boring and he's not really fit for this show. Kara says that she can tell he shines more with his guitar, and he agrees. What else remains to be said? You could be forgiven for thinking "nothing," but that just proves that you don't know jack about Michael. He blubbers and begs and whinges and whines until Simon literally tells him to go get a job and stop being obnoxious. "No excuses!" Randy yells.
I can't imagine what that interview was really like, because it was horrible even all chopped up, and then outside the mom tries to kiss him and he gets all kerchief about "Don't touch me," which, if you know Ryan at all you know he's going to be horrified by that, and he's like, "You NEVER talk to your mom like that" and the mom starts crying, and then the big cute brother tries to desissify him real quick and bounce him off a wall, but Michael's too busy being pissy for that either, and he shortly goes from being obnoxious to being a dick. We need something special to come back from that little Tragic Trip to Teenage Town.
Yay! Pretty Anne Marie comes back to sing that song about how the bubbles start in your toes and go to your nose and then to your brain and then you are having a stroke, but it's okay because you're in love. Her voice! Hooray for Anne Marie! She still not particularly charismatic, but you have got to fucking let the voice go, I don't know why this is such a waste of time. Randy continues to tell her she is not yet a star, but has a good voice, and Kara's like, "We are giving you another chance." Again, I think there's stuff we didn't see, because she has a great voice and I don't know why they're piddling around about how adorable she is, when any amount of adorable is more adorable than some of the other people that got through.
Sixteen Golden Tickets from Jacksonville, in total: Guarini, another tiny jumping man in a vest, the original vested jumping tiny kid, a sweet-faced swaggering thug, an embarrassing b-boy with embarrassing b-boy friends who are deeply Floridian, a very cute girl who owns not one but two breasts, a curly-haired kid with a gold chain, a blonde hoss with cute friends and tired hair, yet another fat McKibben clone, the guy with the crazy family who does the splits without warning, the young spazzy fellow who won't last long, cute dumb girl, George Ramirez being awesome... And then a bunch of shots of exceedingly Florida people dancing around and singing "Walking On Sunshine," just to pad the time a bit more. I wish that Ryan would just drive around in a golf cart or the back of a limo with Simon instead of all this... Singing.
up: SLC, punk!