There's a twist this year before Hollywood where they are sent to a boot camp and are attacked by something Ryan refers to as a "Glam Squad." One young man is seen screaming that his manhood is being slowly stripped away. Then it's over to that nice vocal training lady, and about thirty other people, telling them how to sing. Then they herd them all into a room to clap at Barry Manilow. I'm fairly certain they've kept him in that room since last year. I wonder what it smells like in there? His face looks like Cray-Pas; that does not bode well.
For any of us, really. Has it started? I'm never sure if it's started. It's been on for about ten minutes and Ryan and Simon have both said about a thousand words of lyrics from that Eight Mile song about how you only have one shot to do certain things, and Ryan has already said "This is American Idol" in about six different intonations, but I don't think it's started... Now? Okay, now it's started. Good. Good. Only does that mean there's even more Barry Mannequin coming? Rats.
There are at least two days' worth of people here, so they split them into halves and send one half out to screw around and hopefully not get murdered by LA. The other half will be watching themselves as they randomly get onstage eight at a time, and sing whatever they feel like a capella, in a thrilling round I like to call "Pass The Mic." Hopefully they will be brutally cut in half based on this alone, and have some meltdowns. It would be awesome if they just picked the Top 36 this way based on a few seconds of random Pass The Mic Hot Potato, and if they complained you could just be like, "Did you not hear about how this is your one shot? Did you allow yourself to miss your chance to blow?"
The first lineup has two Kansas City people: Dennis Brigham and Lil Rounds. I want to apologize to you for not knowing that Kansas City is also in Kansas. I wish that I could say that it's counterintuitive, but it really isn't. Lil Rounds sings "I Will Always Love You" at the top of her lungs, and there's a lil' round of ovations for her and Kara says nice things, and it's over. Then Dennis does the spazzy screamy Broadway buggy-eyed gaywad singing that he always does and which is the reason he should not even be here, and finally Simon's like, "Watching you sing is like watching a clown prolapse," or whatever. He's mentally ill, I've been confused the whole time why he's here. So anyway, Asia (of Asia/India), Lil Rounds, and some generic hottie in self-conscious Dickies named Alexander are through.
The Pass The Mic winners run off and cheer, but then Dennis runs onto the stage and acts like a prolapsed-rectum clown ranting about how they are destroying America, and then -- even though he prefaces all this with a "real talk!" which is usually a good way to get me to agree with whatever you're saying, because that is awesome -- sings some silly shit about how he would or would not do it all around. Simon goes to his happy place immediately, which means staring 3/4 of the distance into hell and pretending his body is just the memory of a ghost somewhere else entirely, and the whole rest of the first half of Hollywood stares and tries to remember not to act like complete jackholes because that's how it looks and it's not pretty.
They finally yell at Dennis to fuck off and he tells them they suck as judges, and Simon tells him he sucks at changing his mind. Then Dennis bitches about Simon's t-shirt, proving how he has nothing going on, you know, upstairs, and then sings weirdly at the camera a bunch more. Did you know that in Victorian England they would put crazy people in giant hospitals mostly because they are exhausting?
You know I'm going to get letters about that, too, because everyone's favorite two things to get self-righteous about -- besides rape and the word "retarded," but those go without saying -- are mental hospitals and Victorian England. Did you know that if you put every email about those two things I've ever gotten end-to-end, they would reach all the way to Bethlem Hospital in London, from which we derive the word "bedlam"? It's enough to make you rape a retard. Plus, you have to remember to recycle them all after you've completed this exercise, or you're going to get emails about that too. So that giant country blonde guy is having a blast with his out-and-about busload of people with whom he has very little in common, but at the theatre there is no fun to be had, because it is a lot of pressure or whatever.
New York contestant Nathaniel Marshall is 18, and I don't remember him. Which is not to say we haven't seen him before. His mouth is just pouty enough and his hair is just conceptual enough and his headband is just unnecessary enough that the second you see him you're like, drama. Now we know that he is drama because he's been featured in every promo for Hollywood week screaming his ass off about various things, but still: giant earrings, clashing tie, headband. It's like when you notice a girl has a really huge purse and you that's how you know she's crazy: not once has that observation been proven false in the history of Kneejerk Science. Also the guy looks like the entire cast of Degrassi at once.
They ask why he didn't sing a better song for his voice, because it was goddamn boring. He gives this Stuart Smalley story about how he's "one of those kids" that has "been through a lot" and has a lot of feelings and a lot of piercings and a lot of drama... WHAT? Rewind. First he says that music is the anchor that has so far kept him from freaking out, and he still sounds normal. Then he says he's special because other people have people around to support them, but not him, and that's when he starts sort of crying, and Simon pooches out his lip like he's about to barf and/or is just blatantly making fun of him. Which: I approve, and makes me think this is a crock of shit, because if the big old world were really that heartless he would have dropped the self-pitying crap a while back. I realize he's 18, and 18 is a good age for a reality check, but I don't see one coming. Other people are a luxury, not a necessity. If you need other people to do simple shit like stay alive, much less succeed, how can you possibly enjoy them? And why is your purse so big?
Oh right, this is why I rewound: "I want this more than anything," he lisps: "It's on... My skin. It just bursts out of me every time I'm onstage and I don't know why." Sometimes extemporaneous speaking from the heart works out. Oftimes it does not. Sometimes you back your truck into the loading dock of metaphor, but all the guys are on a union pot break, and you have to do it yourself, and by the time the truck gets to your mouth, you've got six potted azaleas in broken terra cotta and a handful of stuffed plush toys. But sometimes, if you are very unlucky and full of hormones and drama and a complete lack of self-preservation instinct, you get: "I want this more than anything. It's on my skin. It just bursts out of me every time I'm onstage and I don't know why."
Did you ever see that play and/or movie Bug? It's kind of like this show: delusions of grandeur and things on people's skin that aren't really there. Giant purses for sure. Or hell, I don't know what people get up to. It's entirely possible there are things on his skin and/or about to burst out of him. I just hope we get to see it, and that Ryan Seacrest is a safe distance away when it happens.
Ryan's like, "And after allll that bullshit, there are still the other seven people in this line waiting to sing." Seriously. How does anybody look back on their teenage years and not want to fucking jump in a volcano? Anoop! Anoop! Anoop is on fire! The Glam Squad has been good to him, as well. Then there's Jasmine Murray from Jacksonville, who I vaguely remember. She looks like a skinny version of that fat lady who won't shut up about how fucking political and virtuous it is to be obese. God, I hate that woman.
Then comes Rose. She steps up and goes, "Hi guys, it's me Rose." They giggle, because honestly, everything she does is cute as a fucking puppy. Rose had trouble in the vocal boot camp, and freaks out because she has suddenly realized other people can also sing, and this makes her think that she cannot sing. That's a big thing for somebody like Rose -- I think, given her dreadlocks -- so I understand why she overcorrected from "I am awesome" to "I obviously suck."
Anyway, in the realtime world, she sings "Dock Of The Bay," and sounds exactly like Beth Orton. Then there is some suspense -- Oh, look, it's Michael Castro -- before all of them go through. What the hell is it about Rose that makes anybody care? When will we see the giant-purse brokenness of Rose? I hope she doesn't fall into the Brooke trap of being on this show well after it becomes apparent that her health and this show are mutually exclusive.
Von Smith, Jorge Nuñez, and Stephen Fowler are the ones to watch in the third lineup. Stephen does a bunch of runs and stuff but Randy and Paula say it was great so it's great. Well, Randy doesn't really say anything, but things come out of his mouth that I have turned into words for you. Jorge shouts so loud you can hear it in his native Puerto Rico, which they love; nobody mentions that his stupid giant scarf makes you want to punch him. And then Von does all kind of horrible things with that adorable face, because if you recall, Von Smith will go ahead and freak the fuck out on you.
Simon calls Von horrible, indulgent and really annoying. He says it's what a kid would do when they're first learning to sing, and it's true. He always seems like he's sort of trying out all the stuff: monkeybars, slide, seesaws, monkeybars, slide, seesaws. Which, of course, they told him to do back in his audition and have pretty much been saying all along is his gift to the world, so shocker that he actually did it. They are the three that get through from this lineup, and then Von is super cute some more about how it was humbling. (PS: Von doesn't know from "humbling," and I hope he never does, but it's awesome that he thinks that's what this is.)
Ryan gets all real talk about how song choice is everything and "bad choices" are turning into "plane tickets home" right before your eyes, like a nasty magic trick. Some cute-ish blonde dude has a long talk with Paula about how he has fucked himself, and he feels terrible. I would feel something -- maybe not terrible, but something -- if we'd ever seen the guy before. Now he just looks like the '70s getting an ugly present from the '80s called "accountability." up... Oh Christ.
Norman Gentle/Nick Mitchell. Do we even have to talk about this? Guess what about joke auditions? They are a waste of time. "But he's so talented!" Then why not play it straight? If you can sing, why not just fucking sing instead of begging for attention all the time? I'm not even saying he's not charming, because there's a certain "This is my friend Norman, who will never be having sex with anyone, ever, except as part of an elaborate joke that I'll tell you about later" vibe that can be charming: If life is a San Francisco duplex, Nick Mitchell is the Monroe Ficus, and that's cute. I'm not even saying I wouldn't date him, assuming there's an off button. My deal is, I need Nick to believe in his human spirit to the degree that I do, and I don't think he really does. I mean, he's a drag queen who is in drag... As essentially himself. Trippy? Sure. But relevant?
No. A resounding no! He sings that song about how he's not going, and you and you, and he does give a shoutout to Seacrest, but it's just... Comedic. He's taken the joke too far. All the way to Hollywood. You know how much I love Hollywood week, but it's only because people take it so effing seriously. He's all, "Hollywood Week has no clothes!" Which is, again, fine, but: did we really need you to tell us that? Do we need a Norman Gentle wasting everybody's time to prove that this show is stupid? Didn't Sanjaya already do that? And didn't Sanjaya put like a fucking modicum of back into it? The low-effort accessibility of this little revolution is what gets me: strap on a sweatband or two and act like a dildo, and all we've proved is that above-the-knee is the wrong length of casual short for you. There is not a purse in the world big enough for the bullshit Nick Mitchell is carrying around.
Or, wow, what Simon says: "Without the glasses and the silly headband, you're just a boring person. And then you put the stupid outfit on, you become a joke." Word. Paula goes, "What if you sang a song? What if you gave that a shot?" Cross your fingers that he rocks this... Oh, I guess she means at some future point, because then they put him through without calling upon him to earn it in any way. Everyone is offended. Also through: that kissing couple, the blind dude, New Mom Frankie. And did I mention Norman Gentle. And did I also mention: What the FUCK?
Like a dead wife isn't bad enough, now they've got that guy doing a Rihanna car commercial in the middle of this commercial we're watching: "Play track 'Shut Up & Drive'," he says to the ugly car's brain, and a few seconds of that song come on, and whatever. It's fake and stupid and bodes so well for pimpmercials to come. I just got a shiver down my back when I typed that word!
Ugh, which quickly turns to repulsion. Jackie that Silver Lake freak that never fucking stops, ever, never stops, ever. "I have a personality! I drink Pabst Blue Ribbon! That's my personality!" I want to like her, don't get me wrong. I want to stop hating her, the way I want to like Fiona Apple or Maggie Gyllenhaal, but she won't let me just like those ladies won't let me. She is probably honestly the most interesting person in this entire group of people. I just don't do well with tryhards or people getting in my face trying to make me like them, and she is the majorette of that particular stomping unending parade, so maybe I'll get over it.
Danny Gokey with the dead wife and his best friend Jamar somehow both manage to make it all about Jamar, which is frankly more healthy at this point, I think, and they're even in the same lineup together. Jamar sings awesomely, they say, and then Danny sings "Kiss From A Rose," a song I try to figure out every year as I get older, and yet understand less and less. There is not a word in this song that I understand. Although I can say with authority that you never really notice how many times this song contains the word "grave" until a widower sings it. The crowd starts doing backflips and whatnot, because he is beautiful in every way. Opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo.
While Ryan Seacrest and Bikini Kill indulge what's worst about this show, in many ways that I cannot acknowledge without weeping, I am looking at the lyrics to "Kiss From A Rose." My birthday is in six weeks -- I'm throwing a fundraising prom to benefit my favorite charity, the Inside Books Project, which supports literacy for inmates, so now you know what a great person I am -- so maybe... No. You know what, we've got some time, because you know Bikini Kill is going to kiss him again, and I will never ever stop barfing, so why not google the lyrics to that song? They make less sense than you think, I guarantee it.
Fucking Bikini Kill. Still. Who the eff do they think watches this effing show? Kara immediately tries to make it as awkward as possible, which is so super great: "You had me there. For a moment." She explains how Bikini Kill sucks in many ways, and Simon calls her a catty bitch, and Kara tells Paula to back her up, and Paula notes that she doesn't have a terrible voice. No, only in the sense that it's a subset of her terrible everything does she have a terrible voice.
Then Bikini Kill goes into full on Chatty-Cathy braindead beauty queen mode: "I love to have the music around me. that's what's missing. It's true. That's what made me want to sing in the first place." Those phrases having little to do with one another is because of that little string in the back of her that people keep pulling so she'll say stupid crap. She's like those sex robot people in the William Gibson books that have parts of their brains arcwelded out of them so they don't know they're being prostituted. Just vacant, like a haunted-house amount of vacant. Terrifyingly real.
Simon beautifully patronizes her, agreeing that yes, the "music around her" would make all the difference and yes, when singing a capella, that music is what's missing, and yes, Bikini Kill, music is a great reason for singing. He also lies and says that her critiques are unjustified, but finally the tension breaks because the other judges realize that he's dicking with her and has been doing so the entire time. He can barely keep a straight face. Randy takes over telling her how great it was, and almost cracks up, and the ladies are love-love-loving it... And then the whole lineup goes through. Bikini Kill is still thinking that it's all about Kara hating her, which it really is not, and Kara's like, "Bring your pole time!" Awesome. So awesome.
Not awesome: Jessica "Crazy Pills" Furney is dropped. Damn it, she was my favorite person so far. That bites. Also the cute girl with the fuckin' dog, good. And a girl from Puerto Rico that I don't remember. The giant blonde roughneck guy gets through, which is awesome for all the wrong reasons; then Jesus with the outrageous pimping of his family does not get through for all the right reasons, which is kind of awesome. That's a nice kind of symmetry. I hate him so fucking much, man. He has this nasty skeezy look, like a waiter that will do sketch things to your receipt and screw you out of more tip, which violates the sacred bond. He's one of two people in this lineup that doesn't get through, and then he throws a fucking fit, of course. It would be awesome if he was like, "My kids hate this stupid show now. They just called." Um, your kids' dignity just called, and it says to go fuck yourself, ass.
Movies I Won't Be Seeing, #143: He's Just Not That Into You. Why? Because it's embarrassing when grown-ass people pull that Diablo Cody bullshit and talk all self-deprecatingly about "MySpace" and what does "MySpace" mean and are you saying they're going to put my "Face" in a "Book" and I am "Friendsters" with my grandmother and I have stopped eating "carbos" or whatever stupid old/weird shit. Diablo Cody and Nora Ephron intersect in more ways than I'm comfortable with, but no matter who is in that movie I just see Diane Keaton leveraging her worth and saying, "MySpace is the new booty call." And also: YES HE IS. He is that into me. Please stop refusing to validate the approval I need to stay alive, movie. Stop projecting how not into you he is on me, movie I won't be seeing. I'm just not that into seeing that movie.
David Osmond and his teeth. Some blonde girl who looks really dumb. Fucking nasty stupid pointless pierced retro-xerox Emily dickwad will be singing "I Put A Spell On You," because it's from the 1940's. No, instead "Excuse Me, Mister" by No Doubt, she decides. She will be singing it horrible, actually, because she has zero personality with a bunch of shitty tattoos stuck to it. They tell her she has disappointed them and missed her chance to blow. I hope that it is true. But no: David, a man named Alex, and Emily are sent through, along with everybody but the stupid-looking blonde girl.
Then the stupid-looking girl decides to be a "fighter" like she is inside, and doesn't want to be the one failure in her lineup, and then tries to negotiate them into not having that opinion, and Paula starts some shit with Simon about it for no reason, because they all agree she's done. Then dumb girl yells about how it's her cousin's birthday or something, maybe her husband's, whatever. She's not stupid, it turns out. She just gave it a shot. It's not her fault her eyelids were born so heavy.
So here we go: all-American white folks Alexis Grace and Brent Something Something, Anne Marie Boskovitch, Adam Lambert on a coked-up unicorn. Altogether, our total stands at 104 people.
Tomorrow: GROUP DAY! Why can't group day go on for a month? Well, at least Emily will cry, which makes me happy. And there are argyle sweaters and that little boy version of Tracy Flick that I loved so much. And it's group day, which should be enough. And Bikini Kill is going to hit forty one day and go completely Lucy Jordan when she realizes how pointless she is, and that will be on the news. I will videotape it, or whatever we are using at that time. And blind guy hasn't sung yet, which will be fun. And I'm counting my blessings that we didn't see any Tatiana, even though we saw her in many commercials so I haven't quite turned my back on her, because when you think Glenn Close or Annie Wilkes is dead, that's when you get the most stabbed.
Take a look at the most insane performances of all time... so you know what you have to look forward to.