We're live, for some reason. Ryan seems to think it's a big deal, even though his vamps tend to get wobbly when we're live for too long a stretch (as we shall see). He also seems to think that, given Kara's presence, the judges' table is starting to resemble The View, which brings to mind nothing so much as the ass-horrible concept of Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Randy Jackson having a conversation. Can you imagine? That's like your ears' version of Hellraiser. "Yo well I don't think so much as dawg it was a'ight." "I don't how you can say that because marriage and thing." "That's pitchy for me I don't know just sharp in places you know just." "I just think God and babies, also my sweater."
And honestly, having seen the whole thing at this point, damn. I think I would actually rather watch that. What a listless, pointless, meaningless, toothless, feckless, dickless, thoughtless, unprofessional piece of crap this episode is. From the production -- two hours of bumped cameras, fucked mics, random Spaghetti Cat phantom stills, Randy Jackson attempting to both think and speak in full sentences for the first time in his goddamn life, and spazzy contestants stepping all over my Ryan's lines with weird double entendres, it was pretty much like being on the receiving end of a two-hour visit from Alex and the Droogs. And not in the fun way.
Anyway, there's talk about Kara's nerves and Ryan promises to break her in easy, and she manages to ignore that shit somehow, but then Paula gets into the act about how Kara's not only been at the table, but also under it, and Ryan tells them to quit. Kara suggests that the people not worry about it, and Paula advises, "You know what this is all your dream right you gotta hit that center stage and make magic happen in a minute and twenty seconds and if you don't look to the right look to the left whoever's better you're gonna go home it's a tough tough type of a season this year." Ryan's like, "Good point." Simon points out that they're all fucked because of how it's going on, and then they all talk about how Ryan's hair is darker and shorter this tough tough type of a season this year, and Simon says he's getting Single White Femaled, and then not to be undone by a total lack of actual insult, Ryan calls Simon the Silver Fox.
Up the stairs and looking spry: the disgusting Jackie Tohn, heretofore invisible and soon to be forgotten Ricky Braddy with balding fauxhawk and too much chest and a bland smile, Alexis Grace looking like she's a flapper and it's Halloween, Brent Keith being the immature Pokémon form of Michael Sarver's sex on a stick some more, Stevie Wright putting her giant face in your face, Anoop Anooping it up, the darling and skeletal Casey Carlson, Michael Sarver making you go cross-eyed, Ann Marie Boskovich looking like a debutante's MILF, Stephen Fowler making a seriously stoned face, the complete lack of positive qualities that constitutes Tatiana's entire bullshitty black hole of a personality, and Danny Gokey's object demonstration of what would happen if they put Archuleta's "personality" in David Cook's body.
Ha! Ryan calls Jackie Tohn "Miss Personality," but I think he means "Miss 'Personality'." She does some of her obnoxious shtick and then goes on and on about how bad she wants this, like nobody else does. She'll be singing "A Little Less Conversation," a song which is not a song, and that her goal is to get Paula Abdul on her feet. Which is sort of a crapshoot because like Paula Abdul has quantifiable reasons for anything she does, ever.
The performance itself is nasally up in the nasal, includes an uncalled-for "three, four!" that leads into nothing very interesting, what appear to be moon boots on the feet and a plastic belt, weirdly sexual affectations, unpracticed phrasing, this absolutely repulsive pair of aerobic tights-are-not-pants, and whatever hipster yelling she thinks will keep her legit in the middle of this shitstorm. It's pretty much terrible, and not in a "Jacob hated this girl from jump" way so much as a "Jacob is overjoyed and vindicated and can now pretend to a disaffected repose" way. Which I will now do, as I am sure we're never going to see her leotarded ass ever again.
Randy asks her to stop jumping around and sounding shitty, and she thanks him for saying she was entertaining. Kara congratulates her on jumping around like an asshole because she commanded the stage: "You showed us who you are up there." Randy and the "trousers" talk about how much they love each other, and we are treated to the mental image of Randy's purple Journey pants some more -- thanks, Jackie -- and then Paula says that what's so great about Jackie is how shitty she was, because it was so individual and unique. Simon explains to Jackie that "playing the clown" is almost like performing well or having a personality, but it is fact not really either.
Ryan asks her parents what they have to say for themselves, and they look like swingers. The Dad looks like somebody who rides motorcycles with Tommy Chong, and the mom looks like Tilda Swinton's overweight cousin who does PR for one of your lesser agencies. All three of them yak through their noses and interrupt Ryan a bunch, and then Jackie makes fun of that Dreamgirls song I hate so much. Which still earns her no points, because she's awful... I mean, Which is diverting. Disaffected repose.
Ryan attempts to have a conversation with Ricky Braddy, and even Ricky is like, "I don't even know why the hell we're trying this." He has a charm about him, Ricky does. And a lovely collection of cardigans, always a good sign. They talk about how he quit his post-grad employment at a chicken finger-serving establishment in order to live the dream. And by that, I mean, "the dream other than anyone's dream of serving chicken fingers in North Carolina," which is a dream I would be proud to nail down. Well, that's a lie.
My Amy Sedaris dream jobs are actually: Macy's Holiday Giftwrapper and/or Build-A-Bear Workshop Attendant. God, I love that place. It's where dreams are born! Little kids taking spooky empty furry skins and force-blowing plastic pellets into them! To create life! I am obsessed with that shit. If they'd had Build-A-Bear when I was age-appropriate I would have blown my every cent on that, I know it. To the degree that I would also settle for Dater of a Build-A-Bear Workshop Attendant, just to be able to say, "Gotta split, my boyfriend Ricky Braddy gets off at Build-A-Bear in a half-hour."
He sings a song for us called "Song For You," and at some loud yelly Clay Aiken point he sings "Thaaaaaank Youuuuuuuuu" when they cheer, and then his parents cry on the couch with Ryan while looking like a pair of lesbian Wiccans, and he tries to have a personality or something, and the judges all cry and love him and whatever, and Paula points out we've never seen him before and he's totally cannon fodder, and then Simon points out his general lack of charisma and ability to be incredibly interesting. Ryan tells him to stop being shy because he's so cute and talented, and Ricky talks about how much he loves the song and the band on this show and whatever. Ryan thinks, "You are just not going to give me a damn thing," so he whatevers and there's another commercial.
Alexis Grace has been about sixteen different kinds of adorable over the past few weeks, and I don't really think we need much of a reintroduction, but whatever. She's about fifty, seventy-five cents tall. Short blonde hair, with pink streaks and pretty makeup and lots of necklaces all the time and a baby. She will be sing "Never Loved A Man" by Aretha, showing confidence out the box. With the big red mouth she looks a little like Taylor Townsend. Also, this just in, she is wearing her underwear on TV. I may be radically revisiting my opinion of Alexis Grace right now. The rule about underwear-as-outerwear is simple and based entirely upon plausible deniability: If It's Got Lace, Get It Out Of My Face.
The song never really goes anywhere, but her voice is nice. Randy reminds us how they told her to dirty up her image and feel the pain of the blues, and she has done these things. Kara says that her "genie" is out of the "bottle"; I think that in this case "genie" is code for "vagina" and "bottle" is code for "appropriate apparel." Paula calls attention to her age, and nearly cries with joy that Alexis is finally 21 and can start having pain disorders in her glass whenever, and then she says how weird it is that Alexis is petite, yet has large things inside her. Like how Paula looks like a person that could be hypothetically allowed to fend for herself in the world, and then you catch a glimpse of that big old crazy carnival behind her eyes and you realize she actually needs more bodyguards and assistants than there are persons.
Casey sings "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" because quote "it's just one of those songs that makes you feel good." I agree with that. I do not agree with her creepy faces, or the Amidala amount of makeup all over her. Eek. She looks like a brunette Mandy Moore with an indubitable commitment to Sparkle Motion. The voice isn't so bad, but the performance is... It's just weird. It's not even particularly amateurish, overall, just weird and spazzy, like she's doing Tina Fey doing Sarah Palin doing Pat Benatar. Randy says it was "weirdly karaoke" and Kara tells her to screw off for attempting the Police. She also notes that the performance was "weird" and mourns the way she screwed up being such a complete package.
Paula says she's adorable and appeals to men -- ouch? -- but had "weird" phrasing, and pretty much cries the whole time. These people have managed to use the word "weird" more times in five minutes than I've overused it in this whole recap. Simon asks her how it's going, and she says she had a lot of fun. I really like Casey, don't you? Too bad she has a creepiness. He tells her the singing was atrocious and the worst song ever for her: something she should not have been "allowed" to sing. Paula tells her to quit with the weird winking and faces, and Simon's like, "Yes, but there was so much worse going on." She gives Ryan a perfectly composed, lovely response about it, and waits for this to be over so she can crumble.
Yay, Michael Sarver! I hope he makes hilarious cuddly funny faces while he sings. Ryan laughs about how Michael looks like the grownup version of Ryan, and Michael talks to us about his blonde family and how much fun he's having, and it's like he took all that Gokey earnestness and stripped out the bullshit of it. Which makes him not that smart-seeming, but you know what Michael Sarver doesn't have to be?
Anything other than the birth of two souls in one, whatever the happy fuck that means. Gavin DeGraw, we've been through this: your desires do not signify. Just cut it out. Oh! And let's talk about Michael Sarver, okay, because he is making weird faces on the Casey Carlson level of weirdness, and smiling hugely, and singing a particularly uninspired but technically proficient version of the song, and wiggling around, and being adorable all over the place. I guess it's less weird when you sound better? Randy's not loving his pitch, and asks him to return to the "soul thing," and Kara calls the song a crowd-pleaser, but isn't sure he's doing his best. She likes how he's precisely as simple as that song is, but wishes the performance had been better. Paula's only complaint is that he changed the mic between his hands, and that freaked her out. Then she babbles some names of people who have sung the song, and his eyes glaze over. Simon says he's happy to give Michael an opportunity, and that he's here because he's awesome and they like him. He says if he does get through, it's because of his charisma and not that boring song, but that he hopes he does get through. Wow, Simon.
Michael's mom looks like Juniper Creek and his wife picks out his clothes, and Ryan tries to be like, "No wonder you're wearing this awesome white shirt with the freaky eagle appliqués all over it, because you look hot," and Michael's like, "I picked this shirt?" So Ryan changes tactics and tries to put him at ease, having just co-opted him into metrosexuality, by agreeing with the judges that it really doesn't matter what he does, everybody just loves him from the word go, including Ryan, and Michael's not really sure what to do with that either, so Ryan kicks it to Ann Marie Boskovich because he's out of options. Man, I hope that Michael stays around forever just so we can watch them awkwardly continue to negotiate their relationship, because that was fucking delightful.
The Boss, she of the parking lot makeover, is looking much makeuped and tight-dressed and about thirty years older than she was the last time we saw her. The Garofalo Nude lipstick isn't doing her any favors. Why do girls do this? That bronze lipstick that makes you look like you have a fake tan even when you don't? It's so weird. I'm sure there's a million skin tones where it's okay, but when it isn't, it's not. Good thing she's got a great ass. Oh, and the singing, sorry, the singing is lovely and none too showy: "Natural Woman," which Ted Danson standingly ovates, is delicious but not as epic as it needs to be.
Randy bitches about her song choice and says for the sixtieth time tonight that he doesn't know who she is as an artist, and still doesn't know what he means by that. Kara says it shouldn't be so storied and classic, that she should try like Sarah Bareilles, and Ann Marie is like, "Something less... Good?" Ouch. She desperately tries to explain that she means "good" as in "thought of as good," or "classically overplayed," not that Bareilles sucks, but it all gets really tense. Finally, she reminds Kara that she's obsessed with her, which is pretty much like being obsessed with Sarah Bareilles, but instead of being like, "I know what you mean but you said it really stupidly," Kara just kind of smiles and lets it go. The Boss is many wonderful things, but an extemporaneous speaker she is astoundingly not.
Paula knows what she means, but doesn't really respond to it, and calls it courageous in a way; Kara applauds her coming out of her shell. Simon calls her a California hotel singer of a high caliber, but that her voice isn't good enough for a song like this, and that it's the kind of thing that impresses the studio audience, because they are dumbasses. I can't disagree -- especially as they're booing like monkeys on cue -- and he says she has no chance of staying tomorrow. Thrown, the Boss manages to completely fuck up her sit-down with Ryan, babbling to herself with other stuff that sounds strange and not good, and finally he's like, "Just call the number. Or don't. Fuck it."
All Ryan remembers about Stephen Fowler was when he forgot the words twice and stomped off the stage like a angry toddler. To be fair, that's all I really remember about him at this point, because that was some bullshit. He grins cheesily and sings "Rock With You," but luckily he has a great voice and a lot of charisma, so he has a pretty good chance I think. This song, no matter how it's arranged, always has a certain thing where I feel like there's going to be more, and there never is. It's just sort of nice, with that boring "Muskrat Love" slowness. At the best of times, this is true. And they've managed to get some synthesizers and arrangements to make it even lamer and more boring and slower and whatever. He looks like he's taking a nap.
Randy is shocked that he sang this... Whatever. I'm done with Randy. For the fiftieth time tonight he has an issue with the song choice, but will be goddamned if he's going to explain what it is. Ever. Kara says he was way better when he forgot the lyrics, because at least he gave a shit about this song, but this song is not for giving any kind of a shit. Stephen says he's still uncomfortable singing without his piano, which is a funny thing to say on this piano-less show. Paula says he should have sung the David Cook song he forgot in Hollywood, which is a great thing to say, actually, and then calls this song the "kiss of death," because it's only for Michael Jackson to do. Simon says the song and arrangement were atrocious and that only the last ten seconds were not disgusting. He calls it "corny" and a "horrible mistake," and Stephen looks punched. Harsh but true.
Ryan literally shivers/throws up in his mouth before announcing the person, so you already know who the fuck is up . He hides behind the judges' table and gives Kara a weird little massage because he's nervous about what unholy fuckface monstrosity we're about to see Tatiana del Toro perpetrate. She babbles at length in her package about whatever, and explains that she's singing Whitney's "Saving All My Love For You," and impresses once more upon us that she is trying really hard. She charitably suggests that we might enjoy it too, but obviously that's low on the list of priorities, because like we even exist.
And then she opens her stupid mouth and that fucking awesome voice comes out of her stupid face. When is a pretty thing not pretty? When you don't want it at all, in any way, to be pretty. Sometimes I wish TV was real and maybe Rachel True and Fairuza Balk could do some kind of freaky magic and Tatiana's hair would fall out and her voice would be choked off by a thousand frogs coming magically out of her mouth and we could stop listening to this wonderful, beautiful devil music. I can't argue with the voice, because we already knew the voice was remarkable, but it's attached to something horrible that I cannot countenance at any cost. At the end of the song, she lolls her head around orgasmically, because she is a lunatic, but it's just not enough. If Gokey is the Cookchuleta Megazord, then Tatiana is like the Grendel's Mother of Sanjaya. I can't handle that shit. I do not have the capacity. Not when so many horrible things have already happened.
Randy's like, "You can actually sing! But I hate you! But there were moments!" Kara's like, "You are a firecracker! You scare me! But tonight you were awesome! But who are you in the industry?" Tati's like, "I am a personality, and a celebrity, and a world music artist, and the sun and the moon, and I have a chariot pulled by lions that was given to me by Gandhi," and Kara gets really weird and bitchy about "Why don't I just go fuck myself?" instead of remembering that Tatiana only talks crazy and that wasn't a jab, because who is she jabbing at? Nobody. Because we are all robots in the Truman Show that is Tatiana's life, and therefore it would be impossible for her to hurt us. Obviously.
Paula points out that she is very talked-about, and advises her that at least we are talking about her, which is what has kept Paula in sleeping pills for most of her life, so she's not wrong. Paula's like, "But who are you? You are crazy, right?" And Simon's like, "And a bullshitty drama queen. Just like Paula." Paula agrees. "You are desperate to be famous," he explains, and they laugh at him. Which is dumb as shit, because the only person who doesn't care about being famous, out of the five of them, is Simon Cowell. All he wants is money and a blowjob. He is a simple man, it's one of the things I respect most about him.
Tatiana explains that she is about marketing herself as a brand, and he's like, "How innovative. Your singing was way better than I expected, but I do wish that you would stop acting demure and quiet, because it's even spookier than when you're acting like a douchebag." Then all the judges imitate her insane laugh, which is somehow even spookier than that, and Ryan flirts with her nerdy friends on the couch. She introduces them to Ryan as her cousins, then explains that they are not her cousins, and that she is multifaceted and that she has experiences and is always Tatiana.
She tells America to keep her dream alive or else, in a clipped strange speech, and... She is fucking Andy Kaufman. Like she thought to herself, "What is more maddening and fucked up than acting like a psychotic? Acting totally normal. I'm going to do that this time. I will drive America over the fucking brink if it's the last thing I do." time we see her she is going to have like a mustache and a French accent and still pretend like nothing weird is going on.
Gokey talks about how believe in your dreams or whatever, and will of course be singing "Hero" by Mariah Carey, because his dead wife needs to keep inspiring people. And I don't think all this is him being yucky or insincere or disingenuous, I think this is him just completely dunking the entire dead-wife thing, maybe even consciously, by focusing on this crap instead. This is like something somebody would do on Six Feet Under, you know? I'm not sure what the difference is between going on this show and getting a huge drinking problem is, for Danny, at this point, and mostly I think he should have been talked out of going on this show by the people that love him.
There's this awesome bar here in Austin, LaLa's, that has Xmas decorations up 24/7 because, I always heard, the woman or women who own the bar lost their sons in some war long ago, and never got to have that last Christmas with them. And that's sort of creepy, but I also get it. Without mourning there wouldn't be any monuments at all, because monuments are what's left after something's gone. There's like a thousand novels where the widow or widower or otherwise bereaved builds something amazing, some maze or garden or folly, and that's how they work out their mourning and sadness, and that's constructive. I like that, obviously. At the end, you have a something that wasn't there before, and it means you loved somebody, and everybody that sees it knows that that somebody was loved. And he's said before that's his goal here.
But I think the thing that bugs me here is that patina of self-help inspirationalism glibness about all of it, that red flag you feel go up when people in serious trauma start in with the "whatever doesn't kill you" or "everything happens for a reason" and you're like, "You have not even begun to cross this landscape yet, and you're telling me what it looks like on the other side?" Because that's the quickest way to ensure that you never have to start walking, which is in turn a shortcut to crazytown. You've got to be skating on some very shallow surfaces to think that "Hero" expresses any kind of authentic emotion at all; my fear here is that he thinks it's real: We don't buy greeting cards to express our feelings, we buy them so we don't ever have to.
So it's not really my call, obviously, but my gut says that there are plenty of people in Danny Gokey's life who should have told him to allow himself to grieve rather than piling even more incredible stress onto an already top-heavy portion, who did not. And maybe they tried, and maybe he talked them out of it, and he's an adult, but it just doesn't seem very loving to let him go off chasing the white whale a month after her death, regardless of what he wants, or thinks he wants.
Songs like this, and every other song he's sung, mostly contribute to that icky feeling, because they're all about how it's going to be okay and everything is fine and God loves you. Which is not appropriate this year, right now, because it's not going to be okay. Everything is not fine. And God wants you to be pissed off because the only way out is through. And I resent him also for making me think about this because dead wives/moms are not a subject I'm super comfortable with thinking or talking about. Maybe he'll go home tonight and it won't matter, but I don't really believe that.