Robby Benson! That's who that Tyler guy reminded me of yesterday, with all the hair -- as well as Mika, it was pointed out to me -- he looks like Robby Benson. I watched Jeremy this summer with Chad and we hated that movie so much that when it was over that we threw it behind a bookcase. And there it remains.
Hey quick, pop quiz: Where was Ryan Seacrest born? Atlanta. Everybody knows that, Ryan Seacrest! Except for everybody he's asking now. Oh, the show has started. Gotcha. Maybe I only know that. Maybe if I'd been asked that in person he would be like, "You really get me, Jacob." And then teach me all the steps to the "Single Ladies" dance, because you know he's got that shit on lock. "You, me, and the speedboat they call Codzilla," he'd say. "You grab the champagne."
Everybody in Atlanta is being adorable except for Randy Jackson, who is lounging indolently in his ride whining. Mary J. Blige is there, looking gorgeous, and there are some lovely shots of Kara adoring her in the greenroom before it's time to start. They show all her videos and stuff, and I mean, I feel like this show is one long excuse to talk about Mary J because she comes up so much. I've had her explained to me multiple times but I still don't feel like I know much about her. Well, I know she's a wordsmith.
Without her -- you may be too young to remember this -- but before Mary J. Blige we didn't even have a word for danceries.
It was just like, you showed up, maybe a person started dancing, maybe they were drunk or something. And then if you felt like it, you could dance too. But nobody knew how to feel about it, and there was something uncomfortable about just dancing somewhere without warning, and some people thought it must be evil or else there would be a word for it, and that's what that movie Footloose is about.
I know that she's in a commercial for some kind of technology or credit card where she walks and walks and keeps having her futuristic clothing change on her, and then she has an iPod baby or something, but all I remember about that commercial is how dumb she looks and how something about filming of that commercial ended up making her look like the act of the catwalk itself was just a little too complicated for her. Really what I know is that she is awesome, and that she has gone through hell and become beautiful. Also, she is the only person I know of, besides myself, that actually believes we are in the Matrix.
So the thing is that this particular Atlanta set of auditions is going to be at the top of a 27-floor elevator ride. Kind of like the Chair, but earlier and less meaningful. The first person is Dewone Robinson (27, Atlanta) who works in retail and has many ways of telling us he's confident. His pants are high and his eyes are like a stoner's, but he seems very charming. He has a connection to the Pips of some kind, which is a good thing in my book. He tells us he's like a diamond in the rough, and then dances like Frankenstein. Like white Frankenstein. Then he sings a song of his own devising, which means he's gone already.
So the thing is that this particular Atlanta set of auditions is going to be at the top of a 27-floor elevator ride. Kind of like the Chair, but earlier and less meaningful. The first person is Dewone Robinson (27, Atlanta) who works in retail and has many ways of telling us he's confident. His pants are high and his eyes are like a stoner's, but he seems very charming. He has a connection to the Pips of some kind, which is a good thing in my book. He tells us he's like a diamond in the rough, and then dances like Frankenstein. Like white Frankenstein. Then he sings a song of his own devising, which means he's gone already.
And it is terrible, this song. High wriggling falsetto, pronouncing "lady" as "layty" which I hate, always, and immediately Simon's like, "What the fuck is this?" He says the title is "Lady, We're Not Together Anymore," which is upfront in a respectable way, and then sings again, and keeps shuttling back and forth between the high scary bad voice and the low crazy voice, causing the Judgery -- which it occurs to me was named in Mary J's honor in the first place -- to titter. Mary J tries, for the moment, to be classy and not laugh in his face. That won't last. Kara prays for it to end and then -- after a rousing refrain of "It's over/ It's over/ It's over," ad infinitum -- it is.
They tell him it's horrible, and he not only says that's Simon fault but also drops into the hateful In Living Color white-guy goober voice to demonstrate how it's somehow Simon's fault that he sucks. This back-and-forth bullshit gets them through about ten minutes before he starts over, and at this point they really do start cracking up. It's just awful. He's awful. Kara's bemused at his claims to vocal talent, and the guy's like, "What do you want me to do?" and she finally explains: "LEAVE." This is already too long. Everybody wishes everybody else a blessed day a million times, and he sings to himself in the elevator. This episode is not starting off well.
Although hearing Ryan Seacrest say, "They call it Hotlanta" goes a long way. The guy sings all screechy and weird, and everybody laughs, and it's always nice when Simon enjoys himself. there are shots of a bunch of cheerleaders there in support of a girl we'll never actually hear sing, a dumb drum circle, and Simon continuing to be punchy.
Keia Johnson (26, Memphis) is a "marketing rep" who won Miss Congeniality at some kind of Miss America pageant, or I guess the Miss America pageant, which blows Simon's mind, because who wants to be told they're not the prettiest but has the best personality. And Keia rocks it: "Um, me?"
Well, now they all love her. She helpfully invites them to tell her to start singing, so they do, and she does. She's got awesome shiny ruby-red kicks, yellow tights and a tiny shirt, and giant blonde curls. Her eyes are gigantic buggy Bette Davis eyes, but the only real problem is her lipstick, which is really unfortunate. She sings "My Heart Will Go On" in a way that is probably pretty, but overwhelmingly loud, and it takes them a while to come down one way or the other. By the end, though, her clarity and passion have won them over. They call attention specifically to her phrasing and the stuff she did with the ends of her notes, which was creative and controlled, and Kara says she's a joy to watch. Simon still thinks she's too musical drama, but Mary J perseverates on the phrasing until she gets through. As she leaves, Simon goes, "She's sweet" -- and downstairs, about fifty people lose their fucking minds and pile on her and it's amazing.
Miriam Lemnouni (25, Atlanta) is an equestrian trainer who will be singing "The Climb," which is not a great idea but something she does awesomely. She looks a lot like beautiful Brooke Burns from Melrose Place who I first fell in love with on North Shore, but in a more normal human proportion. Less giant head/giant face working than with old Brooke. Simon can't get the smile off his face, which is always good. She's through to Hollywood, as are the two ladies: Noel Reese (16, Sophia, NC) who has braces and is wearing an insanity-print summer dress, tries way too hard with her weird movements, but has a great tone; and Tisha Holland (18, Riverdale, GA) who is just phenomenal. All the judges get weirdly obsessed with her, and she does a cute little dance around. Her hair is short and surprisingly cool: The top part is brown, but like a really subtle, russet brown, on top of the black. You're picturing T-Boz, but trust me that it's actually quite becoming. Usually people with concept hair, by the time they've made it to the auditions they've really lost their commitment to it and it just looks nuts.
Jermaine Sellars (26, Joliet, IL) is a church singer (Ryan loves that he gets paid to sing, and you know in his wee head he's like, "I wonder if I could get that gig, I have forty-five minutes free on alternating Sundays and I was looking for work") with a very supportive mom, whom he's been supporting since he was 17 because she has spina bifida, which is a motherfucker of a disease. Ryan loves him, I love his steel skull belt buckle.
"Caring for your sick mom and singing at church? That's really great." Kara says it like she's being mean, but I think she's just wary -- as we all should be -- of any story that smacks of Gokey this year. And then, even though Jermaine is already sweet and awesome, he decides to sing Joan Osborne's "One Of Us," which is a thrillingly beautiful song. Kara reacts the exact same way I did, by nearly bursting into tears and then screaming, in effect, "FUCKING AWESOME!" before he opens his mouth. And then he opens his mouth.
Dude, I would buy that. I would purchase it with money. It is so, so good. He does the "yeah yeah God is great" part like a hymn, and then swings into the chorus. Why can't everybody prepare this well? It's not like it's hard to think about a thirty-second soundbite that will get people on your side but nobody ever does it. Thank goodness for Jermaine. At the end, he spins out into this OTT ornamented part that makes them all scream like crazy people, and they all congratulate him on being both awesome and having the voice to back it up. Randy says it's the best voice he's heard, and I might agree. Jermaine nearly starts crying... And that's before Mary J. Blige calls him "anointed." What a wonderful thing to say to a person. Simon gives a very simple yes, maybe so he doesn't cry. How awesome all of that was. He is great.
Christy Marie Agronow just turned 25, and her deal is that she produces and hosts a regional TV show about Atlanta, and the way that she does this is by being as horrible as possible, all the time. You know, a lot of people including myself often say that confidence can be, for some people, a "fake it 'til you make it" proposition. And I think a lot of people, such as Andrew last night, think that this means acting the fool and talking loud and intensely up in people's space, which in fact it is not. So Christy Marie's whole thing is having catchphrases and gestures and yelling in people's faces and trying to be cute. Which maybe she would be, because she is a very pretty girl, if she weren't so obviously terrified while she was doing it, so it ends up being this, like, macabre hysteria instead.
The whole time she's talking -- to cameras, to Ryan, in the booth, to the judges -- her face is overactive and shifting and twitching in this strange way like she's about to cry or about to throw up or you're on acid. She makes me believe in microexpressions, because every word makes her face do a different emotion, usually "crying from fear," and never lets up. Like, while her singing -- which isn't singing, it's more like declaiming, or trying to calm a nonexistent riot -- is not that good, the thing that makes it horrible is the strange shapeshifting psychotic break going on behind her eyes, and it just never lets up. It doesn't help that she starts her "Love Is A Battlefield" with the yelping whoa-wo-wo-wo-whoa! part, and stays at that level of crazy the whole time, while never actually singing a note.
Kara smirks because she's embarrassed, and puts a hand on Randy's arm to keep him from cracking up or otherwise encouraging Christy Marie, and Mary J is just eloquently whoa and Kara agrees with Christy Marie that love is, in fact, a battlefield. Kara is turning into a bit of a tryhard this year. Then -- speaking of -- Christy Marie goes twice as wiggy talking about how love is a battlefield and this is her battlefield because music is her passion and her love. Which maybe this was extemporaneous nuttiness, maybe she rehearsed the nuttiness beforehand, but either way it comes spatter-scrawling out of her twitching face and you start to feel that perhaps she's dangerous.
You know how on Glee you're like, "Rachel's so crazy LOL" but then sometimes you're like, "Oh shit, Rachel is crazy! I forgot this was teen Nip/Tuck for a second" -- or whatever character, because they've all gone nuts at this point at least once -- and that's the genius of the show, that it's so brightly acidic and too dark to actually conceptualize very often? Well, that's what this is like. She looks like her front elevation is a football banner and one or more unhinged people is about to burst through it and onto the field.
Mary J hides from her in her futuristic clothes and Kara offers her "the 411" that she's sweet but not a singer, and Simon calls her more of a "911," which is both funny and culturally aware of him, and downstairs Ryan asks her mom what's going to happen and her mom is like, "Honestly, this is probably going to get super fucked up."
And then it does.
People who never sing for us but we still have to watch them get turned down -- which, by the way, is actually the opposite of what this show is about, and makes no sense, and is stupid and boring -- include an awesome mohawk guy, a dreamy Neal McDonough type, a cute blonde with giant lips, some asshole in a hipster Palestinian scarf like it's 2008, a guy with a moustache and the look of tax woes about him, and the cheerleader, who it turns out is super cute. WTF is the point of that? If I wanted to watch people cry without caring about the reasons, I'd be dating right now.
Last of the day is Vanessa Wolfe (19, Vonore, TN) who... Yeah, they got me. See, she looks like every hick thing at once, happening in one place. All of them: The really bad things like meth and uncles, the also bad things like leaving high school a bit too early or racism, the minorly bad things like yucky fashion and fast food employment and maybe your parents are not entirely heterozygous. What she does for fun is jump off bridges, because she can't make it to the mall, and her mom (I think) has a shirt advertising something called "cow tipping," which I'd imagine is a breeding service of some kind if I didn't know better, and she's aware of the rest of the world in this tenuous hypothetical way, like she's East Germany, and she talks like she's got a concussion, and good old AI is playing straight-up banjo music, and she lives in the smallest town in Tennessee -- which is a Venn diagram of unspeakable terror -- and her best friend is her mom, and she has a nose ring, and she's quite proudly wearing a $4.50 dress which she bought at the Dollar Store in Smyrna.
They don't have anything else to do, so they jump off bridges. Maybe Bucky Covington fucked me up, or maybe I have actually changed in some way as a person, but they show her walking down the road in her bikini with a t-shirt over it, post-bridge jump, holding her guitar, and talking about how not only is she trapped but she actually is aware of just how trapped she is, and she and her mom sit in the porch swing and talk about how much they love each other, and what on earth are you supposed to do with this? It's not pity, and it's not even really sympathy, because I just can't imagine what this girl's day is like, and she gets to live through them one at a time, and it's not in my power to say that this is not an appropriate person to be, obviously, but she clearly wants more.
And I mean, the whole point of the Joan Osborne song is to answer the question, because the answer to the question is yes: Whoever you're looking at, there's God looking right back at you. "Yes, Joan, I forgot for a second and I'm sorry. We can do better."
Which means either this show is being mean, or this show is being super-mean, but even if she has the best voice, I mean, she spends the entire time -- pre-interview, at home, on the premises of the audition, the entire time -- looking right at the camera and saying the only thing she doesn't want is to be looked down on. She doesn't want the responsibility of feeling ashamed of herself, because where she came from is all she is, because she is trapped. And I don't mean in that "Don't make fun of me" way, but in that Mayella Ewell, "city slickers are usually assholes and probably right" way. And I don't know what to do with her -- and this is before she even starts singing -- because in some ways it is very hard to imagine that we are both Americans? And while for a long time I was embarrassed by that, now I'm just embarrassed for the rest of us. Because she knows, she gets it. Everybody else that goes up that elevator is risking embarrassment, but Vanessa Wolfe is risking shame.
Vanessa's singing "Wagon Wheel," by the Old Crow Medicine Show, and you'll be relieved to note that -- while her timing is for shit, speeding up and slowing down insanely, and her accent is super intense -- her voice is truly beautiful, perfect for country, and wonderful. One by one, each of the judges does that dawning-wonder thing Simon did about the ugly British lady, until they're all staring at her. Downstairs, mom's so nervous she claims to have frogs instead of butterflies, and upstairs Kara's praising her and Simon's worrying about her and trying to give her a month's worth of advice in a minute and a half -- how she's nervous and unself-conscious and unprepared for any of this, and how Hollywood is going to eat her alive unless she really gets some teeth, and calling her sweetheart -- and the whole time, she's just trying to explain how hard all of this is to believe. Because she's so poor, and so country, and so unprepared to be special, and so used to getting shit on, it's hard for her to actually hear what they are saying, right, because it flies in the face of nineteen years of empirical evidence.
"If I didn't have a dress on I'd throw you a backflip," Vanessa finally says through her tears, and Simon makes a confused, scared face because he didn't understand half the words and managed to understand the wrong half and now thinks she's offering him a hummer, and everybody else interrupts to save them from that bullshit. By the third yes, she's openly weeping -- and then she screams! A hoedown holler! And it is awesome, and it scares Simon, who just keeps warning her how hard and ugly and mean this is about to get. And you know, obviously he is correct and should be warning her about these things, but the whole point is that she doesn't even know about that part of things, which means Hollywood really is going to eat her alive, and so for the last dip on the Vanessa rollercoaster you get to be worried about her in a whole new way.
But Vanessa's not worried about any of that today, she just cries on the elevator and runs, screaming and barefoot, out into the sunny streets, pronouncing it "aeroplane" and shouting about Hollywood, while "So Small" tinkles softly in the background. Well played, show. Well-fucking-played. I didn't think I had access to that many emotions -- at least not sober -- much less that I could feel them all in ten minutes while watching the industry's seduction of someone who could just as easily have a successful character actor career exclusively playing meth-addicted prostitutes.
Day Two. Simon fools around on the mat like he's going to sing, it's cute. I've never seen Simon this happy for this consecutively long. I don't think he grumps out once this entire episode. And then just as the sun is coming out... All that Vanessa goodwill toward the show goes down the shitter as they introduce an honest-to-God mentally disadvantaged actually inbred nearly microcephalic dental-nightmare bumpkin, with banjo music, and then do a sub-Benny Hill reenactment of scenes from his life with smug Hollywood fags in goatees sticking out their buck teeth and running around with bandannas, and subject the kid to worse abuses inside -- this kid who can't even fucking form a sentence -- and Mary J just can't believe what a cartoon he is, and you know, as likely as I would be to bleep-bloop over this segment anyway, tonight it's not even a question. I just...
Even after he figures out what assholes they're all being to him, and his face goes sad and hard and he gets ready to leave, he's still totally fucking polite to them, and outside he just shakes his head and lets his friend the cowboy with the great ass lead him away and just says they were rough on him. You know what I mean? Fucking show. The only thing I hate more than other people misbehaving is feeling myself go self-righteously appalled, but it's not even that. I just can't imagine laughing at that kid. I can't imagine sending him up in that elevator, and I can't imagine spending more than six seconds with him before looking at the producers and going, "Nope. This one's not happening." I don't want to have dinner with him, I don't want to talk politics with him -- and I doubt very highly he's interested in going to dinner with me either, you know, so it's not like either of us is the bad guy -- but I don't see the point of laughing at him.
I thought Atlanta was going to be stressful because of the insane black people they usually have on this show in the south, that's what I was preparing for, but at least generally the insane black people in Atlanta know what they're in for. They dress up in their chicken suits or try to make you put in their grills or whatever, and it's a laugh, and they know whether they can sing before they're in there. But these freaks?
I don't know. You know what's a fun exercise? Pretend you're an alien looking down at the Pyramids, or the Great Wall of China, or Ryan Reynolds, and then let yourself be proud of those things for a minute. You're not Egyptian or Chinese, probably, but you are part of a group that did those things. We made those things. You and me, we made a wall you can see from fucking space.
And so by the same token, if you're an American that means you're responsible for Ralph Waldo Emerson, and TS Eliot, and Toni Morrison, and Amy Sedaris, and Emily Dickinson. And, yes, Twilight, and Jersey Shore, and Guantanamo Bay. We did those things too. They are also your responsibility. And I know that it's because of writing about this goddamned show for so long that I live there now: I honestly just feel American, all the time, because of this show. I know what that feels like, after thirty years, because of this show. And from that place, I don't think you get to do white trash jokes anymore. They just don't make sense.
Although while we're on the subject of white trash, can somebody explain Channing Tatum to me? I've seen lots of ripped guys before, and most of them weren't topped by the dead-eyed canned ham that serves as his head. I'm sorry, but "inbred, with a sick body" is no longer an automatic pass. He looks like he's actually brain damaged. His eyes are crossed. Crossed. And his fucking teeth! I guess it's just that white trash is no longer funny just because they're trash. They have to do something hilarious, or else you're just being stupid.
Anyway, more pointless crying failures: A cute girl that looks like Amy Juergens (by far the grossest name in primetime), a blue-eyed emo, a girl with a rainbow-checked scarf, an annoying Anna Faris-type whose mom hates Simon, and a strange girl who will be singing the blues all the way home.
More surprises! Office assistant Holly Arden (20, Rockmart, GA) is dressed as a guitar, with cheap stuff down her front and a thing on her head, and glasses that are two guitars. Speaking of chicken costumes. She has crazy-eyes and a high, horrible, squeaky voice, and I hate her. She keeps calling herself "Guitar Girl" and acting like that woman The Blind Side was based on, but even more impressed with herself. She heads in there and explains that Guitar Girl was her Halloween costume and everybody thought it was cute, so since she's going to be singing, she just figured why not dress the part. Which is kind of adorable, actually, when you put it so logically. Simon is horrified by her immediately, and even more so with her glasses, and that horrible voice.
And then she sings "You Ain't Woman Enough To Take My Man" by Loretta Lynn impeccably, two octaves down in this rich, deep lovely alto, switching dictions more completely than Maria Bamford does, and blows everybody's minds. Simon stares around like he's getting punked, but keeps having his gaze drawn back to this girl, sounding phenomenal while dressed like a total dick.
When she's done, Simon tells her to keep the glasses on and asks her if she's insane, dressing like a guitar and looking like an insect and singing "country and western" at him, which I love when he says that, "country and western," and how much weirder it is that she totally rocked it. He says she's fun, and she giggles that she could lose the outfit -- meaning later, in Hollywood, but he doesn't get that right away and makes the weird woggle-eyed move again, like yet more people are trying to blow him -- and they all talk about how funny and charming and ballsy she is -- (Mary J is just incandescent: "I don't get it. I don't understand") -- and how none of it would matter if she didn't have the voice to back it up. I fear that, as for the last nine years, the "but it's okay because you're talented" part will be lost to future auditioneers. Holly tells Simon he's gorgeous and he asks if she honestly thinks he'll respond to flattery -- and then she comes running and screaming out of the elevator downstairs, because of course he was kidding.
The bad voice of a guy with a very small face send Mary J off again, and Simon says his voice is like a cat barking: Something that should never happen. is Hansel Enriquez, who -- much like his fellow nineteen-year-old compatriot, the luxurious-locked stoner dude from last night -- has temporarily terrible skin and a beautiful face that will outlast it, but has sadly slathered himself in foundation of absolutely the wrong tint, so that he looks like a tranny mime. He looks like Stuwwelpeter. It's so damned tragic that you can't even deal with his horrible back-of-the-throat version of "Reflection." One day, son. Just... You're a Summer. Wearing makeup meant for a Winter is going to make you look like a sewer mutant. Plus, don't wear makeup to cover your blemishes because it only makes them worse. (Plus, don't wear makeup.) Then comes a cute gay kid with a t-shirt that says Britney Spears Saved My Life, Blake Smith, who returns the favor by destroying a Britney song irrevocably, but he's got a thick neck and a baby face, and some hilarious expressions in his arsenal, so he'll be okay.
Then there's a hot little number with hair everywhere and boobs everywhere named Mallorie Haley (20, Winner, SD), who is a waitress. And she's going to sing "Piece Of My Heart," which is an automatic no-no, except for how she does it in this very contemporary country style instead of going for the Janis thing. Is this a known version? I'm sure it is. Maybe it's fucking Shania but I bet it's... Yep, Faith Hill. 1994. That's totally what it was like. Simon's down with her, I like her (not that it matters), Kara really likes her, and they all agree on her look. Which is very adorable. Simon calls her fearless and kind of overextends himself in saying how much promise she has, but the best is Mary J, who finds her the best of the group: "She could go to Hollywood!" she laughs, meaning it the other way, and calls her "dope" and "beautiful." If Mary J. Blige called me dope I would just die. I'd be like, "We really are in the Matrix."
The Judgery collectively, as well as Ryan and myself, are truly amazed by how well things are going. Simon is so happy right now, it's fabulous. Then comes Skii Bo Ski, né Antonio Wheeler (22, Orlando), who is a "designer salesman" -- you tell me -- and would like you to know that he is "the thang." This is what I was expecting from Atlanta, this dude here. So we spend about a million years hearing the absolute nonsense coming out of Skii Bo Ski, even as we see the (fairly amazing and detailed) AI logo shaved into his head; even as a helpful PA tells him that the Skii Bo Ski "embroidered" on his shirt is misspelled. Which realization rolls off, it's worth noting, like water on a duck's back.
He rhymes terribly in the Snoop style for a long time, annoys the entire bullpen into rooting for him since he'll never get through, and then finally he goes in to see the Judgery. Simon stares at him like he's an alien, and they indulge his bullshit for a good long while before he deigns to lay down "Heard It Through The Grapevine" on them, with some annoying dance moves... And it's quite good. His voice is sweet and his falsetto is well-controlled. The judges are once again shocked by this turn of events.
Simon's not at all sure about him. Me, he's already so annoying I wouldn't want to deal with him in a professional context. Not if Jim Nabors' voice came out of this idiot would I want him around. But whatever, he babbles and they explain that nothing he says actually makes sense, and he doesn't care, and Simon lists all the things to hate about him, which is a long list, and Kara just says how neat it was that his voice was not as much of a disaster as the rest of him. Then they feel each other. Mary J begs him to adjust his "image" to match his voice, to be in other words not totally awful, and he flirts with her hardcore enough to make her uncomfortable, and Randy tells him to stop talking nonsense several times before openly inviting him to shut the fuck up, and he sort of does but not really, and finally they let him through. Outside, everybody cheers for him; inside, they're still gobsmacked that such a douchebag has a nice voice.
Baxley, GA's own Lauren Sanders (18) and Carmen Turner (19) are BFFs ("for life," one of them helpfully/redundantly offers) who try -- lamely and poorly -- to finish each other's sentences and are generally horrific. The hot one, Carmen, has a gimp eyelid at times; the other one, Lauren, has a creepy tiny doll face that's covered in makeup and makes her look like Toddlers & Tiaras. They're both kind of awesome and kind of terrifying, but in different ways. They would like to audition together, which pisses Simon off, and he immediately starts trying to drive the wedge by asking which one's the better singer. Lauren, who already is clearly the deficient twin in every single way, railroads Carmen at every opportunity to yell at the judges about how they are completely the same and equal in every way.
I recap Gossip Girl. I already know what's going to happen here. So Blair sings first, and she's crappy and has no self-confidence and a whispery voice, and then Serena sings, and is actually pretty good. Simon's face actually gets disappointed because he can no longer hate them equally, and he tells Serena that she's straight up better than Blair in every single way, and maybe they should just GTFO and start a band called "The Ditz Sisters" or "The Ditzies" instead of being party to what happens . Which is a bloodbath.
Randy says, of course, yes to Serena and no to Blair -- who immediately starts promising to practice, pathetically -- and Kara actually goes, "Oh, Lauren." She sadly explains that A) They were asking for this and B) A true BFF supports her BFF. (Which is funny, because in HD you can actually see their "BFF" necklaces turn brass and then turn green and then rust to nothing and fall off their bodies entirely, like mummy jewelry, while this is happening.) Serena starts crying while Blair embarrasses herself further with the begging, and Kara says yes to Carmen and no to Lauren, and then Mary J does the same thing.
Simon says something to the awesome/awful effect of, "If it helps I would have said no to both of you. How terribly awkward this must be for you both!"
Not that people will stop trying this shit. They hug it out, but the love is so gone. That's every episode of Gossip Girl in a nutshell, that sad little scene. So Carmen goes downstairs crying a big old mess, and Lauren's being a total champ while she cries, but there's something sort of deliriously vicious about the way Carmen weeps, "I couldn't have gotten this far without you, Lauren!"
"This far"? Really?
Three doomed southern belles, including a terrible singer that looks like a less beautiful Penelope Princess of Pets and sounds like that Amy Poehler character that was always bugging her stepdad ("Rick Rick Rick! I was not mentally prepared enough for that backflip! I need a tostada to calm my nerves!"); a very pretty girl with a very masculine haircut that actually makes MJB shout "OH GOD!" and then clap hands over her mouth; and the most goddamn beautiful woman I've ever seen in my entire life, doing dirty business to the "With A Broken Wing" song -- that's Martina McBride for sure, right? What am I saying, of course it is! Tragedy in question: Battered wife jumps out a window to her grisly death -- and I mean, she's seriously so attractive I can't even handle the mixed messages of eyes and ears, to the degree that I'm happy when they stop showing her singing so I can go back to be a simple person again. I'm too starstruck to come up with a cool nickname for her to express my feelings. Old Pretty-Face, that's the best I can do.
The Judgery tell the pretty man-haircut girl that she can't sing, but she says that's not the first time she's heard it and she's not about to get discouraged. Nice. They make fun of the first girl, but it's Randy so it's boring and dumb, and then Simon asks the incredibly beautiful girl why she stopped. Because of your facial expressions. "What were they like?" Dreadful. OMG, I love her. It's sad. I wish she could sing, so I could look at her all day long. I'd just pass a copy of Atlas Shrugged Andrew's way and say, "You were going to read this eventually anyway, I'm positive about that, so let's just get it out the way," and then sneak away for some screentime with Good Old Pretty-Face.
Simon splits, because even if you have one-tenth of the jobs of Ryan Seacrest that's still fifty more jobs than normal gents, and we meet Brian Walker (25, Sevierville, TN). You don't want to know how they pronounce the name of their town. Brian's brushcut is kind of dumb and pointy and I don't get it, but he's got a big old whitebread thickness that will serve him well moving forward. Total good old boy, but in the nice way. He tells the three (two and a half) remaining judges that he's going to sing "Superstar" in "the style of Ruben Studdard," and he... Does it fucking awesome! And it just gets better the entire time! Toward the end it gets a little ornamented and top-heavy, but he doesn't fuck it up. They stare at him and babbles and Randy keeps saying the words "hot" and "cop" and "singing" in different ways and pretty much they all lose it.
I love how this whole episode is like the Susan Boyle thing from every possible angle. "You look like a meth addict, but sing like an angel! You look like a white supremacist, but sing like the Velvet Teddybear! You look like a character from The Wire dressed as a clown, but sing like a choirboy! (Dressed as a clown!)"
Lamar Royal (20, Goldsboro, NC) assures us of three things: 1) He is very excited about the Mary J part of today; 2) He will respect the judges; 3) He can handle constructive criticism. Needless to say, we're about to witness a meltdown of Brittenum proportions. I don't even know if I can do justice to the amazing, operatic way this all goes down. In flames, is how it goes down. So he sings "Kiss From A Rose" and just fucks it all up, loud as hell and twitching and looking like he's having a serious adverse event, and they immediately stop him and tell him it was "torturous" and try to explain how music has notes and pitch and stuff. Lamar interrupts to offer another song, but they explain helpfully how no, he's really just that bad. Lamar interrupts and starts crying and yelling, and can't hear them at all, so they tell him to quiet down and listen to their advice. Lamar responds by shouting the first two bars of "Ma Cherie Amour" at them, at top volume, seven times in sequence.
They politely ask Lamar to leave, but Lamar interrupts. Mary J gets real as hell. "You need to find some humility if you're going to do this, and stop trying to exalt yourself." God, I love the way she talks. They politely ask Lamar to listen to their helpful advice and he shouts the first two bars of "Ma Cherie Amour" at them, three more times. At this point he begins stomping around the place, and it takes three security guards to keep him away from the judges' table.
It is at this point that Mary J Blige, as they say, hits the deck.
Lamar shouts the first two bars of "Ma Cherie Amour" four more times as the security guards escort him out of the way, and then he busts into a torrent, just a deluge, of profanity.
Things and/or persons that are invited to fuck themselves at this time:
American Idol, the television show
American Idol, the institution
Randy Jackson
Kara DioGuardi
The lack this year of Paula Abdul
Simon Cowell, wherever he may be
Kara DioGuardi, again and in particular
All past winners and/or contestants
Kara DioGuardi's inability to quote "sing a lick"
And, finally and regrettably, Mary J. Blige herself.
Mary J: "I thought he was going to pull out a gun! I was getting my duck on!"
Kara: "Randy, were you prepared to rescue us?"
Mary J: "I was getting my duck on!"
Outside, Lamar is singing the first two bars of "Ma Cherie Amour" in an unending carnivalesque madhouse litany, interspersed with more profanities and suggestions for the panel and the show... Whilst weeping. So good.
And just when he's petered out and huffing on the sidewalk and you're saying to yourself "Good Lord that was awesome," the camera guy shifts our gaze to the stoplight at the corner, where an X-Terra full of awesome individuals has stopped to watch Lamar Royal shit his pants outside a convention center... And to applaud him.
It's no secret that I hate Auditions more than any other part of the show. But it's also no secret that I'm easy like Sunday morning: Throw me an Andrew Fenlon every now and again, or a snarky X-Terra full of people who know goddamn entertainment when they see it, and I'll be cool. This has been the greatest audition week in the history of this show.
A very old veteran, General Larry Pratt (62, Atlanta), sings a song for us called "Pants On The Ground," which is a song -- we're told -- about pulling your pants up. It goes like so:
Pants on the ground
Pants on the ground
Looking like a fool
With your pants on the ground
With the gold in your mouth
Hat turned sideways
Pants hitting the ground
Call yourself a cool cat
Looking like a fool
I like this guy, but I don't like the song because basically it's old v. young, and I don't see any reason to play it that way, ever. Invariably it's the old soldiers -- or otherwise men who are past the point where they thought of themselves as men, past I'm saying an invisible line in their own heads about what constitutes virility and masculinity but which from where I'm standing has very little to do with either -- who absolutely cannot wait to tell you what the young men of today are lacking, and that's not only pathetic and sad but a huge reason the way our world is the way that it is.
On the other hand, he's toothless and silly and adorable and laughable, so maybe he gets to yell about pants. Maybe he's earned that. I just don't see how it helps.
The Judgery slowly realize that, while delightful, the song has no clearly defined endpoint, and basically stays pretty much in its defined lexical area. Not a lot of improvisation on the theme or surprise lyrics are forthcoming. He does the splits, does something not unlike what breakdancing would look like if you were basically infirm, and then some actually impressive moves once he can stand up again, and Ryan's there just loving it, they all are, and Simon's being adorable with the General, and Mary J is just fucking crying with laughter at this point, and they sing another round with him, and then it's basically over.
25 Golden Tickets: Cute Cop, Meth Mouth, a cute girl with bracelets, a willowy redhead, a giant dude, the General gets a tambourine, the braces girl from before, MJB and Simon joking privately about how she finally got pushed into meanness with some people, Randy singing with the General and Ryan watching the General do crunches while singing the pants song like a crazy person, the whole bullpen singing the pants song, Skii Bo Ski, an old lady yelling "Hollywood" like she just learned the word, Ryan blatantly ignoring Randy like a good boy, and we're done. It was a little bumpy in the middle but I think it got funnier toward the end. I'm satisfied with that. Some people like the America stuff, I guess.
So week, it's apparently one of the biggest crowds ever, in Chicago. So of course this episode had to be half-again as long with no real reason for it. A person maybe faints, and a guy screams like a baby, so look out for those things.
Actually, here's the whole shiz in one handy place: week is Chicago (Shania) and Orlando (Chenoweth). Then comes Dallas (Joe Jonas/NPH split an episode, which sucks because of less NPH) and LA (Katy Perry/Avril, which sucks in the opposite way), and then the last week it's Denver (Posh again) and the "Road To Hollywood" Special, which is where the real bughouse crazies, mental midgets, and ethnographic illustrations generally show up. Then comes two whole weeks of Hollywood, which I've learned will include at least a little bit of Ellen, so that's going to be nice. Hollywood Round and Ellen at the same time is pretty much perfect. But after tonight, I'm not sure I'll still be alive. This show is rocking right now.
If you can handle more insanity, look back at some of the most insane performances on this show. And then find out more about X-Factor and who we think could possibly replace Simon.