Please do join me in welcoming my BFF Will's daughter Lillian Rose into this world. So far she seems stubborn, but as the Merlin Elect I will be taking care of that shit. So, what is there to say about the Mile High City they call Denver? I believe it has its own atmosphere because it is built in what you call a caldera, but I may have picked that information up from like a Syfy TV movie about the Coming Global Superstorm, or invented it in my own mind. Outside Denver they have a theme park called the North Pole that I was obsessed with as a small child because I had a thing about maps and my grandparents would give me this bucket of maps to play with instead of toys and my favorite was the North Pole map. At some point my grandparents actually took me there and we stayed in a hotel in Denver for a few days.
I don't remember that much except I watched two movies, Baby: Secret Of The Lost Legend, which is as boring as Gorillas In The Mist even though it involves a robotic dinosaur, and Legend, which is also incredibly boring for the most part, even though it features Tim Curry as the Devil, a Robin Goodfellow type of dude which I always enjoy, unicorns which are the entire point of life, and Tom Cruise prancing around in a forest wearing tights. Not to mention the music of Tangerine Dream. It sounds like the most perfect thing, and probably you have fond memories of it, but I defy you to sit your cute little ass down in 2010 and watch that piece and not feel like you just got injected with a million cc's of Adult ADD.
Also, and I do hate to say this, The Dark Crystal. Two fucking hours of giant turtles moaning.
But so we finally got to hit the North Pole, and it's fairly gorgeous. I hope it still exists. There was a big candy-cane pole demarcating the Pole itself, which clearly we are not talking about magnetic north but more like an imaginary fake north, and there were some reindeer with the mange that I loved because I love things with antlers, and a spine-cracking kiddie coaster that probably went up like a foot max in its highest places but still made me want to puke ergonomically, a toyshop as big as the world full of Santa crap, all the leaves were brown and the grass was yellow and the sky was grey and there was a scary petting zoo and fake snow blowing in your eyes at certain points. Amazing.
You know that show Lost and the bear cages? It was like that. Like a real theme park, that was built by somebody who loved children and Santa, but then maybe there was a genocide of the Dharma Collective and maybe there are bodies in vans somewhere, and now it's just yellow grass poking up through rusting merry-go-rounds and carnies looking at you like you're food and goats with their rectangle eyes and reindeer snorfling fake snow and a haunted house that I do believe to this day was actually haunted. It was as close to my version of heaven as we're likely to see. It deserves your patronage.
So yeah, my understanding is that that's Denver: Robot dinosaur (my grandmother, like He-Man, always pronounced it "Robit"), Tim Curry fucking things up inside my head yet again, and a Santa-themed Something Wicked This Way Comes situation. Does this speak to your experience of the Mile High City?
Oh, and DAUGHTRY also, who auditioned there in S5. Do let's revisit that. Then there's an orthodontic case with a guitar, a guy in silly glasses, a hottie/scary guy with dark circles under his eyes, yelling, Hollywood from Mannequin, girls who all look the same, cute nerd throwing rock horns, and then Posh shows back up looking twice as human and acting adorable. Looking back, Posh was one of the better ones, wasn't she? Simon gets suicidal having to talk to Randy about how he's the black David Beckham and fnur fnar hurdy-hoo whatever.
IT fool Mark Labriola (28, Aurora, CO) doesn't look like Jack Black but loves telling us about how he looks like Jack Black, and then wearing a monochromatic outfit and goggles for his googly eyes and a dumb hat snaps finger-guns at the Judgery and says "Chillow" instead of the word "hello" that we use as a greeting. I want to kick him. He tells them he loves cheese... Oh, I see the Jack Black thing now. Only totally not sexy.
Mark was kidnapped by his mother at four years of age and then lived in some white trash road movie like always happens with that, and then when he was ten his dad stole him back, and it's the most tedious and terrible story, which it always is, which is why you need to keep your custody shit a secret. If you have custody trouble or are the disputed person of custody trouble, don't ever tell people because it makes you and your whole situation look just dreadful. It doesn't mean that you are dreadful, it just means you need to remember that -- as with so many things -- nobody has to know. As Avril would say, you do not need to make that shit more complicated.
Especially now that he's singing, and singing quite well at that. Posh can't believe it because she thought he was a joke and stupid looking, because she judges books by their covers. Simon loves him and also loves agreeing with Posh, and tells him to go hang out with his mom because yes let's get embroiled in your tacky life even more. Then it's unanimous yes, but I'm telling you he's going to do something dumb in Hollywood. Then he cries about his son and his mom and dreams and whatever and his life is not over like he thought it was, and it's all quite embarrassing.
Cute boy, scared girl, that blonde girl with all the hair we've seen a hundred times, that gay werewolf with the gender stuff... People we already saw that we didn't need to see, and now we're seeing them again. Nope. Fast-forward to Mario Galvan (26, Denver), who has a terrible nervous laugh and is a "nicotine addiction counselor" -- not a job in any way -- wearing a bathrobe and doing his horrible nervous laugh while Simon makes fun of him, and then he sings "Jailhouse Rock" and is just cringy and unibrowy and rough on the eyes. What the eff is he wearing? I think it's an army trench coat, but under that he's wearing giant sweatpants or some shit. It's awful, Simon tortures him for awhile and almost makes Kara choke on her soda, and he's gone. Just useless.
I am so motherfucking tired of Auditions. The whole world conspired against me writing this recap because the whole world is tired of Auditions. I cannot believe this is the seventh episode of this crap. I can't believe that this show is so mean-spirited, so full of gall, that it's forcing Ryan to think of interesting things to say about Denver. Why won't this show just quit it? Hollywood Round is like this unbelievable light at the end of a tunnel that I can't really believe in any more. In Hollywood Round, you think the streets are paved with cheese. Or in this case, Ellen DeGeneres.
Yeah, like here's about fifty trashy people screaming curse words at the camera and being trashy some more and getting aggressive and that's boring, and then there's a cute and intensely weird little girl talking into the camera about her mom Kimberly Kerbow, who looks like she's about 16 and wearing a wig but is actually 24 (Marina Del Rey, CA) and probably wearing a wig. And then her daughter's weird, quasi-sexualized creepiness makes total sense, because she's got pageant face. Gorgeous, infantilized, annoying, balls-out flirty with Simon and then going on some weird daddy-tangent about Simon's impending hair loss, and it's dumb and scary. Simon tells her it's no shock that she's a single mom, which is about the most shocking thing he's ever said, but only because it's so true. They put her through after a bunch of weird faces and generally uncomfortable activities, and she dances around with her fifteen children, and inside the Judgery is discussing her crummy wig and overall weirdness.
A bunch of people get through. I'm sure that was nice for them, but we can't ever know for sure.
Danelle Hayes (24, Seattle) hosts "a live karaoke," which is a confusing use of words, and she talks about how her choices have impacted her life and how she needs this to support her family, including her son, and then she walks into that room and tells them she's a "wreck." Then she starts crying and being obnoxious and selling her whole life story in a way where you can tell that she finds her existence to be totally epic, but it's mostly just a boring cliché and not very moving at all. Then she sings "I'm The Only One" in that raspy voice you have to sing those songs in, and even though it's not my favorite kind of vocal, she does a good job.
The judges all nod one by one and fall in love with her voice, and then Simon tells her to quit but she keeps going and it's just obnoxious. Simon tells her that she is broken inside and offers to rescue her from "corporate hell." And the first clause of that statement is true, but the second part is demonically ironic because you're out of the corporate hell frying pan and into the corporate hellfire at this point. So Danelle and her abundant jewelry and kerchief go downstairs and cry into a camera about this new amazing twist in her unbelievably important narrative.
People dressed like freaks, Posh advising them on their look, Kara says the word "fro," Posh talking about boots, a guy in bat wings, a whole style breakdown that just highlights the fact that Posh still hasn't discerned the difference between clothing and music. If there even is one. Casey James (27, Fort Worth) was in a motorcycle accident and there are all kinds of facts about that to share, so he does, but I mean seriously stop doing this. Stop telling people it's okay to look at their lives this way. It's not okay. Casey's tall, blonde, pony-tailed and into loose Urban Outfitters style. He's good-looking, but his voice is not hugely interesting and a bit wavery.
Simon stops him and says "This is a bad audition," and Randy agrees, but Kara disagrees, and Simon explains that he has no charisma, and Posh tells him to take his hair down, and then he looks like Dick from Veronica Mars which is a go for me, and Kara tells him to A) get a personality and B) take his shirt off, and things go rapidly down the shitter. Kara invokes Bikini Kill, and the guy's up there just getting hotter and hotter, and Randy is laughing more and more insanely, and Simon tells him that he should be embarrassed for himself, and then Randy puts him through and the guy licks his lips and wearing a million rings and crap all over his hands and some bracelets, and then talks into the camera about how amazing things just got, and you can tell that he's not a smart dude at that point, which makes his lovely joyful smile all the more meaningful, I think.
Ryan and a little kid are awesome all over the place, and then she goes in to show the Judgery pictures she drew of each of them, and they condescend to her all over the place, and Simon calls her a "very good drawrer" and calls them "very good drawrings" and all that stuff, and whatever waste of time stuff, so finally they move on to her big sister I think Tori Kelly (16, Canyon Lake CA), whom Posh calls ugly by complimenting her dress immediately, and then she sings not very well, and Simon takes a pass on her and calls her annoying voice annoying, and Posh disagrees because her dress is pretty. I'm just about tired of hearing from Posh about people's clothes. It's just stupid and unending tonight: Simon says "She can't sing," and Posh says, "Yes she can, she's pretty." Posh still has not figured out that eyes and ears are different parts of a person. It's gross.
Day Two is full of confident people who a lot to say about themselves and their possibilities. Then there is an ugly composer/football player with a sick body and talks like Woody Allen. He is a very exciting example of a thing I believe that nobody is feeling me on, which is that if you are totally ripped and in shape your face is going to look the best it can possibly look, which is just science, which means a lot of times you can get fooled by the overall package into thinking that the person is hot, but if you look closely you have a Monet situation which can only be solved with personality.
Which is not the case for Austin Paul (27, DC), who says some of the dumbest things I've ever heard a person say before heading into his crummy bad audition in which he pronounces words in a way that borders on terrifying and then there's falsetto and embarrassing movements and this weird Dino take on like Jason Mraz or whatever douche-rock and they're like, "Do you honestly sing like that, suddenly busting into that register like you're the Cranberries?" And he's like, "That is only one of the many stupid things I do."
Kara calls him cocky, Simon calls him annoying, I will admit that he has a pretty great smile, and he's smarmy and creepy, and Posh calls him flesh-crawling and arrogant, and once they turn him down he starts crying and whining about it and arguing with them and being a weirdo. Kara gives the impression that she liked a boy that looked like him back in high school, but he thought he was hot shit and too good for her. I don't know if that's the case, but that's what she's selling with her hateration weirdness. I think it's okay to just hate him, you don't really need to impute a bunch of cockiness and arrogance. Because he seems incredibly gawky and insecure to me, and not cocky at all. But then, Kara doesn't seem like she would understand that different on any day. I wish there were something that he's good at but I don't know what that might be. Rebound boyfriend.
up is the vibrantly obnoxious Kenny Everett (24, Durham, NC), who makes horrible repetitive noises like a terrible mashup of every nonverbal ya-ya part of every VH1 Divas special of all time. He just goes and goes, moaning and being horrible, and Simon tells him to shut up and go away and they vote against him, and his mouth hangs open, and he argues with them, and starts singing Mary J songs and howling and doing yeah-yeah runs and being awful. I... This seriously goes on for ten minutes, and Posh says some irrelevant shit that makes them laugh at him, and Simon begs him to leave and Kenny goes, "Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!" in that same diva/unhinged vocal runs way and they sing it back to him, and that's marvelous. Outside, Kenny goes, "How can four people tell you that you can't sing, and you know you're a good singer? Something has to be up with that."
Yeah, you're a jackass. That's what's up. There's then a screaming girl who looks like she might be dead, a mom, a screaming girl making weird faces, some people calling them cruel, an adorable gay fella who sings like he's from somewhere else, a little child singing Elvis in a way that is hard to watch, a performance artist, a scatting guy in jorts that Simon compares to Paula Abdul (BURN!), and lots of screaming and yelling about all the people that came here for the show.
Cute little Nicci Nix (27) came here from Florence via Frankfurt. She explains this about a million times in her creepy baby voice, and it's boring and obnoxious. Today Posh looks even more like a stick insect than usual and is showing off her Gollum arms and Gollum face and scary bun on top of her head, erasing all the goodwill from yesterday. But more importantly, why is cute little Nicci Nix on a show called American Idol? Don't they have an Italian version? Probably, but there's probably underwear involved.
She sings a Girls Aloud song, which is like admitting you're not American in any way. Her singing voice is a bit lower, not a dramatic amount, but it's pretty. She sounds like Lea Michele. Simon makes fun of the retarded lyrics of the song, and everybody laughs except for Posh, which is actually pretty classy of her. Then Nicci makes like a total weirdo foreigner some more, Simon calls her a "funny little thing," they all put her through with a different amount of mathematical precision, and Posh says she has beautiful skin, which for Posh means that her vocal phrasing was fresh and exciting.
Haeley Vaughn (18, Ft Collins, CO) has a lot of ideas about her marketable life and personality, so much so that it's a bit overwhelming. She was a "miracle baby" preemie, which she's still fascinated by, and we get to hear about that forever and ever, and then her dad died, and then -- as though that weren't interesting and unique enough, which let's be honest -- she also wants to be the first black pop-country artist. Love that. So she goes in and sings "Last Name," which I know as the song that Kristen Chenoweth sang on Glee with the cowboy outfits and of which, thusly, I approve. It's adorable. Haeley is adorable. The judges can't even believe her.
Posh talks about how she looks a whole lot, shockingly, and Simon talks about how great it was of her not to sing Mary J, and Kara says that being the first black pop country singer is very cool, and Randy tells her to stop sounding like Carrie Underwood who is the person he has heard of, and they tell her to start lower in her register, and this segues into her dragging her sister and somebody else in there to meet them. Randy: "Your sister and your friend? Sure we can't call some people from the mall in here too?" I think he was going for funny-bitchy but just ended up at stupid-bitchy, which is his comfort zone. They put her through (Randy's math is a hundred million percent, which is I think a record.)
Ryan is hiding in a production alcove until he hears the screams, and he jumps up to deal with them, and then we learn that on Day Two, eleven people we barely know (including scary/hot dude from the opening sequence -- nice -- and another huge blonde guy) joined Day One for a total of 26 tickets, of which we saw I think five.
Oh, Scooter Girl, great. Then Princess Leia guy, and then Bikini Kill kissing on Ryan, and Kara looking hot in the finale, and then the last person of the day is a swimmer-body hottie who comes in wearing a bikini, frat-sandals, and just a little bit of makeup. (Randy: "Come on, Bikini Boy!" I think he was going for... I have no idea what he was going for. It's just strange.) Then he sings less than one line of "Achey-Breaky Heart" before Simon literally leaves for Los Angeles in the middle of the audition. The only good thing about it is Kara's line: "Don't move your hips like that, honey." I don't know what happened later because my DVR doesn't care for this style of humor, but I'm assuming that he kissed Ryan or else what was the point?
One more to go, and then Hollywood. I'll try to cheer up for tonight.
We predict what this show will look like after all of the judging shuffles.
Whatever happened to past Idol rejects like William Hung and Bikini Girl? See what they're doing now.