Imagine, if you will, the combination of one of the cinema films from the Saw franchise with a really long trailer for an Iron Man movie, and maybe you will understand the grave import of what Ryan is about to tell you. After a whole blissfully short summer, full of breakups and makeups and Paula Abdul starting shows or a donkey farm, Ellen DeGeneres having a nice glass of pinot with Camille Grammer.
And then Ryan Seacrest, Mr. Hough as they call him, gets everybody -- all of us; I am there, you are there, too -- into this dark stadium somewhere, Beatlemania running down our faces, staining our clothes, and says the most important thing we are likely to hear in our lifetimes. The frantic not-knowing of the crowd, scratching at their clothes and pulling on their hair and the hair of their nearest compatriots, desperate to know! Who are the new judges of this show? And then with much ado, he reveals the answer:
RANDY JACKSON.
And I mean pandemonium. With a capital puke. The screaming that you can do when they say his name, well you wouldn't believe it until you are standing there, in the heat of the crowd. Our beloved fuckin' Randy. And so but who will be joining the Dawg in ushering in a newer more transparent era of the dark machinations behind this show? Only the standard-bearer of legitimacy in all its forms, late of the Block and the 6, only that person so much less ridiculous and so much more real than Ellen herself, that person to whom being legit is -- memorably -- just "like breathing"...
JENNIFER LOPEZ.
One lady walked right up a motherfucking wall. It was like gravity was nothing. It was like she was wearing magic Louboutins. Up a wall like Lionel Richie was in charge, flipped herself over, trotted right back to screaming like Oprah was taking her to Australia. No big deal. And then when you're still reeling, pomp gushing from one ear and circumstance shooting from under your fingernails...
STEVEN TYLER.
A poodle gave itself a makeover. Typewriters all over the country got stuck going !!!!!!!!!!!! and then a breath and then !!!!!!!!!!!!, just like that, for a long, long time. Arctic shelves and the sides of glaciers pinched their noses closed and dropped out into space, crashing into the waves below, screaming his name. Isaiah Washington called up T.R. Knight and they went out for a soda pop, talking about Aerosmith well into the night.
Then the three of them, with gleeful Ryan standing by, made a human pyramid and then began a slow acrobatic show. Steven ascendant, hitting screechy notes and looking like something a drug-addicted baboon coughed up and flinging scarves; Jennifer Lopez tossed up into the moonlight like a diamond-bright jewel; Randy Jackson doing some kind of cake-mixer move with his arms, over in the corner. Doing the Hustle. Jennifer Lopez quickly uncoiled a rope and somehow, I couldn't see the wires, climbed up it, unsupported as it was, into the sky.
They ask the two new judges how come, and they don't really have answers, because they have more money than God and really they're just bored with their lives. They need the attention, which is how stars are made. "Sing like you do when no one's listening," Steven says, and it would just make you vomit, the way he says it.
They ask Randy why he stuck around and he's like, "Because I'm just really into hanging out with famous people, regardless of how boring they are." And Ryan's like, "Sister, I hear you."
From this angle, Steven Tyler looks a whole lot like (an in-patient/addict version of) James Franco. Once unseen, this cannot be unseen. Somewhere around the mouth area.
So Steven likes wailers because he thinks that is singing, because people pay him to make those awful noises come out of his awful face, and he can't be judged for thinking he understands what singing is supposed to sound like. J. Lo, she's going to be repping the Simon corner -- "Your voice is okay, but honey you're not pretty" -- and I mean, she won't say it like that? But that's what she's saying. And then Randy... Well, Randy.
Jimmy Iovine is the fifth member of the team, and if you don't know who that is just go ahead and google Masonic Imagery. There are some people on the internet that have really gotten into how this whole pop culture thing works and they can help you out. But who cares if he's in the same cult that designed Lady Gaga according to Project Monarch mind-control parameters? Who cares about anything, when we have Ryan back?
Where have you been, you small golden prince? What have your eating habits been like? Are those shoes comfortable, on your wee feet? So many questions. On the one hand, you can't hug a man through the television. On the other, you can't mug a man through the television. So it balances out. I would never mug Ryan Seacrest, but I do think Randy Jackson needs a stern talking to about a few things.
JERSEY
Constantine Maroulis, still clinging to the oily undercarriage of life. Randy Jackson dressed like a Hogwarts blipster nerd, trying to own it and failing, failing so hard that Ryan calls him "Britney" and Randy almost slaps him, you can see it in his microexpressions that he is about to slap Ryan Seacrest upside his head, but he controls it and goes back to sniveling.
The Saw vibe continues, with tempestuous music and sparsely terrifying graphics, as we finally get into the auditions. I can't tell you how creepy it is, honestly, the way things are this year. It sounds like one of those German metal bands that is flirting with nationalism and pagan imagery, or a scary old house is coming to life. It sounds like Romeo better get his ass to Mantua.
First up is S6's operatic annoyance Rachel Zevita (22, NYC), who would like to demonstrate for us both the high range and the loooooow. She's still pretty and awful, but those braces came off and she has discovered some small hard bit of coolness inside herself. If we see her in Hollywood, she'll be the one that stabs a girl. J. Lo remembers her, actually, and wanted her to get through, but this just makes her nervy, drama-student "Hallelujah" all the more disturbing. She hits a high note, which... Yep, Steven Tyler is the Paula Abdul. And Randy Jackson is the Randy, too. J. Lo tries to tell her to pull it together before Hollywood, and then Randy makes her an official Ticketeer.
This James Franco thing is freaking me out. Do you see it? In the mouth area? Am I crazy? Isn't that so gross?
In walks every single guy in my neighborhood for three blocks in every direction. Today he's calling himself Caleb but I've known him to go by Bob and sometimes Riley or things that rhyme with Riley. You can't fool me, you wily old barista, you. And I have but one thing to say: Hygiene is not a fashion statement. It is not a grey area, it is not open for debate, it is not sexy, you look like you smell and this is because you smell.
What you are saying is, "I have given up at 22." If you were really hardcore it would be Natural Light, because PBR is for scrubs, so clearly things are not that bad. Buck up, young chum. Eventually Generation X will go away, and the world will be ours and you'll stop feeling so weird about yourself all the time. And until then, you can bitch about your cell phone service. But do it, for God's sake, in the shower. All you're doing is making girls worse by lowering the bar. There is no modesty in your filthy self.
Needless to say, I want to make out with this Caleb Hawley (25, NYC) real bad, but only in the sense that a starved baby monkey will cuddle anything that feeds it, and if it were surrounded by only Danish Modern furniture it would eventually respond to the Danish Modern furniture as a parent-figure or love-object. When you are surrounded by only jerksters like Caleb, when your neighborhood is John-Malkovich-Being-John-Malkovich of Caleb, and his bands and his feelings and his stupid pants and his toddler clothes, that infinite-identical thing starts looking pretty good. It is my understanding that this is also what happens in prison, although I have not done the research.
Whatever, he sings fine. Steven can't handle him getting any attention whatsoever so he just bangs on the table and screeches at weird moments and claps along and it's so, so sad and so, so what I was hoping would happen.
Fifteen-year-old Kenzie Palmer (West Middlesex, PA) does musical theatre, when she's not sending herself mean text messages; she has a pretty awesome voice, but she is fifteen, so what's even the point? (Is this just to fuck with The X-Factor?) The song is not really appropriate for little Kenzie, but what love song would be?
Steven liked her lovely voice, but feels she has no "pizazz." Randy agrees with him, because he is sexist, and J. Lo is just frustrated for real by this, and they talk about how she doesn't have enough energy, so she promises to have lots of energy one of these days, and Randy volunteers, as though it is a public service, to vote first. Then it's unanimous and there's "Teenage Dream" playing and J. Lo yelling at the guys and whatever, a bunch of people going through.
Ryan is wearing the cutest plaid shirt that is the least-fitted thing he's ever worn. Maybe he was feeling fat this morning. Or maybe he was feeling like a lumberjack.
Achille Lovle (25, Bronx) was sent through as a mean joke, a mean joke possibly about Grace Jones, and I don't feel like doing that this year. Or watching J. Lo be put on the spot for having to turn down somebody who never should have gone before them in the first place. And then be disingenuous about how hard and heartbreaking it all is, while laughing with a giant Julia Roberts maw.
Switch to handheld while Ryan has a little meeting with the Judgery about that poor girl, to make it all feel more like a reality show and not... Whatever this actually is.
Because this season, I don't know how they're doing it, but it really does feel very different. Like watching Merchant-Ivory films -- as I've been doing all the winter, with my jasmine tea and perfectly coordinated Pierre Cardin casual separates and occasional use of salvia for my personal spiritual development -- and then switching to The Expendables. It's got a... blockbuster vibe, somehow, that I guess suits the star power of the régime nouveau but mostly just makes me extremely, awfully, terrifically nervous. Like maybe this is the year they start shooting them in the head when we vote them off.
Oh, how delightfully relevant. A Jersey Shore primer-slash-competitor. I don't know much about those people, I haven't seen their culture as documented on our cable screens. I figure, if I wouldn't want them in my house, why invite them in through the television? I'm sure there are wonderful people in and from New Jersey, I've even met them, but there is nothing okay about the Jersey Thing. Miley Cyrus, Sarah Palin, Snooki: Regional flourishes on an old, old nightmare. As long as there have been dumb people, they've been calling it a choice. Doesn't make them smart, just makes it even harder to indulge the conversation.
On the other hand, this girl somehow has magic breasts that ring like a bell at specific times during her audition. Which I did not know was a Jersey Thing, but is certainly notable and makes me wish I had been paying attention. If only I had seen through her Jazz Singer tan and musical tits to the lovely-voiced ganguro beneath.
I think her name was Stephanie or something, I can't see how it matters honestly.
Montage of J. Lo stressing out about doing this job -- the only part of this entire show that is actually a job, mind you, since the rest of it we're doing the heavy lifting -- and terrible singers, and then ... this crazy-awesome girl who looks like a character from a Greg Garcia sitcom or a Jared Hess feature film, with the indubitably fresh name of "Melkia Wheatfall" (27, Baltimore) appears in a vision of aqua and seafoam, accessorizing with black plastic, mainly, and screams her ass off and it's so, so great.
Robbie Rosen (16, Merrick NY) had some kind of hip disease that went undocumented by his parents because they were all about getting him out of the wheelchair he was sometimes in, for a few months, and the music is just begging you to think this is a big deal, but you can tell him and his family are like, Yes it sucked, but is that the best you guys can come up with? Super cute, giant smile, looks like the cast of West Side Story or the kind of kid that would, in a movie, invent a robot that later springs to life. Sings beautifully, in that played-out breathy boy-band way that guarantees him a spot, especially after he actually takes it out around the block and shows them what it can do. Which is essentially everything. Magic voice.
Magic Steven Tyler saying words that A) make no sense and are B) self-aggrandizement disguising itself as flattery. Magic Randy doing the same thing, but with less conviction.
Magic Randy following Steve around with his finger in his nose going, "Simon wouldn't ever let me ride in the front seat or sleep over at his house, but I know that you're going to be a much better little brother than that. People always thought Simon told me what to do but that is not true, I do whatever I want. And now, you are going to do what I say."
But he is not an unkind tyrant, no, this is a new order. He fondles and coddles as much as he rages. "I brought you this orange, it's kind of smushed from being in my pocket but I bet it's still good. I could get Ryan to peel it for you if you want, he likes doing stuff like that. Well, he used to do it for Simon anyway, and now that I'm the new Simon I bet he'll be real happy with that. I think you are so neat, Steven Tyler. I just want to get that out of the way. Please don't go anywhere, okay?" and then running off with the orange, cursing Ryan under his breath for not being right outside the door. Just puffing and huffing up and down the halls, so scared J. Lo and Steven are going to talk about him behind his back while he's out of the room.
But who -- I hear you, Ryan, I'm coming back now, it was only a fantasy about Randy Jackson -- who among them is the famousest, now that Simon's gone? And America's best girlfriend Ellen DeGeneres? And America's most ex-girlfriend, that other lady?
Some of the singers are really into Randy for sure, but they've also heard of J. Lo and the other guy. Ladies, they all wanna meet Ellen and Steven Tyler and his "sexy mouth" and that's the introduction to the kind of people who think Steven Tyler is attractive, and that is not something we're going to be enjoying together.
I know her name is Jennifer, but it's still somehow so weird how Randy keeps calling her that.
Chris Cordero (18, North Arlington, NJ) is to amaze. So much better than neurotypical, this one. Save your quarterbacks, your bespoke hedge-funding citizens of the world: Give me a circuit-bending D&D enthusiast in a boater hat who hasn't come out of the basement in 18 years and I'll happily pretend that Steven Tyler is a person and not a heap of garbage shambling into a sad approximation of life, that J. Lo doesn't throw diamonds at her cleaning lady in moments of pique, that Randy Jackson deserves a clap on the back just for being himself. I will peel your orange in a piping hot minute. Because get this right here:
Chris, what he really likes is, he really likes to make videos -- wearing his Boy Scout uniform, naturally -- about the dangers of texting while driving. That is what he is into.
I have picked my winner, and it is Chris Cordero of the hamlet of North Arlington. But can he sing? Well, no. I mean, God bless you Mr. Rosewater, but the answer is no. Ryan ingratiates himself with the Corderos outside in a stunning display of cuteness, and inside Steven leads the judges in a circling, wheeling beak-pecking beatdown to which I won't play part. I refuse. Just cradled in Ryan Seacrest's capable arms, Chris's mother is -- I beg you to close your eyes and think about how that would feel; the troubles and worries just leaking out through your knees; like a hug from the actual literal sun -- and I can't even get jealous about that, because it's such a condescending vicious bloodbath on both sides of the door. Bleep-effin-bloop.
Several very hot, but sadly unlucky, people go flashing by, and everybody out in the holding room are crying and losing their marbles, and then this fairly fantastic (but for the burping) burping guy who would be great to know in real life. Total weirdo, possibly on meds, Michael Perotto (19, Worcester, MA) gives us a near-entirety of "Proud Mary" that sounds like Michael Jeter doing Ethyl Merman, and Steven once again tries to make it all about him, and then it's finally over. Steven is horrible to him for awhile and they make him sing more because they are assholes, and then Michael and his crew of homosexual smartypantses go back wherever they go.
Steven Tyler is an asshole.
Sagittarian trashbox Ashley Sullivan (25, Springfield, MA) is basically gross, but she's trying so very hard and has a sort of a cleverness -- and accompanying deepness of crazy -- that will make some young man very unhappy one day. Sometimes when it says "Retail Sales," you know they're talking about Macy's, and sometimes you just know they're talking about Kohl's. Maybe Payless, in this instance.
Ashley's manic performance of some song from Thoroughly Modern Millie manages to scare the bejesus out of the Judgery, though, which earns her some points. J. Lo tells her to stop acting like this and maybe they will take that shit on Broadway where everybody is nuts, but right now you are just freaking us out. She begs and screams and weeps and does a scary dance and starts a step routine and sometimes she's laughing and sometimes she's crying and the music is like seriously though y'all this girl has mental illnesses and the mascara's raining down and J. Lo puts her through just to be nice, and then something in Steven's head goes wrong and then she is put through and then she drops to the floor and has a damned fit. She will be the one this year that gets stabbed in Hollywood. Mark my words.
Ryan, at sunset. Even in Jersey.
Future sister-wife Victoria Huggins (4 1/2, Lumberton NC) has an indomitable spirit and a weird little accent and an insane shine in her eyeballs, and a sweetness and love of Ryan that reflect quite well on her. She's about the weirdest, coolest little alien being I've seen in a while, with her Baby Eva Longoria-Parker looking self. The Judgery immediately call attention to her whole cupcake-handsy headbandy petroleum jelly-toothed Pageant Girl deal, and she's like, "Some folks think that's a negative thing!" in this weary way of like I been burnt before by that one and they're like, "No, it's what is pulling your total weirdness together. Don't drop this particular part of your bullshit yet."
And then she sings! And it's great! And they put her through, and Steven offers to statutorily rape her, and she says that yes, her poodle skirt and matching shrug are quite revealing, but that appealing to "the boy audience" is part of the job. My God, this girl. Hocus-pocus-alamagocus. She does so many quirky cute things that everybody in the room laughs until they cry and even Randy is like, "Every. Trick. In The Book." When even Randy is calling you a ticking child-bot, you know you are salable.
up: Hardcore Kosovo education for your brain and your heart. No warning, no warmup, just boppin' along with Huggins and suddenly Idol is Giving the fuck Back.
We're about twenty minutes into the profile of this refugee family and how they got amnesty and the history of Former Czechoslovakia and I'm... Still not clear on which one of them is actually competing. It's the whole A-Fed deal, where you want to make breakfast for the whole family and do what you can to make them stop crying. Then finally the girl -- Melinda Ademi (16, Yonkers) -- sings, and of course it's beautiful, because of course she's going to be in the Top 12, because we know the drill by now. Randy, bless him, goes, "You won the lottery twice!"
Yup. Once to avoid ethnic cleansing, sure, but now this? Lightning really does strike twice sometimes.
Mean black girls, annoying white girls. The eternal struggle. Then we meet Devyn Rush (20, New Hope PA), who is a diner waitress or something, and we pretend that's unique for awhile. I think it's at a Red Robin or one of those other places that only exists in those big strip malls full of heavily branded places you've never heard of and yet each one has a very specific corporate culture that only mildly mimics actual places? You know what I mean? Like to IKEA sometimes. With a TGI Thursdays or something, O'Bennigan's, chicken place, pan-Asian place, just this host of made-up companies that feel like shell corporations you're helping launder money by eating their delicious food.
That anonymous, class-limbo feeling you get at, like, California Pizza Kitchen. Era-less, identity-less, demographic-less, confusingly unattached to other signifiers. James Dean and Marilyn and Brando in that Hopper ripoff painting, always. Always.
I've only eaten at one of them once, and it was right before we saw Planet Of The Apes, and I just can't face that memory, so -- except for this one very memorably charming fry cook at the Five Guys Burgers in Plano TX -- I hate and will not involve myself with them or their ilk. Except when Randy asks Devyn about singing waiters, she goes, "That's a loaded question, actually," which is an awesome, awesome answer, and now I hope she can sing. Maybe we can burn down her pretend job together when she wins. She is cowed by their approval, in a really sweet and modest way, and we're good.
Being mean to somebody with some genetic things happening, and then Genise Deal (20, Teaneck NJ) singing well enough that, once again, Steven Tyler tries to upstage her. Screeching along and pounding on the table like a goddamned child. They don't put her through for some reason, and then Steven starts barking at Randy for some other reason. I feel like I caught shit in years past for hating on Tyler so hard, but are you kidding me? The guy is a massively mean-spirited rockstar toolio. It's not an act. The walking-hardon thing, the lead-singer thing, the outsides-looking-like-your-insides thing. All these things are true and real and if that's honestly sexy to you, start over from the beginning. Don't date cocksuckers even if they're in a band: That's like half of everything I learned in the '90s right there.
Yoji Pop (25, Japan/Crazytown) is a fan of Michael Jackson, like one of those you get every year, and the only person who can even handle his bullshit is J. Lo, who just bellies up to the buffet and goes, "Give me what you got, Loony Tunes." And he does. Yoji Pop would like to give you "Party in the USA," for which I'm always grateful, and he's so over the top and bizarre and dancy-aroundy that J. Lo finally just hops over the edge, similar to what happened to the Judgery during the pants on the ground.
Then lots of people singing that song, and like you know how I feel about those hillbillies, but that song is pretty much still my jam, so that part is fun. Everybody is cute when they're singing that song. Here are fifty of them. One of the unlucky hotties from earlier, that burping guy that was kidding, boats full of Jersey people, a fat funny kid. Ryan, dancing with a young lady who probably doesn't realize how good she has it. Oh, and you know Small Wonder sister-wife girl is all over that song.
The fantastically bewildering man-singing of Ima Abasumoh (23, Bronx) follows the death screams of awful Jaclyn Blythe (24, Monroe CT), and much the better for it. I mean, it doesn't sound "good," but she sure is cool looking. Frat guy gets hell from Steven about his perfectly normal shorts, because Steven Tyler is a dickhole. They're mean about some shoes. It's pretty dumb, because they're not friends but they're all pretending to be friends. Which would be irritating, but they're all also singularly uninteresting people, so it's boring-times-three.
Then Steven screams and howls for yet more attention as we meet Brielle von Hugel (16, Staten Island), whose father had a bit of throat cancer that still makes her cry. That seems to be mostly what's going on with her: Cancer in remission, and feeling weird about cancer. They talk to the dad and he's got a weird voice, of course, but he's out in the holding tank so they also get a shot of the girls sitting in the row behind him, feeling totally weird about the whole thing. That was awesome.
Brielle sings pretty great -- have we seen more than a couple of people that are not sixteen-year-old girls with straight dark hair? -- in that belty way Randy likes, and they let her go long after J. Lo gets bored, so for a second you can see the anger behind her eyes before she crushes it. Steven does some kind of neck-rolling finger-snap Cameron Diaz impression and then sings to her father for awhile so he can have more of the endless attention he craves. It really is just unstoppable with this prick. He's like the uncle that won't stop sticking things in your ear at dinner and you're just like "SERIOUSLY BITCH I AM THIRTY."
Ryan! I checked out, did you really just say "Last contestant"? Is that of the day or of the episode? Honestly, we've been here all day, I could believe it's the end of the episode probably. I'm comin', Buddy! Who's on the docket? Travis Orlando (16, Bronx) is a twin; obviously brilliant, tough childhood, absolute class act. Really put together. Kind of intimidating, actually. Ryan just about kisses him on the cheek before the audition, so excited and worried is he. I feel ya, girl. So yeah, Travis sings, and it's great, and he's a heartthrob, and welcome to his face which you will be seeing until May I bet. Listen, anybody that can sell me on Jason Mraz has clearly been drinking magic potions. So then they can't peel the twin brother off of him, and they are so totally sweet that it reels Ryan in like gravity, crying, and then he's all up in there too. I can't even... That's a wrap. That is too many things at once. That is, if you know me at all, most of the things.
But yeah, do you remember Auditions ever... Not-sucking that much? Maybe Hollywood won't take as long as it usually does to come. I mean, if Steven Tyler's pointless squealing obsolescence is the only ongoing issue to be expected, then Auditions might not be so bad after all. Or maybe somebody will punch him in the gob and his face will split down the middle and just like in Total Recall it will turn out to just be a monkey suit with Simon inside and we are being nationally punk'd and he will apologize to us by name and put Ryan up on his shoulder and say to us, "Everything is going to be okay now." Because if Steven Tyler has Simon Cowell inside him, operating him from within like a nasty infected homunculus, I am going to feel just awful about some of the things I have said.
But not as bad as I feel about the James Franco part.