The utter perversity of Steven Tyler and Randy Jackson, singing an Aerosmith song together. The sheer gall. I mean, I cannot with 100% certainty tell you where Milwaukee is located, and maybe they don't need me standing up for them. They can handle it. It's cold there. Maybe. Or it's warm, but like it's a dry heat. Over there in Milwaukee. Somebody once told me that Milwaukee was a spin-off of Happy Days, and I guess that makes sense.
Anyway, Randy and Steven. Steven and Randy. The healthy people and their accents. Danny Gokey and his wife that dropped dead that time. J. Lo and Steven Tyler pretending to be enthusiastic about this, and about talking to Randy Jackson about how this year -- as opposed to years past -- they're looking for "the whole package." Then Steven Tyler says some pathetic babble that makes no sense, because he is a national embarrassment.
The Milwaukee Art Museum looks like Lando lives there.
Danny Gokey still has no idea. That's comforting, actually.
Scotty McCreery (16, Garner, NC) has a weirdly deep voice, like Froggy from Our Gang. He looks a bit like the kind of person that the neighbors will be like, "He was always polite," or like he went away to war and was not the same when he got back. To be honest I don't understand much of what he says, because he is country and also his voice is so deep I can't really hear him saying what he's saying. Singingwise he sounds like a country singer, I don't know if that's a good thing or what.
No, you know what he sounds like is a voiceover actor playing a country singer. Also, he becomes much better looking when he is singing, like how they say will happen with stuttering, only instead of stuttering it is his face. Steven Tyler immediately gets nervous about the boy's skills and the attention he's getting, so he crafts some more sad babbles and derails the entire conversation, as usual. Whatever, they put Scotty through and then Randy validates Steven's behavior for him.
A lady picks nits out of Steven Tyler's hair in Milwaukee. This -- American Idol this -- is the only thing that has ever happened in Milwaukee, so everybody's really excited in Milwaukee. Especially Joe Repka (19, Toledo), a hard-to-look-at enthusiastic explosion of a person who brings out Ryan Seacrest's worst qualities. He does dances and he whistles about J. Lo's hotness with a very sudden aardcore edge on it, and it's like if the show... Look. Show, if you are not going to be following the angels of your better nature, it is all the more imperative that I make up for it. This is not... Bleep-bloop.
Steven Tyler mugs for the camera more than fucking Jim Halpert.
Emma Henry (15, Littleton, CO) got her permit and drove her whole family to Milwaukee with it. She's got a lot of face and some kind of hairdo happening. She will be singing "True Colors" and she will be doing it nervously and with a fair amount of grit in her voice. The nerves are just deadly; J. Lo explains that her very special voice is very special and that she needs to be a better singer before she tries singing. Steven says yes, because how is he supposed to know what singing sounds like, and Randy lets her twist and snot all over herself for about a million years before explaining in a fairly decent and intelligent way that this show will eat her face off and she needs to go at least discover her menses before she tries this shit. She weeps and begs and then... Randy puts her through. "This is going to destroy you, okay? So we're doing it."
In walks an insane panty witch, a karate weirdo with these teeth, a bitchy-eyebrowed gay kid, a shouting breakdown, a pair of angry skinny jeans, an awkward hug and a Coke Zero. Bartender says, "What can I get you?" And they're like, "Not reality, that's for sure!"
Toilet goddess Naima Adedapo (25, Milwaukee) has a lot going on, both looks-wise and culturally. She's like every friend of every Huxtable child but at the same time. You know? There's something very Kwanzaa about her whole deal. She cries a lot, for no reason, but other than that she seems okay. Janitors are great but even better are the gorgeous janitors: This is just like Good Will Hunting but with songs.
And of course her voice is lovely, and she does the thing that Kara D always liked, where you believe that she is actually thinking and feeling the words of the song as she is singing them. Randy Jackson is a flaccid charity. Steven Tyler is a bunch of bumper stickers on a dirty automobile that say things like This Ain't Burger King and I don't know, whatever. Jerk things. J. Lo is pretty much what she appears to be.
Ryan and J. Lo have a big diva fight that ends with him stomping away from her going, "You and your ways." She does not, I think, like my Ryan as much as she pretends to be pretending she doesn't, if you see what I'm saying. I can't imagine being annoyed by Ryan Seacrest. He is my wonderwall.
Giant toothbrush, an old man, limbo contest, a redhead destroys a man's camera and his face with acrobatics, a kooky weirdo in badly fitted shoes, some Devo a-hole doing a rap about teeth, and then Jerome Bell (27, NYC) comes in, and he's pretty great. They discuss his shiny silver shoes and his Bar Mitzvah Singer job, and Ryan makes a self-deprecating remark about his own height, which I've ever heard the like, and then Jerome sings and sings and sings and waits for them to cut him off and they never do. Then they do. He's through.
My theory is we can turn this recession around if we just burn Justin Bieber in a wickerman. It's what they're for.
There's some Toddlers & Tiaras stuff where they let a five-year-old pretend to try out for the show, and it's super cute. Speaking of youths, let's meet Thia Megia (15, CA somewhere, it doesn't matter where) whose rhyming name excited Randy Jackson because that's the kind of shit he's into: Words that rhyme, counting ceiling tiles, telling you how old you are constantly, and zoning out on a ceiling fan. She sings that one Adele song my friend Chad and I were convinced was called "Chasing Penguins," and she does this with some super weird pronunciations of words, and then -- after an informal speech from Steven Tyler, of course -- they put her through.
Thus began a string of fifteen-year-olds getting tickets. Not that we got to see any of that, because last week was just too sweet and responsible and so we have to be as gross and mean as possible and why would they let singing interfere with that?
The problem with Nathaniel Jones (22, Mt. Zion, WI) is, I love him. I don't want to participate in Nathaniel. Even J. Lo is like, "I see by your Civil War re-enactor costume that this is going to be gross." And it is, and I don't have anything to say about it. Nor really do I have much to say about Mason Wilkinson (23, Ugh City, USA), who is febrile and nervous and weird-looking and sweet but also probably a crazy person, hitting us with a little Godsmack while staring at the ceiling like Audrina.
Molly DeWolf Swensen (22, Seattle/DC) would like you to know that she recently graduated from Harvard and is now a White House intern. Molly DeWolf Swensen is the woman that Randy punched in the face. I thought it was an accident, but now that we have met Molly DeWolf Swensen I can't say that for sure.
Molly DeWolf Swensen sings like a sloppy kind of person you probably met in college, or probably you had a threesome with Molly DeWolf Swensen, and she's not a bad sort. Annoying shoes, trips over her words. Wicked smart. But very, very young and very, very needing you to be into her Whole Molly DeWolf Swensen Deal. For not being a Brooklyn person Molly DeWolf Swensen sure does have a lot of Brooklyn things going on in her situation. Well, Seattle.
Anyway, I do love her voice and I'm sure her personality will work itself out in the end. It's possible Molly DeWolf Swensen is an asshole, but there are some little authentic things in there that make me think she isn't. Or worth saving, at the least.
Inbred and annoying, snake dance, gingers, Steven Tyler wearing a fucking duster, Steven Tyler looking like Stockard Channing in Practical Magic, fucking Gokey, buckteeth kid sings some Ladysmith Black Mambazo or something, I didn't even get that joke, and J. Lo is dressed like Patty Simcox but in space. Poodle skirt, diamond bracelets, silver and crystals all over herself like tinfoil. She looks super cute and also super stupid.
Steven makes no bones about sticking his dick in lush and cross-eyed Haley Reinhart (18, Wheeling, IL), she is crazy and he is crazy and I guess she's talented, whatever. She tried out before and it didn't work out and here's who was a judge that year and here's who the judges are this year and... I'm not trying to be abstract, it's just that nobody is making any sense at all. They're all doing weird voices and making sound effects instead of actual talking, like Nene Leakes. Blippy Blop! She buzzes like a fridge, she's like a detuned radio. Steven Tyler keeps making up these, like, limericks. Pling-plong. Doggerel.
Tiwan Strong (29, Chicago) looks like your dad, despite his dramatic facial expressions and all-white linen outfit. Everybody, including Ryan, seems to just love him. His family goes so insane when he comes out with his ticket that they start cramping up. Like a lady actually celebrates herself into extremity and ends up bent over in Ryan's area having some kind of muscle spasm and Ryan performs medical science on the woman and the whole time you can tell that she pulls this shit all the time because Tiwan keeps being like, "Yep and I'm going to Hollywood, also."
Cute, funny little CPA Steve Beghun (27, Bloomington, MN) is so lonely and just loves to talk about fascinating things like funerals and actuarial tables and etymology. I love him. It's like, he's not funny, you know, but he's funny. He thinks he's funny. And that is, itself, funny. He is on some -level shit.
What a fucking charmer this kid is! I think this is the first person I've really liked tonight. Can he sing? ...Yeah. A little bit like Jason Mraz-meets-Aaron Neville? Which probably sounds unlikely but that's how he sounds. I hope he sticks around. He knows enough to carry Ryan Seacrest around for a second when he comes out. Minnesota boys, I tell you what. They do it to me every time.
Vernika Patterson (20, Milwaukee) sings "Loving You," which is already stupid, and then she forgets the words and refers to J. Lo as "the lady" and you can see J. Lo just shut down on her. The portcullis of her good will goes slamming down, resoundingly, and then you just sort of want Vernika to crash and burn. And she does. And J. Lo is a bitch to her, and it is great, because Vernika Patterson is no good. Not as a singer, not as a citizen. She goes running right down the streets of Asshole Town and does not stop to catch her breath, and the Judgery are like "Well, that was unpleasant and weird, but whatever." Steven Tyler doesn't say anything at any point, I guess because he doesn't want to draw her fire. Maybe he's taking a nap.
This leads into a long montage of serious trash. People who didn't get what they wanted, and decided to act totally horrible. Then a man with a lazy eye does an impression of President Barack Obama, don't know why really, and that's sort of the appropriate intro to Albert Rogers III (24, Oglethorpe, GA) whose voice is not great but whose confidence is sort of inspiring. His singing is hard to listen to, and when he's done singing he makes a bunch of weird faces that are either incipient madness or nervous twitches but either way, it's uncomfortable.
The low-key smarm of pretty little Scott Dangerfield (22, Milwaukee) brings out Steven's random screeching like nobody else has, and once he starts singing they all three start getting real nervous and girly about him, and that's pretty awesome. J. Lo blows his mind by telling him he's her favorite, and they all devolve into screaming random words again. I think this is the first time J. Lo has lost her composure in any way this season, so that's unnerving to suddenly see her yelling words like a toddler, but mostly it's cute. Insanely cute, actually, what Scott Dangerfield does to the Judgery. Starry-eyed, leaning on each other, talking about the movement of his body and what it was like the time they saw Scott Dangerfield dance.
Giant green girl, skinny white t-shirt, addled old man, and then a girl in an American flag-covered shirt who is just about the wildest hot mess we'll see tonight. She is fantastic. She flies around like an airplane, leads the people in cheers, screams into the camera. One-Woman Cheer Army, is pretty Megan Frazier (20, Green Bay). She teaches the Judges a fight song and then sings Justin Bieber at them with her eyes wide and these awesome operatic trills and it is so fabulous. She's like something out of a Marx Brothers movie. She even makes football seem fun.
Sloppy Steven-lover Alyson Jados (26, Chicago) cried when she saw him, but not because he is riddled with ailments. It's because she feels something when she looks at him that is not revulsion. Her whole face cages in on itself when she thinks about Steven Tyler sending her to Hollywood. And eighty years of practice have given him what appears to be a fairly good whoredar, because the first thing he says when she walks in is, "Did I fuck you?" And not even in the form of a limerick or other rhymed verse, even though that's mostly how he's been communicating here in Milwaukee. But now the urgency: "Wait, did I fuck you?"
And see, it's times like this that I do believe in true love and also astrology, because you knew instinctually that would happen. The girls that are gross enough inside to like Steven Tyler are the right kind of gross inside to attract Steven Tyler. Chicken, egg, whatever. You get your perfect person, which is why I believe in love at first sight. And the best thing about that is, no downside. I wouldn't sleep with either of them so it's no skin off mine if they hook up. Even if she does look like both his daughters about equally. Maybe he can throw some of his Ogden Nash bullshit in that direction, see what he can come up with.
Watching them flirt is pretty revolting, but then when he gives her a hug the honest excitement on her face is pretty gratifying. So there's that, and then there's her pretty voice, singing "Come Together," and Tyler doing this Dad Overbite dance that is just so sad, so so sad, and they ask her to sing "Dream On," and so you've got Steven Tyler watching (and of course he sings along, you know he can't resist) this girl dressed like him and singing his song and I mean... Viagra is not just a trademarked chemical compound for sad old men who can't get it up and think this is an emergency even though nobody wants to touch it anyway: It is also a state of mind.
But then shit gets real all of a sudden and they tell her she's not great and then Steven Tyler is the swing vote, so of course he puts her through -- after a seriously Randy amount of fucking around -- and she wanders out with her ticket, looking real broken.
A pink sweater, a black family, a blonde girl, and then the final thing which is an American story or something. I think it will be bad, bad news for whatever is going on with this kid. That's the noises the show is making. Chris Medina (26, Chicago) is a baby-faced cutie with a fiancée to whom he proposed three years ago, in a Starbucks, but see the problem is that she was in a car accident and is brain-damaged now. I don't know if they're going to ever be married or what, but from the looks of things she is way jacked up. And so he figures they were going to get married, in sickness and in health and all that, so why not just help her mom take care of her.
Well, that is the very worst thing I have ever heard.
Ryan is like, "They want us to wheel the girlfriend in there? Do they not get the whole story?" So they wheel her in, and Chris somehow gives you the impression that he is not caught in the saddest movie of all time, because he is awesome on some level they just invented, I guess. The Judgery come talk to her, and Steven Tyler is very much a wonderful man at this point in the episode. I don't know that I can think about it much more than that. I'm in a hurry as it is. Anyway, good luck to Chris Medina, both with this stupid game show and, you know. Things.