Darius Thomas (18, Birmingham) has that thing, you know? That thing where it sounds like they're never going to stop screaming and also it can shake apart your molecules? Like the red-headed Cassidy family of X-Men and X-Men associates. Darius also has red hair but I don't think it comes from his Irish roots, being black. I mean, I don't know much about his family, he could very well be an X-Man for all I know, but he sure is good at screaming. American Scream Idol. I bet Steven Tyler will like him. I bet he thinks that is singing.
Christine McCaffrey (27, West Palm Beach FL) is one of those ones where they start playing the dumpy baby elephant music the second she shows up and her eyes don't quite connect to what she's looking at and then she walks into the room making weird sounds and chirping and making things sad for everybody. Then she sings, and it's so terrible that it's actually wonderful. Through the nose and not really singing, with a sort of Frank Oz spin on the top of it. Kiiiiiiyah! She later says "I did my best," and tells Ryan that Steven Tyler gave her a yes, which he did not.
Maybe she is part dolphin? Whatever it is, Randy is mean to her and Steven Tyler just opts out of everything, which I'm noticing is a nice quality on him sometimes. Especially since apparently Randy thinks 1) He's the new Simon and 2) Being a dick is something Simon used to do. Two lies, in the total lie multiplex of Randy Jackson's life, plus another example of Randy being stupid, because Simon was not really a dick very often, and never for the sole purpose of being a dick. There's just so much Randy doesn't ... Get.
Cute, cute pair of exes Rob and Chelsee (23, Nashville) who are selling their whole thing about how they broke up and they duet and they don't love each other, or they still love each other. It seems like a huge lie and a gimmick, even though they brought her new boyfriend who is also cute, but then they sing together, and it's super gorgeous, so I don't know. Rob Bolin (23, Nashville) has a whole southern thing going on with his voice, it's great; Chelsee Oaks same deal. He could do better, but not by much.
And I don't mean that as nasty as it came out. What I mean is, she's a six, six-and-a-half and he's a seven-verging-on-eight.
Or is that still awful? Sorry. They're cute, whatever. And anyway, I still think they are playing up the breakup and Steven Tyler is just buying in wholeheartedly, and so but anyway they both go to Hollywood. Watch out for Rob and Chelsee. They sing pretty great. Plus Rob is even tinier than Ryan, which is hot.
A girl touches her tongue to her nose, causing Steven Tyler to hop around squealing like a pterodactyl, so nobody wins there. Now we have two problems, lady.
Tattoo artist ("and many other things at the same time") Allen Lewis (26, Some Made-Up Place) has a bunch of tats and he's adorable and sort of racist and of course he'll be singing Lynyrd Skynyrd because that's what adorable racists do. Sadly, though he is a "warrior" in many areas, singing is not one of those areas. He is very committed to his performance and misses their cue to stop singing, which J. Lo thinks is awesome, and she also likes his laugh. He looks like Santa Claus of Anarchy. I bet he smells a certain great way. Then he gives the Judgery a speech about following their dreams, which J. Lo thinks is awesome, and then Randy says more dumb stuff.
Stormi Henley (19, Nashville) is very pretty, I think not hugely a great person, but very pretty. Oh, a pageant queen. She seems to be good at walking, and looking into the camera. If your name is Stormi, take steps to make your name not be Stormi. They are simple steps, like, "Keep it a secret" or "Tell somebody your name is something else." J. Lo doesn't really love her voice, but her voice is fine. It's the sneaky face behind the voice that should be giving them pause. Any road, Randy puts her through and J. Lo yells at them about how not great she was. Her name is Stormi, you guys. This won't end well.
It's already affecting Ryan, who says the following words: "As Stormi celebrates with gold, unfortunately her name describes the mood in the Judging Room... But our contestant knows that every cloud has a silver lining." Somebody got paid to write those words and then Ryan Seacrest was paid just an unbelievable amount to say those words. And nobody noticed how bad and dumb it sounded or how bad and dumb it makes you look as an American. "Unfortunately her name describes the mood in the..." I mean, whatever.
Cute long-haired dude, cute wide-eyes girl, gender-estranged hobgoblin of the night, and then we meet Adrienne Beasley (22, Wickliffe, KY) who is a farmer adopted by some old white people and looks like black Alanis. This happens in Kentucky, which is awesome to know. Her parents are super cute and they say things like, "Wherever God takes her is going to be fine with me." So cute. Adrienne cries about helping her parents out, and then sings. She's good! So good that Steven Tyler talks at her until she cries.
Can you imagine if she was terrible? "Let's go meet your elderly white farmer parents and then make fun of your voice." With that sound effect that sounds like The Price Is Right just went over into not being right, that dun-dun-dodoooo sound. "Call your old white farmer parents and tell them you failed. And put it on speakerphone."
Oh a very cute blonde boy is going to cry, just blubber, so hard that Ryan will go "It's just an audition, buddy." That is going to be so fantastic.
A military girl who describes her voice as "huge," right, so you know what's going to happen: Screaming her ass off. Forever and ever. Randy tells her to never sing again, and Steven tells her to go home and practice, and then Randy is a jerkface to her some more and laughs in her face.
And I mean, it's not even that Randy is a jerk, it's that he thinks that's what he's supposed to be doing. And Randy has always been a damned fool, so that's not even the problem. The real problem is, it makes Steven Tyler look good.
Only Randy Jackson could somehow fuck up being a dick.
Sometimes when it's late at night and you're with your best friend Will on the Youtubes together and you're looking at videos of old trannies smoking -- why are there so many videos of that? -- and then inevitably the people taking off masks only to reveal more masks underneath their masks -- why are there so many videos of that also? -- and you peel the onion of the dark side of the internet down to its Natalie Portman hangnail and then it's the people in all-over fabric suits, and they are the worst of all the sex things, like Spiderman but all one color, all over themselves. Hanging out in their all-over suits, doing other things that are not sexy that they probably think is sexy. Smoking probably. Or things with feet.
I don't know how you get there. Or why it's on the internet. I don't know how you got to be the kind of person who gets off on this, parenting (or breeding) one presumes, and you thought, I am already so gross! I should really share this with a wider audience. And but then when you brought that shit to the internet's door there were a bunch of people already there going, "We've been waiting to see you smoke a cigarette in pantyhose, maybe do some foot stuff. That's just the thing."
And so then you're not going to get help, because the internet told you it was perfectly fine. Which I guess it is, except you could be having sex the normal way and discover how awesome that is, but no: You'll stick with the Spiderman suit or talking about how you are a wolf inside your human body, that will be just fine with you. I get so fucking mad about this. Sex is like the greatest thing you can do, why screw it up with a bunch of hoo-hah? Anyway, we do this hobby of the paraphiliac Youtubes a lot less now that Sparks and 4-Loko are so hard to find. Probably best. My nerves.
Anyway, so there's one of those fabric people. Then an Eastern European, which is like an even more annoying affectation than being a perv. "Perv Guy, that's me." God. Then the super cute blonde boy who will soon be crying, and he sings really bad and Randy is mean to him, and the all-over-suit person does not get through. And the blonde boy cries so manfully and it's so sweet. And then a trashy girl flips off the camera and Ryan holds the cute boy's hand for awhile.
Jackie Wilson (28, Nashville) has a lot of face. And the jitters. She has more face than most people have head. It's pretty and giant, like those ultrarealistic sculptures of the giant Japanese babies. Luckily, she can sing pretty well, and J. Lo leads the Judgery in an ovation. I thought we were going to be making fun of her, but instead she is going into the sausage factory of this show first.
No but first she is going to get some tongue from her dad, who turns out not to be her dad, and Ryan has a heart attack. My favorite thing about the idea of the show where Tracy Jordan scares you ("You're on Syfy! AAAHHHH!" So scary) is that I will never see an alien or a knife murderer so I don't know what my authentic reaction to those things would be. If I ever wrote a book about an alien or a knife murderer -- or an alien serial killer, which hold the phone -- I would have to imagine what the authentic reaction would be. You know? Until that show with Tracy Jordan. And why I bring this up is, now we know the unvarnished truth of what Ryan would do if you made out with your dad, which is giggle and blush and lean way back into his suit and go "Holy cow!"
Ryan Seacrest: "Holy cow!"
I mean... What else is there?
Well, there's Latoya "Younique" Moore (26, Nashville), but she is clearly a bunch of bullshit from go. She looks like a toddler but a chickenhead at the same time, and but just sort of boring-crazy, and a little sad. Ryan kind of doesn't have the patience for her, her gown, her album that she brought the Judgery "to share" between the three of them, her weird babble, the whole "Younique" thing, the way she refers to herself constantly as a "recording artist."
Remember that lady that claimed to have quote "fucked Alec Baldwin in his ass"? Same thing here.
Randy is a dick to her and she eventually walks to the door but can't help starting to sing and linger in the doorway, which props for that, and then walks out singing some more and Ryan asks her what is going on in the chaos of her mind, and she's like, "I have no grasp on anything, basically. Essentially I am just adrift on the waves of whatever's happening at any given time. It's why I carry such a large purse. And wear such glamorous gowns."
Woo, Paul McDonald (25, Nashville) looks like a damn movie star and sings "Maggie Mae" prettier than the real one. Jimmie Allen (25, Franklin, TN) is similarly cute and talented. Danny Pate (23, Auburndale, FL) is a cute ginger giant and makes them all sing along with him. I guess when you're gigantic you don't need to be afraid of anything. All three of them go through. It's nice for them to put the nice auditions all in one place so you can change the channel afterwards.
Supergigantic hillbilly Matt Dillard (27, Cheatham County, TN) talks super deep and his intro song is that song from Once, so you know that it's going to be heartrending in some way. Yeah, their family takes in wicked numbers of foster children and he talks about how this is "dear to our hearts," and then he sings some Josh Groban that is weird in connection with his looks, and then he says the most charming things in this Boomhauer way and they tell him he's going to get swallowed up, but Steven Tyler puts him through. Mostly I just want to keep looking at his face, so I can figure it out. Very confusing, the face. I cannot get a handle on it.
Lauren Alaina (15, Rossville, GA, a 3,500-person suburb of Chattanooga) is a Georgia girl with a whole lot of Ke$ha hair who obsesses on her redheaded best friend/cousin in a really sweet way, and then on top of it this Holly got some cancer a while back and Lauren did a singing fundraiser to fight the cancer, things like this. Crying and hyperventilating in the middle of her interview. I don't know, she's cute. I hope she sings okay.
Outside, her parents look like they're about twenty, which is also how old Lauren looks. "My cousin and I were raised like sisters" makes this a Tennessee thing, Ryan, into which there is no need to delve. I realize Ryan is from Georgia and he may well be from that kind of Georgia, but honestly it's just not worth making a thing about. Families are complex. People get pregnant like every day. Super cute people, like Lauren's sweet baby parents.
But I will be honest about this, I was not loving the look of Lauren. I think it has to do with my violent hatred of poor old Aly Michalka, whose fault it is not, and to do with how the past week has finally come crashing in on me in the last ten minutes. Not one but three reunions with people I haven't seen in like ten years -- one from college, one from high school, one from the family; a hat trick of neurosis, a veritable hat trick -- and somehow I have gained the ability to function on four hours of sleep while still not getting any work done, and how I guess alcohol has calories in it because I'm sure not eating any food this week and yet I keep going, and then this stupid show keeps refusing to record on my DVR, and then random Word crashes a minute ago, literally as I'm writing the last paragraph of this recap, and the whole thing's already hours late and now maybe I have to write the whole thing again, and there it is: Actual frustration, to the point of tears.
And I didn't even mention the boy situation, which is careening out of control and I think I'm getting pretty close to just being kicked out of Dating. Just: Flag on the play, it's not you it's us, no boys for six months, go home and read a book or learn to cook something. Get a sleep mask, make some complicated tea and drink it in the garden whilst thinking of many things. Maybe take a nice long shower or get some sunshine. Good run there for a while, but you've sort of lost focus. We are not Bridget Jones, we are a grown-ass man, sir.
So yeah, I'm on the mothereffing edge right now. Mom would say this is because Saturn is in retrograde, and that I need to do this with the tea, to think about things in a quiet inward-turning. I say it is all happening because of Aly Michalka and her face.
Things I've said at least twenty times this week, when I wasn't quoting Angelina Jolie (?) on like every aspect of life: "You can't manage what you don't measure," "Because my eight children aren't going to fucking adopt themselves, that's why," and -- for some reason -- "Vitality is key."
"I don't need to slow down, you slow down. You slow down."
So being aware of all this, in a quietly inward-turning way, I can say that there's nothing wrong with Lauren or her red-headed cousin or her voice. In fact, her voice is marvelous. And also marvelous is how afterward, she brings her child-parents in to meet Steven Tyler (of course) and then he duets with her on "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" (of course) which is her child-parents' couple-song (of course) and more than likely the song they were listening to in the backseat of the extended-cab when they got pregnant with Lauren last week.
And the geeking out of the parents is so hardcore, and the beefy healthiness of them is so vital and so Chattanooga, and they love their baby who is the same age as them so very much, and there's Holly over there, and it just makes me want to hug everybody until their eyes bulge out.
Even Steven Tyler, who tells us in an aside that he thinks they've found this year's winner. I wonder about that -- because it would be so Idol to give us a Top 24 consisting entirely of 15-year-old girls and then somehow still give us another like DAUGHTRY or Gokey -- but I will say that Steven Tyler's behavior this episode was exemplary. Partly, maybe mostly, because he was authentic for like one second yesterday when he kissed the wheelchair girl.
Hugely because tonight Randy was being such a choad, but not entirely for that reason either.
Partly because sometimes from certain angles the chemical-peel shine lends its intended youthfulness to his old woman face, and combined with the wizard-sleeve outfits he swathes around his bones make him look less like a saluki -- What up, Genevieve? Good call -- and more like Fievel Mousekewitz. Which, apart from actually being Ryan Seacrest, is like the ultimate natural camouflage to make me not hate you. And I'll tell you what, if Steven Tyler manages to turn into Ryan Seacrest I will take it all back. All of it.
Wednesday: Austin! Where people are acting weird and fat, apparently.
Eh, sounds about right.