Oh girl. So the first thing that happens is a sad, sad girl walking in the sunshine crying about this and that and how she thought she would be famous and how can she go back to her loved ones now and all of this and then it turns out that really the problem was she got a little gassy, broke a little wind, and that was the dealbreaker in the middle of her audition. Which first of all, that's classic comedy because they really make you feel empathy for the girl and hatred for the show and the usual things and then just when you're like I am implicated, America is implicated boom: Fart joke. But also isn't it ironic because this is a show where the judges are or have included: Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson and Steven Tyler. The three biggest farters of life.
Last time we went to SF, that was how Adam Lambert happened. (If you can believe that!) My sister met Adam Lambert last year and made a conscious decision not to bring my name up. I told her it was a crapshoot.
First: A horrible, horrible little girl.
You know how possibly in that movie The Orphan -- I haven't seen the movie but this is what people tell me, and you know how gullible I am, so probably they were being unkind -- it may have turned out that the Orphan was actually an Eastern European dwarf prostitute who was also a serial killer that liked to pose as an Orphan so that she could get adopted, make people feel incredibly uncomfortable with themselves and their sexuality, and then kill them? And feast on them?
Meet creepy little Ukrainian beast Inessa Lee, who is the sickly looking, bellydancing reincarnation of Tatiana Del Toro: She films herself in the shower, she is an expert choreographer, she is the queen of some nation somewhere, she has a big old weird husband, she's like a young Kyle Richards on the outside with an old Kim Richards on the inside, she looks like a pile of haunted sticks with rats inside, doing a belly dance, flipping so fast between little girl and aged whore that you get dizzy, being Shirley Temple, being Betty Boop. Being a prostitution dwarf.
Steven Tyler: Loves it.
"See this eyes? This is the most beautiful thing they ever seen in their life." She talks like that, just this loony-tunes monologue, the whole time, even on the way out the door. (22! LA!) "Even when they're crying." Even Ryan can't deal with her mess. She's basically like the malformed clone of him and he still just isn't having it. He actually feels sorry for the man who purchased her. Do you know what it takes to make Ryan drop the act? You gotta wake up early in the morning, and be the worst.
I don't believe she is 22. I think her husband bought her. At a discount. And dresses her up in outfits. And the part of her brain that understands what's going on, that went away a long time ago. And this would be sad, and a human rights violation, except that she is still the worst goddamn thing you've ever seen.
Seagulls, they fly so elegantly but they also crap on future Idols. Pretty blonde girl, a gay fella Ryan likes. A redhead: Pooped on. A Kangol man: Pooped on. Twins: Pooped on. This show is awesome. For seagulls to poop on.
Brittany Mazur (21, Tucson) sings the song about how she is begging for mercy, with a smokey eye and a full grayish-pink lip and a blowout so straight it'll make your back bleed. Lara Johnston (20, Novato CA) has a really weird voice, kind of like if Katy Perry weren't a lying fake. Matthew Nuss (25, Huntington Beach CA) is a dreamboat, with a sort of haircut that seems to be suggesting David Cook didn't take it far enough. They all go through. The second two will last.
Brittany, well: "Brittany."
Big old Stefano Langone (21, Kent WA) makes Steven do some weird Italian racism on him, and then tells a very long story about how he was in a car accident -- yeah, they reenact it in case you don't know what police sirens sound like -- and how he was dead, but it turns out he wasn't. Clearly very dramatic for this family, but no matter how bombastic the music and the wheelchair talk get, I'm not really feeling much one way or the other about old Stefano.
Glad he's doing okay, sure. I'm not a monster. But I mean, he is wearing a piano-keys belt buckle. How you gonna make me care about that?
So yeah: Chinstrap, babyface, delts. Lots of that heh at the end of every phrase that seems always to preface unnecessary lip-licking. A very high voice for a boy of this width. A body great-big enough that both Steven and Randy are like, "I really identify with you in some cosmetic ways that actually have to do with your masculinity and nothing to do with reality." I am sure we'll be seeing more of Stefano. I am sure I will not give a care.
Polyphonic Spree, of course, because only that is both magical and twee enough for Ryan Seacrest squinting into the late-day camera and going, "As you can see, the Golden Hour has ... fallen upon us." (Wonder. Wall.) Then everybody giggling and camping out and hugging and acting all Haight-Ashbury or whatever and then the sun bursts out of the clouds, because of all of Ryan's jobs, the one where he makes the sun come up is one of the least lauded but one of the most important. It's the reason he has to get up so early.
Why are we into Day Two so fast? Probably because some shit goes down. Here's hoping.
Sometimes in SF it's like this kid Clint Jun "Junebug" Gamboa (26, Long Beach): A gay karaoke host in a porkpie hat and a sweater from Target, with glasses like Mickey Rooney wore in Breakfast At Tiffany's. Which seems like a really unfortunate look to be rocking, because he's also got buck teeth, a little bit? Edgy, but not so edgy. You can't make your teeth immediately do different stuff but you could rethink the eyewear.
Smart, but not so smart: He thinks karaoke has something to do with music for example. So it's like having a dream, and then instead of doing anything about that dream, you do something entirely different. "I've always wanted to work in a five-star restaurant, so I started in lawn care. I see this working out in the long term."
And then too -- this is very SF -- he talks shit also about karaoke, the thing that he does, because see: He deserves more. More than karaoke. He deserves: American Idol. Instead of karaoke. Do you see what I am saying? That's where his dream leads: In a detour around something that will keep his dreams from ever coming true, right into a giant thing that will keep his dreams from ever coming true.
Before Clint opens his mouth I'm pretty sure, but then he does these weird raps and things and how he's representing something, I don't know, it's all very distressing. Either he is not confident enough and it's weirding me out, or he is too confident and it's weirding me out. But either way I think I am not the bad guy here. I think that guy is Clint. And whatever, he can sing -- he's great, actually -- and he's got a classic kind of look behind that awful glasses, but there's a diva thing in there nobody's going to be enjoying and also? You just sang "Billionaire." On TV you did this.
Gender questions, a clown that is no good, people swinging things that are not on fire, Hollywood from Mannequin aka the most annoying person in the universe, except for Kurt Cobain in bunny ears with a doll having some kind of conceptual moment, a batshit crazy woman who is half Statue of Liberty and half Dame Edna, naked dicks (actual), and then: A yowling creepy Michael Jackson looking and dancing like the road company of Cats. Randy's like, "This one's easy: No." A man in a sweater who really is not "singing," but I don't know what you would call it otherwise. Him, they just stare while Randy naps and the kid finally apologizes.
An Autobot appears, transforms into a car and rolls aggressively around the room. He made the suit himself. Reader, I have fallen in love again.
Meet Drew Beaumier (24, Fountain Valley CA) sings "Born To Be Wild," which is like my favorite song -- Have you ever read the lyrics? Drew hasn't! -- and then transforms again into a robot! I don't know what it's like under there, but I don't care. I love this man. Also: The editor that chose the Cars' "Drive" for his exit music.
Oh my God, this is just like The Good Wife. I can hear that sound in my ears that tells me I'm about to completely lose track of what's going on.
It would happen that I would get through an entire episode of The Good Wife, and then realize I was so excited to be watching The Good Wife that I checked out, and nothing registered, and I had to start over from the beginning.
Just when I had come to terms with the fact that Megatron is never going to ride up on a white horse and take me away from all this, I learn we are actually minutes from this technology and Drew Beaumier is the genius who's gonna take us there? That's a game-changer, best beloved. Gotta sit here and rethink a minute.
What I have found helps with this issue is, you turn off the TV the very second you feel yourself checking out, just for a few minutes, and you make some tea or do a puzzle or something. Something to calm those nerves!
...Okay I'm back. With a personal apology to General David "Peaches" Petraeus: If Megatron's back in the running, you done got relegated.
Cheering, vests, one million fauxhawks so that's still going on, and then a whole bunch of "California Gurls" for Steven Tyler to mack on, and then a collection of dimples in a white dress, and then a sad-looking girl, then a sadder-looking girl, and I guess they all get through. We hear about all the Gurls and how talented they are, but we don't get to meet or hear them.
Flouncy skirt, cute shoes -- sing a song about them, J. Lo! -- and we meet Julie Zorrilla (16, LA) on her birthday, and she is damn cute. From Colombia until she was eight, in the Andes in a gorgeous rich-people kind of paradise that was continually beset by the guerillas, so then they moved here. Horror stories about the war and everything, adorable parents, and then she is beautiful and self-possessed some more. Her "Summertime" is ornamented and rich, but I'm only assuming that she's on key because of how that song has no melody I've ever been able to discern. The judges love it, love her, the whole thing.
"Rocker" Dave Combs (25, SF) with his "rocker" hair and his "rocker" attitude and all, stringy blonde locks, but he's actually great looking under all that mess, and then his voice is real nice, this like bluesy "Oh! Darling" that is way off the melody, and then Steven is ten kinds of asshole about it, thumping his chest and monkeying around and telling him to go to hell. Surprise, surprise.
People who cannot sing, and to whom Steven Tyler is additionally an asshole for no reason at all, in between his mugging and wacky antics and zany fucking nonstop fuckery: An annoying cat burglar from the age of jazz; a beardy Grizzly Bear bullshitty American Apparel Legitimacy man with pretty hair; a squealing police officeress.
Then a girl whose sad story is that her house burnt down while she was at work. I find that really improves your voice, when your house burns down, so this is totally relevant. Let's talk about it for a really really long time, shall we?
Emily Anne Reed (26, Arlington VA) sings some obscure thing in that fake Bessie Smith voice the white girls enjoy so very much. It's pretty, and she's cute, she's got the shtick down, but when you think about the Bessie Girls I want you to be thinking not about right now but about the weeks to come. I want you to think about Lilly Scott, and Katelyn Epperly.
I want you to think real hard about Megan Joy.
Randy and Steven get racist with a cute Chinese girl, and then a bunch of people cry, most of them not so appealing from what I can tell, and then there's the last guy of the night.
James Durbin (24, Santa Cruz) has the single mom thing, the sad music playing, a fauxhawk, a Post-It that says I Believe In Me, a dad who OD'd when he was nine, fingerless gloves, sleep disorders, Tourette's and Aspergers, poverty, a longtime lady friend, and a baby.
In other words: ALL OF THE THINGS. HE HAS ALL THESE THINGS.
And the crazy thing is, he's totally likeable. Not that those things are likeable or unlikeable, they're just things, but when you're listing all that shit at once it starts looking like a sob story and he's totally not a sob story. He's awesome.
He's adorable -- picture Jim Verraros had a baby with Leonardo DiCaprio, with a little extra Matt Damon in the mouth region -- and he's clearly intelligent, and he's sweet as hell. Just give me an Aspergers Idol and I will do anything you want. Turn on Brett Loewenstern? No. I would do anything for love, but I won't do that. Anything else.
But how does he sing? Loud, reaching into a bunch of Adam Lambert places with his crazy supportive lady outside, and then he sings "Dream On," okay, just going there, and starts crying when he's done, and Steven has nothing to say about it, so he explains to them about his Tourette's and how it makes his singing so amazing. And then they all just stare at him and go whoa a bunch, like they are all suddenly Randy Jackson.
Even Steven is nearly in tears. J. Lo just shakes her head like she's watching a car accident have a baby. He's not even singing. They just want to buy him a car and carry him around on their shoulders. It makes the Polyphonic Spree come back, is how wild it is. He comes running out and they all pile on him and inside the judges are talking about how he is pure and like that, and Ryan stares at this all happening but has nothing to say about it, and JD comes out of the stadium crying about all the praise and it's just so, so awesome. Love James Durbin or pay the consequences.
Tonight, the Golden Hour is finally upon us.
Ridiculous people: Shake out meaninglessly into Popular, Unpopular, Other. Turn on each other in the middle of the night, splitting up and forming new groups halfway through rehearsing that will never be as tight, as strong, as complete. Wander the halls, looking eternally for your group, like a hotel ghost; never find them. Crying jags in stairwells and hallways, frantic calls home in the starry smoggy night.
This is your only shot, your only chance, this is the bigtime. This is your Ambling Alp, your Waterloo, the Clare Quilty that stands between you and superstardom. You don't want it bad enough, you want it too badly, you are not a team player, you are not standing out. Turn in early and get a good night's sleep, while your competitors rage on. Stay up all night watching colors roll down the walls.
Choose absurdity. Work the accompanist's and vocal coaches' last fucking nerve. Fight about minor details while letting major shit fall through your hands. Start crying halfway through when you realize you can't do this, live and onstage. Ditch a girl, then ask her at breakfast where she went.
Get bitchy about the choreography, discuss the choreography at length, make friends over choreography, lose friends for no real reason, they were never your friends, this is summercamp for borderline hysterics.
Crack right down the middle from all this fake pressure. Explain you are not here to make friends.
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