It’s OK to
ask him to take the wheel but not necessarily vote-getting
to shout his name in song in a way that suggests that
you might be kind of pissed off at him. It’s a
lesson Carly learns the hard way as the six are
whittled to five…
The
husband/partner/whatever is always thinking of me. Last
week, while driving through McDonald’s to get a
bag of diarrhea-to-go, he also brought me home a Happy
Meal. Well, actually he ate the Happy Meal. But he
brought me the toy. It’s a little plastic American
Idol action figure, about four inches high, in the
shape of a country-singing guy. The little guy has a blue
face and huge black cowboy hat. In fact, his head is the
same size as the rest of his body. And when you flick
a little switch on the back of his head some
wafer-thin electronic music in the style of Flatt and
Scruggs comes scrinching its way out of the hat. And
that’s it. That’s what happens.
According to the bag he came in, his name is Country Clay
and you can collect him and the others --
Rockin’ Riley, Punky Pete, Hippie Harmony, and
Lil’ Hip Hop. With the exception of blue Clay and
green Harmony, the others are white. I thanked my
husband/partner/whatever and told him to stop eating
at McDonald’s or he would die young.
So the show
starts. And here are famous people in the audience.
There’s David Duchovny (new X-Files
movie to promote) and Allison Janney (just here for
kicks?) and some not-famous child. I’m always
annoyed when I see nobodies in the crowd. And this kid
isn’t even pulling his weight. He should be
bawling or holding a sign that reads, “I CRAP
BIGGER THAN ARCHULETA!” But nothing. He offers
nothing. He should be ejected from the building for
crowding the shot. Then the camera cuts to some
apparently famous woman I’ve never seen before. I
should be ejected from this recap for not knowing
her.
Seacrest
introduces the kids and the judges (Paula must have a new
hairstylist because it just looks consistently good now) and
also tells everyone that it’s Earth Day and
that American Idol is doing its part for the
environment by employing something called
“green power” at the finale. I think
that’s a made-up thing, but I have no way to
call him on it right there onstage, especially since
I’m sort of not there and just on my couch
eating some chocolate ice cream with Girl Scout cookie
Thin Mints crumbled over the top. But with my full
mouth I say, “Liar!” quite forcefully, getting
ice cream on my T-shirt that I won’t notice
until about an hour later after it’s all hard and
stuck to me.
Tonight’s
theme is the music of Sir (Or is it Lord? Fuggit. I
don’t care.) Andrew Lloyd Webber. Don’t
know who he is? OK, imagine it like this: drama queen
ballads + London’s West End in a nonstop masturbation
contest with Broadway + Sarah Brightman + WTF + people on
roller skates + nuclear war. With the exception of the
very rad Jesus Christ Superstar, he is responsible
for some of the most mind-boggling product that
musical theater has to offer. And so now, in spite of
“that sounded too ‘Broadway’”
being a fallback criticism for the judges when a
contestant teeters too close to the brink of the Aiken
Abyss, the kids are going to sing BROADWAY!
Now, I know lots
of you gays like Broadway and are all into it and stuff.
Hell, even my heterosexual brother called me last week and
was like, “Have you seen Wicked?
It’s fantastic!”
“Did you
have sex with a guy afterwards?” I asked.
“Because that’s what Wicked does
to people. It’s like that conveyor belt that
George Jetson used to get on in the morning that would
shower and dress him. He’d go in one way and
come out quite another. And now that you’ve
seen Wicked, I hate to inform you of this, but
you are 100% a fag.”
“No,
you’re the fag,” he retorted. So clever with
the comebacks, the straights.
“No, you
are,” I said, zinging it right back to
him. My family engages in this kind of Algonquin shit all
day. Anyway, I’m not into show tunes, or
musicals really. I’ve seen exactly six of them
in my whole life: Cats (I liked the part with
the tire); Les Miserables (I liked the part
where they all shout triumphantly to that march-y kind of
song at the end): Dreamgirls (I liked the part
where you could see that Jennifer Holiday had lost all
the weight and you could make out the fat pads under
her dress. I also liked the part where ladies in the
audience stood up and yelled at her while she sang
“And I Am Telling You.” They were all,
“YOU SING THAT!” like she was about to
pole-vault over the audience with her lungs);
Hairspray (I liked the part about not being able
to stop the beat); Company with Debbie --
sorry, Deborah -- Gibson (I liked the part
where she was doing solo bits and I was like, “Wow,
it’s Debbie Gibson!”) and Rent (I
liked the part when it was over).
Time for
singing:
Syesha meets the
composer (ALW from here on, by the way. I hate typing
long names) and announces that she will be singing
“One Rock and Roll Too Many,” (Wikipedia
says it’s from Starlight Express, and
it’s all done on roller skates or something with
people dressed like characters in Tron).
“Interesting choice,” says ALW.
“Yes, it
is,” says Syesha. So confident. So tiresome. Such
good hair. She’s excited because she gets to
act, kind of like in that commercial she did back in
Florida. I always get the feeling that Syesha wants to
use Idol to break into musical theater anyway,
so this ought to be a good night for her.
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Dave White is the author of Exile In Guyville. He
listens to Gallhammer. Find him at www.imdavewhite.com