Idol GIves Back Nobody

Gotta talk about Sanjaya (“I'm the Straight Guy Who Understands Women,” to paraphrase People mag's latest quote from him) My Papaya a little bit more this week. If you were sick of hearing about him, then just jump ahead a couple of inches. But one of my favorite things ever is happening-that thing being conspiracy theories about inconsequential television shows. Apparently there's a guy on MySpace who's been correctly spoiling the show's results with an unnerving accuracy, and now people are beginning to talk about his latest assertion: that Sanjaya was simply given the boot regardless of the votes. This MySpace guy (his name's Ricky and he's at www.myspace.com/reekzonfiah) isn't revealing his sources, but based on what I've read it seems like he's got a connection to someone who works on Idol, someone who's disgruntled enough to spill it on a weekly basis. Anyway, it's all hearsay, of course, but now other gossip sites are saying that if you read the entire disclaimer at the end of the show, it more or less states that votes aren't necessarily the final word in the competition's outcome. I can't back up those gossip sites, though, because MY DANG TIVO KEEPS CUTTING OFF THE FRIGGING ENDING OF THIS SHOW AND MY HUSBAND/PARTNER/WHATEVER IS FALLING DOWN ON THE JOB OF MAKING THAT NOT HAPPEN! In my husband/partner/whatever's defense, he's out of town this week, leaving me not only single and footloose but also completely technologically helpless. If he ever unexpectedly bites it, I'm going to have to hire one of those shirtless houseboys you read about in spank-it mags. I'll just have to make sure this particular shirtless houseboy knows how to make TiVo work, how to unlock my cell phone when it gets accidentally frozen, and how to make the Internet come back when it decides to simply up and take a smoke break. Also how to work the combo DVD-burning/VCR we just bought. I had to call the man long distance to ask him for directions in putting in a porn tape the other day. Spokes, naturally.

Seacrest is in the control room as the show opens, informing us that tonight, Tuesday's show, our calls will not only save contestants from going home…[spinning around in swivel chair with dramatic let's-get-serious, hand-on-knee for-realness]… “they will also save lives. This…[another slight pause] is Idol Gives Back.”

Credits roll and the Idol Gives Back logo pops up over the usual American Idol blue circle. This logo is a ribbony red sash like the one Miss Hawaiian Tropic or Mr. SoCal Leather might be awarded. But my friend Sean, who, along with some other friends, is subbing for my husband/partner/whatever this week, comes closest when he says, “That thing is so Duncan Hines. It looks like it should read 'Now With Extra Frosting!'"

Seacrest emerges onto the stage wearing a skinny black tie that appears to have been dipped in blood. He's also repeating the Kenny Rogers Country Week beard growth of last season. It's a mid-season thing for him that I've not really quite figured out. I want to believe that it's a kind of code that only certain people know-maybe even MySpace Ricky, maybe Seacrest is his connection, wouldn't that be excellent? In any case, it's in keeping with his let's-hunker-down-and-save-the-children stance pre-credits. Stubble = saving lives.

News Corp., Seacrest tells us, is going to donate 10¢ per call for the first 50 million calls. That's $5 million. Left off the end of that corporate largesse proclamation is the fact that Rupert Murdoch shits 5 million bucks every morning before beating his servants and firing that day's downsizing victim. Then Seacrest announces that a special thanks is due Ford, Coca-Cola, and AT&T for their unspecified generous donations and-wait, Ford, Coke, and AT&T are involved in Idol now? Where have I been? Ooh, and now he says that Bono, who's basically now the bug-eyed-glasses-wearing Jesus of the new millennium, is going to be this week's mentor. Then he introduces judges Paisley Jackson, Dukey-Rope Abdul and Chef's Whites Cowell, whose wide-open blouson puts his chest in a body-hair contest with Seacrest's face.

Time for a Celebrity-Poker-Faced-Poverty-Voyeurism-Montage as Seacrest and Simon go to Africa. Coldplay's “Theme From 'Walking Up an Airport Ramp'” plays tenderly as Simon and Seacrest walk up an airport ramp, heads bowed in lifesaving prayer. The men are taken on a meaning-laden, slow-motion tour of devastation, slums, and sewage. It's the kind of decontextualized horror show meant to evoke viewer dollar-donating sympathy but not questions about international debt, the politics of aid to developing nations, or the role greedy First World corporations and governments play in keeping the majority of the world in crushing, extreme poverty. But Dancing With the Stars is going to cover all that shit next week, so wait for it.

The cameras wisely stay on Seacrest, who's simply way better at faking it than Cowell. For his part, Simon is shown talking about the “deplorable” conditions in one sick person's home with a look of anger and disgust on his face, but I get the feeling that even if the man could figure out a way to effectively show actual compassion, some editor's assistant with a beef is delighting in making him look like he's milliseconds away from rolling his eyes again, demanding a fresh, unopened bottle of Curel antibacterial lotion and asking when the helicopter with his dessert is going to arrive.

Tonight's theme: Songs That Inspire. We're told that six “classics” are headed our way. First up is TimberFake singing Clapton's “Change the World.” But where's Bono? We see the unshaven former Hooters manager talking poetical about the song, but no Bono comes in to give advice or suggest a change to “Angel of Harlem” or something from Achtung Baby. Weren't we just promised Mr. U2 a second ago? Did I hear things wrong? Is he backstage giving Simon concern lessons instead? Is TimberFake going to sing as well as he's just succeeded in completely fooling my eyes with the gimmicky trompe-l'oeil necktie he's got on the front of his too-small blazer? He begins to sing. The answer is no. I barely know this song. I've only ever heard it in supermarkets before. My friend Gary, sitting next to his boyfriend, Aaron, who is in turn sitting next to my friend Sean, says it's from that movie with the wings. The assembled group in the living room are baffled. Gary continues, “The John Travolta movie with the wings.” Some discussion ensues and no one can remember if it's from Michael, which is the one with the wings, or Phenomenon, which is the one with the magical healing Scientology powers of electrical fingers touching you. So TimberFake can't change the world. But can't he at least even change his percentage of flat and sharp notes? What about them? No? Well, OK, then. Friend Aaron says, “He should have sung 'Let the Music Play' by Shannon.”

Randy says something about how TimberFake is “in it to win it.” Paula gurgles out praise that should be subtitled “Kiss me on the lips!” and Simon takes a dig at Sanjaya, saying that now, at long last, the real competition can begin. Bono must have made him drop the dependent clause “now that that little gay-acting kid is gone.”

Commercial Time:

1. Dropped calls are ruining your every waking moment. You'll never find love with the wrong cell phone. You'll be reduced to making out with your sister.

2. New Fords and heart-attack-preventing orange juice. One of them has glucosamine.

3. Elephants and cute monkeys are stealing your credit cards.

4. Red Lobster is a place to eat. If you're that desperate.

5. NASCAR cures heartburn.

6. House is going to fuckin' YELL at someone tonight.

We're back. Ivanka Trump is here and not about to give back one thin dime. And in news unrelated to billionaires' daughters, MySpace.com, currently hosting my favorite show-spoiler, Ricky, the guy that I mentioned above, is here to friend you. If you go to www.myspace.com/idolgivesback, you can make that happen. And if you go to www.myspace.com/dlelandwhite, you can friend yours truly. I promise not to clutter your box with announcements, though. I bet idolgivesback won't make that pledge. Anyway, Melinda is up next. She's going to sing “Do They Know It's Christmas?” and she's going to do all the parts, including Bananarama's, which is three people at once, but Melinda is THAT TALENTED. OK, she's actually going to sing some shitty Faith Hill song about, in Melinda's words, not only the problems that exist in our country but also the problems on the moon and other planets. Not Pluto, though. Fuck those dwarf planets. Here comes the song…

It's about wars, old people, children, and heaven, where it'll all be better if you'll just wait until you're dead. As gospel songs go, it's a suckfest. And I love gospel music, so I'm not just talking out of my heathen gay ass here. But as usual, Melinda knocks it out of the park and into heaven, where not God but a team of God's B-string angels actually catches it and throws it back, delivering a handwritten note from God that says, “Well-played, Doolittle.”