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.”
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Dave White is the author of Exile in Guyville.
Find him at www.imdavewhite.com. Photos courtesy Fox.