I can only assume
that Fox was too cheap to go hire some actual aliens to
make a show-opening American Idol logo crop
circle in the middle of Omaha (part of what people in
television call "the flyover states"),
where Tuesday night's audition show takes place.
It's undoubtedly the work of some poor postproduction
drone in Santa Monica who sat in front of a computer
until 4 in the morning making a cornfield look
authentic and was then expected to be back in the office
by 9 the next day to digitally erase age spots from Jack
Nicholson's face for the Blu-ray DVD release of
The Bucket List.
The credits roll.
And no, I wasn't mistaken, The Boogie's head
is completely chopped off of his torso as the fame
elevator rises past shots of the other Idol
winners. And I don't think it's too
paranoid to say that this is clearly intentional. Why, I
don't know. And really, I don't care all
that much. But I think it's odd. I'm
sure the folks on "The Boogie Board" have
opinions on the subject. Oh, yes, no lie. It's
called "The Boogie Board." I just learned this
recently. Someone started a fan board and my stupid nickname
for Taylor Hicks is responsible. You really never know
who's paying attention. Naturally, I'm
honored.
The camera pans
over wide-open fields and rolling clouds. Eek. Rolling
clouds now remind me of that frightening
"Anonymous" video that's going
around, the one that's making ominous robot-voiced
threats to the Church of Scientology. It took someone
even scarier than Tom Cruise to make that video. and
now I don't know whose side to be on. But that has
nothing to do with this show -- for now -- so
I'll get back on topic.
It seems that
there are no buildings where people can go to do things in
Omaha, because when Seacrest does his little voice-over
about the strong music and art communities that exist
there, the camera cuts to (a) three kids playing
violins on a sidewalk and (b) some dude wearing a belt and
suspenders and an apron painting on a canvas that's
sitting on an easel. In the middle of a brick road.
His painting is of a building. The title of that
painting is "This Is My Now. And Right Now What I
Need Is a Building to Do This in So That When It Rains
My Painting Won't Get All Wet."
Then Seacrest
talks about how Omaha is most known for corn. True.
Disturbing, genetically modified corn. And if you've
watched this odd little documentary that came out last
year called King Corn, then you'll know that
that Frankencorn is in virtually everything you eat
and drink now. It's been subsidized out the ass
and so now food manufacturers use synthesized versions
of corn in everything from Coca-Cola, American
Idol's biggest sponsor, to, well, touch
something in your kitchen that's not an organically
grown piece of kale. That. The thought of it makes
that cheeseburger in a can that's been floating
around the Internet all week sound appetizing.
Things that are
bothering me already about this audition episode:
1. No Paula. Her
plane was delayed.
2. Randy's
red freak-out shoes.
3. Simon's
very visible and floppy dong outline in his jeans when he is
shown walking toward the camera. To the left, FYI.
That's it,
really. The other things that bother me about this show are
ongoing. So let's get to the INs and the
OUTs...
The INs:
1. The
staggeringly cute 21-year-old farm boy from Stout, Iowa.
They give him multiple chances to remember the words.
That's what hotness gets you in life, way more
chances than you deserve. It doesn't even matter that
he's got weird hair gloop happening or that
he's got tacky double-pierced ears.
2. The
arm-wrestling girl. She takes on Seacrest. Nice guns, skinny
host-man. But it turns out that they're mostly just
for decoration, because she kind of takes him. Then
she sings. She's very, very, very country. Her
voice, I mean. She's got that vintage female country
holler, the kind with the yodel-yelp punctuating it
all over the place. In other words, the kind of
country singer I love. Simon and Randy, however, are
not interested in this. Simon says that she sounds 50 years
older than she is. Randy explicitly states that he
hates the yodel-yelp. Good going, judges. Here, I have
a time machine. Let's all get into it and all go
tell Kitty Wells that she sucks too. Still, they give her a
gold ticket. But not before Randy advises her to knock
off singing like a country singer. Then Paula wants to
arm-wrestle her.
3. The sweetly
low-voiced girl who sings a Norah Jones song and who
auditions for Simon, Randy, and Seacrest (Paula is forced to
stand outside and do Seacrest's job for five
minutes). Seacrest asks her how her
"interview" went. I don't know exactly
what interview that is, but I can guess. It's
fairly clear that out of the 10,000 people who show up
for these things, about nine of them actually get in to see
the judges, and those nine are people who manage to
jump through whatever arbitrary hoops are set up by
producers and story editors and whoever else. There
are message boards with all this information on it, but
I'm not interested enough in behind-the-scenes
stuff to go find out about it. In any case, Simon
tells Seacrest not to say shit like that on-camera.
4. A montage of
good singers who make it through, each one getting about
three seconds of screen time. One of them goofs on-camera
and says she wants to be America's Next Top
Model.
5. The girl who
cries because her father doesn't approve of her
desire to SING! Then she sings. Gets the gold ticket.
Cries. All two dozen of her family members are happy.
Dad's not there, though. Seacrest calls Dad
with the good news. Father love restored. TV makes
everything better.
6. What hath
Daughtry wrought on America besides that shitty
"I'm Going Home" song and bad
fashion choices? It seems that more and more
"rock" people want to come on
Idol and do their "rock" for the
judges. Cut to a guy from Tulsa who looks like what would
happen if Daughtry put a baby into Blake Lewis's
Easy-Bake. Out would pop this guy. Black and gray
argyle sweater vest. Stupid hair going in a million
directions and dyed partially red. And he's got that
scratchy "rock" voice. Great. I hate
voices like that. If you are going to be in a band, I
have the man you need to emulate. And his name is
"IT." IT is the guy behind the visionary
behind Swedish outsider black metal band Abruptum.
That dude just growls and moans and shrieks. Anyway, this
"rock" person may go far because Nickelback is
still the law of the land.
7. The Gay One.
And by calling him the Gay One, what I'm trying to
get across is that he's the first of the many,
many, many gays we've seen on this show over
the years who's actually walked into the audition,
announced his gayness ("My mom always said she raised
the perfect homecoming queen. Too bad it wasn't
one of her daughters") and then sung well
enough to get the judges to give him a ticket. Now, I know
that there was some gay last season who'd been
in some U.K. boy band and there was some press about
it. But we hardly ever saw him, and he never said,
"Look here, everyone, for I am a poof." But
this guy is full-on homo. It'd be interesting
TV if he progressed. Usually the only gay we get on
this show is baiting between Simon and Seacrest. And as much
as I love that and need there to be more and more and
more of it, it would also be unusual and maybe not
awful to have some small-town fag going all the way.
The OUTs:
1. The
25-year-old gay from Fremont, Neb. He's "so
happy [that he] feels like [he] could explode and
happiness is gonna go flying everywhere." Then
he says, "I come one in a million." You know,
kid, if you posted a video clip on XTube of your
one-in-a-million happiness flying everywhere, you
could make a little coin that way. Depending, you know, on
trajectory and all. He brings gifts to the judges. A
stuffed animal for Randy, a stuffed animal for Absent
Paula, a photo album with shots of nothing but him
standing next to Kelly Clarkson and a warm-up jacket for
Simon that reads "England" across the
chest. Then he cries. He sings "Since U Been
Gone," if by singing you mean the moaning that occurs
during the videotaping of those xtube clips. Then he
does a handstand. Randy and Simon tell him no,
obviously, but then they promise that he'll be
allowed to report on the red carpet at the finale for
the Omaha Fox affiliate. The kid goes ballistic, and
even though his happiness doesn't go flying
everywhere, he shrieks and jumps up and down like a gorilla
on a Samsonite suitcase. I like this little gay. He
could be the next Ross the Intern if he plays it
right.
2. Lady Morgue, a
PVC-trench-coated goth bulldozer of a woman and former
wrestler who shrieks and cackles and, I'm assuming,
has starred as Magenta in the Rocky stage show
at the Dundee theater on more than one occasion. And
now the Omaha readers are like, "How does he
know about the Dundee?" I make calls. I know people.
I got 'em all over. Anyway, my favorite part is
when she hits Seacrest.
3. The zoo
volunteer in the gold sparkly shirt. He sings
"Shout" by Otis Day. Nothing special
about his particular brand of delusion.
Wednesday night
they go to Miami. They've revamped the logo to look
like the Miami Vice opening credits. If
Seacrest had thought to stop shaving for three days,
he could be Don Johnson. Randy as Philip Michael
Thomas. Simon as Phil Collins and Sheena Easton. Paula
as Edward James Olmos.
Cut to the
assembled crowd of hopefuls singing "Rhythm Is Gonna
Get You." Because in Florida it's the
law that everyone know that song. It's one
reason to hate Florida. I have weird conflicting feelings
about Miami and the whole state, really. All I ever
think of when Florida comes up is Anita Bryant and
rigged elections and Flannery O'Connor-ish serial
killers and mosquitoes and inbred morons. Then, on the other
hand, thanks to my pal Xtreem Aaron who graciously
reminded me of it as we sat on the couch processing
our emotions about it all, I also think of the
awesomeness of Miami Booty Bass and Tootsie Rolls and
"Pop the Coochie" and chicks in thongs
with oiled-up asses sitting on mixing boards. These
life-loving images of Florida are the ones I'm going
to carry in my heart.
I'd go
with a list of INs and OUTs here if the show had been that
straightforward. But it wasn't. They let this one
Venezuelan guy through. The second he appears
on-screen, my husband/partner/whatever says, "See,
I knew Melanie Griffith would be the ruin of Antonio
Banderas." He sings some Venezuelan pop song. I
think he sucks, but for some reason they send him
through. Simon agrees with me. Paula and Randy send him
through. But they have to qualify their endorsement by
giving him bullshit advice and telling him that he
needs to get rid of his accent. Because that kind of
thing really held back Shakira.
They also let
through two women who, in my house, are already known as
the Weather Girls. Two BBW-BFFs. One of them says that
Seacrest is the love of her life. This means, of
course, that she has a lot in common with him, because
I guarantee you that Seacrest is also the love of
Seacrest's life. And both Weather Girls can
sing.
But the biggest
thing of this week, for me, is how the auditions carry on
a theme begun last week with the arrival of Carly
Hennessy/Smithson. You know, the Irish girl with the
ink-face boyfriend "wanting a second
chance" even though it's actually her third
chance and they never really explain her actual
first chance. (Briefly: She had a record deal
with MCA back in the day -- while Randy was head of
A&R, by the way, so if anyone thinks there aren't
ringers on this show, then, well, they're dumb
-- released an album, no one bought it, was dropped,
etc.)
And that theme,
after seeing a couple of the people this week -- and
really, they're the only two you need to hear about
-- is clearer now than it was last week. This season
is where the subtext about the damning, dooming
pursuit of fame is finally made, simply, the text
itself, as people who've already been eaten up and
shat out by the music industry come back, ready to be
devoured and defecated all over again.
Example #1:
Robbie Carrico
Scruffy,
rockerish looking person. Sings well. Seem familiar? He was
in a go-nowhere group called -- and this is so gay I
can barely write it without feeling like my penis is
about to fall off -- Boyz N Girlz United. They were
two boyz and two girlz, something like an S Club 7
minus 3 (and stay with me on the S Club thing; it comes up
again later), they burned briefly at the turn of the
'00s, toured with Britney Spears (and he dated
her for a bit) on a European tour, released a CD, then
disbanded due to lack of interest from any human being with
ears. He gets his gold ticket, the audience is wrongly
told that he "used to be in a boy band,"
and off he goes, ready for round two of his never-quite-was
career.
Example #2: You
know, sometimes Seacrest gets tired. He wants to sit on a
pretty, flower-print fabric sofa and have a little
one-on-one time with a person who's
auditioning. Really get to know them. So he'll
spontaneously just pull anyone out of the line, lock
eyes with an intense "You and me, babe. You and
me," look on his face. At this moment he has picked
Julie Dubela. If you think she's been
hand-selected by anyone prior to this moment, then
you're the cynical one.
Unimportant
History Lesson: She was on American Juniors.
Remember that one? It was Idol's attempt
to NAMBLA-fy the franchise. And the Brits who thought up
that country's Pop Idol and then in turn
American Idol were, back in those days,
convinced that what pop music listeners consumed in England
would be swallowed just as easily in this country. In
the U.K. it was a tween version of the group S Club 7
who, if you paid attention to this kind of thing, had
exactly one hit single in the States called "Never
Had a Dream Come True" as well as a sitcom on
ABC Family that ran in the afternoons and featured
cast members Linda Blair and Barry Williams. It was weird.
Anyway, the kiddie group version, called S Club Juniors and
then, later, S Club 8, was formed from a show called
S Club Search. In the States the show was
called American Juniors. The kids from American
Juniors actually wound up singing lots of songs
written for the S Club Juniors, because the clip we see is
of the Juniors belting out an S Club song. Creepy
digression: With lyrics like "hold on to my
lovin," it was sure to make the skin of sane adults
crawl. Thanks for all the sexualization of children,
Fox.
But, unlike in
the U.K., where people will actually listen to records
featuring a gang of 10-year-olds -- and, for that matter,
songs sung by cartoon characters, puppets with zippers
for mouths, and Natasha Bedingfield -- here it was a
big bust and totally embarrassing for all involved.
Julie Dubela, at age 11 or something, was one of the
American Juniors, and now she's back and full
of the entitlement that all 16-year-olds possess until
the world beats it out of them. Worse, this is
entitlement based on previous success in the corporation.
She thinks that her legacy status is her
"in" and that the machine isn't a
machine, that it's part of her life, something
close to being her family. She tells the judges that
her experience on American Juniors was a lot of
fun, even as Seacrest proceeds to not remember her at
all, even though he hosted that show, and as the judges mock
her and the show itself (Simon: "I love
hearing kids that age sing"). To her face.
WON'T IT BE FUN TO SEE THIS CHILD CRUSHED? YES,
IT WILL BE! LET'S WATCH!
She sings.
She's not horrible. She's not amazing. Her
crimes are easily fixed: oversinging, overbreathing,
overtanning, working it too much. She could easily get
a gold ticket when you think of some of the other people
-- Venezuelan guy -- who've been sent through this
week. And think of Blake Lewis. That boy was nothing
if not a calculation. The show has no fixed center and
no agenda but to provide minor shocks of pleasure or
discomfort before asking you to forget you ever witnessed
it. So why not discard this kid? It'll be
funny, right? So the judges tell her no. She begins
singing again. This is the Idol equivalent of
grabbing the ankle of the boyfriend who's walking out
on you after he's punched you in the face and
knocked you to the floor. Julie is in disbelief.
She's asking for notes. For tweaks to fix it. She
thinks she's got the gig; it's just a matter
of working it out in the rehearsal process. As they
kick her out the door, both Randy and Paula tell her,
"It's all good." Yes, it is. To them.
Cut to a clip of this kid at age 12, singing
"Rainy Days and Mondays." And now she can sing
that same song at 16 and know exactly what it's
about. She cries.
You are watching
the humiliation of a 16-year-old on TV. Isn't it
great? Don't you feel good about all the dreams
coming true?
Now, I get that
for a creative person to do the kind of work they want to
do, it requires that they brand themselves as a product that
other people want to consume. If people are going to
see you act or hear you sing or enjoy the way you
flashdance or (ahem) read your book, then you have to
be known. Which is to need to be famous to some degree or
other. It sucks, but that's how it goes.
Otherwise you toil in obscurity and you do your work
in a vacuum and no one ever sees it and you die thinking you
failed.
But as soon as
you finish reading this recap you need to go find a book
called Colors Insulting to Nature. It's a
hilarious novel by Cintra Wilson, probably this
country's foremost forensic surgeon of fame.
It's about a woman who debases herself over and
over to achieve the lowest level of fame. It sounds gross, I
know. And it is. But the kind of gross that's
really funny. You'll see when you read
it.
Anyway, the Julie
Dubela story has a happy ending. At least it has the
beginning of a happy ending. Because her last moment
on-camera -- when she fixes her gaze on the lens and
gives it a sickeningly, sarcastically sweet smile and
delivers her parting words -- makes me happier than
anything I've seen in the first three weeks of this
show. In fact, happier than anything I've seen
since "The Hotness." It makes me hope
that this is the moment when she woke up to her own
humiliation and unwitting participation in the
destruction of her soul. I hope she goes off and forms
a psychotic noise band and de-tans herself and never finds
crazy-making fame, only contentment and well-being. She
says, "Don't audition for American
Idol. Don't watch the show."