Driving down Pico
Boulevard the other day, I finally got a look at a
billboard that, unbeknownst to me, has been an Idol
perennial in my city for I don't even know how
long. (I don't drive down Pico much, I guess.) Each
season this billboard features the photos of the top
10, and after each week's elimination episode,
a sheer black scrim rolls down over the face of the
dearly departed like a funeral veil. You can still see the
face beneath it, grinning with so much pleading
fame-need. And you whisper to yourself, "Oh,
Ramiele. It wasn't meant to be like this.
We're all lost on this broken-road journey to
the grave." And then you say a little prayer
for the tiniest outcast. And then you drive through
McDonald's for some fries that you'll
eat in the car and never tell anyone about.
The camera pans
out to the audience and HOLY SHIT! IT'S BILL FORD.
THE BILL FORD! EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN OF THE FORD
MOTOR COMPANY! THAT BILL FORD! GOLLY! I, AS A
VIEWER, LOVE IT WHEN CORPORATE TITANS SIT IN
THE AUDIENCE OF A SINGING COMPETITION! BECAUSE YOU KNOW
WHAT? FUCK DENISE RICHARDS AND DAVID HASSELHOFF! IS
EITHER OF THEM AN AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY HEIR? DO THEY
RECLINE LEISURELY AT A DESK FOR 90 ENTIRE MINUTES EACH DAY
AND GIVE CAR ORDERS? NO. ONLY THAT GUY BILL FORD DOES THAT.
Next week some guy named Eugene Coca-Cola is going to
be in the front row.
So this
week's theme is "inspirational songs."
And I used to believe I knew what that meant. I think
of the songs in the hymnals of the old Southern
Baptist churches I grew up in. My favorite of these was
"Softly and Tenderly," the one that
goes, "come home, come home, ye who are weary
come home." It's about the nice Jesus and not
the jerk-face version that most Christians these days
seem to favor. Anyway, I have a feeling no one will
sing it tonight, although Kristy Lee Cook could get quite a
bit of mileage out of it if she felt like it.
Up first is
Michael Johns. He's going to sing "Dream
On." Wait... which "Dream
On" is he talking about? Oh, the Aerosmith
"Dream On." Not that I knew of any other
song called "Dream On." But since the
Aerosmith "Dream On" IN NO WAY COUNTS AS
AN "INSPIRATIONAL SONG," I just naturally
assumed that I was missing something. Oh, I'm
not? That's what we're going to be about
tonight? Great.
Johns talks about
how the song is proof that dreams come true. Then he
sings it. "Every tiiiiiiime that I look in the
mirror... I wonder if these paaaaants make my
butt look faaaat...."
All right, he
didn't sing that. But it would have been a lot cooler
if'n he had. In fact, I have a better idea for
tonight. Make them all do wacky novelty songs. Bring
in Dr. Demento as a guest judge. Johns can just quit
this sub-Steven Tyler impersonation right now and sing
"I Lost on Jeopardy" by Weird Al.
Anyway, he's got his lucky ascot cinched tightly
around his neck, forcing out a strangled falsetto near the
end. Message: "My dreams! They're
typical!"
The judges
aren't into it. But you know what I mean by that.
Simon and Randy aren't into it. Paula's
always into it. In fact, tonight she's
also kind of irritable, laying the praise on thick and
being combative with Simon and Randy at the same time. It
could be because her dress is making her boobs all
smashy and they hurt. It could be any number of
reasons. But I'm glad it's happening. The
camera cuts to Sinbad in the audience. Remember him? I
do. He was in Good Burger. That wasn't a bad
movie.
Did you know that
Syesha and Ramiele were close? Me neither. But they
were. "That was my roommate since Hollywood
week," says Syesha. And we now know that
"that" equals "she" in whatever
English usage book Syesha got her learnin'
from. And yes, I just ended a sentence with a
preposition. Ever heard of artistic license? Syesha also
says, "She's the only one who really got
me." Don't you mean "that,"
honey? Make up your mind. What I also like about that
sentence is the aggressive (and kinda oops-y)
assertion that none of the other Idols get her or her unique
brand of specialness and baby-laughter. Maybe they just
stopped trying.
Syesha is going
to sing "I Believe," made famous by Fantasia,
"because if you believe in yourself, then
anything is possible." Syesha also says of
Fantasia, "That's my idol." So now
we're back to "that" again.
As for "I
Believe," it's almost an inspirational song
because it's got a choir. And because anything
Fantasia sings sounds like it was meant to be sung in
church, even "Baby Mama." But why, Syesha,
why? Why would you subject yourself to the comparisons
that will undoubtedly arise? Did being dwarfed and
chilled by Whitney Houston's "I Will Always
Love You" shadow not provide you with enough
hassle? You want more? To perform a song known solely
as the property of the best singer this show's ever
had? Wouldn't you prefer to sing my selection for
you, a little song from the '80s called
"Super Bowl Shuffle?" No? All right. Do that
Fantasia song and fall on your face.
But she
doesn't really fall that much. It's not the
Diana DeGarmo version, at least. It's fine. And
yet the fact remains that pretty singing is not always
the best singing. I say this as often as I can because
it's true: Fantasia finds the exact right moment in
everything she sings and then she puts the Stank on
it. She drives a dump truck down the gravelly bottom
of her soul and picks up a load of fresh grief and
then it comes out as singing. Randy, critiquing Syesha,
talks about Fantasia's "special
connection" to the material. Syesha's
response: "What do you mean?"
See?
Jason Castro is
going to do the Iz version of "Over the
Rainbow."
"What's an Iz?" I ask Xtreem Aaron,
seated next to me on the couch. "I thought this
version of the song was from Bobby McFerrin."
Xtreem Aaron
works at a record store, so he knows things. "No.
It's by Iz," he says.
"He's this 700-pound dead Hawaiian guy who
played a ukulele. He's the only guy we really
sell much of in the Hawaiian music section. He would
take off his shirt on record covers. Chicks hanging on
him. He died of fatness. They eat a lot of Spam in
Hawaii."
I think this is a
lie and go look up Iz online. And yes, in fact, he did
die at age 38. Of fatness. He was 758 pounds, and this made
him unable to breathe. So now Castro is going to strum
a uke and sing it like Iz. And why? To show that
"dreams really do come true," says
Castro.
OH, GOOD. MORE
DREAMS.
My own dream, of
course, is that Castro sing "Junk Food
Junkie." It's this song from one-hit
wonder Larry Groce about whole grains and yogurt that
was, believe it or not, was an actual hit single in the
1970s. So now you know about Iz and Larry Groce. Then
Castro sings the song and rearranges the order of the
lyrics, making them not rhyme, doing whatever he
likes. Great. Awesome. Nice gay sweater you got on there
too, man. I'm also really into the little metal
dreadlock rings you've got stuck to your head.
I love hair jewelry on men. How long until I
don't have to listen to this guy anymore? The judges
love him, of course. Even Simon, who calls him
"fantastic."
I'd really
like to hear Kristy Lee Cook do the mildly naughty
"Telephone Man." (You might need to
YouTube that one to loosen it from your personal
sticky heap of discarded memories.) But Seacrest introduces
her as "determined not to be in the bottom
three," so what I'd like doesn't
really matter. And in order to stay out of purgatory,
she's going to poison all the other contestants
with nerve gas that she's learned how to eject
from the whites of her eyes while she simultaneously sings a
song she wrote herself called "God, Flag,
Jesus, America, Troops, Pie, Me. Also Puppies. And
Oprah." And what I mean by that is that she's
singing a Martina McBride song called
"Anyway." And so far, while the personality
reels have unspooled, each Idol has talked about giving back
and inspiring others and helping people, since
it's Idol Gives Back week and all. But Kristy
Lee Cook spends her minute or so talking about how this
song is about how she's going to not give up and
"give it [her] best shot." So this
is an inspirational song -- about Kristy Lee
Cook's career potential.
Randy calls it
slightly pitchy before claiming to love it. Paula
interrupts him and tells him to lay off the pitch
commentary. That no one ever tells Paula to lay off
the stupidhead commentary is not even the point. The
point is I love her when she's a nutjob and tonight
she's like a cat in a bag. Randy gets into it
with her. Her response: "What. Eh. Vrr."
And then she goes on to tell Kristy Lee Cook that it was her
best performance ever (proof that anything sounds good
with a big gospel choir of professional backup singers
behind it) and that Paula remembers when Martina
McBride herself sang that very song on that stage. She
doesn't actually have a point in mind when she
says it. She just wants everyone to know that her
short-term memory isn't completely shot to hell
yet.
Following some
commercials (and I know I've not written anything
about any of the commercials this season, but I
haven't felt "inspired" to do so
yet, nor has it been my "dream" -- maybe after
Idol Gives Back I'll feel like doing it.)
Seacrest is down in the audience with the judges. Some
guy with terrible hair is sitting on Simon's lap AND
IT'S MIKE DARNELL, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! AN
EXECUTIVE AT FOX! HOW WILL THE ROOM CONTAIN THE
VOLCANO-SIZE THRILLS THAT COME FROM AUTOMOTIVE BOSSES AND TV
SUITS DOTTING THE SCREEN?! I'm personally going to
need two cups of chamomile tea and a Xanax that I
normally save for terrifying air travel just to come
down from all this.
David Cook is up
next, singing a song by his favorite band, Our Lady
Peace.
No, really, his
favorite band is Our Lady Peace.
Not that
I'm all stunned by that, of course. Remember how
Daughtry's favorite band was Live?
You're not a real "rocker" on
American Idol unless you're stone in love
with some piece-of-shit-boring band. Why can't
there ever be anyone who says, "Yeah, I like
the Fall." Oh, yeah, that's right, because
they would never even audition for the show if they
were into that sort of thing. My dumb.
The admission of
Our Lady Peace fandom inspires this question from Xtreem
Aaron: "Is that one of those
trick-you-into-not-knowing-they're-Christian
bands like Switchfoot?"
"No," I say. "They're just
Canadian."
"I heard
Insane Clown Posse were suddenly all Christian now,"
says Xtreem Aaron. "But I could have heard that
wrong."
"How can
that be?" I ask. "All their songs are about
rape."
"They had
more songs about Faygo than rape," says Xtreem
Aaron.
"I'll have to look into that," I say.
But it's settled. David Cook should sing the
Faygo song about yo-yos and pony rides and how Faygo
remembers. (Again, YouTube will help you if you
don't know what I'm talking about.
They've got more on there than just Brenda Dickson,
you know.) And while the Faygo jingle doesn't
exactly count as a novelty song, nothing by Our Lady
Peace probably counts as "inspirational,"
either. David Cook sings the shitty Our Lady Peace
song, whatever it's called. Something about how
we're all innocent. Oh, really, David Cook?
We're all innocent? Because I tend to think
that we've all got blood on our hands, myself. And
you are at least personally guilty of wearing AN UGLY
WHITE JACKET THAT EVEN ADAM ANT WOULDN'T
TOUCH.
And when
he's done singing, he's still not done being
king of the dipshits, holding up his hand to the
camera and revealing the words "give
back" in lowercase letters followed by a period,
bowing his head in Bono-like prayer.
I prefer all
caps. It gets your point across better:
Simon tells David
Cook that he didn't like the performance. But I
should just transcribe it, really, because
Paula's pestering, screeching, and whining in
this moment needs to be read in its entirety.
Simon: David, I
didn't like this performance very much at all...
Paula: Ugh!
Simon: I thought
it was a --
Paula: WHAT IS
WRONG?!
Simon: I thought
it was a teensy-weensy bit pompous
Paula: POMPOUS?!
Simon: Yeah, I
didn't like the
Paula: Did you --
Simon: -- the
whole white jacket
Randy: I like the
white jacket!
Paula: Did you
see what he --
Simon: And David
you know we say --
Paula: UH-UH!
Simon: -- this
week after week after week: originality, choice of song,
and something you're going to remember in two or
three days. And this for me --
Paula: WHUH-UH!
AH-AH!
Simon: Was your
weakest performance in the last --
Simon stops and
reaches for Paula's hand and says, "Calm.
Down."
In response, she
recoils and balls up her hands in fists that she pulls
away as if Simon's hands are covered in poop.
"Don't!" she warns.
"I'm not going to touch you," says
Simon. And then back to David Cook, while Paula gives
the camera an expression of deep, deranged disgust,
"It just wasn't anywhere near as good as
the last two weeks."
Best of all, even
better than Paula's freak-out, is that David Cook is
now seething with rage.
Carly's
turn. I listened to her entire "Carly
Hennessy" album again this past week, and
I've decided that I'm glad it fizzled. She
sounded girly and malleable on that album, and I think
that failure made her a more interesting person. When
I hear her sing now, even though she's still
really young, she sounds grown and a little tougher, which
is way more appealing and, frankly, the only road she
can travel now that she's married to the most
extremely inked man in San Diego.
And I have an
apology to make to her. I'm sorry for liking you so
much, Carly. It seems that I've had nothing but
the ability to cast sing-bad and/or go-home-too-early
hexes on my favorite Idol contestants for years now.
I got lucky by loving Kelly and Fantasia. But after
that it was all Paris Bennett and Melinda Doolittle
and the Hotness. None of them won. And poor the
Hotness; she didn't even make it to Hollywood.
Anyway, what
I'm trying to say here, Carly, is that you're
not awesome tonight when you sing Queen's
"The Show Must Go On." (my choice, Barnes
& Barnes' s"Fish Heads." Even
better? Their little-heard, impossible-to-find
"I Had Sex With E.T.") It was screamy, and now
I'm kind of sad. You're the best singer
in this whole bunch, and while earlier this week I
thought that maybe the show itself was going to do you
in by intentionally sabotaging you (I bought "Here
You Come Again" from iTunes and was dismayed to
hear it syruped up with strings and sweetness and
echo, when what you really need is someone to give you some
stark, spooky production to make that song sound as fretful
as it could, someone like T. Bone Burnett or Jack
White, anybody but whoever the boobs were that tried
to dress you up in an aural pinafore), I now see that you
are, in fact, capable of doing it by yourself. Stop that
now, please. I want you to stick around and keep on
scaring the Archie-loving tweens with your
witchy-womanishness.
Meanwhile, Simon
totally misses the point of her tonight and calls her
performance "angry." Well, yeah. So what?
Anger's inspirational too.
Archuleta time.
No anger there. Only the grim determination not to
disappoint. I think he should give us a ballady
"Pac-Man Fever," but he's going
to do "Angels" by Robbie Williams. "At
least it's not another fucking song about
having dreams," I say to Xtreem Aaron.
"I have a
dream about him," says XA. "I want him to be
tortured in the next Hostel
movie."
And while this
does sound appealing, and though I think I should stress
that I'm not a fan, nor will I become one, I'm
developing a low-level case of the feel-sorries for
this kid. Because he is just a kid. And that thing
that everyone sees as false humility is beginning to
look like a fairly serious level of social
awkwardness, terror, and a genuine inability to deal with
praise of any sort. Remember Katherine McPhee's
father and how he'd sit in the audience and cry
because he was so blown away and proud of his child?
Contrast that with Papachuleta, who looks like nothing so
much as the mean Little League coach, ball cap screwed
on tight, applauding a lot from the sidelines in a way
that looks like approval, meanwhile inside he's
yelling "Hustle! Hustle! You dropped that fly ball,
you fucking fairy!"
Cut to a VERY
YOUNG GIRL in the audience holding a gruesomely sexual
homemade sign. It's got a photocopy of the
Archu-cabeza on it and it reads, in all caps: LICK
THOSE LIPS!!! Where are the parents?
Brooke White is
going to sing "You've Got a Friend"
from Carole King's Tapestry album instead of
my choice for her, Ray Stevens's "The
Streak." But Carole King makes sense, especially
since Brooke seems to have raided Jan Brady's
closet for that hideous dress she's got on and
Marcia's wig room for the ironed,
parted-down-the-middle hair. And dang, tonight she
MEANS IT. WITH THE FACE. Where was all this angst when
you sang "Jolene?"
And that ends
episode one of THREE. FUCKING THREE.
Now on to Idol
Gives Back. My question here is, How do I recap a 2-1/2
hour show without:
(a) getting
carpal tunnel
(b) losing my
mind
(c) hating
orphans
The answer is
that I plan to skim mercilessly. And that's because I
feel very strongly about telethon-style shows being
almost useless in real-life terms. I know that the
biggest TV show in the country should definitely be
doing something to raise the issues of global economic
injustice. But that's not what this show does. It
emphasizes one-shot charity and does it with feel-good
misery. I went back to my recap of last year's
show and found something I'd already written. Here it
is again because it still applies:
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.
I will admit that
in 1984 I bought "Do They Know It's
Christmas?" just like everyone else. But you
know what? That famine was caused by a civil war waged
by Ethiopia's own government. Frankie Goes to
Hollywood, admirable activists though they were,
didn't really help anyone that much by allowing
themselves to be bossed around by Bob Geldof for 24 hours.
And it's this kind of temporary conscience-salve that
builds up over time into "compassion
fatigue" and makes people wonder why nothing they do
is of any lasting help. So yeah, send in five bucks.
Then go vote for John McCain in November. And keep
wondering why everything sucks so bad. Oh, and by the
way, Exxon/Mobil? Thanks for your sponsorship. Howsabout
dipping into those hundreds of billions of dollars in
profits you clear every year and making this show
unnecessary?
OK,
quickly:
1. The So You
Think You Can Dance Kids join the idols for
"Don't Stop the Music." When they get
to the mama-say-mama-sah-mama-ku-sah part the cameras
cut to Archuleta who seems like he's about to
hyperventilate. IS NOT A BALLAD! DO NOT WANT! HOW TO
SING?!
2. Celebrities
begging for your cash = Jimmy Johnson, George Lopez, Kylie
Minogue, Maria Shriver, Ben Stiller, Kobe Bryant with a
bandage on his face, Triple H, Randy and Paula, Mary
Murphy, the Jonas Brothers, Billy Crystal and Miley
Cyrus pretending not to know who the other one is in a
bit that goes on for a very, very, very long time, Julianne
Moore, John Cena and his exceptionally impressive
forearms, Adam Sandler, Eli and Peyton Manning talking
about how New Orleans is still all fucked up, Posh and
Becks--OK, I have to talk about Posh and Becks. Have
you actually heard them speak? They're like
urchins out of Oliver Twist. Americans think everyone
over there sounds like Helena Bonham Carter or Emma
Thompson in a Merchant-Ivory movie. But these two are
like, "I dropped a hunna-thousand quid at
'arrods last week, me! Got a Balenciaga scarf. Ace!
Cor! Blimey! Bubble-n-squeak! Thanks
guv'nah!" After them comes Kiefer Sutherland,
Celine Dion, Jimmy Kimmel (who wisely spends his time
insulting Simon Cowell's haircut and huge
nipples), Whoopi Goldberg, Ellen DeGeneres, Forest
Whitaker and his wife, Sarah Silverman (who manages not to
mock malaria or AIDS but does goof on Mrs. Whitaker),
Keith Urban, Reese Witherspoon, Dane Cook, Alicia
Keys, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Rob Schneider,
Tyra Banks, David Spade, and Brad Pitt dressed like a hobo.
3. Jennifer
Connelly appears in a truly powerful and affecting clip
about the fact that one fifth of the world's
population doesn't have access to clean
drinking water. Of course, all it says at the end is
"HELP." Not even a URL.
4. Snoop
performs. It's uneventful. His microphone is
bejeweled out the ass.
5. Teri Hatcher
performs with a band of TV people playing in her band. I
recognize that adorable Greg Grunberg playing drums and the
guy from Desperate Housewives on guitar. I
don't know anyone else. Teri Hatcher sings as
well as I do.
6. Miley Cyrus
performs twice, which means that my 6-year-old niece is
bouncing off the ceiling of my brother's house back
in Texas right now.
7. The idols are
all "manning the phones." This is, I have zero
doubt, 100% fake. They all have silver MacBooks on
their little tables and pads of paper they scribble
things on while they pretend to talk to actual human
beings. Ramiele probably is secretly chatting
with Danny Noriega ("Girrrl, you
can't believe what they've got me doing here.
No, for real..."). And I like the idea
that anyone would feel comfortable entrusting their credit
card information to Jason Castro or Amanda Overmyer,
and that the kids are dutifully writing down those
16-digit numbers and getting the spelling of
people's names right and then handing over their pads
of paper to a production assistant who'll have
to decipher their handwriting. After that the list
will be delivered to Bono, who'll provide matching
funds from his own petty cash drawer.
8. Fergie sings.
ACK. And with Heart, no less. I didn't know that
incredibly awesome band Heart needed Fergie's
assistance with "Barracuda." But
apparently they do. Impressive one-handed cartwheels,
though, Fergie. I can't deny that.
9. Is it weird
that the most wrenching moment of the evening comes when
Annie Lennox visits Africa and goes to a house of young boys
in who are raising themselves because their parents
died of AIDS and then she breaks down into convulsive,
heaving sobs? These aren't stray fake tears of the
"I'm sorry, I told myself I wouldn't do
this" school. This is blubbering. You half
expect Seacrest to break in and say, "Your donation
will help Annie Lennox pull herself back
together." Then she sings a truly moving
version of "Many Rivers to Cross."
10. Carrie
Underwood sings. Then Gloria Estefan and Sheila E. come out
and do "Get On Your Feet." And Sheila E., who
remains a complete bad-ass, wrecks shit and knocks her
drums over. Then the idols sing "Seasons of
Love" from Rent. What, Fergie's too
busy to help?
11. Robin
Williams pretends to be Russian. I don't...I
just...it's...look, I know this guy
named Eddie who's kind of a...I don't
know what he'd call himself, like a
"healer" maybe. I like to think of him as a
warlock. I think he's in a real coven and
everything. It's pretty awesome. He makes these
magick oils and soaps that are supposed to make things
disappear or attract money or sex or peace or
whatever. I'm going to buy some "Get
Lost Forever, Robin Williams" soap and take a very
hot shower.
12. Daughtry
sings and then my TiVo cut off at the 2:31 mark. I think I
missed Mariah. Fuck.
And now on to
Chopped and Screwed Night. Except I'm kind of fed up
now and pretty beat. And the show doesn't make
it easier to love by forcing the Idols to sing a super
Jesus-centric gospel song. I mean, I know that most
gospel songs are about Jesus. And I got no beef with Jesus.
It's just that this one is REALLY REALLY SUPER
ABOUT JESUS. Xtreem Aaron asks, "Is this
legal?"
I'm
wondering this myself, since the song starts with "My
Jesus, my savior, Lord there is none like
yooooooo" and only ramps up the 700 Club-isms
from that point on. The husband/partner/whatever,
who's finally made it to watching his first
moments of Idol all week and who is a total
atheist, says, after giving me a WTF look and a mild
harrumph, "I believe in the separation of
church and American Idol."
Being the gospel
music fan in the house, I have to say that this song
would make me very happy if I heard it in church. If I ever
went to church. And I do appreciate that the biggest
belting and wailing chores have been given to Carly
the tattooed barmaid. So I guess I'm OK with it.
Xtreem Aaron sums it up with, "Now will they sing
'Shout at the Devil?'"
And I'm
just blowing off the rest of this. Everything. The Ford
commercial, the continued begging for cash, the clip of
celebrities lip-syncing to "I'm a
Believer," Jordin Sparks dueting with Chris Brown.
All of it. Because while I still like orphans, my arms
hurt.
The bottom three
are Carly, Syesha, and Michael Johns. The best part of
this is when Syesha looks directly into the camera, throws a
sexy face, and mouths the words "bottom
three." It almost makes me care about her fate.
And then the Aussie gets kicked off. And since I care about
him even less than I care about Syesha, I'm not
upset. I wonder if I can drive over to Pico in time to
watch them pull the scrim over his mug? That would be
interesting to watch.