It's
almost over. In mere weeks there will be only frustrating
presidential campaigns, ongoing wars for oil, recession,
global warming, and the aftermath of the Myanmar
catastrophe to occupy your mind. We'll each have to
cope in our own ways. Grand Theft Auto 4 -- or is it 5 --
might be an option.
So I'm in
Rowlett, Texas, this week. It usually happens that at least
once during an American Idol season that I end
up back home in Texas for a week to visit my mom at her
nursing home and hang out with my brother
and sister-in-law and their three kids.
It's a
whole other experience watching the show with them than with
a big pack of gays. First of all, my family actually
cares, which is an emotion I've been unfamiliar with
since the third season ended, notwithstanding my
momentary eagerness to see The Boogie single-handedly
implode the entire setup or my unashamed,
still-correct affection for Carly Smithson.
These are the
family members I've written about who go to the same
conservative evangelical church as Jason Castro, who, by the
way, begins the show by yawning right into the camera,
a move that I can't deny is both a strong and
happiness-giving protest statement about ... something
... plus it's visually compelling.
Look, everyone! I couldn't be less excited to
be here! Archuleta can't eat on performance day,
but I can't stop nodding off!
Anyway, it's the
tangential association between my family and JC that
will provide this recap with something a little special: no
bad swears. Like none. My family will want to read
about themselves and they don't like it when I use the
"f" word or the "sh" word or, well, any of those
words. You're welcome, non-profanity-using family
members. I hope you understand that you're cramping my
vibrant literary style. Furthermore, it's also
what's kept me all season long from joining in
the chorus of media voices telling the dreaded one to put
down the bong and practice his songs. Because guess
what? If my sources are correct, he's not high.
He's just a doofus.
My 12-year-old
niece has her favorites (Archie and Cook, of course), my
sister-in-law loves the show for its own sake, my brother
can barely stand to be in the room when it's
on, pausing in the living room only long enough to
wonder aloud why we waste our time watching when there are
perfectly good hockey games featuring brutal fights
readily available on other channels.
I have to agree
with him on the brutal fights. This show would be way
more awesome if there were actual blood spilled. Oh, look,
it's Antonella Barba in the audience. Or
Jamie-Lynn Sigler. One of them, at least. I think.
Maybe if they were both there, they could fight and my
brother might stop and watch.
Oh, and
there's Carly sitting right behind the judges. Carly
Smithson, I mean. You know, THE BEST SINGER
THEY'VE HAD ALL SEASON LONG? REMEMBER HER?
It's Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame Week (and please note that during the
montage-y clip part where they explain what the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame means to the uninitiated, that the
music-bed is a Kiss song. Kiss are not in the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame, just so you know). But it might as
well be Tribute to Martin Denny Week for as much as rock and
roll means to the remaining Idols, since the show usually
only allows one "rock" cast member per season. And it
means even less to this season's "rock" cast member,
David "I [Heart] Our Lady Peace" Cook. No, I won't let
it go. I won't. Would it kill him to like some better
bands? Wouldn't it be more excellent for everyone who
has to come anywhere near him if he didn't become Scott
Stapp? Or Chad Kroeger? Or ... I don't
know... any of those other guys in any of those other
awful bands. I mean, maybe those two are both really nice,
kind to their old nonfamous friends, maybe bought
their moms nice houses and whatnot. A pony for the
baby sister. But could their music stop sucking so much that
it feels like I'm being screwdriver-surgeried in my skull
when I hear it? Could he not become that person? Could
he stop being those people now, please?
So here he is,
Cook, ready to cover Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the
Wolf." He's grown his beard out a little more to
provide some visual accompaniment to the song, even
though it's not actually about a wolf. Or even
a wild dog. It's about Simon LeBon having a groupie brought
to his hotel room by one of the roadies, then chasing
her around the hot tub until she passes out from the
effects of a speedball. Next day? In a taxi, cash in
hand, doesn't remember where it came from or how she got in
the car, cabbie's been given a note that reads, "Drop the
bird off at Harvey Nichols."
Cook howls and he
whines, he pouts and he chews, he bares his wolf-teeth,
all the while taking a casual walk back and forth onstage.
It's not called "Strolling Like the Wolf,"
dude. Stalk that imaginary prey! Put some jungle war
paint on your face and go!
But no one ever
listens to me.
And of course
Paula likes it so much she stands up in her seat to dance
in place in her yellow dress, a wiggly banana-lady who, when
it's her turn to comment, says that Cook made
her hungry for even more. Of him. Nice. (P.S.: This
song was also sung by the Big Bad Wolf in Shrek 2 for
the "Far Far Away Idol" contest. I'm not sure
why I remember that.)
Syesha sings
"Proud Mary." The Whitley from A Different World
version. Fast, yes. Hair-throwy, yes.
Sparkly-costumed, yes. The hips, refusing to lie? Yes.
Squeaky-clean, a thousand times yes. Does Syesha know what
Tina Turner used to sound like back in the 1960s when
she was living The Pain and scorching every stage she
landed on? Could Kathleen Battle out-grit this girl
right now? I'm guessing no to the former and yes to the
latter. If I were watching this episode on an iPod, it
would be so easy just to put one of those Fantasia
postage stamps on the tiny screen to cover Syesha's
face and travel to another, shoutier place in my
imagination. I learned how to do that sort of thing by
reading lots of books, young people. Never
underestimate their power.
Mr. Castro has
become suddenly fascinating to me. Just last week he told
Entertainment Weekly that he was a touch
freaked out by a fan sending him 150 balloons and that he
was kind of ready to be sent home. But hey, JC, guess
what? I've got Uma Thurman on the phone here with me
and she's got some stalker stories she wants to tell
you about, ones that'll make your dreadlocks freeze and fall
off your head like murderous icicles impaling all the
shorter people below you.
So now I'm very
ready for him to sing Nena's "99 Luftballons" in honor
of his touch with superfandom and all its attendant
slash-fiction and unsettling gift-getting
opportunities. Instead, he goes with "I Shot the
Sheriff," a highly specific, politically charged Bob Marley
song that makes as much contextual sense on the Idol
stage as "Jesus Christ Superstar." But, unlike Carly,
WHO'S BETTER THAN ALL OF THESE PEOPLE IN CASE YOU'D
FORGOTTEN, he can't pull off his choice. I've heard versions
of this song sung at dorm-room keggers that feel more
authentically reggae. He's not shooting any sheriffs,
but he's about to take out both his own feet.
"What were you
thinking?" asks Simon?
"I WUZ THINKIN'
'BOUT BOB MARLEY! YEAH!" grins JC. Meanwhile, in
Rastafarian Heaven or wherever he is, Bob Marley is thinking
about building a time machine so that he can go
unwrite that song. As his numbers are flashed
on-screen, it appears that the man is mouthing the
words "Don't vote" to the viewers. Dang, I
hope so.
What's
David Archuleta wearing on his shirt? Bats? Doves? A flock
of seagulls? He sings "Stand by Me." My sister-in-law
says, "He kind of reminds me of Clay Aiken."
"Really?" I say.
"Yeah, something
about him. Like he's not of this time."
"I hate Clay
Aiken's hair," says my 12-year-old niece, referring
to the current Aiken Spamalot coif. This
prompts a TiVo pause and my explanation that Clay's
audience is more like women who are our parents' ages
and that Archie is for girls slightly younger than the
12-year-old niece. He's like a Jonas Brother, or the boy
Hannah Montana. My opinion is met with a general sense of
agreement. Seacrest tells Archuleta that he appears as
though he's going to pass out. Poor child.
You'd be going to pass out too if the Great Sing-tini
was out in the crowd, waiting to dress you down for slight
vocal imperfections after the show.
And then they all
do it again. Cook's back and I get a better view of
the beard this time. All sculpty, like he decided
where to stop shaving at the bottom of it to make it
"neat." I've never been a fan of that manicured thing.
I like scruff, not topiary. And another thing, his
clothes. They gotta go. Not that I want to see him naked. I
just want all "rocker outfits" to leave this planet on
a spaceship headed for the sun. I know this is coming
from a man who wears pretty much nothing but boots,
jeans, and black T-shirts with band logos on them. But I
think that's a fairly simple combination. The
rings and the skulls and the shiny coats and the
necklaces and leather studded bracelets and the straps
and hooks and snaps and WALLET CHAINS and "graphic tees"
and everything else, however, scream of trying hard.
It's is like wearing a sign on your back that
says, "Kick me. I don't really listen to Motorhead at
all. Not even once."
So he does "Baba
O'Riley." It's fine. Could it be the clothes
that have made me dislike him this entire time? Also the
hair? Oh, wait, now he's yelling "teenage
wasteland" in that totally fake-sincere emotional way
he does, and then ends it like Pat Boone. So I just
remembered why I dislike him. Sincerity is gay.
Syesha is going
to do "A Change Is Gonna Come," which is this amazing
Sam Cooke song. Syesha talks about all the parallels between
the song being popular at the time of the civil rights
movement, which, she explains, was "a pivotal moment
in history," and then about how her own life is at a
pivotal moment.
So, um ...
Syesha, sweetie ... I think you just compared your
career to the civil rights movement? I mean, I'm going
to give you the benefit of the doubt here that you can
weigh the difference. I'm feeling generous. Especially
since at the end of the song the following things happen:
1. Carly leaps to
her feet in a standing ovation. LOOK HOW CLASSY CARLY
IS BEING!
2. Paula stands
up and applauds too, then breaks down and cries.
3. Syesha breaks
down and cries even harder.
It's all very
sweet and heartfelt and kinda real (and necessary, frankly,
because with Brooke gone, someone needed to pick up the
slack on public weeping). Also? Great dress. Did Rami
make that for her? Jason Castro could come out right
now and invent a new way to create fire and he'd still
be doomed.
Good thing, then,
that he comes out and SUCKS IT EVEN HARDER than he did
the first time onstage.
He picks a nice
song. though, "Mr. Tambourine Man." I hope he does the
William Shatner version. Then he'd have his go-home wish all
locked up.
"What's
that song?" asks my sister-in-law.
"You'll know it
when you hear it," I tell her. She does. In fact, I
think she may have been able to sing it from memory better
than JC manages to do because in the middle of the
chorus, he blanks on the words "in the jingle-jangle
morning" and just goes, "unh unh unh unh unh unh unh
unh" instead. So, no Shatner. But close.
Then Archuleta
sings "Love Me Tender," boils all the sex out of
Elvis, and brings down the house. Not necessarily the house
I'm sitting in, of course. But that house there. And
probably some other ones,too.
On to Elimination
Night ...
It seems easy to
call now. Jason goes tonight, Syesha next week, then The
Davids fall into line with Archie at #1 and Cook at #2.
Cook's older fans don't vote as much, I'm
figuring. But then anything could happen. I mean LOOK
AT CARLY.
But what does it
matter, really? They've all gotten major media exposure.
Danny Noriega will probably put out an album and tour around
at gay pride festivals. Amanda Overmyer will figure
something out that will allow her to take blood
pressure and holler out "Me and Bobby McGee" to some
paying customers on her off-hours. That one guy in the a
cappella group is going to continue a cappella-ing
himself all over the place, I'm sure. So no, Seacrest,
it's not exactly correct when you say that "their
future rests in your hands" when you open the show
tonight. It just doesn't. If it did, The Boogie's win
would have translated into Daughtry-like record sales.
So would have Jordin Sparks's (and don't talk to me
about "No Air," because that's a Chris Brown
piggyback ride and everyone knows it). The good news is that
this show is ultimately meaningless. The future is
wide open. Even for Jason Castro, who gets to exit
gleefully tonight, and who could probably wind up with
a Christian pop career if he wanted one. I know he hasn't
been overtly Christian on the show, of course, so in a
way he's like those stealth school-board
candidates who want to have evolution taken out of the
science books but don't tell you that until they win the
election. But something tells me he's not that
insidious. That would require effort. He's more like
someone in Switchfoot.
And in addition
to meaningless, I also think this show is a big fat liar.
How is it that the ratings can be slipping and
the votes at an all-time high like Seacrest says? How dat?
But who cares.
It's time for:
1. Group singing.
"Reelin' in the Years," featuring the worst,
walk-back-and-forth-onstage nonchoreography I've ever seen
in my entire life. And yeah, I realize that sounds
hyperbolic. But no. It's not. Meanwhile, one of the
big men behind this show, Nigel Lythgoe, was the
choreographer of one of the most mind-shredding musicals
ever, 1980's The Apple, a glitter-disco-rock
musical about the futuristic
entertainment-industry-controlled world of 1994.
You'd think he'd have intervened in this
current debacle I'm witnessing here, thrown some
sequins on everyone, wrapped them in aluminum foil, and
forced them to do jerky New Wave motions onstage or
something. It's not like he doesn't know how.
2. Archuleta is
safe. Like you were wondering.
3. Footage of the
Idols going to Las Vegas on a private jet. The private
jet had its own big bed. Jason Castro lies down on it and
says, in what may be the most mocking tone of voice
I've heard him use all season, "Sleeping in the sky.
Whoo-hoo-hoo. Cool." Dude, you are giving me so many
gifts this week, you have no idea. Then they see
Love, the Beatles Cirque du Soleil show. The
camera cuts to some dolphins jumping out of a pool. No
reason for this, really. It's just fun to watch
dolphins in captivity in the middle of a Nevada
desert. Then we see a fan grab Castro and kiss him. His
response: "Scary."
4. Cutting to the
chase, because do you want to know about boring old
Maroon 5 or Bo Bice singing? No, you don't. I just decided
for you. Jason Castro gets the shove. And I've never
seen anyone seem so happy about it in seven seasons of
watching this frightfest of a show. He was a dolphin
in the desert. A bong with no weed. A man with no memory.
And now he gets to go home and relax and -- oh, wait.
The tour. Sorry, Mystical Hair Dude. You're
still 19 Entertainment's slave.