AMERICAN IDOL

Season 4: I Could Have Danced All Night

Hello, people, Ryan Sleazebag is back to remind all of you what you are missing when you got his talk show canned last year. Yes, you. How could you? Don't you enjoy watching his hair-gelled coxcomb, Botoxed face, smirky pout, and shiny white teeth as he talk about all kinds of vapid in his salesman voice? You have made Sleazebag very, very angry, and all of you will pay, pay, and pay. Think about that, fools, while the show moves on to the credits.

Today, we will be visiting two places, Orlando and Cleveland. Cleveland, first. Sleazebag comes out wearing a see-through pink pastel rose dress and a giant hibiscus on his head and explains why we are going to Cleveland. See, Cleveland is the heart and soul of rock and roll. Back in 1952, he explains, when King Tut was still a teenager and losing his virginity to a coal-powered vacuum cleaner that landed him in a hospital, Alan Freed came up with the name "rock and roll" to describe the "new R&B sounds" that white people were blatantly stealing from black musicians. When this rock and roll sound mutates into the likes of GG Allin defecating onto a female fan's face on stage before throwing himself, soiled and naked, into the crowd, something has gone wrong somewhere, I think, and it's all great. But does it matter? Anyone who is remotely rock and roll will be booted off this show. The only reason we are going to Cleveland is because that's where the crazy, sexually confused girly boys or Mormon virgin girls who look like porn stars are most likely to be found by the truckload.

Sleazebag wonders whether the heart of rock and roll is still beating in Cleveland. Why does he even pretend that there is any place in this show for rock and roll? The only thing that rocks is the hormonal furnace in the loins of overweight teenaged girls with bracers when they gaze upon the Next Girly/Ugly Boi Thing and the only thing that rolls is the money pouring into the studio fat cats' pockets.

It rains heavily in Cleveland. It pours, in fact, over the 15,000 people waiting in the stadium to shake their thang. There is nothing I can say about the obvious symbolism of that scene, really. Some idiot complains that the show provides hotels at other towns but force people to scurry into the nooks and crannies of the stadium for shelter. What, what does he expect? This show doesn't care for rock and roll. This show kills it. Oh, and Ladies Love Cool J, or LL Cool J for short, will be guest judging today, although I'm not sure whether it's for Cleveland only or also for Orlando as well. I'll find out soon enough anyway. The tribute clip talks about his albums and movies but I don't think anyone cares so I won't waste space or time recapping that. I do miss guys like LL Cool J though. During those days, they actually rap - coming up with cute rhymes, delivering them in rapid-fire tongue-twisting rhythm, that sort of thing - while nowadays all I get are ugly short men with bad hair and worse teeth slurring over an unimaginatively sampled beat while getting the whole 'hood and some aspiring porn stars to jump like spastics in a video.

Some sixteen-year old girl Jaclyn Crum who is either at the brink of a hormonal shutdown or an marijuanal high starts weeping and crying even before she gets to enter the audition room and she totally loses it when she sees Miss Paula. Let me guess, she has somehow convinced herself that Miss Paula is her birth mother? She sings just enough to give these people to compare her to Joss Stone. Ah yes, Joss Stone, the nuance-free, subtlety-free instant "street cred" for people who are starting to feel embarrassed about the Avril Lavigne posters in their bedroom. How apt, really, although I'm sure Joss Stone is more discreet about any drug habit that she may or may not have. Randy Randy doesn't think the aptly named Miss Crum is ready (after all, she doesn't sing a Mariah song so That Is Just Not Good, Dawg) but the other three judges let her through. Jaclyn Crum cries some more. I'm starting to like her, if only because I can't wait to see her reaction when she gets cut.

Sarah Sue Kelley is eighteen and runs a business involving karaoke machines. For that, she must pay for her sins, don't you think? She sings I Could Have Danced All Night from My Fair Lady exactly like Eliza Doolittle would if she has graduated from Harvard and is now letting her tonsils rip on a karaoke machine. None of the judges know what to say about this lady who looks more at home in The Apprentice than on this show. King Tut says she doesn't look like a pop star. Sarah generously agrees and says that she comes here just to prove that one doesn't have to look like a Barbie doll to be a star. Since she isn't going to be a star, what does that prove? The music industry is a shallow, sad place? Hey, tell us something we don't know, Sarah. Miss Paula and LL Cool J start jumping on the self-righteous train, praising Sarah's "courage" and "honesty". I wonder, we have seen several overweight women get through in the last few episodes (and let's not even start with the creepy pedophile Miss Angel) so what is the problem with Sarah, exactly? But LL Cool J and Miss Paula are missing the point. Does Miss Paula think she will even have a record deal in the first place if she has three chins and looks like Kathy Najimy's grandmother? Randy Randy is moved to cry out in Barbie's defense that Barbies are people too. Hey, that's understandable, coming from him, because I hear he actually married his blow-up doll.

LL Cool J hugs Sarah because he is so moved by someone coming up and admitting that she is hideous and has no chance in hell to fit in with the pretty people and when Sarah leaves the audition room, everyone outside claps for Sarah because yes, she is one honest and courageous woman who has struck a blow for Real People against the Evil Pretty Coalition by not qualifying to go to Hollywood. Is this like me failing my SATs just to prove that academic achievements promote elitism and it is better if everyone is stupid and therefore everyone is equal? Will someone give me a standing ovation for failing my SATs?

Go back home, Aung San Sue Kelley, and gnaw on some karaoke machines for me, you People's Heroine, you. Just don't leave the house though because pretty people have orders to shoot you on sight.

Losers montage. Gotta love that loser who sings about being wronged by a man. LL Cool J looks spooked by the idea that there may be actually gay men out there in the world, that poor guy. Doesn't this dried-up has-been know that gay porn will be the only career option available to him if he still wants a chance at a career in the entertainment business? Some jokers - like the guy halting every few words or the woman singing in an over-the-top hysterical manner - are too obvious to be genuine. One guy even sings something that comes straight from a computer game. Everyone wants to be the new William Hung, sigh. A guy named Derek sings as if he's looking in a mirror and combing his hair while screeching like a kettle on boil. You know why there is no mirror? It shattered to pieces the moment Derek opens his mouth. King Tut says that Derek's performance is going to be a hit. Derek is so obviously another joker trying to be bad just to get his fifteen seconds William Hung moment of fame.

Sleazebag mentions that Cleveland is some "mistake by the lake", which brings him to Scott Savol. I hope he's not saying that Scott is some "mistake" that should be, you know, gotten rid off. Scott is... I don't know how to say this without getting into more trouble with the PC police. Remember that kid from the movie Simon Birch? Scott has a protective momma who knows that Scott will be bullied by people who don't understand on a show that calls Scott a mistake. Scott says that he loves the show and thinks that the judges are the coolest people ever. And then he sings. By golly, he sings Superstar and it's... woo, Kewpie with a Mental Handicap. This time, we will all get to indulge in our love for asexual girly boys with the added bonus of feeling good about wanting to deflower that kid because we are overlooking his mental state in our haste to get our grubby paws on him. King Tut says that Scott has made Scott's daddy proud. Scott is going to Hollywood!

You do know, right, that they will most likely can him during the workshop? For now, Scott suits this show's agenda nicely. For a short while, this show can pretend to care about fat, ugly people with mental handicaps. And just like how they would donate money to charity only when the camera is rolling, they will ditch Scott by kicking him out the back door when it's time for the shallow and the pretty to shine.

Because if this show cares, it won't tell Aung San Sue Kelley that she can't go on because she is fat while letting Scott go through because while he is fat, he is special because he has a Syndrome. What's the message of the day, kiddies? Being a little fat is not okay, but being fat and brain-wonky is okay.

Day two. King Tut is fed up. He says that there are 15,000 kids left but their chance of entering is 1 in a million. Is that the probability of someone being born with a genetic mental handicap?

And then comes - oh, why do I even bother? A stupid mime starts miming her entire performance. The judges just play along to "singing" but the result is far from funny. Look, I know this show sucks and it's a blow to creativity and artistic spirit and all that nonsense but sheesh, at least be funny when it comes to pretending to suck! Miming a performance - WTF? She falls down in a dead faint for the climax and then wakes up and shakes her head vigorously in an inane attempt to get LL Cool J instead of King Tut to give her mouth-to-mouth. Hey, Mime Ho, for the biggest waste of time in this episode, read my pantomime, bitch. What does my middle finger tell you, huh?

Some fat white guy who lives in a farm insists that he will make Ruben obsolete and after smiling inanely through a song called - surprise - Smile, and everyone acts like it's the best thing ever. He's going through. His happy redneck daddy takes him back to the farm where they will both celebrate by making some cows very happy. Moooo!

Leandra Logan is next. Wait, isn't she that lady who butchered the national anthem in the first episode? Did she come back here to reaudition or did they show her performance out of sequence? She and her sister Lashundra are auditioning and the show played up their differences, although while the Logan sisters mean to be funny, the show pretends not to notice that they are playing around and asks the audience to laugh at Leandra when she jokes about being a "model". I love how this show can move from asking us to applaud the brain-wonkies to laugh at fat women in the blink of an eye. I guess they don't want people to laugh at fat brain-wonky men so much because the men running the show are fat brain-wonkies themselves.

Lashundra sings decently but is cut because the judges think she needs room to grow. On the other hand, Leandra, as the show has already demonstrated in the first episode, is horrible. I have to hand it to her though, she is very enthusiastic when it comes to singing horribly. The judges pretend to hug her when they send her off because she keeps saying that she loves them all and she looks like she's either at the brink of a hysterical weepdown or murderous cannibalistic spree. It's better to be safe than sorry so they all try to pretend that they feel really bad at having to send her off.

Sleazebag's voice, for some reason, comes on and says, "Holler! Holler!" after the Logan sisters left (but not before Lashundra calls King Tut a knucklehead). He then talks about the Hall of Fame, which somehow leads him to introduce Briana Davis, who looks like she's auditioning for a role in Cats. Which is quite appropriate, I guess, when she goes all "Aaaaa-aaaa-aaaaah!" on The Phantom Of The Opera. Because she is not fat, the judges have no hesitation in sending her to Hollywood even if she sings something from a musical. Aung San Sue Kelley can talk about this in her future Nobel-prizewinning speech.

Meet Anatole Fedorov. He looks like an ragdoll someone kicked into the house, so that makes him sexy and hawt among the overweight bracered Stupid Little Girl demographics of the show. He even has a sob story involving tracheas that threaten to cave in on him. He has a girlfriend. Oh no, that will hurt his chances with the Stupid Little Girls out there! And he sings like Kewpie. He is the illegitimate son of Kewpie, a result of Kewpie's secret affair with Simon Birch! Oh boy, puberty for those Stupid Little Girls has finally arrived. The judges compare him to Kewpie. Oh, those people. Don't they get it? The Kewpinites will never, ever allow any other man into their hearts. They will hate this guy for trying to eclipse their personal pie jesu. They will never vote for him because they don't want the possibility that Anatole will be more successful than Kewpie. And in the meantime, people who have been driven insane by the antics of the Kewpinities for the last two seasons of the show will dislike Anatole on sight. Anatole doesn't have a chance, the poor dear. His trachea is functional again but for what reason, alas? He gets to go to Hollywood, predictably.

Sleazebag mentions that 31 people get to go to Hollywood from Cleveland and now announces that the show will be moving to Orlando, the home of boybands and, appropriately enough, the biggest gay festival to be held on a family-friendly tourist attraction owned by the vilest corporate entertainment business of them all. Who knows, Ryan Sleazebag may even be manufactured in a Disney toy factory!



Ah, Orlando. Ryan Sleazebag rides on a box fan ride in guess-where and poses with a pink flamingo. I wonder what he is trying to tell me. 9,000 people showed up, he says. Gee, that is a low number. Either the hurricane has swept all the annoying future boyband members into the sea (ouch, I'm falling straight down into hell right now, aiiiiiyiiii) or these future boyband members are tied up by their gag orders in one of the 10,000 pop star reality shows they have attempted to take part in previously. The crowd of 9,000 idiots go "Woo!" when the camera pans on them. Gotta love that sign which says that they survived Hurricane Charley just to see King Tut. Such dedication should be commended, I believe.

Marissa comes on, talks in a weirdly upbeat manner about how she loves getting feedback from the judges, and then sings White Boys from the musical Hair. Since she's white and she's singing about how she wants to sleep with only white boys, she must be commended for taking a song from One Of Those Musicals Only Gay People Watch More Than Once and turning it into the new KKK anthem. As for her singing, well, imagine a girl screaming when she's on a crazy rollercoaster ride, speed up the scream and turn up the volume, and that's Marissa giving her love to white boys. Bye, bye, dear.

Some silly girl insists that she's the best. She even killed her neighbor's Afghan hound for her outfit today, or so it seems. But of course, she can't sing so poor Fifi the dog died for nothing. Next is a guy who seems to get the concept. He looks like he's been put together using the body parts of other rejects on this show so he probably knows that the only way he will make any impression is by being really bad and singing a novelty tune. Unfortunately, he elicits the wrong kind of response. Instead of Miss Paula going "Awww, what a cute little brainwonk!", she is cringing and going in her addled mind, "Won't someone put this kid out of his misery?"

Vonzell Solomon tries to recapture the Solid Gold era with her outfit, blasts out Chain Of Fools (don't they have any other song to sing?), is fun to watch, and gets in. She calls home and the show asks me to buy the cellphone she is using to call home. Yeah, chain of fools, how apt. Still, that's at least one decent singer in this dreary episode.

The show now presents a montage called Meet The Fakers, which is about people who made it to Hollywood but prefer to pretend that they are rejected just to spook their friends and family members. Am I supposed to find this funny? I really don't understand this. I did laugh though at this silly girl who pretends to be rejected for Sleazebag's favor and Sleazebag just watches her with this glazed, bored-senseless expression on his face. Yes, people, Sleazebag doesn't care. Neither do I. Maybe the impossible will happen one day and Sleazebag will drop by my place to have tea and we will talk about growing up, marrying cute surfer dudes, and living happily after after in a big house at our private OC where we will all be young, beautiful, and perky forever.

Sleazebag wanders into a zoo and bonds with the monkeys. He compares Miss Paula to a lion. Is it the hair?

Here comes some guy who insists that he can't stop dancing, keeps dancing through his barely sung-through too-much-falsetto audition, and King Tut is the only one who says the obvious and compares the idiot's singing to something one can hear "outside of Magic Mountain". Miss Paula likes the guy (read: wants him to meet her under the table after the show) so when tap-dancey feel-good duncey is sent off, she decides that she can't take this show anymore so she wants to quit. She insists that Feel-Good Duncey is better than James Brown (her words, not mine), wah-wah-wah, and when even Randy Randy starts mocking her, she wails that she is so upset that she would kill for Duncey right now. In the end, Duncey tells the camera outside the audition hall that he has received two nays and a yay but he's going to Hollywood because, as he puts it, Miss Paula fought the two judges on his behalf to the brink of tears. Good luck with the under-table snowjob, Duncey. My suggestion is to wear an oxygen mask but if that isn't possible, have penicillin at hand.

As Duncey steels his nerves and heads back into the audition room (well, there is always a price to pay for fame, after all), Sleazebag recaps that sixteen people passed through the Orlando Orifice to Hollywood. And then the show is over just in time to cut Sleazebag off as he and King Tut race to be the first to grab Miss Paula's wig in order to pretend to be Miss Paula and wait for Duncey in the audition room. Slurp, slurp, out.