American Idol: The Golden Stools

The elimination night of American Idol can best be summed up as the signs the audience members wave around at the cameras: ugly and underwhelming. Seriously, make better signs, people. Vomiting some glitter on a poster board is weaksauce! Here’re some suggestions:

The first performance of the night came from James and Scotty, who did a less-than-stellar version of “Start Up Band.” It’s a country song, but of course only one of them specializes in country music. James seemed to try hard to do the country thang. Ya know. He had a lil’ twang in his sang. But it sounded pretty contrived. And someone brought a pack of very young, instrument-wielding children to sit on the stage and James and Scotty sang to them and that was awfully weird, huh? I mean I guess it was nice for the kiddos, but if you were seven-years-old and saw James’ twitchy brows or Scotty’s giant, freckled face coming toward you, is that something you’d feel good about? These are things I would not like as a seven-year-old.

Then they went out to the adults in the audience and James and his wife awkwardly jabbed their faces toward one another. And then James and Scotty got onstage and pretended to play their “git-ars.” James’ git-ar had grown a fluffy, furry tail on one end, the kind you see hanging from the review mirrors of pick-up trucks on back woods roads.

The girls did a country song, too, performing “Gunpowder and Lead.” It was one of those depressing, stereotypical country songs about a woman getting revenge on a man who beat her. Lauren was dressed head-to-toe in suede and fringe. Haley was practically naked in comparison.

The Oddly Dressed Couple

Windows must have picked up a significant portion of the tab for the show this week, because we have to sit through an infomercial of the contestants using Windows 7 to have video chats. Lauren chatted with Justin Bieber. Haley talked to her dad. James video conferenced his wife and the tiny, angry dwarf sitting on her lap. Scotty talked with some girl that I can only assume is one of those naked women you can pay to chat with you online. I believe that’s likely who that was and I’m just going to stick to my story.

After the videochatting, it’s time for some results. There are three stools set up on one side of the stage. Three stools made of solid gold. The asses of winners will warm those stools of gold. The ass of the loser will be sent packing. The first ass sent to the golden stools is Lauren Alaina’s. Lauren’s mom, her giant hair, and her sexy gramma couldn’t be happier.

OK, the next part was the part where Idol TOTALLY gypped us. For two days, Tink promised us a Lady Gaga performance. I kept thinking it was weird that he was mentioning Enrique Iglesias and Jordin Sparks first, when clearly the draw would be Gaga performing. And the next segment proved why. Idol couldn’t get Gaga to perform live, so they had the contestants watch a DVD of Gaga performing “You and I” at a concert. B.o.o. Watching some people I don’t know watch Gaga on a TV monitor was so lame. I mean, they could have even had her perform something for them during rehearsal the day before. That would have been more interesting than watching the concert DVD, which you can probably watch on demand or online in your free time.

So anyway, Gaga was dressed in a bra and panties and the concert was back when she had a normal-shaped face and that yellow hair that looked like someone had taken a highliter to a cheap wig. And she played the piano and sang and continued to play and stand up on the piano bench and bend over and play and I’m sure that Scotty and James and Lauren all found that horribly lewd. I just found it boring.

Perhaps Enrique Iglesias could make up for it with a high-energy, knock-your-socks-off performance? His little medley of “Dirty Dance” and “I Like It” was meh for me. His voiced was so heavily synthesized. I was like, well day-um, if I get this giant mole removed from my face, maybe I could be Enrique. It was like he’d gotten a hold of the I Am T-Pain app I have on my iphone.

He’s even pretending to touch his fans… I don’t think there’s an app for that, though.

The lazer light show and blown-up condoms and screaming girls didn’t do much for me either, although Tink appeared to injure an audience member going after one of those condoms. As that poor person was carted off to an ambulance, Tink sent us to watch the new Ford music video.

Former Idol winner and amazon woman Jordin Sparks showed up to perform her crappy new single, “I Am Woman.” I hope I never have to hear that song again. Or see her faux-angry performance again. What’s she so mad about? How ill-fitting her silver trench coat is? How dying her hair stupid colors has given her split ends? The heinous leotard she has on under the trench coat? It took her awhile to show us that leotard because her arm got stuck in the trench coat. It was like watching someone trying to pull a sausage out of it’s casing without cutting it open. All squirmy and sloppy…

After getting her sausage link arm out of its shiny casing, Jordin traipsed on over to plant a kiss on Steven Tyler’s cheek. Then she waddled back on stage to finish the song with her backup dancers, one of whom appeared to be preggo. Then another backup dancer nearly fell over as the song ended. This is why you don’t hire family members.

We were forced to watched Steven Tyler’s new video next. What can I say about Steven’s new music video. It was a hot ass mess, but fitting. It was like someone had taken the essence of Steven and then put it into music video form. It was colorful and confusing and gimmicky and didn’t make a lick of sense. There were elephants and monkeys and young girls and one of the Pussycat Dolls. Sure, why not? She didn’t have anything else goin’ on that afternoon so Steven just stuck her in the video.

Who *are* those sexy ladies and where’d Steven go??

Because the video was brought to us by Ford, it was shot in the same style as the dumb Ford videos we have to see every week, and there was a close up of the Mustang logo about 97 times. Although I don’t think of Steven as the ‘stang type. At the end of the video, everything melted, including my brain, which couldn’t anymore stupid vanity projects.

Time for more results! This is, after all, the results show. There’s been a lot of talk about the guys being really strong this season, Tink said. But that’s all about to change, because Haley gets a golden stool alongside Lauren!

Scotty and James looked a little shell shocked at that. At this point, I was pretty surprised to see one of the boys going home, so I had no idea who would make it through. Would our next Idol potentially be the cover model for Mad magazine? Or the guy who just wants to rock out with his beer belly out?

The granny brigade pulled through once again, saving Scotty and sending James home. James’ wife seal claps and looks sad. The judges look really sad. James looks like he’s about to melt. In the video vignette of his life — which is now presumably over — James talked about how hard his life was until he met his wife. She made it better, although she did allow him to grow out that horrible rattail he used to have. For that, we’ll never forgive.

By the time James starts his swan song — “Baby I’m Amazed” — JHo is crying tears made of rainbows and unicorns.

James finishes off his song by ripping off his leather jacket (see how it’s done, Jordin!) and flinging it angrily into the audience, injuring yet another fan.

So, that was pretty surprising, huh? I think Haley’s the best singer we have left, but Scotty could definitely be in it to win it, as the judges say. And does anyone else think we might be headed for an all country finale?