American Idol: Dallass Does Debbie Right Back!

Hello again everybody! My name is J-Mo, and I’ve just breezed in for a few minutes to chat with you all and make a confession. Like many Americans, I made sure to sit down and pay attention to the President’s State Of The Union Address last night. In fact, I took copious notes on it. KIDDING, I slept through the whole thing! So I’m sure you can imagine my extreme annoyance when I awakened to discover we were going to have to listen to another fifteen minutes of boring-ass blathering in order to allow the governor of Virginia a chance to give the “Republican response”. Like this was debate class back in high school. Which I also slept through. Anyhow, it’s not that I don’t care about what’s going on in our country today, or what our leaders are going to lie to us about next plan to do about it, it’s just that the whole situation scares the bejeebleyfuck out of me and I prefer to escape into the readily available Fantasyworldâ„¢ on Fox…

…in which someone actually wants to see Simon Cowell in a wet T-shirt…

Yes, this Season 9 episode of American Idol is back in Dallas, Texas for the third time to audition thousands of mentally ill wackadoodies hopeful singers that just want their chance to… show everyone how talented of a singer they are? Not hardly! These wannabe famewhores are either looking for an opportunity to get on TV by being stupidly laughable, or they’re ready to bust out with a Tale Of Woeâ„¢ that would make Old Testament Job look at them and say, “Daaaamn dude, you win!” Are you ready to go back to Titanic, ‘Gasmii? ‘Cuz I suspect this show has recently struck an iceberg called “The X-Factor” and is sinking fast, so let’s take a running jump over that looming shark, shall we?So, just in case you didn’t remember this already, the producers make sure to bludgeon us over the head with the fact that Dallas is the city in which we first saw…

…a starving Kelly Clarkson…

I’m so glad she eats whatever the fuck she wants these days. I bet Carrie Underwood hates her for it, too. Especially when she’s sitting down to her dinner Tic-Tac. Anyhow, Ryan SemenQuest says that every time Idol comes here they’re “never disappointed”…

…or sober, apparently…

I’m speeding through a montage of clearly dehydrated and half-conscious auditioners telling us all what an awesome state Texas is and spouting that good ol’ bumper-sticker warning not to mess with it. Wellnow, I’m gonna guess that the original Native Americans who lived there wished they’d had that sticker to put on their horses asses when those annoying Europeans first showed up. In any case, eleventy-seventeen kabillion people have converged on the brand new Cowboy Stadium (Ryan calls them a “herd” because, heh heh, get it?… only steers & queers come from Texas… y’hear that, Texas??… Ryan’s messin’ with you!) and then for all you heteros (and the dykes) we get a bunch of upskirt shots of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders…

…or, as I like to call them, “Dancing Blow-Up Dollies”…

Ryan attempts a leer and says this is his “favorite day ever at work”! This means it’s clearly not National Coming Out Day. Or maybe he sees some of the actual Dallas Cowboys in a hot tub beckoning to him from just beyond the Cheerleaders. Ryan asks out loud who today’s guest judge is, and they cut to Simon and Randy in a regular old boring limo (I guess Katy Perry’s jibes about their pretentious little helicopter arrival in L.A. musta stung!) and they’re guessing either Richard Simmons (horror!) or Clint Eastwood (even older horror!). Well, there’s no way that would ever happen because Richard would immediately fuck Ryan in half, and Clint would probably just shoot someone (hopefully Skara) so instead we are blessed with…

…another bitchy queen!…

Neil Patrick Harris looks like he’s catching the smell of Skara’s peesh and it’s all yeasty. Cue the montage of Doogie Howser pictures and Skara gushing about how NPH has been in showbiz since he was a zygote. I still remember him speaking in faux-Jamaican patois and feeling up sex goddess Whoopi Goldberg in the depressing film Clara’s Heart. He was also a guest judge on Top Chef Masters this past summer and was kind of a bitch. Maybe David Burtka was pissed at him and withholding sex or something.

Anyways, at first I thought this was really gonna suck balls and we’d be stuck looking at him making Skara-smelly-peesh-face for the next half-hour…. but then NPH made me completely fall head over heels in love with him when he tells her “My goal today, Kara, is to shatter the dreams of thousands. If I can make two-three dozen people cry, I feel like I’ve done my job.” Finally, a guest judge who knows what this show is really all about! And our first wackjob up tonight is the perfect test for his awesome pledge. See, Julie Kevelighan comes from waaaaay back in Season One as well, and auditioned in Dallas at the same time as Kelly Clarkson!…

…the similarity ends there…

Julie earns my instant and eternal hatred because she butchered “Lady Marmalade”. As a hugely rabid and extremely well-versed Patti LaBelle fan, I am continually horrified at all the people who insist on raping this song beyond recognition (I’m also looking at you bitches Mya, Pink & Christina Aguilera!). Leave Patti’s songs alone. Thankfully, Julie got a swift and well-deserved smackdown that year, so we weren’t subjected to more of her. Until now.

Yes, she’s decided that 8 seasons later this is “her” year (and she has a poorly-lettered posterboard sign to helpfully remind her of that). She’s also decided to slut it up by wearing a teal sequined strapless skankdress and several tubes of silver eye-shadow, while speaking very slowly and telling us she doesn’t believe in giving up because she’s a Leo. Astrologists all over the nation are now getting frantic calls from Leos hoping they’re on the cusp of some other damn sign.

Anyhow, she’s chatting Ry-Ry up and asking him if he remembers her. Of course he does! She was the first one that Simon Cowell ever suggested sue her so-called voice teacher. Well, since then she’s prepared to come back by taking “choir” and “acting” classes, and by twirling around in her sequined delusions. In fact, that’s the first thing out of Neily O’Harris’ mouth when she comes jiggling into the audition room is a very sarcastic “Ohhhh myyyy, hello Sparkle.”…

…the back of that sign just got wet at the sound of NPH saying her secret nickname!…

This time around instead of fucking with a classic soulstress, Julie’s lowered her sights and is taking aim at one-hit-wonder Alannah Myles’ much-murdered “Black Velvet”. *facepalm* Ah, but before she can begin, JulieSparkle needs to awkwardly find a place to put her supercool sign! After stumbling around a few more seconds and giving Simon time to roll his eyes she begins.

Well, 8 seasons ago it sounded like kittens in a blender. Now, strangely, it sounds like kittens wrapped up in a nice, soft, electric blanket. And then thrown into a full bathtub. This girl could not sound whiter if she was Casper The Sparkly Ghost. She’s also oh-ver-ee-nun-cee-ate-ing ev-er-ee-sin-gul-syl-la-bull, as well as “acting the song”… you know, if you sing the word “crying” you put your fingers up and draw fake tears coming down your face from your eyes, like you’re crying, because you just sang the word “crying”…

…this will be a lot more convincing in about three minutes…

They stop her after the Crying Game and Randy asks Neily-O what he thinks. He says his first problem was with her stupid sign and the fact that she ran out of room writing her own name…

…strangely, he says nothing about her tacky blowjobhookerface, or the fact that she appears to be nudey-naked behind that sign…

It’s called a “ruler” and it’s awful helpful in signmaking. Beyond that, he says her vocals were not good at all. So of course she immediately asks to sing another song. Ahhhh, that’s the answer! If you sound like electrocuted kittens on “Black Velvet” then try “White Lightning” and you’ll suddenly find an award-winning voice springing forth! They tell her no, and Simon says she left the word “not” off of her crappy “This Is My Year” poster, and the judges all laugh like dicks.

I was beginning to feel a dight bit sorry for Miss JulieSparkleMotion as they begin to call out her obvious “no” votes… but then she starts singing “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”… which is another fucking song that my diva Patti LaBelle is famous for!. Now she’s made everything even more awkward, and they finally shut her up long enough for her to hear she got four “no”s. So she starts singing “Something To Talk About” as Security hands her her sign and escorts her out while NPH calls after her “Do you think that’s going to help? That’s just annoying!” Girrrrl, you said it!

Stumbling back out towards Ryan, Julie just doesn’t understand what went wrong. She paid attention to her breathing! Now she wants to sing another song and Ry-Ry quickly says that won’t matter, the judges’ decision is final. “I just feel like I blew it.” she sighs. Oh Sparkle, honey, if you could do that half as well as Neily O’Harris does, you’d have a golden ticket (and a little TMJ cuz you’d have to do Randy and Skara as well as Simon) instead of a bus ticket home…

…Undaunted, Julie sings to this section of wall. Unfortunately, it also says she sucks and tells her to GTFO. …

Ahhh, remember when this kind of delusional dumbass was more funny than sad? Neither can I. Let’s leave Julie the SparkleTramp behind and move on to a commercial…

…Hey, Daddy HornyBalls, you want more money in your wallet? Instead of asking H&R Block to find it, try using a condom. …

And we’re back! Even though Julie got righteously bounced to the curb, there were a few other girls who got golden tickets and screamed and jumped up and down. But that’s not fun, that’s just annoying. You know what else is annoying? Our next featured contestant. He’s a great big fat guy who calls himself Lloyd “Big-Sex-Sexy” Thomas…

…Now imagine this face all dripping with sweat and grunting and humping up and down just inches from yours. Turned on yet? You’re welcome. …

You know, truly sexy fat people (such as myself) don’t feel the need to tell everyone how sexy they are. We’re too busy having sex to bother. In any case, I couldn’t tell at first if Big-Sweaty-Sexy Lloyd was supposed to be good or terrible, because he was kinda getting the Delusional Dork editâ„¢. You know, they showed him bouncing around the holding area, dancing in his chair, making goofy faces for the camera…

…discovering that his left hand is gay…

That’s too bad ‘cuz I think that’s his beating-off hand. Anyhow, Big-Sweaty-Sexy is from Dallas and he’s 29. Oh, and he’s a dock-worker for an airline (I’m guessing it’s American, since Dallas is their hub and Fort Worth is their HQ) and he complains about having to pick up boxes and push boxes around all day. Okay, hold it right there BSS, do those boxes ever scream at you that you’re forcing them to eat dog food in order to pay for their heart medications? No? Then shut your yap, your box gig sounds pretty damn dreamy to me.

Suddenly Big-Sweaty-Sexy pulls out a picture of his two little girls and I hear the Sad Guitar Of Compassionâ„¢ begins to strum. Fuck me, here comes the goddamned Sob Story. Yup, see, BSS says he’s just a “homegrown homeboy” who grew up in the projects with drugs and guns everywhere…

…apparently this is his back yard…

Strangely, while he’s talking about drugs and guns being everywhere, they cut to what appears to be a normal middle-class apartment complex. I bet that property management company is pissed. Anyhow, naturally Big-Sweaty-Sexy says that his American Idol audition is super important because he doesn’t want his daughters to know what it was like growing up poor in the projects surrounded by drugs and guns. Funny, I thought his whole holding-down-a-job-as-a-dock-worker thing was the way out of that, but I guess winning Idol would be faster and easier. Just ask Fantasia Barrino.

Of course, the moment he walks into the audition room he gets a great big “Yeeeeaaahhh!” out of Randy Jackson, because Randy always likes to see someone fatter than himself. Big-Sweaty-Sexy makes me insane with rage when he says he’s going to sing “Overjoyed” by Stevie Wonder. Stevie Wonder is another artist whose work has been pillaged by Idol contestants for YEARS now, and I maintain that if Stevie himself can barely sing his songs, then everybody else should just back the fuck away.

BSS starts singing, and yeah, he’s mostly in tune, but his breath-control is for shit and his phrasing sucks, so it’s pretty much a meh for me. Especially annoying is the fact that when he finishes singing Sweaty looks super-pleased with himself and says “Dass w’sup!”…

…”Sooooo, how about you four just go ahead and hand me a spot in the Top 12 right now?”…

Of course, Skara has to pontificate about what an amazing show American Idol is, because thanks to Idol we have found a dock-worker who sings! She’s positively gushing, “I love that this show lets you come here and do that!” Sure, Skara… before Idol, there were never any working class people who sang. Not to be rude, but someone should clue her in on where most of the old spirituals came from. Of course, BSS thinks he’s pretty amazing, too, and his cockiness is getting to be awful grating.

Thankfully, NPH seems to be more objective, he says while BSS definitely has a voice, he’s not seeing the same “flashy” quality in it that Sweaty’s showing in his personality right now. I guess “flashy” is a new way to say “unbearably cocky”. Randy loves the “positivity” and Simon says it was his favorite audition of the day, which makes BSS get all Whatchoo-Talkin’-About-Willis?…

…sadly, these days we’re talkin’ about domestic violence charges…

So, naturally he gets four yes votes (Randy’s was an extra special “billion percent yes”) and he’s on his way to Hollywood. Take that Dallas Projects!

Next we have a lame montage of Neil Patrick Harris and Simon Cowell being all bitchy and disagreeable with one another…

…oh, they so boinked…

Will the next auditioner, local Amazon Kimberly Carver get “caught in the gay crossfire”? She’s singing an original song (none of which can even touch “Pants On The Ground” or Wanda Sykes’ “Boobs Outcha Blouse”, so why bother?) and it’s one of those schlocky wannabe jazz-club songs where Kimazon snaps her own fingers, and acts way too cutesy. Plus, she has a goat-y vibrato. Now she’s gotten to the loud part and I think she just blew Neil’s hairline another inch backwards.

Randy says she can blow him. What??!? How rude! OH, he said she can just plain blow. Nope, still sounds rude. Simon agrees with me, he didn’t hear anything “current” or “interesting” about her performance. Seriously, the days when the Manhattan Transfer had hits on the radio are long gone. However, Neil (and his new eight-head) disagrees with Simon and thinks Kimazon was great. Simon counters that this isn’t “Jazz TV” and Skara says her 273rd Ignorant Thing Of The Season when she insists that there’s “a lot of jazz in today’s music”. Um, since when? Jazz normally uses more than a Pro-Tools drum-loop and 3 synth-notes per song…

…meanwhile, Kimazon retains her stoic and dignified composure…

She gets yesses from everybody but Simon, so damn, she’s still going to Hollywood. Maybe she can study the jazz-stylings of Lady GaGa, Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus so she’ll have a hefty leg up on the competition before she gets there. I’m guessing she’ll just be practicing her jazzy rhythm-snaps instead. She’s eager to run out and tell her assorted friends how much Simon Cowell hated her…

…I sincerely hope she’s not under the impression that the blonde guy is her boyfriend…

That would be tragic, but not half as tragic as our next victim auditioner, a super-swishy queen in douchey Kanye PlastiGlassesâ„¢ (with a frohawk!) named Dexter Ward who somehow found his way onto the local Dallas Fox affiliate to say in as gay an accent as possible that “The show is ovah because I. Am. The. Next. America’s… um, Idol.”…

…C’mon gays! We need to do better! It’s time to let the ‘hawk fly freeeeeeeee!…

Dickster says he’s very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very sure that everyone else can just go home now, our new “America’s Um Idol” is here. Then he does this a bunch of times in a row…

…and no, I didn’t loop the same wink over and over, he literally did it five times…

Well, the Dickster comes sashaying into the audition room with his sunglasses on (like only a gaydouche would) and when he reaches the centermark he removes them with a flashy flourish (you can hear Randy knows what time it is, cuz he’s calling out “Work it, work… IT!”) Neily O’Harris looks bemused at being confronted with such a clearly delusional member of our tribe.

Even more crazed is the fact that Miss Dickster’s going to sing “If I Ever Fall In Love” by 90′s new-jack-group Shai. Awwww, I just love it when people try to sing four-part-harmonies by themselves. You can just tell that he’s picturing the video in his head as he sings…

…and really, Dickster? You hadda say you were unemployed? You couldn’t have given them a fake job, like “exotic dancer” or “female impersonator”??…

Girlfriend. Is. Completely. Tone. Deaf. Plus, he’s singing straight through his nose and making all kinds of ConstipationFace. When he finally finishes the chorus there are looks of relief on everyone’s face. Randy starts to tell him he sucked elephant dick, but before he can finish a sentence, Dickster shakily says he has another song that he’s been working on. How could he have topped Shai, except to try and sing something even more complex? The “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah, perhaps?

The judges finally get it through to him that he should stick to lip-synching and wearing wigs and dresses (that last part is my suggestion) and to be fair, he takes it pretty well, even managing a smile before he leaves. He actually makes it down the stairs before he loses his shit completely…

…Awww, I guess the search for “America’s Um Idol” is back on again…

He’s not the only one crying, because there are plenty of cameras ready to be sensitively shoved into the faces of newly rejected loozahs (and let’s face it, most people are not pretty criers). You would think that people would watch this year after year and come prepared with a hoodie so they could pull a drawstring and weep in private as they realize they’re not going to get famous for being talented. They’re probably weeping even harder these days, once it starts sinking in that they’ll have to resort to being a dickbag on some other reality show, perhaps even one where they do nothing all day but work out, tan, do laundry and get drunk. Then they’ll have to name some part of their body something ridiculous, such as “The Circumstances”.

Neily O’Harris is finding out that all this dreamcrushing is hard work, so they decide to take a break and he goes to chitchat with Semencrest, who asks him riveting questions like “Do you find it tough to be honest with them?” Neily makes some kind of odd reply about people getting “reamed out every single week” on this show. Gosh, Neil, maybe could you please defy the gay stereotype for once and not talk about anal sex for five minutes?…

…Thanks. Buttfucker. …

After the judges finish their pee-break, it’s time for the next contestant to “make a striking impression” on them. This time it’s a 23 year old woman named Erica Rhodes, and she’s from Irving, Texas. She tells Ry-Ry that she’s a grad student and that she’s an actress. In fact, she’s been a child actress and says the first MAJOR show she was on (as if there have been several) was Barney & Friends…

…first off, kids should not play with big purple swollen things…

…and secondly, I’d say that was using the word “acting” in an extremely loose manner…

Sorry, but that show was so bad that it bored babies. I’d have left it off the resumé, but see, Erica’s determined to show people that she’s all grown up now from when she was on the Barney show. Because she’s certain we all remember her and have been obsessed with wondering about whether her puberty ever kicked in like it does with every other annoying child actor. To accomplish this lofty goal, she’s decided to appear before the judges today…

…as LaToya Jackson…

Erica walks in to the room cracking her whip and Skara gets excited, asking who she’s going to whip first! How about her parents for not trying hard enough to convince her this skanky slut costume was a bad idea? Simon reads her bio sheet, “It says here that you used to be a dinosaur or something?” and Erica drops her BarneyBomb. Randy immediately makes her sing the Barney Theme Song. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You can tell she’s totally embarrassed (as she should be) but yet she seems unaware of just how creepy it is for her to be singing such a dumb children’s song while wearing leather, thigh-highs and carrying a whip. The skeevy-factor isn’t lost on NPH…

…or Simon for that matter…

Randy says that Barney would be so proud right now. Yeah, I bet he would be, Randy… if he were, you know, real. So what is Miss Domineerica going to sing today? Well, she’s going to go the route of the Dickster and sing a four-part harmony song by EnVogue called “Free Your Mind”. Naturally, she chooses to start with the lyric “I wear tight clothing / high heel shoes / that doesn’t mean that I’m a prostitute, no no!” She sings this completely through her nostrils while cracking her whip some more, her voice is very thin and nasal, and she looks more than a little ridonkulous.

After she’s done making EnVogue sound like the Chipmunks, Simon asks her what her big dream is. She says that she wants “people to know that Barney kids grow up…” Neily O’Harris finishes, “…to be dirty little girls??!?!” Domineerica gets all offended at this and whinily insists she’s not being dirty. Realizing that that also sounded ridiculous, she then earns my eternal hatred by saying “Well, my role model is Janet Jackson, what do you expect?”…

…I would expect a 23-year-old would know not to air out her labia on national television…

See, Janet to me was always about sexy, not skanky. She didn’t get super-slutty until she started trying to compete with the younger pop-tartlets like Britney, Christina, Beyoncé and those awful Simpson Siblings that Skara wrote terrible music for. I just hate the fact that trampy little Domineerica wants to pretend like she couldn’t possibly have emulated any of the other 4,832 looks that Janet has had where she’s been fully clothed and kept her cooze covered.

Of course, Simon(‘s erection) says he likes people who “make an effort” and he’s impressed by the fact that Domineerica’s gone from being a wholesome innocent child to a soft-core porn leather ho and applauds her “guts”. Skara’s back to living in IgnoranceVille when she claims it’s “really rare that someone comes in here and they’re like, you know, ‘I’m just gonna do my thing, this is who I am, and here it comes!’ and you know, I really like that about you!”…

…yeah, we all saw how much she just loved it when this girl did the same thing last year…

Sending a wonderful pro-feminist message to young women everywhere (“Fuck talent! Rely on your tits and ass instead!”) she gets four yes votes and then heads out (whip still in hand!) to show Mommy and Daddy that Peekaboo Peesh Pays…

…”My baby’s gonna be the next Li’l Kim!”…

Way to help your little girl aim for the stars there, Mom. *sigh* In any event, after Domineerica’s little ERA-inspired peep-show, I think we’re ready for another Sob Story (because we just can’t get enough of them) and this time it’s brought to us courtesy of the day’s final contestant Dave Pittman, whom Ryan darkly intones has had “the odds stacked against him…” Oh no! Is Dave a gay nonwhite woman?…

…no, apparently he lives near my intestinal tract…

Kidding, actually Gassville is a real town in Arkansas! I guess Fartburg and Queeftown were already taken? Anyhow, as the Depressed Piano Of Hardshipâ„¢ plinks away, I’m dying to hear what Dave’s big problem is. Is it cancer? A dead wife? Sixteen children, all of whom are deaf, dumb and blind? An infected hangnail?…

…it must be worse than all of those put together for him to stare off into space like that (and let a camera film him doing it!)…

Nope, it turns out that Dave was diagnosed at age 9 with (are you ready for this?)… Tourette’s Syndrome! OMG, really? This is a problem? How many people do you hear every single day of your life blaming their behavior on having Tourette’s? Yes, I do it, too. Especially during horrible staff meetings, and when I’m strangling one of my relatives..

Okay, kidding aside, Tourette’s is not really a hilarious condition where you wind up shouting “SHITFUCKCOCKLICKASSWHORE!” uncontrollably and at inopportune moments, such as during church or at weddings or in a 1-on-1 conference with your boss. Dave explains it’s a neurological disorder characterized by various facial tics, such as rapid eye-blinking, head-shaking or throat-clearing (oddly, he doesn’t mention blurted expletives at all) and then we see one of his tics happen in mid-sentence…

…Mildest. Case. EVER. …

That throat-clearing Lorraine character that Mo Collins used to play on MADtv had a worse case of Tourette’s than this guy! Plus, didn’t Kris Allen already corner the market on making sideways mouth? I know I’m jaded, but this kind of shit has just gotten way too overdone on this fucking show to even work anymore. It doesn’t help that Dave breathlessly (and with a couple of throat-clears) tells us that when he sings the Tourette’s doesn’t affect him at all! “Call it a miracle, I don’t know what it is!” he says, gazing off into the distance again. I’ll tell you what that is: it’s a cheap self-exploitation play for sympathy votes from the judges and eventually the viewers, and I resent the manipulation tactics. Especially when he claims that instead of a curse he now sees Tourette’s as a “blessing”. Jesus wept.

He walks into the audition room, and I’m kinda shocked he’s not wearing a T-shirt that says “Fuck You! I Got Tourette’s Syndrome, Asshole!”. Strangely, when Randy starts in with his bio-sheet, instead of reading his hometown as Gassville, Dave’s suddenly from Mountain Home, AR instead? Nice editing, producers! In any case, he’s going to sing “Bring It On (Fucking) Home To Me” by Sam Cooke…

…Wow, in Arkansas white people still do their own yard work!…

He’s a decent singer, but I can see why he’s flogging the Tourette’s so hard, there’s nothing too memorable about his performance. Except when he starts tic-ing in the middle of it! Wait, I thought that the Tourette’s miraculously didn’t happen when he sings!??! When he finishes, NPH says he really likes his voice and then pretends he didn’t read the bio-sheet that has “TOURETTE’S” stamped all over it, instead saying “Weird elephant in the room… do you have Tourette’s Syndrome?” Looking appropriately modest yet embiggened, Dave admits that he does. Then Neil lies some more and says how crazy it is that the Tourette’s didn’t happen while he was singing. What??!??! I call bullshit! It totally did! I feel my own outburst coming on. Especially when he gets four yes votes. SHITFUCKCOCKLICKASSWHORE!

Yes, despite his extremely mild and nearly unnoticeable case of throat-clearing-and-eye-blinking, Dave is through to Hollywood along with 14 other people… all of them proof that “dreams still do come true”. Now they’re playing that damned “Party In The U.S.A.” song and I’m looking for a handful of hydrocodone from the BF’s supply, because this shit is painful. Let’s take a break while they kick in…

…Is diving for Wheat Thins an Olympic sport yet?…

…HP’s cock is bigger than yours…

…Giant Jell-O shooters. Now on the 99 cent Value Menu at Jack-In-The-Box…

Day Two brings us even worse news, in the form of a Jonas Brother for a guest judge…

…Personality of SPAMâ„¢…

I have only one word for people who think the Jonas Brothers are so hot: Hanson. In any case, first up to sing today is Todrick Hall, who makes sure to let the judges know that he sang with Fantasia in The Color Purple (at least, on those occasions when she could actually make it to the theatre to perform) and he’s going to sing a special song that he wrote “just for y’all”. Like to hear it? Here it goes…

…points for originality, Todrick, and I love the thinly veiled oral-sex offer, but you got screwed on those jeans!…

I wonder if Joenas is all butt-hurt that Todrick didn’t write a lyric for him? In any case, everybody loved it except for Simon, who thinks it was a tad too cutesy (he’s kinda right) and that clever lyrics aside, he’s not jumping out of his chair over Tee’s actual vocals… but that’s just a fake-out because he gets four yes votes and he’s through! I wish he’d written a line for dearly departed Paula…

…Hey Paula, you’re still straight up forever my girl! xoxo love, J-Mo …

See? More glowing glitter-dreams coming true in rainbowy stars with unicorns, just like Paula would have said! And now we have a montage of people getting nothing but yes-votes, because these judges are such softies. Joenas adds literally zilch to this half of the show other than to say yes a few times, and since there are only about a billion or so fansites devoted to his every burp, fart and pimple, I will not be discussing his lametributions here any further. Just so’s you all know.

So, the next girl up to audition is one of the many, many interchangeable blondes that flock to this show. This one’s name is Maegan Wright… although it doesn’t really matter, she could be a Heather, or a Lisa, or a Kelly, or an Ashley, or a J-Woww. In any case, she’s wearing a tank-top that says “BREAK THE RULES” on the front. I guess that means she must be some kind of rebel riot grrrl or something…

…hey, the tank top says so…

OH FUCK, here comes that damned Sad Piano crap on the soundtrack again! If it turns out that she doesn’t at least have cancer PLUS a missing limb then I’m hitting FF! Nope, nothing life-threatening, but Maegan’s rilly rilly sad, because, like, her parents got divorced. Five years ago. A.) I think it’s about time for Maegan to have a big slice of get-the-fuck-over-it, and 2.) Why is this suddenly supposed to be such a huge deal to everybody in season 9? People have been splitting up like mad since the 70′s, there’s no social shame attached to it anymore (unless you’re Tiger Woods or the pope). Hell, my own parents stopped trying to kill each other and got divorced in 1991 after 25 combative fucking years together, and it was the greatest thing to happen to either of them (besides having me and three other Mo children).

Maegan’s folks did something similar to mine, because they’re both now remarried to other people (who don’t want to murder them) and so today she’s brought her little brother Dawson with her since now it’s just the two of them. Dawson’s kinda semi-cute and says without Maegan his life would be boring. Then he sails right on over into CreepyVille when he says if she makes it to Hollywood he “might give her a big ol’ hug and never stop!”…

…”Hugging Megan is nice and squishy and excites me in my danger zone.”…

Gee Maegan, maybe it’d be a good idea if you didn’t make it to Hollywood. It might screw your little Dawson up less if you get him a Maxim magazine and a jar of Vaseline instead, I think he’s at that age. Anyhow, Maegan goes bouncing into the audition room saying “Hi, hi, hi, hi!” and looking like a crazy stalking about-to-be-Ex-girlfriend…

…”When you say ‘It’s over.’, you’re talking about us spending any further time apart, right? Right?? RIGHT??!??!”…

She tells the judges she’s going to sing “To Make You Feel My Love”, and I’m assuming from her overly-affected twangyness that she’s doing the Garth Brooks version. When they finally stop her, Skara says Maegan really “confused” her at first because the way she hopped in there “hi”-ing everyone and wearing her silly tank top and booty shorts they all thought it was going to be a joke. And it was, but nobody let Skara in on it. Nevertheless, she believes Maegan has a great voice. I believe Maegan is cannon-fodder for Hollywood week, she’s just not that good.

Naturally, Simon disagrees with Skara about the tank top and booty shorts being stupid, because Maegan is showing lots of skin and he’s an omnisexual horndog. She gets four yes votes, and runs out to pull a lame fake-out on her family by emerging from the audition room ticketless and looking sad. Then Ry-Ry pops out holding it and everybody goes nuts. Dawson tries to get his feel-up hug on, but the rest of the family protectively crowds around her…

…Squishyhug: DENIED…

Seriously, Maegan is one of those screechy, shrieky, super-annoying girls that babytalk in a little-girl voice when they get excited, which happens over anything and everything, and I’m glad she’s being chased down the street by little Dawson, who still wants to make good on his hug threat. Let’s take a break…

…Kris Allen has terrible taste in music…

Isn’t it awesome how the new Ford can record and store your CDs in the car for you? It’s too bad nobody else has ever come up with a way to do that AND make it portable. Oh wait, they did. It’s called an iPod.

Back at the auditions, it’s time for an even more annoying chick than Maegan. Not possible, you say? Prepare yourself. Her name is Vanessa Johnston…

…and she is terrified of black people…

KIDDING, she’s just a wackjob who makes crazyface a lot. She’s shown in the holding room annoying large numbers of people while dancing for them and directing them to do “The Wave” as the producers helpfully blare Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” in the background. She says she’s super-optimistic and always looks at the positive in everything, and she further hopes that her attitude can somehow “go through the TV… and people will be like, Wow, I need to be happy all the time like her!!”…

…fine, then kindly point me in the direction of your pharmacist…

She comes jiggling into the audition room and says she’s going to sing “At Last” by Etta James. I heard a drag queen attempt this song live (and acapella) in the Miss Gay Arizona America 2005 pageant, and I have never been able to listen to it since, so when I heard her say that I began scrabbling madly for the MUTE button. Too late, she’s already started, and how lovely for us! She’s acting the song! She also apparently doesn’t realize there’s a second verse…

…or that she looks like a gay TV set that’s gone on the fritz…

By the time she finishes, the windows behind the judges have blown out and Joenas’ eyeballs have melted like the Nazis in those final scenes of Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Truthfully, Vanessa is clearly ill and clueless and just looking to get on TV for five minutes, so why does Skara feel the need to act so Mean Girls over this kind of thing?…

…I suspect she thinks she’s a recapper…

Stay off my territory, bitch. In any case, Skara accuses Vanessa of “doing this Britney thing” with her head, and she bobs from side-to-side in order to demonstrate. That’s hysterical, because Skara does that same thing all the time. Mostly whenever black people come in to sing and she wants to demonstrate her innate soulfulness and show how much she “feels” them. Randy liked the way she kept physically chasing after the notes. Simon says she’s a nightmare and it’s four big-ass NO votes, to which Vanessa responds with a big “YAYYYY!” and says it was super-nice to meet all of them. Well, she accomplished her goal, because her attitude came right through my TV and now I’m like, ‘Wow, I need to stop volunteering to recap this show’.

Now Ryan’s trying to explain to all of us why Simon Cowell is in such a bad mood and so mean all the time. He claims that it’s because their schedule is so gruelling, they visit seven cities each season (sometimes arriving via helicopter) and listen to thousands of auditions (which is bullshit, the TV judges only see the wackjobs and the producer plants better singers) plus get subjected to all the bad dancing, annoying whining and zillions of Sob Stories (only because people have learned that’s what gets them on TV). Nobody mentions his ability to buy Europe, so I say fuck him, I hope someday someone nails him with a cup full of homeless people pee…

…write a song about that, Skara!…

Are you still with me? I know, your eyes are glazed over, this is dragging on far too long, you feel your life’s essence is draining away. Cheer up, here’s tonight’s final contestant! Her name is Christian Spear and she’s got the Crowning Sob Story of the evening. Take it away Sad Pianoâ„¢!…

…here she is, walking with her siblings Muslim Sickle, Buddhist Sword, Hindu Machete, Jewish Slingshot and Pagan Dagger…

It’s like she’s missing and they’re a bunch of walking milk-cartons. Anyhow, Christian is only sixteen…teen…teen…teen…teen and when she was only 4 she was diagnosed with something. I won’t tell you what it is, but it rhymes with “brewkemia”. This is awesome, because now the BF owes me a blow-job (I bet him we’d have at least one cancer-victim before the hour was up) and I think I’m going to go collect. I’ll be right back…

(two minutes later)

Okay, so her mom is talking about how when the doctors first told her Christian had cancer she immediately thought her daughter was going to die. That’s really sad, and I can’t imagine how that must have felt. I would have felt even more if I hadn’t noticed at this moment that they’ve got fugly-ass Leona Lewis wailing one of her schlocky meaningless ballads in the background (I think it’s that horrible “Footprints In The Sand” crap) and it knocks me out of the moment…

…heyyyy, does she have Tourette’s Syndrome, too? Are those the drug-and-gun-riddled projects?…

I don’t put anything past this show anymore. Happily enough, Christian went into remission 8 years ago, so that’s a really wonderful thing, and I’m happy for her to have survived. Still, it doesn’t have fuck-all to do with how well she sings.

Well, let’s see how she does. She arrives in the audition room and tells them she plans to sing “All I Could Do Was Cry” by Etta James. Oh Lord, why does any 16-year-old think they can capture even a smidge of Etta’s robust soulfulness?…

…especially while making Boy-Band-Hand-Gesturesâ„¢…

Christian does okay, and at least she’s mostly in tune, but it’s really affected and honestly not that great or memorable. Plus she does weird hand gestures and winds up acting the song towards the end. In seasons past this would have been where the judges would have lambasted her for being only 16 and choosing something that was “far too old” for her, and that she should “be 16″ and “pick something current” (like some Joenas Brothers crap, or Miley Cyrus) instead of choosing an old wailer from the sixties.

However, they’re all staring at a bio-sheet that says CANCER-SURVIVOR all over it, so naturally Randy gushes at how impressive she is for being only sixteen…teen…teen…teen…teen, Joenas says she’s really confidezzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. When I wake up, Skara’s telling Christian what big naturals she has. Huhwha? OHH, my bad, she said she has a “big natural gift” and that she “didn’t sense any fear from her”. Skara sounds almost disappointed, I think she likes them to be afraid of her. I’m only afraid she’s going to start singing again. Lastly, Simon’s very magnanimous as well, saying how brave Christian is and that he likes her a lot (which she should really treat the same as if Jesus Himself said it). Clearly it’s four yes votes. Welcome to Hollywood, Christian. She’s one of 17 from Day Two, and soon to be one of 427 during Hollywood Week.

Next stop is Denver, where someone does this…

…perhaps they thought they were auditioning for “American Love Doll”?…

And there we have it! What did you think of this episode? Are you as sick as I am of all the constant schmaltzy backstories, only to be underwhelmed by mediocre voices? Is Idol getting crueler towards the mentally ill set? Have any of you actually bought Kris Allen’s CD yet? Which other Idol albums do you own? (I have them by Kelly Clarkson, Justin Guarini, Tamyra Gray, Ruben Studdard, Clay Aiken, Kimberley Locke, Fantasia, Diana DeGarmo, Jennifer Hudson, LaToya London, Mario Vazquez, Sanjaya Malakar, Melinda Doolittle and LaKisha Jones). I know, I’m a dork.

Thanks for being patient while I worked on this puppy. I’ve had a month off and am a little rusty. I’ll be back soon with a new show, though, so we’ll get together again next week.

love, J-Mo