Bright Lights, Sin City

This week, American Idol wants to know if there’s a superstar in Vegas. One look at Ryan Seacrest, and the answer is no. (JK, Ryan! Call me!)

This week’s guest judge is Kenny Loggins, who Seacrest dubs the “Godfather of Soundtrack Anthems”, which his kind of like being dubbed the “Master of the Planet Hollywood Universe” or the “King of Members Only Jackets”, i.e. pretty lame. Loggins is most famous for the theme to “Footloose” ” sung by one singer who literally kicks off his Sunday shoes — although I much prefer the Top Gun anthem “Highway to the Danger Zone.” The show takes us on a journey through Loggins’ cover art, all ridiculously new age-y shlockfests that highlight the brown pubus growing out of his chin. The good news is Loggins appears to be in perfect, bloodless, animatronic health. His pubus is now a lovely grey.
Mikalah Gordon confuses me: it’s hard to tell if she’s a black girl tryin to be all white, or a white girl tryin to be all black. She looks like Raven Simone, but not as the adorable child on Cosby, more like the fugly, weirdly animalistic woman she grew up to be. She’s only 16 years old, but something tells me she’s a raging slut. Maybe it’s the Jersey makeup, or the wild, mussed up hair, but trust me ” “That’s So Mikalah”. She sings a song called “Lullaby in Birdland”, and has a nice voice, kind of Taylor Dane-y, as deep and rich as her fake tan. And a revelation! She’s white! Or, the way she puts it to Randy, “‘I might be white, but it’s just a birthmark.” This girl will do anything to get to Hollywood, including hit on/bone Randy, people. Luckily, she doesn’t need to, and makes it through anyway. She screams her head off outside the room, and dry humps her mother for 15 minutes. In the post-aud confessional, she lets her true, ambiguous color shine, by cockily telling America she plans on buying her Mom those implants she always wanted. A class act all the way.

Jeffrey Gray is Neil Diamond’s biggest fan. Another interesting fact is that his heart has been replaced with a pressure cooker, as his eyes nearly ‘splode out of his gigantic, tanned, bald noggin. He was deaf as a child, and the first thing he ever heard was a Neil Diamond song. But rather than take his own life, he chose to pursue an obsession with the Diamond-meister. And you know there is something similar about them! They’re both… bald. He enters the room, his eyes bugging out of his head. Simon admits he’s not optimistic. He sings “America” (great song, terrible rendition) like he’s hitting a bong in between each verse and doesn’t want to exhale the hydroponic goodness. It’s more of a slam poetry version really. Simon points out that when he sings he does a stabbing motion. Sleep with one eye open, Neil, you handsome thing you. It’s a no.

Does anyone else notice the gigantic flower hot-glued to the side of Paula’s head? Is it meant for decoration, or serving some higher purpose like keeping her brains in her skull, or receiving messages from the mothership?

Montage: A guy who does the same dance I did at my middle school cheerleading auditions (read: we both didn’t make it), a guy who sings while someone clearly tugs on his ballzack, a cross-eyed witch who sounds like Sarah McLaughlin at the Lilith Fair in Salem, Mass., a guy who’s pissing his pants, an Asian guy who does the Ashley Simpson jig, earning him points, a girl impersonating Spongebob with a vibrator up his ass singing Lady Marmalade (get on this, Christian Right!), and a lame Asian guy in a sleeveless shirt who just sucks.

Amanda Avila is your typical pretty girl in Vegas trying to make it. Make it, that is, as a singing and dancing pirate slut, which I’ve said for years now America is finally ready for. She’s a performer in “Treasure Island” on stage, but, apparently, pirate-whore’s are not singers, just slutty, plundering dancers, so poor Amanda wants to take her career a crotch further. Damn, can girl shake a tambourine or what!? She’s wearing a pink tanktop that says ME in huge letters (and, as we learn later, a necklace that says “Pick” in 8 font lettering, but clearly, we know who it’s all about, Amanda.)

When she enters the room, Simon leers at her, leaning back in his chair, licking his chops, his face completely flushed, his grin wide, and his man boobs perkier than ever. She’s a pretty girl and seems to be genuinely charming. Paula sits straight up in her chair and you know her antennas are like “Alert! Competition! Pirate whore! Mayday mayday! Singing pirate whore! Abort! Abort!” And you know and I know that it wouldn’t be the first time Paula aborts something… boo-ya unwanted fetus! Amanda sings “I Wanna Love you Forever”, and Simon comes in his pants. She’s pretty good, kind of off key, but let’s face it, the girl is hot and makes it through no problem. She could of stuck a kazoo in her ass and farted out the theme song to “Mr. Belvedere” and still gotten a yellow sheet.

Christopher Tamura wants to sing like Elvis, but he looks more like Sean Lennon. The good news is he’s more talented than Sean Lennon, which says nothing at all, a Sean Lennon is a zero talent. He’s completely average, not funny, just boring, and doesn’t make it through.

Uh oh!!! AIR RAID SIRENS! IT’S THE RETURN OF THE MOLFETTA TWIN! Notice I say twin and not twinS, as only one of them showed up. Clearly, the judges have NO idea which Molfetta twin this is, neither do I, and I could care less (p.s., it’s Rich.) He sings “I Who Have Nothing” (a Leiber and Stoller favorite), and he should change his name to Melisma Richards! Cause he looks like a woman and can’t sing for shit! Randy tells him he’s overconfident, Simon calls him corny, and he IS! Paula stops smelling her own crap for a second to say “I’m a woman, and you’re a man… and… and…” and she practically falls off a branch like the retarded ape that she is. But Kenny Loggins serves Gene Simmons a steaming pile of his own crap by sending him through. I am so not psyched that I have to look at that Molfetta-asshole’s monkey-like botox-mug for another episode. He runs out of the room and dry humps a man he likely has suppressed sexual feelings for.

Emily Neves is every annoying bitch from your college drama department who thinks they’re the next big thing, when in reality they’re a tiny, anorexic biznatch you wanna smack down. I know this type TOO well, sadly. Small, perky, she thinks she’s ADORABLE! Eeee! A guy standing behind her on line creepily whispers “Kill the girl” into the camera, and who can blame him? Can you imagine having to camp out near this girl for 3 days! Emily BOUNDS into the audition room like a turd making flight out of Winona Ryder’s asshole. Kenny Loggins tells her she’s like Cindy Lauper, and she immediately breaks out into “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”. And good. God. It’s seriously AWFUL. Screeching, out of tune, vibrating at speeds not heard by human ears, Simon says it sounded like “fingers going down a blackboard.” She sings another song that sounds vaguely familiar, but my ears struggle to fund a tune. And how this happened, I’ll never know, but she makes it through for “being really funny.” And I was like “?!?!?!?!” Paula says she “loves her”, and the girl nearly does a backflip like a retarded Chihuahua. She makes it through… and starts to weep.

And then the editors do the most HILARIOUS editing trick of all time! Ryan VO’s: “As Emily celebrates, Joseph Land looks on…” and the camera cuts to this 40-something tanned nightmare of a man channeling Barry Gibb, with feathered hair and moles a-plenty, who chuckles and takes a gulp out of the 120 oz. coffee thermos he’s holding. It is so hilarious, it’s hard to explain. It’s not even a thermos, it’s the actual dispensers they have at Au Bon Pan that this guy just took and ran. To go from that little pixie to this child molester was BRI-LI-ANT.

They show him powdering his baseball mitt of a mug in the men’s room, and Ryan says that “he’s only 28 years old.” When Simon finds out, he’s incredulous, and refuses to believe him, saying he looks way older. The guy is shocked “You’re saying I don’t look 28?” Then he starts pointing at Pubus-Mouth and is like “Kenny Loggins! ha HA, yeah! Kenny Loggins!” like they’re old friends from the country club — “Kenny Loggins, you ol’ bastard!” The guy is shiny and tan and looks like a Plimptoon. The entire time he speaks Simon just squints at him and nods, cause he’s so smart and British and so completely on to him (like anyone with eyes and a half-functioning brain would be ” no offense Paula). Joseph has waited his whole life for this moment. He sings a cutting-edge ditty by Gary Puckett (“Young Girl, Get Out of My Mind”… shudder), and he’s not even good. He finishes and Simon is like “For real, how the eff old are you”. Oh, and Joseph. He’s all “OK… You caught me! You are good! I’m an old 44!” He exits the room to go back home and continue screwing crack addicted whores in his desert trailer.

Dino Yazzie auditioned Season 2 and was bad. And I’ll make this quick cause I thought it was boring. His brother Desi Yazzie decides it’s his chance to be mocked. And when you’re named Desi, and your brother Dino, nad your last name is Yazzie (Yazz Hands!) I’m guessing the emotional armor is diamond-hard, so really, who cares? He butchers one of my favorite Throw-It-Down-Whitney love songs “I Have Nothing” (which, if you went to college with me, you DEF-initely heard me sing in the various dorms I lived in.) He’s awful, they say no, enough.

A bad singer montage showing the judges cracking up. One girl wears a nun’s uniform, another guy does spoken word poetry of “Superfreak” while wearing blue rubber gloves. Bad Elvis singers. Kermit the Frog who was so excited, he couldn’t hide it, and forgot the words. A horribly acned boy who looks exactly like Randy, the puppet on “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse”, and sings a weird gospel opera. One guy sings “Thriller” with an awful lisp, and it makes you long for Michael Jackson. Pause for 30 minutes while I take a shower after writing those last four words.

Lil’ Miss Cameltoe II. She’s no Mary Roach, but she’s wearing pink pants, which helps us visualize. Simon sticks his herpes riddled tongue down Paula’s throat and manages somehow not to get electrocuted by her inner wiring. Sarah Woodall is wearing a pink cowboy hat, pink pleather glitter pants (I’ll get you Wet Seal! One day!) , and sings “Viva Las Vegas”. She’s not bad and not great, but in my opinion better than that crazy pixie freak they put through. In fact, it was listenable up until the last four or five notes. The camera does a slow pan up her body, so we can fully understand “The Toe.” Simon sums up tonight’s episode by calling it a “complete waste of time.” Ooh, but he winks at her. No, I forgot, I hate him!

Cocktail waitress Sharon Galvez looks like a whore, but Phew! She brought her son along with her! The girl is so petite it’s amazing she could fit anything through those miniature hips. Simon leers at her and sleazily says “God, you are a Vegas girl, aren’t you?” Remember many moons ago when I was in lurve with Simon Cowell. SO NOT ANYMORE. My love for him, like his hair, has worn thin.

Sharon sings “Saving All My Love For You.” She’s a little flat throughout (have I mentioned I have perfect pitch?) but has a strong voice for such a tiny girl. She does a lot of awkward hip movements and hand motions, but they don’t criticize her. Sharon puts on a good show, Randy adds his usual wisdom (honestly, if for whatever reason he ever has to renounce his well-worn throne, look no further than Corky from “Life Goes On” as a replacement judge.) She makes it through.

Some guy (named Matthew Falber) who would be kinda cute if he wasn’t a nerdy, theater-geeky tool sings “The Lion King” (oh, I just barfed a little.) He lamely sings “I Just Can’t Wait to be King”, doing different voices, none of them well. But (credit due) he’s different, that’s for sure, and the judges eat it up cause they’re so sick of living and breathing. I don’t buy into it. His voice is weak. They liked him, he’s feel good, but he’s not right for the show.

Bobie May is a psychic. She is also part of a long and esteemed bloodline of inbred manimals. She looks at least 40 (is Joseph Land still around? Matchmaker, Matchmaker!), wearing a purple velvet sparkle dress that really lowlights her figure. She predicts she will make it in the top 10. This is why I don’t go to psychics. I’d rather give my $5 to a puppy and singe my palms off with a blowtorch. We hear her warming up, and it’s like your gut knots up and you just know it’s gonna be awful. Not only does she look like she needs to be fed and bathed, she’s a large woman, and it doesn’t seems like she can walk or breathe easy either. She’s 22, Simon cannot believe it (neither can America). She predicts that she’s through, she’s “gonna go to Hollywood.” And I could throw in some kinda Barney on Ice joke, but why God? One thing, Bobie is confident! She sings like she has it all! The camera slowly pans up so we can soak in every last bit of her awfulness. She’s predictably the worst. Simon looks like he feels bad for her. Oh, and please thank the camera man who shot her with the lens aimed solely at her award-winning FUPA. I lost half my dinner tonight, good sir.

Another editor trick! Fatty transition! Only Jennifer Todd is dressed normally, and has a pretty good head on her shoulders. She knows her image is going to be an issue, but hopes her voice will sing for itself. She’s friendly, sweet, how can you not respect her? She’s full of sunshine. Good voice, very strong. Jennifer Todd sings Alicia Keys. The judges are very impressed and put her through, although Kenny uses my favorite term “image issue” (you know the code, folks), which is funny, because surveys show that elderly vag’s across America have an image issue with his goatee, so go figure. They compare her to Rueben, which is unfair, cause this girl can actually sing, not just wheeze and sweat. Good going, JT! Hope to see more of her in the next few rounds.

What! AC Slater from Saved By The Bell is auditioning! Mario Vazquez sings “Whatever Happens”, a song I’ve never heard before but I enjoy. He has a great voice, and is cute. Or is that Wilmer Valderamma? Yes, that must be it. The judges look soooo tired. Paula, monotonously: “Wow.” Simon says one of the best in the competition. Welcome to Hollywood. Mario’s great, not too cocky, a nice end to an overall unexciting episode.

Next week they’re in Cleveland, Ohio, oooh, and LL Cool J is hosting! You know what they say: Ladies Love Cool J. So true. For now, this is ML Neurotic M (my new stage name) signing off.