Sleeping the Dream Alive

It’s here: The television event you’ve all been waiting for (for the 5th time now). The American Idol finale. Millions auditioned. But only two mediocre talents can be in the final. The drama of it all is not lost on Ryan Seacrest, who begins the show with a spotlight shining solely on him, bronzed like a baby shoe, just as small, and in similar unused condition (babies can’t walk.) This, according to Mr. See-and-be-Seacrest, will be the most “important night of [the finalist’s] lives.” Seems like you’re setting the “life bar” a little low there, huh Ryan?

The audience breaks out into wild applause, the familiar synthetic guitar is digitally strummed, and we breathe a sigh of relief. After 3,457 weeks of AI5, we’ve made it people! Bo Bice and Carrie Underwood will be battling it out for America’s votes, which will be determined by Simon’s erectoral college, and in 24 hours, we have our Idol.
As the numerous headlines across the country have already alerted you, tonight’s competition is ‘tween a rocker and a swooner, two words which remind me of my grandmother after she had her stroke. (Always swooning and rocking, she was.) Each contestant will sing 2 “original” songs (original being a loose term as each song is an amalgamation of VH1-circa-1994 trash), and 1 song from the previous weeks.

We flashback to last week’s coin toss, where ol’ slippery fingers (as Simon affectionately calls him) Ryan “tosses the coin” (please, stop me) in the air, only to miss catching it on the way down. Thankfully, AI set designers have a subway grate thoughtfully placed on the stage, where production assistants have no doubt been videotaping the female contestants from their copyrighted “Vag Cam.” The coin falls straight through, and what at first you think is some lame gimmick turns out to be just a lame error on Seacrest’s part. It’s a shame too: The coin they were using looked quite valuable, as it was a quarter with Bo and Carrie’s faces lazily glue sticked on either side. What, the Franklin Mint didn’t return your call guys??

Carrie wins the toss, and chooses to go second, which means that Bo will be starting us off tonight singing the original song “The Long Long Road.” He walks on the stage looking like the ghost of Mitch Hedberg (RIP). Tiny brown glasses that make his face all the more baby-blood-hungry. A linen tunic that cries out to be bathed. Flared jeans that need to personification, as they’re f–king flared jeans. I wish Bo would pull a K-Federline and clean his act up. No amount of body hair/odor can deny the man of his looks and charm. But, and I don’t know how to put this lightly, dress faggier! Women love guys who dress like fags.

Dear Lord. The Long Long Road is simply a nightmare, and something tells me Bo Knows Recycled Feces when he sings it. Mike stand being dipped like Ginger Rogers, Bo shakes his head so violently to produce a vibrato song that for a moment I confuse him for an autistic kid on Extreme Home Makeover. He strains himself so hard when he sings, that his neck looked straight up like a penis. Penisneck. Before you say anything, my roommate agreed with me wholeheartedly that his neck looked like a dick, and the chest-hair tuft giving us a “How’s Your Mother?” from his shirt didn’t help the image.

The judges pretty much gave him positive feedback. Randy criticized the quality of the song, but, hello, Bo obviously didn’t write it! What a stupid thing to say to him. Now, obviously we here at TVGasm realize that this is not a Bo original hit, but who knows what lesser life forms think when they hear that? Paula congratulates him: “I told you I’d see you in the finals!”, something no doubt said to him over candlelit dinner in Paula’s boudoir. As Bo leaves the stage, I fear I’ve caught a disease: For all of his faults, his smile is simply infectious. Penisneck.

And poor Carrie. She gets stuck with a song called “Inside Your Heaven”, and is so horribly off-key I wondered if she had learned it that very morning. The quality of her voice was still pretty OK, but out of the 20 or so notes she had to miss, she probably his 4 of them. She’s so bad, in fact, that in the middle of the ballad when the gospel singers were coming on stage, I seriously thought it was a producer coming out to remove her! Randy throws her this unusual curveball by telling her she was “pitchy.” I am sick of him using this term. Every time he says it, I picture his body turning red and him breaking through a brick wall, like only a pitcher of Kool-Aid could. And while I’ve had my conspiracies that the judges have been against Carrie (esp. against Bo), for some reason Simon tells her that Round 1 went to her. Meh, who knows?

For his next song, Bo sings “Vehicle.” Again, pretty typical performance, not bad at all, just not splodingly amazing. He certainly was working his body around the stage, circling like half-vulture, half-Timothy Leary. And while I must point out that the denim tunic he was wearing was straight off of QVC (denim tunic?!?!?!), I have to say, once he got his penisneck thing going, I got pretty into it. I was a little sorry he chose this song instead of “Spinning Wheel” (although no one will ever sing it better than Shirley Bassey).

One other item of mention is that Bo’s grandmother looks like a white Ray Charles. Simon says to Bo “Welcome back.”

You know what movie looks kind of funny? Madagascar. Anyone with me on this? I mean I don’t have children (yet, spit three times), and I loathe Disney fare, but I could almost see myself liking this.

Back from break, the camera pans down all of this year’s Top 12. We see that Anwar’s head is now sprouting freshly grown owl doodies. Mikalah is tanorexic. Jessica Sierra is pregnant (no sarcasm, she really is). And even as Ryan introduces Carrie’s next song, which will be Martina McBride’s “Independence Day”, even then, in the background on my television, is a 3 by 3 inch image of Constantine smirking.

Smell something funny? That’s the smell of liquid sex appeal, ladies.

Carrie enters the stage, and to give the girl credit, I think she looks beautiful tonight. She starts her song, and while I don’t know it, I enjoy the performance. Every note was on key, she seemed happy and alive, bubbly. I wonder if she had some personality coaching, because she’s really improved throughout the season. The song seems to be about half as long as Bo’s number, not really sure what the rules are on timing. And while I think this is her best performance of the show, Simon gives Round 2 to Bo. It was a pretty even race between the two.

Next up is Bo’s rendition of “Inside Your Heaven”. I would make Bo take at least 3 blood tests before him and his neck got anywhere NEAR my Heaven (capital H, thank you – I’m a damn lady!). It’s his best outfit of the night, a linen blazer (see what happens when you up the faggy Bo?), and it’s clear that he nearly misses his cue to sing, as he did a small sprint to the mic in order to begin the song.

Bo sizes up his dinner. He’ll suck the blood out of her baby brother for dessert. She looks thrilled.

The first couple of notes are horrible out of tune, but he eventually got it together for the most part. Now I know I’m gonna get a lot of shit for this, but this final really made me miss Clay Aiken. Do you remember that shit? As nasty as that guy is (lesson to Bo, there is such a thing as being too faggy), he had a voice that could make you cry. Remember how wild the audience would go? He lit the show on fire. These two performers are fine and good, but STAR??? I have trouble seeing it. Although I would take either of them over Fantasia, who confused me from Day 1.

In my opinion, Carrie sang the song way better than Bo, but it was hard to hear anything through the blood pouring out of my ear canals thanks to these horrrrrible original songs. Randy tells Bo that he’s “Forever in his dog pound.” See, right there, that’s the title to a great original song! Scowl. Paula I won’t even mention. Too painful. Simon tells Bo that it’s the first time he’s seen his nerves (penisneck), but that he still outsang Carrie on the song.

Carrie closes the night off by singing an original song called “Angels Brought Me Here.” Please, someone, find a ball and a handkerchief quickly, and gag me to death, I beg you. And at my funeral, please, I beg you, sing “Angels Brought Me Here.” I LOVE THIS SONG!!!

JKJKJKJKJKJKJK. Really. Kidding you. Hate the song. It’s like a LAMER version of “A Moment Like This”. Carrie decided to stand very still while this nightmare is being sung. She smiles an actual star smile. Her baby hands are not messing around, firmly placed on the mic, she’s sending it home. And, the cherry on the cake, she gets choked up at the end and nearly cries. Aww. I’m won over. As is Simon, who tells her that she may have just done enough to (read on stodgy British accent) “win this competition.”

To end of this unimpressive finale, we cut to one of my favorite things on the planet: A montage set to overly dramatic 80’s music. In this case, it is one of the BEST SONGS OF ALL TIME, Freiheit’s “Keeping the Dream Alive” (found on your local “Say Anything” soundtrack). This is one of my favorite songs to groom myself to. I highly recommend downloading it: a single listen will have your brain compiling its own montage of all the spectacular highs and lows you’ve accomplished in your life.

We see the outtakes. The tears. The 7-foor tall, black Will Ferrell in the purple t-shirt who can hold a note for 4 minutes. Bo with his hair shorter, Carrie’s curly. Two retarded guys slapping five. Then, more cuts, the goth girl, Mario Vazquez (hahaha!!! Remember him?), the phone number mishaps, the cuts, the cuts, the tears, the cuts. Whoever edited this montage deserves an Emmy: It was by far the highlight of the show. Why watch the whole season when the montage is so kick-ass and so short?

Brandy: Keepin’ it classy and keepin’ it freaky. But mostly just freaky.

So who will be this year’s American Idol? Personally, my vote is for Carrie, but it seems pretty clear that Bo has an intensely strong fan base. So I predict that Bo will be this year’s Idol. In the meantime, will this be Idol’s last season? Are there any asshole in America left who haven’t already auditioned for this show? So many questions. In the meantime, penisneck.