Tryin’ to Keep up With the Boom Cats

Well we’ve now gone through two episodes of Making The Band 3 and Diddy has started to cut some of the fat. And I personally can’t thank him enough. The show was full of fat. To put it in perspective, if this show was a meal, it would be a big greasy pork sandwich served in a dirty ashtray (extra points to whoever can name which movie that’s from). But now we need to turn it into a lean turkey club sandwich with lowfat mayo and a side salad with a nice vinaigrette. And in this episode we start to see Diddy really coming into his own as he falls back on some of his true talents. I’ve got two words for you: rickshaw and bullhorn.

It’s true, for the first time this season we will not be subjected to a half hour of bad singing. This is good news because the scabs on my eardrums from last episode have yet to fully heal. Remember John Goodman’s ears in Barton Fink? That is what bad songs sung badly can do to you. No, this episode will be all about the art of dance. And in Diddy’s world the kind of dancing he is looking for is the kind that can be done with a pole and a garter belt to hold singles. Like I said, the man is a good businessman. And the first rule of business is don’t talk about business. Wait, that’s Fight Club. No, the first rule of business is to sell people what they want. And what we want (or at least what Diddy and I want) is a world full of Shakiras shakin’ their tail feathers. Oh what a world that would be…We start the episode in Laurie Ann Gibson’s dance studio where she is putting the girls through her new dance routine. And let me tell you, the woman does not suffer fools lightly. Hmm, seeing as how this is a show run by a grown man who refers to himself as “Diddy,â€? let me rephrase. She is very tough on the girls. Yeah, that’s it.

“And a five, six, seven, eight!â€? she yells over and over again. Every time I hear that in my mind I always follow it up with “Schlemiel, Schlimazel, Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!” Ahh Laverne and Shirley reruns. Gotta love em. Back when I was eight, I modeled my life after Squiggy. It’s paying dividends to this day. But I digress. She follows every move with a “Boom…Cat!â€? which is a timing thing to keep their moves going along with the drumbeat. Not everyone is getting it.

Dominique, the short, slightly chubby girl, is not a natural dancer, and is having trouble getting the moves down. Even with help from Laurie Ann she is still having problems moving her shoulders and holding her poses. I can relate. I was like that in my first year of dance as well. But all this is overshadowed by the disaster that is Malika. The girl simply cannot dance. It’s like watching my great aunt dance, and she died in 1982. Now Malika as you all know is from season one, which I admit I didn’t watch a lot of. So why is it that she made it this far dancing like a 63-year-old milkman with shingles? Well I’m not the only one wondering. “Malika did you take any lessons at all over the last year?â€? scolds Laurie Ann. That hurts. “I’m just tryin’ to keep up with the boom cats” Malika tells us. Aren’t we all, Malika. Aren’t we all. Another thing we find out about Malika in this scene, other than her inability to dance, is that baby got back.

My anaconda don’t want none unless you’ve got buns hon

Since Malika is starting to feel the heat, she goes to fellow season one alum Aubrey for help with the dance moves. Dancing is Aubrey’s thing, which is good since last episode we learned that singing was definitely not. Another benefit of Aubrey: she has the greatest stomach I’ve ever seen. And she isn’t afraid to show it. In fact I don’t think she owns an article of clothing that has a midsection on it. The only downside is she insists on wearing a big ugly belly button ring. That is sooo 2002. Unless it’s actually just a dangling air freshener. [rimshot!] Thank you. I’ll be here all week. Enjoy the veal. As they go through the steps you can hear the fear in Malika’s voice just as much as you can see the smugness in Aubrey’s smile. Will this be Malika’s week to go?

Dominque is another one who will not take no for an answer. She is also getting private lessons from another contestant, Amber. Later, after MTV gives us a little flashback montage of Dominique’s “overcoming the oddsâ€? moments, I realized that Dominque is Making the Band‘s very own Daniel ‘Rudy’ Ruettiger. Only instead of a white short kid trying to play football at Notre Dame in 1974, it’s a chubby black girl trying to be in a girl band in 2005. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if Charles S. Dutton doesn’t appear in one episode as her mentor. I will be surprised, however, if a really fat Jon Favreau showed up as her roommate. That would be just too weird even for me. Although he is making the reality show rounds this week…

Back in the dance studio, Laurie Ann continues to rip Malika a new one (which judging from the size of her caboose, would a very large rip). “I will not bring you in front of Puff Daddy dancing like this,â€? she screams. Puff Daddy? Hello? It’s Diddy. Didn’t you see the press release? Geez. She is just as difficult on Dominique, so it looks like this week we’re having a good old fashioned suck off. And not in the good way.

Speaking of Diddy, it’s now time for him to make his appearance. And as always, he does it in style. We see him landing in his Diddycopter. What are the odds that this is a Trumpian entrance? Meaning that he didn’t need to go anywhere in a helicopter, they just stuck him in there for the visual. Like Trump’s fake “hold my callsâ€? moments on the way to the boardroom. In yet more proof as to why I love this show so much, Diddy talks about how he likes to “globe trot around the globe.â€? Between sentences like that and all the double negatives lies my nirvana.

Diddy enters the loft as a man on a mission. The girls have five minutes to get their stuff ready and meet them downstairs. Once the girls scamper around getting dressed and get downstairs they are greeted by Diddy and the next Challenge. He is going to make them go on a six mile run through Central Park. And Diddy will follow them all in a rickshaw with a bullhorn. Brilliant!

Dominique, not surprisingly, says she is not much of a runner. “I don’t not run unless I’m being chased,� she says, and I agree wholeheartedly. Now Diddy’s excuse for having the girls run is because he wants to make sure they have “endurance and a lot of heart� or something. Whatever. If that was the criteria why isn’t Lance Armstrong starring in his own boy band? No, the real reason I suspect is it provides a perfect excuse for Diddy to fuel his ego by showing off with the public bullying people who suck up to him. It’s good to be the king.

Of course if you lived in the NY area you would know that Diddy actually ran the NY Marathon a few years ago. And from the press coverage you’d think he was attempting the greatest act of physical endurance any man ever withstood, as opposed to just running a marathon with about five thousand other people. So as Diddy is following along in his rickshaw, with the ever-grinning Andre Harell by his side, he berates the women as they run. This is the Making the Band I know and love.

Dominique is quite predictably having trouble. She is in the back of the pack with her friend Amber. But since she is our Rudy she will not quit. Tiffany, on the other hand, is running into real trouble. And you know it’s trouble when we go into the quick zooms and black and white. This is the international symbol for trouble in reality television. She tells us she was just running and then all of a sudden her hip just didn’t feel right anymore. Like a trooper of course she keeps plugging away even with her seemingly displaced hip. “Little stuff like this can get you sent home,” she says. Little stuff? Little stuff is mistaking Andre for Johnny Wright. Dislocating your hip is little bit bigger deal. But I give her credit as she finishes the race.

Soon all the women finally finish the race and they collapse at the fish line. We even get to see the hot Aubrey pour a bottle of water on her head, yet the fools at MTV only let it go for about 2 seconds. Since I care about my readers (well my male ones any ways. OK, my male readers who like to ogle Aubrey as much as I do. Happy now?) I was able to grab a screenshot. She’s a maniac, maniac. And she’s dancing like she’s never danced before.

Once they are done Diddy tells them that they have to go right from there to the dance studio. When they get there, it finally dawns on them that Diddy will be doing the final dance off right then and there, when they are still exhausted from the six mile race. The man is crazy. Crazy like a fox. Tiffany is rightly scared. Her hip is getting worse and she has trouble walking, so god knows how many problems she will have stripper dancing. It’s pretty much all hips. And a few well-placed knees to the crotch.

Diddy sits down and it’s time for the girls to perform in groups for him. I have to admit some of them step up to the plate and get the job done; even Rudy is able to pull it off. Well, she still sucks, but she was able to get by on grit and determination. Dominique has got grit coming out of her eyeballs. The girl pees grit. When Malika is called on she does her usual horrible job which is compounded by the sheer exhaustion from the run. And Diddy is doing his super serious face today so you know that isn’t good for her. Maybe now finally we can say goodbye to Malika.

When Tiffany gets called on she hobbles up and starts her routine. After a few seconds of grimacing we hear Diddy say “what’s wrong wich you?” She then fesses up that she thinks has a dislocated hip. Diddy sends her off to the hospital. It looks like she is spared the guillotine this week. You see, Diddy does have heart. Also, I like writing the word Diddy.

Diddy is then ready to make his cuts. And he does it quickly and then leaves. The girls getting sent home today are Amber, Jennifer and…Malika. Finally. For some reason Malika doesn’t believe it. She knew she was a bad dancer but she still felt she should stay. Everyone else is devastated for her. Well everyone but me. I mean we all knew that he was going to cut one of the original three early on so he could instill the whole “no one is safe” vibe. And Malika with all due respect should have been booted a week ago.

She is undeterred however. She will take these lessons and use them as she keeps going forward. As she leaves us she looks in the camera and issues a challenge: “Google my name!” Fair enough. I did, and this is what I got. Keep trying, Malika. But then again when you Google EdHill, you get this dude, so I’m in no position to cast stones.

Now that we’ve narrowed the field down even more, will the show get better? We can only hope. We are teased with next week’s promo as one of the ladies gets rushed to the hospital. Ooh, that’s good TV. Will it be as good as seeing Rebecca from America’s Next Top Model fainting during her judging? That was awesome. She dropped like a sack of bricks.

Man, I need to read a book….