American Idol in SF: "It is Almost Nonhuman."
Last year, we TOTALLY recapped the San Franciscan "American Idol" auditions, so you can bet we were looking forward to tonight's thrilling episode. And you know what? It was only kind of eh. Nothing like 2005's dramatic parade. The main highlight of the episode? Simon gets bored and wanders off. Um, okay, that's sort of interesting, we guess.
The show starts with a cheap faux-emo cover of that "If You're Going to SF" song. We don't know who's responsible for this unbearable version of the song (Update! it was Me First & the Gimme Gimmes, who we understand are HUGE fans of mainstream pop.), but we do know that the only thing worse than being emo is getting paid to fake it. Anyway the first singer thinks that she'll wow the judges by singing opera. Has she never seen the show? Does she know what "America" and "idol" mean? Paula: "I totally appreciated that." Oh THANK you, your Abdulship. Paula adds that it sounded like the girl was yelling. Then she says yes. Ergo, Paula hearts yelling.
After the jump: probably nothing as funny as what Jacob will have to say.
The Seacrest asks a fellow, "what's going down, baby," which is the most effective pickup line we've ever heard. The guy resembles Missy Elliot if she was wearing a giant barcode, and is also taking opera lessons (WTF?) and declares, "I can feel in my heart that i'm going to be something huge someday." Snicker. Simon: "It is almost nonhuman." Ouch. The poor guy's fatal error, we suspect, is his sexual ambiguity (he sings like a lady) -- for some reason, "American Idol," despite being the queerest buttmunch in Gaytown, loves to hate androgynes. Issues.
We can't help but notice that The Seacrest is standing in front of GG Bridge in exactly the same spot that he stood last year. Maybe they shot two or three seasons' worth of standups at one time, so that in the event that his gears run down or he's felled by a y2k bug, he can still introduce television programs.
The worst song of the night: a Verizon commercial, triumphantly informing us that you can download "My Humps" to your phone. We would pay for a service to automatically melt our phone if it ever came in contact with that song. Also ludicrous: an anti-pot ad that makes no sense and embarasses everyone. The message seems to be that pot makes you boring and lazy, which is true, but so what? If you've tried it, you know that it's fun, and if you haven't, you know that if it really sucked as much as the ads say, your friends wouldn't be hooked on it. So the message is ultimately that you should never trust anti-pot commericals. Nice work, guys.
Next up: a bald guy lows a song that goes, "baby baby baby baby baby baby baby." His name is Jose Sway Penala, and he has "Sway" written on his belt buckle just in case he forgets. That's totally useful! We wish Nixon had thought of that. We would so dig a "Milhouse" belt buckle. Sway the Mooing Pinhead is followed by Lauren Weckerly, who's sweet and nice and yawwwwwwn, and then some cute boys who get about a half-second of screen time. Dammit!
Matthew "Wolfie" Paulson comes next. He is unfortunately completely atonal, but his hair mesemerizes us; it does some sort of wavy backwards thing, like he's practicing for the day he'll need a combover. He likes wolves, he says, a fact borne out by his Myspace profile. Randy slyly informs him, "I like wolves too," and in that moment they totally understand each other. Yiffing probably ensues off-camera. "Wolfie" mentions that he resembles Clay Aiken, who we sort of suspect will eventually turn out to have been a Martin Short character all along. It's like trying to sell youself by saying you're like Jiminy Glick.
John Williams from Sacto is next. He was in the Army and does some sort of beatboxing shiny-shirt twaddle. Simon is nonplussed. Randy wishes to learn more: "is this an act you do here in town" and "this San Francisco day's strange ... it's a wild place." Is he tap-dancing around asking if the guy's a drag queen? Anyway he's from Sacramento, so it doesn't really have anything to do with SF day.
Catherine McPhee auditions, right after a commercial for the movie Nanny McPhee, which totally blows our minds. She is 21, from Sherman Oaks, and is the sweetest little honeybunch you ever did see. The judges salivate and push each other out of the way in a mad dash to defile her as quickly as possible: "you're very current. you're on the money," Simon oozes, "it's just very very very what is happening today." It's like they've already started writing her tragic "Behind the Music" special.
Eric Cornforth, a 17-year-old from here in town, auditions wearing what looks like his mom's blouse and a Charlie's Angels wig. We eat it up. Can he come to see Xanadu with us at the Castro on Friday night? Also, his MySpace profile says he's 20 -- get your story straight, Cap'n Cornforth.
Shalicia Carlisle auditions and clutches at herself like she's searching for her keys. Then she leaps into some spoken word along the lines of "someone's mother is shooting herself in the arm with a needle and you probaly think I'm lying because you've never been subjected to the excruciating truths of the ghetto." No. Nobody thinks you're lying. We've been subjected to some excruciating truths ourselves today, you know. Shalicia reveals that she quit her retail job to go to the audition (WTF?) and Simon calls her boss to ask that she be reinstated. The boss obliges, and Simon says, "you're a very nice boss, I'll call you back." (WTFAGAIN? Is Simon looking for a retail job? We would love to hear him berating customers at Abercrombie.)
Shawna White from Willits auditions. We doze off.
Marcus Phillips sounds like morning radio announcer, by which we mean that he would need to be accompanied by wacky sound effects to hold our interest. He sings and raps entirely in falsetto. He also beatboxes, sadly not in falsetto, which probably isn't possible but we'd like to hear it attempted. He also has a hedge maze drawn on his head.
Jayne Santayana, a pair of legs from Saskatchewan, looks like something that someone drew for their indie manga series that'll get published ANY DAY NOW. After she narrowly makes it through, Paula adjusts her makeup with some strange posture that makes it look like she's putting a handgun to her face.
Deborah Dawn Tilley is 27, but she's disguised as a 46-year old. She's from Nevada. After the panel rejects her, Simon has his period and leaves, saying, "you can do this on your own for a while." Paula drifts out of her haze at this, saying just, "UM." Because she knows they can't. Randy again says "San Franciscoooo" knowlingly, as if what he really means is, "why don't I have a tranny hooker on my lap yet?"
Manuel Viramontes from Las Banos auditions, and we can't decide which is worse, the oil slick that is his personality on TV, or his execrable MySpace profile, in which he declares "I HAD TO REEVALUATE MY INTERESTS AGAIN. I CAME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT GETTING WASTED BEYOND BELIEF WHETHER IT BE ON A MESSED UP MODAY OR A S**T-FACED SATURDAY IS STILL PRETTY INTERESTING TO ME!"
Sometimes, it's hard to figure out who to dislike more on American Idol. The judges are horrible people when they sarcastically encourage earnest, untalented auditioners; they remind us of people who get their dog drunk in order to gather the family around and laugh at it stumbling down the stairs. And then you've got the sleazebucket kids who desperately want to enter that kind of a world. Ugh. The only sure thing is that we have great pity -- it's almost like the "no don't go in there" feeling we get on behalf of the heros in horror movies -- for those few pure-hearted singers who get caught up in the monster's wake.
God, what a downer! Go out and play or something, we're going to go sit in the corner and sob for a while and we don't want any company.