So here we go. They don’t actually have any singing competitions to get from the cut to 40 that they did last night to the cut to 24 that they’re doing tonight. It’s just something so the 40 kids can get really excited and think they made it, but then for 16 of them, the judges say, “Oh no, not you. Sorry to get you all lathered up for your deluxe pedicure just to tell you that you don’t even get a basic foot rub.”
Sanjaya Malakar. Of course, we know he’s going through. He’s a great voice. Could stand to eat a sandwich, because half of him is split off into his twin sister, but sings well whether he throws up all his meals or not. I kid; no, I’m not starting a rumor that he’s bulimic, I’m just making a joke that he’s skinny, give the poor kid a break. I’m just envious, come on! I’d kill for that fluffy hair, too! Anyway, he’s in.
Anna Kearns is the girl who says she’s 6’13” with heels or something, and I don’t think she’s going to Hollywood. And I’m right, she’s out.
Bernard Williams is someone I’ve never even seen, so I’m thinking he’s out. Yes, he’s out. Someone named Eric Davis is out. All of the contestants who are left are pretending to be sad when the contestants get eliminated, but really in their minds they’re saying, hey, that’s one more slot that’s open for me!
Oh, that makes me sad. Tami Gosnell is out. She’s the pedicab driver from what, San Francisco? Auditioned in Memphis or something? I don’t quite remember, but she was soulful, modest, original, I thought she was one of the better auditions, and definitely one of the better girls. Maybe she didn’t undress enough for the show. Shame on AI. I think I would have voted for her often.
Frank and I are wondering about the opera girl, Rachel Zevita, from New York. She was an early favorite of ours, and we haven’t heard anything of her since her audition. Nothing in Hollywood week that I remember. Her myspace page hasn’t been updated (Frank googled her, no, I’m not stalking her, so shut UP!).
Melinda Doolittle, the backup singer, is staying for the voting. Simon has very nice things to say to her and tells her it was unanimous, and she’s earned her spot at the front of the stage. Hugs and kisses all around. Mwah!
Brandon Rogers, the other backup singer, comes in, and they show his Hollywood week stuff. He is singing that Bryan Adams song about really loving a woman. Um, please keep him. Pleeeeeeeeeeeease. Yay! They’re keeping him!
The contestants so far seem more mature this year than last year. The ones they’re letting through, anyway. I mean voices, not necessarily attitudes. Or whatever. I’m judging before the first commercial break. Shut up SarahK. Shut UP!

Continue reading ‘American Idol — Cut to 24 — Dun Dun Dunnnnn’ »

We’re finally out of the auditions.
And — SPOILER ALERT FOR CSI: HORATIO — THAT WAS SUCH AN AWESOME EPISODE! Yes, we just finished it and are just now going to watch AI, but first, lemme gush. What an awesome ending, when Horatio nailed Clavo and Clavo totally looked surprised by it? Fantastic. I heart Horatio Caine! And Yay Yay Yay for Delko not being dead! But so so sad about him thinking Marisol is alive. When he asked Calleigh about Marisol. Oh. My heart. Oh, and how dumb is Boa Vista? When she saw the uncut diamond on the floor, I immediately said out loud, “Uncut diamond!” and Boa Vista said, “Piece of glass?” like you ever just see one solitary piece of glass laying on the floor like that. Like someone just dropped it on their way through to the recycle bin. I think I’ll lay this piece of glass here. ?? Ditz. And y’all don’t even start about David Caruso. He totally RAWKS!
Ahem. On to Idol.
Uhhh. Is that Katharine McPhee’s CD cover? Suh-LUTT! I’m not saying she is one, I’m just saying that’s what she looks like in that picture. Gen-you-wine bona fide slut.
Okay. Day 1 is the girls. They do a quick run-through of six girls, and some of them sound good, some bad, none awful, none great. They axe the whole first group. Bam. Wow, that’ll make everyone else take notice. I think the only one I was surprised to see leave so early is Jory Steinberg.
Next. I expect this Perla Meneses girl to leave quickly. As fast as the first row. Oh good grief. Please don’t put Salma Penelope Hayek Cruz through to the voting. Yikes, they kept her over more talented people. I mean really. Her over Jory Steinberg and that Rachel girl? And the other girls who can actually sing? This is a singing competition, Simon, not a gyrating competition. Simon warns her that she’s more style over talent or something, blah blah blah, and she’s crying, and you know what? Maybe one of those girls who got sent home will trade with you. Suck it up.
Baylie Brown, who my bff thinks looks exactly like my sister, sounds great. I’m glad she’s staying. She’s my pick for the final 12 girls.
Nicole and Nicole’s mom. Um, you didn’t make it. Leave. They look so pathetic when they beg. And even worse when they make their moms beg.
BTW, 24 blogging should return tomorrow. Should. I might do last night’s episode tomorrow.

Continue reading ‘American Idol — Hollywood week! Yay!’ »

I’ll not thank all the people who chose to further that stupid stereotype that we all ride horses for a living and brush our teeth with horsehair toothbrushes while singing Rawhide at the top of our lungs.
Yee-haw.
First up tonight is Bryan Kyrish of San Antonio, screaming “Rebel Yell”, and my vocal chords are having sympathy pains.
Haley Scarnato is next, and she’s very pretty. Pretty girl, pretty voice. Not outstanding, but the judges say, “Well, you don’t suck, so welcome to Hollywood.” Seems to be a theme this year.
Oh my goodness, 10 points that don’t count for anything to the first person who finds me the YouTube video of this!! It’s beautiful. Jasmine Holland’s family has made a poster for their girl. “Jasmine’s Are Next American Idol!” I read it and reread it and kept looking for nouns at the end of the sentence or something to make that a correct exclamatory sentence, and then I realized. Oh. And on national television. How sad for them. Ok, so let’s make fun! I hope they’re from out of state. Please don’t let them be from Texas, because it really sounds like an Oklahoma thing to do. Or at least… you know… an Aggie thing.
Now watch, I’ll do it before the end of this blog post. But hey, they thought about this poster and probably traced it out with pencil first. I mean, it’s on posterboard! Mine is on little teeny pixels!
Now, the singing is awful, and I don’t want to make fun of that. And the judges, Simon in particular, are laughing. But Simon is laughing before she ever starts singing, so it just snowballs once she starts. I actually felt sorry for her while she was singing, because the judges were having the giggle-fits before she ever got going, but then once she started running her mouth and flinging the insults once it was all over, I changed my mind. Especially since she was from San Antonio, and that made me mad, because she embarrassed my state and all. Jasmine, You Our* Not My Next American Idol. *on purpose
Baylie Brown is from Krum and is only 16. When they do the whole life on the ranch thing, I’m scared, but she’s the anti-Kellie, because she doesn’t pretend to not know anything about anything. She’s the little It-girl, fashion-lover, knows she doesn’t belong in a small town. When she’s singing, she reminds me of Natalie Maines, except prettier, with a stronger voice that doesn’t itch and doesn’t twang as hard (thank goodness). I did notice that she started rolling through the song like a freight train, and it got a little scary for me. I started screaming, “Slow down! Slow down!” halfway through. Does it go like that? I wasn’t familiar with the song, but talk about your accelerandos.
Speaking of Latin, tonight we watched last night’s CSI: Horatio, and oh my goodness, Delko!!! Are you kidding me? I will be so upset if he is dead. He is one of my favorite characters. Clavo Cruz better watch out for me and Calleigh and Horatio, because I don’t know who is more ticked off about that. I needed serious comforting after we watched that.

Continue reading ‘American Idol Six – San Antonio auditions’ »

So Olivia Newton-John is guest judging this week, and Paula seems to be done with her family obligations.
And the first dog and pony show, complete with added sound effects, is Martik Manoukian. Fuh-RIIIIIIIIK!
Sholandric Stallworth. For some reason, I thought he was going to sing that very well; I think it was his talking voice that deceived me. It was not good.
And then there’s the parade of people in Halloween costumes. Yawn.
I really liked the New York auditions. Can we have another night of those?
Marianna Riccio. Oh good grief. They made it sound like she was going to be great because she has a show biz background and her mom was in show biz, and it was amazingly bad. Oh dear no, not the beg. They don’t realize how awful it is when they beg. And she went and got her mom to talk to the judges.
And now it’s the parade of little Ollie Twists. Please sir, they want some more. Please, Simon, I want a pistol.
Alaina Alexander is absolutely beautiful. Appearance-wise, I say she has “It”. She’s the first one of the day who can hit two consecutive notes on key, but wow, she’s singing a terrible song and getting pitchy, dawg. How do these people pick their audition songs? They’re letting her through based on looks and an okay audition. I think they should have made her sing a second song.
Phuong Pham has a sad story about an unsupportive family who doesn’t want her to do music and doesn’t think she’s pretty enough… and she starts with this awful gyrational dancing jerky… thing. Maybe if she wasn’t doing cartwheels while she sang, her notes wouldn’t all get forced back into her lungs. Simon keeps calling her Pong. He asks how to pronounce it, and she says Phong, and he repeats it back Pong. I don’t know why he asks for pronunciations if he’s then only going to pronounce the names wrong anyway. Maybe it’s time for a hearing aid, Simon. She’s not a video game. Oh no. And when they’re playing her out, they play the awful forced Taylor Hicks AI song! I do prefer the Weird Al version.

Continue reading ‘American Idol Six – LA auditions’ »

Ryan just said the dumbest thing. Something like “Birmingham is the home of Bo Bice, Ruben Studdard, and Taylor Hicks. So we thought we’d come see what all the hype is about.” Uhhh. All the hype is about Bo, Ruben, and Taylor. Well, not so much Ruben for me, but you get my picture.
Erica Skye (sp? I didn’t is yelling “Unchained Melody”, make that butchering “Unchained Melody”, which she heard was Simon’s favorite song. Oh good grief. She’s gonna sing “Unchained Melody” by “Leann Rimes”. It’s not by her, but she did cover it, if you must know. You wish they would have been nicer? I wish you would have stopped singing when they asked you to the first time. Or the first ten times.
Katie Bernard. Um, I did not expect her to sound like that after hearing the Mickey Mouse speak. She can sing. I hated it, but I can’t deny that she has a voice. I hope she sings differently, but she can sing. She’s so stinking annoying but in a very cute way. Like she’s the Kellie Pickler who could actually grow on me. The ridiculously annoying girl whom everyone loves for some inexplicable reason, but I could actually learn to like her. Except that she is not tone deaf like KP. Paula puts her through simply because Simon hates it.
Tatiana McConnico is 17 and fabulous. Yay, she’s through.
Diana Walker is singing “Saving All My Love”. Paula and Randy are laughing at her. She’s really not so good, and she sounds like she’s doing belly laughs on some of the notes. It is a little funny, I must say, but the way Randy and Paula are behaving… That’s so RUDE!
Bernard Williams II. “Rock with You”, and thankfully doesn’t sound like Michael Jackson. I’m so over Michael Jackson. Sounds very good, and Simon says 100% yes. Paula says great tone but thinks it’s off-key? What? Her eyes are kinda moving all funky, and her Coca-Cola glass is full of something that looks like water, right?
Margaret Fowler. She offends my senses with her Big Birdy ways. Haha, her name is Fowler. As in fowl. Chicken. Fowl. And she’s fifty. Simon finally gets her confession.
Awww, that Coke commercial was totally cute.
Meet your next dumb blonde bombshell act. Jamie Lynn Ward. Except with an even more sobby awful sympathy-votey story. Sorry, but Frank and I laughed at that over-the-top story. Maybe not so much at the story itself, but the way she said it.
JUDGES: So tell us about yourself.
SYMPATHY VOTE: I live with my Grama. My dad’s paralyzed.
JUDGES: Oh. I’m sorry. How?
SYMPATHY VOTE [matter-of-factly]: Oh. He shot himself. In the neck. [Just a-rockin’ back and forth on her heels, grinnin’.]
JUDGES: Wow. Uh. Why?
SYMPATHY VOTE: Oh. It’s ok. It just tells you to keep trying. No matter what. His wife was cheatin’ on him. That’s my step-mom. He shot her. Then he shot himself. Now he’s paralyzed. And me and my Grama take care of him. Y’all wanna go get some ice cream?
Something like that. As you may have guessed, she’s through to the next round. She actually had a pretty enough voice. And she’s not tone-deaf like last year’s sympathy vote. Randy and Paula said yes, and Simon said he would have said no. Oh, and her accent is even more over the top than Kellie Pickler’s. And yes. She’s from North Carolina. Yippee!
Chris Sligh, my favorite contestant so far. Finally, a contestant with a personality! Why are you here? “I wanna make David Hassellhoff cry.” He references the tear on the Hoff’s cheek in last year’s finale when Taylor won. Hahahahahaha. Love it. Frank and I are instant fans. He has confidence but isn’t pretentious. I could do without his overly shaky vibrato, but I think he won Simon over by proving that Americans have humor(humour) too. Paula’s first seal clap of the the season, for a Seal song! And I’m pretty sure she’s loopy now. And he’s through to Hollywood.
Paula had to go back to Hollywood for a family obligation. She’s related to Betty Ford? So now it’s just Randy and Simon.

Continue reading ‘American Idol Six – Birmingham auditions’ »

Carole Bayer Sager is sitting in as guest judge. Let’s be hopeful that she’ll say more than Jewel did in her stint.
Our first giant loser is Ian Benardo. He has chinchilla fur, two therapists, and his name on his shirt. He deserves every bit of ridicule he gets, except that is what he wants. He just asked Simon for his visa and accused him of being an illegal. And now he’s being ousted by security and there he goes saying Simon is the dangerous illegal one. And even Ryan looks annoyed and pushes Ian down the hall, and they could have cut about ten minutes out of his tirade, and I think I would have gotten the point. It’s like in those church hymns where the 2nd or 3rd verse has a star next to it, and the star means that you can drop that verse without changing the meaning of the hymn. What a turd.
Sarah Burgess lied to her parents to audition. Her dad doesn’t want her to audition or be a singer. If she goes, he won’t help her with school or college. I’m sure he won’t see it on TV or hear about it at all. Nobody watches this show. She’s very pretty. And there goes the crying. Can someone tell me why everyone is singing “Call Me” this year? Did it have a comeback this year or get packaged on the B side of “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” and I just am not cool and didn’t get the text? “hey sk! dl call me by blondie on2 ur ipod stat! it’s the bomb! over.” Are they even saying “It’s the bomb” these days? I doubt it — I’m showing my geekiness. I don’t care, y’all can all shut up. Anyway, I like her. Like Simon says, she doesn’t have the best voice, but I think she can improve, and I think she’ll try. And she is bawling like a baby, and I love contestants like her, because she’s weepy and genuinely feeling it. And terrified of telling her daddy. Wow, he must be a big meanie. No look, he’s supportive. Or knows he’s on TV. Notice that TV cut, where Ryan must have said, “Bob, don’t say anything you don’t want broadcast on national television.” Bob’s first reaction sounded happily surprised, and he just wants her home safely, blah blah blah. So she’s so happy. Nice story. I hope she works hard in Hollywood. BTW, I kinda cried like a baby at her story too. But I cry at GEICO commercials, so that’s not saying much. That poor, misunderstood caveman.

Continue reading ‘American Idol Six — New York auditions’ »

All of Memphis audtioned for American Idol this year.
I would like to say that I want to see more good auditions, fewer awful ones, and zero instances of Simon saying people look like monkeys.
This first guy’s name is Frank Byers, so he should go to the next round, because my husband’s name is Frank. Scratch that. I am not enjoying this. It is wonky and feels like a Slinky to me. He could sing, but I felt like he was a Slinky. And now two men are lifting Ryan in the air. Hrm.
Timika Sims. That is an unfortunate place for her hoodie string’s knot to be. She’s never sung in front of anyone before. And Randy is off his nut this year. He just laughs at everyone. You’re bad? Randy will laugh at you. You’re awful? It’s a laugh from Randy.
Christopher Rivera. Another joke. Somebody slashed his pants with a machete covered in paint.
Alexis Partee, the stripper with the bangle bracelets that went out in the 1980s. I have nothing to say about that.
This guy’s dad named him Sundance Head. It was hell to grow up with that name, he says. I’m so glad he owns it, because if he makes it through, I will have so much fun with that. The marquee says Jason ‘Sundance’ Head. Ooh, and he’s from Texas. And he starts singing, and can he just sing for the entire hour? Why do they have to show all these other jokers at all? Just let this guy hit those high notes that left me breathless. Ok, enough cliches. (One is enough for me.) And I’m a big Taylor Hicks fan, but I have to agree with Simon. This snicker Sundance guy (it helps me say it if I say the word “guy” after his name) is better at first glance. We’ll see how he stacks up. I hope he’s not one of those that Simon was talking about that made it to Hollywood and then crumbled before the final 24.

Continue reading ‘American Idol Season Six – Memphis auditions’ »

Reportedly the worst stop on the auditions tour this year.
Brandon Groves. The guy who sang “I Shot the Sheriff” to Paula last season. Now he is dressed as Uncle Sam to sing “God Bless America”. And it’s bad.
Jennifer Chapton. The hotness. “Give Me Your Love”. Give me some earplugs. Wow, no wonder Paula went on the local Seattle show smashy smashed. She needed something to get through the pain of Seattle.
Not that I would have done. But wow.
Amy Salgado. Her husband isn’t supportive of her auditioning. That’s sad. But then again, she has a baby and responsibilities. Or… um. Maybe he wanted to spare her the embarrassment. He knew what would happen, because he’s heard her sing. I hope she went home and just let him give her a big hug.

Continue reading ‘American Idol Season Six – Seattle auditions’ »