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Brain injuries, American Idol, and Macreme earrings

American Idol top ummm... 8 Ladies? Is that right? Is this the last week before the top 12?

I think it's right, in truth, I only remember like 4 of them. Anyone who didn't know me could come upon this blog and think that I've suffered some sort of head injury, as I can never seem to remember what happened on TV the night before. I have nothing else to add.

Let's talk American Idol women! Ok, first off Crystal Bowersox was awesome. Also, you can't call her anything other than "Crystal Bowersox". I've tried. Can't be done. Don't even bother. She sang something good. I can't for the life of me remember what. Seriously, I'm a little concerned.

Weird girl... like legitimately weird girl, not "weird ass earrings middle class parents girl" -we'll get to her later. Weird girl sang "House of the Rising Sun". It was very good, it wasn't as good as last week when she sang -seriously, did you think I'd remember? all I remember is that she hit that crazy note at the end... Crazy!

"Weird ass earrings middle class parents girl" sang a Patsi Cline song... she likes Patsi Cline... of course she does. She also like Johnny Cash and old typewriters. I don't care. I also don't like her, and what's the deal with her macrame earrings?
The girl with red hair sang something. I thought she was good. The Fiance says she wears too much eye make-up. I... agree.

Didi Benimini sang a Fleetwood Mac song, I don't remember which one -surprise!- but it was very good. Really very good.

So that wraps up the American Idol women that I cared enough to -kind of- remember. You want a prediction? here you go; Two of the following three go home; Last black girl, 17 year old girl, and girl with a lot of curly hair. I'd like it to be 17 year-old and WAEMCPG, but that's probably not going to happen.

Here's a commercial that's been on a lot lately. I think it's brilliant.

Idol is CRAZY with surprises! Whoo! Surprises! Also, Friskies may or may not be providing your cat with recreational drugs.

So, Idol surprise: -We'll get to the cat thing later- the guys went tonight! See, that's a surprise because the girls were supposed to go except Crystal Bowersox had some kind of medical issue that rendered her unable to sing last night, but perfectly capable of singing today. I don't know.

So the guys got thrown onto the stage waving their sideways peace signs at the camera which was -apparently- being run by someone who was also surprised that they had to work last night... the cameraman took a solid five minutes to realize that you're supposed to avoid the tops of the audience members' heads. This resulted in a great Fiance moment: When the camera panned to Kara -who's chest was "blurred out" by the top of someone's head- The Fiance reacted with a very excited "Whaaaat?!". Guess you had to be there. Anyway, it turns out Kara wasn't topless, she was wearing one of Paula Abdul's old dresses. Zing! Seriously though, judging from last week and this week, by week seven Kara will have fully morphed into Paula. Mark my words! -side note: you should always be marking my words.

Well, apparently there were also some guys singing last night. I don't remember what order they went in, and -most disturbing of all- I don't remember the nicknames I gave them last week... so we'll have to come up with new ones.

What's that? No I can't go re-read my blog from last week!! Jesus!

I do remember that the first contestant to go was the largest man on the planet. Last week he had a very small guitar. This week he sang "It's a man's world", which contains the line "It wouldn't be nothin' without a woman or a girl"... here's the thing, James; I know you don't want to exclude any possibilities, but no one's holding you to this, you can go ahead and write the line so that it's not awkward.
Anyway, I thought it was going to be a train wreck. After all, James Brown was really more of a band leader than a singer (now, I know he sang, I'm just saying, he strength was putting together and leading a band, not singing... I'm a musician! You have to listen to me!). But old Mike "Contestant most likely to eat Ryan Seacrest" Whatever-his-last-name-is did a good job with it. The judges were all up in it.

I don't remember who went second, but I remember that the singer/dancer and the guy who threw the band under the bus both oversang their songs. And were annoying. TGWTTBUTB asked the judges -after they told him he picked the wrong song- which song he should pick next time... ugh.

Hair -the one who Kara has a creepy sort of crush on- has some kind of pre-show ritual involving something in a box that he's only going to tell us about if he makes the top ten. I don't care. He sang a song that other people have sung before. He plays a mean guitar. Did I say that I don't care?

Crystal Boy-ersox, aka the Dentist, aka His parents were in a gang! was bad this week. It hurts me to say it, but he was. I think he was trying to either a) lower expectations or b) make the judges realize that even if they don't particularly like the song he chooses to jazz up and play on acoustic guitar, they should shut up and enjoy it, because the alternative is much worse. Regardless, I think he's fine; his parents were in a gang! Maybe not even the same gang! We don't know!

"ABC family" and "Lucky to still be" here can be summed up in the following conversation between myself and the Fiance. -The Fiance was out of the room.

The Fiance: Is this the teenager?

Me: Nah, he went earlier... He sang 'my girl'

The Fiance: Dear God... How'd it go for him?

Me: It was like a guest appearance on 'Full House'

The Fiance- Good line, you should put that in your blog

Me: Oh, I will.

The Fiance: Who's singing then?

Me: It's the guy that got in cus the other guy got kicked out. I don't care about him really... Except that he's terrible.

Asian guy was boring.

Carrol Brady and 1995 were both really good. Also, they told a little bit about themselves, and it kinda worked on me. Carrol Brady gets real nervous before he goes on stage, or plays football. Also, he's from Texas, so he's tapping into my love of Friday Night Lights.

1995 has a stupid goatee. But he was a troubled kid who got sent to an alternative school and met a teacher he calls "Amy" -creepy! Who came to his audition with him -Even more creepy! He's kinda likable for a guy with a concealed weapons permit and douche-bag facial hair who certainly drives a car with a carbon-fiber hood on it.

Ok. I'm done. I think Asian Guy and "Lucky to still be" go home. Also I think Kara develops an addiction to prescription drugs, struggles to stay awake for the rest of the season and has a "comeback" performance mid season next year.

Additional thought: I saw everyone's favorite dreamboat Robert Pattison on the Daily Show last night (actually it was this morning, stay out of my business!) and I'm pretty sure he's dead. Not in a "150 year old dreamboat vampire" way, but in a "being animated through a series of electrical pulses" sort of way.

Either way, I think I need more you-tube clips in my blogs, this aired during the Olympics and begs the question: What?

It's a man's world

Night 2 of the Idol "nitty gritty"... and as we all know, I like to get down to the nitty gritty.

So, I realized a couple of things about yesterday's column as I was watching Idol last night; First, I forgot to predict who will be going home. So prediction, um.... number five and number seven -I don't know, I promise some negative predictions when the season gets going, but right now there's just too many nameless faceless contestants... I'm starting to think I should have picked up next week at the top 20... but no matter. Second thing I realized while watching Idol last night; The Fiance doesn't know what dentists look like. God love her, but apparently she grew up in a world where dentists don't have neck tattoos. I don't want to live in a world like that.

So all sorts of guys performed last night, and as always when Idol brings in the guys, I'm reminded that the stupid goatee that I had banished to the realm of "stupid facial hair that douchebags the world over -myself included- sported in the late 90s and early 2000's" is still alive, well, and being worn by douchebags everywhere.

That being said, I don't have the patience to go through everyone again... Christ! it's 24 contestants, I don't even have the patience to write out 24 with actual letters! So I'm just going to go over the ones that I had any sort of opinion about (which should be about twelve of them).

First things first, they put the Dentist on last... you know why they did this? Because he's awesome, and they know it. But I think maybe they knew it too much this week, because they got all disappointed with his super awesome jazzy acoustic performance of some pop-punk song... the kind of song I would have listened to when I had a goatee. But yeah, he's a winner, there's a level of comfort with the creative process in him that isn't there with the other contestants, he's my male Crystal Bowersox... let's call him Dentist Boy-ersox (yeah!)... ok, we're not going to call him that. Still, I'm very proud of the fact that I pulled that out of the pile of crappy gender based Bowersox jokes in my head.

So we've got the Dentist. We've got the 19 year old kid from Texas who I like to call "Seriously, what's the deal with your hair?!". Ellen mentioned that he was keeping his mullet no matter what anyone says. My response: "That's what I'm talking about, Ellen!". Off topic, but another key Ellen moment of the night (I'm luke on Ellen so far, but I'm coming around... I just hate Kara so much). When the judges were "judging" Dreamboat VonHunkerson for his looking pretty while someone sang Brian Adams, Kara turned to Ellen for some back-up on how much all of the ladies wanted him. To which Ellen's face replied "dude, I like girls". Hehe, stupid Kara, what does Ellen want with Dreamboat when she's got Portia at home cooking up some hot ham water?

Well, Back to "Seriously, what's the deal with your hair?"... the thing is, it's not so much a mullet as Carol Brady's hair with the sides cut short. All that aside, he sang well, I really like his voice, and man, he was nervous! Like, you could pick me up in a bus -right now- fly me to Hollywood, throw me on a stage in front of cameras and tell me to sing a Dixie Chicks song (I don't know any Dixie Chicks songs... that's an unspoken part of the description) and I wouldn't look as nervous as that kid... which, frankly, kinda makes me like him. In three weeks, it won't make me like him anymore, but right now, it's endearing.

Let's see... who else... we covered Dreamboat- he was actually pretty good, just too dreamy for me to take seriously, and I kinda feel for him on that, you could tell watching him during the criticism that he was a little put out by the fact that all anyone talked about was how pretty he was. It's a rough life for the very beautiful among us.

I'm really blanking here... oh, there's "2 of Ryan Seacrest"... Big Mike, seriously, that guy's at least two of Ryan Seacrest... very funny to see them standing next to each other. Anyway, he's all right, I think I'll get tired of him the same way I'd get tired if I spent enough time with any gym employee.

There's "ABC Family", that kid needs a nose-job quick if he has any hope of breaking in to the teen-idol world -other than that, he's got it... he's asexual, non-threatening, he tops off at about 94 lbs. Even his "spiky hair" is only ambiguously spiky.

The guy that used the band as an excuse for his bad performance in Hollywood (bad move). So a) he was terrible...like awful terrible... baaaad b.) When Ryan said to him "So, have you and Mike made up?" (Mike's the band leader) he responded "Who's Mike?!"... oh Lord. So I think he's gone. There is the chance (and this happens often with Idol) that because he was really bad he'll get through because he'll get a bunch of support... I don't know.

To be honest, no one else stands out in my mind enough to talk about. I guess I should say that 70's guy should get a new shtick, but that's really all I've got.

Tonight; results show... I may bust out a quick post tomorrow about the results... I don't know. Survivor's on, so I'm not guaranteeing anything.

American Idolatry

First...

I'll admit it. Doogal broke me. It's still sitting on my entertainment center. I'm too ashamed to even mail it back to Netflix. I will hang my head low.

Ok, done with that (honestly, I didn't think I was going to make it past the first) on to the next thing: American Idol!

We're like a month in at this point, and have started in with the standard show mechanics. Singers sing, Judges judge, and America Americizes. Since there's a mammoth 24 contestants, and there's no way that the show could fit 24 contestants performing for a minute each into 120 minutes and leave time for commercials -I'm actually accepting the commercials as a given... I know how things work. It's the Idol filler that I'm directing my sarcasm at.

So the round up of the girls is as follows; Well, it's actually a pretty uninspiring group. There's the one blonde girl with two incarnations -like on Heros... remember that whole thing? Seriously, what kind of super-power is "My reflection in the mirror is another sentient being"? it doesn't make any sense. But there's those two girls. Their performances didn't matter... one of them sang Heart -will people please stop singing Heart? Please? They suck. No one does a good job with the songs. Stop. I don't remember what the other one sang, but it didn't matter.

You've got super young black-girl-who-sings-country. While we're here... I kind of think this may have been an ingenious plot to get her on the show. See, here's the thing; she doesn't sing country! She's had, what? 8-9 performances and one of them was country. one. That doesn't make her a country singer and more than the fact that my Pad Thai last night had tofu in it makes me a vegetarian. Also. She sucks. I think she'll be around for a while though... mark my words.

There's Andie McDowell and her "my parents are divorced" sob story... doesn't work. There's gigantic dangley bird earrings girl... she's the one with the gigantic dangley bird themed earrings. She's actually all right... I don't want to like her, but she's all right.

There's "80's movie 'weird' girl who gets made over by a popular girl and is suddenly 'hot' but in reality is just the weird girl wearing makeup"... I thought she did OK. Also, she didn't know what "Dark Horse" meant.

You've got "I can't think of a clever name for her" girl from Massachusetts. And 17 year old... there's one in every show. I didn't see the girl with the bright red hair, but the judges thought she was "pitchy". I don't remember Paige Miles... the other black girl. There's curly haired half-black girl, she sang "falling", she did a good job, she's very attractive. That's it for her.

And finally, my call for "by the end of the season she'll be remembered as my favorite". Crystal Bowersox. Pros: Her name's Crystal Bowersox; She's legitimately talented; She actually seems like she hasn't been watching Idol since she was three... as apposed to the contestants that want to seem like they're out-of-the-mainstream "street" performers, but whose clearly middle class parents are in the audience -I'm looking at you, Dangley bird girl; also her kid is adorable. Cons (yeah, I'd forgotten what we were doing too); She's got dreads. Really that's it. I didn't think she did so good with the harmonica this time, but I won't call that a "con". I really hate white-kid dreads, but do I hate them enough to overcome my general liking of all things Bowersox? I don't think so.

Tonight, the men... there's some winners in this group... I'm looking forward to it (I'm mostly looking forward to the guy with the crazy thick glasses... I'm going to call him "Dentist" because he reminds me of a dentist)

More tomorrow (right like you can believe any promise I make)

Another short post

So it turns out I can blog from work... thank God! The inability to blog was starting to have an effect on my reasonably opinion of this new job (you know, so far).

But Alas, I haven't watched Doogal yet... so I can't blog about that. Good news: American Idol proper starts next week, and I plan to give it some coverage, so there's that.

Two more things;

1) Watch Friday Night Lights... for the love of God! Watch it! The season's nearly over -for DirecTV customers, that is -I don't know what network channel it's on, but some channel -CBS, NBC, something will show this season again... so I guess watch it then... or go get an old season on DVD and watch it! It's the best show on TV. (also, give yourself a few episodes, it takes a minute to get into)

2) Apparently Taco Bell's founder died. And we have this:



Weird, No?

One more thing...

If Idol has any hope of a post Simon-Cowell exitense, they need to pay special attention to the following three words: Neil Patrick Harris.

There, I've said my peace.