This week’s bewildering edition of American Idol roused fear in my heart, folks, after the flagrant lack of effort to showcase any discernible talent in the showbiz capital of the world resulted in an episode so steeped in manipulative tomfoolery I nearly feel insulted. Somehow, the producers managed to precede the Los Angeles disaster with a promising cowpoke or two in Austin, but the entire charade already felt saturated with desperate catchphrases and winking nudges in reference toward the franchise’s newest golden goose, Steven Tyler. He’s so loopy! And strange! And inappropriate! Whatever will he say next? OMG, did he just swear? The bigwigs at Idol have rushed to capitalize on Tyler’s popularity by beginning Tuesday’s episode with a farcical disclaimer “apologizing” for Tyler’s “outrageous” behavior.
The fact that many news outlets around the country reportedly didn’t understand the mea culpa was a joke is beyond my comprehension, considering the Lawrence Welk background music accompanying the statement, and the spotlight focused on Tyler’s reaction to the poor, clueless contestant Jake Muck directly afterward. “You know what Muck rhymes with?” Tyler drawls, his tongue practically wagging. “Duck?” replies Jake, knowing full well that Tyler, of course, has another word in mind he simply can’t wait to get bleeped. Oh, Idol.
The Austin auditions begin harmlessly enough as Seacrest boasts that Idol will take the “bull by the longhorns” in the Texas capital, and a collective groan rumbles through the nation’s living rooms. Tyler makes a dramatic entrance via horse and buggy, and J. Lo’s sinewy skeleton of a husband, Marc Anthony, slithers in to remind everyone, possibly including J. Lo herself, that he exists.
The first singer to test Austin’s limits is Corey Levoy, 21, who brought along his big sis, Brooks (Brooks? As in, the plural of Brooke? Um, okay), for moral support. In a surely unintentional plot hole within their carefully constructed backstory, Corey begins talking about how he and Brooks didn’t meet until relatively recently – except this heartstring-yanking voiceover is accompanied by a photo of the siblings together as toddlers. Regardless of whether or not their estrangement is wholly true, Corey and Brooks are best buddies now and the judges invite her in to sit on the panel with them during Corey’s audition. I’m already underwhelmed after the inconsistency of their testimony and the unnecessary shot of the two riding horses through the fog (seriously), but it turns out Corey ain’t half bad. He sings the Bonnie Raitt classic “I Can’t Make You Love Me” and Brooks says it gave her “chill bumps.” Chill bumps. These kids are just making things up left and right. Corey and his J. Lo booty gallop off with a golden ticket.
British expat Hollie Cavanaugh is 17 going on 12 and has been forced to grow up in small-town Texas after such a promising start in Liverpool, England. Poor thing. She’s visibly terrified and manages to, according to Randy, change keys “about five times” during her rendition of “At Last.” She’s clearly not cut out for showbiz, but maybe has a voice in there somewhere. Simon would tell her to look for it among the tumbleweeds back home, but J. Lo and Tyler let her sing another song, the apropos Miley monster ballad “The Climb.” Hollie sounds every bit as sort-of-almost-kinda-maybe good as the first round, but the judges knowingly nod and the Dawg changes his mind, tossing yet another quivering tween to Hollywood like chum into a shark tank.Seacrest begins grumbling about the disappointing turnout of cowboys in Austin. Heh. Plenty of spurs and chaps have entered the building, but sadly none have managed to lasso any discernible vocal ability. Where are all the real men in Texas? As Paula Cole would wail, Where have all the cowboys gone? Seacrest perks up at the arrival of none other than John Wayne (!) Schulz, a ranch hand whose parents named him with the hopes of a “rough and tough” son. Seacrest remarks how it would have sucked for them had little John Wayne turned out more like an effete media gadfly such as himself, but Dad assures Seacrest he’d be a cowboy, too, had he just been raised properly. The entire exchange is beyond hilarious. John Wayne is indeed the All-American Boy and addresses the judges with adorable Yes Sirs and Yes Ma’ams. He sings a Brooks and Dunn song and looks like he should have an American flag backdrop behind him, or perhaps a bale of hay or two. I think one of his teeth may have sparkled. Oh, and his mother is a breast cancer survivor who has John’s football picture pinned to her shirt. Yee-haw.
After the John Wayne Schulz glow has dissipated, Seacrest is bombarded with the crazy-eyed wiles of Courtney Penry, the only teenage girl in America who claims a sexual attraction to him. He’s genuinely confused by her awestruck reaction to his presence, and even appears to look behind him for the Jonas Brother really causing the girl’s hyperventilation. Courtney brings her eccentric personality into the audition room and proceeds to exhibit an overwhelmingly unamusing chicken impression. Yawn. Unfortunately, her actual singing voice isn’t nearly as awful as I’d hoped, and Courtney will have free reign over Seacrest on his home turf in Hollywood.
Lovebirds Jacqueline Dunford, 22, and Nick Fink, 19, met in their community college choir and are positively debilitated over one another. By the time they get into the audition room, their preceding segment had made me so queasy with its soft lighting and meadow-frolicking I had prepared for both of them to stink to high heaven. Love is both blind and deaf, you see. Color me surprised when both Jacqueline’s Duffy song and Nick’s Maroon 5 tune were actually pretty good and both of them were sent to Hollywood, maybe even legitimately so.
Janelle Arthur is 20 and lives in the Tennessee sticks. She insists that not everyone from the Ozarks is a toothless hillbilly out of Deliverance, but footage of her normal-looking family hanging out on a normal-looking porch and having normal-looking dinner in a normal-looking kitchen is so dang normal-looking I wonder how many dead bodies are hidden under the floorboards. In any case, Janelle has a distinctly Carrie Underwood-esque vibe about her and is the first contestant of the day (besides maybe John Wayne) who I think nailed their audition. The dollar signs practically light up in the judges’ eyes, and Janelle’s golden ticket matches her golden glow. Golden glow? I can’t believe I just said that. Yeesh.
After a spectacularly lame “contestant” arrives dressed as an armadillo and makes everyone within visibility scowl with contempt, Austin’s auditions refreshingly end sans schizo or sob story. Enter Casey Abrams, a Seth Rogen lookalike who brought a melodica to keep him entertained during the long wait in the audition lines. He’s somewhat slovenly and disheveled, but the Idol machine has grown so predictable that I already know Casey cannot possibly suck. Indeed, his rendition of Ray Charles’ “I Don’t Need No Doctor” is a breath of fresh air, brimming with delightful whimsy and distinctiveness. He doesn’t hit every note, but his tone and enthusiasm are palpable, and Tyler calls the audition “sick good!” Despite looming fears that Casey may be another Taylor Hicks, I look forward to seeing him, and his melodica, in Hollywood.
Wednesday’s auditions in Los Angeles come with a disclaimer of their own, as Seacrest reminds the viewers that Tinseltown is all about appearances and façades. Even Randy gets glammed up, sporting a pair of blindingly tacky, yet somehow appropriate, gold shoes. Millions of people flock to LA to strive for undeserved fame and fortune, so what better place to hold a session of auditions for American Idol?
The night’s first L.A story comes in the form of Victoria Garrett, whose iron-fisted confidence in her own star quality all but guarantees the exact opposite. Indeed, the sound of her singing voice leaves the judges dumbstruck in its thunderous incompetence, and Victoria’s blissful ignorance leads her to declare, “I let my nerves get the best of me,” when she leaves the room empty handed. However, Tyler’s declaration that she be sent to Siberia instead of Hollywood (ha!) put some kind of thorn in Victoria’s side, as she manages to fit a J. Lo dis in her exit interview. Stay classy.
Tim Halperin has had a crush on J. Lo for, according to Randy, “2500 years.” His serenade of “She Will Be Loved” subsequently renders her completely googly-eyed. The judging process is painfully obvious as Randy delivers his obligatory no, lobs to Tyler and his ambivalent yes, and leaves none other than Jenny from the Block herself to decide Tim’s fate. I’m boring myself just writing this.
Buddies Daniel and Isaac are auditioning together and claim, with such unflinching devotion, that they’ll continue to support one another even if they both don’t make it through to Hollywood. I almost believe they think such a thing has actually happened. A sense of doom creeps in as Daniel describes his singing voice as worthy of “superstar” status “here in America.” Uh oh. Isaac dropped out of college to pursue his music career, and his clueless parents are so out of the loop they actually go out of their way to mention – on national television – their pride in his continuing studies. “Your son’s a student, huh?” Seacrest’s eyebrows raise in Isaac’s direction. “Oh, yes,” the parents reply in fragmented English. Oh, boy. Guess what? Both Isaac and Daniel’s vocal skills are equally abysmal. But don’t worry about Isaac, everyone, because he’s going to stay positive and keep practicing.
For some reason, Idol believes that people still use MySpace and, thus, teamed up with the fax machine of social media networks as a way for people to submit their auditions via the internet. Karen Rodriguez, 21, is from New York City and is one of the eight or nine people still on MySpace in the world. She’s also one of the two or three who auditioned for American Idol this way. Somehow, she still has to sing for the judges, thus I fail to see the advantage the MySpace audition allegedly provided in the first place. After the mind-numbing mediocrity of the LA auditions up to this point, the fact Karen can at least carry a tune makes her sound like Aretha Franklin to me, and the judges are equally excited to meet someone without flat-out delusions of fame and talent and with actual star potential.
Tynisha Roches is a 25-year-old “entertainer” from Hoboken who brings her own microphone, does the splits and provides a display of overall ineptitude so staggering in its scope that Randy literally tries to run and hide from the monstrosity of her “audition.” Even the usually compassionate J. Lo laughs in Tynisha’s face when she insists she is a “musician” with “three albums ready to be composed.” “Ready to be composed?!” J. Lo howls to a blank-faced Tynisha, who is sadly lost on the only genuinely humorous aspect of her brush with notoriety. As Tynisha’s segment drags on for a horrifying length of time, I can almost feel my brain cells begin to degenerate, any semblance of intellect devolving with the continuation of this lobotomizing farce. Finally escorted off the premises by a gigantic security guard, Tynisha promises that this kind of negative experience “doesn’t mean you’re not a star.” YES. IT. DOES.
After a belly dancer with a marginally palatable voice gets sent through on her flexibility alone, it becomes painfully clear the Los Angeles auditions are a mind-numbing bust. Giving Tynisha a run for her money in the questionable mental health department is Matt Frankel, a lumbering oaf with a business suit and an invented universe in which he is the CEO of a music producing company. He also claims to have released a “compilation album” with Chaka Khan and is accompanied at the audition with an equally peculiar fellow whose title is simply “Matt’s homie.” Matt is shown pretending to talk to clients on a cell phone, that may or may not also be pretend, and then unleashes a freestyle rap as his hip-hop alter ego, “Big Stats.” After a stunned silence from the judges, Tyler looks both Matt and his CEO costume up and down and deadpans, “Is that your strong suit?” Palm, meet forehead.
After a stupefying sequence of suckitude following Big Stats, brothers Mark and Aaron Gutierrez, 28 and 27 respectively, literally brighten up the joint with matching neon t-shirts and frosted jeans as though they just stepped off Menudo’s tour bus. Despite their suspiciously bright eyes and bushy tails, I’ve resigned myself to believe Mark and Aaron simply have to be good, or this will go down as the most depressingly unproductive episode in Idol’s history. Mercifully, the brothers Gutierrez smoothly harmonize their way through “Lean on Me” with nary a bum note or inappropriate declaration of entitlement. Tyler is so pleased to be presented with actual contestants, he calls their audition “God-like.” I guess Los Angeles is the place for the mildly talented to find stardom, as long as you find the right crazies to get positively compared to. For Karen Rodriguez, Tim Halperin, Heidi Khzam the belly dancer, and the Gutierrez brothers, today is their lucky day…to look better than the weirdo who went before them.
I’d love to report the long-awaited end of the L.A. auditions, but unfortunately one more nutcase avoided the cutting room floor as the last few minutes of the episode are devoted to the sad case of Cooper Robinson. Clearly another contestant hoping to ride the coattails of General Larry Platt and his “Pants on the Ground” legacy, Robinson is 59? (“I think!” he says. “I’m not for sure.”) and speaks so incoherently his sentences are subtitled. He proceeds to stomp and mutter and shout and twirl with such unruly tenacity the show gives him the moniker “The Human Tornado.” Unfortunately, Robinson’s grip on reality is clearly tenuous at best and Idol’s decision to showcase this man’s nonsensical rant for the purpose of entertainment is both despicable and sad. Even J. Lo looks as though she disapproves of this man’s permission to “audition,” as her brow twists with a telling I don’t think this is right furrow.
The third week of American Idol’s tenth season brought the positive word of mouth to a screeching halt with a disappointing focus on contestants lacking not just in talent, but in social awareness as well. While Austin at least provided Hollywood Week with two potential country stars, John Wayne Schulz and Janelle Arthur, Casey Abrams is undoubtedly the one to watch from the Lone Star State auditions. The time-wasting rubbish of the Los Angeles fiasco didn’t offer any redeeming qualities, and the exploitative nature of the episode left a bad taste in my mouth. Halfhearted attempts to appear innovative simply fell flat, particularly the MySpace audition aspect, which only gave new meaning to the term “phoning it in.” Thankfully, things are looking to get back on track with only one audition episode left, in San Francisco, before Idol officially heads to Hollywood and the competition can really begin.