Yes, I’m shallow. Blahdie blah BLAH. So here it is.
American Idol in North Carolina …… a few wannabes who caught my eye and ear:
Dude with a freaking puppet — a ventriloquist. Lord. I HATE ventriloquism. Makes me think of that movie “Magic” with Anthony Hopkins. Creepy. All we need now is for a mime to walk in — all white-gloved and “trapped in a box” — and we’d have Tracey’s version of HELL. Randy says he enjoyed the dummy. Yes to the one dummy, no to the other. Duh.
Girl with an oversized pink cowboy hat. Hopped up on helium. She sings her words like this: “STOR-HOR-HOR-HOR-EEEEEE” and “HEH-HEH-HEH-HEH-HEAD.” She looks just like her mother. Her mother looks like Mrs. Beasely:
This is not good.
Dude is dancing with Paula singing “Let’s Get It On.” It’s creeping me out.
Stop it. STOP IT. Okay. Wow. It’s yes for the perv. Huh.
Foster home girl with a bunch of kids. They’re doing a big profile on her so she must make it through or why bother? Her smile is to die for, seriously. Mega-watt. She’s sometimes off-key, though. Okay, wait. She’s FUNNY. Paula says yes. Randy says yes. Simon says no. SHE says, “Good thing it doesn’t matter, ’cause I’m going to Hollywood!” Simon howls with laughter. The girl screams and jumps with excitement for about 5 seconds, then says, “Annnnd …. I’m calm,“ completely changing her entire physicality and walking out with this Nubian princess dignity. It was amazing. From Price is Right to Princess in a split second. I LOVE HER.
Someone named Chase — if Rosie O’Donnell were a man. (Oh, wait.) Singing “I Have Nothing.” Oh, I’m sure you have something, dude. Just not a VOICE.
This girl is wearing a Vegas showgirl outfit. Sparkly pink sluttiness. Frowsy hair. Super thick black eyeliner. It’s awful. Oh, her stripper mom bought the outfit for her. Isn’t that …. nice. Yep. It’s just a Norman Rockwell painting ’round here.
Paris Bennett — she is only 17 and SHE IS AMAZING. I’ll predict right now — Top 10 with this one. She has this high little speaking voice, baby doll, really. But then she sings ….. and it’s so smooth with a touch of smoky. Another Nubian princess who sings the Dixie Chicks AND Billie Holliday. She’s not just another belter — they bore me, frankly. She has nuance to her voice. I don’t know how; I mean, she’s 17. Inside, though, there is something much older than her years. She has layers. You just know it. Her Billie Holliday number was chilling. Chilling.
Now Marcus is blessing us with his version of “She’s out of my Life,” like this: “She’s out oooooooooooooooooooooooooof my liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife …… and it cuts like a kniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife.” Simon says, “Marcus, WHAT do you do?” He says, “I SAHHNG.” He says he learned how to sing off of Randy Jackson’s instructional DVD. Simon is choking. They ask him to SAHHNG again. Simon says, “Maybe your DVD player is stuck on SLOW.” Marcus goes out and smashes his DVD. Surprisingly, he does THAT fast.
Jimmy Crabtree. His face does not ever move. EVER. He is ludicrous. Simon says he has the personality of a hippo. I do not even know what that means. But somehow, he is not wrong.
Heeeere’s Sammy. He has a blanket with him. He puts it on the floor. He’s going to sing “I Can Show You the World” from Aladdin, hence, the magic carpet, you see. He works it like a bullfighter. Now he’s Superman. Lord. He segues into “Straight Up” without the magic carpet. Oh, YES, that makes all the difference, dude. Lord. He looks like Tim Curry as Frank-N-Furter. Except that I liked Tim Curry as Frank-N-Furter. And he could sing. And …. he had nice legs.
Now we have Rhonetta. She is black and chunky in a white mini and silver lame’ tube top and silvery glitter boots. She has a kind of Wonder Woman thing going on. Minus the wonder. It’s a NO. She rants to the camera whilst her tube top is losing its tubeage. But her skin is lovely. Truly. I notice that while I’m nervously waiting for her top to relinquish its hold on her ample boobins. She continues to rant out on the street. She struts and poses and cars start to honk.
Hm. Seems like she coulda made a few bucks out there.
And ….. That’s all, folks!!
Oh yes, the Paris girl was amazing. You knew it when she sang the Dixie chicks, but her vocal synchopation with the Billie Holiday song was simply unbelievable coming from a 17 year old. I actually thought, given the natural tone of her voice, that Ella would have suited her better, but Billie definitely showcased her talent.
The blonde girl who lived with her grandfather was quite good also.
Some of the strongest “yes-es” I’ve seen so far.
I love your take on Sammy. That is so on. My wife wondered the same thing you did about Rhonetta — how is she keeping her clothes on? Too funny.
I don’t even have to watch the show now, I’ll just wait for your summaries. GREAT job btw. The Rosie one made me crack up.
i saw the show for the first time, ever, last night. i can see why there is such an obsession with it!…
ok – and wasn’t paris just a doll? you loved her right away.
and rhonetta – she needs to loose 40 pounds, but if she had had a different outfit on, one that showcased her georgous face (really!) and her “assets” (or the “girls” as i’ve herd them called around here) without being trashy – she could have looked 35 pounds lighter and not so repulsive. even the blonde hair looked nice on her. watching her was like watching a train wreck – i didn’t want to watch, but in the end i just couldn’t stop myself.
what about the girl with black hair from ny. some remarkable voice control and a bit of cheek in her personality – i like her voice and confidence.
(btw – i’ve missed you tracey!! hope you had great holidays, i’ll be heading through your archives soon)
Oh yeah … that black-haired girl was awesome also. She reminded me a lot of Fran Drescher in looks, I was so glad that she could sing ’cause once I made the Drescher connection in my mind I was prepared for some screecing.
That’s screecHing… 😉 I’m am ass, I know…
Tef and I don’t even watch the “real” part of the competition. We just watch the freaks. We almost would have missed it last night, actually, if it hadn’t *happened* to be on Fox when we turned on the tele.
Yes, little Dixie Holiday WAS amazing! When she started crying… Ohhhh, the heartstrings. She made *me* all weepy.
I think the guy with the magic carpet was just a freak (or a ringer?) who wanted to be on tha’ TEE-vee.
The worst was the Michael Jackson wannabe’… Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.
I empathize with the panel there. You can’t be too hard on the real freaks. They could flip a wig and go postal, right? Fine line. Entertainment/ratings value in the “you suck” send off vs. letting them go quietly for your own safety and maybe losing some people’s attention. In the end, the freak aspect is ratings enough I suspect.
Sorry. Did I just wax philosophical on AI?!?!? Jeez…
*DOH!* an, AN!! *LOL at myself* 🙂
KARMA is mine!
I type all this stuff stream-of-consciousness and seldom go back to self-edit. I am horrible about typos.
Hi Tracey, for some reason I didn’t think the “Let’s get it on” guy was creepy, until his they showed his wife!
I’ve tagged you with a very easy meme, hope you’ll do it. 🙂
BWAHAHAHA!
Wizbang’s got the lowdown on Rhonetta.
Darn it. I have a comment pending moderation on this topic … if you want to read more about contestand Rhonetta, go to Wizbang!
And I guess the Karmic ball is back in WG’s court.
off topic:
tracey, i just read the coffeeshop not really part two, and i have to say i am proud of you. can i be proud of you? it isn’t like i have invested in you and am now seeing to results, but when i was reading your post my heart just went out to you with empathy and then pride.
well done sweetheart.
(comments were turned off on that post, but i had to tell you what i thought – felt.)
Cullen — Sorry about the moderation. Getting comment spam. One thing I’ll tell you is comments are automatically moderated if they include links in them.
jaymarie — I am SO happy to see you name here! I must come by for a visit. Are you all settled in from your move?
Oh, and the “Fran Drescher” girl was great, too — I just don’t type very fast! Couldn’t get her.
Lauren — Lemme check it out. 😉
YES — LOVE Paris! I just had to say that again.
TeeHee, Cullen!!!!
jaymarie — thank you.