I made it through the rain

Did you cry a little? Did you?

You know I did. P.S. look how cute. And tiny! I don't agree with the "I'm having a bronzer issue" tank top but whatever. One love y'all.

I don't even know where to begin, between Clay Aiken's emo makeover, David Hasselhoff weeping openly after the totally not surprising results were announced or Kellie performing with her fly half open, I was just DAZZLED by ENTERTAINMENT all night long with this show. The results show, that is. The actual performance show pretty much blew.

OK OK OK. You did hear Katharine say that she likes to be "on the ground" after that first song, right? I didn't imagine it? OK. This brings me to the first of four Amazing Things I Learned While Watching the American Idol Finale.

1) We now know where Katharine learned how to dress like the token white girl at the player's ball.

I mean good Lord, that is a disgusting mess. PUT THOSE AWAY, SCARY STAGE MOM. OH! You know who also thinks the dad is a little too creepy? MY OWN DAD. "It's not right, the way he looks at her," he said, totally without me even bringing up, because he is a smart, smart man. "There's ... there's something going on there." And then he did this awesome impression of his creepy crying face. Oh! I wish you could have seen it.

If you watched the stunningly low-rent red carpet special before the show, you could have enjoyed the Good Morning L.A. crew trying to figure out how best to point out this phenomenon to Slutty Mom and Creepy Crying Dad. "Fathers everywhere will also be sobbing as they watch the emotional beauty of your daughter's beauty and emotion!" or something. More like fathers everywhere will be sobbing, wishing they could be lining up to hit that. Disgusting.

2) Clay Aiken is apparently a closet Andrew Bogut fan. (Bad pun. I'm sorry.) Actually I thought this whole segment was pretty awesome. I'd actually gotten up to go to the kitchen when this started because I hate those crappy-contestants-return things. Bless you, DVR inventor.


3) There is a place where we all can go to freely get our freak on, and that place is ... "In the Ghetto." What. The. What. Who? Huh? Toni needs a paycheck. Toni was beaming in her performance with an apparent satellite delay centered somewhere around Jupiter. I'm sorry, but "In the Ghetto" is not about being a freak in heat, nor is it about being a dog without warning. This was just wrong. Wrooooong. (And hilarious!)

4) Katharine is the 2K Karla DeVito. Not Celine Dion, as the song choice would suggest. Not even Ellen Foley (I believe that distinction goes to Kelly Clarkson). Karla DeVito. I pride myself on being able to figure out things without being beaten over the head first, but in this case, I kept missing the signals until Idol shoved them down my throat and choked me with them. The bonus is in the public humiliation of the contestant involved. Thanks, Idol!

Seriously. Meat Loaf? I fell out my chair. Nothing against Meat Loaf. I have a great deal of respect for Meat Loaf. Yes, I do. But seeing him out there spasming his way around someone who clearly believes she deserves better and is desperately trying to salvage some semblance of her loathsome pride was absolutely invigorating. She actually looked as though someone had to forcibly shove her out on stage a la Gina and the cockroaches on ANTM. That's good TV.

Really, the show was like one huge joke on Katharine, and the Meat Loaf duet was the punchline. Making Mandisa the showpiece of the all-girl Up With People medley was right up there, too. And the "please, no wide shot ... for the love of God" of the "hometown crowd" segment at the top of the show ... actually, it was all one big punchline, and the joke was that she didn't have a chance in winning and had to keep fake-smiling through it all. Justin Guarini and Diana DiGarmo probably had closer calls than she did. Again, good TV.

Thankfully, the final also gives me an opportunity to play catch-up on a few things I missed out on yapping about when they were, you know, timely.

Such as eew, girl, eew.

Return of the Wack. Oh my God! Ace was not about to let us forget those shoulder pads. I can't believe he busted them out again last night. And I mean busted. Eew. You may recall he was dressed like a Skinemax "Best Sex Ever" character for the performance that got him booted, and justifiably so. I drunkenly expounded on this that night at Staraoke with much more eloquence than I could possibly muster here, but between the 1992 Structure suit and the slicked-back ponytail, he was apparently auditioning for the part of the high-powered ad executive who wants to get his wife to have a threesome but can't find the right third party, when all the while we know his prim and proper sexcetary is actually a FREAK! behind those glasses and uptight hairdos. Grotesque. Now he's back in the zoot suit and hamming it up. Or should I say HAM-ming it up. When Slutty McGhee (still like her!) came out to sing with him, I thought the TV was going to combust in a porn explosion, complete with "24"-style ticking clock. Too bad Jack Bauer is tied up on a slow boat to China (literally!) because this man must be STOPPED.

Elliott Yamin: The Hottening. The stylists behind the scenes at AI spared absolutely no expense in the lengths they went to to fox the man up. It's genius. Genius, I tell you. I suspected there was some dental drama going on somewhere around Elvis week, but I didn't even really notice how drastic his whole glamorization was until his sendoff video package. He doesn't look that different, just somehow magically foxified. Brings a tear to my eye, it does. "Tears of joy," as he'd say.

Seriously, take a look at these meat racks and tell me he's not the hottest one in the bunch. I mean it.

Ugh. That reminds me the creepy Kevin rendition of "What's New Pussycat?" will provide the soundtrack to my worst nightmares for years to come. Just when I'd forgotten he'd even existed. DAMN YOU IDOL!

What the World Needs Now Is Another Active Rock® Singer Like I Need a Hole in My Head. I hope AI voters realize what a great service they provided our nation by eliminating this cheesewhiz as soon as they did. The only redeeming part of this mess was when the philosopher Ryan Seacrest said he couldn't tell the guys apart afterward. Yeah, no shit. Ahem, Live? Seriously, Live? Is that the best the world has to offer us? I say no. No, no, no, no, thanks, no. Go back into your hidey-hole with your bare chests and campfires. I hate you.

I'm a little sad I never got to share my glee when he got ousted, on what may have been the BEST IDOL RESULTS SHOW EVER, because it goes to show where the path of least resistance can get you. Dude was sooo boring Elvis week. Sooo boring. Boooring. I guess there weren't too many '90s college rock Elvis covers he could rip off emulate, or everything on The Last Temptation of Elvis was just too edgy. Also he looked like he just rolled in off his last stop on his bike messenger route for the day. Nice sunglasses. Nice ... talking about your underwear. Ugh. Please. You'd think he was trying to get kicked off if he didn't look so disgusted when it happened. And that ruled!

Whew. Thassit. Now I'm gonna go listen to my "Moody's Mood for Love" I bought off iTunes. I DID! Yeah I did. First actual cash money I've ever spent on Idol. Honest!

(OK, I do have the "A Moment Like This" single, but Chris found it in the Dumpster.)

Posted by Kim at May 25, 2006 04:09 PM | The Sound of Breaking Glass