Did you cry a little? Did you?
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.
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.)
Elliott gets Mary J., and Taylor gets ... Toni Braxton? Ahaha. Ahahaha. Hahahahaahahahahahaaahahaha. AHHHHHHHHHHHahahahahahaahahahahahaahaa. (Ha.)
You know, I was all set for him to go last week, so I suppose I can't feel too bad. But can I anyway?
I guess I need to elaborate.
First of all, it's no secret that I consider this guy to be badass, and certainly this is comes as something of a surprise in the American Idol context. Not just that, but that I liked him from the beginning, yet he not only did not find a way to annoy me but also somehow managed to develop in awesomeness over the course of the show. He's a DJ, he sounds like Lyrics Born when he talks, he was doing songs for tha headz and yet he kept coming back. Maybe there was a little bit too much "the world as seen by Donny Hathaway" but you take the good where you can get it. And because he managed to stick around on this show as long as he did, you might almost begin to believe Mr. and Ms. America welcomed these concepts into their lives. This is the sort of thing that can make a person encouraged about, like, people an' music an' the world an' shit.
So in spite of all this, LAST week, I thought he was doomed before the show even started, right? Just because the odds, they were stacked, and I am a pessimistic lady. Yet he emerged somehow undaunted by the dual assault of Priscilla "Lady Cryptkeeper" Presley and "Creepy" Tommy Mottola (I for one was having difficulty coping), and he went and absolutely shamed, shamed, shamed everybody else on the show, maybe ever on the show. And I was like, "Aw dang, please don't send him home." And then they didn't and I was like, whew.
And then ... you know. You know. I hate to sit and accept that despite my emotional investment he didn't have a chance to take it all the way, as in ALL THE all the way, but if I can get over the Kings at playoff time (I'm still processing this trauma), clearly I can believe maybe this guy isn't too upset right now and I shouldn't be either.
Besides, that American Idol mess is restrictive. Sure you win, and we all like winning, but in a month people kinda forget that. I will be one of them. Who wants to come back next year and hear Clive Davis* blahblahblah about how you're Making Things Happen In A Major Way (kill me now)? The true test of awesome is in not becoming, say, George Huff II. (Preemptive apologies to my husband.) I think he can handle it. And with that, I feel a certain sense of peace about this outcome. There is a Greater Plan at work here. I can feel it.
But it ... still ... hurts. Ah well.
The truly hot part in all this is he got sent out on a) this gigantor emotional wave crest b) with full honors c) like a conquering hero, d) doing "I Believe (You're Trying to Make a Fool Out of Me)" for crying out loud, when if this happened next week they'd just kinda nudge him off the stage and hide him in confetti.
Do I wish that outcome on anyone?
Yes. Oh hell yes I do.
Prepare yourself, for I had a somewhat terrifying dark-side moment of clarity last week. This is on the level of that fateful day in 1993 when I finally accepted, then admitted, that yes, I did indeed like Stone Temple Pilots. (A frightening yet liberating experience, I might add.)
Ladies and gentlemen, my true feelings ... my true feelings may SHOCK you.
I believe someone in that picture, that GHA-A-A-ASTLY picture, actually deserves to win this thing, as in win-win, as much as for "if you want it that bad, jeez, help yourself" as for "I guess people actually like what you do, so we're stuck with you no matter what" and maybe a little bit of "I guess your mere existence won't actually give me a horrible, debilitating disease as previously thought."
Guess which one it is?
Well, it's not the one who shows up each week dressed like she's queen of the hooker prom.
HOE SIT DOWN. On the floor. Out of my sight.
I mean for God's sake. That's right, I said G-O-D. Look at that outfit. LOOK AT IT. What the HELL is going ON there? Is that a window to her gynecological functions? Is this from the new Jaclyn Smith for Kmart Show Your Lady Business collection? Did she rip the jacket open on a doorlatch and decide to triage that crap shut with a Fruit Roll-Up? That is ... that is the fashion equivalent of blunt force trauma. It is a Cow Tragedy. And she does this every week!
There's no other way to say it: This woman is delusional. Her devolution into a pathological disgrace over the course of this show trumps even Clay Aiken's, and that's really saying something (bop-bop shoo-be-doo-wah).
The joy I get from her agitation at being GASP! HOW DOST THOU DAREST CRITICIZE! is like overshadowed by her shameless, unbridled gloating. Maybe I exaggerate. Is it even possible to enjoy the way she makes "ugh" faces whenever someone dares not only make a critical comment about her, but perhaps sound as though they are preparing to voice a critical comment? Crazy Ass Paula just goes "but ..." and she was already like PFHUH. UNGH. LOOK OF DISGUST. Good gracious, woman, learn some restraint.
Also, this may be taking it a little too far and I'm sorry, I'M SORRY, but does her dad creep you out a little bit? Yes? Not just me? OK.
So yes, I will remember this week's elimination show for many things, not the least of which are the hometown packages showing how the two guys had thousands of people show up for them, parades, entire towns shut down, people crying and freaking out and all that hot stuff just to celebrate their very existence, while this one over here had a BBQ in someone's backyard and then got felt up by some 15-year-olds. Then whined about it.
I'm just saying.
So that leaves ... uh. Yeah.
Captain Ham Panders, I salute you. I have given up. I truly have. That is not to say I surrender, because I don't.
I'm not going to accept someone who makes faces between verses like he's just puked in his mouth and is trying to hold it back. I will not celebrate anyone who so readily embraces the "poop squat" as a valid stage move. And I will not stop gasping in wonder and anticipation when this person goes into his uncalled-for spazz dancing, because it brings to mind the hail of bullets at the end of Bonnie and Clyde and, if only for a moment, I believe I am witnessing his on-air execution. Plus I still think he looks like a demented old lady when he smiles. Shudder.
But if these are the two evils I'm left with, he is the lesser indeed. And he may be entirely harmless. Maybe.
See, going into last week, my greatest fear was suffering through a Capt. Panders interpretation of "In the Ghetto" (fear realized) but instead of being disgusted and mortified, I didn't have the energy to be either. Actually, I just kind of came out of it thinking, well, at least he tried.
He's a smart guy for acting like such an idiot. He does his stupid pandering moron routine for the people who like that, and ohhh they like that. Then he gets all serious, man, because he's like delivering a message through his art and you're like, wow, it's like when Robin Williams grows facial hair and he's suddenly an Actor!
What can I do? I ain't the one to stop him. People like him. People will support him. So, whatever. Fine. At least he's not truly offensive 100 percent of the time.
It's not right, but for the purposes of our experiment, I guess it's OK.
Ugh. I can't believe I said that. I guess the flip side is if he fails miserably, I could potentially find enjoyment in that.
There you have it: endgame. We're stuck with this guy no matter what, so we might as well make it legal.
I feel I've come a long way, America. You should all be proud of my journey.
*C.D. IS THE DEVIL. He flat-out sabotaged Elliott with that No. 1 karaoke-ass song choice. Don't get me wrong, I love that song and everything, but that was still some No. 1 karaoke-ass shit. I read Hit Men, I KNOW what you're about mister.