American Idol Auditions Las Vegas - Jazz Hands!

Uh oh. We're in trouble kids. Ryan Secrets doesn't know where the hell he is! Rome, New York City, Paris, Egypt, he asks? For the love of God, Ryan is in so many places now-a-days that even he can't tell where he is! Turns out he is in Las Vegas! Or as I call it, Branson on steroids. One can only guess, how many Elvis impersonators will show up tonight. Who is "creative" enough to mock the original King of Pop on the King of all Pop shows?
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Before that question can be answered we get a visit from the king of Reggae. Fake Reggae. Okay, this guy is obviously from a local acting troupe vying for his 5 seconds of fame with an affected accent that my six year old niece could imitate better. "Hey mon! I'm on Idol mon! Jamaican any good music lately mon?" Bakersfield, California is apparently the new Kingston. That's where Alexia "Dylon" Lincheta is from anyway. This Buffalo Soldier has brought his creative arsenal to his audition complete with puffy paint t-shirt and fake dread lock wig/hat. Think of Jan Brady wearing her fright wig but less convincing. Dylon sings "American Idol The Reggae" which includes rhyming things like Randy and the ladies and Paula and her Mercedes. I am assuming that this guy was probably the last to go during the auditions but edited first so we would hope for the President's address to come early. Shockingly, it turns out Dylon is a no. Oh my God, he is crying! He actually feels like he blew it and that he should have been himself and not put on a stupid wig and accent. Ha! I rewind four or five times for effect. Someone kick this guy in the ass when he rolls back into Bakersfield! Irie!!
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Does anyone remember Bonnie May the psychic from Season 4? Purple. freakish. walks like she's pulling a plow. No? Yes? Well she is back and this time as the manager/vocal coach of her little sister Erica Davis. They are practicing outside of the studio doing the vocal warm up's in the style of "Me-me-me-me-me-meeeee." I imagine that no one really goes "me-me-me-meeee" anymore which makes it more funny. Erica asks how long she has to do this to which Bonnie answers "meh, whenever you feel like you're done." Hilarious! Erica turns out to be only slightly less freakish (and purple) than her big sister but a "no" is in the cards for her. Bonnie has predictions for the 2005 season but she will keep them to herself. I hope one of them is that Patrick Hall makes it into the top 24!!!
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Psychics, showgirls, belly dancers! Now here's what I was expecting in San Francisco! Mecca Madison, who looks a little like Left Eye Lopez, can sing as well as belly dance! She has a strand of hair curled in a perfect spiral on the side of her face. It is so well crafted, you could set the Golden Mean to it. Girl can really sing too! Simon feels that she has a better recording voice than a live voice so I am not sure what we are listening to on TV exactly because she sounds pretty good to me. I mean are we not hearing her live, or as close to it as possible? She is in and we will be seeing more of her and her hair dynamics in Hollywood. Ryan greets Mecca at the door in what had to have been recorded at least three or four times because it is spot-on staged.
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Meet Ryan Hart. Ryan is your typical Hot Topic kid and he is proud to announce that he is from right there in f@#!ing Las Vegas. I guess that is what growing up with slot machines, hookers, card sharks, craps, hooker sharks, and the like will do to a kid! Ryan is cool because he has that very in your face attitude that American Idol is looking for. Enough with that Mr. Nice Guy stuff that Clay Aiken embodied. We need to tear this mutha up and make it punk idol! Irie Oy!!! Paula doesn't like his cursing because "it's a family show." whaaaa? Ryan says that's okay because he isn't a family guy. He sings some guttural moose call but it is really fun and refreshing! Ha ha ha ha! Seriously, he has a great voice for alternative rock, I expect him to be front and center playing the churro stage at the Warped tour this year. I didn't think about it at first but looking at him a little more, he looks somewhat like Quentin Tarantino. The judges really don't think that this is the year to have a real rocker on the show so they reject him. Simon critiques Ryan a little and then Ryan tells Simon to shut up. It's funny 'cause it's true.
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Heather Ward works in a correctional ... um, ward and hates her job and wants to leave. It's not all the crazy convicts leering at her cute little booty, it's the food in the cafeteria. Heather is looking for her ticket out of Folsom and American Idol is just the reprieve she is waiting for. Poor Heather though, someone shredded this poor girl's doily dress. It is a very fine looking doily until you get to her waist and then it's a Tom Delay document. She is going to sing a song called "Redneck Woman" I poop you not. An African-American woman is about to sing a song called "Redneck Woman." Okay, I'm cool. You're young, black, beautiful, work amongst rapists and murderers, you're probably into country. Randy loves it, Paula thinks that it was too simple of a song but Simon loves his women a little country and....um, bootylicious. So she's in.
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You can call him Pepe or Jason Andino, take your pick. Jason, when he is Pepe, has the coolest job in the world. He tells corny jokes while piloting tourists in gondola on a fake river past fake props in a themed environment. How cool is that!! I would kill a Hot Topic kid to pilot a boat through an artificial world like that! sigh, someday... Jason is up for his shot at real stardom with American Idol tonight by signing "Stand By Me" for the judges. I am not sure why the judges don't take Jason seriously, he can sing pretty well and he didn't come in wearing his costume like most of the freaks during the audition rounds. I guess having Gondola Skipper on your resume isn't a good thing after all. hmmmmm, I just remembered I need to take care of something. I'll be right back. [mutters] "where did I put that resume?"
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Sin City is full of second chances. People trying their luck when they should really know better. The same goes for American Idol auditions. First we saw Bonnie May make a comeback and now it's the sequel you fear the most. The 40 Year Old Virgin Part 2 with J.C. Gray. J.C. was the guy last year that worked with knives and had the bulging eyeballs and teeth that looked like jagged bits of Corn Nuts. He now drives a bus and has a mullet (thanks for the scoop Ryan) but not much more talent. This is the one part of the show that starts getting old what with the constant recycling of "sure thing" bad auditions. Not sure if you know how the process works or not but before these people make it in front of Simon, Paula and Randy, they have to go through an initial screening process. Somehow these fools keep getting in. Now, I'm not saying that it's all ratings driven or gosh, that we like watching train wrecks (yesiam) but I'm thinking that Mrs. Hulk from last week wasn't so amazingly good in front of the first set of judges just to blow it in front of the Tribunal. So please let's not go through this next year. It's like waiting for that package of socks you just know you are going to get at Christmas. It kind of takes the novelty out of it. The contestants that is. Not the socks. the socks I just turn in to puppets when I am bored. Not the contestants. Hope I didn't ruin any of the Idol magic for you there.
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Anthony Andolino and his girlfriend have 75 animals in their small New Jersey apartment. During the lean months when money is tight, between 68 and 74. I am assuming that Anthony took a trip to Vegas to get up wind of his apartment for a while. He sings good enough to be in a chorale group or Color Me Badd or something but not American Idol. Sadly Anthony is sent back to Jersey without his yellow piece of paper. A tear falls, the rabbits hide.
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Up next is the Pierson twins. Maureen and Marnelli. They are, twins! They are also in an Asian girl band. Unfortunately they can only be heard if you go to their bedroom but I don't think papa Pierson allows a lot of people in there. they are cute and bubbly and coolest of all, they will be singing "Dreams" from the Cranberries. Personally, I thought they sung the hell outta that song, better than me anyway. But without much discussion the judges diss both of them. Which makes them cry in tandem. I hate it when Asian girl band members cry. It is so sad and just too emo, and they are not emo so it doesn't look right. The Tribunal is mean!
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Oh my goodness, what can I say about David Mandzak, except that his last name sounds like "man sack?" At first I thought that he was a Jim Carry impersonator, but he is not. He just has a life long curse of getting mistaken for Jim Carrey without really making an money off of it. You can just tell there is going to be trouble before he even sings a note because he has no personality whatsoever. When he does sing, he looks like he is pooping a brick. The handclap he throws in there is hot though. The big mystery here is, how do horizontal stripes look bad on a skinny guy? I don't know how it happened but it did! I don't get it!
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I could have done without the CSI parody but I do appreciate the encapsulation of all the bad singers with funny taglines such as: "Bouncing bad Czechs!" hilarious! and "Assault and Buttery" Offensive!!
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Las Vegas is very similar to Branson in a lot of ways. Just like in Branson, there is the patriotic number required for the end of every music show on the strip. Ours comes from non-U.S. citizen Haggai Yedidya. Yedidya see his shirt?! He has the worst piece of crap Americana shirt on that I have ever seen! It has either JFK or James Dean's face airbrushed on it against some sort of brown fog and an American flag that, if you looked closely, only has 47 stars on it. Haggai is crazy! In his pre-audition interview he comments on everyone's eyes. So many beautiful eyes. Ryan has beautiful eyes, the camera man has beautiful eyes, Paula has crazy eyes! He sings "I'm Proud To Be An American" which, please don't kill me, makes me want to near vomit every time I hear it. Not because I'm some sort of ex-Patriot but because that song is like a bad Hallmark card to the United States...it's played out!!! That and I worked in Branson for four years, it has had it's way with my cerebral cortex as much as I'm going to allow it. I was only recently able to stop making visits to my therapist. His version, makes me want to hunt Lee Greenwood down.
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Oh Good, a girl named Princess! I wonder where this is heading? Princess Brewer in her own words is "blunt and sassy." Anyone blunt and sassy would try to sing Whitney. The problem here is that she sings like she is yelling out the back door for her kids to come in! "Priiiiiiiince! Sharondaaaaaa! Get y'all selves back in here!" Girl may be blunt, but let me be too. Denied!!
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Next is the "I Will Survive" montage of everyone bad from Vegas being forced to sing Gloria Gaynor. Big surprise! It is 2006's new little feature I guess. Usually this is left to the end of the show so is it all over? Where's my Patrick Hall audition!!! Huh?! What's going on! They show lots of people that I wish could have gotten more air time during this montage. There is a half cowboy/half opera singer person-thing, a Michael Jackson impersonator that probably wasn't even trying to be, a guygirl who looks like the lead singer for Dead or Alive. You spin me right round baby right round! It's funny 'cause it's truuuuuue.
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Wow! Another montage! This one is a Hair montage! Yes, we know. There are lots and lots of bad do's in the world. Some worse than others. Some make it past this point and land in the Top 12! All of this leads us into the audition of Taylor Hicks. This is a guy going gray prematurely and might I add gracefully. He has the right attitude about it. He also suffers from blousey shirts and caterpillar eyebrows, but I'm not a hater. He sings pretty good with a rough Joe Cocker bluesy style. Probably my favorite voice of the season for the guys. Taylor is this year's Bo Bice. I'm thinking 70's night will be his for the taking, get ready for a little country roots rock! The funny part is that the judges don't want to like him because of his appearance but they kinda have to. Well, except for Simon. This is actually one guy who I kind of wanted them to make sing one more song. See you in Hollywood Hick! Oh, Hicks! Sorry.
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Wait!!! Just as they are showing all of the other Idol hopefuls that make it through to Hollywood, as they usually do at the end of the show, I see Patrick Hall coming out of the audition room with his little yellow piece of paper! Where's his audition?! What is this nonsense!!!!! Not the Idol debut that I thought he would have but listen to me people, Bonnie May and I have been a-talkin' and I know fo shizzle that my boy from Gravette makes it to Hollywood and quite possibly to the Top 24!!! If I am wrong, then I'll gladly resume my post as Gondola Skipper. Hey, even Kelly Clarkson didn't get audition time during the first season, right?