American Idol 05/02/06 - The Red-Eye Report!

WTF!!!!
Today began yesterday for me in Los Angeles where I woke up all dusty with ears ringing from my vision quest in the desert. Somehow I made it back here in the same clothes I put on a day before that. Sandwiched in the middle of waking up and still being awake today, I ate dinner (breakfast?) in Venice Beach, shook hands with Dr. Phil and traded wardrobe tips with Alex Kapranos from Franz Ferdinand. All of this plus a cross country trip just so I could attend to my American Idol duties tonight when I probably should of just remotely blogged from outside of the Idol Theater...where I just was some hours ago. Huh? Wha....?
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Tonight is Crayzizzle with 2 songs and 2 phone numbers!!!! Yes!!! Two!!!
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Paula is out of control. Her hair is like the product of two stylists with Goody combs for hands ...and olives for eyeballs. Oh, and then she just decided to sleep on one side of it from all the stress. Hoo-chie!
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The first set of songs are from the year the contestants are born. Great! Songs from my Senior year! The second set of songs are from the current Billboard Music charts. In Essence, two of last years theme nights all rolled into one. Bless them!
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14 minutes and counting: Ace is in the audience. "Somehow" the camera stops on him for a long period of time. Go away! Shoo!
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Elliott is good tonight...but not great. His first song is "On Broadway" from the year he was born. It was pretty good but the song doesn't let him reach out much plus there was that whole distracting nail biting thing during his intro which rolled into one big stare down for me with his craggy mouth. All I could imagine was him walking into a manicurist and having them run in terror out the back door. His second song tonight is "Home" by Michael Buble. Say it with me, Booooooblay. The only more unfortunate thing this lad could do moniker-wise would be to front the band Hoobastank. Say it with me, Hooooobastank. Fortunately, the whole Buble thing took my mind off of hangnails and refocused me on his smooth performance of this song. Hopefully tomorrow won't result in a nail biting finale!
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Paris is next with Prince's "Kiss." She gives no good reasons for picking it except that she likes Prince and he is funky (which is why anyone should choose a Prince song) and that she visited Minneapolis once. I can't wait until these kids can vote! I have now tuned into Paris's gimmick. That is, other than the themed costumes. Like Ace, she pretends to sing in an octave other than what her true voice allows, making it sound forced through some orifice other than her mouth. In this case, her nose. Let's not kid ourselves, girl sounds like Minnie Boop when she talks. So why does she go right into Anita Baker smooth jazz when she sings? To sound mature! Just go with the flow baby! It is like me trying to sing like Kermit the Frog (which I do often) when everyone knows I am more of a Sam Eagle. "Be Without You" is better than the first song but the gloss is off the photo, not really into Paris tonight. Sorry y'all!
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Chris rocks the place out with "Renegade" which is a song that I'm not all too familiar with. I take away points though for Chris's limited wardrobe. Black is the new black but dude, you could wear pink and destroy the place. So why dontcha?! The trucker wallet chain also gets some more airtime. Someone in the audience spent some time and money on the cool "bald is beautiful" sign complete with 300dpi graphic of Chris's face. Surprisingly, not his family. Ouch! Following up the best performance of the night so far comes "I Dare You" which is so self indulgent only Chris and the microphone enjoy the performance. Chris because he feels he can pick just any old loud screamo thing and the mic stand because it gets to travel around the little catwalk thingy. At one point in the song it sounds like he coughs up some gravel which makes me wince because it make is more apparent that Chris only did it for that part and came up air biscuits. Thankfully the first song was great.
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Hot Mess of the Night!
Katherine explains to us the joys of dresssing in a trash bag this evening following the conversation she is forced to have with Ryan Secrets about playing peek-a-boo last week. The year Katherine was born, Phil Collins was a God! She trys to sing "Against All Odds" and ends up laying a really big stinky egg on the stage. P.U.!!! Take a look at her noooow...there's just an empty space... Can she redeem herself? How about the tragic "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" performance which starts out with her scooching her butt across the Idol logo like a dog with worms. She keeps it on all fours 'cause she can't get enough of the two guys banging on boxes next to her. The judges find it all clever and arty but it seemed to me a little TV MA and insane!!!!! Did Kat get into some uncooked beef? That stuff is a killer!
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Taylor chooses the perfect song for his birth song: "Play That Funky Music White Boy." This is Taylor back in his true form. Loud shirt, messy unstyled hair and crazy seizure-like moves, he is like the bus driver for an adult day care center for Parrotheads. The writhing around on the ground (although perfected by Katherine) was a little much though. Perhaps a little too Taylor. Taylor imitating Taylor more like it. His final song "Something" (no, that's the title, not me guessing) was a nice little Beatles trip that I thought would be totally bland but came out surprisingly fresh and original. Simon even praised his barminess. Say it with me Baaaaaarminess.
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I'm going to catch up on two days worth of sleep y'all. See ya! Ch-Ching!