AI:7 - Dallas
Another two hours of the usual AI auditions, with one major addition: the birth of a baby while someone waited on line. The things people will do to get on TV… ;^)
General Observations:
- Way, way, way too many mentions of Kelly Clarkson, but I guess that’s par for the course in her audition-town of Dallas.
- Thus far, the auditions seem to definitely have a kinder, gentler tenor about them this year, contra the often contentious & mean-spirited affair that was AI:6. I think that this is a good thing, as it makes this initial phase of the competition less gut-wrenchingly awkward & unpleasant for me to watch.
- I’m sorry for the delay in getting this out, as I would prefer to get it out early the morning after each show, but events have conspired to prevent me from meeting that goal. (I hate it when work does that…)
With that all said, let’s git ‘r done…
The Good:
- Jessica Brown - recovered meth head, but straightened out & sings like an angel. The potential scandal is already out there & dealt with. A feel-good story that could just grow & grow.
- Katie Malloy - Gorgeous. Sweet personality. Great pipes - good enough to imitate other singers well and still sound even better as herself.
- Pia “Zpia” Easley - Simon is right, in that she is interesting. I sense a potential break-out character.
The Bad:
- Gregory & Mia Tobias - winners of the “creepy” sub-group, with their scary brother-sister, helter-skelter vibe performance.
- Bruce Dickson - winner of the “purity X-games” sub-group, with his failed attempt at imparting the emotion of a song whereby a man bemoans the absence of a woman. Kinda hard for someone who’s never been kissed to do, knamean?
- Brandon Green - winner of the “eeewwww” sub-group on the strength of his fingernail “peelings”. He gets bonus points, though, for tweaking Randy & Paula’s egos by calling Simon a “straight up truth teller”.
- Kyle Ensley - winner of the “politics” sub-group, the stump speech sucked, and while the singing wasn’t as bad as many, Lord it wasn’t good. He got through? Recount.
- Tammy Tuzinski - winner of the “understated to the point of comatose” sub-group, she almost showed an emotion at a few points. Almost.
- Trannies - bad, just bad.
- Renaldo Lapuz - winner of the “flamboyantly delusional” sub-group, the less said the better. Other than this: They couldn’t find enough train-wrecks within the age-limit rules? Oh Brother!
Honorable Mention:
- Heartwarming Category: Kayla Hatfield - nice recovery story, and she seems to be a very nice & bouncy girl, but she unfortunately isn’t all that great a singer, despite Simon & Randy sending her through to Hollywood.
The Indifferent:
- Alaina Whitaker - another country ingenue. Cute. Good (enough) voice. I agree with Simon, though, that she’s probably not quite as good as she thinks she is.
- Drew Poppelreiter - Farmer-boy. Looks to be filling the fish-out-of-water, hick in the big city role.
- Nina Shaw - Burleson, TX homegirl of Kelly Clarkson. Cute. Not much more than that, I’m afraid.
Total for Dallas: 24 golden tickets.
Up next: San Diego
I’m actually not feeling too bad, or abused, in the aftermath of the first 4 hours of auditions. That’s kinda nice…
-ghp
AI:7 - Philadelphia
Once more unto the breech…
The Bataan Death March that is American Idol begins its 7th interation, and once again I’m going to regale you with my insights, opinions, and all-around niftiness.
Let’s get started, shall we?
I was planning on quasi live-blogging the first episode, but it got to be a bit more involved, and frankly disjointed, than I wanted. So, I decided to go with a looser, less comprehensive approach.
Overall Impressions: This was a typical AI audition show, meaning that it had good, bad, and indifferent auditions, with a few folks chosen for the “closer look” story treatment. One thing that I’ve learned over the previous 6 editions is that rarely do they give away too much “up front” information about folks who will make it into the finals. These initial audition shows tend towards the emotionally engaging and/or the extreme train-wreck stories.
The Good: In this grouping I’m going to put the folks that I think have a shot of making it into the Top 12. While other folks showed some decent skills, these three showed a little more. This is not a guarantee, ’cause the producers have been known to hold out on us by not showing us all of the true talents (e.g., Bo Bice) before Hollywood. Angela Martin - If she “de-wedding-izes” her stylistic tics, she’s definitely got enough talent to make it through to the finals, and enough likability to build a fanbase. Kristy Lee Cook - We have this season’s leader for the “Carrie Underwood” role. Kristy is hot, blond, hot, athletic, hot, and has a good voice. And she’s hot. If she doesn’t crack under the pressure, she could be a force to be reckoned with. Finally, I’ll put Chris Watson into this group. He’s handsomely pretty, or if you prefer prettily handsome, in a way that will get him votes. And he can sing to boot. His only downfall might end up being that he could come off as being too far on the arrogant side of confident — if he keeps that in check, then I think he’ll be ok.
The Bad: These are the train wrecks that seem to make AI audition shows so popular amongst the morbidly curious. In the “psycho” subgroup, the winner was Alexis Cohen — I swear that her odd speaking/delivery style made me think a few times that she had to be doing some sort of performance art - IOW, I think she might have already been partaking of “the actressing” mentioned during one of her rantalogs (i.e., ranting monologues).
James Lewis wins the “odd” subgroup award, with his mush-mouth bass (no, not the fish, though that would’ve sounded better) performance. He made a strong showing in the “delusional” subgroup as well, with his belief that his having sung Christian songs was his downfall, which he’ll change for his future auditions. Nonetheless, it’s safe to say that the historical tour guide gave an historically bad audition.
Winning the “delusional” subgroup, then, was Christina Tolisano, aka Princess Leia. Hers was a more or less benign delusion, but her girl-geek mannerisms & overall comportment (not to mention her doting Grandma & Grandpa) led her to victory in this always highly contested subgroup.
Honorable Mentions go to Milo Turk for his overage rendition of No Sex Allowed, for Ben Haar’s willingness to dress up in a harem-girl outfit and get his body waxed to score points with Paula, and for Paul Marturano’s giddily rhyming ode to (comically) stalking Paula Abdul.
A special Honorable Mention goes to Temptress Brown. The 16 y/o middle linebacker is fast, strong, & her momma’s sick. It’s a sweetly sad story. And her singing, unfortunately, didn’t make it any happier. She gave us our first object lesson for not singing a song done by a former Idol standout. The judges let her down very nicely, and Temptress got ultra sad, with tears streaming down her innocent face. It’s one of the more heart-wrenching mini-stories that I can ever remember on AI. The judges were extremely nice in walking her out to her parents. A nice interlude.
The Indifferent: This is the group for those folks who I thought were pleasantly good, and might even be good enough to make it through to the semifinals, but probably not quite good enough to get to the Top 12. They’re also in this group because nothing about them jumped out at me enough to make me want to take any time to write specifics about them. Thus, I’ll just list their names: Joey Caliano (former fat guy), Melanie Nyema (former Taylor Hicks backup singer), Junot Joyner, Beth Stalker (*rawr*!), & Brooke White (former & current über-innocent).
In all, 29 golden tickets were given out in Philly…
Up next: Dallas.
-ghp
Lutheran orthodox catholicity
I’m a week behind in pointing y’all t this, but Rev. Chaz Lehmann has, in his post An open letter to Orthodox commenters on Lutheran blogs, done a great job of concisely laying out why going East isn’t truly a viable and (dare I say) orthodox option for Lutherans.
On a certain level, I can understand the appeal of crossing the Bosporus to those who are disaffected by the failings of Lutheranism, Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism; however, Rev. Lehmann’s post is a reminder that Orthodoxy has some significant failings itself (not to mention a whole lot in common with Rome & Geneva when it comes to works righteousness…).
Check it out…
-ghp
Hey, bigsis…
Here’s a joke for you to pass along to my #1 Goddaughter (and, let the reader understand, tOSU grad):
How do you make Ohio State cookies?
Put them in a big bowl and beat them for 3 hours.
Bwahahahahahahaha!
At least your alma mater knows how to beat a SEC team…
-bbb
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