The American Idolater

Well, the last of the audition city episodes, and only one more audition episode to go before we start to get into the meat of the show. I don’t care what the producers say, you can only take so many terrible singers before you want to stop watching. I think they went overboard this year.

That said, I loved the San Antonio episode. Most of the bad singers were really funny, and we saw more good singers than usual.

Let’s start with Haley Scarnato. The judges were pretty “meh” about her, and decided to give her a “second chance” by sending her through to Hollywood. I thought she was a lot better than they were giving her credit for, and thought she was one of the better girls that I’ve seen so far. And checking my secret lists, I have a strong feeling we’ll be seeing more of her in the weeks to come, if you know what I mean. And I think you do.

Then there’s Bailey Brown, the country girl who thinks she’s too city and fashionable for the country. She’s not a great singer, but they let her through anyway. She’s pretty forgettable and boring, and I doubt she’ll go very far. Actually, thinking about her some more — I know, that’s more attention than she deserves — she sounds all country, lives on a farm, but isn’t trying to use that at all. Instead she tries to come off as a spoiled kid. Great marketing strategy.

Bryan Kyrish screams some Billy Idol. Kind of funny, but nothing worth remembering a week from now.

Jasmine Holland is pretty weird. She’s the bored and sad-looking black girl who sings really badly and then walks off, talking shit about Randy. Her friends/family (not sure which) provide some good amusement, when the one friend thinks that Simon is French. Then when Seacrest tells her that he’s British, she says he should go back to British. You can’t make up stuff like that.

They were weird, though. They seemed so bored and detached and sleepy while they were badmouthing the judges that it was pretty surreal. It was like they had all woken up from a nap to wimpily storm out of the building. I didn’t go back to look, but did they really have a sign they made up for national television that said “Jasmine’s Are American Idol”? [sic]? That’s hilarious. Not the brightest group of people in the world, I guess.

Then we have William Green. William Green is now one of my favorite contestants ever. He came with his cousin Akron, and apparently figured he might as well go audition while he was there. He can’t sing, as he does the slowest version of Amazing Grace ever, but he’s funny. And his fake “smack talking” for the cameras as he leaves the room had me cracking up. Awesome.

His cousin, Akron Watson, was the singer of the family, although William seems to have gotten all of the charisma. And while I liked his singing, I feel bad knowing that Akron Watson didn’t actually get to go to Hollywood after all.

Sandie Chavez. Wow. She was pretty hilarious between her unintelligible singing and vocals that occasionally sounded like she was going to throw up. Less funny when she started crying, but I still kept laughing over those horrible noises she had made during the audition. I guess that makes me a bad, bad man. And it makes the mayor of Houston a completely deaf man — or a politician who always finds a way to make people like him, even if it means praising her singing.

Like Simon, rubbing his man boobs while trying to give advice. What are you trying to do, make the contestants fall down on the floor laughing?

Ashlyn Carr was a weird one. She definitely had some potential, behind her facial tics and other bad habits, but the judges have never been big on letting someone through just because they have talent that needs some work. Usually they’re fine with giving them some constructive criticism and telling them to try again next year. I’m not sure why they changed their minds this time, and she really didn’t seem good enough to go through based on that audition.

It would have been pretty funny — for us at least, pretty mean for Ashlyn — if after pulling her back in to audition again, they still said no. Talk about rejection.

Jimmy McNeal is the little Ruben that sang “Cupid”, and he sure is a lot of fun and very likable. But I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he doesn’t make it very far.

And then the homage to the Wrong Door. Why do they block that door off in the first place? Would it really mess them up so badly to let people go out either door, or is it just a way to get some funny video of people running into a locked door? Although, I have to admit, that was a funny little montage, especially the chick who got it open anyway.

And now that we’re all done with the auditions, we get one more audition episode for Wednesday. I totally thought this was going to be the good auditions that we haven’t seen, since it’s called the “Rest of the Best.” But I guess to the AI producers the word “bets” includes the worst of them as well. I knew that was too much to ask for. But I’ll still watch it, of course, don’t get me wrong.