Please Don't Fight, It Makes Us Sad

According to Blogger's stats 63 people visited my site last week. So perhaps someone has noticed that I've revived this blog, though there does seem to be an awful lot of visitors from Russia....

I read today that Vote for the Worst.com, home to Idol commentators even more smarmy than me, will be shutting down after this season. They should have done what I did and taken the entire J-Lo/Tyler era off to rejuvenate. I'll be sad to see them go since I won't have anybody to point out all the juicy stuff that I missed.

Tonight's auditions are at the Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina, so naturally there were lots of goofy references from Trained Seal about racing. The show opened in fact with Ryan "racing" around the track in some fake race with some fake announcers calling the "action". Trained Seal was naturally driving a Ford; I'm surprised the producers didn't show him drinking a Coke and listening to his iPod while he was driving.

This was the audition where allegedly Nicki threatened to shoot Mariah, who then went on Barbara Walters' show to say that she felt like her life was being threatened and wasn't sure she wanted to continue to be on the show with the other chick. The producers went to great links to build up to the Big Moment by showing lots of clips from TMZ and other shows, but when the moment came it was, well, not so big after all. There was this singer, you see, a blonde hair blued eyed chick who claimed that she did (note the past tense) "the country thing" but wanted to sing more soul music. That got country guy Mr. Kidman a bit miffed and prompted both Glitter Girl and Sole Survivor to try and fit this chick back into the country box. Nicki bitched about this, which then prompted Randy to tout his "30 years in the business" as justification for what he was saying. Nicki apparently took this as an insult since she doesn't have 30 years in the biz and stormed off the set, shutting down the show for the rest of the day. And...and? That was it. No death threats, no screaming, nothing that we were led to believe by Trained Seal that we would see. The next day the judges were all hunky dory, especially after the first contestant that morning told the judges "please don't fight, it makes us sad."

By the way, the soul country chick who prompted this argument got a ticket to Hollywood, as did the girl who was sad that the judges were fighting.

Let's see, what else is there to mention...

Season 10 winner Scotty McCreery was in the house to relate to the peasants who hope to emulate him by winning the competition and then only appearing on future Idol shows and the occasional Branson gig. I did read though that he'll be at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville next Saturday night with Roy Clark. Get you tickets now!

Chris Daughtry was named dropped again, this time in reference to his supposedly infamous mentoring stint in Season 5 with Andrea Bocelli and then uber-producer David Foster when Daughtry sang while lying on the floor. One of the contestants tonight auditioned while lying on the floor, apparently unaware of what Daughtry did. He got a no. Since Daughtry is from North Carolina I'm surprised that he wasn't at the audition too.

Sole Survivor made another field trip, this time in a (rented) school bus to a nearby high school to pick up student Isabelle Gonzalez, who was nominated online by her aunt. The aunt claimed that her niece would never think of auditioning for Idol, so naturally after she got 4 yeses little Isabelle claimed that she had always dreamed about this moment.

Mr. Kidman lived up to his nickname by leaving early again, this time to fly to New York to escort his wife who was picking up an award. Despite the fact that Sole Survivor was all alone with the two chicks one day after all hell supposedly broke loose there was no trouble, no trouble at all.

No psychos or egos tonight but there were a larger than usual dose of freaks and geeks paraded before us by the producers. One of the geeks though could actually sing and got a Hollywood ticket. You should have seen the looks of surprise on all the judges' faces.

Like last week there was another former contestant from last season who reappeared. While the producers showed footage of her being cut in Vegas by Jagger Lite, apparently Sole Survivor forgot all about her. He thought the audition was the best of the season so far and agreed with Nicki that there would be something wrong if she didn't make it to the last round. Yes, even though he was one of those who cut this same contestant last season before the live shows.

Nicki was also impressed by this contestant, saying to her, and I quote, "I want to skin you and eat you." So I've been thinking of a new nickname for the nickname chick and I think I'll try "Jaws." It originally came to me from thinking about how Idol jumped the shark by hiring her, but this sentence alone sealed the deal, at least until she says something even more worthy of a nickname.

Things We Learned Tonight: Jaws has a Twitter hash tag for her nicknames, eats turkey bacon every day, and sometimes thinks her hair is edible like cotton candy. Mr. Kidman wants an alter ego, thinks Nikki is "sweet", and never heard Billie Holliday while growing up in Australia. Glitter Girl starting writing songs at Age 6 and was considering leaving the set before Jaws beat her to it. Sole Survivor thinks chicken gets a bad rap, and thinks "you're allowed to feel on Idol." I also figured out how to use an app that syncs my photos between my iPhone and my iPad. Yes, the judge is getting old...

Tonight's Sob Stories: A woman whose boyfriend was badly injured in an automobile accident and didn't know she was auditioning; a former homeless person who now entertains street people as "The Voice of Charlotte"; and a man whose wife was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer 3 years ago but is still alive and well. For a minute I thought we were being set up with the second coming of Danny Gokey. All 3 got tickets to Hollywood.

The Final Score (audition version): 37 tickets to Hollywood, 3 references to former Idol contestants, 1 returning former Idol contestant, 3 references to former Idol judges, 2 current Idol judges who threatened to leave and 1 who actually did, 1 death threat left on the editing room floor, 3 visuals to TMZ founder and former attorney Harvey Levin, and more references to racing than I cared to count. I actually listened for the "yos" from Sole Survivor and didn't hear any, though there were a couple of "Dawgs" thrown out. Since tomorrow night's show features the auditions in Randy's hometown of Baton Rouge perhaps we'll get a few more yos to savor. Thankfully Fox wants to promote Glee some more so it'll only be an hour long show. Thank the Lord for little favors...