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It was a trip to Opryland last night, as the American Idol murderbus rolled into Nashville. Oddly, though Nashville has something of a reputation for being a music city, the singtestants last night largely failed to inspire.

Well, to be fair to Nashbridges, we only got the hour edit instead of the two hour extravaganza that Milwaukee got. So maybe there was a whole lotta motherlovin' goodness that went down in Nashtown that we just didn't see. The old witch that works there put all the good footage in her mysterious velvet sack and will remove its contents throughout the season. "Here you gooo!!!" she'll screech once in a while, and then we'll see someone good who auditioned in Nashberta. But for now! For now... there's this.

There's George and Martha, the singing exes. Obvs magovs their real names aren't George and Martha, those are just two characters from an Edward Albee play/real history, but if you expect me to remember people's names this early in the competition, you need to build a time machine, go back in time, and check yourself, because you have already wrecked yourself. So George and Martha are these two people who used to date and now they don't. But they started singing together so they went to the American Yodel auditions together, because that's what they're used to, singing-wise. Martha has a new boyfriend named Stanley who nobody likes. Every time Martha and Stanley go out to eat at the local restaurant, people will say "Martha!! Hi!!!! How are you??" and then they'll turn and see Stanley and said "Oh hi, Stanley." Nobody likes Stanley! Poor Stanley. The unfortunate fellow was dragged to the auditions last night and he stood gloomily by the door while Martha and her music muse inspirational ex auditioned for J Lopes and Randy Simpson and a gnarled old swamp witch. "Stanley!!!" Stanley's mother often yells. "No crops are gonna crow if you don't tend to 'em. You can't let George swoop in every time and take your girl away. She's your girl. You stand up for yourself goddarn it, you go out there and you be the Stanley I know and love, strong proud good Stanley." And Stanley just nods his head and says "Yes, Momma..." and she pats his head and says "Good. You're a good boy, Stanley. Now, would you like some eggs?" and Stanley eats his eggs in the kitchen while Momma hums a song to herself and he kinda wishes this could be it for life, that this is all he'd ever need to do. But no, society demands more of people, the heart and the loins pull you along toward new, scary things, so here he is waiting outside while inside Martha and her growl-voiced George are singing for celebrities.

And they did well! They are both good. He is kind of Taylor Hicksian in his niche-ness, if you get my nonsense, while she is a bit more marketable and mainstream. They definitely sounded better when they sang together than when they sang separately, so this prompted J.Lo to say "I hope they get back together" (which was cute and human of her, is it weird that I'm sort of warming to her? I'm sorry! I should hate her, I know, but I increasingly don't and it's confusing?) and then the ancient knobbly old witch in the corner let out one of her pained shrieks and you knew that she'd cast some sort of hex on them and that they would, in fact, get back together, maybe while at Hollywood week. Meanwhile poor old dumpy Stanley would wander around the main street of the town, waving to people, having them say unenthusiastic "Hiya, Stanley"s in return, the sky bright blue and yet no sun visible, as if it too had left for better places and this light here was just residual, just the shining after-effects, and in a while it would fade away and Stanley's town would become dark and wintry forever, and maybe Stanley would just go on home, just go on home, and Momma would be there, humming her songs, and he'd close his eyes and listen to that and there'd be no George and no Martha, and then eventually he'd slip out of this world and it'd be so sweet and calm he wouldn't even notice.

Who else! Oh, there was this interesting girl named something Beasley and she was a black gal raised in Kentucky by adoptive white parents. I hope I'm not touching a third rail here when I say that that is really interesting! I mean, you're black and live in Kentucky and your parents are white. You're white and live in Kentucky and your adopted daughter is black. I can imagine that at some points in their lives, and I'm not saying many but I'm not saying few either, people have given these folks some grief about this. But god bless 'em, they don't care. They're just doing their thing out on Potatopatch Acres and Beasley is whaling away on her vocal chords and that's just how life goes in that particular corner of Kentucky. And Beasley can, for sure, blow. She sang a Lady Antebellum song (the internet tells me at least, if you all think I can identify a Lady Antebellum song, you need to build yourself a time machine, go back in time, and use it, because you've already done gone and losed it) and it was clear and loud and good, and everyone at the judges cupboard clapped and barfed and spewed and hollered, and yay it was a happy ending. Beasley called her parents and her dad said, with slow Kentucky modesty, "Well... I'm tickled." So good for that family! Sincerely. A nice American story.

Oh, some guy sang and we found out that his family has cared for 700 foster children in the past couple decades or something and that is amazing. What's even more amazing is how stupid I am, because I all I could think about for some reason was that show Second Noah because they adopted animals, right? And then I got on this whole thing in my head about how James Marsden is cute and then I started thinking about that movie The Box he was in with Cameron Diaz and how it was so bad and made so much of the not-sense, and then I went back to Second Noah and then I went to YouTube, as one does in these moments of crisis, and I found this. And hahahahahahahaha. Why isn't he on American Idol????? "Stayyyyy" Amazing. (Also, is that Joey fucking Lauren Adams?? Girl, get outta there!) The world is good, good place, isn't it?

Miss Teen USA auditioned!! Mmhmm!! She is this blonde creature who Randy and the weird old lesbian witch were totes drooling over and she was dumb and talked about how she was Miss Teen USA for a year and how Donald Trump was her boss, and you thought for a second and you were like "Wait, 'boss'? What does she actually do, what exactly are Miss Teen USA's job requirements?" and then she coughed and said "Ohh, excuse me, I just have a little Omani emir's cum stuck in my throat, one second" and you were like "Ahhh yes, of course." She "entertains friends of Mr. Trump." (Is my best guess. I'm not actually accusing anyone of prostitution! Don't go all DC Linda on me!!) But yeah she sang and it was decent enough so they put her through and as she was walking out she picked something out of her teeth and it was a short wiry hair and she laughed to herself and said "Those Qatari sheiks are hairy little fuckers, ain't they?" and that was that.

The big sob of the episode came last, when a 15-year-old (who looked about ten years older) trundled on and told us a tale of woe about her best friend/cousin who had a brain tumor and was better but was still not totally back yet and so she was singing for her cousin and isn't that something. And she sang good and all that, and then her family came in to meet all the celebrities (and the witch) and then the girl did a duet on "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing (The Animal Crackers Song)" with the witch, who just screamed "Skeeble blap blap eye of newt" and everyone thought it was great, so powerful is the witch's magic. Everyone felt good about putting this girl through, except maybe the cousin who maybe wished that her brain tumor hadn't been exploited as a means to get some airtime on the tenth season of American Stink Factory, but whatever, what can you do. If all but one person felt good that night, better that it was the one with the brain tumor who didn't feel good. I mean, why make a perfectly healthy person feel bad!

SO. I think that's it! I think we have one more week of auditions and then, ladies and germs, we are moving on to H'wood. Isn't it exciting? I'm very excited.

Now if you'll excuse me, Momma's calling to me from inside and standing out here on the porch with all the moths bumping up against the light isn't that fun anyway. Momma made my favorite dinner, eggs and spaghetti, so I'm gonna go inside now and wish all these sad thoughts away. Momma says I'm her favorite boy, her favorite boy in the whole wide world. I looked it up once, and there's billions and billions of boys out there on the planet. So if I'm Momma's favorite out of all them billions, well maybe I don't need Martha any more than she don't need me. Maybe I don't need anything else until the end of time. Maybe I'm good. Maybe I'm an island. Maybe I'm one of those meteors way out in space, floating along all dark and lonely, but beautiful too, could crush a whole planet if I wanted to, made of metals no one's ever heard of, whizzing past millions of stars. I wonder if they ever notice me.