American Idol's San Francisco Auditions: Too Much Character
Last night's American Idol, with auditions being held in San Francisco, was full of characters. Or at least that's what they kept stressing: "You never know who could show up in San Francisco.
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San Francisco full of unique people. We found Adam Lambert here, so... well... San Francisco." That's right. San Fran "Come as You Are" Cisco. Full of individuals who can't help but be their crazy old selves. Actually, it wasn't different from any other Idol city - girls still showed up in tight American Apparel dresses and guys still showed up in awful Bieber haircuts. There were a lot of "that was just okay for me, dawgs" from Randy, compliments from J.Lo and leering from Steven. A 20 year old woman from Colombia blew the judges away with her overworked rendition of "Summertime" (I actually yelled at the TV, "JUST SING THE DAMN SONG"). There was another guy who, years ago, had a horrible accident and everyone thought he was gonna die. SPOILER ALERT. He survived and was actually a good singer, so now he's headed to Hollywood. Way to bounce back, guy!
Okay, there was one remarkable weirdo. Her name was Inessa Lee and she was a 22 year old immigrant from the Ukraine. Now, there are a lot of awful untrue stereotypes about Eastern European women and I don't want to play into them, so all I will say is that something about Inessa was... off. Was it her bubbly attitude? The baby voice she used with Steven Tyler? The way her husband awkwardly patted her head when she didn't get through to the next round? Yes, it was all of those things, but it was mainly her nutty bragging about her preexisting pop career and her "shower scenes." What? Is that something people- even people in entertainment- usually say? ("As you can see on my call sheet, I'm trained in tap, voice and have an extensive body of shower work." "Very good! Let's win you some Grammys!") Maybe I'm totally misguided. Maybe Inessa's shower scenes will make her famous. Best of luck to her!
Tonight's the first round of Hollywood week, so get ready. There's always something so satisfying about seeing the so-called talents crash and burn.