American Idol: Hell's Waiting Room
[There was a video here]
Last night we saw everyone lip-sync for their lives! Or, no, sorry, I was confusing this show for a second with everyone's favorite public access game show RuPaul's Drag Race. No, last night on American Idol everyone sang for their lives, blessedly unencumbered by a group, beautifully backed up by Idol band Disco Danny and the Uptown Five.
Ha, I wish that was the name of the band! There should be more bands named that these days. But no, it was just the regular American Idol band and they just played in their regular way and all the Idol kids were left to their own singing devices. (Their throats and lungs and voice boxes, I guess those devices would be.) How'd they do? Eh, they did aight.
I mean some kids did amazingly well. The person you'll see above this text looked up at the roof, said "I'm going to blow you off" (this is also, weirdly, what Tim said to Ryan the first night he was brought home to stay at Ryan's house, and Ryan chuckled and said "Ohhh you" and then after a second said "OK. Show me.") and then proceeded to do just that. He blew the roof right off the damn place with a performance that filled my heart with sweaty glee and made the judges stand up on their tired clubbed feet and give a round of applause. It was quite good! Too bad he will never win this competition, ever! Get thee to a Broadway chorus with a big solo, my friend, and you can sing blare-jazz on Monday nights at Birdland. This is not a bad life, not at all. You'll live in a cheap apartment on 2nd Avenue and that will be life. It sounds just fine to me.
Other people blew it out the box too. People like Crazy Frizzbo, like Several Random Blonde Girls, and like Junebug. Junebug is the sorta assholey guy who kicked Augustus Gloop-Hill out of his group on Wednesday night but who can, grumble grumble, sing his gay face off. He really can. It's something to behold. Oh!! And you know who I thiiiiiink made it through? Ryan's cowboy.
Yes, I know yesterday I mistakenly said he'd been voted off. I know. I was but a fool. No, he's still here. And they actually showed him sing-sangin' last night and he was decent. He didn't belt out some huge duck's dick of a song like a lot of these fools. No, he just quietly sat down on Ryan's quivering mansword (oh who am I kidding, welcome to Bottomtowne, population: Ryan Seacrest) a stool and did Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide," one of the best songs about "childrennnnnn get older / I"m getting older, too....." ever written. So I think he went through after that? I don't quite remember if we saw him in one of the Rooms of Decision, but I think he was in a good one.
Yeah! They did The Rooms last night. It was pretty satisfying. Some pretty cool people were sent home. Cool in the way that I was really glad they were sent home. People like that jerky dude's ex-girlfriend, aka the World's Blandest Wedding Singer. She was axed. Yayyyyyy boring people. OH. You know who was NOT axed, and my eyeballs fell out mah damn head when I sawr it? Crazy Caitlin. I don't know her actual name, but you know who I'm talking about — Meth-Hollows McMasterson? Calamity Janked? The crazy woman who does crazy things all the crazy time. The one who tried to quit. Yeah. She sang last night to her boyfriend who was standing up in the mezzanine like a right ponce, waving and blowing kisses and slowly masturbating himself to the beat of her mournful caterwauling down there on the stage. Only he couldn't really get things going because Shirley Hazard down there kept forgetting her words or some nonsense and then her face would ripple with a series of tiny explosions and her eyes would water and everyone playing along at home would fondle their cyanide pills and wonder if this was really it, if it was finally time.
Yeah, she blew biscuits, but then she was put in a room with Crazy Frizzbo and other sure-things and my friend and I theorized that maybe the twist was that they were going to send just the girls in the room home, but then nope, nunh-unh, not at all. They put Catastrophe Sue through just to put a mentally unstable fart-haven through because I guess it'll be good TV. For shame, Irdolstinx. For shame.
OH! Ha, I wanted to comment on this fool even though we've barely seen him. His name is Carter Dixon or some nonsense CW name, and he is always styling himself in this way that is annoying? Like last night he had spiked fauxhawk (eyughhhhh I hate that non-word) hair and this little skinny tie and shit and he makes his eyes do this thing that tries to say "Who, me? Attractive? Stylish? A good singer? No... it can't be me.... I'm just shy and sweet, I mean look at my eyes, they're doing their little parabola thing and they're full of milk and sweet brown cocoa beans and it's just little ol' me...." AND IT IS SO ANNOYING. Look, Brixley Dixon. You are A) Not as handsome as you think you are. And B) Oh sweet heavens if you make it through to the next few rounds you will have every good gay and girl from Yarmouth to Yakima voting to see more of your hipster-lite cherrypie stylings. Oh heavens, you will be big. TIMMY. Tim Urban, my dear pal. Watch out for this one. It's not the cowboys who will get you. You can see them coming from a mile away. No, it's the sneaky dope-twinks that will. You should know, right?
He should know. He's upset again about the cowboy because he realized he wasn't sent home and he's wondering why Ryan let him think that. He told Ryan he'd have dinner ready when Ryan got home but when Ryan did get home there was just an empty plate on the granite countertop and Tim was sitting outside on the balcony, legs crossed, afghan blanket wrapped around his shoulders, smoking a joint and listening to Neil Halstead, a bottle of wine open on the table and a glass poured. "Hey..." Ryan said as he poked his head out. "How... how was your day?" Tim looked up at Ryan, his eyes all purple and tired and lost and aging, and he said "It was great, lover. All great days end just like this," motioning to his joint and the wine and the music and the slack night sky hanging around them. "Well, I..." Ryan trailed off. Tim smiled a crinkly smile and Ryan nodded his head and went back inside, showered, stared at his pores in the mirror for a while, and climbed into bed.
He had mostly drifted off to sleep when Tim stumbled in. He kicked off his shoes and then crawled over toward Ryan on the bed. He laid his head down on Ryan's stomach and stayed there, breathing, Ryan, mostly awake now, stroking his hair. Ryan said "I'm sorry," and he wasn't sure for what exactly, but it felt like the right thing to say. "I'm so tired," Tim murmured, and soon after that he was asleep, just a soft little wheezing sound, just a warm tuft of human there on a bed in Los Angeles. And outside a car honked and a dog barked in a neighbor's yard. The sounds of terrible things happening somewhere nearby.