Liveblogging the Idol shitshow
by Kathy Cacace

Note: You know what? No. I’m not doing this. Five hours a week is a lot to spend with Ryan Seacrest and his off-center nose. I’ll be back when it gets to the top 12. Promise.

This year I’ll be doing one entry per week that includes coverage of all the episodes. Tonight: the top 24 boys. Check back here tomorrow and Thursday for the girls and the results show.

7:57: I have to admit, I’ve barely been watching the audition freakshow this year. While I’m usually glued to the zitty, greasy-haired, clog-wearing, tone deaf mess, this year it’s just been kind of low on my list of priorities. Another thing I’m less than thrilled about: spending five hours a week with that trained ferret Seacrest. Because the reality of spending this much time watching American Idol in my basement is somewhat disheartening, this is the part where I insist you picture me on a bed piled with satin pink pillows wearing a housecoat lined in feathers, petting a poodle, smoking a Virginia Slim in a long pink cigarette holder, and dictating this to a shirtless Italian.

8:00: And here we go. Seacrest bounces down the stairs like a puppy toward a sea of fresh newspaper.

8:02: He very quickly introduces the top twelve guys. They appear to be drawn from a second grade social studies textbook. You know, one that obviously strives to include one of every race and body type in the illustrations? The only way this could be any more Rainbow Connection would be to actually wheel out a contestant in an iron lung.

8:03: Michael Johns…is he the one that everyone is going to want to bone? He looks like a good bad guy (or a bad good guy?) on General Hospital.

8:05: And we’re already at a commercial break. That’s the way this is going to be, huh? Sweet pea, apple of my eye, I’m going to stab someone and I don’t know whyyyyy….

8:09: The theme tonight is the 60’s. David Hernandez, a 24 year old who appears to be unremarkable by every possible standard, is opening the show with some vaguely sad story about having a single mother or something. I don’t care, he’s not even cute. He’s singing that “Midnight Hour” song. Whatever. Still not cute.

8:10: Was he in LFO? Someone investigate this. He reeks of LFO.

8:14: Okay, here’s a guy who has one name. Chikezie? Chakeezy? They refuse to show his ONE name long enough for me to be able to spell it correctly. Therefore: your name is Cher for the rest of the season. Sorry.

8:16: Cher is wearing an orange suit and sexually assaulting the camera with his eyes and his little lip bite.

8:16:30: And a woman in an obvious wig in the audience is really into it. I’m done here.

8:18: Simon calls him Jacuzzi and it is nearly a racial incident. I am extraordinarily uncomfortable. Happy Black History Month! Vote for Obama!

8:24: David Cook is a 25-year-old who is trying to compensate for male pattern baldness by growing in some emo bangs. We are not fooled, David.

8:26: He’s doing the Turtles, “Happy Together,” and it’s fine or whatever, but I’m distracted by the fact that he’s accessorized his jeans by hanging a white bandanna out of his back right pocket. According to a quick Google search, this means that David Cook enjoys sucking cum out of condoms. Edgy!

8:35: Jason Yaeger is a 28-year-old waiter with a skunky blond streak in the front of his hair for no apparent reason. He is warbling “Moon River.” There’s something Mormon about him.

8:38: He pulls the Grandma dedication and Paula tears up thinking about how she did her first ballet recital to “Moon River.” …When she was 25?

8:45: Oh, Robbie must be the rocker. You can tell because he’s wearing a bandanna and has long hair like Bret Michaels.

8:45: Actually, Robbie reveals he was in a “boy/girl group that opened for Britney Spears.” Really. Well. You’ve ended up on American Idol, Britney is a fucking lunatic, and Bret Michaels is obviously bald. Happy endings all around!

8:50: David Archuleta is an itty bitty little baby gay singing “Shop Around.” Come on. He’s like someone who I would’ve gone to the prom with. No. We would’ve skipped the prom to eat Phish Food and rent movies, but we would’ve argued at Blockbuster because he would’ve wanted to rent the whole first season of Buffy and I would’ve said no way.

8:55: SOMEONE MAKE HIM STOP LAUGHING. Oh god, it’s (heh) so (heheh) aw(heh)ward!

9:00: Danny Noriega is an ittier bittier little baby gay. Tegan & Sara & Danny. That’s all the visual you need.

9:01: He’s singing “Jailhouse Rock,” and if you close your eyes it’s semi-butch. But then if you open them, he’s shimmying like someone’s drunk single cousin at a wedding, right before she stumbles outside for a smoke and then passes out in her cake.

9:06: The judges have just debated drunkenly for five minutes and Danny responded to Simon’s criticism with an extremely sharp snap of the neck. He is going to be the first boy on television to injure himself gaying.

9:12: Luke Menard. 29, carpet cleaner, has auditioned before, yada yada yada. I’m just praying he gives me a reason to call him Luke Re-TARD for the next three months.

9:13: I have never been as bored as I am now listening to this asshole sing.

9:18: Colton, itty bitty gay number three, likes to sing the Teletubbies theme song to himself when he gets nervous. I love when the condescending similies just write themselves.

9:27: Garrett Haley scares the fuck out of me. I’m thrilled he’s found American Idol as an outlet for his creativity, because if he hadn’t he’s the kind of kid who would be electrocuting hamsters or putting inappropriate things up his butt that only the emergency room could remove. He keeps talking directly to the camera even when Ryan speaks to him.

9:30: He’s singing “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do,” the Neil Sedaka classic I once sang on a bus on a choir trip the entire way to and from Six Flags Great Adventure. We were 13, high on Pixi Stix and I’m quite positive it was better to sit through than this terrifying freakshow.

9:34: Simon suggests Garrett, “get some fresh air.” I think the Simon-to-English translation on this one is, “less masturbation, masturbator.”

9:39: Jason Castro has dreadlocks almost all the way down to his ass and they’re extremely offensive because he might be okay-looking if they didn’t look like big hair turds in varying shades of poo.

9:41: He’s playing the guitar…why is the hippie kind of charming me? I think I need to go to bed.

9:49: Michael Johns, the 29 year old Australian, is singing “Light My Fire” and failing to light mine. Now’s as good a time as any to mention that Brad’s contribution to this whole evening of television was: “Do you think anyone besides me has ever said the sentence I saw Diane Saywer rubbin’ it on her taint?“

9:52: No Brad, I don’t think anyone has ever had much to say about Diane Sawyer’s taint.