Week 3 of
Advocate contributor Dave White’s American
Idol recap: Paris wrestles with
“Conga,” Mandisa’s gay-pride-float
future, Bucky Covington’s evil twin, and the
return of Bo Bice
Paris Bennett
loves to wrestle. That’s her personality reel moment
of the week. She’s a tomboy who loves to
wrestle. Well, that’s nice. Now on to the song.
See, I have this fantasy. It’s completely unfounded,
but I still have it. It’s about song selection
in this competition. I imagine that the producers
sequester each contestant in a room and go, “OK,
here’s your choice: You can sing ‘Who Let The
Dogs Out’ or ‘Take This Job and Shove
It’ or ‘Conga.’ Now pick one. You have
two seconds to make your decision. OK, time’s
up. We have selected for you the song ‘Conga.’
Oh? You don’t know this song? Well, it was a
big hit before you were born. By the Miami Sound
Machine. They were very popular at the time.” And
that is the song that Paris Bennett sang while God
cried.
Lisa
Tucker’s personality reel this week is all about how
she fake-loves Jimi Hendrix and knows how to fake-play
the guitar. She strums a few notes of a
Not-Jimi-Hendrix song—or maybe it’s supposed
to be “Purple Haze,” it’s hard to
tell—to prove how much she fake-loves Jimi Hendrix.
Then you think, F&*#in yeah, she’s gonna sing
“Are You Experienced?” or “Hey
Joe,” but instead of leaping onto the stage, setting
her guitar on fire, and shooting up, she smooves her
way through “Where I Stand” from that
movie Camp. Which was all about a summer camp for
musical theater–obsessed teens. Which is what Lisa
is. It’s a great song, though, and she’s
effortlessly good, so whatever, but—oops—none
of the judges have ever heard of the song, and
that’s bad news for Lisa. Stupid judges.
Melissa McGhee
loves cars. So that makes one wrestling tomboy, one secret
Freedom Rocker, and one gearhead in the Butch-Off. Who will
take home the prize of a Craftsman tool chest from
Sears? Melissa sings Heart’s “What About
Love,” while looking all groupie-slut with a belly
ring and the continued presence of big chunky
highlights. I don’t want to think about the
incredibly high probability that she also wears toe rings.
The toe ring is the grossest item of human jewelry
ever invented ,and I know she’s got one on. I
just hope the camera doesn’t pan down to it, because
then I’ll have to start despising her and vomiting
like Jimi Hendrix.
Is Katherine
McPhee quitting the show? Is she knocked up? Seacrest has to
know! Katherine says no, none of that stuff is true because,
after all, the show isn’t called Abortion
Idol. OK, she didn’t say that last bit. And
now it’s time for Kinnik Sky to sing all sharp and
awful and I-Dare-You-to-Kick-Me-Off-ish. I think the
country is going to take that dare. McPhee is out next
to swallow her way through a timid white girl version
of Aretha Franklin’s “Think.”
Don’t these chicks know that their arms [sic]
too short to box with Aretha? She adds extra bad frosting to
top off the turdiness by busting some weird little
Take-Baby-Steps dance moves. Randy, who has no sense
at all, yells, “We got a hot one!”
Ayla
“Bland” Brown tries “Unwritten”
by Natasha Bedingfield. That makes two Bedingfield
sibling songs ruined in two weeks; not that it was that
hard to kill this one, though, because it already sucks.
Ayla races to keep up with the band, stiffly offering
up an aerobics class worth of bouncy squats in ugly
knickers and corky wedge platforms. Ayla is the white
Ashanti, a singer so indistinct and featureless that she
erases herself from your eyes and ears, not simply
after she leaves the stage, but while she’s
still performing.
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Dave White is the author of the forthcoming book
Exile in Guyville. He blogs at www.livejournal.com/users/djmrswhite.