The greatest love
songs of all time—and one by Bryan Adams
too—go through the Idol blender. And the blond
takes her calamari home in a “To Go”
box…
I got spies. Two
friends wound up at the show tonight, sitting in the
audience. They’ve promised to report back on any
weird stuff that losers like me—and you
too—don’t get to see because we’re not
holders of the hot ticket. So for the duration of this
recap I’m going to let them speak in their own
words. When you see brackets with the names [Aaron the Spy]
or [Tony the Spy] then you’ll know it’s
one of them. Aaron’s a weirdo Gay who likes
Norwegian black metal and Tony’s a muscles and
sleeveless T-shirt Gay. They’re very different
and yet they both adore me. I’m universal that
way.
[Aaron the Spy:
Before the show starts the back-up singers sing this
10-minute “funk lite” jam where they go,
“Say
Paula…Abdul…Paula…Abdul,”
and the crowd is supposed to chant their names. Then they
go, “The Dawg’s coming out!” and
you’re supposed to do the Dawg Pound woof woof woof
and the backup singers go, “Randy…
Jackson… Randy…Jackson…” Then
they eject the judges out from the side door and Paula
runs around like a crazy woman hugging people and
stuff. The crowd is like 10% celebrities—I saw
Tori Spelling and Miss Jay from America’s Next Top
Model—15% media assholes, and then 75% rich
junior high school girls having their birthday.]
Seacrest looks
good tonight I like his shiny, skinny blue tie. It’s
very Huey Lewis in 1982. He introduces the judges.
Now, can anyone explain why does Randy does the
faux-booing of Simon every week? It’s so lame, this
weird show of fakey misanthropy. And it’s a word that
just sounds wrong coming from Randy’s mouth.
Like he can’t even do it right and is actually
mispronouncing it. And, finally, who on earth really still
believes that Simon is “mean?” Knock it
off, Randy.
Andrea Bocelli is
the guest star tonight. He’s that Italian guy who
sings the songs that women my mom’s age like to
hear while they take vanilla candle–scented
bubble baths. I remember once there was a whole bit about
Carmela on The Sopranos digging Andrea Bocelli.
He’s also the guy who got all male diva on
Oprah when she had him on her show once. It was a
great episode. Oprah goes, “And now Andrea Bocelli is
going to sing “‘The Greatest Love of
All!’” (or maybe it was one of those other
famous opera songs, I don’t remember) and
Bocelli flat-out refused to do it on live television.
You could see the hate-fumes coming off Oprah that day.
They were purple.
They say
tonight’s theme is the World’s Greatest Love
Songs. But it’s really King Romantico Bocelli
Sits in a Chair and Does a Lot of Not Much While
Songwriter-Producer David Foster Busts the Kids’
Balls Night. Foster has Poseidon-capsizing
tsunami waves of negative
don’t-waste-my-time-which-by-the-way-is-worth-one-thousand-dollars-per-minute
energy cascading off of him. They’ve brought in a
representative Music Industry Asshole. Good.
It’ll toughen these kids up. Something has to
prepare them for meeting people like Clive Davis and David
Geffen. Cut to Céline Dion cooing, “If God
could have a singing voice, he must sound a lot like
Andrea Bocelli.” Personally, I always thought that if
God sang, he’d sound like Phil Harris as Baloo
in The Jungle Book, but let Céline have
her little opinions. Then comes the clip reel of
“Isn’t Andrea Bocelli the Greatest
Singer in the History of Human Life as We Know
It?” Cut to Sarah Brightman cuddling up all
moony-eyed to Bocelli, fondling him as he sings some
vaguely opera-ish adult contemporary bit of
humpty-hump. Then cut to producer-songwriter David
Foster—who wrote “I Have Nothing”
for Whitney Houston—and Bocelli saying “David
is the greatest producer in the world.” Cut to
the clip from last week—the most awesome one of
all—of the guy on fire jumping off the bridge as
Bocelli lays it down Rigoletto-style.
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Dave White is the author of Exile in Guyville. He can be
found at www.imdavewhite.com and http://djmrswhite.livejournal.com.