Pop a squat

Oh, man, did Sanjaya get the bowl cut? That's what it looks like from the quick flash of the contestants we see before the opening credits of Tuesday night's show. See, Kentucky Fried Chicken (I've never been able to deal with shortening it to the more hip-hop, breakdancing–Colonel Sanders “KFC”) has offered My Papaya a chance to be their Famous Bowls spokesgeek on the condition that he gets a bowl haircut. You can Google that if you think I'm lying. Because I'm not. Anyway, I hope he takes the money and runs with it. Hair grows back. The worst that happens is he looks like Moe Howard for a week or so and fattens up his college fund a little.

“This is A-MER-ican Idol!”

Elevator.

Animated dude with breasts holding microphone.

Cathy Dennis song.

The cast of Drive seated in that doomed-Fox-series front row of marketing.

The cast of Wedding Bells working at Pinkberry.

Seacrest welcomes us to “the show you control,” the first comedy line of the evening. Then he says, “Two words for you: Jennifer [slightpause] Lopez,” and this makes the crowd scream. Even one of the Monkees is here applauding, Micky Dolenz specifically, wearing a black “I'm still youthful!” hat even though he's like my Mom's age. I think it's only right and natural that one of the Monkees is here, seeing as how their fame was predicated on being constructed as musicians on national television too. They got a sitcom and hit records and all the screaming girls and none of the respect because, now as well as then, people somehow believe it when pop stars bitch about how their beyond-reason level of fame and wealth was earned through blistered feet and purity of vision and a moral steel core, like they'd trudged up a mountain made out of shards of broken glass while those other leapfroggers who simply landed the magic audition or gave someone a blow job or won a contest didn't play by the rules and are now ruining the integrity of…the musicindustry. So anyway, back to the Monkees. Then they went and made that awesome movie Head and broke up. Which makes me wonder what Micky Dolenz has done for a living for the past 30-whatever years, you know? Does he own a chain of Sizzlers?

Seacrest launches into the voice-over for a Jennifer Lopez montage: “Jennifer Lopez is an unstoppable force with talents that cover all aspects of the entertainment industry,” which is, I guess, I don't know, sort of accurate. She does sing and dance and act and make those awful outfits they sell in…where? Like Mervyn's? And she has some sprays or lotions or something too, right? Like her own brand of toothpaste, I think. I forget. What I like best about this little “isn't she great” monologue is how Seacrest says the word “Latina.” Because when crackers with aspirations to being continental say words like that they always overemphasize the way they're pronouncing it, as though they were actual Spanish-speakers. So he says, “Eh-lah-TEEN-ah,” and a nation of Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Central Americans, Dominicans, and even my Spaniard-from-Spain-descended husband/partner/whatever laughs in unison.

As I write this, my friend Tom Ford—no, not that one, this is the one I know who isn't famous or a fashion designer—is trying to nap on my couch, so I'm annoying him with the way I'm stopping and starting and rewinding the TiVo in order to catch the little details that'll make this recap sing, and he just mumbled, “I…fuckin'…hate her.”

I don't hate the Lo. This montage reminded me of all the things about her there are to enjoy. There's J.L. spazzing out in a manic dance move, there's J.L. pretending to be Jennifer Beals's Flashdance body double, there's J.L.'s used-to-be-bigger-before-she-had-whatever-she-had-did-it-did-to-it ass, there's J.L. punching you in the face while singing “Waiting for Tonight,” there's J.L. imploring the DJ to play that song, there's J.L. being in a movie that isn't Gigli, there's J.L. as “Eh-lah-TEEN-ah” icon Selena, there's J.L. exploding a car as a metaphor for her fiery “Eh-lah-TEEN-ah” passion, there's J.L. washing her hair, and then, finally, there's J.L. topping the Latin Charts, her latest achievement, which, though it might not be number1 on the top 200 albums, is still a much a bigger deal than being able to say, “Hey, everyone, I just washed my hair all by myself without the help of my live-in stylist!”

Seacrest continues embarrassing himself by calling the kids the top “ocho” in yet another attempt at dialect realness, and he explains that Jennifer Lopez will be their mentor for “Latin Week,” where I guarantee you the focus will be squarely on Gloria Estefan and Santana. In my fantasies Sanjaya comes out and covers an Os Mutantes song and Melinda tackles Tom Ze. But it's not going to happen. We're not even going to get a cover of Celia Cruz or Caetano Veloso. But someone's going to sing “Conga,” I can feel it. Anyway, will Lopez be aloof and and useless like Peter Noone? Will she be tentatively helpful like Diana Ross? Will she bowl them over with her happy energy and willingness to howl out any and every song with them like Lulu? Will she demand one of them to go out and get her some hand cream like when Puffy's protégé shot that guy in that club that one time and they all got hauled down the police station and she had one of the cops run off to Rite-Aid?

J.L. speaks her gentle-lady mind about the wonder that is this season's batch of contestants. How diverse and lovely, how amazing they are, how proud she is of them. The top ocho are all seated on the floor, looking up at J.L., seated on a stool; they're in awe, mouths slightly open, like she might drop some worms in from her motherly beak. It's sweet. And I can't figure out what I'm witnessing here.

“We watch American Idol,” she says.

“Just like the rest of America,” she says.

Is this like in The Phantom Menace and whatever that second one was called where you learn that Queen Amidala had all those decoy Padmes that looked and acted just like her? Is Jennifer Lopez so rich now that she's had exact duplicates manufactured? Are they the nice ones? I mean, I've read all the gossip columns and blogs and TheSmokingGun.com and Gawker.com and Defamer.com and PerezHilton.com (Did you know I used to work with him at this other gay magazine once and his real name is Mario? I always thought he was kind of a dork back then, but now he's famous, so that makes him amazing) and I know all the facts about Jennifer Lopez. I know she demands crazy things like all-white trailers at charity events and a dozen oiled-up eunuch slaves spraying tuberose-scented mists into the air from diamond-encrusted atomizers and that these slaves must travel in advance of her every step by exactly five minutes so that the scent of pretty flowers delicately lingers in the air but that they must be invisible and out of the area by the time she shows up. I know about every gruesome story from every set she ever worked on, every party she ever attended, every human life she suffocated with her bare hands around their innocent throats so she could get ahead in the biz. I heard she had Selena killed so that she could then play her on film. I have a LOT invested in believing that all this information is 100% true fact. I don't know how I'm even supposed to go on with this recap if I can't see her behaving as oddly and stiffly and uncomfortably as Gwen Stefani. I NEED UNSUBSTANTIATED GOSSIP AND BLATANT LIES TO BE GOSPEL. Stop fucking up my life with your warm, charismatic behavior, Jennifer Lopez! It's not fair to me or anyone else. But mostly me.

Anyway, let's watch Jennifer Lopez be lovey-dovey and snuggle-bunnies with Melinda Doolittle, who's going to sing “Sway.” J.L. has done her homework, like maybe she really does watch this show. “I just saw this quality in [Melinda] that I hadn't seen on the show before, where she kinda got like, really like, sultry and sexy for a second.” We see J.L. advising, laughing, and being cute. “That is going to be my biggest challenge this week,” says Melinda, “because I am so not sexy.”

Hmm. Hey, girl-on-girl readers, is your lezdar going off on Melinda? I want to hear from you on this one. Because while I tend to think I can spot a fag a mile away, occasionally my dyke detection system runs a little spotty. And something about her feels lezzie-ish to me suddenly. I don't know why. I have no proof, no rumors, no innuendo, no nothing. Unlike all the crazy stories of evil I've heard of J.L., which I still swear have to be true or nothing can ever be right in my world again. But about Melinda I have only conjecture. So someone give me your opinion. I care.

Anyway, here comes Melinda in a nice asymmetrical-cut black dress that gives her plenty of neck. She's also wearing a sexy MILF wig. She performs the song competently, and by that I mean she puts me to sleep. But whatever. Randy compares her to Celia Cruz. Paula, who is wearing a funny little black jacket and, according to my friend Josh, “poured lip gloss all over herself and rolled her face in glitter,” goes blah-blah-blah-you're-pretty. And Simon doesn't like it. Simon's the one who's right. Seacrest calls her “sexy,” and Melinda is happily taken aback, kind of like when you poke the Pillsbury Doughboy in the belly button.

LaKisha's next. Seacrest has a viewer question. “What made you try out for American Idol?” asks Someone from Somewhere. LaK's response is the one she's said before but clearly not loudly enough so that these dumb question-askers could hear it, and it goes like this, paraphrased of course: “I work in a motherfuckin' BANK and make shit money and I'm a single mom and I'd been getting really into that Set It Off DVD, like keeping it way too long from Blockbuster and memorizing key scenes almost without even realizing I was doing it, you know? That's when I knew I had to dump all that bullshit and get my ass on TV.”

J.L. sweetly, so sweetly, guides LaK through “Conga,” even teaching her how to pronounce it correctly and letting me know that I've been saying it wrong my whole life, like the cracker I am. She even gives LaKisha a quick little dance lesson and together they make their respective booties go POP to the right. Then J.L. delivers this really infectious and warm laugh. It's so life-affirming I can feel my arteries clearing and my cholesterol count going down. I'm being healed by the laughter of Miss Jennifer Lopez, friend to humanity. My friend Tom Ford offers a possible explanation for this continued niceness. “Maybe Tom Cruise did get to her and Marc Anthony and convert them to Scientology,” he says, and I like this idea because it would mean we have a new celebrity Scientologist to goof on. The new “clear” J.L. would be a treat at all times. Furthermore, it seems like Posh and Becks aren't being so receptive to taking the personality tests and wrapping their money-filled hands around e-meter cans, so I'd really like it if at least some fresh superfame were being infused into the religion. Jenna Elfman can't do everything by herself, and we shouldn't expect her to. It's not right.