Dallas Auditions: I Am Your Brother, Your Best Friend Forever, Singing the Songs, The Music That You Like

Ryan wonders if there is any more talent in Dallas or if Kelly is the “lone star”. Oh God, I can’t take it. I wish I hadn’t glued my windows down because I’d be jumping out them right now. At least a contestant says she’s creating a slip and slide in her dress because it’s so hot. Ah Dallas, the classiest city in America.

Our first pity party of the night is Jessica Brown. She’s a a stay at home mom who experimented with drugs in college and became addicted to meth. When she finally got over her addiction, the first song she heard at her recovery group was “Jesus Take the Wheel”. Can this even be real? We are then treated to a visual representation of the song with Jessica driving and her baby in the backseat. Her car then spins out of control and she asks Jesus to take the wheel. But because Jesus is too busy helping another reality contestant win Survivor at the moment, the car crashes and Jessica and her baby die horrible deaths in a fiery wreck. The end.

OK, so that’s not what happens. Instead, she says she just wants to inspire people not to go down the road she went down. She sings “I’ll Stand By You” much like Carrie Underwood. After her back story, it seems almost like an autobiography. Of course, the judges say yes, because she received a whole 5 minute segment about her life. They don’t just give that to anyone, you know. Something about her seems really off though.

Our first train wreck of the night is Paul Stafford, a park attendant. He likes to dance like a dork. He loves roller coasters as well and likens the ride of American Idol to that of a real roller coaster. Paula asks in a stupor if there have been ups and downs for him. He responds, “Shut your pie hole, you sloppy drunk!” Not really. See, I make the show so much better. They should hire me as a writer. Of course, I’d write in the comeback of Sanjaya and Brenna Gethers as the ultimate final 2, but hey, you get what you pay for. Paul sings “Wait for You” by Elliott Yamin, and it’s pretty terrible. Simon asks him if he sang the song in front of anyone, and he tells him that his family gave him two thumbs up. The judges wet themselves over what a nice guy he is while they kick him out. I just found him boring. He’s not mad at the judges though, because “Simon goes down on just about everybody.” His words, not mine. Sometimes my punchlines write themselves.

Our first obligatory Kelly Clarkson fan of the night is Beth Maddocks. She looooooooooooooooooooves Kelly Clarkson, she’s her American Idol, like oh my God totally. She would love to be like her, but for now she has to settle for writing “singing waitress at a fondue restaurant” on her resume. She sings “Beautiful Disaster” by screeching in a strange voice, which netted her $30-90 a table in tips. She seems pretty upset when the judges call her performance a disaster (without the beautiful) and cries with her friends. Don’t worry, Beth. Just vote for the worst this season. I have your member card already filled out. Just send me an address.

Esteban Deanda, Victoria Metz, Drucilla Wideman all suck balls and aren’t worth writing about. Gregory and Mia Tobias do a duet. Why do we care? We don’t.

We move on to the goat vibrato stylings of Alaina Whitaker. She says she’s been compared to Carrie Underwood, but she likes to think Carrie looks like her and not the other way around. She also doesn’t like being pigeon-holed as a country artist, so she decides to sing “Stronger” by Faith Hill. Baylie Brown did this song to death last season, can we retire it yet? Simon says she’s not as good as she thinks she is (true) and she says “oh, shoot.” Interesting response. Paula says there’s a heaviness in her voice and to work on incorporating a breathiness. Wait, is this actual constructive criticism from Paula? She must be low on drugs. Someone do something about this. She gets to Hollywood and I see some VFTW promise in her. She definitely isn’t that great and will be one of the country singers that isn’t pimped as much. Maybe she will be the big VFTW star this year.

Bruce Dickson has a creepy, overprotective father who convinced him to save himself for marriage. But not just saving sex, he’s saving kissing as well. So Bruce will never even kiss a girl until his wedding night. His dad is a fucking moron that is basically ruining his life, but apparently Bruce is unaware of this. Bruce can’t even say sex, he says “intimate relationship.” The second his future wife (if someone would put up with his chastity for that long, besides Jorbacca Sparks) touches his penis, he’s going to freak out and have to go to years of counseling. Even if it goes well, he’s going to have no experience, and his wife is going to get bored fast. Bruce’s dad is a douche nozzle. Add to that the fact that his dad keeps the second half of the creepy key/heart necklace thing, and I think I want to punch the man in the face. Mr. Dickson asks Ryan to protect Bruce in Hollywood, and Ryan says that he can’t because he kissed a girl today. Ryan, your mom doesn’t count. We won’t have to worry about that though, because Simon tells Bruce that his voice sounds ok in the room but would sound bad on TV or the radio. I call it Sanjaya syndrome. So Bruce goes back to his creepy dad. Someone better get this kid drunk after seeing how pathetic he looked on the show. Make him grab a boob or something. Or maybe that’s what Bruce wants us to think and he is the cleverest manipulator of all. He’ll be getting pussy out the yin-yang for the next 2 years due to his story. You sly dog, you!

Next up is another background singer, Pia “Zpia” Easley. Idol is like water for backup singers, isn’t it? Her face is covered in weird tattoos and she sort of resembles an edgier Mantasia. She sings a Gladys Knight song and it’s decent enough. Simon’s impressed that she came in with confidence because the backing singers usually come in like whipped donkeys. That’s no fair, Melinda was an ogre, not a donkey. The judges thought she was fun, but I again found her boring. Apparently tattoos and short hair make you fun without you actually having to actually put any effort into it. I guess I just need some tattoos. Who knew? That means Daughtry is the most fun little troll on the planet. OK, so the theory must be flawed. But that’s ok.

Brandon Green wants everyone at home to know that he peels off his fingernails and saves them in a bag. No lie. I have no idea what possessed him to share this with the country on television, and I think by the end of his audition he realized what a moron he was. He tells the judges that he wants to be a positive influence, unlike some celebrities who act stupid. When the judges ask for names, Brandon has to think for a second so that he doesn’t say “Paula Abdul”, and he comes up with “Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.” Simon asks if he’ll fall out of cars and show his lack of underwear. That’s just creepy, Simon. Leave Fingers McGee alone. After singing “Rich Girl” by Hall and Oates, Simon calls him forgettable. Randy isn’t sure about him because his voice “sometimes goes into the nasal thing.” Does Randy even know anything about musical terminology? Seriously. The man is a living, walking boob. Brandon is convinced that Simon is the “truth teller” of the bunch and almost loses out on his golden ticket because of this. Simon says no, and Randy goes on and on for a few minutes about how if Simon is the truth teller, then Brandon shouldn’t get through. He goes through anyway, and Ryan does an obnoxious voiceover, saying that Brandon “nailed” his audition and his trip to Hollywood is “in the bag.” There’s definite VFTW potential in Brandon, as he’s a country Chris Richardson. That’s good for quite a few awful or entertaining performances.

I just remembered that I am watching the worst show on television. I think the drugs wore off. Now I know why Paula is consistently fucked up. I take back everything bad I ever said about her. She’s the smartest woman in America.

Kayla Hatfield is probably the most excited person to be at the auditions, because she was in an awful car accident. Her mom says that she was missing her face afterwards, but now she has a full life, and she’s living life to its fullest. She sings “Piece of My Heart” by Janis Joplin and growls a lot. Simon loves her for some reason and puts her through. Paula, actually coherent for once, wonders why she’s being asked to judge singers as she’s a horrible one herself. So she says no. Randy calls Kayla pitchy, but he likes her and gives her a yes. This girl is ridiculously VFTW because she isn’t good at all. This means she has no chance at making the top 24, sadly.

Erick Mauldin, Charles Markham, and Tristan Clements all sing horrible versions of songs. Tristan makes Clay Aiken look heterosexual. Charles loves Celine Dion. And Erick sounds like he’s 7, according to Simon. I barely remember them.

Kady Malloy does vocal impressions, like Shakira, Britney, and the guy from Rascall Flatts. When she does her Britney Spears impression, I was actually really enjoying it because she sounded exactly like her. Who cares if she can sing otherwise? She can make a fortune doing Britney impressions on the radio. I’ll pay her. Soon, she’s singing Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats” and Simon stops her to remind her to sing like herself and not do an impersonation. So she sings a boring version of “Unchained Melody” that’s not nearly as interesting as the first 2 songs. Simon then calls her “the best we’ve seen so far this year.” She must be giving him head or something, because her regular singing wasn’t that great. There’s definite VFTW potential here if she does Britney’s voice during theme weeks.

Day 2 starts with Douglas Davidson, who does not want to lose his voice. I don’t want to lose my groove, so I’ll keep Douglas’s recap to a minimum. He was boring. Though he did make me laugh when he explained that his dad screamed “I hate you” at him because he was so angry at how good he sang. Douglas is all about the vocal warmups, but unfortunately his singing is boring and terrible. Simon criticizes him for sweating, walking in circles, whispering, panting, and doing all this weird stuff. That’s the same thing he said to Seacrest last night. Eventually, security takes him away and we’re spared another 5 minutes of boredom.

On American Idol, you can normally tell how someone will sing by the way they look. Pretty people will sing well and ugly people will usually sing poorly. Amusingly, and with a dose of plasant surprise, this was not the case for the next 2. Angela Reilly is a pretty girl with a husband named Chad who is a professional model. He tells his wife to sing “Baby Love” and she is ridiculously over the top. The same goes for “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.” Simon tells her that “love is deaf” and “the good news is your husband loves you.” It’s always fun to see pretty people suck at something. Oh wait, did I actually say that? I meant… yeah, I meant that.

Kyle Ensley, on the other hand, is a fugly nerd who wants to be elected as the next American Idol (and the future governor of Oklahoma). I was expecting a really horrible voice from this one, but he sings “Somebody to Love” by Queen very decently. Simon is hesitant to put him through because he thinks that Kyle will pull a Clay Aiken and do weird things to his hair and wear red, leather jackets. Kyle promises he won’t, so he makes it through. This is another VFTW victory because Kyle is perfect for our cause. This also means Kyle will make it nowhere near the voting rounds.

The schtick that the producers made up for Tammy Tuzinski is that she’s too boring to talk. So why would I even bother recapping her? She’s semi-amusing when she tells the judges she will be singing “The Power of Love” by Celine Dion and then goes off into another song entirely. But really, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. As she leaves, the judges comment on how nice she is. Apparently this year they are mistaking the word “nice” for the word “boring.” Just because you don’t have a personality, it doesn’t mean that you’re nice. Ask Randy Jackson.

Tween dream Colton Swon shocks us all with his hideous porcupine hair and sings “Boondocks” next. He’s a really boring, marginal country singer. Paula likes him because she wets her panties over marginally attractive males. I don’t get her attraction to him though. I hate the horrible highlights in his hair. Mr. Frostylocks here must have gone to the Ryan Seacrest school of grooming. He then tricks his parents into thinking he failed, as if that hasn’t been done on the show before. Kill me. His caterpillar eyebrows scare me to death, but if I’m correct, the tweentards will help us keep him around for quite a while as a VFTW victory for the ages.

Next, some bitch can do the cricket noise. That was already done last night. Idol even recycles its material a night after it originally airs. Then we’re treated to a montage of drag queens. Hey, you go, girls. One of the drag queens was actually a pretty decent looking female as well. Why can’t VFTW have a drag queen in the top 24? I’ll eat all of my vegetables and do my homework right after school if you bring us a top 24 drag queen, Santa. Please! It’d be like VFTW heaven.

Kellie Pickler is then reincarnated into a guy… a guy named Drew Poppelreiter. He talks with a thick southern accent about life on the farm and how he’s never been on a plane before. He looks younger than 24, but it might just be his “aw shucks, that them there box with pictures in it is fancy, how do I get on it?” demeanor. Since he loves working on the farm and it’s all he knows, why did he bother to try out for Idol? Either way, Simon says no, but the other 2 put him through. Good thing too, he’s one of the most VFTW contestants yet. The way things are going, we’ll be hard pressed to NOT find our first VFTW pick here in Dallas. Nice work, judges.

Finally, someone ridiculous but funny tries out again. Kyle Reinnick, also known as Gay Daughtry, is up next. He’s bright orange, wears makeup, and talks with a lisp about what a hardcore rocker he is. I love this guy! He shows what a hardcore rocker he is by singing Kelly Clarkson’s “Never Again,” the song Clive Davis hated so much. Come to think of it, that’s ballsy and rockeresque to piss off someone like that. This kid is either a worster or just ridiculous. Simon calls him scary, but he likes to see it as intense. I have to admit, I like Gay Daughtry much better than real Daughtry. At least this one is funny.

Nina Shaw is from Burleson, Texas, just like Kelly Clarkson. She sings some Whitney Houston, which makes me want to smack her over the head with a frying pan. Seriously, will you people stop singing Whitney Houston and Stevie Wonder? There are millions of other recording artists. Millions! Simon calls it old fashioned and cabaret. Paula calls it pageant-like. Randy calls it “Dawg, dude, yo, hot, feelin’ it, pitchy, hot.” Then he compares her to Amy Winehouse because he has no eardrums. She gets through barely and lives to bore us to death another day.

Last, but not least, is Renaldo Lapuz. I have to admit, I was already tired of his stupid white cape before he even sang because we had to see it during every preview. He starts to sing his original composition “We’re Brothers Forever” and I was getting annoyed with him. But after a while, the song started to get stuck in my head. He must have sang it at least 10 times, and each time it got better. By the end, Paula was dancing with him and getting down with her drunk self, Randy was spinning around, and even Ryan was attempting to not show off his inner queen’s dance moves. "I am your brother/Your best friend forever/Singing the songs, the music that you like/We're brothers till the end of the time/together or not you're always in my heart/Your hurt, your feelings in you will rain no more." I now want to buy this song. Put it on iTunes, dude. Simon predicts the song could be a hit record. And Renaldo is appreciative, saying “He gives chance to any talent, free of charge.” That’s because no one would pay for Simon’s advice, Renaldo. But they will pay for your song. Cash in, buddy.

But the biggest VFTW victory of all? They didn’t show Jason “Plant” Castro at all tonight except for in a few quick clips. Awesome! It’s probably because he’s ugly and has awful dreds. I’m excited about the next episode because Simon tells Carly Hennessy that she wasn’t as good as she was two years ago. Seriously? That’s hysterical. So tune in to see more people bore us to death in San Diego next Tuesday.