This one time, at band camp...

First, let me apologize for the crap quality of the pics this week. It's really cold here and I didn't want to go run an errand to pick up new dvds and I only had one so I recorded at slow speed and the result are these grainy, low-grade captures like we're examing home videos for proof of UFOs. But you'll get the idea.

Basically, I don't have much to say about the girls anyhow. Unlike the boys, they mostly bore me. I wanted to like Asia'h because she has that smoky voice but instead of going with it, the arrogant twat thinks she can sing all these big, money-note numbers that totally don't suit her while she immaturely bounces around like someone shoved one of Michael Johns's kangaroos up her ass. And when Paula told her last night that she nailed the song, Asia'h breathlessly unleashed the idiotic riposte of "I know!" Such a wannabe diva'h.

Also, I would prefer if I would at least like Syesha, because now I feel like a total racist for not liking any of the black people this year. But I don't like her, and I thought them giving her the final slot was an act of desperation to make sure that at least a couple of black people get through to the final twelve so that they don't get slammed with the Elton John outrage, racist smears again. (Because, you know, he certainly isn't going to accuse them of being anti-gay this year.) What was entertaining, however, was how she totally got screwed with judges' comments because they'd acted like such jackasses the rest of the show. But instead of coming across as controlling themselves when Syesha finished, they came off as twice as assholey and somewhat rude to her when she wasn't deserving of it.

Brooke continued in her Colbie Caillat coffeehouse vein with a stripped down version of "Love is a Battlefield." That's fine. She knows what she can do, and what she can't (unlike Asia'h) but I do wish she'd get a sense of humor and be able to unleash the monster coffeehouse hit "Smelly Cat" by Phoebe Buffay.

Simon kissed Amanda's ass for her Joan Jett number, while she stood there, surly and unresponsive to his over-the-top praise. Even asshole Daughtry took more joy than she does. But she did at least look better. Generally, she's packing more pancake than IHOP on her face, and without it, she looks twenty years younger. Again, I wanna like her because she's different, but she got a big boost from the backup singers who were shockingly in tune for a change and sang over her.

Kristy did Journey, but that song just doesn't work for me anymore unless Amy Adams is crawling over a table toward Will Ferrell and they're getting ready to make animal noises. I do recall Kristy saying her most embarrassing moment was when she was seven, she thought she was a dog. Drank out of a dog bowl and moved about on hands and knees for a whole year and barked at people. Clearly, she's trying to curry Simon's favor and court the doggie-style lovin' male viewer's votes with that ploy. And that leaves everyone else, who were all so boring I don't remember much. But, because of her Journey choice, Kristy also marks the portion of the evening when things started to unravel with the judges.

Sure, it started earlier, when Randy informed us that he recorded the Whitney Houston song "I Wanna Dance With Somebody." Paula, for some reason, found this information tedious and barely held her intoxicated shit together through it all.


But then, later in the show, big scoop emerged here, people! I did not know this, but Randy dropped a bomb about his past. Get ready. Are you ready for it? Randy worked with Journey! I did not know that! Crazy cool, huh?? Like, WOW! As Danny would say, that's just TMTH!

And, at that point of the program, it all fell apart. Pauler's had enough of Randy's band camp routine, so she did her best David Hernandez impression as she climbed into Simon's lap and they cuddled their way through the horror of Randy talking about Journey, almost as if he does this sort of thing all the time.


The funniest part about all this? Paula had kicked the show off by babbling about the hair and makeup of the '80s and then taking credit for singlehandedly popularizing the poof-ball hairdo popular in the '80s. (I'm so sure Madge now feels her stylistic influences are inferior.) Then, after Brooke sang, she had to stand in the middle of the battlefield as Randy tossed the first grenade about how Paula choreographed that video, but then Paula let loose with her moron artillery and said she didn't, and then we got into a while name drop-bombing thing and Simon didn't care, and it was all so trying for Paula she ended up saying this:
"I don't understand what's going on here."

And as she said it, she looked like this:


Which yeah, that's pretty much par. We all know that Paula is so fucking lost that OnStar would tell her to piss off. But it just goes to show that Paula IS more lucid this year, because she can't usually articulate how lost she is, so this is actually progress, people.

Anyhow, another contestant later and two more slurps from her "Coke" cup, she was still lost. And she looked like this.


Then there was a commercial break. And when they came back, Paula had Simon laughing. Just laughing and giggling away, he was, and she said it was because he was telling her to talk about moths and mellonballs.


Now, I know it's a running joke to make fun of what Paula says by inserting nonsense words the way she does. Like, "Golden light! Colors of the rainbow! Texture!" But I'm not making up the moths and mellonballs quote. Ryan seemed lost now, she she got demonstrable about it. Moths and mellonballs!


Then, when it all got a little too much to handle, she went cannibal on Cowell.


So that was the show. Believe me. If you missed it, it wasn't half as entertaining as these pictures lead you to believe.

So we didn't find evidence of UFOs. But if you were scouring the tapes for proof of Paula's rumored sobriety, you'd have also come up with zero documentation.