AMERICAN IDOL: Hollywood Week

STOP CRYING!!!!

This is AMERICAN IDOL not DARK VICTORY. This is not a Meredith Baxter Birney Lifetime MOW where she comes down with whatever disease killed the last patient on HOUSE. This is not LOVE STORY. This is not OLD YELLER!!

This is a bunch of cute looking kids who all sound like Aretha Franklin or Michael Bolton vying for a chance to be on television every week. It’s not, “Ohmygod, I can walk. I CAN WALK!”

At least in years past these wannabes were asked to perform together in groups during Hollywood Week so you had the fun of putting six rats in a box with only one piece of cheese. There were cat fights, there were alliances, there were questions. Who would rise to the challenge? Who would crack? Who would ruin it for the others? Who would Paula sleep with?

That’s all been replaced with a non-stop blubberfest. Winners cry, losers cry, Paula cries (the one she really wants to bang is only 16). The only one with dry eyes is Simon, who makes $2.45 for every tear.

Now there are solo auditions (most we never see), and a knock-off version of CHORUS LINE. “Back row, you’re going home. Front row, you’ve made it through till the next humiliation.” “Waaa waaaa!!”

STOP CRYING!!!!

The worst was this boy (pictured) who lives in his car and looks like Kellie Pickler. Jesus! He was inconsolable when the Clippers lost. I’m sooo glad he was finally eliminated. He cries so much he probably needs windshield wipers on the inside of that car.

Where are the cocky assholes? Where’s the happy-go-lucky bi-polar guy? The stoner? The guy wanted in four states? Instead we get 24 Terrell Owens (“He’s my quarterback, man!”).

That’s followed by an entire hour of kids walking back and forth down a long hallway. It’s supposed to be real dramatic. One by one they enter this huge room and must cross to the judges to learn their fate. Back to a life working at the Dairy Queen or performing live on national television for a few weeks and then back to a life working at the Dairy Queen? So our stomachs are supposed to be in our throats as we hear the decisions. Except that, well…we don’t give a shit about any of these people yet!! Some of these kids we’re seeing for the first time.

And it seems that in order to qualify for the final 24 you had to be able to sing, cry, and have parents or friends who are all 300 pounds or more.

But at least now we’ll get a chance to meet them, hear them sing, and more importantly, can begin making fun of them. And they think they had a reason to cry before…