Episode 1

Season 7 strolled into Tuesday night with a two hour festival of pitch problems, key collapses, supernatural shrieking and exploitation of the mentally ill.  But enough about the judges. 

Philadelphians dropped their Wawa shopping, cheesesteak ordering (double whiz, fried onions), Tastykake snacking, water ice scooping schedules to turn out in record numbers for the Mother of all showcases in the City of Brotherly Love (aka The City That Loves You Back aka It’s Better If You Spend The Night).

Hour one of this landmark event began with a newly skinny Joey Catalano who had recently lost 204 pounds and wanted his new self to sing Maroon 5.  Man loses that much weight, what the hell, he can sing a crappy song.  But he did it well, and it’s off to Hollywood for Joey, whose name I wish was Jordan. 

No audition day can really get started until the show has mocked and ridiculed at least one foreign-born human who unintentionally says funny things like, “my friend she say I am sexyface,” and refers to the Brothers Gibb as, “Mr. The Bee Gees.”  Oh Yuka, it is indeed a Tragedy.

Same goes for the quite literal laugh-in-the-face of a young, mushy-mouthed tour guide who nearly swallowed his own tongue during a startlingly un-enunciated version of Go Down Moses.  The man was obviously not a singer, but they were extra super mean about it.  Uncool.

Also in this first leg of the journey we heard Juno Joyner belting Elton, Jose Candelaria singing in Spanish, and Temptress Brown (a bone breaking, 16 year old, middle line backer with a sick Mom) all try for that golden ticket.  The first two got through but Temptress, though a sweet gal, was not much of a vocalist.  Paula, Randy and Simon group-hugged her, and walked the teary dear back to her family, as chubby little waterfalls ran down her face.  You cried too, don’t pretend you didn’t.

A disturbing, I Love Rock And Roll, musical-montage of the transsexual and the tone-deaf led us to the trainwreck of Alexis Cohen.  The Dafoe-esque, glitter-queen with an undetermined personality disorder and an unfortunate living situation (shares studio apartment with mom, dog, many cats and lives in Allentown -- a place made famous by a song she believes to have been recorded by Bon Jovi), likened herself to Joplin/Slick/Benetar and then spread her enraged, denim-clad buttcheeks for the camera as a big F-you to Alvin, Simon and Theodore when they denied her access to the Goblin City.

Next was the loveable Angela Martin who was singing for her baby’s healthcare.  Pretty and talented, they let her through with the caveat that she must de-wedding-singer herself.  Well beyond qualifying age, a strange man named Milo also popped up this hour with a shaky vaudevillian original composition called No Sex Allowed; a message he was jubilantly compelled to share with America’s youth.

There was also the darling Kristy Lee Cook who lives in a log cabin in Oregon, loves horses and trains for cage fighting matches, the hairy man in a slave Leia ensemble that was refused an audition until he got waxed (really, and he did), and a genuine Paula Abdul stalker who wrote a song with such creepy lyrics as “if she was a bathtub I would caulk her.”  He was escorted out. 

Next, tall, handsome, bedroom-eyed Chris Watson with high cheekbones and groovy dreads from Dover had questionable taste on song selection but decent star quality, while nanny Brooke White sang fairly well and has never seen an R rated movie.  Christina Tolisano, a Chewbacca-imitating trooper from Connecticut did not have the chops for the competition (even though she thinks it’s because she doesn’t wear makeup) but maybe she’ll become best friends with last season’s chick who was obsessed with the cowardly lion. 

Goin’ to Hollywood, baby!:   29 hopefuls

Next stop: Dallas

Tastykakes Photo via Mirandala via Flickr 
(Photoshop version via me)

 
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