We begin by reliving the final moments of the previous season, where Taylor won and then headed faster than any previous winner into irrelevance. It makes even Ruben go, "Wow!" and grabs another hamburger. Sleazie's voiceover comes on over clips of Ruben, Kewpie, Kelly, Fantasia, Cattle, and uh... oh yes, someone on this show finally remembers J Hu now that she's enjoying her own fifteen seconds of fame as a Golden Globe winner. At any rate, this show is claiming credit for every Grammy, every movie, every hit single, every freaking thing, really that these people have done, even if these golden achievements are attained only after they sic their lawyers on 19E to break free from their contract. The show is shameless that way, and that's why we love it. Right, people?

Sleazie also says that we've made Kellie Pickler a household name. Since when? Oh, Chris' debut album is the fastest-selling debut rock album ever and it's all thanks to America. It makes you wonder why America didn't crown Chris the winner then, doesn't it? Katharine is proclaimed "America's sweetheart", apparently because of her guest appearance in Andrea "A-Bo" Bocelli's concert or two. I believe even Katharine will be surprised to learn that she's America's sweetheart since her album hasn't even been released yet. She must also be wondering why she didn't win if she's America's sweetheart. I wait for them to say something about Taylor's achievement other than winning the show and hilariously enough, there's nothing that is said about Taylor at all. Watching the last three minutes alone, one would believe that Kellie came in third in the previous season the final Two were Chris and Katharine. Oh, poor Taylor. That has to hurt his ego so badly after all his delusionally grandiose talkshow babbles about wanting to introduce "real music" to the great unwashed.

At any rate, let's just forget the really mystifying previous season and just assume that the audience had gone crazy and assumed that they were voting for Dancing With The Stars, hence Taylor's victory, when all along they really thought Chris was the best and coolest singer of them all. We're now cannonballing ourselves into the sixth season and we have, what, only twenty bad audition episodes to endure before we even get to see who the show wants us to send to the Top Twelve this time around? So, which blonde bimbo will I detest this season? Which ugly guy will end up going far because desperate housewives all over the country want to take a bite from his drumstick? Ryan "Yummy, yummy, yummy! I got love in my tummy!" Sleazebag, wearing a brown T-shirt emblazoned with what seems like two gay dragons lustily copulating on Sleazie's chest under a bluish jacket like he's hosting the second season all over again, walks into the stadium and marvels at the throng of hopeful, crazy, and publicity-hungry pranksters that have filled the seats. This is, after all, American Idol, where everyone believes he or she is talented and will sell more CDs than Taylor.

After a few more minutes of masturbatory accolades on the show and how it attracts constant crazies and hopeful hearts everywhere and everytime, it's time to watch the judges walk out of their limousines and back into the limelight. There's King Tut, quietly counting his twenty million pound paycheck as he breathes - "Forget this show, one penny, two penny, three penny, Sleazie's peni- bloody hell, who is that disgusting man-slut looking at again? I told Nigel to keep out the hunks from the show... damn, where was I again?" - and Randy Randy and, of course, Miss Paula who holds up her crossed second and third finger to the camera. "This is how I manage to walk upright despite being completely drunk by ten every morning!" must be what she is trying to say to the camera. I have to give Miss Paula some credit, though: six seasons and counting and she still hasn't overdosed or taken a long and mysterious midseason vacation due to "illness". Maybe this season?

Three people get through in a quick montage - I won't worry about who they are at this moment since if I'm supposed to know them, I'll know them in time - and then some people get cut. A skinny guy's audition is pronounced "rotten" by King Tut and he cries to the camera after checking to make sure that it is on him. A deranged-looking fellow with red-rimmed eyes and square jawline - hmm, he's kinda cute in a way - tells King Tut to kiss his bleeped behind. No, silly, when it comes to LA, it's the other way around - you kiss King Tut's bleeped behind and then some. A blonde who later is revealed to be Jessica Rhodie cries to the point that her family members have to support her on her feet while a pink-haired woman tearfully scolds the cameraman to keep that thing away from her face. She seems to have a lot of practice in saying, "Keep that bleeping thing away from my face! I don't wanna see it!" which, again, explains why she's not famous. You don't say that kind of things to people who can make you famous, you see. You want to see it. You want it to come close to your face. You close your eyes and think of Miss Paula on her feet swaying her body wildly as she gives you a demented brand of standing ovation. Such is the price we pay to be famous.

A somewhat chubby lass by LA and King Tut's standards wears a cowboy hat to go along with her Gee, How Can You Tell I Live In A Trailer? clothes as she literally warbles something that is a cross between the sound effects from a pornographic movie, a difficult childbirth, and an opera all at once. It's beautiful in a profane/profound manner, as if Jenna Jameson is delivering a baby on stage while she's performing the penultimate aria in M Butterfly, but the judges, clearly not cognizant with culture, act stunned. Hmmph. With that, the credits roll. It's the same one as last season's credit apart from an extra few seconds at the end where they stick Taylor in those blue holographic screen thingies in the background right after Cattle. Hey, Chris may have the super-duper record sales but Taylor gets to be immortalized in blue in the credits, so take that, egghead!

The show flashes back to Prince performing in the previous season, which is only relevant because this season kicks off in the land of Paisley Park, Minneapolis, which Sleazie calls the "land of 10,000 lakes" and, um, 10,000 people in the stadium. Or something like that. Don't look at me like that, I don't speak Sleazie's language that well. These 10,000 morons are instructed to look spontaneous while singing Prince's 1999 so they do just that. The judges are here with Randy Randy muttering some nonsense about representating to the camera.

A special guest judge also shows up: Jewel. She can afford to do this, since she was dropped by her label after her previous album flopped and all so it's not like she's busy with anything else. Oh, sorry, Jewel, I meant to say: Jewel decided that she will have more creative freedom by releasing her future albums on her own label. Her hands may be small but they are not yours and she is never broken because in the end only kindness matters, you know. The show gives her a tribute montage clip, which they should, for she is, in a way, the original and milder Kellie Pickler who flogged her poor trailer roots to sell her records. I like Foolish Games (the radio remix version) though and I think Jupiter (Swallow The Moon) (the original version on the album) is one of her most underrated songs ever but I think most of everything else she has done is throwaway fluff. Sleazie mentions Jewel's latest CD Goodbye Alice In Wonderland, which is pretty much everything she has done in the past only more boring if you ask me, and insists that she is even more successful than before. Jewel sits between Miss Paula and Randy Randy, probably in keeping with the title of her recent release where she's stuck between the Queen of Hearts and Tweedledum, I suppose.

The first person is a young lady named Jessica Rhodie who works in the Mall of America and looks like Cattle if Cattle doesn't win this show, goes back home, and ends up living the suburban life. She is a make-up/hairdresser person. In short, you can't find a better Southern suburban living stereotype than Jessica here. She shows off her skills at making over a friend, I think, by plastering enough foundation on the poor dear's face that she looks like she's been running for twenty miles under the hot sun. She claims to have sung since she was a little girl, a claim that is no longer unique after the ten millionth time someone makes a similar claim on this show, and she's a big Jewel fan. She wants to be like Jewel. An artist without a label? Okay then, she may just get her wish sooner than she'd think. She acts surprised when Sleazie, sporting the latest stubble-wear from disgraced Project Runway 3 contestant Keith Michael's line, tells her that Jewel is with the judges hoping that this show will bring her a new record label for Christmas.

Jessica blubbers to the camera that being on this show means the world to her and she hopes to make it. She then adds that nobody knows or understands just how bad she wants it. Now, now, we all understand better than you think, you stupid girl. Nearly everybody wants to get out of a dead end job in a dead end town to become someone rich and famous. It's what we call the American Dream. She also blubbers that she deserves "it". Yeah, and I deserve it too. Want me to go over and sit on her face? At any rate, she can cry on cue even if it makes her look like a demented blubbering yak, so she's probably on her way to winning this show already. I can picture some people going, "Oh, she is crying, how sad, and she looks just like me in my trailer home, so I'm her #1 fan because I know when we meet we will definitely be best friends forever!"

But can this insincere simpering mess of coy giggles and exposed floppy cleavage sing? She takes a deep breath like she's getting ready to emit a banshee shriek before performing a Jewel song, You Were Meant For Me. She's very annoying in that she's forcing her voice to imitate Jewel's to an unnatural degree. King Tut says that he feels like he's listening to a record while Miss Paula insists that Jessica sounds like Jessica rather than Jewel. If Miss Paula is somebody else, I'd say she must be sarcastically suggesting that "Jessica" is now a codeword for "sonic disaster" but since she's Miss Paula, it probably means that she's been drinking non-stop since seven this morning. As usual. The judges thankfully refuse to send Jessica through. She starts crying but the judges are firm even as they give her patronizing feel-good nothings like "I don't want to patronize you!" (thank you King Tut). Jessica acts shell-shocked until suddenly an unnatural calm takes over and she leaves the room before collapsing into her mother's arms while hysterically sobbing. She tells the camera tearfully that her situation was unreal, but she would thank the show for the opportunity anyway. I think she will spend the rest of her life composing and sending bitter bloodsmeared "Why do you hate me? We could have been SISTERS! I hate you now too. DREAMS LAST FOR SO LONG EVEN AFTER I'M GONE BUT NOW THE DREAM IS DEAD! PS: My hands are big and they are not yours!" letters made from alphabets cut out from newspapers to Jewel.

Sleazie calls Minneapolis the Twin Cities and wonders whether the city has twice the "talent" or twice the "culture". How about twice the torture? Meet the self-proclaimed "urban Amish", Troy Benham, who must have pasted on the most fake-looking beard I can think of and says that of course he doesn't know anything about this show because the Amish don't own TVs. He tells Sleazie that he's just going with the flow. I don't know what this joker is trying to do here - promote a clothing line, perhaps? - but his atonal speak-sing version of comedian Heywood Banks' The Revenge Song is annoying. He's an Amish who just happens to know Heywood Banks, just like how I happen to look just like Angelina Jolie. The best thing about this scene is the camera zooming in on Miss Paula's face where she has this zoned-out look while her head sways slightly left and right like she's trying very hard to remain conscious. The effect of Troy's singing, or something far more sinister, hmm? Jewel finds the song funny though since she's giggling softly throughout the performance. Troy is booted without even delivering the punchline. Oh well, at least he has something to tell people when he's busy bagging their groceries or something.

Unidentified wannabe #29441 (rumored name: Crackho Underwood) tunelessly forces Jesus, Take The Wheel from her uncooperating throat. I think she's the same person as the next unidentified wannabe #33562 (rumored name: Cackling McPhee) only with a worse blonde wig and shouting her way through Somewhere Over The Rainbow. Long-haired greasy-faced wannabe #29425 tonsil-warbles the Zutons' Havana Gang Brawl like he's hoping to overcome a particularly painful case of constipation.

Next, Jessie Holloway who believes he can win the competition because he has the vocal chops and all. Just listening to him, though, and trying very hard to figure out his accented atonal mumbling, I'm starting to have my doubts. But I adore Gedeon of the previous season who isn't the most eloquent speaker so I'm willing to give Jessie the benefit of the doubt. But when he lifelessly wheezes his way through My Heart Will Go On, oh boy. Randy Randy makes exaggerated looks of disbelief to the camera while Jessie is singing. Can someone please pass him the memo which says that we all tolerate his presence on the show because we have to and not because we enjoy seeing him mug for the camera? Midway through his impersonation of a person on life support giving his final karaoke session, Jessie announces that he's leaving the room for a while to get some water. Oh, Jessie, the ship is already sinking. Get out of the room and keep walking ahead, okay?

Alas, he gets a drink and then comes back into the room, surprising the judges who believe that he's fled the place in shame. Jessie murders the same song one more time, only with a louder volume because it isn't enough that The Titanic has sunk once, he's sinking it again. He uses his falsetto to hit the higher notes and causes the judges to convulse in laughter. King Tut points out that the water doesn't make any difference because the performance is excruciating. But Miss Paula and Randy Randy cruelly bait Jessie into murdering Michael Jackson's Don't Stop until King Tut puts a stop to the nonsense and tells Jessie that this isn't a competition to discover two-year olds who can't sing. Jessie mumbles that he will prove them wrong, yadda yadda, and the judges pretty much tell him that he's crappy. "It's absolutely categorically never," King Tut tells him. Jessie now mumbles about them making him look like a fool on TV but King Tut tells him that he really cannot sing.

If that's not funny enough, this show deliberately makes sure that only one side of the double door works and Jessie, sure enough, barges straight into the side that is locked. "Other door," says King Tut on cue because it's funny to see losers walk into locked doors. Oh, I wonder what the geniuses behind this show will come up with next. A manhole right outside the door? A bucket of pail balanced over the door? Outside, Jessie babbles incoherently to the camera like his mouth is some kind of machine gun when it comes to monotonous blabbings that can drive one to sleep just by listening to him. Oh, just go home, Jessie. This is all so played out after five seasons.

Sleazie ambles aimlessly for the camera outside the studio, having changed his Horny Gay Dragons T-shirt for a white one that says "Delicious", which ties in nicely to his insipid nonsensical speech about "untapped raw talent". I think. This is a cue for the next joker to show up: someone who is desperate enough to be on TV that he decks out in top hat and a boxer's overcoat that come in the motif of the American flag. Charles "Monroe" Moody tells the camera that he's 26 going on desperate, he's from New York (that figures), and he's dressed up as Apollo Creed from the movie Rocky when in truth he looks like a turkey pretending to be Uncle Sam. Somehow he should be telling everybody that loose lips sink ships because my goodness, his lips in particular when he's singing can sink ships right to the bottom of the sea. And what kind of loser will wear clothes designed after the American flag when he chooses to perform, as he puts it, "an Italian aria"? And he has the guts to dedicate the performance to his nephews and nieces who are in "foster care". I'm afraid to ask whether social services took them away after they heard him sing. And "aria" my bum - he's trying very hard to be Il Divo rather than Pavarotti. He comes off as such a pretender that Miss Paula and Jewel stop him to tell him to sing something more representative of him. He then performs Josh Groban's When You Say You Love Me, which confirms my suspicions that Monroe here learned his Italian from his favorite Josh Groban and Il Divo records. He sounds even more like Ruby Rhodd from The Fifth Element when he's singing in English. He is banished and he walks right into the locked door.

Next is someone that Sleazie promises is a "fiery" person: sixteen-year old Wisconsin student Denise Jackson who talks about her junkie mother and all and how her grandmother took care of her in an attempt to win votes. She compares her situation to a disability, something I'm sure people with actual disabilities with appreciate, and then adds that she is born with the talent to sing. She tells Sleazie that her sunglasses are an essential part of her style and she'll only take them off when she sees the judges and strikes a simpering pose, which she does. She breaks into Jennifer Holliday's "You're Gonna Love Me" (And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going, actually). She has volume but I find her singing rather affected, really. Then again, she's sixteen, more a follower than a trendsetter, so that's to be expected, I suppose. Still, they're sending her through.

In the spirit of good taste, the show now introduces a montage called "Appeal", patterned after those clips that are designed to get people to donate to genuine causes like victims of natural disasters, all the better to mock the losers on the show, of course. Are you willing to help people with a condition called "forgetting the words and screwing up"? Your help is what these people need to survive. Unless, goes the robotic female voiceover, we are talking about Tashawn "Shawn" Moore, that is.

The young lady in question bounds into the room in an ordinary shirt and jeans and also a tie designed to attract attention. Trust Randy Randy to fall for that right away and ask about the tie, that sucker. Shawn says that the tie is to impress the judges since the wannabes are told to show up "dressed to impress". Stony silence greets her "joke" and King Tut gives her a look that says clearly, "Amateur. Even Sleazie can do better than that." She launches into Prince's Kiss only to forget her words when she has barely sung three words into the song. I don't understand why she can't just another song, but hey, who can figure out the workings of the minds of these people, eh? Shawn spends what seems like an hour resinging the first line again and again before she gives up trying to remember the next line and moves on to the next verse. She ends up repeating the first three lines of the next verse again and again until she gives up on trying to remember the lines that come after. She moves on to the chorus where she again repeats a few lines non-stop in hope of remembering the lines that come after. To top it off, she sings like a bellowing warthog wanting to gore somebody to death. Unsurprisingly, she's going home rather than moving on. Oh, and she runs into the locked door.

Oh look, some lady announces that she will "flirt" her way to the top. Yes, "flirt". This is, after all, a family show so it's not like they can use a different kind of F word on this show. Sleazie, scenting a potential new beard that will come cheap, quickly plants his backside on the seat beside hers and then crosses his legs demurely because that's how real men respond when they want to get flirted with. Perla Meneses blinks like she has a sandstorm going on under her eyelids and asks Sleazie whether he likes Spanish girls. Sleazie says yes because he wants nothing more in this world than to be a Spanish girl. She then says that he's too short. Sleazie insists that he's merely average. Somewhere, King Tut must be snorting and saying, "Please, even if he's not short, it's not as if he knows how to use it. Spanish girls, oh please." Perla tells the camera that she's from Florida and therefore it's either this show or being a maid for her when it comes to career choice. Hey, I'm just kidding, people, stop throwing shoes at me! Because everyone now is required to trot out personal tragedies instead of decrepit parents for sympathy votes, she mentions that she was homeless once upon a time but she manages to "establish" herself in Florida so we can all call her "survivor" instead of the other S word which is reserved for use on female contestants that we hate because they beat our imaginary boyfriend contestant in the competition. She's sure that King Tut will love her. Somewhere, Randy Randy is going, "Hey, hey, dawg, doesn't my love count as well?"

Perla calls King Tut "Si-moon" and tells him that she'll be performing "Blonde". Or, if you're not Perla, Blondie's Call Me. She sounds like what Miss Paula will find when she comes home two days early from her vacation to discover that her maid Perla has invited all her friends to a party at Miss Paula's place and at that moment Perla has just finished three bottles of Miss Paula's Bacardi and is happily singing to a broomstick while dancing on the table as her equally drunk friends cheer her on. Perla, at Randy Randy's suggestion, launches into Shakira's Hips Don't Lie and her performance sounds much better there. Maybe she's better at pretending to be Shakira than Debbie Harry. Perla pretends that she wanted to do Shakira in the first place. King Tut reminds her that her accent makes song choice an important thing indeed for her and they send her through. Perla is so happy, unaware that she is destined to be hated by legions of schoolgirls and housewives alike because she has breasts. "Survive this, slutty skank whore!" they will say to her as they vote non-stop instead for some tone-deaf ugly boy whom they feel they know deep in their hearts that he's a Godfearing Baptist virginal boy because when their eyes meet across the TV screen, these women know that they and the ugly boy could have been and would be best friends and soulmates. Forever.

Sleazie points out that more female wannabes are being let through compared to the male wannabes. Well, that's an easy one. A male won last season so this season they would want a female winner. Anyone can see that. But Sleazie chooses to believe that this is because they haven't seen a "real man" yet. Thinking back on the male wannabes on this show, I suspect that the show has a different definition of "real man" compared to mine. At any rate, this is the cue for the show to introduce a bartender/country singer wannabe who mumbles so thickly that it takes me awhile to realize that his name is Matthew Volna and not Hadyer Wallnut. He says that he'll be the next American Idol but alas, he's one of those guys that people will instinctively give a wide berth to because he often comes off as too quiet, stands too straight, and looks like he lives in a different world than the rest of us. In short, he's one of those guys that give other people this impression that there is something just not right about him. The costume cowboy hat is not helping and neither is his singing of Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues. He seems to be rambling in a monotone rather than singing, actually. The only part of that performance that is probably relevant is how the singer's mother tells him not to play with guns. In Matthew's case, yes, please don't. Jewel can't believe he's serious about auditioning and the judges end up sending Matthew back to whatever pointless existence he leads before this. Matthew fortunately goes out through the correct door. But what little dignity he manages to retain he throws away by muttering something to the camera that I can't really be bothered to decipher while giving the camera his creepy unblinking stare.

Sleazie says that the men have only become worse on this show. Tell me about it. There's Kah'reem Copeland who at 25 is probably too old for the undignified public humiliation that is his performance of Billy Ocean's Suddenly. A really hot guy unfortunately chooses to use his hands as his puppets instead of acting performing. How heartless of him to get cut. The least he could do is to at least use his hand puppets while he's in his birthday suit. "It's time to send in the Navy," says Sleazie. Ah yes, the Navy. I still have scars from the Josh Don't Tell fiasco in the second season so thank you, Sleazie, for rubbing Village People salt on my still unhealed scars. Meet Navy intelligence specialist egghead Jarrod Fowler of the USS Ronald Reagen. His montage has more phallic symbols than an X-rated version of Top Gun to whip the spirits of the right-wing folks watching this show into a patriotic frenzy. Lots of mentions of the Gulf War and this "Reagen Idol" thing which our hero here took part in. No, this Reagen Idol is not a search to find the person who can impersonate someone with Alzheimer's disease the best - honestly, some of you people are so mean! - but a way for the crew to have fun singing instead of engaging in sexual harrassments and other unproductive activities. Jarrod unsurprisingly decides that his genre is country because I understand that every Republican in America fancies himself or herself a country singer at heart. His song is Rascal Flatts' Bless The Broken Road. I find his performance really overwrought and he has this hideous crying expression on his face when he is singing. But come on, you think this show will spend time heading out to USS Alzheimer, er, USS Ronald Reagen and interview Jarrod's buddies if they won't let him go through? Of course he's going through. If America decides to bomb another country somewhere in this world within the next few months, watch as Jarrod sails straight to the top. Let us all hold hands and pray that Iran, Korea, China, Libya, and other usual suspects don't misbehave, at least until this season is over, shall we?

Now that we have seen someone being sent through because of his uniform, let's see who's next. It's... Sleazie? Hmm, from an uptight Republican Navy guy to Sleazie. Sometimes the dichotomies in this show can be too beautiful to behold. Sleazie says that it's only 2:00 pm but so far the Midwest has turned into "Midworst". Wow, so where're "Lowworst" and "Highworst"? Maybe somewhere in the performance of Rakel Garcia's Fever. King Tut says, "It was juvenile, tuneless, mediocre, and horrible!" Wow, that's like a laundry list of King Tut clichés. After stupidly falling into Sleazie's bet to snort like an asthmatic sow while laboring under the impression that she's impersonating a lion, plump Trista Giese performs one of the songs from The Lion King while sounding like a cross between someone drowning and someone impersonating a bubbling pot. I hate to do this, I really do, but I don't understand why someone like Trista, who surely must have received many unkind teasings about her appearance, will go on TV and start snorting like a bullmastiff. Does she like being a victim? I really don't understand what people like Trista must be thinking when she goes on TV to act like that. I hope Trista is just pulling a prank on TV and she is in reality a confident and well-adjusted young lady secure about her size and the way she looks, or else she has serious self-esteem issues that she has to look into with a shrink one of these days.

Next is Stephen Horst. I suppose he's pretty cute in a "My creepy boyfriend takes drugs" way and he calls himself a vocal coach. He babbles to Sleazie something about a story that ends with a golden ticket to Hollywood. It won't be his story because his I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing is all over the place with his overdoing his vibrato to the point of ridiculous overkill. King Tut says dryly that several of his students had been here earlier that day. That is not a compliment, by the way. They kick him out and Stephen is not pleased because he's been preparing for this moment all along. Randy Randy tells him that he would not recommend anyone to take vocal lessons from Stephen. More pointless arguments take place with Stephen and Randy Randy raising their voices. Oh come on, Stephen, does it matter? Just let it go, go home, and find something else to teach, like piano playing or something.

As evening falls, Sleazie points out that the wannabes are still coming. Then comes Michelle Steingas who snaps her fingers and warbles her way through Deana Carter's If This Is Love. She has volume and probably will sound great if she isn't oversinging so much. King Tut really likes her while the other judges like her as well so she's moving on. She runs out to be hugged by her mother. Hmm, the guy near them has really nice biceps. Can he please move on as well? Next is a montage. A pretty cute guy who looks like he's one of the Carlson twins wears what seems like a hat he stole from the props department in a high school production of The Wizard Oz and is told by King Tut to keep his dayjob of serving sandwiches or something. Why do all the hot guys on this show turn out to be pranksters? Come on, one of them can at least sing and move on to the finals, right? Someone who looks like Perla's younger sister is cut, as is some guy with shades and Randy Randy's sense of fashion. Three people reveal that they were fired for wanting to take time off from work to audition.

This is the cue to introduce Dayna Dooley who reveals that his boss actually flew her (she's his secretary) and her sister to this audition (with him and his wife accompanying them, of course) just as he had supported her in the previous season when she attempted to audition in Denver and didn't make it through. King Tut makes some pleasant insinuations about the relationship between her and her boss - come on, admit it, you're thinking that too - and she answers by explaining that she and her sister work for the boss. Talk about digging her own grave there. King Tut makes another tasteful joke about sharing a room together during the trip. Dayna's rendition of Chaka Khan's Tell Me Something Good may be good if she doesn't perform in such an overly affected manner complete with a tuneless banshee shriek abruptly introduced in the performance. The performance is so messy and overwrought that she is shoved out the door.

Well, at least her boss still loves her. Or maybe not, when the judges summon him in to tell him that she can't sing and asks him whether she flirted inappropriately with him to get him to finance her trip here. Dayna is given a chance to sing to her boss in front of the judges so she does, singing a more subdued version of Fever. This time the judges think she sounds better during that performance but the judges still don't want to let her through. Once those two are gone, Randy Randy goes on about how the poor boss is being duped by Dayna. Sheesh, is the whole "are you sleeping with your boss?" thing even necessary? On TV? Such a "joke" can easily destroy people's reputation. At any rate, when King Tut does that mean thing of his, he is pretty funny at times because a British accent can always make even the most unoriginal crack amusing at times, but when Randy Randy tries to do the same, he comes off as really tactless and even cruel. This is why Randy Randy really needs to stop trying to upstage King Tut - it's not even close to working a little for him and it's making the show cross a line that it probably shouldn't.

Well, here's another idiot with a sad story. Matt Sato's parents aren't here and he is so sad seeing people here with their parents. His parents aren't that supportive because apparently there were some financial issues and his parents didn't think it's a good idea to spend money entering talent competitions here and there. That doesn't seem like something parents will show their sulky faces to their kid for. A friend of mine suspects that Matt's probably gay and his parents can't take it so they kick him out the door. I don't know about that since I don't know Matt personally but at least that reason seems more believable than the whole "I wanna be Billy Elliot but my parents want me to pay the bills instead!" thing. Still, I've seen Matt's MySpace. He has Josh Groban's songs on his MySpace. Josh Groban, people. All I can say is, if Matt wants to people to think of him as straight, maybe it is better to make his MySpace private for the duration of this season so that people won't look at his photos that scream "Oh, I'm an emo misunderstood sensitive yoga-practising stage-traipsing choir-singing gay boy" and especially if he doesn't want that shirtless picture of his making circles around online forums where people exchange photos of naked or half-naked guys for who knows what reason. I'm just saying.

Matt performs California Dreamin' by the Mamas and the Papas and sounds unnecessarily breathless at all the odd places until he loses his breath completely and flatlines in noticeable places. He's probably too emo for his own good, methinks. King Tut of course sees the new Il Divo member in Matt and praises him for having a mature voice for his age. Matt's moving on. Oh well, apart from that zit on his nose, I suppose he can be considered cute in an emo-wannabe way if you're into underaged plucked twinks. Matt calls his mother on an AT&T handphone - the show makes sure you know that it's an AT&T handphone - and Matt, er, "sensitively in a non-gay way" cries as he tells his mother that he has made it to Hollywood. "Beware of pedophiles, Matt, and don't show up on stage wearing your Barbra Streisand-meets-Cher costume!" his mother tells him. No, of course she's happy. Even if she isn't, as she probably won't be when she learns of how her son has just told everyone on TV how heartless his parents are, she will pretend to be since she's on TV. Matt cries and doubles over, covering his face in his knees with his hands over his head. Very nicely played, boy. That's some very good acting going on there.

Oh look, if that egghead Navy guy isn't enough, here's his female counterpart: Rachel Jenkins, a reservist who works with cars (Ford, of course, and the show makes sure that you know it) with her father. How nice that the two military wannabes get clips which also happen to have product placements. So it is true: you can never be too rich making money off Republicans from the South! I have to hand it to Rachel: her introductory clip has everything but the kitchen sink when it comes to uniting all the Red States under her umbrella. Do you know that she has a husband who's currently in Iraq making the people there very happy? Do you know that she decides to join the army after 9/11 to fight for her country? Do you know that she's willing to go to Iraq? I don't even know why she bothers to sing since she's already won the show - that is, if that egghead doesn't beat her to the title - but hey, I suppose we must stick to protocol. So she comes in to sing the much-covered His Eyes Is On The Sparrow, which covers God when she's already covered Guns and Glory in her desperate plan for world domination. The 3G's - the secret to winning this competition and don't you forget that. Like with the egghead, the judges agree that her singing isn't that great - let's be honest here, these jokers won't even make it past the door if they aren't wearing their uniforms - but they're letting her through because everyone is now proud to be an American where at least they're free, free, FRE-EEE-EEEE! Remember that song? I still dry heave whenever I hear it nowadays. Anyway, congratulations, Rachel's Uniform, for being the new American Idol.

Sarah Kreuger - poor gal, the kids at the playground must be really cruel towards her - sings Somewhere Over The Rainbow and I like the sultry undertones in her voice. Then she starts oversinging and loses me completely, especially when I realize that her version is actually an imitation of Katharine's performance in the previous season, right down to Katharine's melisamatic improvisations in her performance. She's moving through however.

It's getting dark now in Minneapolis but I'm feeling happier because this interminable episode is nearly over. How nice that the next two wannabes are also the punchlines of this particular episode. Brenna Kyner claims to have watched every episode of this show and even Pop Idol. I can only pray she never gets to watch the second season of Malaysian Idol. Jason Anderson is a skinny and gangly lad who is proud that he can do things with sticks. He's pretty cute too in a skinny "My boyfriend's kinda weird and geeky, but he's so sweet to me!" way. See? All the cute guys on this show are either talentless or pranksters wanting to be on TV. It's like the new gay or something.

Jason goes first, er, doing something - juggling, I suppose that's how one describes what he is doing with those sticks. Anyway, he's doing that while he's trying to sing Michael W Smith's Somebody Love Me. How appropriate, really, since that song is actually a plea for someone to love the singer. Jason's singing is completely flat to the point of tunelessness, however. If I am not familiar with the words of that song, I won't even know that it's Somebody Love Me! King Tut says that Jason "sums up" Minneapolis for him: "Useless at everything!" Ooh, people of Minneapolis, did you catch that? Jason opts to demonstrate his juggling which earns his some condenscending "Ooh!" from Randy Randy. He suggests that Jason should be in America's Got Talent. To show off how funny he thinks he is, Randy Randy will be repeating this "punchline" of his at least five times before he catches his next breath. That's the difference between King Tut and Randy Randy: King Tut insults you like he doesn't care whether you live or die while Randy Randy insults you in order to desperately prove that he is capable of... something. It is this desperation on Randy Randy's part that makes him a much less enjoyable tyrant to watch on TV. Won't someone tell him to stop insulting the wannabes? He's not very good at it.

After staying longer than wise to receive more insults as he dances and juggles for the judges like he's their performing monkey, Jason comes out and cusses at the camera before bursting into tears. See? Now that is really painful to watch because Jason comes off like someone who isn't aware that he's not good at what he thinks he's good at. I don't understand why his loved ones will allow him to come on this show unless they are even more mentally not-there, I don't know. But when I see poor Jason crying like this because he finally realizes that people are making fun of him, on America's most popular TV show to boot, with his crying interspersed by the judges still mocking him when he's no longer in the room with them, I find myself thinking, as I do every time I watch the bad audition episodes, what's the point of all this cruelty? It is one thing to make fun of desperate losers but when it comes to people like Jason, it's like shooting fish in the barrel to mock them: too easy, there's no glory in it, and at the end of the day I feel like taking a long bath to cleanse myself of the guilt I harbor just for watching this piece of crap show. Of course, some blame also goes to his mother and siblings for bringing him here, but as I see them reassuring Jason that he will be famous one day as they lead him home, clearly they are living in the same bubble as Jason. It's really disgraceful how this show chooses to burst their bubble in this manner. This stupid show is like the Roman empire in its final debauched days, bloated in its hubris that it is the biggest empire in the world, to the point that it holds shows and displays of unmitigated cruelty just to amuse itself.

Oh, and Sleazie, stop talking to Jason. Oh, just shut up.

Brenna Kyner's humiliation is easier to watch because she's most likely a prankster. Come on, she claims that her favorite from the last season is Ace, of all people. Her stories are too outlandish and her poise too rehearsed - I'd bet that Brenna is really some radio personality hoping to get some new material to talk about in her show next week by going "undercover" on this show. Brenna performs Queen's Under Pressure and even the awfulness of her performance - banshee shrieks after banshee shrieks - feels calculated and planned. She takes her expected boot with good grace and there's that.

A montage of butchery of Kiss, perform in an exaggeratedly terrible manner by some of the jokers who decide to cooperate with this show despite their initial outburst at being cut for their last two seconds of fame, follows. Here's the funniest thing: Anonymous Loser #27549's "butchery" of Kiss is an eeriely almost perfect note-to-note reproduction of Prince's original version of the song. Listen to Prince's version and then Anonymous Loser's #27549 - they are nearly similar, note to note, pitch by pitch. Another sign this show won't know good music if it shoves two fingers up its nostrils, undoubtedly.

Ooh, there's a comparatively cute guy on the show! Josh Flom's not that cute, but given what I have on this show so far, heck, I'll take whatever I can get. Josh's father is his big influence, it seems, because the man's been singing in the shower since he was three. What, Josh spies on his father bathing all the time, is that what he's trying to tell me? Kinky. Josh says that his music is rock, which has me blinking for a second because the young man on the TV screen looks more like a reject from One Tree Hill casting call who'd listen to John Mayer rather than standard rock groups. Then he says he's a fan of Chris and I go, "Oh, that explains it." Have you heard Daughtry's album yet? It explains a lot why Josh thinks he's a rocker too. Josh tells the judges that he'll be singing Fuel's Bad Day. I jump when he suddenly pulls his face into one similar to a hungry zombie that I saw in one of those Living Dead movies and starts snarling his way through the song. Did I say that he is cute? I take that back. He's ridiculous. I see an A&F-wearing yuppie pretending to be a rocker and I want to howl with derisive laughter.

King Tut points out that in Week Seven - of this season, or of an imaginary season, I'm not sure - will be ABBA week and wonders how Josh will cope. Josh says that he'd take an ABBA song and adapt it to his style. King Tut gives him fifteen minutes to prepare and prove it to him. Wait a minute, if Josh actually knows an ABBA song, his rocker card is definitely getting revoked. At any rate, he leaves the room and starts asking around for anyone who knows an ABBA song. I hope somebody gives him Dancing Queen. Hey, I'm not being facetious here. Do you know that U2, Paul Gilbert, Van Halen, Luka Bloom, and Jimmy Barnes, among many others, have covered the song in the past? You haven't lived until you've heard perfectly serious and credible rock, folk, and punk versions of Dancing Queen. That song, bizarrely and awesomely, turns out to be one of ABBA's more versatile songs so if a rocker wants to do an ABBA song, that song is an ideal one. I know, it's so weird since Dancing Queen is one of ABBA's most flamboyantly flaming disco songs in the universe but there you go. Life is crazy, as Iggy Pop and Kate Pierson would say, but it's all candy, baby.

Sure enough, Josh ends up getting the words to Dancing Queen and cockily saunters back into the room. Uh oh, the singing isn't any better since he's just forcing his voice a few octaves lower to imitate his favorite rock pretenders. King Tut reasonably predicts that Josh will sound the way he does at that moment week after week while Jewel worries that Josh's throat will eventually expire from the strain. Josh says that he actually has a band which actually gets gigs and yes, I can't believe it either. Maybe the people attending the gigs are all drugged up and too high to actually pay attention to the singing. Josh protests and pleads but he's not going through. Josh actually looks very disappointed to the point of tears.

As ABBA's The Winner Takes It All plays in the background, Sleazie reveals that only 17 people make it through and from the look of things, no cute guys get through, bummer. Where are all the hot guys? Come on, people, don't do this to me. I've sit through five seasons. I deserve a hot guy with flat stomach, great abs, and seductive voice to make me go, "Elliott... who?" I don't even care if he comes in a Navy uniform; I'm past that point to be too picky about the clothes the hot guy comes with. Hot guy, hot guy, gimme a hot guy! Anyway, let's hope that one shows up in Seattle.

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