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CeeeJay:
I'm going to start publishing the stories daily from Idiot box...there are many many prior...but i'll do it from this point forward!!

published march 1, 2007

Hunt is on for source of Idol contestant photos

SKIN PICTURES: The Antonella Barba story is the gift that keeps on giving for Idol this season, providing the necessary buzz during the mid-season lull before the competition gets heated, and it looks like it’ll keep delivering, at least for the foreseeable future. Idol’s producers have stated that they’re not going to give the 20-year-old college student the bounce from the show, not for the merely tawdry party pix and private snaps that emerged last week, nor the much more explicit sex photos that hit the net last Friday, and which it’s universally agreed are likely fakes.

“You know what, whoever sold those is despicable,” said judge Simon Cowell at a Playboy Mansion party Tuesday night, when cornered by Access Hollywood reporter Laura Saltman and shown some of the photos. “I really mean that. It's despicable. That is private property. Out of order. Honestly. It's repulsive."

The hunt is on for the source of the photos, with one suspect being Barba’s ex-boyfriend, a Catholic University lacrosse player who was given a calendar featuring the cheesecake lingerie and wet t-shirt shots by Barba as a gift. Another suspect is best friend Amanda Collucio, who auditioned for Idol with Barba. At the Playboy party, former Idol contestant Bo Bice even weighed in on the personal cost of Idol to Saltman: “You learn who your friends are. Your friend base becomes a lot closer so you do, you got to watch your back.”

Of course, where one person might see tragedy, another sees opportunity – “She really looks sexy here,” said Playboy founder Hugh Hefner when shown the photos, who was then asked whether he’d approach Barba to pose for the magazine when she exits Idol. “Very real possibility,” he said. “Yes, absolutely.”

Extra was also all over the story, revealing that a poll they’d taken showed that 67 per cent of their readers thought the photos would hurt Barba’s chance of winning Idol. Actually, there are a few more likely obstacles in the way of Barba’s Idol win – their names are Stephanie Edwards, Melinda Doolittle and Lakisha Jones. In somewhat related news, Tuesday night’s Idol gave a big boost to Fox’s new show, What You Watching, Dumbass? ... I mean, Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? The Jeff Foxworthy-hosted show pulled in 26.6 million viewers, the best series premiere in Fox network history according to Hal Boedeker of the Orlando Sentinel.


published march 1, 2007

Boys are back, Idol’s women hold their own
Melinda catches judges’ praise and audience applause


American Idol Top 10 finalist Lakisha Jones.


This week’s Idol script is that the men have come back, and that the women need to prove themselves after, well, proving themselves last week.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but this isn’t the Brothers Karamazov.

Gina Glocksen is the first up, and she disappoints Simon, who thought she would be edgier. Randy disagrees — for some reason, he seems to think that a Heart cover is edgy.

Alaina Alexander turns in a pallid version of the latest Dixie Chicks single that (rather too easily) turns Natalie Maines’ defiant declaration of principles into yet another self-esteem anthem.

Lakisha Jones follows with a Gladys Knight hit that should have left the room like a Soyuz missile; her first note resonates like a storm in a forest, but what follows sounds hobbled. She can afford to coast — there’s a target rich environment to be taken out before she has to worry — but one suspects that Idol’s scriptwriters have her set up for a trial by hubris.

Melinda Doolittle steps into Lakisha’s slipstream with a simmering performance of My Funny Valentine; Randy and Paula yap approvingly, and Simon calls it incredible, which prompts a gale of applause from the audience, proof withholding worthless praise makes your good opinion mean more.

Antonella Barba, the focus of most of Idol’s press in the last week, chooses a Celine Dion song and presses it as flat as last year’s prom corsage.

After a brief flurry of accusations at the judges’ table about who voted Jennifer Hudson off Idol, Simon points out that it was the voters who did the deed, and that nothing he says will probably have any effect on tonight’s vote if, for some perverse reason, voters decide to keep Barba on the show.

If Lakisha — or the audience — ends up following the Idol script that would see her choke, Stephanie Edwards is her only other real competition besides Melinda.

The less said about the rest of the contestants the better — the last half hour of the show would have been more profitably spent sorting the paper clip jar on my desk.
 
 

 
 

CeeeJay:
published march 2, 2007

Extreme elimination
Touching moment delivered by Idol’s lifeless hands
 

I dread the opening musical number on Idol’s elimination night.

Last night’s show kicked off with the remaining 20 contestants belting out Three Dog Night’s Joy To The World, with a pleading eagerness that counts bad breath and sleeplessness among its side effects.

The song was overplayed when I was still trying to outrun bullies after school in my earth shoes, so the only way to survive it is to scrutinize the faces of the singers for some pained sign that they’re suppressing a grimace.

The contestants are singled out for judgment and possible elimination; the men go first, and Ryan Seacrest tries to tease some drama from the ritual by asking Jared Cotter — far too good looking to head home so early, let’s be honest — to walk down to the podium, but he stays and a moment later Seacrest offhandedly cuts the very unremarkable Nicholas Pedro.

Seacrest breezes past Stephanie Edwards, Sabrina Sloan and Melinda Doolittle before giving Alaina Alexander the bad — but hardly surprising — news. She’s far from shocked, but struggles through a verse of the Dixie Chicks before the backup singers take over for the chorus and the remaining girls bury her in a group hug.

Theoretically, this is supposed to be touching, but Idol’s dead hand delivers it like a tax bill.

Season five Idol finalist Kelly Pickler, fresh from a serious Nashville makeover, shows that being unremarkable isn’t a hindrance after you exit Idol. Sanjaya Malakar and AJ Tabaldo are singled out for elimination next, but — as predicted here; just send money — Sanjaya’s charm keeps him in the game. Lakisha Jones barely stands long enough to hear that she’s safe, and Seacrest teases out the news that Antonella Barba is staying before giving Leslie Hunt the bad news, and she fixes the camera with a pitiable, unblinking stare as the judges try to pave over the moment with platitudes.

RICK McGinnis/Metro Toronto
 
 

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CeeeJay:
Idol’s men are limp
By RICK McGINNIS
Metro Toronto Wednesday March 7 2007
While I was frantically trying to make the deadline after last Thursday’s American Idol, I apparently missed a little “moment” while Leslie
Hunt sang her swansong as the credits rolled.
Right at the bitter end of her Idol tenure, Hunt ad-libbed that “Why did I decide to scat?”, then “Americans don’t care for jazz” — apparently accusing Idol’s voters of poor musical taste.
Scatting is ill-advised at the best of times, and America probably doesn’t care much for jazz these days, but it’s not like Leslie’s bellowy version of Nina Simone’s Feeling Good, with her boomy, uncertain lower register was going to revive the Jazz Age single-handedly. Watching the moment on YouTube a few days later, she just looked petulant and graceless. But I digress.
Blake Lewis kicked off last night’s Idol with 311’s All Mixed Up, and neither Randy nor Paula recognize the song. Simon commends him for his song choice, saying that “this part of the competition can become very karaoke” — a curious criticism in a show that’s little more than the most hypertrophied karaoke competition ever.
Sanjaya does John Mayer’s Waiting On The World To Change — a rare political moment on Idol, though he fails to impress the judges.
Sundance Head covers Jeremy by Pearl Jam; Simon says he felt like Sundance was shouting the song at him, which is an irrelevant criticism of a Pearl Jam song — what would Simon have said if Sundance got really wild, and sang a song about
school shootings as a ballad.
It would have been original, at the very least, but despite all protests otherwise, Idol isn’t at all about originality.
Handsome Jared Cotter shifts into Idol safe mode, covers Stevie Wonder, and gets told that he’s running on the fumes of his apparent popularity.
The rest of the show gets more unmemorable — limpid versions of dreary song choices — until Chris Sligh manages to look like he thought about really trying, but a week before the final 12, there isn’t a single guy in the running who looks like a threat to the best three women.

CeeeJay:
LaKisha sings while the inevitable inches closer
By RICK McGINNIS
Metro Toronto - Thursday March 8 2007
Less than a minute into last night’s Idol, we were informed by host Ryan Seacrest that judge Paula Abdul was missing.
The credits rolled and Paula was back, but not before fellow judge Randy Jackson made a joke that implied that she was orally
servicing him; obviously, this Idol was going to be a bit more entertaining than the night before.
Jordin Sparks launched into Pat Benatar’s Heartbreaker, a manic, flailing performance that was still more animated than anything
the men had done, which can only force one to reflect on the mystery of Idol, where 31 million people will voluntarily tune in to something that so very poorly entertains them.
Sabrina Sloan, who we will doubtless still be seeing a month from now, sings some anthemic bit of self-help balladry, the sort of overwrought inspirational ditty that Whitney Houston made famous, marrying the narcissistic with the erotic — and look how it turned out for her.
Antonella Barba follows, and introduces her very forgettable performance with a secret that all the contestants have been asked to reveal before they perform.
After a week of revealing photos, some topless, Antonella doesn’t have a lot of secrets anymore, so she tells us about the violin
lessons she’s been taking since she was a child.
There’s a grainy video shot of a pretty little girl in a pouffy red dress playing her fiddle; it’s the sort of thing that a parent finds heartbreaking, being forced to imagine their own child’s innocence being burnt away over a decade and a half, displaced by an eagerness to appeal to some smirking dude who can’t wait to copy the photos into an e-mail to his friends and hit “send.”
The rest of the show can be summed up duly: Stephanie Edwards uses her considerable amount of voice to do nothing particularly
original, though it sounds great.
LaKisha Jones sings, the judges genuflect, the inevitable inches ever closer.
Melinda Doolittle blithely tells us about her Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, then reminds us that she’s LaKisha’s only real competition.

CeeeJay:
Idol turns into celebrity telethon
By RICK MCGINNIS
Metro Toronto - Friday March 9, 2007

After last night’s American Idol kicked off with the finalists singing Steelers Wheel’s Stuck In The Middle Of You, I begin to steel myself for what now seems inevitable: Toto night, the very special Starland Vocal Band episode, and the spectacle of LaKisha Jones
struggling with 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover. I have a pair of chopsticks and a hammer ready under glass, ready to spike my eardrums with — just in case.

Elimination kicks off with LaKisha and Blake Lewis being called to centre stage to be told they’re safe — might as well get that over with. Chris Sligh comes next, gets to wait for the commercial break, and gets told that he’s safe. I’m thinking, Ryan Seacrest: Master of Suspense. Jordin Sparks and Phil Stacey get passed on before Jared Cotter gets sent home.

Next up are the professional backup singers, Melinda Doolittle and Brandon Rogers, who get into the top 12, as do Gina Clocksen and Chris Richardson. Idol’s gift to country music, and the show’s salient success story is the night’s musical guest; she performs the
sort of featureless modern C&W pop ditty that reminds why I love Tammy Wynette and Merle Haggard so much.

Antonella Barba and Stephanie Edwards get called up next, and Antonella seems to know what’s coming. Ryan tells her that  she’s “grown up a lot” on Idol, which is a strange way of saying “you’ve had your private life violated, and had to endure the mockery of millions, but at least you’ve got a shot at Playboy. Good luck with that.”

Before the night ends, though, Ryan announces Idol’s big news — the transformation of two Idol episodes midway through the top 12 into an all-star celebrity telethon to combat poverty in Africa and the U.S. It’s a grand, commendable gesture, but one can’t help but wonder why it took six seasons for the show to do something like this with its considerable clout. Sabrina Sloan and Sundance Head are the last to go; the judges are flabbergasted, and Randy basically calls bulls**t on America’s vote.

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