Handicapping the American Idol Race

The rumors are true: I tried out for American Idol.

The details are probably worthy of their own post, but suffice it to say I'm here, they are there, and that's that.

To answer your most pressing questions:

1) Did you make it? Surprsingly, this is the most common question I get asked. Actually, second only to this one...

2) Did you meet the judges? No.

3) What did I sing? Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch. No, I'm not kidding. Yes, I realize there are better songs out there. Josh Groban "You Raise Me Up" for one, Whitney Houston's "I Have Nothing" for another.

Anyway, I'm more than just a casual fan of American Idol, so, without further delay, here are my thoughts on the remaining competitors. I'll focus on the guys; I haven't felt a connection to any of the girls yet so I find myself only casually observing their side of the competition.

Taylor: I find him enormously creepy. The guy, for one thing, has a full head of gray hair. There's nothing wrong necessarily with gray hair, but the words "American Idol" and "gray hair" are as about as likely to appear together this lifetime as "Jerry Fallwell" and "Guess who loved Brokeback Mountain?" I also find his violent twitching whenever he gets a compliment to be trite, contrived, and, frankly, outrageously irritating at this point. I'm not at all surprised that he's my roommate's favorite. One more clunker like last week's "Easy" and he's headed back home.

Final point about Taylor -- on his American Idol home page, he's asked "How has this changed your life" and he answers "N/A". Is that "N/A" as in Not Applicable? Did he miss this one on the questionnaire so the producers filled it in for him? Because the last I checked, the number times I had heard about Taylor with the gray hair from Birmingham before American Idol was a whopping 0. Why couldn't he have said "You know, before this I was living with my parents working as a substitute teacher. How the hell do you think has changed my life?" Instead he thought "Hmmm, I think N/A is the way to go here".

Will: He's got the Bobby Brady thing going for him, which I suppose is good if the Idol's key demographic (15-24 year old girls) knew of Bobby Brady as a cute kid as opposed to the guy who is all over VH1's "Where are they now?" shows. He's done soon.

Another point about Will: I consider myself a good judge of character. It doesn't take me long to figure people out, and I had this guy pegged as a loser even while he was trying to pull the tall-gangly-guy-who-has-a-nice-smile-but -an-average-voice routine. Then on last week's show, he served it up on a silver platter. In his pre-show fluff piece about his experience so far on Idol, he excitedly described meeting Justin Guarini as (and I'm paraphrasing here) "one of the coolest moments of my life". I then put my head through the TV.

Elliot: He's actually got a pretty incredible voice. He did Stevie Wonder's "Moody's Mood For Love" last week which was a risky play. Rule #1 of American Idol is that you just don't do Stevie Wonder songs. You can end up sounding like I did at my Bar Mitzvah -- one verse in the voice of an 13-year-old boy, then sounding like an 18-year-old man who has to shave twice a day. But Elliot pulled it off pretty well. He's safe at least until the final 6.

Ace: The women in the office love him, which I suppose is a good thing. I can't get over how the hair on the top of his head looks so unwashed though. Plus, he's doing the whole "maybe if I try and sound seductive people will ignore the fact that I don't have much range in my voice" thing. He also lists his favorite Male Artist as "Mel Torme". The choices these people list are just unreal sometimes. Why can't someone write something like Eddie Vedder or Mick Jagger. Do you have to sit at home listening to your parents old records to even have a shot?

Bucky: Does half of Bucky's money go right to Bo Bice (who, by the way, has an awful profile shot of himself on his homepage)? Seriously, without Bo paving the way, a Southern rocker like Bucky would've had no shot this year. He does get props though for saying that Eminem is his favorite male artist. I suspect Bucky could play well in the Nashville scene -- although my country music stylings begin and end with Rascal Flatts -- but his shelf life on Idol is limited.

Gedeon: Is it me or does this guy look like he's 27? Major props for his performance of "Shout" -- with so much made of song choice it was an out-of-left-field choice that really worked. He's a hell of a snappy dresser, so maybe he'd do well on Project Runway if this whole Idol thing falls through. The thing I don't get is this: how does someone with so many over-the-top features -- the afro, the pearly whites, the huge smile, the eyebrows -- not come off as cartoonish? He hasn't done much memorable, and while clothes may make the man, they don't make the American Idol.

Kevin: Ah, Kevin, where do I begin? Is it the unassuming manner in which you carry yourself? Is it the lisp? Is it the fact that you were jazzed last week about getting fan mail from 12-13 year old girls? Honestly, I really like this guy. First off, he absolutely killed it in his Boston audition with "You Raise Me Up". And he's clearly likeable. If he plays the Anthony Federov angle from last year's show, he's got a shot. His voice will only carry him so far, though, until the underdog meets the true heavy hitters.

Speaking of which:

Chris: The competition is his to lose. Last week when he nailed "Hemmorhage (In My Hands)", the other male contestants looked like a Little League pitcher on the mound with Barry Bon..., er, Sammy Sos..., er, well, you know, a major league hitter digging in against him. He's got the "good guy" angle covered, what with all the stories about how he's become the adoptive father of the two kids his wife brought to their relationship. Random fact: His favorite female artist is Kelly Clarkson (mine too!).

Some other random observations from this season:

What did you do to Carrie Underwood? She came out last week and sang a song called "Jesus Take the Wheel". Look, I've got nothing against JC, but even Amy Grant tried to go mainstream before she retreated back to the Country world. Why not at least give it a shot?

Ayla Brown looks like a giraffe. When she wears high heels, she looks like a giraffe trying to wear high heels. The comedy is off the charts.

There a thin line between cute and too cute, and Paris Bennett, unfortunately, crosses that line. It's too bad too, because she happens to be talented.

Everybody's got their style, David Radford included. But don't you think that if you made it as far as he did, you might try something a little different from week to week? I mean, if this were the "Harry Connick Jr. Idol" competition, he'd have been amazing. But it's not, and he's already gone. I just don't get that.

Brenna Gathers, you only got 13 minutes of fame. I'll leak a sex tape of you to the internet if you'd like the other 2.

That's all for now. And if you're wondering if I'm blogging at work, in the interest of full disclosure, the answer is yes. But I wrote 95% of this at home last night. Hi Marc!