Does this look like a man who wants to talk to you after you got into "American Idol" and he didn't?

As I said yesterday, I didn’t watch a lot of the auditions, because the clowns finally broke me down. So I didn’t have an emotional attachment to most of these folks, but it was still rough to watch some of the little hearts breaking. And while I remember Simon Cowell seemed to glow with the power of controlling lives (insert evillll laugh here), JLo and the gang appear to hate the mental reindeer games. Me, too. I know it has to be drama-filled for the TV, but messing with these little heads is exhausting. Jlo was so worn she didn’t have the energy to make things about her! And that’s some exhaustion.

Here are the rest of the top 24, which will be a top 25 when they decide to add another guy from the ashes of the singers they destroyed.

Adam Brock: It took two shows to mess with this kid. I am glad he got through – singing is “where my joy comes from,” he says. You can’t deny how great that is.

Jeremy Rosado: The kid with the “transcendental” voice gets througjh. I wouldn’t go that far, but he does sing beautifully.

Shannon McGrane: She didn’t deserve to have Tyler droll all over her like a demented troll, but her voice is just OK.

Skylar Laine: Loved it. That twang is infectious. She has that neo-Reba vibe and when she wanted to jump in the water, because she was so happy, I wanted to jump in with her.

Hallie Day: Don’t remember her. Good for her?

Chase Likens: Remember nothing about him, either!

Aaron Marcellus: Cute. Don’t know him.

Deandre Brackensick: I loved that kid last year and was heartbroken that they got rid of him. So welcome back, Young Maxwell. We missed your perfect hair.

Hollie Cavanaugh: The drama where she and her little girlfriends all found out at she was going through without them reminded me of a scene in “Tombstone” where Wyatt Earp is distraught over the killing of one brother and the shooting of another, and tries to comfort the one still living, Virgil (the always excellent Sam Elliott). He’s sad, and losing his arm, and in great pain, and Wyatt won’t let up, and finally Virgil’s wife cries out “He doesn’t want to talk now, Wyatt!”

That’s what Hollie’s sweet attempt to comfort her now-distraught buddies reminded me of. They need comfort right now. But not from you. Ease up a little bit, Winner Girl. They don’t want to talk right now, Hollie!

Eben Franckewitz:  I prefer his voice to little Michael Jackson Leathers Jr, who was great but gave the same performance over and over. I think we might see little David again…but for the moment, that little moment of truth ended just as I thought it should.

I would be remiss if I didn’t say that I like the pickings among the guys, and like the number of non-18-year-old female contestants with a bluesy bent, meaning that the show wants to find the next Adele as much as they obviously want to find the next Taylor Swift.  But…and yeah, I’m saying this…they couldn’t find one African-American singer among the very talented pool of young women who deserve a shot? Not one? I think this is all about what they think they can market. It just makes me sad that someone doesn’t seem to think that black female singers are marketable, when…you know…Rihanna. And Nicki Minaj.

What do you think?

For about three minutes in 1996, he freaked me out. For entertainment purposes.

…in 1996!

Sixteen years today, Howard Stern asked me how many white guys I’d slept with and tried to get my former Burger King manager from high school to make out with me. Trust me – this is not a date that lingered long in my brain, although the actual events are still fairly fresh in my mind. But I wouldn’t have remembered exactly when it happened until Facebook friend and “rabid Stern fan” Kelly Taylor reminded me of it.

“Your interview of Howard Stern when you were working in York, Pa. is playing on Sirius/XM’s Howard Stern Show right now,” she wrote on my page. “He’s really busting your chops! Good interview. It will replay later today and throughout the week/weekend if you catch it.”

Oh, dear.

So here’s the short version – Between 1994 and 2002, I worked for the York Dispatch/Sunday News (now just the York Dispatch, as the Sunday News has joined the York Daily Record, which is another very long story) in York, Pa., which is about an hour north of Baltimore, where I grew up, and which really laid the basis for my journalism career (you can either thank York or curse it for spawning me. Sorry!)
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I don’t know if you’re as obsessed with NBC’s “The Voice” as I am – and with time spent on the actually talented and not the sadly deluded and profanity-loving, what’s not to love? – but you may have made the acquaintance of Purrfect, the decidedly attitudinal fluffy feline who’s seen being stroked by judge Cee Lo Green.

 Cee Lo, who has been given to capes, crazy glasses and all matter of P-Funk-meets-1970s-Earth-Wind-And-Fire-In-Space sartorial decisions, seems the natural fit for a PO’d-looking kitty (I have only owned long-haired, attitudinal cats, so I know it helps to be crazy). And the cat, who he refers to as his “secret weapon,” appears when he’s talking to the camera about his strategies, as if they’re so dastardly that only Purrfect is privy to hear. I love that cat, because he looks annoyed to be there, incredibly imperious, and as if he, like a 90s supermodel, wouldn’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day. Or some darned good salmon. And a cashmere pillow. And a good brushing.

And your complete surrender. Bwaaaaaaa.

Frustrated with the current crop of Republican presidential hopefuls? You’re not alone. But local actor Frank Licari, director of the Atlantic Academy of the Arts and host of televised talent competition “Recreating a Legend,” has taken his angst to song. And like many current “American Idol” contestants, he’s involved Adele.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/bVN6RFis7E8

Behold “Someone Other Than Newt,” in which Frank gets all moody and black and white-musey in front of a body of water, and ponders the possibility that someone besides Mr. Gingrich get the nomination. It’s funny, timely and calls to mind some of Weird Al’s best wordplays. Funny knows no ideology.

And it wasn't even his audition.

“Where were you when it all started?” a sober placard at  the beginning of “American Idol”‘s first episode of 2012 asked? Well, ten years ago, when the then-crazy sounding talent show started, I was in my living room in York, Pa., asking my roommate “Are you watching this?”

Yeah, she was, and 10 years later that crazy talent show has become one of the things people ask me the most about, besides whether I am Macy Gray. Which I still am not.

So now I sit in my living room in Lake Worth, 10 years older, and find that, just like in “Dazed and Confused,” I keep getting older and the contestants stay the same age. Actually, they seem like zygotes. Tiny singing showbiz zygotes. David Leathers, Jr., or as his friends call him “Mr. Steal Your Girl” (?), is the first one we see in Savannah. He’s wearing sunglasses and a tie, and his confidence, and boast to have won against last year’s winner Scotty McCreary in a previous competition, means he’s either the best thing ever or a sad singing shame.

And…he’s fabulous. Good for you, Zygote in a Tie.  In an unrelated note, Steven’s theme for today seems to be Cross Dressing Pimp. It’s an odd choice, but we salute you for your commitment. And I think I have that lipstick.
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We all know that Simon Cowell’s boasts about how the American version of “The X Factor” was gonna eat “American Idol”‘s lunch and then hit it in the head with its own lunchpail didn’t quite come to fruition, ratings-wise, but the show certainly maintained a viewership and, most importantly, a pop culture buzz.

Are you ready for some "Idol?"

So as Cowell’s old show returns to FOX for its season opener, one wonders (well, at least this one does) whether it can keep its own ratings excitement going this year, without some new twists. (I would like to propose Exile Island, where they exile JLo and keep her there until she can stop self-promoting and give a daggone straight criticism after Hollywood Week.) But as far as I know, it’s status quo, with the same judges, same host and same Clown Town auditions – for you newbies to my “Idol” blogs, that’s my name for the early city auditions when idiots show up dressed as kung fu chickens or what have you. I find it awful filler, and I don’t love watching delusional idiots with over-indulgent parents losing their crap on TV. I can see that in the food court in the Boca Mall.

Also, I wonder what the fact of “The Voice” will do to “Idol” – I love the former show because they’ve already narrowed the field to the people who can legitimately sing and those who sing even better. We don’t have to deal with the idiots. I know some people like that because it works for “Idol.” But “The Voice” and its success has shown that some also like just focusing on the excitement of weeding the most talented from the talent pool.

So … what do you guys think? You watching it this year?

As an aging Gen-Xer who as of late has become something of a pop culture curmudgeon — “Stop remaking our movies and songs and get your own, hipstersnappers! And stay off my lawn or I’ll Wang Chung your butt!” — I wa slightly fearful when my editor hipped me to “Tim Tebow’s Fire,” ’80′s singer John Parr’s Tebow-specific update of his own Number 1 hit “St. Elmo’s Fire.”

(Cultural note for those under 35 — St. Elmo’s Fire was a movie starring a bunch of then-young actors dubbed The Brat Pack, including Charlie Sheen’s brother, Ashton Kutcher’s soon-to-be ex-wife, Meredith Grey’s dead stepmother from Grey’s Anatomy and Chris Traeger from Parks and Recreation. It was about the difficulty of being middle-class, gorgeous Georgetown graduates in a Reagan-era world that just didn’t give breaks to people like them. Snerk.)

Apparently Parr, whose other big hit was the inspirationally smutty “Naughty Naughty” (Sample lyrics: “Naughty naughty, cute and horny, t-t-t-tease me”) was inspired by Tebow’s convictions and the way he plays them out on the field and off. So he adapted “St. Elmo’s Fire,” whose original version was inspired by Canadian athlete Rick Hansen, who traveled the world in his wheelchair to bring attention to spinal cord injuries. He swapped out some of the lyrics for more appropriate Tebow-esque phrases, using “All I need is my Broncos team” rather than “All I need is a pair of wheels.”
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Ladies, is this guy worth your dignity?

I believe it was late singer/owner of the world’s most fabulous blow-out Jermaine Stewart who said in his seminal “We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off” - ”So come on baby, won’t you show some class? Why you wanna move so fast?”

It is in the memory of Jermaine and his hair that I dedicate this to the toned, tanned datetestants of the new season of “The Bachelor”: “Oh, come on ladies, won’t you show some class? On TV drunk off of your…”

Well, you get it.

Just wish these grown women who come looking for a modeling career, umm.. a future reality show …wait,a story to relate back to the Mothership love got it too. Which is that you have less chance finding true love on a game show stocked with booze, jealousy and crazy wenches as you do finding a parking space at the gym on January 2.

I did some stupid things to find love in my 20s and 30s – it was literally in the papers. Once or twice it certainly involved tipsy declarations of love or attraction while trying to stand up. But the one thing I never did was let somebody tape me being drunk and declarative and put it on TV. That I know of. Certainly no releases were signed saying “Please, record me being a crazy drunken obsessive cow.” Any tapes of me being a drunken obsessive cow were recorded without my permission. And if there are some out there – I swear, there couldn’t be many but it only takes one.

Besides the obvious issues of voluntarily appearing as the most ridiculous, pathetic version of yourself, when you have to go back to your life with your same friends, and your same face and name, with everyone knowing what a jerk you made of yourself, let me give you beautiful, tiny, coiffed young things some advice. (In my day I would say I want to drop some knowledge on you, but then saying that without irony would make me seem even older.)

You cannot, as one of the sad sisters on the show said, plan to come on a TV game show and fall in love with some stranger who only know from watching him on TV being dumped by some other sad sister. I mean, you can plan it all you want. But there is absolutely no guarantee that this will happen, apparently when you’re basically one out of a live mail order bride collection, a zoo where a guy can pick whichever drunken exotic creature happens to fall out of her cage in front of him. As D.L. Hughley once said about bill collectors, you can expect payment any time you want. But that doesn’t mean you’re gonna get it.

I looked for love in all the wrong places, in the right places at the wrong time, and in some places in some circuses with clowns whose existence I disavow all knowledge of, just like in “Mission Impossible” but with cocktails and desperation. And when I found it, all I was looking for was a  drink with a high school classmate I hadn’t seen in 20 years. It just found me, unexpectedly and crazily, at maybe the one moment I wasn’t looking for it.  (Of course, I was in my late 30s, with no interest in applying for a dating game show – and very few of these shows seemed to be looking for not-skinny middle-aged black women, so it wasn’t probably a career option.)

All that I’m saying is that if you’re really looking for love up in there, it’s probably not gonna happen for you. And if you’re looking for a career as a professional reality show contestant, then you’re still competing in a sea of crazy. And to be the next “Bachelorette,” you have to actually get close enough to develop real feelings for the guy and get your heart dented, if not broken when you gets dumped. Is this really why you or your folks paid for grad school? Is this really how your young kids want their mom to be seen? CAN YOU LOOK YOUR GRANDMA IN THE FACE? (Or, in the case of the woman who actually brought her Grandma with her, would she be proud of having been publicly associated with you?)

All in all, you don’t have to take your dignity off to have a good time. Jermaine and his hair told me to tell you.

Don't cross her. She has a Twitter account.

I am almost loathe to write about this, because the feedback could be brutal. But I must.

Apparently, some Dutch fashion magazine called Jackie thought it would be nifty and funny to do a fashion spread about how to dress just like Rihanna. I know lots of people who would love to dress like Rihanna. But they might not want to if they knew that dressing that way makes them look like a – and I was not aware that this was a thing- a “n—ab—h”. Yes. That happened. And Rihanna is apparently “the ultimate n—ab—-h”.

The red-headed wonder was shockingly not thrilled about this achievement, and rather than asking that this be placed on a plaque, sent a profane Tweet to the editors of Jackie. While I might not have sent a profane Tweet while trying to prove that I was not low-class or profane or whatever that horrible word is supposed to be, I can’t blame the girl for being mad. Because they called her a … y’all, I’m not even gonna type that anymore, because it’s hard to type and because it’s stupid. How do you not know that’s offensive? Ack!

The best part of this is the response of the magazine. The editor responsible for the story quit, saying that she was sorry that she hadn’t realized that it was OK to call somebody that, and that it was a joke. Ha Ha. And then the publishers wrote a statement saying that, essentially, they were sorry that their now former editor had apologized, because they aren’t racist, and they didn’t do anything wrong and “they will not be silenced.”

Oh, lighten up, Jackie. No one’s burning down your office or stealing your printing press. They just said that they reserved their right to be offended by something offensive you said. Funny how that happens. And your editor quit because she made a joke whose blowback she couldn’t handle. You have every right to say offensive things. And we have every right not to like it. Funny how that works.

And as for the blog commentors who have said “Well, rappers say that all that time”:

- That doesn’t mean you have to.

- It’s ignorant no matter who says it, no matter what race they are. Or what gender. I have never even heard that phrase written that way, although those two unfortunate words are found all through hip-hop. And they’re ugly. No matter who says them. So stop. I don’t care if you’re a rapper, a rocker, a blogger or just someone who likes pushing people’s buttons. You say that, someone is likely to fight back. This is how it works.

- Stop hiding behind other people’s ignorance. I am not thin-skinned for being offended by something that anyone with sense might know was offensive.

So one more time. That’s a bad word. If you didn’t know that , it is. Don’t call anybody that, OK? You don’t have to ask anyone else. I don’t speak for black people, or women, or black women, or the easily offended, very often. But on this I feel confident about saying definitively. DON’T EVER SAY THAT TO ANYONE.

You’re welcome!

Enda didn’t do a whole heck of a lot during her season on “Survivor,” other than stick close to Coach and try not to get voted off. But her brief speech during Final Tribal Council, as seen on last night’s finale, might as well be bronzed on a plaque above every future tribe’s camp, along with the head of whoever decided “Redemption Island” was a good idea.

Basically, she said this: Why are you sitting around mortally offended by people who outwitted, outplayed and outlasted you, through the use of secrets, obsfucation and sometimes out and out lies, when you signed up for a game when those are the unwritten rules? If you were a better liar, you might be up there about to win a million dollars, too, so being mad at them is dumb. You WISH you were that good at lying - I believe the kinder word she used was “duping” – so taking this so personally makes you look like a boxer who stepped into the ring and wondered why that mean man was hitting him.

In other words: Don’t hate the “Survivor” players. Hate the “Survivor” game. And if you do, don’t play it.

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