"American Idol," May 13, 2008: The Final Three

Live . . . from Television City in Hollywood . . . this is “A-merrr­-ican Idol”!

Yes, despite my resolve never to go anywhere near the CBS lot after being denied a spot in the “Idol” studio audience two weeks ago—hey, I’ve been kicked out of better places than this!—there I was again yesterday, courtesy of my friends Mo and Mark, who this time had genuine, bona fide, can’t-miss guaranteed VIP seats for the Season Seven Final Three telecast.

To paraphrase George W. Bush: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on both of you.

I arrived well over an hour before 3:15, when real honest-to-God ticket holders were told they’d be admitted, and decided to amuse myself at the adjacent L.A. Farmer’s Market, rather than stand in line on Beverly Boulevard with a hundred juvenile delinquents again. There are limits to how much I’m willing to degrade myself, even for “American Idol.” (That’s what separates me from the contestants, I guess. That and 30 years or so.)

If you’ve ever been to the Farmer’s Market, you know it’s a maze of shops, kiosks, tourists and the occasional movie star. I went in search of a Diet Coke, since fatigue and dehydration seemed to be common maladies among the “Idol”-loving masses two weeks ago. As I was navigating my way through the morass, I almost ran into a tall, 30-ish man with exotic, dark, Middle-Eastern good looks and Israeli-blue eyes that lasered into mine. He looked like his name was Avi, or Ari, or Uri. Uvi, perhaps. I paused to let him pass, and as I started to move on, I heard from behind me, “Excuse me. Excuse me.”

I turned around. It was Uvi, his penetrating stare fixed on me again, his arm outstretched, offering me a business card.

“Please take this card. I am Robert. I do readings. You have a very nice energy.”

A very nice energy? That’s the nicest thing a stranger has said to me since the doctor at the Bosley Clinic told me I had “wonderful donor hair from which we can harvest,” and that was years ago. A very nice energy? Oh, Robert, if you only knew.

I took the card, thanked him, and beat a hasty retreat, because to tell you the truth, Uvi-Robert creeped me out quite a bit. After I got my Diet Coke, I looked at the card:

Psychic Readings by Robert
> Unfold the divine light within
> Over coming blockages, obstacles and fears
> Specialize in energy healing restoring relationships
> Creating clarity within
> Change your aura
> Balance your life

Who knew my divine light was folded up inside of me? I mean, there are some mornings when I know about the blockages, but I thought I needed a physic, not a psychic. I immediately wished I’d had the presence of mind to ask him, “Am I finally going to get in to see ‘American Idol’ today?” But there you go—I don’t have any inner clarity after all.

Armed with Uvi-Robert’s card, a Diet Coke, and my very nice energy, I headed over to the lines of desperate seat fillers at the entrance to Television City. There they all were again—the 50-something men in suits and women in sequined cocktail dresses waiting for the “Dancing with the Stars” results show, the love-struck teenage girls and gay 20-year-old disco boys waiting for “American Idol,” and working the line, as always, the intern from hell, Jason.

Mo and Mark arrived with their new and improved e-mail, the one with big bold print announcing guaranteed admission, much like a Publishers Clearinghouse giveaway promises you ten million dollars and Ed McMahan at your door. Mo showed it to Jason, who showed it to one of his minions (yes, at CBS, even the minions have minions) and boom! We were directed to a special line and, after a wait of no more than five minutes, we were escorted to the holding area outside the studio building.

We were in!

Well, not in, actually—but close! Before we went through a security inspection that would have shamed the TSA, yet another CBS page warned us that, inside, we might be separated from our groups, purportedly because of seat availability. Sure enough, on the other side of the metal detectors, some people were directed to sit on benches lining the studio’s outside wall, while others—including Mo, Mark and me—were sent to benches a few feet away.

As we sat there, it was Mo who observed that there was a distinct difference between the wall-huggers and us in the middle. The wall people were all between the ages of 15 and 20, the girls looking like cheerleaders and the boys looking like they were ready to go clubbing in West Hollywood. And the rest of us? Well, if you should ever go to a taping of “American Idol,” remember this: “middle bench” is the producers’ euphemism for “middle aged.” Someone should have taken a picture. Caption: The Beautiful and the Damned.

It was clear: They would be the Mosh Pit—and we would be somewhere out of camera range.

Having a very nice energy only gets you so far, I guess. Thanks a lot, Uvi-Robert.

A limo pulled up as the people on one bench were gelling their hair and the people on ours were putting gel insoles in their shoes. Our first star sighting! Out of the limo and ready for his close-up stepped that glittering megastar . . . um, Justin Guarini. Justin Guarini—who came in second to Kelly Clarkson in Season One and starred in the worst movie ever made, From Justin to Kelly—gets a limo? Going to see “American Idol” is, if nothing else, an object lesson in the total unfairness of life.

At about 3:45, the studio audience for the dress rehearsal was released (no star sightings there—these people couldn’t get in to see the actual live broadcast, making them even more pathetic than we were) and shortly thereafter the CBS pages directed us, bench by bench, into the studio itself.

Now I was starting to feel confident about actually having a seat at an “American Idol” taping.

A few observations about the “Idol” studio:

> If you think the bowels-of-the-Enterprise set looks tacky on TV, you should see it in person. I wondered, Do you think they’ll finish painting it before they go on the air? In a word: no.
> The set is, as many have reported, much smaller than it appears on screen. The camera adds ten pounds and, roughly, a hundred feet.
> The judges’ desk sits on a platform directly in front of the stage. Their chairs are, in keeping with the flying-saucer theme, very silvery of frame and cushion, and look quite comfortable.
> Because the judging panel is elevated, the Mosh Pit is not actually a pit at all. It’s the floor—that portion of the floor between the judges’ platform and the stage.
> Behind the judges are four rows of seats that are likewise on a platform and are cordoned off, for glittering megastars like Justin Guarini, I guess, as well as contestants’ friends and family. Behind these rows are eight rows of bleachers. And that’s it. It may look like Radio City Music Hall on TV, but I’ve been to--excuse me, heard of--adult movie theaters that seat more people.

Soon, various headsetted assistant directors had the princesses and the queens stand on the Mosh Floor, and had those of us branded old and pathetic stand in what I presumed was a holding area radiating diagonally away from the giant gyroscopic towers on which “Idol” logos spin. Every few minutes, they’d direct us to move an inch or two away from the stage, or move an inch or two closer to it. Whatever. It was a holding area, and I was looking around taking it all in, enjoying the star sightings: Look! It’s Marilu Henner! There’s Sam Rubin, the KTLA entertainment reporter! Wow—it’s Jeff Archuleta, the most notorious stage parent since Mama Rose, in his “Dainty June and Her Newsboys” cap! Over there—David Hernandez, the lap dancer who got booted from the Top Twelve! Justin Frigging Guarini!

I am telling you, it was a galaxy of stars: B-list, Z-list, and—what’s lower than Z?

It seemed at this point like the bleachers were filling up, and I wondered when they were going to move us from our holding area to actual chairs. A monitor running time code off to the side said there was less than 15 minutes to air. Then it dawned on me. I asked Mo: “Is this it? Is this where we’re going to be? Standing here? The whole time?” I already knew the answer when the A.D. came along and directed us to shift one inch to the left again.

In other words, after two vacation days, six hours of waiting in line and incalculable suffering and humiliation, I still haven’t gotten a seat at a taping of “American Idol”!

Behind me was a very short woman who was none too pleased that I was in front of her here in the Mosh Annex. She started talking in a very loud voice to her companions: “Well, I can’t! Every time I move, he moves!” She said this two or three times, in fact. I kept expecting a tap on my shoulder and a polite request from her to get out of her way, but no—just the same loud passive-aggressive whining to her friends about how I managed to sense when she was moving behind me, and how I’d thwart her cleverness by blocking her, as if that would somehow improve my view.

Mo finally leaned over and said to me, “Don’t pay any attention to her.” In my best loud fighting-fire-with-fire voice I said, “I’m not. When the stagehands tell me to move, I move. When they tell me to stand still, I stand still. Maybe she should just ask for a refund.” I guess that’s when Shorty remembered that TV tickets are free, because that shut her up.

When it comes to height deprivation, though, this woman was a tower of human flesh compared to the judges, who were escorted to their seats from an entrance near us. Randy Jackson is short, but Paula Abdul? I knew from Linda C. (hi, Linda!), a co-worker who attended a live broadcast in April, that Paula was tiny. Tiny, hell. The woman is a dwarf.

Just before air time, Corey—the manic warm-up comedian who, with the help of blaring dance-club music, tries to whip the audience into a frenzy before the show and during commercial breaks—brought our three remaining contestants out on stage. They’re short, too, as is Ryan Seacrest. Come to think of it, the whole place is practically Lilliputian. Other than their lack of stature, the sight of the contestants brought no surprises: David Cook looked cool as a spring breeze, Syesha Mercado was stunningly beautiful, and David Archuleta seemed overwhelmed and petrified.

Debbie Williams, the highly respected stage manager famous for fixing Brad Pitt’s microphone during “Idol Gives Back,” suddenly appeared to shout, “Quiet! And in five, four, three . . . “

With that, the lights dimmed and someone ahead of me in the Mosh Outhouse quietly expelled flatulence of astonishing foulness. Just for the record, in case this entry should be read by someone who was in the general vicinity at the time, it was not me. It was some other old fart.

Meanwhile, there was Ryan on stage with the Idols, giving yet another of his overblown introductions: “They are at your mercy!” And, of course, “This . . . is ‘A-merrrr-ican Idol’!” If it sounded from the right side of your TV speakers as if the ovation was more subdued than usual, it’s because all of us over there were holding our noses.

On with the show!

JUDGE’S CHOICE ROUND

DAVID ARCHULETA—“And So It Goes” (chosen by Paula Abdul)—3 / 93
First, let me say this. In person, all three of the contestants sounded just terrific. Maybe it was because of our location in the Mosh Wing that I had a hard time detecting pitches that were off, lyrics that were fumbled or energy that waned. Or maybe I was just caught up in the moment. But I would have had a hard time breaking a nine-way tie for first place after three rounds of competition if I had to do all of my judging standing there in the audience.

Watching the show on TV at home last night, criticism of the contestants came much easier to me, thank God. David A. did a lovely job with a first verse that he delivered virtually a capella and without his customary melismatic riffs and runs. But he got to the chorus and I was distracted by his poor diction. Billy Joel’s original lyric:

But you can make decisions too
And you can have this heart to break

David Archuleta’s version:

Butt chew can make decisions too
Ann Jew can have this heart to break

I mean, the imagery there—it just doesn’t work for me!

SYESHA MERCADO—“If I Ain’t Got You” (chosen by Randy Jackson)—2 / 95
Contrast David A. with Syesha, the trained actress, who managed to get through this entire song without singing “If I ain’t got chew.” This song allowed Syesha to demonstrate plenty of vocal variety and she gave it a really wonderful ending. And in her glittery gold gown, she looked nothing less than stunning. I loved the whole thing.

DAVID COOK—“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” (chosen by Simon Cowell)—1 / 98
The night’s best performance. Randy panned Simon’s choice as too old-fashioned a ballad for Rocker David, and Ryan tried to spin it first into a subliminal homoerotic message from Simon to David and then afterwards as a tribute to David’s mother, which is all just too weird for words: The first time ever I saw your face—you mean, in the delivery room?

What seemed to escape everyone was David’s beautifully controlled, modulated and incredibly sensitive interpretation of the first half of the song, followed by his patented crowd-pleasing Big Cookie Ending. This was a great, great performance that highlighted David C.’s real strength—reinventing pop classics of relatively recent vintage as show-stopping, rock-infused, stadium-busting anthems. Terrific.

CONTESTANT’S CHOICE ROUND

DAVID ARCHULETA—“With You”—2 / 92
Oh, my God! David Archuleta is wearing a pair of Blake Lewis’s plaid pants from last season! Mine eyes!

Once I got past the painful imagery, it seemed to me that David A. forgot and stumbled through one lyric, barely remembered another one, and, of course, sang “if I got chew” instead of “if I got you.” But he hid the memory lapses well and overall delivered a bouncy and sprightly teen-idol rendition of something other than one of his maudlin ballads. He seemed to be having fun for a change, and so did I.

SYESHA MERCADO—“Fever”—1 / 97
The judges panned Syesha’s choice of song and doomed her to elimination tonight, which amounts to one of the rawer deals “American Idol” has handed a contestant in its history. Simon stated flatly that “Fever” didn’t show Syesha as a “contemporary recording artist,” which is what the show is looking for. Paula complained that it didn’t “define the real Syesha.”

Give me a break. If the show was really intent on finding a “contemporary recording artist,” it wouldn’t force contestants to sing stuff frequently older than “Fever” during theme weeks, it wouldn’t make them dance in the weekly results show “group song” horror-fests, and it wouldn’t delay the release of winners’ first albums until after they’ve had to endure a 40-city tour where they are expected not to be “recording artists” but stage performers. Hell, if the show was really intent on finding a "contemporary recording artist," it would be on radio.

A stage performer is exactly what Syesha is—so, Paula, you midget, it did “define the real Syesha” and “allow her to shine through.”

Beyond the choice itself, this girl’s interpretation of it was nothing to be dismissed. It was the second-best performance of the night and showed Syesha to be a talented and compelling singer, dancer, actress and artist. She was purposely just behind the beat, giving the pacing a completely different sound compared to what we’ve heard from Peggy Lee and, much more recently, Michael Buble. Her use of a simple wooden chair (think Liza Minnelli in Cabaret) was clever and different. And her run on the last two words of the song—“to burn”—was unexpected and ethereal and wholly new.

But what’s the point? The producers want two contestants in the finale who will be perceived as having an equal chance of winning. Suspense builds ratings. And perpetual Bottom Three dweller Syesha doesn’t fit into that scenario.

So of course the judges had to ignore the numerous qualities of Syesha’s performance and diss her for “song choice.” It’s the only way to put pressure on the voting viewers so that the Final Two can include a singer with a huge fanbase who happens to have a vocal and emotional range that’s narrower than your average remote-control toy. Which, now that I think of it, is a pretty good description of David Archuleta.

DAVID COOK—“Dare You to Move”—3 / 90
Not David C.’s best. While I didn’t hear the “pitchiness” Randy complained about during the live performance, it was quite evident on TV. The whole verse was flat, and in more than one way—it was the lethargic David Cook we saw last week. The rocking Big Cookie Ending helped, but overall this performance reminded me of a line from the Kander & Ebb musical Curtains: “I found it lackluster. It lacked . . . luster.”

PRODUCERS’ CHOICE ROUND

DAVID ARCHULETA—“Longer”—2 / 93
Nothing we haven’t seen or heard from David before—sexless, sincere and squinty. Nice last note, though.

SYESHA MERCADO—“Hit Me Up”—3 / 92
Bouncy and upbeat, not unlike David A.’s “With You” in Round Two. Also pitchy at places, not unlike David C.’s “Dare You to Move” in the same round. Simon and I were in agreement: What Syesha needed last night was a “defining moment”—her equivalent to Fantasia’s “Summertime,” Kelly’s “Stuff Like That there,” Kat’s “Over the Rainbow.” This song, and Syesha’s performance of it, didn’t give her that. Syesha will be “hit up” indeed tonight—by a massive hook.

DAVID COOK—“I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”—1 / 96
In the studio, this was clearly the most popular performance of the night. Maybe the people in the four rows of elevated seats were more enthusiastic in their response to it because sitting amongst them was the song’s author, the well known hack Diane Warren. The producers also gave this the full production-number treatment, with violinists on stage and, at the chorus, enough strobe lights to induce epileptic seizures in less hearty souls.

David C. committed himself to an energetic, involved, powerful performance and, even if he did oversing it in the end, it was the perfect closer to the show.

The results on my ballot were clear but close—no one ranked last in more than one round, and only one contestant ranked first in more than one round.

David Archuleta 3 / 93 + 2 / 92 + 2 / 93 = 7 / 278 Third Place
Syesha Mercado 2 / 95 + 1 / 97 + 3 / 92 = 6 / 284 Second Place
David Cook 1 / 98 + 3 / 92 + 1 / 96 = 5 / 286 First Place

But my ballot doesn’t reflect what will happen tonight, when Syesha—who, through talent and tenacity, has had a run as long as my beloved Melinda Doolittle did last year—will get the axe.

By the time the credits rolled on your TV at home, Sam Rubin, Marilu Henner and David Hernandez were already out the door. The contestants remained onstage, where David Cook instigated a group hug for the three of them. It was touching, and it looked like it was something they’d been doing all season long.

Mo and Mark lingered to talk to the judges as they walked past (Mo shook Simon’s hand!) but I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I have a broken toe, remember, and my feet, after the better part of two hours standing in the Mosh-like Place, were sore. A page gave every audience member a DVD of the Season Six Final Two episode (oh, boy—more Blake Lewis in plaid pants) and directed us to the “American Idol” merchandise kiosk, where the lowest-priced item was an appropriately cheap-looking keychain that could be yours for the bargain-basement price of $6.50. I only bought one. Then I was off to catch the West Coast broadcast from the comfort of an actual chair.

So, if you’re wondering whether or not I was actually visible in the audience on last night’s telecast, the answer is yes! To see me, here’s what you need to do. Fire up your TiVo or your VCR and fast-forward through the show till you get to Ryan’s introduction of the final songs of the night. That’s the one where he’s standing in the audience (actually, of course, it was the Mosh Satellite). Now rewind to the very, very beginning of that segment, right after the animated logo disappears. Are you there? Okay, good. Now go frame by frame as the swooping jib camera zeroes in on Ryan. No, no, no, you’ve gone too far. Back up. Back, back, back—there! On the extreme left side of your screen. Do you see the man in the dark blue striped long-sleeved shirt clapping with his hands above his head, just like Corey told him to? (I’m nothing if not obedient.) That’s my right arm! You’ll recognize it right away—it has a very good energy.

Next week: The Battle of the Davids as they each have to sing the winning entrant from the “AI” Songwriting Contest! Somehow I’m guessing that “Are You Proud that Angels Brought Me to the Dream that is My Now” has Archuleta written all over it . . .