The Malcontent

A Taylor Made Freak Show

I don't want to talk about it. When the fire came cascading down and Great White's manager was nowhere in sight, I knew it was all over.

David Hasslehoff was crying. Crying. In German, no less. It sounds a lot like shizer dialogue to hear it. Which is to say nothing of the fisting America received when that . . . that . . . thing took home the trophy.

Still, let's lump this up in halves. How to fill a two hour show dependent on a five second announcement? Plenty of performances, but also plenty of painful, cringe-inducing bits like extended dining lessons between Kellie Pickler and Wolfgang Puck that left us praying for a future mobile home accident on a treacherous mountain road. "Caleeemaaareeee?!" Die.

I've sorted through the fluff for my favorite moments, including the "surprise" appearance by the Gayken. His jittery, squealing, orgasming look-alike made the entire bit. I'd like to take this opportunity to chastise our readers as well. How is it that there was footage of Ace Young and Chris Daughtry in a crushing, grappling man-hug, and no one alerted us?! For shame. That is hours of fantasy we'll never get back. Also included in this clip is the winner's announcement. It was the fluffiest thing of all.

[Watch video – 9:50, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 9:50, WMV format, low bandwidth]

Before I get to the performances, let me just say this - If Katharine had sang half as well during the competition as she did in last night's finale show, she would have won hands down. Now more than ever, I'm convinced song choice was her ultimate undoing. Not that I'm excruciatingly bitter or anything. Not at all. Moving swiftly on.

There were far too many performances to capture, so these highlights are by no means comprehensive. Chris Daughtry appeared with the band Live. Their album, Throwing Copper, came out back in the 19th century when I earned my driver's license, so I'm partial to them. Does Meatloaf have Parkinson's? The man schooled Hicks in the trembling performance department. Still, Kat shined and decided to, you know, emote. Now that it doesn't mean anything. (ed. Robbie, you're bitter!) I'm not.

I'm not ready to see Taylor Hicks freak dancing with Toni Braxton. I don't think anyone is.

One last parting shot of the Manateesa (hate!). Kevin Covais singing What's New Pussycat is the stuff of recurring nightmares. Dionne Warwick showcases what happens when you smoke five packs of ultra strength Marlboros a day for fifty years. Then again, she knew who the winner was all along, right? The blood-drinking seems to have paid off for Prince. I'm sorry, whenever I hear his music I think of the Joker mucking up an art museum. The purple doesn't help. And finally, Kat does a little stand-in-place jog-dancing/dress-foofing a la Jennifer Grey at the end of Dirty Dancing.

[Watch video – 15:37, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 15:37, WMV format, low bandwidth]

It's The Circle of Awful, Simba

After 43 posts consisting of 61 video files that account for a whopping 731.65 MB of our server space, we've come a long way from the January 17th premiere of American Idol. A water cooler show that began with a focus on some of the most horrifying "entertainers" this great nation of ours had to offer, it has been a long, spiritual, nuanced journey to May where we're about to crown . . . one of the most horrifying "entertainers" America has to offer.

So, well done there.

What is there to say? Poor Katharine McPhee suffered an ambushing of the highest order with a tripey, overwrought ballad called "My Destiny" when a more accurate title might have been, "Kat Really Wishes She Had Testicles Right About Now." Way to set the key in the Marianas Trench! Not even a still-touching rendition of "Over the Rainbow" could save her against the most treacly, masturbatory excesses of producers and a music industry hell bent on selling their audience aural sominex.

Taylor Hicks. *sighs* What more can be said for this seizing ball of shimmering purple velvet? For the first time in Idol history, the gay male vote will not prevail against this touring Vegas lounge act. Tom Jones is spinning in his grave. Or women's underwear. Spot the difference, eh? Personally, I blame pre-teen girls for this atrocity. Lazy, good for nothing kids today. Can't even be assed to vote en masse. Bring back corporal punishment!

Here are the six performances from last night's finale. Observe that jacket and weep. America picked that jacket. America likes that jacket. America will buy tickets to see that jacket. America is dead to me.

[Watch video – 14:48, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 14:48, WMV format, low bandwidth]

Our Malcovision American Idol Finale Extravaganza continues with these clips from this weekend's Saturday Night Live. Kevin Spacey knows all the right moves to win the hearts of Americans and wandering strangers in parks at 3 AM. Not to be outdone, "Taylor Hicks" appears on Weekend Update, if only to prove the man is beyond parody.

[Watch video – 6:54, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 6:54, WMV format, low bandwidth]

And finally. We laughed with her, cried with her, attempted to match her shot for shot during every show. Paula Abdul stumbled onto the set of Larry King Live after over-hearing rumors the man will marry anything. She discusses her fellow judges and addresses all those rumors about dominant bitch-top, the Gayken. Could it be we are mere hours away from a world without this simpering psychiatric patient?

As they announce the winner tonight, I will sprinkle a martini laced with vicodin onto a curb in her honor.

[Watch video – 5:44, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 5:44, WMV format, low bandwidth]

I'm Moving to Canada

Taylor is going to fucking win.  In a walk.

America, I weep for you.

And Then There Were Two

Buh-bye, Elliott.  Tough call, but there are clearly a lot of palsy fans in the nation.

So who will win?  Who should win?  Take our two-question poll.

Or just view the results.

Judy and Eva Conquer All

I am ever so barely resisting the impulse to gush for paragraphs on end about the transcendent Kat moment on last night's American Idol. Slaves that we are to shrine building when a Judy song - and that Judy song in particular - is done so exquisitely, we'll wait for the proper time and place. It will be difficult.

Elliott, poor Elliott. Rather bland renditions of perfectly neutral songs. The selection may have sunk him. While a Yamin/Hicks finale seemed destined, he faded to an elevator top 40 in the face of his competition. With a vibrato to make steel girders tremble ominously, I look forward to spending hours in the produce section of the local grocery while being serenaded by his inevitable album.

Taylor Hicks was forced to stand there and sing . . . and failed utterly. Despite the drug-addled praise of judges, our resident marionette on acid warbled off-key through "You Are So Beautiful." Sensing danger as an army of housewives came to the slow realization that albums don't come with the freak dancing, Taylor quickly set to work to work repairing the damage via over-laden hypnotic limb jerking.

Katharine. My Katharine. My acapella, Eva Cassidy channeling Katharine. More than politics, more than marriage, more than partisanship. If the gay masses do not lift Katharine McPhee on a golden divan and carry her through the streets to victory, I will hunt you all down with an efficiency to make Fred Phelps blush. Yes, the execrable Clive Davis made her shriek her way through that wretched R. Kelly song. It wasn't her fault. It was sabotage! Come now, my pink hordes. Unleash your powers of fabulousness and bring down the Hicks abomination. He's who straight people want to win. We'll not stand for that sort of thing as a people, will we?

[Watch video – 10:50, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 10:50, WMV format, low bandwidth]

Speaking of the strange and bizarre, the judges were once again tonsil deep in the Jesus juice. We've seen 28 Days Later. We know where Paula's behavior leads. By season's end, Simon will be discussing each contestant's personal journal and how shimmery-shiny their natural selves are. He will generously pepper sentences with "amazing" and "adore" and idly flip through a portfolio from Ace Young's recent photo shoot.

Mal has put together all the weirdest moments, including yet another reason to burn Taylor Hicks in effigy.

[Watch video – 2:02, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 2:02, WMV format, low bandwidth]

"Stand"ing in Good Stead

OMG, there is almost too much prettiness to behold in X-Men: The Last Stand.

See for yourself.

I'm sure the extended trailer that aired on Fox on Thursday night has already made the rounds, but in case not, we aim to serve your every homoerotic superhero whim.

[Watch video – 7:05, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 7:05, WMV format, low bandwidth]

Why Elliot Will Win

Columnist John Podhoretz applies a political model to "American Idol" voting and predicts a winner.  He could be onto something.

Of the three remaining contestants, I think Katharine would make the best Idol (my criteria being someone who can sell records and sell out venues), probably followed by Elliot.  I just don't see how Taylor is as sellable as the others.

[Thanks, Alan!]

Idol Results Show Warm-Up

Worth Repeating has, as usual, the three gayest moments from last night's "American Idol."  Predictably, they all involve Chris Daughtry.

Meanwhile, Dialidol still has Katharine and Chris duking it out for last place, with the latter slightly more likely to be sent packing tonight.  Sir Tics-a-Lot continues to lead the pack.

America, suck my balls.

Seacrest Wishes It Were A Thong

A pissy, prissy Ryan last night. Not only did he basically call Paula Abdul a gigantic whore on national television (oh yes, he did), he severely overcompensated when Chris Daughtry finally told the world his pants dampening underwear secret (oh yes, he did). That white button down is the closest we've come yet to a shirtless Chris. Coupled with the boxer briefs revelation, yes please.

Singing. Right. I'd nearly forgotten - you really can almost see everything under that shirt, can't you?

Well, this looks to be the bow-out performance for poor Katharine McPhee. The best female vocalist in the competition, I hearted her when she first sang "Since I Fell For You" in the final twenty-four premiere. Despite breakout renditions like "Someone To Watch Over Me," she has struggled in a season over-laden with musical catalogues geared towards male performers. When the songs are in the wrong key, she leaps into the wrong pitch. This week's Elvis selections (Priscilla's looking postively clownish, isn't she?) may have been Katharine's undoing.

Elliott has surged forward in these final weeks, doing some of his best work to date. Unfortunately, his teeth seem to have made a big comeback as well.

I don't care about the Elton John sunglasses. I'd still call Chris daddy.

Taylor (argh!) Hicks managed to tone down the being-brutally-assaulted-by-jellyfish choreography for his second song. He's going to win, isn't he? A legion of middle-aged women have totally voted for this man, haven't they? Why has America forsaken us? After a moderately enjoyable season, this jerking epileptic abortion is going to be the big pay-off? There is no God, no justice, and no salvation. We truly are doomed as a culture and a nation.

[Watch video – 8:32, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 8:32, WMV format, low bandwidth]

Sense of Impending Doom

A Very Brady Thursday

Like many queer Gen X'ers, "The Brady Bunch" was part of my sexual awakening.

I've thought that Christopher Knight was one of the hottest bipeds for longer than I can recollect.  That whole "Time to Change" thing?  Puh-leeze.  I was changing right along with his voice.

Despite the reports of Barry Williams's on-set hetero hijinks, I guess I always had hoped that at least one of the hot Brady boys was gay.

Tonight, "That 70s Show" provided me with two gay Bradys.

Williams and Knight played a gay couple who moved in next door to the Formans.  This obviously tested the limits of Red's tolerance, but in a twist, he found a much more obvious reason to hate the playahs and their game.  (I am siding with the gay Minnesota natives on this one.)

[Watch video – 7:45, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 7:45, WMV format, low bandwidth]

Junk Science

What is it with some people's almost pornographic obsession with Fox News Channel?  (Disclosure: I almost never get my news from television.  I don't much care for it.)

The Washington Post reports today on a "study" that purports to show that George Bush might "owe" his 2000 election victory to FNC:

"Our estimates imply that Fox News convinced 3 to 8 percent of its audience to shift its voting behavior towards the Republican Party, a sizable media persuasion effect," said Stefano DellaVigna of the University of California at Berkely [sic] and Ethan Kaplan of Stockholm University. In Florida alone, they estimate, the Fox effect may have produced more than 10,000 additional votes for Bush -- clearly a decisive factor in a state he carried by fewer than 600 votes.

My, what a modest claim to make!  But it sounds to me like a textbook case of a "Post Hoc Fallacy."  Event B occurs after Event A; therefore, Event A must be the cause of Event B.

What kind of bullshit science is this, anyway?  Actually, it is a 51-page piece of bullshit science called "The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting."

Admittedly, I have not yet read the whole paper.  And maybe the authors think I am supposed to be impressed and/or intimidated by things like this:

Or perhaps they want to lull me into submission with stultifying passages like: "The Fox News effect could be a temporary learning effect for rational voters, or a permanent effect for voters subject to non-rational persuasion."

But the fact remains that, nowhere in the "study" (to my reading) or in the related media reports have they established cause, only contemporaneousness.

The argument is that Fox News was the reason that people voted more conservatively.  But couldn't the opposite be just as true?  That is, couldn't Fox owe its existence to a rightward political trend that was already in progress?

Because FNC was created in 1996, why should I not claim that the "Republican Revolution" of 1994 was the "cause" of Fox News?  Only two years separated those two events.  What explains the electoral bath the Republicans took in 1998, only two years after the creation of Fox?

And how would the authors explain the countering effect of the measured left-leaning bias of almost every other media outlet, whose combined reach is infinitely greater than Fox?  The answer is, they don't, and their failure to do so makes their agenda all the more transparent.

Admittedly, it was a great way for DellaVigna and Kaplan to get publicity, especially among the vast numbers of reporters who loathe Fox.  But if a guy like me with only one college-level statistics course under his belt can see through them, why can't the WaPo?

Play That Funky Music, Spastic

If Taylor Hicks was charged with crimes against humanity and the police broke down the theater doors to taser him to death, would we really be able to tell the difference? I don't think so either.

They're getting worse, people. Even the humpalicious Chris Daughtry has resorted to screaming and screaming and screaming. Poor Katharine is reduced to showing Taylor how to properly writhe across the floor. Whereas Taylor always appears to be in mid-seizure, McPhee has thrown caution to the winds and seems to be engaging in a direct "Will Fuck For Votes" campaign.

Elliott and Paris . . . eh, one of them had pink heels. It could be either of them. I've stopped paying attention at this point. Mal has his own nightmares regarding Taylor Hicks as depicted on the right. Agreed. We need union grips dropping three hundred pound lights and things before this season goes horribly, horribly wrong and our twitchy little spastic takes home the crown. We pray Dial Idol is severely mistaken.

[Watch video – 7:40, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 7:40, WMV format, low bandwidth]

Bart(lett)'s Familiar Quotations

Find a "Simpsons" quote for every occasion.

How scary is it that I have probably used a majority of those in the past week?

Interspecies Marriage is Apparently OK

"Family Guy" was a little late in arriving to the gay-marriage party, 14 months after their Fox rival, "The Simpsons," married off Patty to professional golfer Veronica.

But, as always, it was worth the wait.

Brian's gay canine cousin, Jasper, brought his hairless, Filipino boyfriend to the Griffins' house, only to announce that they were engaged to be married.

Mayor Adam West, mired in a growing political scandal involving a breakfast cereal-loving frog, decides to sign a bill outlawing gay marriage as a diversionary measure.

Is it ironic that the man who played Batman – whose close relationship with Robin has inspired gay superheroes everywhere – would work to outlaw gay marriage?

I couldn't decide what to leave in and what to cut out of such a "fabulous" (sorry, Stewie) episode, so this Malcovision clip is a big, umm, longer than usual.  *COUGH*

Recommended viewing: Bill Clinton's song about what a fine day it is to be nude (6 minutes in).  Oh, and the instructional film on how to know when "you've got a gay."

[Watch video – 20:39, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 20:39, WMV format, low bandwidth]

Yamin?! Yeah, Man

"American Idol" viewers have finally confounded the heretofore peerless dialidol.com, giving Kellie "I'm a mink!" Pickler the heave-ho, rather than Paris Bennett.  (There is a God!)

Katharine McPhee joined Chris Daughtry as one of the top-two vote-getters, despite dialidol.com's prediction that she would end up in no better than third place.

Meanwhile, bloggist Kenneth Hill goes out on a limb, predicting an upset victory by the sheep-vibratoed Elliott Yamin.

Turns out, the limb he's on belongs to the ugly tree, and Elliott hit every branch on the way down.  I don't think Elliott has quite made the physical transformation that Kenneth sees (his "cute factor"?), although there have been improvements, especially dentally.  But I don't know how you fix the way Elliott goes cock-eyed every time he grins.

Money quote from Kenneth on Paula's bizarre crying jag after Elliott sang on Tuesday:

She's so sensitive at the moment, I think she must feel air molecules colliding with her skin.

Has there ever been a potential "Idol" outcome so up in the air with five contestants left?  Has it ever been so possible to care less?

By the way, did y'all catch the sadder acoustic version of Daniel Powter's "Bad Day" during Kellie's highlights montage video?  Does that mean Chris will get a death-metal version when he gets voted off?

Weepin' Wilbur

Imagine a locomotive a mere mile from the station, just ready to pull in at the close of a long journey. Now imagine that locomotive plowing into three dozen cars at the final crossing with flaming human wreckage everywhere. This is how we know we're watching the late stages of American Idol.

St. Katharine of the Mammary proves some Whitney songs need more intravenous crack than others. Smurf-hobbit hybrid, Elliot Yamin, sings with enough vibrato to imperil the Brooklyn Bridge. Kellie Pickler threatens a broken high-note that, if rendered in a barn, would have the pickled trailer whore vanishing in the resulting stampede. Chris sings a song that reminded us of that wretched film where a ten ton Marlon Brando rolled around in bed with Faye Dunaway. No. Never. Some memories need never be dredged.

None of this stopped a moist, stomping Paula from whinnying for more and breaking down under the onslaught. She claps, she sobs, she looks for the oat bucket. It's always the god awful shows we savor most.

[Watch video – 9:51, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 9:51, WMV format, low bandwidth]

A Taylor-Made Idol?

I think Robbie might bring some "American Idol" highlights today – including a Paula montage that will showcase her mysterious blubbering after Elliott's performance, and stomping her feet after Chris sang like a horse that knows how to do math.

But I wanted to provide the latest dialidol.com update:  It shows Kellie and Paris battling it out for the bottom spot, with Paris the one who will be going home.  It continues to baffle me how Americans are so mesmerized by the ditzy, daffy blonde that they simply can't hear her terrible singing.  I've heard racist jokes that were less off-key than she was the past two weeks.

Meanwhile, Taylor continues to have a very slight edge on Chris for first place, with Elliott not far behind.

If that spastic freak wins, I think I will finally be cured of my "Idol" addiction.

Note to Self

Stop making predictions.  Start relying on dialidol.com.

They nailed the bottom three, as well as the most recent castaways, including Ace.  Buh-bye, pretty boy.

But Chris in the bottom three?!  Where's my vodka again?

McClellan ... Out!

Bushies talking to Tony Snow as possible WH press secretary replacement.

Now Scott will have to listen to that old bat Helen Thomas only in his nightmares.