As good as a holiday

Format has changed.

As . . . you can probably see.

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Right.

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Carry on.

All filler, no singing to speak of

Adelaide. Oh Adelaide Adelaide Adelaide. You wacky wacky town, you! You build me up with your patented looney tunes and wacky hijinks and you raise me high with Your People’s inability to read a fucking room.

Let’s open with Julie, shall we? Julie has quite a pronounced lisp. That doesn’t mean she can’t sing, though, no, it’s her complete lack of tone and profound inability to hit any of the actual notes in the song she’s bellowing that means she can’t sing. (And whilst she’s quite upset that the judges are harsh on her, she still gets a hug from Mathieson, so don’t feel too sorry for her, in point of fact, you may envy her a little. Humiliation on a national scale but also a hug from Mathieson? Tempting . . .) Let’s follow on from Julie with a flock of truly astoundingly deluded individuals whose vocal cords you would quite cheerfully stomp on in the largest and spikiest Gene Simmons from Kiss boots you could find – like Eliza who FLAT OUT SCREAMS the Four Non Blondes song What’s Going On and who calls the judges snide. Or Bianca who trills All Saints song Never Ever and has the kind of sweet semi maybe possibly decent-ish voice where if you were driving a really long distance with her and you were sort of jacked up on coffee, red bull and sugar, you might tell her Stockholm Syndrome Style that she doesn’t have a bad voice, but THAT’S WHERE IT ALL STARTS, PEOPLE. The friends who smile at their friends whilst they’re badly singing along to Kelly Clarkson in the car, who drunkenly encourage karaoke performances, the parents who tell little Alice and Jack that YES, you have the voice of an angel, my sweet, because no one wants to tell their kids that they sound like banshees sent from hell to DEVOUR OUR SOULS.
It.
Must.
Stop.

Really, it must, because next up is pizza maker Adam who has his own fanclub and two guitars for some unknown reason and who lets them drag his friends into his audition. He might actually be able to sing, who knows, but everyone else is singing along with him and he gets completely drowned out, then he does this ridiculous original that feels like he just made it up on the spot and he has this terrible look in his eyes about halfway through and if you pause the tape just so, you can see the point where he realises it ain’t gonna happen. Then Marcia gets her Pointy Finger out when he tries to backchat her about coming across as superficial or something, I don’t know, all I know is Mother Hines sounds like she needs a nap and it is too soon in the season for fatigue to be hitting you Marcia.

There’s a montage of criers interspersed with the judges throwing their arms in the air and their heads on the table in despair and then cutiepie Bree who chooses a shitful song to sing and provokes The Fight between Holden and Marcia (who says shit and arse and forget you . . . when you know she wanted to use a naughty word – use it Marcia, use your words!) who threatens to take off her shoe and thump Mark with it and I missed the next few minutes because I was too busy loudly advocating any and all violence against Holden with a shoe, especially if its one of those really pointy heeled ones, you know the ones where if you were fighting a vampire and didn't have a stake you could TOTALLY use your shoe? That kind. It’s nowhere near the smackdown we were promised. There isn’t any blood or anything. Ripped off.

Channel Ten? I don’t give a fuck about James Cameron and his search for some guy’s tomb, where the hell is my Torchwood, you motherfuckers . . .

There are too many idiots who don’t know what song they want to sing – dude, you slept overnight in line to NOT know what you’re going to do – seriously? It at least leads to some very cute Mathieson schtick, belting out a Whitney Houston song, praying in church for someone good . . . Fosse making a rude remark about James on his knees that I will gloss over for the greater good.

Chris sings Alicica Keyes’ What Comes Around and what doesn’t come around for him is a ticket to Sydney, we are 20 mins in and are yet to see anyone decent, aren’t you GLAD you’re watching the audition shows??!! (But it does give Dicko the opportunity to bust out with the old favourite ‘delusions of adequacy’, ahhh, still funny.)

Huzzah – Sarah Lloyde, who is soulful and builds her song quite nicely (if a touch RickiLee-ishly for me) and who auditioned back in 2005 and looks like she made Top 100 but not the semi’s. She’s done the smart thing, she gave herself a couple of years, she’s done the hard work getting her voice up to scratch and she’s come back older, wiser and better. Then we see a flurry of singers who made it through but once again get to hear not a skerrit of their effing singing. Badly played show, badly played.

Last SA’n of the day is barmaid Holly Weiner from Mildura who has an alternative, grungy voice with a nice little husky twang. She gets slightly shouty to rise over her guitar playing (Marcia calls it projection) and Dicko doesn’t LOVE her but she gets herself a golden ticket, and rightly so, she is the best we’ve seen all day. She joins 11 other Mystery Contestants.

Hometown, Perth is up next and can I just say, Andrew G? Your new haircut is divine.

Not divine? Ben who marches in with attitude and caterwauls the Fremantle Dockers team song as loud as he can. I want to join the Dockers just so I can rescind my membership purely on the strength of this guy and the hurt he does to my delicate ears. I feel they’d understand and wholeheartedly support me in this endeavour.

Man, WAAPA needs to keep an eye on their Musical Theatre students because the amount of MT geeks who wail Phantom of the Opera at the judges, dude, NO ONE deserves that level of pain, not even Sandilands. And Zarni, who came with a dossier of inspirational quotes – I might have liked your chutzpah if you hadn’t then chosen to slaughter As Long As You’re Mine from Wicked, not that I heard most of it because I immediately curled into the foetal position and my piteous whimpering drowned you out. Mostly.

Lana Krost played Les Miserables Cosette and rips out the very sad song that Cosette sings that I may have done myself a couple of times. (She may sing it slightly better than I do.) She’s cute, she has a good stage voice but her nervous disposition signposts that she’ll get eaten alive at the Seymour Centre.

Woeful singer after woeful singer gets the Dicko Smackdown, a one liner here, a zinger there, a deprecating putdown to the left and a mean upper punch to the right – to the point where Sandilands calls him out for not having any tact when he is making young Jovan practically blub in front of them.

SANDILANDS. TACT. END OF THE WORLD.

So off Dicko slouches to Bunbury where I assume he sampled some of the samples available at the lovely wineries in that region (I cast no stones) and then brought back some singers to audition in Perth, including our first RnB singer of the competition, Andrew Morton. Then Shamara-lea Hassett who plonks herself down on the floor. Her song and her guitar playing is restrained and quite lovely. She loses some points for crying but then I may have also gotten a little teary as well, so I’m giving her those points back and we shall never speak of this again.

Chad Woods has just about the best country voice I think I’ve heard in this competition and also makes it on to Fossie’s Hottie Watchlist. I just think if we can get him to Klancie up his wardrobe, put him in a dress slit down to his navel then he just might be on to something . . .

Cookie Sidebar : Red has just called me whilst reading this to inform me that in fact, no he wasn't great and that her husband whimpered and cringed whilst Chad was singing. There may have been the odd 'f' word also. I bow to Cookie's greater countrynwestern knowledge whilst still maintaining that little ol' Tallulahbelle kinda loved it . . .

Kalgoorlie is the residence of Tafadzwa Chirobo and I immediately tell him he needs to agree to an Aussie shortening of his name because ain’t no one slowly texting Tafadzwa – I can’t even tell you long it takes to type – to Idol. G calls him Taf, as shall I. Taf sings a lovely tune that wouldn’t sound at all out of place as the backing track to a Paul Simon song but his voice is lovely and souful and he is deservedly through.

Jeremy Harris is an okay singer and gets through – Dicko says he looks like he’s enjoying the smell of his own farts when he sings . . . oooookay . . . I actually got a ‘praise jesus’ vibe from him but maybe there was an olfactory cue that we weren’t in on during Jeremy’s audition.

22 make it through from WA including our final Perth auditionee (don’t hurt yourself gasping in surprise) Mustard. Yes. Mustard. As in ‘keen as’. Ladies and gentlemen, this season’s Mutto is in the house. He’s actually endearingly Aussie and admits to being so nervous that he’s overcompensating trying to hide it so I cut him some slack, but honestly – after three months of Travis on BB, I am ockered right the hell out. I can take two ‘I loves youse all’ but that’s it Mustard. Thin ice, my friend. I loves youse all, god, I worry for the Youth of Today, I really do . . .

Next Sunday, Melbourne.
Monday, Sydney and then god willing, straight on until dawn and we’ll hit the Seymour Centre the Sunday after that . . .

Heeeeeee's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack

And the world shivered.

In its bed, in its backyard, at the shop, in its car, in the jungles of deepest darkest Africa, in the desert plains of Egypt. Volcanoes shuddered to a stop, mid spew of molten lava. Hysterical news reports flooded in, of children ice skating on the Atlantic, of Middle Eastern snowball fights, of lions with snowy manes, of gazelles skiing through the veldt and of giraffe popsicles.

And the world shivered.

And the Dark Lord emerged from Below, his red horns covered in pristine white snow, icicles forming in his neat goatee, his hooves clicking on the frozen tundra, clothed in a large pea green duffle coat with gloves and a kicky Doctor Who style scarf that muffled his voice as he bellowed furiously to the skies . . .

“Dicko, you BASTARD, I was in the middle of Harry Potter and now the pages have FROZEN TOGETHER.”

For lo! It was true. He hath returned.


Having spent the last month of BB trying to convince us that the local Idol franchise had something to do with Jennifer Hudson strapping on her Big Girl’s Voice and getting to be air bussed (ye olde worde for ye kisse) by George Clooney at the Kodak Theatre, Idol 2007 opens with an American Movie Monologue, astounding only in its ability to not be funny. Except for the line about there being One Vegan – that totally cracked me up because I flashed back to that one episode of Ready Steady Cook when Mathieson beat out G and proceeded to serenade him with the Homer Simpson inspired ‘you don’t win friends with salad’. Trust me, it was hilARious.

I suspect I can hear people falling off their lounges all over Australia when the Montage of Past Winners actually acknowledges the black sheep of Idol, Poor Poor Casey. Of course it is brief, brisk and immediately followed by multiple shots of the Young Divas (edited for misuse of the possessive apostrophe - thankyou Fosse) with an almost apologetic tone that they dared remind us of the Season Two winner when talking about the impact of Idol. Which, apparently is saving the Australian Music Industry. Right. (Sorry Missy, sorry John Butler – you long fingernailed guitar playing god weird haired hippy freak – and back to splitsville please Crowded House, Idol has the Aria charts under control, we don’t need ANY of you . . . )

What we need apparently is SIX episodes of auditions. SIX. Honestly, if we could just ignore the famewhores (who would STOP turning up and wasting the judges time if we all JUST IGNORED THEM) and pay attention to the actual singers who audition we’d have two, count it TWO, audition shows, we’d actually get to see some of the talented buggers who turn up and make it to the top 100 instead of getting to the Seymour Centre and barely recognising a third of them and as an added bonus, I would not get tired typing fingers. It would be a win all round!

Instead we get Elke, first singer of the day, she’s – honestly – she’s Luna Lovegood. She’s a drag queen Jewel and she isn’t so much singing as waving a shaky murmured vibrato at the song and hoping to hit some of the notes. She kinda fails. It’s two thirds of the way through the song before Fosse even recognises it, at which point we get our first visible Fosse-recoil of the season – huzzah! Mark is horribly passive aggressive at her, and his fun at pretending he liked it goes so far as to actually convince the poor deluded soul that if he had been the only judge she would have got through. Nice work Holden.

Then we are subjected to Tanya, who chews apart a Kelly Clarkson song in a most painful manner, as the blood pouring from my ears can attest and who then starts in on the most horridly woeful original song, so bad that Mark literally has to walk away from the Judges desk, he is laughing so hard. Kyle brutally rips the cord from her keyboards, saving us all from going mad, but sadly too late to save Tanya’s own sanity. Off to therapy, love, there you go . . .

It is 23mins in before we meet the fabulous Brianna Carpenter, who is a gorgeous cross between Ms Chanel Cole (style wise) and Lisa Mitchell (vocally). You know. When we all thought Lisa might amount to something. Her original song is freaking delightful and they actually show the whole thing. She is resoundingly adored by the judges but I refuse to fall in love with her. No. No, I refuse. I will not be disappointed again by a fantastic first audition. Because then we get to the second week of the Top Twelve and you know, she’ll have stopped bringing me flowers, she won’t return my calls, I’ll see her flirting with another blogger, maybe even *gasp* hear about her singing a Mariah Carey song and my heart will just be broken into a thousand tiny pieces and I WON’T HAVE THAT DONE TO ME AGAIN. I will NOT be the Idol equivalent of your crazy spinster aunt who comes to Christmas dinner and tells you that men can’t be trusted and you should always look to see if they have a faint tan line around their ring finger because it means they’re married and just took their wedding ring off five minutes before they came into that speed dating session to try and get someone into bed and you’ll be left alone - except for your eighteen cats - despising yourself. I may, in fact, have issues . . .

Qld is a parade of the tanned and pretty. Tanned, pretty and thoroughly untalented. Hot chick after hot chick who bellow, shrill and screech at the four judges to the point where I want to send them aspirin. And earplugs.

Then Jordan Paris (who immediately strikes me as another Fuck I Hate James) comes in wearing a bright red suit that is frighteningly colour co-ordinated with his fake tan. He’s a tall, skinny Oompa Loompa. He sings some hymn and doesn’t have a bad voice, but it feels infinitely more suited to playing Joseph whilst wearing a jacket made of many colours. He gets four ayes. I give him an oy. I just want to exfoliate him back to a normal colour.

We get a brisk montage of guitar playing fellas who make it through and then Angela who came prepared with a little booklet of stuff she downloaded from the Idol Official Site, who sings kinda badly, who refuses to take no for an answer and who is obviously drunk. Right? Then Dylan Yeandle who has auditioned three previous times and who comes in with a cheeky grin, a guitar and a song about Yummy Mummies. A dreadful song. They put him through and he has the barefaced cheek to stand in front of a poster of My Boy Irish and extol his own virtues. He needs to move . . . away . . . from the Irish . . .

Famewhores : Ravel Lee has seen Borat too many times, but he can Cossack dance really well and is actually one of the few entertaining fame whores of the day. Spanish speaking Angel is terribly earnest whilst torturing Killing Me Softly – which, it’s a cheap shot, but he is – and who gets the words wrong, even though he’s reading them. Thomas Chen tries to rap. I got nothing.

Hayden Andrews is this years Bobby Flynn, he has an endearing lilt that slides into a lovely upper register and reminds me of a singer from the 70’s whose name escapes me. He’s in. They zap through some guitar playing chicks pausing briefly to completely shit on Cleo Holloman for being too pretty. Fosse’s calls a Hottie Watch on Tim Florea who plays an awesome guitar and sings okay and who Dicko calls out for having commitment issues. Huh. I should totally date him.

Our first traditional Last Auditionee Of The Day Who Will Totally Surprise You Completely By Getting Through, Not; is Cheray Doughty, the impish daughter of Ray Burton who co-wrote “I Am Woman” with Helen Reddy. Awww, her dad rules and she has a great voice too! Good for her, she IS woman, hear her roar! (I promise to limit myself to just one more I Am Woman joke if she makes it to the semi finals . . . scouts honour.)

We take off to the Top End and some patented G & Mathieson silliness, oh G & Mathieson silliness, how I missed thee . . . crocodiles. Beer. Beards. Drag queens. The NT tourism board thanks you Idol.

John Coulhan wants to pull a Daughtry, bring fame to his band through his appearance on Idol. I have no problem with that. He has a lovely pub rock voice with shades of Tyrone Noonan. He’s brought his own guitarist, he obviously got the memo about needing a guitar to get through to the top 150,000. His original is not bad, if a little repetitive around the chorus but I can totally close my eyes and hear it on Fox. He’s golden.

Kate Miller is another repeat offender and sings a Sarah Maclachlan song. I am indifferent to her and the whole process until Dicko remarks that he doesn’t like that she is deferring to the note – which I TOTALLY get and love him for saying – and then Holden gets involved, prattling about how he doesn’t know what the hell Dicko is talking about and does anyone in the room, does the general public and I’m screaming at the tv that yes, I do and shut the fuck up Holden to the point where Brand New Housemate, Able pokes his head out of bedroom to see who the hell I’m screaming at, discovers it’s the TELEVISION and worriedly looks at Fosse. Fosse sighs like a long suffering man stuck living with a demented harpy and explains I have a mental illness and think they can hear me. I tell him to shut up, take a deep breath and continue yelling at Holden who continues to ignore me. Good times . . .

Our final contestant is Jasmine Anderson who can’t dress worth a damn, but who has a fantastic voice. Kyle makes her sing three different songs and she nails every damn one. Girl really knows what suits her voice, she hits Gabrielle, Xtina and that band that isn’t Creed or Hinder but who sounds like them (and seriously, the first person to sing that god awful Hinder song about cheating on your girlfriend because this other chick has the lips of an angel? Top of the shitlist.) Jasmine is one of only three who make it through from the NT.

And we’re done. For show one that is, five to go until we get to the good stuff. Tonight is WA & SA (ahhh, Adelaide, where the crazies come out to play) and Marcia. Smacking. Holden. Down.

Sound like fun? It’s a date.

All Frocked Up

Until I get my Oscar bitch on, check out my homey Sweatergirl's take on Oscar fashion :
http://stylepolice.blogspot.com/2007/02/oscars-frock-verdict-slightly-delayed.html

(Yeah, I can't believe I typed 'homey' either.)

Addendum

Oh, and Al Gore's film An Inconvienent Truth winning Best Documentary.
That would rock my socks.

My dearest Oscar

My dearest Oscar,

It’s been a year since last we talked and I feel terrible that we parted on such bad terms. That our last words to each other were angry and bitter ones. I’ve spent the last year without you, searching my soul, questioning my actions, pondering how and why everything went so horribly wrong, when they started so well.

Last year was off to a magical start. The Clooney was nominated for three of you, one of my favourite movies of the year was going to win your Best Picture, my darling Jon Stewart was presenting. Things looked good, nay, great. The opening montage was hilarious, Jon was self deprecating and George won the first Oscar of the night. We were off to a flying start! I laugh joyously to think of it.

But as the night wore on, I noticed your audience didn’t seem to appreciate Jon’s humour as much as one might have expected. They seemed . . . disappointed. What was it? Were his constant references to The Clooney not appreciated? Are you still not ready to let someone take Jack Nicholson’s place as Hottest Man Requiring A Seat Filler? Were there too many jokes about the number of facelifts in the room? Were the people from Botox on the phone? Were they pissed?

And then the Horrid Thing That Happened, happened. Was I out of line to expect it to win Best Picture? When you gave Ang Lee Best Director, I thought, for sure, this is it, finally you would right the wrong grievously forced upon me the year Forrest Gump beat Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption. Good god, the betrayal. I’ve struggled with the betrayal for the last 365 days. That awful awful film winning Best Picture.

It hurt. It hurt me greatly.

Now the ball? Is in your court. I’ve taken the first step. It’s up to you now to make things right between us. You've made a good start, as much as I'm sad Jon won't be back this year, I am happy you've chosen Ellen to host. And your habit of always asking back the previous years winner to present an award means that once again George will wear The Tux. But you know what? I’ve seen the bookie’s odds. There are too many Dead Certs this year. I was surprised (shocked, horrified, didn’t sleep for three nights) when Crash beat Brokeback, so I want to see some shock winners this year.

Now, I’m not talking about Helen Foregone Conclusion Mirren losing out, if that happens, consider our relationship dead and buried. If Helen doesn’t win Best Actress, you may as well just slap a toetag on us and call for a time of death. But as much as I’d like Jennifer Sure Thing Hudson to win Supporting Actress for Dreamgirls, my heart would soar if adorable Abigail Breslin won for Little Miss Sunshine. And if Forrest Isn’t It My Time Please Forget That I Was In Species and Battlefield Earth Whitaker can’t win Best Actor for Last King Of Scotland, then the rugged hotness of Ryan Gosling winning for Half Nelson would more than make up for any past indiscretions. As an added bonus, we’d get to see his lovely partner Rachel McAdams when he won. Wouldn’t that be worth the shock?

Please Oscar, I beg of you. Help me patch up our relationship.

We’re worth it.

Love TallulahBelle
xx

I need a 12 step programme . . .

You Know You’re Addicted To Battlestar Galactica When . . .

(‘ware the spoiler if you haven’t seen Seasons One and Two)

1. When you were watching David Letterman the other night and Tricia Helfer was talking about posing for Playboy and Letterman held up the cover with her on it? You got a little more excited than a heterosexual thirty three year old woman probably should.

2. You‘ve started using frakk instead of fuck and your friends don’t even look strangely at you anymore.

3. You google fanfic about Kara and Leoben and even find yourself actively seeking out youtube vid’s where people have strung shorts of the two characters together to the song ‘This Kiss’. And you giggle and applaud like a schoolgirl when you watch them. And you’re only slightly ashamed of that.

3. You’ve had discussion with your cat Giles, about changing his name to Helo. He is not as addicted to BSG as you are, and refuses to answer to it.

4. Because of Callum Keith Rennie’s portrayal of Leoben Conoy, you would no longer accost him in the street, point at him and call him The Guy Who Played ‘Not Ray’ On Due South, or pester him for Ryan Reynolds’ phone number (c’mon, they were in Blade Trinity together, and I don’t care if you’re straight or gay, if you have the opportunity, you’re asking RR for his mobile phone number.) Now you'd berate him for not being available for more BSG episodes, grudgingly acknowledge that he kind of rocked the two seasons he played Stanley Kowalski pretending to be Ray in Due South, and then pester him for the phone numbers of Tahmoh Penikett (Helo), Jamie Bamber (Apollo), Aaron Douglas (Tyrol/Chief) and Tricia Helfer (Six). And Grace Park (Sharon). And Katee Sackhoff (Kara/Starbuck). And Mary McDonnell (Roslin). And . . . hell, you'd just mug him and steal his address book.

5. She’s so good in BSG, that you started thinking the other day about why the hell Lucy Lawless never got an Emmy for Xena.

6. Whilst you’re aware that Gaius is a twitchy, nervous, manic, traitorous scumbag and that Six is a psychotic, manipulative, killing machine who pushes every single one of his buttons and keeps edging him closer to full blown psychosis and who may or may not be a) a figment of his own imagination, b) the manifestation of his own psyche or c) the product of a Cylon implanted chip inside Baltar’s head, you still kind of want those two crazy kids to work it out.

8. Giddy as you are that Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama have ‘formed exploratory committees’ to run for President in 2008, nothing would make you happier then if Laura Roslin could too, because you know she’d win - she’s awesome - and you’re pretty sure that at her inauguration, she’d take the outgoing president and gleefully airlock his dumb ass into outer space.

For a while they were talking spin off . . .

For Red and Spooky and everyone else who appreciates The Reynolds . . . . rrrrroowwwwwwwwwwllll

DAMN.

You know I love The Clooney and all, but DAMN. Sometimes Jake's hotness is riDICulous.

I mean, seriously. What the hell was god thinking? It just isn't fair.

I want one.

It begins!!

Hooray! It's Awards Season again, and the countdown to the Oscars begins tomorrow when the Golden Globes are announced. Gotta say, this isn’t as interesting a year as the last one, partly because I haven’t seen the majority of the films up for nomination, but mostly because there’s going to be about sixty five percent less The Clooney. But he will be presenting at the Oscars (as is tradition, the previous years winner of Best Supporting Actor will present Best Supporting Actress, so Jennifer Hudson from Dreamgirls should just start practicing her best Holy Crap The Clooney Just Kissed Me On The Cheek And You Expect Me To Give A Frakkin’ Speech??!! face ready now).

And the nominations are :

Film:
Best Picture Drama is a toss up between Babel and The Departed. Entirely my own fault that I haven’t seen them because they’ve both been released here already, but Babel is on the list in the next few weeks and The Departed is Scorsese and I find it hard to love that man. My pick : The Departed because those weirdos at the Hollywood Foreign Press probably think that it’s Scorsese’s Time. Which actually means it might be Babel and Scorsese will get Best Director. The only other potential here is Little Children, but not really.

Comedy/Musical isn’t likely to be anything else but the critically acclaimed Dreamgirls which Fosse and I are booked in to see Thursday night when it opens. The whole Beyonce factor aside, I’ve only read one damning review and it is getting freaking awesome press – mostly for Jennifer Hudson, but still, good award buzz press is good award buzz press. But I adored the hell out of Little Miss Sunshine and would LOVE it to surprise everyone and steal the show.

Actor/Actress in Drama? You’re looking at Forest Whitaker for The Last King Of Scotland and Helen Mirren for The Queen. Those two are freaking going to win everything this year. Just watch.

Actor/Actress in Comedy? Tougher. Meryl Streep should win for The Devil Wears Prada just ‘cause she’s Meryl and freaking awe inspiringly good in that film. The guys are a strange mix, I mean I love Johnny Depp but why is he nominated for Pirates Two? And Will Ferrell looks great in Stranger Than Fiction but I think Sacha Baron Cohen might get this one for Borat, which means he won’t get nominated for an Oscar but he’ll most likely score an invite to the ceremony (hell, maybe he’ll get to present) which means that against all odds, Isla Fisher from Home and Away will be at the Academy Awards this year. Probably looking slammin’ but still –

ISLA FISHER. Academy Awards.

Supporting Roles might look something like this : Ben Affleck for Hollywoodland or Jack Nicholson for The Departed (which means, instead of a million Clooney jokes, we’ll get a million Nicholson Is A Stud jokes which makes me sad because I thought we’d moved beyond that and crowned Clooney the new Playboy Of All He Surveys).

And none of the other women nominated for Supporting Actress will come anywhere near beating Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls. The ex-American Idol contestant is this years Supporting Sure Thing.

Television :

Best Drama : Ooooh, its another mixed bag this year and this is where the Foreign Press sometimes goes waaaaaaaaaay off the rails and surprises everyone. For instance, I can’t believe that Grey’s Anatomy is nominated for Best Drama, no really it is, when it is clearly not a) a drama and b) the best. It is certainly enjoyable soapy television and nothing made me cry like Denny’s death and Izzy’s breakdown but still, it's Days Of Our Medical Lives. Dexter should be here instead. Battlestar Galactica should be here instead, Veronica Mars, The Soprano's, House or freaking DEADWOOD should be here, but no. That being said, I think Heroes or 24 will win this one.

Best Comedy : new show Ugly Betty might just upset The Office. This is actually a great category (Desperate Housewives aside) because the other nominees Weeds and Entourage are also great shows and as long as the incredibly terrible Season Two of Housewives doesn’t take this, I’ll be happy.

Actor :
Comedy. Well, although it would really be nice to see Zach Braff win for freaking once, I think Tony Shalhoub might win this one again for Monk. Although Alec Baldwin is apparently BRILLIANT in 30 Rock, Steve Carrell is amazing in The Office and Jason Lee is the funniest he’s ever been in My Name Is Earl. Crapshoot, but my money’s on Shalhoub, they love him.

Drama. If Michael C Hall doesn’t win for his amazingly great portrayal of Dexter, the serial killing serial killer (seriously brilliant television and he is so very very verrrrrrry good in it. Also hot. Yeah, who knew?), then the only consolation will be if Hugh Laurie takes it instead for House. If Patrick Dempsey wins for Grey’s I will put my foot through the television.

Actress :
Comedy. I love Mary-Louise Parker in Weeds and I usually can’t stand her, so she’s doing something right as far as I’m concerned. I don’t know who will win this one, it might be America Ferrera from Ugly Betty or Felicity Huffman for Housewives . . . consider this one up in the air.

Drama. Hollywood Foreign Press?? Where is my Veronica Mars love? Where is Kirsten Bell’s nomination you bastards, where?? Kirsten Bell should win this . . . but seeing as she isn’t nominated, I’ll have to go with Edie Falco for The Soprano’s or Patricia Arquette for Medium. Ellen Pompeo can take her squinty annoying face back to the set of Grey’s Anatomy and have a consolatory drink with Dempsey. (Having said that, I think they might be writing Pompeo’s character on Grey’s to actually be that annoying so potentially she's doing a brilliant job and I just can’t see it because she bugs me so very much.)

The Supporting kudo’s for the GG’s are always hell to pick because the Supporting category encompasses not only both the Drama and Comedy but also Mini-series and TV Movie all in one. Actor could be either Masi Oka in Heroes (who is great and funny) or The Piv, Jeremy Piven for Entourage in which he is all things brilliant and stellar, seriously Ari Gold is the character Piven was born to play. He eats up that role with a big ol’ spoon and I don’t mind that it gets all over his chin and in his hair a little and down his shirt . . . he is great.

I would LOVE to see Sarah Paulson from Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip win her category, not only because it has been slammed in the press for not rating well and Aaron Sorkin has been accused of being a smug, lefty snob who hates reality tv and the internet and should just lighten the hell up (I love him, keep doing what you’re doing Aaron and if they don’t give you a second season then they can just bite me) but also because she’s actually pretty damn good. If you haven’t seen any of it, when it does get on Australian tv and gets played for two episodes before being unceremoniously dumped in summer viewing at eleven thirty, try and stick with it because Matthew Perry proves he is not in any way Chandler Bing any more, Brad Whitford gives the most amazingly romantic speech to Amanda Peet, Nate Corddry is single-handedly the MOST ADORABLE thing I’ve seen on tv in MANY MANY years (especially when he’s wearing a lobster costume) and Sarah Paulson’s Holly Hunter impersonation is so freaking spot on, it is scary. She should win purely for that. But Katherine Heigl will probably win for Grey’s Anatomy – the ONLY Grey’s win I will concede – because the whole Denny thing was great and she looked amazing in that pink dress bawling her eyes out and made me cry so much I thought I was going to burst a blood vessel.

GOD, I love this time of year . . . it makes me giddy . . .

The good, the bad and the blog-ly

So. A new year, huh? This is the blog I meant to write for the New Year but which is late. Which is one of the resolutions I made that I already haven’t kept. And I was late to work this morning. Another of the resolutions that has gone down the gurgler because I only got three hours sleep because I was stressing about money, yet another resolution gone, wave bye-bye as it flies out the window. Crap. At this rate I won’t marry The Clooney, win an Oscar, run the Boston marathon or solve world hunger at all this year.

But here tis anyway, a run down of the great and not so great of 2006.

Mindblowing Gigs of 2006

Frankie Wants Out. I don’t often use the term hepcat, but these cats? Hep. Totally hep. I was at the boys EP launch on Friday 29th December, at the Evelyn in Fitzroy and duuuuuuuude. Firstly, I’ve never seen so many pinstripe suits in the one place in my life (not to mention Men In Hats as far as the eye could see), it was like a We Hate Elliot Ness convention. It was the cast of Bugsy Malone, all growed up. It was ridiculously hot is what I’m saying, and I recommend every man rush out now and buy themselves a pinstripe suit. And major snaps to the boys for a great set. Tight. Tight. Tight. If you like your suits of the zoot variety, if retro is your thing-o daddio and if you enjoy dancing that involve movements categorised as ‘swing’, then these are the guys you want on your iPod. Check out the Frankie Wants Out myspace page and get yourself a copy of their EP now.

Robbie Williams at the Telstradome. I’ve never understood the attraction of a stadium concert, I mean they’re crowded, they’re ridiculously overpriced and more often than not you’re lucky if you don’t get a nosebleed climbing up the Mt Everest-esque stairs to get to your seat. And they don’t give you a Sherpa at the ‘dome, no sir. So if you run out of oxygen or your fingers fall off because of frostbite or your pulley rope system fails and you can climb no further, then your compatriots have to leave you behind at the mercy of the elements and people carrying trays of diet coke and the most expensive and tasteless fries known to man. And there’s no intimacy. It’s not like a Neil Finn gig where you can feel every nuance of his performance. It’s Robbie Williams and eighty thousand other people, a seat where if you lean too far forward you would fall and fall and fall and fall and some point in 2009 hit the ground and it’s screaming chicks who think that Robbie will see them from a thousand yards away, declare instant and undying love and take them away from all this. But having seen Robbie Williams play the Telstradome this year? I now totally fucking get the stadium concert. It was wild, it was energetic, it was frenetic, it was addictive, it was awesome. He sang ‘Millennium’, he sang ‘Angels’, he brought Johnny with him and they bloody sang ‘Me And My Shadow’ for fucks sake! And it was great. Many many thanks to Shaneequa for the ticket (and also for resisting the urge to fall on the floor laughing her ass off when she realised I knew all the words to Take That’s ‘I Want You Back’. Shut up.) and many thanks to the random guy in the crowd afterwards who - as we struggled to get through the crowds like we were trying to get over the Berlin Wall - heartily laughed with us when I faux-screamed out ‘not without my daughter’. Worth it just for Robbie’s Bono impersonation. Ace.

Honourable mentions : Lindsay West’s gig at Musicland where he turned out to not hate me for the horrid things I said about him on Idol Season Three and also to completely rock da house - “Put a band behind this guy and step all the hell the way back and give him some room. Lindsay commanded your eye on stage, his presence was electric and his vocals almost didn't need the microphone. His rendition of Time After Time was everything it should have been on Idol and is yet another example that the show itself doesn't do the contestants any justice. Lindsay, consider me rocked . . .”

Movies That Made Me . . .

Cry : Brokeback Mountain. Fosse played me the BBM music last night and I teared up standing in my pj’s in his bedroom just thinking about this film. My favourite film of the year.
Throw Hissy Fits : Crash winning the fucking Oscar. Gee, did you know racism was bad? Well, it is, as is the script and some of the acting in this smack you over the head with the obviousness of how bad racism is, film. WE GET IT. Racism sucks. So do the Academy voters who gave this shitfest Best Film over Brokeback. It’s Forrest fucking Gump all over again.
Admire Talent : Brick. Joseph Gordon-Levitt has shifted heaven and earth to move away from the character he played on Third Rock From The Sun and whilst Brick is in no way a perfect film, it does boast a brilliant performance. If you want to see more of the talented little bugger, I recommend Mysterious Skin. But only if you want to cry buckets.
Laugh : Little Miss Sunshine. Steve Carrell’s beard, Abigail Breslin’s fake potbelly, the final talent show and Alan Arkin’s drug habit. Best family film ever, I laughed so much I hurt myself.
Nod Sagely : An Inconvenient Truth. Bless you and everything you stand for Al Gore. Run for president in 2008, if it ain’t you or Hillary, then I’ll cancel my FoxNews subscription because the best bit about either of you running and winning will be the exploding heads of Republican pundits who bow at the altar of Rupert Murdoch.
Hysterically Giggle Every Time I Said Its Title To The Point Where My Mother Who Took Me To See It For My Birthday Thought We Were About To See A Comedy : (Motherfucking) Snakes On A (Motherfucking) Plane. Good god, if you didn’t enjoy the cheesetasticness of this film then . . . I have no words. How could you not have loved it? Man, I laughed and cheered and clapped so hard. It was everything I expected. The final credits/music video for Cobra Starship’s song about S.O.A.P. is great and Fosse very kindly submitted to my demands to download it. I’m listening to it right now.
Hide Under My Bed : Wolf Creek – yes, I know it came out in 2005 but I saw it in 2006 and it scared the freaking bejesus out of me. I have never had a movie experience like WC, my adrenalin shot through the ROOF when John Jarratt started torturing those girls and I will never watch Picnic At Hanging Rock the same way again. Grah.
Bored Beyond Tears : Eragon. Those who also fought sleep and the urge to hunt down Jeremy Irons and John Malkovich and KICK THEIR ARSES for signing up for this crapfest are my brothers in arms. Avoid at all costs.

Favourite TV People To Love and Hate

Jonathan Penner from Survivor. Ignoring the massive crush I had on him when he was on The Naked Truth, when he showed up on the thirteenth season his piercing blue eyes, rational gameplay, great accent, disdain for that idiot Probst and his complete and total inability to take crap from the young idiots he had aligned himself with, had me from hello baby. Has officially replaced Rob Cesternino as my all time favourite Survivor.

Damien Leith, Australian Idol Winner 2006. Irish being announced as the winner of Idol 06 was one of the best tv moments of the year, in my books. He was gracious, he was humble, he was a lot bloody shellshocked but he still had the nous to confess that had he been watching at home, he would have been voting for his extremely talented (and already also signed to the SonyBMGBeast) opponent, Jessica Mauboy. He has already outsold both Kate and Poor Poor Casey and currently has the third highest Idol sales behind Guy and Shannon and that’s just with the Winners Journey CD. Just you wait until he releases a CD of the real stuff. Thanks to Team Avoca who welcomed Fosse and myself into their Jessica-loving house for the finale and who were gracious in defeat, take a bow (not you Chrispy, you sit down, you didn’t handle it at all well, mister).

The Idol Judges. Sweet Jesus, I mean at what point exactly did Sandilands become the voice of reason on Idol? When did Mark completely lose his fucking mind and Marcia devolve into the mass of contradictions she has become? Don’t get me wrong, still hate the bastard, but some of the smartest stuff out of Idol in 06 came out of Kyle’s mouth. I know, I know. Sign of the impending apocalypse. I eagerly await the Return Of Dicko in Idol 07 and will be subsequently taping every single episode just waiting for the moment when Dicko completely blows his stack and rams a microphone down someone’s throat. Six months ago, I’d have had my money on that being Sandilands, but now I think it just might be Holden . . .

Honourable mentions, mostly because they’re only fiction : The Doctor and The Girl In The Fireplace; Veronica and Logan from Veronica Mars; Danny, Matt and the Big Three from Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip; and Dexter from Dexter.

Year of the George

Wasn’t it though? People’s Sexiest Man Alive for the second time, Academy Award/Golden Globe wins for Best Supporting Actor, nominated for every award under the sun for acting and directing, he got all up in everyone’s face about events in Darfur, granted he lost his beloved pig Max in '06 but other then that dude had an extremely good year. Even if he is making Oceans Thirteen, for which I don’t think he has any valid excuse other than, he likes hanging out with Soderbergh, Pitt, Damon and Cheadle and hell, who wouldn’t?

Little ol’ me

For me in 2006 I got; little sleep; less money; a new housemate; a step-kitten; the challenge to direct in ’07; lots of The Clooney; a nephew; a serious substance abuse problem, if you consider Ebay a substance; the joyousness of weddings; laid; a callous on my knitting hand (seriously, Friends Of Tallulah, stop getting pregnant, please); the extremely pleasant sensation that waking to the resignation of Donald fucking Rumsfeld brings; to give up coffee; a Split Enz reunion; The Tux; to take up coffee again; foxtel digital; a third season of Veronica Mars; Pride and Prejudice on DVD (BBC version, thankyou very much and fuck off Keira Knightley); addicted to Rockstar Supernova and the hotness that was Lukas Rossi; unwanted kilo’s; not enough time with friends and family; a mid year gym membership that has thus far proven to be both folly and wasted; introduced to my new love, anchovy stuffed olives, the potential source of the extra kilo’s.

So. 2007. Let's dance.

Night of my Irish?

Class, today’s essay question pertains to the following.

Until today, TallulahBelle has found herself physically unable to muster up the strength to write this weeks recap of Idol due to a phenomenal lack of sleep due to the below reasons :

a) the upcoming end of Idol 2006 is no longer a light at the end of the tunnel and is instead threatening to create an Irish-less emotional vacuum in which she fears she can not exist, hence she is not sleeping well.

b) the idea that Irish might not actually win this has her so damn concerned that she’s spent nights stealing into people’s homes and using their phones to vote which takes up all the hours of the night, hence she is not sleeping well. Or at all. And may have some explaining to do to her neighbours when they get their phone bills.

c) she can’t hold a five minute conversation with someone without imploring them to text Damien to 19 10 10, to the point where people have flat out stopped talking to her and duck into toilets/closets/Scientology centres the better to avoid her, leading to some crippling childhood flashbacks that are keeping her up at night, hence she is not sleeping well.

d) unable to stop laughing from the absolute balls out badness of the lyrics of this years winner’s single, she burst several blood vessels in her eyes making it difficult for her to comfortably close her eyes and hence she is not sleeping well.

e) all of the above.

Discuss.

Jessica. The first thing I wrote about young Jess : “Jessica. Wow. This beautiful little girl sang I Have Nothing by Whitney Housten and she nailed it, she sang it better than Ricki-Lee did and RL didn't have to contend with the hot Australian sun, an army of flies and sweat dripping down between her shoulder blades. Kudo's kid.” And I don’t take that back, in fact I have to say, I don’t think I’ve ever liked both final two contestants so damn much. Of course I want my boy to win, but I won’t cry myself to sleep if it’s Jess. (But I may stamp my feet and pout a little, mostly because Fosse and I will be hightailing it to Chez Shaneequa’s to watch the Grand Final after we finish our matinee performance on Sunday – ahhh, a new play, the real reason I have had no fucking sleep for the last week - and she is All About Jess and will be throwing a Jess win in our faces. IN OUR FACES. Which we will not in any way be doing back to her in the event of an Irish win, because we are not bad winners, we are good ones. And we have in no way learnt a little Irish jig of celebration for just such an occasion. Nup.)

Jess’s first song is the Winner’s Single ‘Night of My Life’. And although this is not as hideous as Poor Poor Casey’s single it is still fairly freaking woeful. The lyrics are kind of sweet but terribly inane and Jessica’s version of it swirls and twirls through the air like when they make fairy floss at the fair. It’s pink, it’s girly, it’s sickly sweet and quite frankly, fairy floss always makes me slightly nauseous. Making it to the final two though, has instilled quite the confidence in young Jess and the lyrics and the way this song is arranged (much as I loathe it) is actually quite appropriate to her and to the moment when the winner is announced but I don’t terribly look forward to hearing this version on the radio. Thanks but no thanks.

Her second song makes me oy vey to the ceiling, because it’s Christina Aguilera’s ‘Impossible’ and this choice shows absolutely no vision or sense at all to me. Jessica basically mimics every trill, every warble that Christina does on that track and this isn’t singing, this is imitation. It’s also not terribly good and has me concerned that we’re going to get only ballads from her tonight. I want some Jess diversity, I want a soft rock/pop bouncy number that she’ll absolutely smash. Fosse is so bored that he isn’t even watching when Jess gives the camera the Callea Reach (like the Callea Point, only with palms spread and a Searching Sensitive Stare of Sincerity.) Jess oversings this and it only highlights how hard she’s been working her vocals, because there are pitchy moments and she cracks slightly here and there.

She makes me much MUCH happier with her third and final song, as she sings infectious bubblegum pop Janet Jackson number ‘Together Again’. I forgive her for not knowing that this song is actually Janet’s tribute to the friends she has lost to AIDS, because Janet herself sings this with such happy, beaming, face to the sky hope that it is hard not to identify the underlying message. It isn’t the same as not knowing what To Sir With Love is about, which is much more upfront with its intentions, but I bow to the greater knowledge of Fosse on this one, who has this to say :
Fosse "This is the song I consider "my song" as I lost a partner to AIDS so it pushes significant emotional buttons. Even when it's sung with absolutely NO idea of its intent as Jess did. It's the celebration of a life, a love, a friendship. It IS joyous but it is tinged with a sense of loss. Bless her but this really emphasised her youth and naivity. It's one thing to have a great voice (as I concede she does) but I really cannot forgive her for not tapping into any emotional connection with this song. "Janet sings it boppy, so will I! Come on everyone, bop with me!" Some people might not be a fan of Irish but damn, he connects with the song he's singing. "
Regardless of intent, she busts out Fun Jessica, my personal favourite version, getting poppy all over the place, shimmying and dancing around, having a ball and sounding fantastic. A very good way to end and a strong showing. She’s done well, and as I said, I won’t be completely distraught if she is the winner, just I’d prefer it to be my boy . . .

Speaking of.

Irish. The first thing I wrote about Irish : “Then we finally get some of the good NSW singers, like Irishman Damien who sings that song from Closer when Jude Law is scamming on Natalie Portman from across the street and it always gives me goosebumps because the song is great and this guy? Sings it really well. Damn fine falsetto. Damn. Fine.” Heee, Irish played Tevyah in Fiddler On The Roof – small things amuse me and this is one. I am not as amused by his thrash metal long hair, as it is less early Ozzy Osbourne and more Cindy Brady bob.

His first song is Alex Lloyd’s ‘Never Meant To Fail’ and he’s off to a flying start, because its hard not to have more chemistry and presence than Alex Lloyd (I own his CD’s, I love his voice but he’s a little dull on stage). I can absolutely see myself driving in my car and listening to a CD of Irish’s music, singing along with him, getting caught at the lights by the car next to me, not giving a damn, pumping up the volume and singing even louder. This isn’t as technically well sung as Jessica’s first song, his voice is getting slightly overpowered by the band but it is earthier, it’s rocker and it’s the kind of thing that will sit nicely on a CD next to a song featuring The Falsetto.

When he starts into his second song, Ben Harper’s ‘Waiting On An Angel’, the competition is officially over for both Fosse and myself, because this is fucking heaven sent. He has smartly picked two very different songs, highlighting what he does best, and choosing two songs that are extremely well suited to his voice and that are different enough to show variety. God, his voice is angelic. He uses The Falsetto sparingly here, seguing effortlessly into it at the end. Beautiful.

Then This Year’s God Awful Idol Single and you know? When TYGAIS is Arranged By Damien Leith? It kind of frigging rules. ‘Night Of My Life’ Irish Redux is faster, not as sombre and earnest, it features less trilling (obviously) which makes me instantly happier about the song and he’s arranged it guitar and percussion heavy which gives it more of a Pete Murray feel, it’s ‘Murray-esque’. It’s not as sappy or wet as Jessica’s version and if this is the winners single then I will personally buy a multitude of copies and randomly give it to people on the street. What a brilliant job of arranging, it takes skill to take out the massive amount of suckiness that the lyrics have put in. His falsetto cracks slightly under the strain and whilst this isn’t as well sung as Jessica’s version, this is absolutely the version I would rather listen to.

Sidebar : The next day, whilst driving to our dress rehearsal, Nova radio station held a quick poll to see which version (live version from the show) of the winner’s single their audience wanted to hear. I of course, immediately rang and put my two cents in for Damien’s – you have NO idea the effort it took not to call him Irish – version and they put me on the radio to shill for him. I noted how it was differently arranged to any previous winner’s song and that Damien did a beautiful job of arranging it. They thanked me kindly and played the song, after noting that Damien ROMPED in the poll. But – as Shaneequa noted to me the other night – it was Nova and it would be interesting to see which way that poll would have gone on Fox.

Well. This is it kids. See you Monday when I will be exhausted from a weekend of The Play, the Grand Final and the either exuberant guzzling of champagne in celebration of an Irish win or the saddened guzzling of champagne in the wake of Jessica’s win.

In closing? Text Damien to 19 10 10 – wait, where are you going?? I just want to talk to you about how great he is and . . . awww nuts. Lost another one.

TallulahBelle out.

It's In The Way That You Irish

In the interest of fairness and an attempt to appear to be unbiased (which we all know I can’t do on my own, as witnessed by the freefall spiral of love, puppies and complete adoration fangirlyness I go into every time Irish so much as sneezes, seriously I want to freebase this guy) I have asked fellow Idol imbiber and Jessica fan, Special Guest Star Shaneequa, to add her two cents to today’s proceedings. Attempts to find a Dean fan amongst my group of friends were without fruit, as the majority of my friends are a) over thirteen and b) can’t stand him and my parole office advises me that I must stay at least fifty feet from all playgrounds and primary schools so Dean unfortunately finds himself unrepresented here today but it’s OKAY because Mark Holden has all the ‘enthusiastic, overpraising of mediocrity’ bases covered for Dean to the point where he appeared on radio this morning stating that Dean Must Win. So really, SGS Shaneequa and I are just trying our best to even up the playing field, being that we don’t have nearly the public exposure that Holden does. *hires a skywriter to praise Irish –literally – to the heavens*


My heart has been in my throat since I read last week that Irish was doing Puccini’s ‘Nessun Dorma’ because . . . are you for real? Dude, that’s OPERA. And also? ITALIAN. But once again, Irish takes me on the best kind of trip, he is astounding, his voice is sublime and he builds this song so well, it is nothing short of genius – and his last glorious glory note is so fucking gorgeous that I rewind the tape and listen to the last 15 seconds about eight times, just sitting there with my eyes closed, blissed out beyond belief. I get chills every fucking time. (married man, married man damnit) I want to love him from afar for the next decade at least. And for that I need a CD, a DVD and a national tour, stat. Snap to it, Sony BMG. His face at the end moves me ridiculously, you can tell he’s so very proud of himself but it doesn’t come across as arrogant at all, it’s the slight sign of tears in his eyes and I pinch myself to keep from bawling like a baby. Mark, who is on his feet at the end, gives him a simple ‘bravo’, calls him ‘the people’s tenor’ and then lays a touchdown on him. You bet your sweet ass, Holden. After wiping away a tear, Marcia applauds the song as appropriate (in reference to the sad weekend passing of Belinda Emmet), beautiful and well done. Kyle says it was superbly done but is bemused as to what kind of CD Irish would produce if he won. After Damien admirably resists the urge to roll his eyes at the man who produced and inflicted Tamara Jaber’s ‘Ooh Aah’ on to a largely unsuspecting public, he confirms that it in all likelihood he wouldn’t be rushing to put opera on an Idol CD but that he wanted to push himself and it was an opportunity to sing it with a full orchestra.

SGS Shaneequa : I think I've kinda figured it out - I don't connect with what Irish is putting out at all..and this song is proof positive of that. It just did nothing for me - and I'm not saying that he didn't deserve to be cheered for it, I'm just saying it didn't work for me - K?I think he is pushing too much - with his voice, with his songs - he SO tried to 'force' a prayer moment with this number last night, and to me it just didn't get there...but I'm sure many of you literally wet yourselves. And hey - good on him for trying something new....ish - and didn't Holden look like he wanted to jump him. Safely into the grand final....really - he could get up onstage and vomit for his second song and he could still walk it in.....damnit.

God. I just fucking hate this song. Urgh, ‘Unchained freaking Melody’. Irish chose this one himself, because, I don’t know, he wants to hurt me? My full on hate for this song aside, he does do this very nicely, building it up to the expected and eagerly awaited falsetto. The big notes he busts out make me smile with giddy pleasure and although I didn’t lovelove it until the middle, I still kind of loved it lots but he can do no wrong in my eyes and . . . look, just take this grain of salt, okay? Mark direct taps into my Irish inspired hormonal surges and says he felt a hot flush go through a certain portion of the public, but I’m fairly sure he’s talking about bootie knitting, cardigan wearing, golden oldies so just to be sure I throw some epithets in his general direction. He loved the arrangement but the build wasn’t enough for him, he wanted MORE falsetto, MORE! But Marcia loved that pace and calls it beautiful. Kyle who cops to this being his Judge’s Choice song for Damien, calls the arrangement piddly.

SGS Shaneequa : Hmmm....you probably should have sung this first and saved your touchdown for last - there were moments that it just didn't work....and not just for me...but for the other people who had managed to appear in my loungeroom by this stage bearing wine (bless them!). Shaky/pitchy lower register - which I'm sure Ms Belle will blame on my retro tv and not Irish! Song was chosen for its falsetto - gee there's a new trick - but the majority of it was kinda 'meh'. And then we get to the falsetto, which (to be honest) he used to do much better. It used to be soft, subtle and used appropriately - now, it's his thing which he blurts it out with gusto whenever he can....and to that I say 'yawn'. Ah well, as Joey from Friends would say 'it's a moo point' - he's through to the final. End of story.

(Heeeee, ‘moo’ point . . .)

Shaneequa’s girl Jessica has been saddled with a veritable melisimatic-fest of a song, Whitney Houston/Mariah Carey’s ‘When You Believe’ and boy oh boy – that’s a test. Those two girls have pipes to spare. And Jessica falters on this one again. She starts off sounding quite weak and looks absolutely petrified. It doesn’t really pick up until the middle when the glory notes come out – she forgets to trill and full on BELTS as she kicks it up a register and it is much much better. Kyle chose this song for Jess and is disappointed with her rendition, he expected and wanted to be blown away. Mark, on the other hand calls her living proof of what you can achieve when you believe. Fosse believes he may vomit. I concur. Marcia and her very own Special Guest Star daughter Deni, think Jess is the most natural singer ever to come on the show and quotes the idiot to her right by saying “don’t mess with Jess”.

SGS Shaneequa : You know what Sandilands, you can just fuck right off. Not only did you give this performer a duet to sing on her own (I mean really!) but you gave her a god-awful duet that I don't like by two singers who push me to the very limits of my tolerance for music. Don't get me wrong, when I'm driving alone in my car sometimes I turn my iPod to a Whitney power-ballad and sing myself stupid (usually Run to You....long story) but she still irks me. And don't even get me started on Mariah - blurgh. Still - I thought Jess did amazingly well with the song and I willingly listened to the whole thing....despite the Mariah/Whitney thing. Vocally, it was great and she nailed it - but I didn't see her light up when she sang this one like she has in the past - she usually looks like she is having SO much fun. Still, she got the notes, she got the style....and she got sassed by the judges. Here's where my conspiracy theory starts - they are pushing for an all male grand-final...lest they end up with another female winner. More on that later.....

Jess has no idea what Lulu’s ‘To Sir With Love’ is about. Oh sweetie, I know you’re seventeen and its not as if this is a highly political song by a highly political band that you’ve turned into your usual god awful bouncy speak-sing style Wasabi piece of crap I still can’t believe you got a motherfucking touchdown for Eye Of The fucking Tiger DeadtomeOnetrickpo . . . thaaaaaaat’s not where I thought I was going with that . . . anyway . . . back to Jessica who is sounding amazing. This song could not suit her voice more, it’s totally in her range and every note sounds clean and gorgeous. There is little to no trilling (which makes me ridiculously happy) and she belts out the end, and I am reminded of the brilliantly awesome job she did on ‘Beautiful’ all those weeks ago. Mark admits to being so thrown by Jess not knowing what the song was about that it lost some meaning for him, that he might have believed her performance more if he hadn’t known that. He flatters her voice, calling her effortless and praising the key change but is still unmoved. Marcia cops to singing lots of songs and not knowing much about them and still thinks Jess did a dynamite job. Kyle has never ever cared about the lyrics or meaning of a song (witness : Girls are sexy, made out of pepsi, boys are rotten, made out of cotton, ooh aah, I lost my bra,I left it in my boyfriends car. The defense RESTS) and says she had him from the first second.

SGS Shaneequa : Ah Jess - sweetie - you could have walked on water and Holden still wouldn't have given you the touchdown you deserved. You nailed it....vocally beautiful....you connected (despite Mark's comments about the meaning of it all - gee, who didn't see him picking on that?!?!)...you looked the part....hell, you even had Sandilands on side - what else can you do?!?! Nevermind kiddo - you don't need to record a bland album full of songs that will realistically never get any air-play - you're a great performer, a kick-ass singer and someone who is just enjoyable to watch. I reckon you could still make it through....

Dean has been given John Mayer’s ‘Waiting on The World To Change’ and I have to give major props to whoever chose this song for him. His voice really suits it, all his usual flaws and weaknesses are hidden, its totally in his range and it’s a good poppy, peppy song that takes itself seriously only to a point. He completely, pointlessly and rather badly scats in the middle. I . . . don’t . . . know why. His sliding falsetto at the end is really rather good, and you KNOW that kills me to say. It is the best performance we’ve seen from him that didn’t also include a public audition for the Australian gymnastics team. Mark is giddy about the song, saying the melody and range is right on the money for him (not in the pocket though Mark? Shame) and finishes by crowing “Welcome back Deano!”. Marcia praises the backup singers, who don’t get nearly enough credit – those guys do some really really good work - and tells Dean it’s the most soulful he’s sounded. Kyle takes a moment to lambaste journalists who call Dean ‘the one who can’t sing’ and points out that he wouldn’t have made to the Final Three if he couldn’t sing and I can NOT resist flogging the dead horse (pony) that is Lee Harding.

SGS Shaneequa : Oh Dean.....the under-age kiddies in their make-up and boob tubes may have thought you were 'da bomb', but you were a dud in my books. I mean hey - it was fine - it wasn't hideously bad (although that scat was just embarassing!)....but the word that came to mind at the end of it was 'OK'. You know what? Needs to be more than that for a final 3 performance sunshine.....even though the judges were all over you...welcoming you back to the competition....telling you that you were 'soulful'.....whatever......blah blah blah. Urgh - it's starting to become crystal clear.....Dean - you have a penis - welcome to the grand final.

I don’t know his second song, Edwin McCain’s ‘I’ll Be’ and am momentarily dumbfounded because is he wearing a rosary around his neck? Is . . . that even allowed? (Purps??) He gives very good soul eye to the camera during this performance and the arrangement builds nicely. When he stepped down from the stool he was perched on for the first half I thought my tv would shatter when all the fifteen year olds in the audience collectively screamed like he was John Lennon. He Callea Points and Fosse spasms in pain. We struggle to hear what he’s actually singing about, his diction is absolutely shocking but it’s a pretty decent song, another good choice for him and I would have liked it more if not for the fact that I don’t think an average pretty singer should make it through over two not so pretty but fathoms better singers purely because he stepped up now instead of weeks ago like the others. Do I even need to recap the bullshit hoops Holden jumps through to make sure we know that he wants Dean to win? I mean, there’s bias (and I admit to being incredibly biased about Irish) and then there is blatant favouritism. I don’t have a problem with Mark having a favourite or even giving him a seriously unworthy touchdown, but looking down the camera and telling Sony BMG to sign him no matter what, is crossing the line. Take the CEO aside and have a whisper in his or her ear at your leisure Mark, but DON’T use ten minutes of this show to basically tell the Australian public that they shouldn’t bother voting for anyone else. ESPECIALLY when you NOT HALF AN HOUR AGO welcomed him back. BACK, Mark. Meaning he’s been gone, meaning he hasn’t put in the performances that the other two have, meaning that you should shut your damn fool mouth. RiDICulous. Marcia and Kyle basically reiterate that they want a boy to win, specifically this boy – although they couch it in terms that don’t scream of favouritism quite as much as Mark’s did and WE GET IT. Okay. Yes. He is your favourite, he’s a publicists wet dream, he doesn’t have wonky teeth and he’ll appeal to the teenage girls who will use their lunch money to buy multiple copies of Smash Hits with him on the cover so they can cover their walls and door with Dean posters because he’s soooo dreamy and who will hold their breath until Daddy takes a second job to pay for their Idol phone bills. Fuck. If he gets through tonight it will be because of this performance, no not his own, Mark’s. On the flip side though, if he doesn’t get through, it may just be for the same reason.

SGS Shaneequa : Inexplicable touchdown - WTF is with that? There were pitch issues, it was boring - we should be saying adios to god-boy this week. And Holdens 'you'll have a record deal in minutes' - puh-lease! This little one has had a record deal since the day he made it into the comp - with that hair, those eyes, the hoards of screaming munchkins with money to burn who hang on his ever inarticulate word AND the fact that he hasn't worked out who he is an artist yet so can be moulded by record company execs - what label WOULDN'T sign him! D'uh!

Sidebar : Work Colleague came up to me earlier this morning and (and I quote verbatim) said the following : “Mark Holden is the biggest cockhead of all time”. I didn’t question or argue, just nodded, thanked him for his time and agreed. Red seconded the motion and it was carried with full support of the members. All proxies and absentee votes were counted and the motion was written into the minutes.

In a world Ruled By TallulahBelle and Shaneequa I think you know who the Final Two would be. Dean would be summarily dismissed, never to be heard of again until a Where Are They Now special for the tenth anniversary season of Idol, when the multi Grammy and Aria award winning, curer of cancer and solver of world hunger, 2006 Winner of Idol Special Guest Star Damien Leith makes an unexpected appearance. My fingers are crossed for a remarkably decent and deserving final two of Jess and Irish. I would even settle for Dean and Irish but will go post nuclear and cry myself to sleep if it’s Jess and Dean.

TallulahBelle out.

And it isn't even my birthday . . .

With the absolute motherfuckingly awesome kickass results from yesterdays midterm elections; the Democrats winning the House; the Senate looking like it might actually possibly maybe pretty please go the same way; the religious right taking a BASHING over the head because voters took back their abortion rights in incredibly staid South Dakota and Arizona said fuck off to banning same sex marriage; with my new Best Friend Forever Nancy Pelosi* poised to become the first woman ever to be Speaker of the House - did I think things could POSSIBLY get better? No. No, I didn't. But then they did.

At left. Donald fucking Rumsfeld, or as he's known in my house Satan, has taken the brunt of Bush's bewildered and dithering anger about the results yesterday and has fallen on his sword - something he should have done three years ago when he conspired to help Bush lie to the American people and the rest of the world when they told us all that there were weapons of mass destruction and Saddam must be stopped. Now, I don't disagree that Saddam was an evil fucker who should have been taken out at birth, but to willingly and maliciously lie to the world about why it should be done, to refuse to accept the consquences of that lie, a lie that the leader of my own country bought, to participate in the deaths of over SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND Iraqi people and to STILL refuse to refute that you were in any way wrong? You can fuck right off Donald and you can take that bitch Condeleeza with you.

*Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, will not only become the first woman to take this role, it also puts her second in line to the big job, the only person in her way being Vice President DickCheney (Who? Yeah.) and this is the closest a woman has gotten to that job too. (She is also one of the few Democrats who voted against taking military action against Iraq, unlike my girl Hillary whom I love dearly, but who disappointed me greatly by voting yes.) Now I'm not advocating assassination attempts, but if say, Bush and Cheney were somehow 'put' into a medically induced coma for the next couple of years . . . well, Nancy, I don't think anyone would really mind . . .

Gubernatorial is the coolest word

With the polling finishing up in the States over the next couple of hours, in what basically amounts to a referendum on the war in Iraq, I find myself biting my nails and twitching every time I log on to CNN or Foxnews to see how the Democrats go this time around the merry-go-round. The results are trickling through and so far so good, but I refuse to get too excited until the final counts are in. I remember the falling, sinking, stomach churning gamut of emotions I inflicted on myself last time - when Kerry's exit poll figures were so freaking brilliant at the start of the day but which very quickly turned out to be nothing but wishful thinking and creative reporting. Although the Dems have stolen two Senate seats already, odds are that the Reps will hold the Senate. My fingers remain firmly crossed that the House will go Dem.

Seriously, its days like this I find it hard to concentrate on breathing . . . come on America, make me happy, give Bush the bitch slap he so very richly deserves.

(If you're interested in a great site to check up on results the Daily Kos is an excellent choice.)

Update at 3.20pm Aust Eastern Time - CNN is projecting the Democrats have won the motherfucking House!! I am resisting the urge to scream loudly and victoriously at work . . .

Irish is The One That I Want

Dear I Talk Too Much reader,

It is with great sorrow and heaviness of my heart that I come to you today, my friends. (Self) burdened as I am with the responsibility of recapping all four Idols, I fear a Difficulty Has Arisen. I find myself Faced With A Quandary, a Confusion of sorts. A Trouble.
How exactly, am I to remain invested in the other Idol’s? How? HOW?! How do I recap their performances adequately and fairly, when I can see and hear only one? It is, as if the skies had parted on a cloudy day and angels had reached down from their lofty, pillowy clouds of heavenly goodness to impart some small happiness upon us lowly, earthbound mortals. And lo, but we did bare our faces to the brilliance of their love. And it was good.
For real though, this whole thing is over, yeah? We’re done. Irish has won. Strike the set, pack up the scaffolding and ship it back to the nearest Westfield shopping centre, put Mark back into the medically induced coma I assume he enters as soon as the person he doesn’t want to win, wins, return to sender Sandilands back to his shockjock radio station gig permanently, let Marcia toddle off to pimp her Diva CD at Mardi Gras and let’s all just go back to watching Law and Order on Sunday nights whilst we wait for The Best CD Ever To Come Out Of Idol And Featuring Fabulous Fathoms Of Fantastic Falsetto to hit our local Sanity record stores, shall we?

No?

FINE.

Not content with foisting one performance on us for me to recap, JUST as we get down to a manageable four contestants, they screw me completely by letting the Idol’s sing two songs each. My carpal tunnel aches just thinking about it.

Little cutie Jess opens the show with *shudder* a Mariah Carey number ‘Butterfly’ – this is what her fans voted for her to do? Really? Okay, so obviously someone enjoys the trillympics and they’re determined to make us enjoy it as well. Unfortunately Jessica sounds really nasal singing this song, as if she’s trying to sing too much like Mariah and not at all like Jessica. She trills and oversings so much that . . . okay, does anyone else have a grandmother who is completely batshit crazy about frilly fripperies? I do. Every time I go to my grandmother’s house, there are new embroideries to see, handstitched cushions to sit next to (never on!) and doilies to admire – it’s like a kewpie doll from the 1920’s exploded in her house, lace as far as the eye can see. She just keeps adding and adding, I worry for her walls, laden as they are with the burden of heavily framed cross stitched portraits of Ladies In Waiting. Don’t get me wrong, Grandma’s very good at it, she sews like a dervish and it makes her incredibly happy which makes her grandchildren very happy – we love the people we love, to love what fills their days – but it is just so much. My grandmother’s house is exactly like Jessica’s singing. Yes, the glorynoting is fabulous and the singing itself – although nasal – is still very good, but it is just so much and I’m tired just listening to it. Mark calls it great Viewers Choice, noting that although it isn’t an easy song to sing everything Jess does makes it look easy. Marcia completely fucking confuses everyone who has ever watched an episode of Idol by stating that she isn’t going to criticise anymore, she’s just going to sit back and enjoy the ride. I pause the tape and ask Fosse if I just had a stroke, because she didn’t just say that, did she? Hilarity ensues. Kyle thought it was awkward until halfway through and begs her to not stop getting better.

Her second song is Alicia Keys’ ‘Karma’ and THIS is more the hell like it! It’s upbeat, a little racy, she’s bopping around the stage in the most AWESOME boots, Jess is confident and rocking this song. Look! There she is! The girl I’ve missed these last trill filled weeks. She has just the best time with this number and sounds fantastic. If she could just walk the line between pop princess and lyrical gymnast a tad more, I would be back on the Jess train. As it is, I still think she deserves to be one of the final two standing. Standing next to Irish as he wins, but you knew that. Mark wants to give her a touchdown but she wasn’t quite there for him. He then busts on her a little for always choosing songs with hard phrasing which leads to tricky breathing. Marcia tells him to shut the hell up because the viewers chose these songs and I mutter at the screen that while the viewers chose the songs, they chose them from a group of songs that the Idol’s themselves nominated, so suck on that Marcia (and you too, Dean, you fucking whinger). She continues, calling it the most comfortable and sassy Jess has been on stage and tells Jess to find that place for every performance. Kyle adds his kudos to her strutting of the stage and calls the performance ‘very cool to watch’.

Chris’ fans think he is the one to break the Robbie ‘Best Friend to Kyle Sandilands’ Williams curse, with his performance of ‘Something Beautiful’ and on paper this is a brill song choice for Mr Murphy as its one of his pop-iest rock songs. Chris starts off at the keyboards which I applaud because that means less Jack Blackisms, right? It is nice to hear him trying something different but this comes across as quite bland until he key changes it up an octave. He also walks away from the keyboards purely, it would appear so he can put on his best School of Rock (the film following the Idol show – coincidence? I think not . . . ) Mark unfairly compares the two Murphy boys, noting that the CourtJester finished third and wondering if that’s causing some less than harmonious family dinners, and of course Chris doesn’t want to play this game and just lets Mark know he’s here to win and his brother will be very happy for him if he does, thanks very much. Marcia, direct quote and the total sum of her comments to Chris : “Well done.” And well fucking done to you too Marcia, you are absolutely worth every shiny penny you get paid for this gig. You are not in any way a complete waste of our time, our energy and nor does your complete inability to coherently put forward any useful critique hinder the Idol process. We thank you for your incredibly valuable time and input. Please feel free to tell us what colour the sky is and your opinion on whether humans should breathe in and out regularly. Like me, Kyle was a little disappointed with the performance as a whole and didn’t think it was as powerful as it normally would have been and likens it to a rehearsal.

His second song is – breathe TallulahBelle breathe – a Crowded House song, ‘Mean To Me’. I sternly warn him not to fucking Jack Black Neil Finn and am very pleased that he comes out with the Gibson strapped to his chest again. He rocks it out and his performance has improved markedly from the previous one – his singing is rougher (in a good rock way) and I enjoy it. Granted, I can’t stop myself singing along but I think that’s more about my Crowdie love and less about this performance. Its not ‘Evie’ but its still pretty fun and rocking. He should always play that guitar. Always. I look away from the tv when he does the head flick thing because I don’t want to scream like a harridan at him right this very moment. Mark apparently doesn’t think I hate him quite fucking enough because he CALLS IT THE BEST VERSION OF THAT SONG HE’S EVER HEARD. I am SURE he means outside of the Crowded House version because if he thinks that ANYONE does Neil better than Neil (and yes, I’m including Irish’s Message To My Girl, which was brilliant, but still not better than Neil) then he is tripping and also COMPLETELY INSANE. Marcia tells Chris what he already knows, ie you look really comfortable with that guitar, strutting your stuff and well done. Kyle calls it Perfectly Chris, that’s what he should do always.

Dean. Oh Dean. ‘Dare You To Move’ by Switchfoot should have been your bag, baby. It should have been a walk in the effing park, instead it was like that first time you try to jog when you don’t know how to do the breathing properly and you think you’re going to have an asthma attack, or choke, or both. Painful and laborious, is what I’m saying. His vocals are really shaky and he just can’t hit those lower notes at all. I want it to be over for him, thanks. Mark doesn’t know how to handle it, telling him he was under the note in his lower register and that for one of the most bankable people to ever appear on this show, he is waaaay off the track. Marcia babbles about the stress of performing and PR and pressure and I think if he can’t handle doing the odd radio interview, showing up to the ARIA’s and performing ONE NIGHT OF THE WEEK, then an actual tour will kill him stone dead. Kyle thinks he’s giving a half effort, whether it be because he thinks he can just coast or maybe he’s truly over the whole thing but that he and Marcia think he’s better than he thinks he is. It is almost as if they’re trying to convince him that he wants this, but Dean looks pained by the whole process. It’s the same look we saw in Lisa’s eyes for the three weeks prior to her leaving.

Second song is (oh, save me) a Nickleback song, GOD I hate those guys. It isn’t even a slightly less annoying Nickleback song, it’s ‘Last One Standing’, gah. To be fair, his vocals are a vast improvement on his first song (which has been true for all the Idol’s tonight, their second songs have been a great deal better than their first). He actually uses the stage a little better, coming to the front and waving to the crowd (although Fosse insists he’s waving to Jesus), however his pained facial expressions seem to have been borrowed from Ricky. He has crazy eyebrows and is frowning a lot, possibly he’s concentrating really really hard but it is quite disconcerting. Mark jumps in with the worried frowns and the ‘I’m concerned my favourite might go’ furrows. He thinks Dean is holding back for some reason and hopes that Team Dean gets behind him – why? Why exactly should they do that Mark? To keep a mediocre performer in the competition who will look good on a CD cover, over three infinitely more talented individuals who might not grace quite as many magazines topless? (And by the way, don’t ever do that Jess. Or you, Chris. Irish . . . it’s up to you man, but I could stand to see that . . .) Marcia believes Dean can still win but that he needs to start pulling performances and tricks out of his hat again, and I say once more, if he needs to resort to ‘tricks’ that aren’t vocal and that don’t add to his actual singing or stagecraft then Shut Up Marcia. Kyle wants to know if he’s got something on his mind and they – honest to god – badger the boy to publically confess that there’s something going on in his life that is affecting his performing and I say if its affecting his performing that much, then JUST MAYBE it isn’t something he wants the FUCKING WORLD TO KNOW, Kyle.

I personally voted for Irish to sing Roy Orbison’s ‘Crying’ and aren’t in the least surprised that others did as well – it’s a perfect song for him to do. He literally brings Fosse to tears with this performance. I feel a ridiculous sense of pride when he hits those glorious high notes because of course, the falsetto is lovely. But even better are the big huge Roy Orbison booming soaring notes that are so blooming large you can actually see his tonsils at one point. He has me on the floor. I will go to the mat for this boy. I have loved Idols before (Chanel, take a bow) but I haven’t been this actively invested in someone who has this much chance of winning. I liked Guy over Shannon, Casey over Anthony, Kate over Emily but I love this guy’s voice. Absolutely love it. I will be crushed beyond words if he doesn’t make it to the Final Two. Mark says he could have listened to the whole version of that song instead of a truncated Idol-lite version and I silently cross my fingers that Irish gets the chance to do that at the Opera House. He also gives him a Touchdown but that was a total fait accompli. Marcia says there isn’t much left to say once a TD is in the house but that his falsetto is marvellous and that he had a good portion of the audience swooning (women over 25 and gay men of Australia give an ‘amen’ – as based on the snap poll of my living room, with Fosse and myself as representatives of both demographics). Kyle says simply that it was ‘absolutely perfect’ and he’s right. It was.

If we’d gotten to vote twice for the Idol’s I’d have chosen Irish’s second song to be ‘Hallelujah’ as I am not quite jaded enough to be sick to death of this song. Truth be told (Shrek notwithstanding) this song makes me cry when ANYONE does it, so this was always going to make me misty. Unlike ‘Crying’ where he falsetto-ed all over the place, Irish holds off until the very end to hit us with it and it compliments the song beautifully. It is evocative, haunting, I could listen to his voice for hours and am desperate for him to get his ass in the studio and start recording so I can indulge my obsession. It is amazingly good. Oh Irish, you damn talented fucking bastard. It’s just him, his guitar and the backup singers. The arrangement is admirable in its restraint and Mark hits the nail on the head when he tells him he has simply stolen the show and gives him the touchdown I always knew this song would get him but that I didn’t think he’d get after already receiving one for ‘Crying’. I am shellshocked that Mark has laid out two in one show for that ‘ugly bastard’ with the bad teeth who only appeals to grannies and Val Doonican fans. Marcia tells him he is setting an amazing precedent and the other Idol’s will have to step it the hell up. He has seen Chris’ ‘Evie’ and raised him a double touchdown, good luck re-raising Murphy. Kyle admits that there is nothing else to say except that tonight he is simply the best. I worry that it may hurt Irish to have done two such similar songs in the one night – ballad-y songs – but honestly. If people are voting for anyone else but him . . . well. They can just go to hell, really. (Shaneequa, I should just go ahead and consider this the death knell of our friendship, yes?)

In a righteous and just world, Damien would be nowhere near the bottom three tonight and if he is then I will throw the Hissy Fit Heard Across The Globe. It should be the others and really – really – it should be Dean going home tonight. But stranger things have happened and it would just be like the universe to finally give me someone I can love who should win this damn thing and then throw them out this close. God, the stress might just give me an ulcer. Hold me?

TallulahBelle out

When Irish Eyes Are Smiling

Preface :
12th March, 1992.
A date forever embedded in my memory for two reasons.
One, it's the first time I ever gave blood and the nurse missed my vein the first couple of times she tried. My arm looked like a pincushion for days.
Second, it's the date that Crowded House played the Belvoir Ampitheatre in Perth for their And Then There Were Three tour. It wasn't the first time I'd seen the Crowdies play - hell, I'd been in love with Neil Finn for years (it was the video clip for I Got You that . . . well . . . got me, and I've had a terrible terrible weakness for boys in eyeliner ever since and that is the only viable explanation I can give you for adoring DeadtomeOnetrickponyLee for five seconds last year) - but the one moment that sticks in my mind most from that day (even more so than the searing pain of having a needle stuck several times into my arm whilst being reassured that this time they had it) is after the first set, when Neil, Nick and Paul had left the stage. Neil quietly walked back on - to thunderous applause and girlish screams - made his way to the keyboards and proceeded to sing Message To My Girl. Just him. Just Neil singing one of the Geatest Songs He Has Ever Written. It was like he was singing just to me, I'm sure it felt that way to every person who was there. It was angelic and one of the single greatest things on stage I've ever witnessed.

(I also got to grab his bum when he crowd surfed earlier but thats a slightly less romantic story and he's a married man . . . )

I tell you this story in hope that you will better understand the trepidation I felt upon hearing that my boy Irish would be singing one of my all time favourite songs by my all time favourite singer/songwriter. I won't hide it, I was concerned - would Damien insist on falsetto-ing his way through it? Would he - god forbid - dance? I was nervous for him and for me. But then the camera pulled back and there he was, sitting at the piano, smiling timidly at the camera as he played those first beautiful notes and SWEET JESUS, I will NEVER doubt this boy again because this is astounding. He keeps the falsetto to a minimum, hitting only those top notes that Neil loves to do. He gets my blood pumping, my eyes misting, my head swooning and my heart beating just that little bit faster. He is gorgeous and soaring and I silently beg his forgiveness for ever doubting that he would do this song justice. Mark loves the direction he's taking, that Irish has backed away from the Val Doonican, and quite frankly I think Mark was the only one who ever saw that in him. Marcia talks about moved piano's going out of tune and that she's explainaing to the audience at home what went 'wrong' and it's that moment when I realise that the Fugue Of Love that surrounds me when Irish sings must be a lot fucking denser then I realise because I didn't hear a damn thing wrong with the piano in that song. Kyle believes Irish has the potential to have an internationally successful career and I draft a memo to Chris Isaak to get ready to see Damien staying at a lot of the same hotels because I think they're going to bump into each other every once in a while.


Ricky's last performance on Idol is a cover of the Bee Gee's 'To Love Somebody'. He is once again looking supersharp in a light lavender Saturday Night Fever Suit homage, but with less sequins. It's a lounge-y, upbeat version of the ballad and he has, some might say predictably, RnB'd it up. I defend his decision to do this - at this point, surely you don't fuck with a formula unless you can The Prayer at us (of course, in his case, we all know at this point that it didn't so much work out well for his standing in the competition). He sings it well and has a sweet key change, but then completely skewers his final note like he's working for the Soprano's and had to take someone out. The Eyebrows register displeasure and look like they're going to take Ricky to task once they're done. You can practically see them seething on his forehead, planning to smack him around later, maybe hit him with a bag of oranges, leave a horse's head in his bed or something. Seriously, The Eyebrows are pissed. Mark almost loved it but busts on him for that last godawful note which leads into a shit fight with Marcia about whether or not Mark has a soul, which, come on Marcia, we all already know the answer to that one and it involved a sacrificial goat, the blood of a virgin (thanks again Dean!) and the ritualistic destruction of Dicko's career. Enjoy the Celebrity Survivor wrap party, Dicko. Marcia gets down with her bad self, talks some smack and then completely becomes a caricature of herself by telling Mark to talk to her hand. I want him to bite it but she probably hasn't had her rabies shots this season yet and it could get messy. Kyle still loves his boy Ricky and applauds him stepping out of his comfort zone but dogs him for the bad note all the same. The Eyebrows consider getting a restraining order against Ricky because he's ruining their career but realise that would be unfeasible - how would they get around?

I don't like Stevie Wright's song 'Evie'. But Chris rocks the living daylights out of this song. He comes out strapped into his Gibson and when he kicks in the first verse, I reluctantly admit that this is a fairly genius song choice for him to make. His voice suits it, it's crowdpleasing and it reminds us that his roots are in pub rock. He's left most of the Tenacious D impersonation at home (AC/DC headflick from last week notwithstanding) and I'm not ashamed to say that when he busts out the guitar solo in the middle, I pump up the volume, head bang my little brains out and make the devil horns at him in salute. This is as rock as Idol has EVER been and has to get a touchdown, right? Its a MOTHERFUCKING GUITAR SOLO. That is sooooo ace. Mark doesn't disappoint and gets right to the TD with a high five thrown in for good measure. Marcia calls him a rock god and . . . yeah, word. Dude just stepped this fucker up. Kyle basically salaams at his feet and I feel for Ricky, sandwiched in between the soothing brilliance of Irish and the wicked awesomeness of this. I note that this is going to really hurt Ricky's numbers (and hey, look at that! I'm right, two weeks in a row. Savour it Tallulah, odds are it won't happen again.) For the first time ever, I wish I had been in the audience because that would have been amazing to see up close and personal. It would have been astounding. You would have thought you'd witnessed the second coming.

Our second Bee Gee's song of the night is from young Jessica and it's not a BG song I'm familiar with, 'Words' but I assume that the BG's version has a lot less trilling. (Upon openly admitting to not knowing this, Fosse snorts incredulously and refuses to speak to me for the next five minutes.) Jess is looking very 1960's Sandra Dee and her voice sounds like it is in much better condition then it has been the past few weeks. She still absolutely loves what she's doing and the enthusiasm is still infectious but I've got one foot off the Jess Train and the other is in the process of leaving. I feel like she's done nothing but ballads for weeks and despite what I said about Ricky, she does need to give us something more because we know she can do it. She can't be vocal gymnastics girl all the time. Part of the reason I didn't recap the Unplugged night - other than the fact that I was initially ROPEABLE that Bobby had been allowed back to perform and then crushed by the horrid realisation that his was the only original song actually worth listening too - was the disappointment in Jessica's performance of 'What The World Needs Now' because what the world doesn't need, is another birdlike warbling of a ballad where the original note has been lost somewhere beneath the overwrought oversinging that I am over. She emotes the hell out of this song but the vocals are still too fragile and frail and I am forced to shake my head sadly. Mark labels it sublime and gives Jess Irish's touchdown. Marcia calls it a well rounded interpretation, whilst Kyle tells her she is simply beautiful and has one of the finest voices ever to come out of Australia.

Dean gets the coveted end spot billing, and this, along with him being in 'the bottom two' last week - allegedly, Andrew G never actually said he was bottom two . . . - has me muttering 'fixed' under my breath. They sooooo desperately want this bland little poster boy to win. Oh good god, urgh, he's singing 'Every Time You Cry' by John fucking Farnham. Jesus. Why didn't you just do 'Sadie The Cleaning Lady'. Fucking hell. He sits on a stool in the middle of the stage for most of the performance and it is blandness personified. Honestly, it's as if in some lab somewhere they figured out how to literally anthropomorphise Bland and mould it into boy form for your own personal edification. Buy a Dean now, just in time for Christmas! Not anatomically correct!! Get the fuck off the stool, stand, do SOMETHING. This is truly dull and he doesn't sing it at all well, I mean it's still pretty good but he's not in the same class vocally as the rest of the current contestants and Ricky's horror note aside, this is the lamest performance of the night. Mark calls him a teen dream but laments the lack of any decent vocals, causing me to shout FINALLY into the night skies. He commends the falsetto and I rack my brain trying to remember exactly when he falsetto-ed in the song. The Irish in my head scoffs, hunts down Dean's falsetto and delivers it a cracking head butt. Marcia belives that Dean has done the best job of listening and growing than anyone else on the show. Ever. Kyle acknowledges the work Dean has done and the work he still has to do and then tells a 'story' about being at a party (not, sadly, with His Friend Robbie Williams) in Sydney with 45 year old women who were all going crazy for Dean. I refute that claim. On behalf of women with a brain over the age of 25 who don't just fall for The Pretty, I greatly, loudly and vehemently refute that claim. Maybe it was Dean's mum.

And we all know what happened next. I got no sleep. Irish was in the FUCKING bottom three. Dean isn't as popular as they all think he is. Ricky went home.

TallulahBelle out.