Sometimes you kick, sometimes you get kicked

Here I am in our very sleepy apartment- usually I am the one in bed early while K stays up way late.
However, he was up all night (morning?) doing a freelance sound job on Good Morning America and didn't really get any sleep; he managed to stay awake long enough to watch the "elimination" episode of Rock Tard oops I mean Rock Star. We were wondering... If INXS choses a new lead singer, what will they do next season? Or will the network people find bands that have had other people die/leave the band/enter rehab and use the same concept?

Today's extra credit question- what would be the best band to embrace this crass concept? I had a few thoughts for candidates- Van Halen (find the new diamond dave!), and The Doors (since they already gave into that lame "The doors of the 20th century" thing with Ian Astbury, what's stopping them? As Bob Dylan said, when you got nothin', you got nothin' to lose).

Tonight's episode was 2 minutes of decision crammed into a 30 minute show. Here's how the eliminations happen: we the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice & insure domestic tranquility (had a schoolhouse rock slip there) can get on our phones, text messaging, or computers after the performance episode and vote for the people we like best... then empty headed Brooke Burke comes out and tells us who the three biggest losers are (in no particular order, she assures us). Then, the mediocre three get on stage with Brooke and get to each perform " to save their lives for one more week!". Brooke keeps telling us that the competition is really heating up and getting intense. INXS are remaining really nice and encouraging, and Dave Navaro never says anything bad either- they are doing a great job of hiding the tension. Every song the three are asked to sing is a cover of an INXS song. I recognized all 3 of tonight's songs but I think they're going to have trouble if they keep doing this every week- they band didn't have that many hits.

Before she tells us which three are the worst, the band gives special comments to some people who they thought improved greatly since last week, or did especially good performances. No mention of personal style at all! I feel like I did the wrong homework assignment. I apologize deeply for not focusing on the talent when the previous show told us how important the "look" was. It will not happen again.

So, the three are: Tara, who sang Paranoid; Neil, who sang Summer of 69, and Jessica, who sang Purple Haze.

Neil goes up first and is asked to sing "Suicide Blond" (again with the suicide!). I hate this song, so really any version of it would have sounded bad to me... he isn't really awful, just doesn't sing very well. However, he does have the right look- good shag hair-do, skinny swivel hipped bod, cute enough face for the girls to swoon over. He works the stage okay- better than some of the others, like Mig, who simply fell over on the stage at the end of his song (I forgot to mention that, but there were so many other things going on that I needed to work out).

Next is Tara, who is asked to sing "Mystify". She does much better than the previous night; out of the lower three she has the strongest voice. We (correctly) assume she is safe.

Last, Jessica is asked to sing " Don't Change". Before she sings, DN notes how "Purple Haze" didn't really suit her- the understatement of the week. She looks like she escaped her sorority house for the night. She starts off super weak, but does manage to finish poorly.

What we agreed the choice really came down to was this- whose ass do we want to look at for another week? The winner was... Jessica! Buh bye, Neil, no more reality TV for you!

Neil politely thanked the INXS group for the opportunity to perform for them & held himself together; DN gave a smarmy little "You're a total star, dude, and I can't wait to see what you do next!!!". The rest of the group gave Neil a big group hug, and some girl or two made hysteric-face w/major tears to the cameras... they are all very self conscious about the fact they are on TV, when they announced the loser they showed Ty's reaction and I swear I could read his lips saying "Oh no way you're kidding!".

This was a shortie b/c I am too tired to type- I left out all the BS about the manufactured tension in the house where everyone ganged up on J! D! Fortune!, the dude who was living in his car. He made some ass-kissing comment the previous night after he sang about how the other people were working really hard on learning the INXS repertoire, when he already knew all the songs because he loves them. JD, what's that brown stuff on your nose? I predict this guy is going to have a giant meltdown at some point- he's way too keyed up all the time. He's our house ticking time bomb.

Off to bed and a weekend of activity- Monday is a new show! The cycle begins again!

Fosters, Australian for beer, g'day
S.