Rock Star - July 3rd Mansion Show

Fresh. That’s how Tommy Lee describes the music that his new band Supernova has been recording in the studio. But based on the clip they played for their newbie rockers, I think the only way someone else might describe it as fresh is if one had just stumbled out of the depths of the Amazon jungle for the first time and had never heard of Guns n’ Roses. Why would we expect otherwise? I’m sure Tommy and Jason aren’t breaking fresh ground on drums and bass, respectively, so now it just sounds like the guitar player from Guns n’ Roses practicing until Axl makes bail and shows up for rehearsal. But that won’t stop us from enjoying the show, right?

Other impressions:
Matt reminds me of a generic former child star – not a big star, but maybe one famous for a catch phrase in a commercial who is now grown up and completely at a loss over what to do with his life and whether he should be grateful for his past or condemn it. Wow. A whole fictitious backstory and I’ve barely heard him speak.

Chris volunteers to go first in the impromptu studio audition. We don’t get to hear much, so they must be hiding something. You can’t fool me, Mark Burnett.

Jill is short and her outfit annoyed me. They seemed to dig her but to me it was like dressing Pat Benatar funny and forcing her to perform at Ozzfest.

Zayra. I absolutely love this crazy broad. Too bad she’ll be gone soon. I’m wondering if they’ll vote her off the island before the network premiere. She’s wonderfully twenty years behind her time. Picture a hybrid of Patti Smith and Gloria Estefan and Joey Ramone and Lydia Lunch and a few others I can’t think of right now. It doesn’t sound like it would work and it really doesn’t, but it’s so bad it’s good. I’m just hoping it doesn’t go back past good and back to bad too quickly. Or have I failed to learn that it's just batshit enough to work?

Toby is from Australia. Yep. Very insightful.

Magni was already making excuses on day one. I worked for a guy that tried to be a bad ass. When something didn’t happen the way he wanted it to, he would ask why, then when you told him he would say, “If I wanted excuses, I would have hired a 3 year old.” Screw him. There’s no way a 3 year old could have presented as sophisticated excuses as I did. I worked at another place where a co-worker would ask me what I was working on. After telling him, he would say, "I don't give a shit what you're doing." It was very endearing.

I think I might have already told you about the girl that worked at the sunglasses kiosk last year. I thought she was pretty hot, but couldn’t think of who she reminded me of. Then I figured it out – she was a younger, brunette version of Charlize Theron. But I was never a big admirer of Charlize, and subsequently it kind of ruined the sunglasses girl for me. This is important because the five second clip of Josh reminded me of another singer and as soon as I figure out who it is, I’ll know whether I like him or not.

Storm proved she can belt it out for five seconds during her clip. Which is good if I need a jingle singer. I’ll defer further judgment until I hear more.

Phil was proclaimed a genius for doing an imitation of my 3 year old niece when she doesn’t want to eat her vegetables. Sure it’s cute for a few seconds, but I don’t think the boys will want to take her or Phil on tour with them. However, I’m not a super producer like Butch so don’t listen to me. Ever.

Ryan decided to give himself an edge over the other rockers by choosing to be the only one not sing in the studio. That seems to be as effective as my strategy of trying out for the Tour de France by sitting home and eating marshmallow fluff and watching Wings reruns. (For any new readers or for those scoring at home, that is the first Wings/Crystal Bernard reference of the season.)

I don’t think any of them saw last season because they all seemed surprised that they were staying at a mansion with a pool. They did the food and champagne thing, with Zayra loading up on the calories before her imminent departure. Just like in real life I wasn’t paying attention to introductions, so I can’t help you there. Next year my New Year’s resolution should be to focus more on that kind of stuff, but I figure if you see someone enough you’ll eventually figure out their name, and if you don’t see them then you really never needed it in the first place. But I digress. Next they picked rooms and Ryan had problems finding a bed like it was a game of musical chairs. Finally a cameraman walked him by the hand to his bed, tucked him in, and smothered him with a pillow. Well, at least that’s what I was hoping for. Hopefully he sucks so they can get rid of his whiney ass.

The rockers were so busy outside working on their tans that when Toby came in to take a leak, the same cameraman that smothered Ryan pushed him into the song room so they could get this thing rolling. In the meantime, Jenny was suffering of a mystery illness, so Storm was sent over to Tom Sawyer her into taking that lame Nickelback song that nobody else wanted. The other songs were distributed through an elaborate decathlon of events that included Rock, Paper, Scissors, a push up contest, arm wrestling, double dutch jump rope, tetherball, Simon Says, Red Rover, thumb wrestling, beer pong, and judo.

Chris, having not listened to Simon, got stuck with Roxanne, and we are left with clips of him warbling like drunk otter. Hopefully he can trick up the song with some chunka-chunka-uh’s like JD did in season one to stay alive. Ryan whined some more about the song he got while the others contemplated how many years they would get for involuntary manslaughter if they accidentally, yet violently, knocked him over the wall and into the Hollywood sign to an early demise.

See you at the fake Mayan Theater.