The Guilt is So Pleasurable

You knew I would watch. This fact was absolutely inevitable. (Hey, if I sit through the Emmy's, I'm gonna watch this.) And, let me tell you my friends, FOX's Celebrity Duets was absolutely rock-solid-C-list-celeb gold! Now, let me take a moment to figure out where to start...

Well, Jai Rodriguez was absolutely phenomenal. This may be due to the fact that he is actually a singer and part of an off-Broadway recording of Zanna Don't: A Musical Fairy Tale (which sales are going infinitely up after tonight's show), but I'm sure everyone can ignore this fact for this amateur singing contest. He rocked it with Gladys Knight! Alfonso Riberio (aka Carlton) was pretty enjoyable in a mediocre sort of way with Michelle "I'm the Only Destiny's Child without a Record Contract" Williams (oh, that wasn't needed). Hal "I'll do Anything for VH-1" did an unusual rendition of "Tracks of My Tears" with Smokey Robinson: while Smokey crooned, Hal screeched. It still worked in a very odd sort of way.

Now, however, the ladies did not fare quite as well. I'm just going to go ahead and skip to gold medalist Carly Patterson, who was one of the worst amateur singers I've ever heard. She was off-pitch, breathy, squeaky, and vibrattoey (yes, it's a word!) all at once. Her duet on "Somewhere Out There" with James Ingram was painful, and I just want to say that Mya Brown and Mike Layman did a much better job at Champaign Central High School's 1995 fall concert extravaganza "Earth Tones." For some reason, however, the judges decided to keep her on and kicked WWE star Chris Jericho off. He's a rocker, with his own band, but they decided to give him a duet on a country ballad with Lee Ann Womack. He wasn't great, but he wasn't off pitch either. I think this was a scripted effort to keep one of America's golden girls on the TV a little while longer. (Jericho is Canadian dontcha know?)

One final note: the judges. They couldn't have found a more rag-tag bunch of misfits. Marie Osmond, Little Richard, and David Foster. There's enough plastic and teeth on that panel to make a dozen new Barbie dolls. Little Richard is frightening to watch, and none of them want to be mean to these "celebrities," who are barely household names.

Just bring on the Richard Marx guest spot, but if that Carly girl gets to sing with him, I quit. (What I quit I'm not sure, but I'll quit it, I swear.) Oh! And Alfonso said if he gets to the finals he'll do the Carlton Dance. Suh-weet!!!