Sarah Palin's Bridge To Beauty
Wonkette received a tip that the Alaskan governor once got lip liner tattooed on her face, according to a lady from a Wasilla, AK styles salon. The HuffPo picked up on the story and analyzed some photos. It looked legit to them so they put it to a poll. America decided, with a 45% majority, that the pittbull's lipstick was indeed inked. It's pretty compelling stuff, though not more so than the governor's obvious use of the Topsy Tail hairstyling device. I didn't know those even existed anymore. If I find out that she uses a Flowbee too, I might start liking her. Oh and then, heh, there was also that $30,000 governor's mansion tanning bed.

Yeah Dawg, Your Makeup Is Off The Chain, Senator McCain
Hey that rhymed, Randy! Yes, far eclipsing Edwards' Little Lord Fauntleroy haircuts is the Arizonan senator's shameful $5,500 makeup habit. Evidently he has Tifanie White under his employ, who has done the cosmetic work on the hit singing competition (the neighborhood kids tell me), American Idol. Which makes sense. He can be as gurgly and not-make-sensey as Paula Abdul, as silly and shallow as Randy, and is often grumpy, like Simon. Though we've not heard his singing (yet!), we can imagine that he'd blow it out the box, in the style of fellow Arizonan and American Idol winner Jordin Sparks, on "I (Who Have Nothing... But Like Ten Houses)".

Delaware Are Your Wrinkles, Joe?
Say it ain't so! The Post went slinking off to a plastic surgeon the other day, and showed him photos of Senator Biden from a couple of years ago compared with photos of the dude at last Thursday night's big dance debate. "Yes, absolutely, and I would bet my next paycheck," the doctor said when asked if Joey had gotten some Botox on the foreheadal region of his upper face plate (medicine!). Which is fine. If you want to inject botulism into your face, you should be free to do so. And that's what Joe Biden is all about, dammit. Joe Biden says so, and Joe Biden brought you this message.

Masai Gray
Much has been made of Obama's perpetually graying hair. Though, to us, his coif seems to have brightened a bit lately. His stylist or whatever denies ever having dyed. I'd wager that more gray might make him look a little less cubbish, a mite more authoritative. Obama's relative youth works for him on some occasions, but if he looks a little more long in the tooth, maybe people will associate him with experience, thus voting for him. Because if there's one thing you can say about America, it's that we respect our elders.

David Cook, American Idol Season 7
Why He Won: Because, frankly, he was the best. Sure you could sing the praises of a Carly Smithson or even an Archuleta, and yes you could (I certainly would) call Cook a bit smug at times, but he was consistently "in good voice" and as original as this show gets. He did well by himself digging up saucy arrangements of pop staples like "Billie Jean" and forged his own path with the surprisingly rockin' riff on Mariah Carey's "Always Be My Baby."
What the Future Holds: The inevitable tour (which, and you'd better not tell anyone this, I will be attending in Worcester, MA on August 9th. Shh.) A record contract with 19 Entertainment. Big record sales, I predict. He's Daughtry-lite, if that's even possible.

Kristi Yamaguchi, Dancing With the Stars, Season 6
Why She Won: (OK, so she was already a "star.") The figure skating background (she won the gold medal in Albertville in '92) probably didn't hurt. She was a regular favorite on the show because of her superior dancing chops, plus a lady hadn't won since Kelly Monaco in the first season. Take that, ex-football stars and Mario Lopez.
What the Future Holds: I believe there is some sort of tour (which I will not be attending). Hopefully Kristi will film a cameo in The Cutting Edge 4: The Wrath of D.B. Sweeney

Whitney Thompson, America's Next Top Model, Cycle 10
Why She Won: Well, it's a bit mysterious. By all accounts, runner up Anya was consistently better throughout the season. ANTM' s biggest fan Nick Denton (kidding!) recently suggested that it might have been a set-up because Whitney is a "plus-sized" model, and one of those things has never won before. Her Seventeen magazine prize photo shoot may prove or disprove her alleged plus size; I don't know lady parts well enough to determine.
What the Future Holds: She has a year contract with a modeling agency, which involves being a Cover Girl. Very few (I believe only one?) of ANTM's models get that contract renewed, so it's hard to say where Thompson will end up. I imagine at a shopping mall somewhere, plagued by ever-deepening wrinkles caused by car payments and the dim, seemingly shrinking house and the ever-swaying pine trees off in the distance that once seemed to promise her the world but now seem only to fence her in.

Christian Siriano, Project Runway, Season 4
Why It Won: Siriano, hot-tranny verbal mess that he was, was clearly the most adept and promising designer of the bunch. Sure Rami was talented and Jillian was stern and focused, but Christian had that youthful flair. The Gays, whose pink-gloved hands are all over this show, love to remind viewers that youth and charming hubris always trump age and experience, sadly.
What the Future Holds: He is currently designing a collection for Spring Fashion Week in New York (to be held this fall) and designing on commission from fashion mavens like Victoria Beckham. He's also filming a sequel to The Jungle Book.

The Rookies, Real World/Road Rules Challenge, "The Gauntlet III"
Why they Won: Presumably, because they are rookies, the cirrhosis was less advanced. Also their team had been systematically whittled down to a small few, so they were quick and able to beat the large, bloated Veterans team.
What the Future Holds: Automobile accidents, embarrassing pants-dropping at Tallahassee bars, an infinite number of further Challenge seasons. Four of them are already dead. (Not really.)

So, there you have it. Our winningest winners in this most winning of years. Of course, So You Think You Can Dance and Last Comic Standing will be gnawing at us all summer, crowning people some time in August. So, I guess the winning keeps going. And going. And going. It never stops.

So why do we feel like we're losing?

[Times, Best Week Ever]

Mark Harris, an Entertainment Weekly editor and all around smart guy (Tony Kushner won't date no slouch, after all), wrote a funny and dead-on piece on how to fix the troubled extravaganza in this week's magazine that I wholeheartedly agree with. First off, yes, get rid of the odious product placement. Everyone knows that Paula is not drinking Coca-Cola from that Coca-Cola cup (har har). Speaking of Paula, Harris suggests gently getting rid of both the straight up mush mouth and fellow judge Randy "I am Basically King Koopa from Mario" Jackson. Yes. I agree. They are both boring and repetitive and don't really engender any, you know, respect.

Harris also suggests setting minimums on contestants' ages and getting hipper mentors, among other sound ideas. But I think the key to an Idol comeback is really just forsaking the cynicism. I know it's ridiculous to say that one of the gooeyest "A Moment Like Making You Proud, Now" shows on television has an overabundance of cynicism, but it does. Or at least jadedness. Why are we so constantly reminded of how "the game" should be played? What's with all the overt discussion of strategy and comparisons back to previous Idolers? The great thing about this show is that it turns nobodies into somebodies; that it is, at its core, that great American story about bootstraps and whatnot. That should all feel genuine and new every time. It's certainly new for the contestants! The more the show references itself, the more of an isolated irrelevant thing it becomes. Yes, I know it's probably tiring and tedious to feel like you're building the same house every year, but too bad! That's what the audience wants. After all, this isn't Fox's or Cowell's or Seacrest's' show. This is our show. So, heh, give it back.

Have you ever taken “Sweet Caroline” for granted?... Though the song is not a technical challenge, "Sweet Caroline" stumped Archuleta, who is better with big, fat expressions of positive somethingness. John Lennon’s "Imagine"? Sure! It’s optimistic and vague. "Sweet Caroline," though, is both wistful and obscure, and needs to be sung as if its series of images described an emotionally logical sequence, even if Neil Diamond’s lyric is not tied to anything as dull as logic. ("And when I hurt, hurting runs off my shoulders.") Diamond’s song is stubbornly ambiguous, until the killer chorus brings everyone to their feet. Archuleta opted to smile, sing for the cheap seats, and trust that unalloyed sincerity and the killer chorus could carry the day. Not so fast. (In every participant’s defense, the songs are all shrunk to less than two minutes.)

Idol watchers have been trained to think about aesthetic concepts like arrangement and song choice, and, by the time the judges weigh in, we have already been sorting out our thoughts.

OK, sure, Idol viewers do think about arrangement and song choice, but they also pay attention to (and make catty judgements about) contestants' personalities, clumsiness or gracefulness on stage and physical appearance, not to mention how Simon Cowell eviscerates them or how Paula Abdul screws things up (as when she rcently reviewed a song that was not performed).

In the following clip of Archuleta, for instance, watching the contestant shout Neil Diamond's song in Neil Diamond's face is at least as interesting as the singer's on-stage performance:

[New Yorker]

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Each singer prepared two songs for Tuesday’s show, and early in the broadcast Ryan Seacrest, the host, told the audience that the judges would not offer their regular critiques until after the singers had performed both songs.

But after each singer had performed a first song, Mr. Seacrest reversed course, bringing the performers onstage and asking the judges quickly to critique the performance of the first song.

On Wednesday, during his daily radio show on KIIS-FM in Los Angeles, Mr. Seacrest said that Nigel Lythgoe, an executive producer of Idol, informed him of the change as the fifth contestant, Syesha Mercado, was performing her first song, only seconds before he was to query the judges.

Amid the chaos, Abdul addressed contestant Jason Castro, judging not just the song sung, but a second song, the one sung only during rehearsals.

Abdul told Seacrest on his radio show "she had seen [the contestant's] rehearsal of his second song as she was bringing in a friend to the dress rehearsal audience... and... mixed up the rehearsal and the live performances." Abdul made the "mix up" even though she heard only one, different song at the dress rehearsal and live performance.

Idol producers basically shrugged at the incident, saying judges have always admitted watching rehearsals.

But do they form detailed judgements during these rehearsals and basically can them for the live performance? Yes, apparently, since that's what just happened.

Expect the show to be cancelled after its 24 million viewers start ignoring the program in droves due to this obvious betrayal of their trust.

Ha ha, just kidding, Fox will be "punished" for this controversy with a big ratings spike, and Scarlett Johansson and the devil will laugh ecstatically as good music bleeds and dies a little more.
[Times]

One of their big ideas is to streamline the show's early episodes, by beginning in Hollywood and having the long, arduous circus of human meanness and misery that is the audition process only exist in flashback form. While I like the idea of devoting less time to the tedious auditions on principle, I think the show would lose something by not laying the season's narrative out completely linearly. The most exciting thing to watch (think Melinda Doolittle) is someone go from that first audition room all the way to the big stage. Plopping us down in Hollywood right away would feel like cheating.

An online survey is also asking viewers how they feel about host Ryan Seacrest (do you want more or less? more! more!), the judges (again, more or less? less! less!). It all seems a bit like rearranging the deck chairs on the (admittedly very slow sinking) Titantic, but Fox executive Preston Beckman tells the Post, "we're not in denial. It's still the biggest show on TV, but that doesn't mean there are things we can't do."

Like cancel it.

1. The judges' many other projects. Those of you who enjoy Randy Jackson's Music Club Vol. 1 do so at your own peril. With Paula's lukewarm single and Simon focusing on the promotion British winner Leona Lewis' new album, the judges are stretched thin this season, and that's without getting into the
Sophie Monk-Ryan Seacrest "relationship." How long before Mike Myers is judging contestants as the Love Guru? Pray that we do not see that day.

2. The fragility of Jordin Sparks' career. Who can think of a new Idol at a time like this? Can the sublime talent of such classics as God Loves Ugly and Permanent Monday recover from possible
vocal cord damage? How many more lives will the Idol juggernaut claim? Surely some willing fan no longer needs his/her vocal cords. What about the crying girl? Are her cords available?

3. The possibility that David Archuleta might not sing "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" this week. Come on, David. Your father no longer holds sway over you. We kept our promise, David. Don't keep your distance. Don't let Syesha or (Simon forbid!) Brooke take the song that is rightfully yours. Speaking of Brooke...

4. Brooke White. It's not just Brooke's amazing ability to talk over the judges ("I already know what you're going to say, let me stop you, I know, I know, I know"), tattooed boyfriend and admittance that she's never seen an R-rated movie that may be causing viewers to check their Facebook profiles instead of watching the show. Nor is it the logorrhoea that caused White to thank half of Arizona
and the entire Church of Latter Day Saints on the back of her first CD. Until Brooke anticipates her own
departure from the show at the very moment she's kicked off ("I know, I'm done, I know you're going to say I'm going to have a great career, I know, thank you") Idol ratings may stay in the tank.

Mike_Jahn's new line beats the original, Kelly Clarkson and Clay Aiken Enjoy an Evening Out Together.

But did everyone have to be so self-promotiony? Does altruism actually not exist? Service was really big at my college (Catholics!), but it always seemed like people went on the service trips so they could make friends and get drunk. They didn't actually care about the house they built in Appalachia. "Idol Gives Back" seems to operate on the same sentiment, just writ large and Hollywoody. Maybe I'm overly cynical. I don't know. What do you think? Was this genuine? Does it matter? After all, money is money is money. In case you missed it, some choice clips of the evening are below.

Robin Williams horribly debasing himself

Brad Pit!!!!!!!!

Idiots answered telephones, and English people gave money

I was transported back to 8th grade

We were bathed in God's Word

Teri Hatcher: Why God why

Now, the résumés are flooding in — and the process is turning out to be every bit as unconventional as the billionaire investor himself. Among the 600 or so applicants so far: a Talmudic scholar who picks stocks from home, a Canadian economist with an intense yoga practice and even a four-year-old.

"We're going to run this like 'American Idol' in the end," the 76-year-old Mr. Buffett quipped in an interview.

There'd be early-round ritual humiliation:

What [a trial period] isn't, however, is a mentorship program, something many applicants have misinterpreted. He says he isn't looking for someone to teach, but for "someone who already knows how to do it."

The misunderstanding is reflected in dozens of letters from students, profession investors and a surprising number of engineers and lawyers hoping to be apprenticed [natch!] to the master. "I assure you," wrote one 20-year-old college student, "although I may be short on experience, I am very long on potential." [Ed: Sure you are, Aleksey] A lawyer in Oregon recommended his four-year-old son, characterizing the toddler as a "great negotiator" on issues such as "bedtime, chores, allowance, baths, etc."

In Ottawa, economist Klaus Kostenbauer takes a more spiritual approach. As manager of Prosperous Yogi Investments, he regularly practices a rigorous form of yoga call kundalini, and mediates several hours a week.

"My yoga makes me a better investor," says Mr. Kostenbauer, 40. "It helps with discipline, mastery of your emotions, and mastery of greed, fear and patience."

Please read the whole article. Political economy is fake. —Jon

Want to be Next Warren Buffett? A Line Forms in Nebraska [WSJ]

• XM, Sirius satellite radio to merge. [NYP]
  
• "American Idol" will destroy everything in its path. [NYT]
  
• Is Barack Obama black enough for you? Depends on how many columns you can get out of it. [Journal-isms ]
  
• OK! magazine: read at hair salons, doctor's offices, not many other places. [WWD]
  
• Louise T. McBain—hottie Canadian, philosopher and art mag publisher—brings in outside help. Good luck with that. [NYP]

Our simple words would do this no justice. Here, New York, is Ian Benardo, 'American Idol' casualty. Watch it now!

American Idol MySpace Hunt #1 [Death by Camera]

Let's start with her first paragraph:

Nobel Prize winners are apprised in a quick telephone call. The Pulitzer committee sends telegrams.

Was there ever a time when Pulitzer winners were notified by telegrams? Maybe. But Western Union stopped sending telegrams in February, so certainly there's no present-tense way that the "Pulitzer committee sends telegrams."

Moving on to the fourth graf, we find the news that on last night's Idol finale one Michael Sandecki "impersonated, horribly, a former 'Idol' winner, Clay Aiken," who of course was famously not an Idol winner. (This has been subtly corrected online — without any correction note — but will remain wrong on page A24 of the late edition.)

And then, finally, in the next graf she misidentifies Idol contestant Elliot Yamin as "Elliot Yasmin."

Isn't it fun when she makes up for lost time?

Surprise (Well, Not Exactly)! 'American Idol' Finale Unfolds and Unfolds [NYT]