America's Got Talent Season Four Recap: Auditions Continue in New York, Seattle

We're in Seattle again, or rather in sister-city Tacoma, at the Pantages theater, where Axl Rose wannabe Chris Kegley, or as he is known to fans in his living room everywhere, Keg, The Lone Ranger of Rock, wants to show us his hair-band chops. After waaay too much time is spent getting to know him (complete with pictures of him as a kid), he then takes the stage, at which point we find out he is a dental sales rep in real life (and I'm sure they love the chest-length hair and the guyliner at his job).

When he finally starts his act, we find out why he is the "lone ranger"; he does everything by himself! He sits down at a drum machine, which he gets going with a lot of head-banging energy, then attempts a mid-air split while slinging his drumsticks rather haphazardly (one almost takes Nick Cannon out) on his way to the guitar and mic stand.

He picks up the guitar and starts to play passably well, but he can't stop doing these really ridiculous "rock kicks", and by the time he starts to sing the Kiss anthem "Rock and Roll All Nite", his fairly decent singing voice is all but covered up by the crowd, who is fed up with his stupid theatrics and is booing loudly. Overall, he seems like not a bad musician, by he has been hoist by his own petard of trite rock-video posturing, and even though Piers is the only judge to buzz Keg before he is finished, the audience is so inflamed against him, there's no hope. He doesn't improve matters by being a tool.

To the tune of "Hit the Road, Jack", here come the CrapClips! Rejects include Silvia Brasil, a stripping singer and dancer who can't sing or dance and doesn't even really strip; Madmat, The Indestructible Man, an unemployed carpenter and aspiring carnival sideshow inhabitant who fails to impress the judges with his method of cutting an orange-with his foot, on a samurai word-and The Shanghai Pearl, a burlesque-style stripper who starts out dressed as a shaggy pink gorilla wearing a French maid's outfit and ends up on the wrong end of some judgely annoyance. Ooh la lame!

Now it's time for our first inspirational story of the night: Kari Callin was born with a cleft palate and also seems to be suffering from prematurely thinning hair, although that isn't mentioned. She is very matter-of-fact about not being pretty, recounting various instances in which people dismissed her based solely on her looks, without even hearing her wonderful singing voice. We, of course, are meant to wonder if Kari could be America's answer to Susan Boyle (that is, if the Chicken Catcher was not already America's answer to Susan Boyle), although my SuckDar always rears its snarky lil' head whenever someone asserts her singing ability as confidently as Kari does.

But when she begins to sing "Somewhere" (from West Side Story), it becomes clear that when she said she could sing, she wasn't lying, although Hoff's repeated screams of "Yes!" and the giant standing O are somewhat of an overreaction, IMHO, probably influenced more by Kari's backstory than by her singing alone. She's good and deserves to pass through this round, but there are already better singers in the competition.

And may I just say one thing to Kari? I notice you are wearing no makeup, clean but unstyled hair, a casual top and blue jeans. I realize you're trying to make a point about being unattractive, but did you have to be aggressively slack with your appearance? The Bad Girls may have stunk like a can of tuna planted in the car of a cheating ex on a sweltering summer day, but at least they made the effort to go out and get coordinating orange spray-tans and SuperHoochie outfits. Have some respect, Kari! You'd wear a nice suit to a job interview, wouldn't you? Why not dress up for an audition? Tut, tut, Kari; even Susan Boyle wore a nice dress!

So, after Kari Callin sails through to Vegas, hopefully with a stop at a nice boutique on the way, we find ourselves back in New York for our CoolClips segment, which features the song "Walking on Sunshine" (again!!) and showcases fire artist Simon Chaban, a hottie in more ways than one; Keith Johnson, another hottie who plays guitar and sings an okay version of Marc Cohn's "Walking in Memphis" (already smashed out of the park by last year's Not Phil Stacey); and the adorable gymnastic group Pixie Mystère, who are the little girls in giant polka-dotted bodysuits of whom they've been showing so many clips this season that Mr. Canary thought we'd already seen their act.

Oh, no. The Partridge Family theme again. Another group of clean-cut young people! They go by the stage name Reality, with which I suspect they have less than a nodding acquaintance after hearing the SpokesBlonde attempt to describe the group as "cool" after turning in a very high-school-musical version of the Broadway tune "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" (and I mean YOUR high school, not the one in the movie). Piers disabuses them of the notion that they'd ever be cool, although a heroin bust in Turkey might help as a life experience. Just kidding, kids! Go back to vacation bible school now, 'kay?

Up next in New York is a dance group from Indianapolis, Indiana. Represent, Hoosiers! Um, it is Hoosiers, right? Anyhoo, the guys recount their struggles to get ahead as performers over music that sounds suspiciously like Eminem wouldn't let America's Got Talent have the rights to "Lose Yourself" from the 8 Mile soundtrack. The group is called Destined 2 Be, and they are outfitted in a very appealing way-each guy has a different color t-shirt, to which he has coordinated his glasses frames (and, in the red guy's case, a cap). They're very pulled-together, and I expect great things, which they then deliver to the tune of "Shake it Loose". The judges are properly enchanted and put them through to Vegas.

Rashida Jolley, 29, has recently lost her father but retains his love of music and his advice to keep going. She takes the stage with a big, orchestra-style harp, which she plays as she sings Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly", and it is an incredible performance. She changes the tempo after the first verse (making it more like The Fugees' version of the song), adding percussion by slapping the frame of the harp, and her vocals are soulful and lovely.

Sharon is confused by the percussion, but Piers loves the inventiveness, and of course there's no discussion Rashida can sing, so it's a unanimous Yes after Sharon says she "need[s] to see more". Rashida sheds tears of happiness and gratitude backstage as she honors her beloved dad and hugs her sweetly supportive mom.

Back from commercials, and we get to see a lot of acts waiting to audition who will never make it to the actual show. This always puzzles me, because most of these acts look so pulled together in the rehearsal area. I wonder if acts don't make it for reasons other than just plain sucking. We know on American Idol that auditioners have to perform before producers or other sub-judges first, and only the truly impressive or the hilariously crappy are sent through to Randy, Paula and Simon, or in this case I guess Piers, Sharon and David. So maybe all these acts we see only in passing are not bad, but just not fantastic. This would go far in explaining why some of the truly sucky acts think they are really good-after all, they made it through to the 'real' judges, didn't they?

Next up are Matt and Anthony, friends who don't have a stage name for their act. That's fine, although it does beg the question of why they dressed alike. A dumb-sounding song, apparently called "I'm Sticking with You", plays as we meet the guys, and it inspires the thought that they may be total dweebs, especially after they characterize themselves as "socially backward", but before you realize that real dweebs aren't generally that self-aware.

And this act, which is Anthony tap-dancing while Matt plays guitar and sings "Use Me" by Bill Withers, is quite good. They've got a lot of soul, these white kids. Nick thinks so, as he enthusiastically rocks out backstage. Sharon cracks me up by saying, "After Gregory Hines, I thought it was all over", which I assume does not mean that she thinks Gregory Hines killed tap, but that he was in fact the be-all and end-all. Either way, Savion Glover can't be too happy to hear it. Piers seems confounded by their not having a stage name after two years, a point he did not belabor with kiddie dancers Erik and Rickie, who have been together four years. Nevertheless, all the judges agree that Anthony and Matt brought it, and advise them to pick it back up and take it with them to Vegas.

And so, "It Takes Two" leads us into a succession of other successful duos: Argentine tango dancers Laura Cantu and Louis Bar (I wonder if Piers got on their cases for not having some kicky stage name, like "Tango Sexxxplosion"); Russian father-and-son balancing act The Kalinins; and Christopher "The Whip Guy" Camp and his saucy bride, Laura Camp.

Tonight's last act is a familiar face: Mia Boostrom made it to Vegas last year but got cut (in favor of a prettier, thinner blonde girl, if memory serves) before getting on the actual show (they winnowed it down to 40 acts, and similar acts were culled in head-to-head matchups). Anyway, she was 15 then, wearing a lovely red evening dress, and she is 16 now, wearing a ridonkulous hippie outfit from her grandma's closet. And yet, singing "Georgia on My Mind", she sounds wonderful, like a mix of Norah Jones and Fergie. Much better than last year, or at least loads better than in the clip they showed.

The judges pat themselves on the backs for letting her go to let her grow, and then make her squirm by saying she still has "a long way to go", which they would never have said to an older singer or a first-time auditioner who sounded exactly the same. Nevertheless, they vote her through in a patronizingly magnanimous way. Ewrgh.

Here's an unexpected treat to wrap up the show: Nick Cannon proudly introduces "the world premiere of [his] wife's brand new music video", and there, all heaving breasts and cascading hair, is Miss Mariah herself, playing a sexy singing star and also cross-dressing as a variety of dudes who are all worshipfully in love with her, um, self. I've never seen anyone react so noncommittally to a person's being struck by a bus, by the way. Maybe there's some reason her acting career never took off...

All told, tonight's acts going to Vegas are unlovely singer Kari Callin, fire stud Simon Chaban, singer-guitarist Keith Johnson, acrobatic cherubs Pixie Mystère, dance group Destined 2 Be, harpist-singer Rashida Jolley, singer and tapdancer Matt and Anthony, tangoists Laura Cantu and Louis Bar, father-and-son balancing act and shampoo models The Kalinins, whip act Christopher and Laura Camp, and much-abused singer Mia Boostrom. Next week is the last week of auditions, folks, so I'm going to have to start thinking about getting these in on time if I wanna make any predictions. Waaahhh.