Matt "Velvet" Dusk, aghast: "I guarantee you, she won't be able to sing." You know, it's one thing when characters on a scripted show call attention to the clichés and contrivances of the show itself -- on the rare occasions it's done well, it can be very satisfying -- but there's something depressing when it happens on a reality show. "This girl from the sticks who's here to make her big break and whose breasts have made friends with the club's owners wants to sing? That's going to be bad news. Why don't you know that?" Joe the Vet responds that, again, quality of performance is the very last criteria to be considered in a Vegas show. And again, Matt "Velvet" Dusk literally does not hear the words that Joe is saying, the words that are going into his earholes, and basically decides that by dint of their psychic powers, the audience -- who flock to Zax, flock to Vegas herself, for the express purpose of hearing his own dulcet melodies -- will somehow know that the Tim and Tom Connection are expressly to blame when Jenn Nelson breaks their hearts and souls with her tuneless lack of ability or self-awareness. Because the last thing Matt "Velvet" Dusk needs -- Matt "Velvet" Dusk, the lounge singer at the Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino, whose CD is hawked at the end of every episode of what will go down in history as the worst reality TV series ever aired that doesn't feature gay dudes or midgets looking for love -- is any kind of blow to his artistic integrity.

DRINK! In conversation with the band, Matt "Velvet" Dusk refers to their original vision to "make this place cool." DRINK! "Now we're back to karaoke," he says. Oh, Matt "Velvet" Dusk. I couldn't love you more. "This is all a big political system," he explains for those of us who've never held a job. "I've got Tim and Tom and Joe, I've got to please them because in the end, I want to end up upstairs in the Showroom." This is the first time we've heard about the Showroom. I stupidly assumed Zax was the Showroom. Apparently Zax is like heaven's foyer and there's this whole other Showroom where more glamorous, established lounge singers ply their art and deny the existence of karaoke. Wow, this is like eXistenZ. I wonder what the Showroom performers wish for. The Disney Channel? Caesar's Palace? "And if I piss them off enough, there's only one place I'm going, and that's oot." This is when I figured out that Matt "Velvet" Dusk was Canadian. Which explains why he's so hot. Man, I wish I were Canadian. They're my favorite, so kind and polite and attractive, and they have such clear skin and lovely singing voices. Just when I thought I couldn't adore Matt "Velvet" Dusk more, he's Canadian. They're like Mormons, but without the other stuff, and the worst thing about their whole country is Quebec, which is not even that bad. I wonder if it annoys Canadians when Americans idealize them. That's like Canadian Eye for the American Guy backlash or something: "Stop calling us polite and beautiful! Not all Canadians are polite and beautiful! Meet my cousin Terry! He's from Newfoundland!"