Idol...

Hoo-hah...

Let's just get right down to it...

It's official: Paula Abdul has more Vicodin in her body than water, blood and poop combined.

What the balls was that all about last night??? Has American Idol become such a grand phenomenon that its cast members are now exempt from staying within the spacetime continuum? Because that's basically the only way that Paula's people could explain what happened last night that doesn't make her sound like KRAZY.

If you don't know what happened, do catch up:

Apparently they wanted to save time by having the judges judge all the performances at once after they all concluded - kinda like at a commencement ceremony when the stuffy, curmudgeonly principal asks you to reserve your applause until all the names have been read out (but no one ever does because fuck that).

So as t'were, each contestant came out, sang their first song, then Seacrest delivered the number sans the judges weighing in. Then at the halfway point, in what looked to be an honestly impromptu move on the producers part, they scurried the Idols back on stage and had 'half-time reactions' from the judges so far... Randy offered up standard "Just okay... the bomb!" fare, and then when it came time for Paula... well... hmmm...

Yeah.

My take on the matter is this: it's fairly common knowledge that the judges watch the Idols in rehearsal and plot out their critiques - they're not so off-the-cuff as we're lead to believe - and Paula's brain simply could wrap its head around the sudden change of plans and a combination of all those things resulted in a good-old-fashioned, juicy Abdul-brand brain fart. *pats hands together*

Although I'm sure people will be OBSESSED with speculating what sort of crooked, drug-fueled truth is behind it... was Paula drunk... are the judges reading scripted comments by the producers that are formulated before they perform... personally, I'm just happy that something eclipsed all that Miley Cyrus topless bullshit as quickly as it has.

Anyballs... moving on:

Neil Diamond Night! GO!!!

As much as I'd offer up a moustache ride to him any old day of the week, Jason Castro is fading - and at a very crucial point in the competition... kinda like how, when baking a cake, there's a crucial rising point, and if you interrupt it, y'alls cake is busted. How the fuck do I know that? I've never baked a cake in m'life. Eaten a cake - HELLS YES. Baked one -nope. I digress... His first song, "Forever In Blue Jeans", started too low and really went nowhere. This would have been just fine about 10 weeks ago - he totally could have coasted by on his goofy charm - but methinks people are getting over that. Fast. He didn't fare much better on his second number, "September Morn"... I actually can't remember a thing about it other than the fact that he said he almost choked on something before he sang it... big fat whatevs... for the first time in this competition, I didn't find that I anticipated what he had coming... hmmm...

David Cook's pretty much the only one up to tonight who doesn't make a complete mess out of himself tonight, but it's not like the roof is exactly jumpin' off the place either. His first song starts out in his problematic lower register a-la his disastrous Idol Gives Back week performance of "Innocence", and kind of evens out in the end but I didn't really notice either way. For whatever reason, I can't really remember David's second song either, but something tells me it was another serviceable effort which directly and explicitly speaks to the type of record he'll make when he wins blah blah blah... he has 0.0 things to worry about tonight...

Brooke White continues to punish us all. He first song, The Monkee's "I'm A Believer", was the type of performance you'd expect to see in front of the Alzheimer's wing of an old folk's home. She was totally someone's grand-daughter who was there to give her new guitar a whirl for nana... Her second song, "I Am, I Said", resulted in me penning a song to counter-offer entitled "You Suck, I Said". Done. GET HER OUT OF HERE!!!

David Archuleta was looking particularly Eddie Munster-esque this evening. Re: his performances... meh. At least he sang recognizable Diamond gems (redundant? yes) - which he delivered with the exact same generic R&B affectations and conviction that he's saving the homeless that he's injected into all of his performances so far. What I can't handle is when Simon commends the contestants for singing a patriotic song, calling them "smart"... see, thing of it is, these contestants - like David last night and Kristy-Lee before him - don't know that they're pandering to the fly-over states... they're just doin' what comes naturally... whatevs...

The producers' finally threw her a bone and let YeYe close out the night... singing two songs that I hadn't a clue what were... she did fine with them - she's hands-down one of the top three vocalists in the competition at this point... but the fact remains that she's so abrasive, she makes Season 3's LaToya London look like a Care Bare by comparison (in terms of accessibility)... I predict trouble with a capital "T" for YeYe...

GOING...

Bottom 2 should be Brooke and Jason. Bottom 2 probably will be Brooke and YeYe. Bottom 2 definitely will be anyone except for the David's.

Although YeYe did well-ish and was given the pimp spot last night, at her best she's a million times away from being as embraced as Jason is at his worst, so methinks he'll be safe in place of her.

I just can't imagine Brooke escaping Bottom 2 at this point. However, she's been reaping the pity vote like Anna Nicole Smith to J. Howard Marshall's fortune, so I wouldn't place any money what's'ever on her leaving us.

So yeah - bye bye YeYe.

C'est tout.

Tomorrow - to botox or not to botox.

--- Aj