First Kellie Pickler, Now This.

Do any of you know whether American Idol was on last night? I was pretty sure Fox had promised no repeats of this show, and although I was on Channel 5 right at 8pm ready to go, all I got on the tube was a Ricky Minor Band medley, featuring 8 random male backup singers. From some angles, it looked like the guys were competing for something, but I'm certain it couldn't have had anything to do with singing well. Perhaps it was their best impersonations of past American Idol contestants who never made it past Hollywood? Maybe that was it. Either way, the dudes looked familiar, but I couldn't figure out what I was watching, and more importantly, why I was watching it. But hey, I did get to see Ricky do a little jig up close on one of his backup singers at the end, which I'm guessing was the encore performance. That made up for some of it. But, if any of you can let me know where American Idol went last night, I'd appreciate it -- oh, and if you could also Fedex me an hour of my life back, lemme know and I'll get you the address.
At a complete loss for what every one of my senses (except for touch -- the couch was comfy I suppose) went through from 8-9pm, I stumbled into work this morning and realized that THAT was in fact American Idol on TV last night. And that means, that those 8 aberrations attacking my screen were in fact the male American Idol contestants competing for the singing talent crown. Which therefore means, I have to recall how my eyes burned at the sight of them, my ears melted away at the horrors of their unmoving, underwhelming, and generally horrible performances one after the other, how my tastebuds fought unsuccessfully to stave off the vomit that wanted to project onto everyone of their shoes, and how my nose is still recovering from the stench left by their nonsensical attempt at some sort of stardom. It actively pains me to go over Tuesday's abysmal affair, so I'm going to speed-type through this with one (still recovering) eye closed and my head cocked slightly over my right shoulder in fear of what my memories must pull me closer to. Thankfully, it'll all be over soon, and I can spend the rest of the AI season focusing on the women instead of these beasts that are an insult to everything known as great singing.

1. I don't know about you, but I was convinced well before SPR opened their ridiculous mouths that Blake had just handed us one of the WORST performances in Idol history. Make no mistake about the 2 notes out of 4 that he hit on pitch...the pointlessness of that song choice in every way -- the 311-ness of it, the non-musicality, the rapping and beatboxing that was merely him talking in rhythm, the fact that even when he decided to "sing" it, it wasn't even as good as the barely-musical original. How he was allowed to even SUBMIT that song as a viable selection is inexcusable, let alone the fact that he made us sit through it. The performance was so remote from enjoyable that he should have been disqualified, and then ripped into a thousand little shreds by Keebler elves right there and then. I was offended that people even had to THINK about voting for that, and any redeeming qualities he had left for me to embrace after Week 1 were obliterated on contact. F you, you non-singer box of beat. F you, and your bad hair, and your ugly face, and the fact that people clapped after that shitness. I know you'll likely be back to bother us again and again, but until your timely demise arrives, I wish to hate you for making a mockery of a show that's already such a joke to begin with.

2. Clearly distraught after being chosen over AJ to continue on in this competition, Sanjy Suckakar decided to pay tribute to his fellow contestant by letting his inner woman fly out proudly, hula hips and all. While the new hairdo would likely do wonders for me and several of my girlfriends, his new highlights were unfortunately the only highlight of his presence on screen. As predicted, he was better than last week -- because last week was the official bottom of the barrel as far as singing goes -- but it still reeked of amateurism, anemia, and general badness. He's just awful. There's no other way around this. SPR should be ashamed of themselves for putting that lamb of a being in the ring with pandas. I say pandas because the other guys are clearly nowhere close to wolf material when it comes to talent, but I'm pretty sure pandas could take a lamb anyday of the week. It's all just so sad. To be that wrong a fit for the biggest talent show in the world, when your competition is equally barely watchable. Too bad I don't feel bad for you, or your psycho-voting, Indian mafia posse. Like Blake, I wish you nothing but cold nights and death, with knots in your hair from now until eternity.

3. Sundance. You and I need to have a talk. A long talk. How can you make such big strides towards the good side of the table last week, only to crap it out the ballpark with what I consider a performance equally as bad as Week 1? Now, it's true, as a die-hard Pearl Jam-obsessed fan, I'm a little sensitive to the fact that you took (any of) their song(s) and choked the life out of it. But "Jeremy" of all things? "Jeremy"!??!! Who picks "Jeremy" as a song to impress people with, ever? EVER?? As the best alternative rock group EVER (note: alternative rock is not the same as rock, which clearly goes to U2, but they are tied for the alt rock title with Radiohead, just to keep things even-keeled here), Pearl Jam has a billion other amazing, ballady, dark, beautiful, angst-plus-genius-filled songs for one to choose from. Even still, no one would choose to sing it unless they knew they were about to change at least 100 lives by doing so. You disappointed beyond measure, and I'm too mad to discuss this with you any further right now. You'll likely stay - I think - for another week, but I'm just as sick of you sucking right now as I am everyone else, so we're over until further notice.

4. Remember last week when I said if Chris R. can kill it on a ballad then he's got the lead on lock as far as the men are concerned? Well, he did one thing right... he chose to sing a ballad. Sadly, though, he forgot about the other part of the equation, which involves singing it well. It all just came and went, nothing memorable, special, or moving. Just him sitting on a stool, struggling to figure out which camera to look at and for how long, so that the only enjoyment we got (aside from his overall hotness) was seeing his eyeballs slowly relocate to the backside of his sockets so as not to break ties with his right-side camera no matter what the cost. Perhaps he should continue to sing out-of-breath on overly wordy, uptempo pop songs from now on -- it helps him hide the fact that he's not that great a singer when we need him to be. Bet you my last stick of gum he's gonna keep it standing, fast-paced, and semi-dancy next week.. if he knows what's good for him.

5. Jared Cotter sucks and here's why. He's relatively "better" as far as stage presence goes when it comes to the men, but he still isn't a great singer by ANY STRETCH of the imagination. He just keeps trying to be that smooth hot guy, who wants us to forget his constant straining by smiling like a used car salesman everytime he performs. I'm tired of his limited ability, of his eyebrows, of his immeasurable ego that defies understanding, because he's not going to win, and he's not going to change lives, he's just going to give you consistently mediocre vocal efforts time and time again until America decides to forget to vote for him. But I did appreciate his decision to sing "If You Really Love Me", not only because he once again picked a singer whom he could never do any justice, but also because he picked a song that Elliott Yamin SPANKED during the very first weeks of American Idol last year. Double El's impeccable and original rendition of this Stevie classic last year showed and proved to all of America that Yamin was a seriously gifted vocalist. More importantly, it set the Idol standard for other contestants who choose to go near that song. So, whether he knew it or not, Jared made my ability to criticize him that much easier, by failing to match the best singer/songwriter in the history of music, as well as the best R&B singer in Idol history. Thanks, Jared. Keep up the good work.

6. Brandon was relatively better than his abomination of a performance from last week, but that isn't saying much given that his efforts thus far have all been, well, abominations. I'm glad you just wanna celebrate something, but the fact that you didn't tear that song up and slam dunk it just for good measure shows once again, that you are in no shape to be a star lead singer. I couldn't help thinking "Why didn't Sundance sing this song?" the entire time, which made me doubly sad. Maybe I kept thinking of Sundance because he and Brandon are still tied in the "Most Disappointing Contestant" race. All in all, B-dawg has proven completely incapable of connecting with the audience, which doesn't bode well for someone participating in a competition ruled by the audience. He'll go home soon, and no one will miss him. Not Thursday, not next week, nor the week after that. And I'll just wanna celebrate.

7. Phil continued his quick descent from "best guy in the pack" position by choosing to honor AJ's departure by singing a LeAnn Rhimes song. Badly. I still cannot formulate a working sentence regarding the beginning of his performance. And then the middle came and all I remember was a lot of shouting in all the wrong places. Then he wow-ed with a grand finale of riffed "oooh-ing" that tried to lure listeners into a deep sleep, after which they'd forget he sang anything. Didn't work. We all had the terror of it ingrained in our minds from there on in, and there was just no way out. I don't even remember what SPR had to say about it, I just know no one on the planet enjoyed it. And then something about him having hair once and deciding that walking the Earth bald allowed him to feel more connected to his alien brethren traveling the nearby galaxy. Never before will the words ring more true: "Stacey, phone home." Go on, phone his ass hooome.

8. Chris Sligh was the best of the worst night, so that's not much of an accomplishment. Not surprisingly, he chose a song about wanting to be loved, because that's kind of his life's mantra. He still reeks of disingenuity, overly-calculated singing, and bad looks. What's more, despite singing relatively well, he's too hidden in his dark cape of evil superhero AI-takeover that he has yet to open his eyes long enough to connect with the people listening. Count Dracula will be here for awhile yet because the rest of the pack is so God-awful, but even he made a bad song choice this week, so the cracks in his grandmaster plan are most certainly starting to show.

Tonight, I get some payback as American Idol goes back on the air as promised, sans 1 barbie and 1 bad scatter. Awesome.