Liveblogging the Idol shitshow
by Kathy Cacace

This year I’ll be doing one entry per week that includes coverage of all the episodes until the bitter, bitter end. Check back at this entry tomorrow for the results show.

WEDNESDAY: THE RESULTS

9:00: Ryan announces that they got 51 million votes last night. How many people voted in the presidential primaries so far?

9:02: Oh, come ON. Seriously? Bo Bice AND Maroon 5? I feel like I’m stuck in a bear trap and I have to chew my own foot off to survive. Now they’re all singing “Reeling in the Years.” Great. I’m having fun! This is entertainment! I am entertained!

9:04: Still, still with the choreography. Thank god my landlord came for my rent check. See? That is how good this is. I would rather hand over half my monthly salary in one swoop than watch the rest of this fucking number.

9:13: After an endless recap (we know, we were here yesterday, we fucking saw this go down), Ryan brings out a particularly Aw Shucksy Archuleta. He’s safe, of course, because a nation of pedophiles has access to cellphones.

9:19: Gratuitous shot of Jason Castro in the contestants’ private jet to Las Vegas. Yeah, yeah, the Organic Mile High Club. Sign me up.

9:21: They’re in Las Vegas to see the Beatles “spectacular” Love, one of those weird Vegas entertainment entities I don’t understand at all. Anyway, some chick in one of the crowds grabs Jason and kisses him on the face and his response is, “That was scary…” and he really seems to mean it. This makes me feel slightly creepy about writing about banging him for the past, what, ten weeks straight?

9:23: David Cook is safe. It’s going to come down to a shootout at the David Corral.

9:29: Idiotic Ford commercial this week: the contestants sing “Ring of Fire” while dressed as matadors. They are wearing obscenely tight pants. So, actually, thanks Idol. At least I get to see Jason’s ass in what amounts to tights before they send him homeward.

9:32: The call-in part is excruciating. I’m going to forage for liquor.

9:34: Maroon 5 is performing. I swear, they play on this show every year. Right? Adam Levine, I will admit, has a weird kind of sexual appeal when I watch him on TV, but I have a feeling that in person he would like a pre-K craft I made out of pipe-cleaners and a popsicle stick.

9:39: Awkwardly bromantic interview between Ryan and Adam…why is this show still ON? Couldn’t we have smashed this into half an hour?

9:44: Christ almighty, now we go right into Bo Bice’s performance. Glad to see that in the, like, sixty years between when he won and now he hasn’t decided to update the hair at all. This song sounds like Lenny Kravitz circa 1993, Bo looks like an Allman circa 1974, and I wish I was me circa fifteen minutes in the future when this show is over.

9:54: So, it comes down to Jason and Syesha. I’m afraid, yet again, that preteen ovaries may keep the cute boy and boot the talented girl.

9:56: We’re safe, there’s justice. Though I’m not very sad to HEAR him go, I’m very sad to SEE Jason go. Even his sad montage, the one we’re supposed to weep through, is filled with his bonehead comments.

9:58: Jason’s singing Bob Marley again, so I’d like to take this time to put the offer out there, because sometimes the internet is a little bit magic: Jason, if you are ever looking for a chubby, kind of bitchy, bespectacled girlfriend who will not only put up with your dreadlocks, she will straight adore them, and bake you delicious black and white weed cookies, my email address is clickable on the front page of this here blog. Seriously. Click it.

TUESDAY: THE TOP 4 PERFORM

8:01: Ryan announces that there are just two weeks left of this show and I have never been so happy to watch that dink open his mouth and speak. I don’t know what it is about this season, but these episodes are just getting more and more intolerable to sit through.

8:02: It’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Week. They’re making the Rock Hall sound all exciting and lofty and historical, but when I visited with my parents during my freshman year of college, I found myself sitting in front of the big purple hat from the video for Tom Petty’s “Don’t Come Around Here No More” and thinking, “Wow. What a piece of fucking HISTORY.”

8:05: David Cook is singing “Hungry Like the Wolf.” Somewhere in between last week and this week, someone told him that sexy = leaving your mouth hanging open all the time.

8:13: Syesha. Gold dress. Rock Hall Week. I’ll give you three guesses as to what song she’s doing. She’s even got the choreography to “Proud Mary” down pat, the hair flip and everything. It’s a little bit like the best act at a sorority talent show, but I’ll take her over that GloWorm Cook any day.

8:22: Oh Christ on a cross, Jason is singing “I Shot the Sheriff.” Even his response was, “Go figure…” I’ll miss you, you dreamy little stoner, I’ll miss you like the deserts miss the rain.

8:25: Simon says, “I don’t know what you were thinking!” Jason’s entire response is, “I was thinking BOB MARLEY!” Dumb as a pile of rocks, I swear, but I just love him.

8:27: David Archuleta pulls a genius, genius, genius move and inserts a few lines of Sean Kingston’s “Beautiful Girls” into “Stand by Me” by Ben E. King. He probably just cost Fox a $100,000 out of court settlement for copyright infringement, but it was way cute.

8:36: Oh FUCK, FUCK FUCK FUCK. David Cook is singing “Baba O’Riley.” I don’t even like hearing him say the song title out loud.

8:38: You know, there are like half a million kids in this country who don’t know this song and are gonna be all YES, TEENAGE WASTELAND, HE SO GETS ME, and then they’re going to download the original, and then they’re going to be like, WTF, FIVE MINUTE VIOLIN SOLO?

8:44: Syesha’s singing “A Change Is Gonna Come.” An outfit change has already come; she’s in a floor length gown and she sounds good, again, but now I feel like I’m watching the slow number from a drag show. You know what I’m talking about, the one where you’re basically just applauding make-up and hair.

8:50: Syesha just spent three minutes crying about how honored she is to sing a song that was significant during the civil rights movement. Which was very touching, except that Jason now has to sing his next song, which is “Mr. Tambourine Man” and stupid and now feels totally inappropriate.

8:51: Aaaaand he forgets two lines. If you need a place to crash when they boot you out of your American Idol apartment, I’ve got a really big bed.

8:58: Grab a fresh pair of undies, my prepubescent friends, because Archuleta’s singing “Love Me Tender.”

9:00: God, what am I going to do next week? I’m not even going to have Jason’s dopey ass to look at. If I’m stuck with two Davids and a Syesha for an hour, I’m just gonna start drinking at 7:30.