AMERICAN IDOL: Girls will be Boys

AMERICAN IDOL pulled a last minute switch, having the boys sing last night and the girls tonight instead of the other way around. This is due to contestant, Crystal Bowersox – the hippie chick – being taken to the hospital for an undisclosed ailment. Hopefully she’s okay to perform this evening. And even if she’s not who’s going to vote off someone rushed to the hospital? Last year’s whackjob, Tatiana Del Toro is probably kicking herself right now saying, “Damn! Why didn’t I think of that?! All those wasted psychotic episodes!”

Before we get into the guys, an open letter to Ellen: BE FUNNY. Not just a wry comment now and again. BE FUNNY. That’s the only reason you’re there. You clearly know nothing about music, I think even Paula had a larger vocabulary, and you can’t finish a single complete sentence. Your function on the show is to entertain, not make Randy and Kara look smart.

Speaking of Kara, did she fall asleep in a tanning booth this week? She looked like George Hamilton in drag.

Because Fox is trying to milk two hours out of a one-hour show, there was a whole lot more filler this week. Startling revelations like the big fat guy who cried all through Hollywood Week likes musical theater. No!!! Or that English is the second language of the Korean kid. Jack Bauer usually has to torture people to get those kinds of secrets out of them.

The theme this week is “Billboard Hits”, so that much pretty includes everything but the David Hasselhoff discography.

Anyway, on to the guys – This year’s crop is like going to Smart & Final and buying all generic brands. The only thing that distinguishes one from the other is their neck tattoos (bar codes?). There’s not an Adam Lambert in the bunch. Hell, there’s not even…whoever that guy was who was in the Navy.

Two of them – Alex and Tim – should be trying out for the Mouseketeers. And Aaron is really Rachel Maddow at 16.







The most distinctive contestant is Casey and that’s only because he’s really Sawyer from LOST. This must be Sawyer’s storyline in the LOST alternate universe. On IDOL he goes by “Casey” but that doesn’t mean anything. On LOST he also goes by “James”. Kara usually drools over this guy and applauds wildly with her legs, but this week she was more critical. As Simon said to her (in the line of the night), “Did he not return your calls?”







Otherwise, there was the battle of Jermaine and Todrick, the riffing African-Americans, throwing plaintive “oh-ohhhs” in the middle of any word. “What’s love got to do with oh-ohhh it?” Neither will be around long. Then there’s Andrew, still trying to top the magic of improving a Paula Abdul song.

Mike, the football linebacker who probably has THE PAJAMA GAME soundtrack on his iPod, gave the performance of the night doing James Brown’s “This is a Man’s World”. And Lee, the big teddy bear, did a nice turn with “Lips of an Angel”. They're safe. Everyone else is iffy.

Hopefully the women are better, Ellen is funnier, Crystal is back, and Sawyer isn’t transported back to 1977 before Kara can lick cookie dough off his chest.