When 6 become 4.......

Too bad one of these bosom buddies had to go home. Maybe they'll go drink the sadness away.



We all knew Bon Jovi week was going to be incredible, and it was.

Phil started things out with an excellent version of "Blaze of Glory". Remember, that song was from "Young Guns 2", which is the one where Billy the Kid is shot (or is he?) in the back by Patrick Floyd Garrett and starred Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Christian Slater, and a young Viggo Mortensen. But the juiciest role was left for Jon Bon Jovi as the uncredited role of "Pit Inmate Shot Back into Pit".

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, Phil went home first on Wednesday, and for our pool, that means he went home last week. It's a shame because he clearly had one of, if not the, best performances on Tuesday, but it wasn't enough for the total vote tally from the two weeks.

Congratulations to Matty Lane. He was the only person who called Phil out at #6.

Side note - where are all the jokers who think that votefortheworst works now? Votefortheworst picked Phil after Sanjaya went out. Boy, their support for these people really pays off!

In honor of Phil, who certainly won us over during the course of the season, here's the video for "Blaze of Glory":


Awesome, right?

But as awesome as this recent performance? Phil definitely beats out Chris Sligh!


Or this one? Phil definitely beats out Scarlett Johansson, although she really wasn't given a lot to work with:



Back to the show on Tuesday - LaKisha was great and got a smooch. Melinda was her usual rock solid self. Blake hid his mediocre voice behind some fun beatboxing and a repetitive refrain that the whole crowd could sing along to.

The low points of the evening were definitely Chris' "Dead or Alive", which, while not horrible, was also not one of the stronger performances, and Jordin's "Living on a Prayer".

Here are our thoughts about Jordin - she's great and she has a great voice, but we have no idea what happened to her on Tuesday. Maybe our critique of her "You'll Never Walk Alone" got to her.....Whatever the reason, her performance was what we feared a Bon Jovi night could become - terrible karaoke.

But, it turned out that Chris' didn't have enough support over the two weeks to carry on......Could it have had something to do with his lighting on Tuesday night.....Here are our notes for the AI producers when Chris sings on the tour- don't ever ever EVER light him from above in harsh white light while he's staring into the camera with his head down......Why?

Here's Chris from last night.




















And here's Vincent D'Onofrio as Pvt. Pyle in Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket".



I don't know what the produers' major malfunction is, but I'm pretty certain after getting the boot on Wednesday, Chris went right to the bathroom and blew his face open with a rifle.

Congrats to Adele, Serico, Crystal, Jon, Mike, and Yvonne. They all correctly called Chris Richardson out at #5.



Clearing out some links we've been sent (and while we're on the subject of Chris Richardson) - special thanks goes to Paul Peters for alerting us to this story about the show two weeks ago. Turns out Justin Timberlake was supposed to be with Antonio Banderas two weeks ago to promote "Shrek the Third", but he balked and that's why we got Jeffrey Katzenberg instead:

The folks at Paramount (which will distribute Shrek) also made a big ad buy on the show, of course, but the real lure was that Katzenberg was supposed to deliver Justin Timberlake, who plays a young prince in the new movie. Having the newly redeemed Timberlake appear as mentor to the aspiring Idols makes a lot of sense, no matter how unwilling one might be to listen to boy-band covers.

But Timberlake balked. Katzenberg's camp says the problem was that Timberlake's touring schedule changed, making the appearance impossible. A well-placed Timberlake source says the young man opted to spend the week in Scotland with his parents.

Anyway, let's get to the scoring!!!!!!!!!!

The scoring system has taken two weeks off, and a lot of things have changed. Up is down. Black is white. Dogs love cats. It's crazy.

With Phil going home last week and Chris going home this week, do you want to guess who has now moved into first place overall? You'll never believe it.....

WILL BEEKMAN!! Will is the only contestant who is 4 for 4 and he is now #1 overall!!!! Will's combination of 4 for 5 for last week and 4 for 4 this week vaulted him to 231 points, and since he still has the top 4 all still alive, he can max out at the unsurmountable amount of 295 points.

(Side note - It's actually going to be tough for him to win out as he has LaKisha winning the whole thing. - end side note)

No one can take his Week 9 accomplishment away from him. He is tops this week, and tops in our book.


Then, there are a bunch of other people at 2 through 5. Do you want to know who they are?

Ok, fine. I'll tell you.

At #2 and almost certainly out of reach of Will is Marybeth Heyd. She has 230 points, which is one GIANT point behind Will and can only max out at 294. Loser.

At #3 is Missy, and she better just consider packing up her bags right now and calling it a season. She has the laughable amount of 228 points and can only max out at 282. I mean, it's not even close.

At #4 sits Kristin. Remember when I said Will was the only person who went 4 for 4? Yeah, I lied, Kristin is also 4 for 4, but she's not in first place, so who really cares.

Kristin did write in to us tonight with these comments:

Whoopdy Doo!!! My name is Kristin and I'm 4 for 4 with Melinda Doolittle winning the whole thing. Make sure you write about how awesome I am....

Whatever Kristin. People who write about how awesome they are just because they are 4 for 4 should be belittled, not celebrated.

Then at #5 is Team Zach & Sarah. Team Zach & Sarah just continuously hangs around the top 5-7 of the pool. Unfortunately, they only have two of their top 4 still alive, so this could be the highest they're going to get for the rest of the season. Currently, Team Zach & Sarah have 216 points, and they can only max out at 270.

Want to know who the top 10 are now in max points? Here you go:

1. Will - currently 1st - 295 points
2. Marybeth - currently 2nd - 294 points
3. Kristin - currently 4th - 286 points
4. Missy - currently 3rd - 282 points
5. Crystal - currentl 9th - 275 points
6. Zach & Sarah - currently 5th - 270 points
T7. Paul P. - currently 6th - 268 points - Paul has made a big run up from the bottom of the pack!
T7. Kendra - currently 16th - 268 points
9. Julie - currently 12th - 264 points
10. Jennie - currently 14th - 263 points

Two final thoughts:

1. Let's all give a big American Idol Pool hand to Lisa Wagner! Lisa stayed on top of the standings for 9 weeks, which is an amazing run. In fact, I think we should name some sort of award for Lisa and hand it out each season to the person who stays on top of the pool the longest.

Unfortunately, Lisa fell back into 11th place this week. She only has 2 of her top 4 still alive and can max out at 253. There's a chance for her to finish in the top 10 still.....

1a. We should also acknowledge the nice run Matty Lane had at the top of the pool as well. Matty was giving Lisa a run for her money every week for the last month. Unfortunately, like Lisa, Matty just ran out of gas and can max out at 231 points. Still, he made some very nice calls this season (like Phil out at #6, and Sabrina out of the top 12 altogether).


2. Everyone needs to look at the bottom 3 in the pool this week. For those of you who don't know, Paul F., Jaime, and Suzanne are all family. Jaime's parents are Paul F. and Suzanne - and currently they're in a race to the death to see who will finish dead last! I guess picking American Idol picks is a hereditary trait.....


That's it! Bee Gees next week!
The Master


PS-Who knew that jokes about Simon's girlfriend would give him uncontrollable fits of laughter? Is he really 11 years old?