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?

Standings for Week 9 - Here!!!!!

Rock comes to Idol

AI HQ LOVES Bon Jovi, and we can't be more excited that he is running this week's Master Class.

Will Beekman wrote in to tell us that his favorite Bon Jovi memory:

I saw Bon Jovi play as an Asbury Juke with Southside Johnny at Tradewinds in Sea Bright somewhere around 1998. Southside's set rocked and Bon Jovi simply said "All my life I wanted to be a Juke, and now I have the chance". Then he just jammed with the band and never upstaged Southside. It was one of the best live shows I've ever seen.

And Brian Soucek says this:

I saw Bon Jovi hanging out at a hotel in Chicago and recognized him instantly. He's awesome. I love him.

And Adele Beekman says this:
Bon Jovi is incredible. I wish he would run for president. Of my heart.


Of course, to those of you not lucky enough to grow up in the heart of New Jersey in the 80s and 90s, Bon Jovi will always be the hair band that brought back smiling to music videos. Before Bon Jovi hit the market, the rock hair bands of the early 80s sneered into the camera. Bon Jovi changed all that, and the bands that followed have Jon Bon Jovi to thank.

But to those of you who grew up in Jersey, this is what you think of Bon Jovi he rocks. His voice rocks. Richie Sambora rocks. Bon Jovi's lyrics, though.....well, they need a little work.

Here's the song Bon Jovi will be playing on Wednesday. He's going country!!!!



And here is our favorite Bon Jovi song.....now let me describe this live performance....it starts with a piano playing over Bon Jovi breathlessly introducing the meaning of the song, and then he counts off 4 before the whole thing takes off....and the meaning of the song? It's about a a bunch of kids who were friends, grew up together, and now although they've grown apart, they're still family because of their shared childhood. I MEAN COME ON! Bon Jovi has one person to thank for his career.



So, wikipedia tells us that this will be "rock" week with Bon Jovi, so we're guessing it won't be explicitly "Bon Jovi" week. And that's a good thing, right?

However, you have to wonder exactly what is going to qualify as rock this week....Chris might be able to pull something off, and Jordin should be strong, but I'm pretty skeptical of everyone else - LaKisha has been making horrible decisions the last few weeks, Blake can't do anything "rock" - he's much more "alternative" edging on adult contemporary, I highly doubt Melinda will rock (although I'm sure she'll sound like a million bucks), and the closest thing Phil has done to rock, "Tobacco Road", just wasn't believable. Here's that clip again to refresh your memory.

Then again, we were pleasantly surprised on country week, so maybe this will rock after all!

Enjoy!
The Master

You never stand taller than when you stoop to help a child

When they said the most shocking result in our history, and then they told Melinda she was safe, I got really pissed off really quickly, because Jordin has quickly become our favorite at Idol HQ, and most people thought she was awesome last night (we didn't, and we'll explain why below).

Then I just happened upon the music blog www.idolator.com (no relation to the show). They posted a story this afternoon about the contestants' picks on iTunes. I can't give you the iTunes link, but here's the idolator link with the iTunes link inside.

And guess what happens when you follow the link and your iTunes opens up? EVERYONE'S PLAYLISTS ARE THERE EXCEPT FOR CHRIS'!!!!!!

I thought it was a sure bet that Chris was gone. Turns out it was nobody leaving this week. Awesome. Especially for our pool.

Back to the iTunes thing real quick:
Massive kudos to Jordin for selecting Sufjan Stevens' "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." in her playlist. Almost as cool as Blake Lewis selecting Elliott Smith's "Independence Day" AND Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek" AND "Leave Me Alone" AND "100% Dundee". And definitely not as cool as LaKisha selecting all the songs she's sung on Idol.

I mean, seriously, what is LaKisha's deal? She does a Carrie Underwood song and a Fantasia song in back-to-back weeks --- so horrible song choices. She looks like she doesn't get along with anyone. She doesn't hold Sanjaya's hand when she's in the bottom 2. What is her story? She's a clown.

Speaking of clowns, what is Terri Hatcher's deal? Did she rush to the Idol taping from a 3-ring circus in her little clown car and forget to take off her outrageous clown makeup?


Here are our other thoughts about Wednesday -
Why can't Simon talk to the camera onstage? Was he confused which way was forward or does he think his back is his most photogenic side?

So many Sanjaya jokes tonight, and he's IN THE AUDIENCE! That's not cool. Oh, and looks like Sanjaya's Mom had a big day last Friday. PS - that means she likes pot.

It's a good thing they didn't ask Quincy Jones to speak. Remember what happened earlier this year? And do you call what Quincy did "conducting"?

Randy Jackson, Seal, and Jack Black - nicely done.

Kelly Clarkson and Jeff Beck - Awesome. I could watch Kelly Clarkson sing for the whole 2 hours, but then I would be without knowing each funeral Gwenyth Paltrow has ever attended, and I NEED to know that. By the way, do all these famous people know anyone or are they only friends with really young and healthy people? I'm younger than almost all of the celebrities they showed and have been to more funerals than all of them.

Who's hotter - Helen Mirren or Kiera Knightley? I think it's a toss up. I must be getting old.

My eyes physically hurt me when I watched Celine Dion and Elvis sing. I assume it was the special effects that made her blurry.

When Madonna said all those kids she was standing with in Malawi had AIDS and were dying.....I really hope those kids don't understand English.


OK, here are our thoughts about Jordin doing "You'll Never Walk Alone":
You thought Jordin Sparks had an awesome rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone"? Think again.

Anyone who's anyone knows that in order to sing "You'll Never Walk Alone" perfectly, you must sing "One Light" immediately after it and then "Climb Every Mountain", "The Dudley Hymn", and "Now the Day is Over" and fade it all out with 3 pianos playing while you hum the melody until the lights above you slowly darken. And you must be 10 1/2 - 14 years old. And you must sit on the floor. And you must be surrounded by 350 of your peers. And the doors must be open. And it must be the summer.

Those are the rules for singing "You'll Never Walk Alone" perfectly. Jordin did well, but until I see her in Westport, NY, she'll always be 2nd best....Download a perfect version of "You'll Never Walk Alone"here. But hurry because that download is only available for a week!



Well, that's about it to add from here. Not quite sure what we're going to do for scoring next week. Ideas?

The Master