American Idol Season 9 - Top 11 (Elimination)

Good to see Randy is back to booing Simon at the beginning of the show. Last week was an aberration. Nice use of Autotune on the guys for "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go." It's great to see that a collection of America's greatest singers need help hitting notes.

I have had a few hours to think about yesterday's debacle of a show and I do blame Miley Cyrus a little. It falls on the mentor to get good performances out of the contestants. She could have helped them more. Or gotten her dad to.

Bottom 3:

Katie Stevens - It was not good for me but it certainly wasn't bad enough to go home. (Relatively.) I'm not sure what I want from her other than to not knock out one of the top performers (Crystal, Siobhan, Lee, Didi, Huey Lewis).

Tim Urban - I should have gotten this right. I rushed myself to finish the blog. He was in the Bottom 3 last week. It was obvious. I hope my readers will let me...slide? Nice.

Paige Miles - It was one of the worst performances I've ever seen on Idol. It was bad from note one. She had to go home. What's unfortunate was how good her exit performance was. Once Simon said she had no shot at getting the save, it was a total transformation. Nerves can be a cruel stagemate.

Final Thought: I was wrong to put Andrew Garcia in the Bottom 3, prediction-wise. He has a strong following. He needs to stick to his acoustic guitar and entertain all of his fans until he is voted off because, right now, he's terrible. At least when he was fooling around with acoustic guitar, I didn't have to fight with my thumb and the fast forward button. He's in Lil Rounds territory. Really early frontrunners who struggle get beaten to a pulp by the judges and stop being who they are. Their performances resemble someone who got on stage at karaoke and had a friend secretly pick the song. My gut is telling me Tim will be next followed by Katie. Then we could get a surprise of Big Mike. I feel like he's going home earlier than people realize. As the judges keep pointing out the overdramatic stage mannerisms, America will not be able to ignore them and then stop voting so they will go away.

American Idol Season 9 - Top 11

Miley Cyrus was the mentor this week. She won me over by saying she didn't know why she was a mentor but she would be willing to help with connection and stage presence. I appreciate that. Unfortunately, that won't allow me to rip her apart as mentor. I had a whole metaphor about a dragon and a bakery. It was gonna be sweet. As for the awful night, at least the contestants had fun because the viewers did not.

Lee DeWyze - "The Letter" - I agreed with Simon on this. It didn't feel like Lee. After last week's "Beast of Burden" (which I have watched 4 times), I was disappointed. He doesn't need to be moving around to be a "star." The 3 Non-Simons are giving him bad advice. Do not listen to them, Lee. Do not hear their call. You will die (or get voted off).

Paige Miles - "Against All Odds" - She went with the stairs. The stairs usually lead to good comments from the judges but not this time. It might have been worse than her "Smile" from 2 weeks ago. I had to make sure it wasn't me singing up there. She better not put that on YouTube. Commenters will be merciless.

Tim Urban - "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" - Tim Urban got a hug. Do you think Miley's boyfriend is going to be jealous? That hug said "I wish it was you, Tim Urban, in my Nicholas Sparks movie and not the other guy." Let's talk about Miley's movie instead of the singing. No? Fine. It was ok. I have a feeling the judges would have liked it if this was Season 2. I'm more concerned with the slide. It was like the first day of sliding in Little League practice. He is going to hurt himself. At least, Miley will take care of him.

Aaron Kelly - "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" - It was decent for having laryngitis and tonsillitis but I'm a big fan of this song............'s movie. How can he connect to this song? This is song is about a Bruce Willis stopping an asteroid from hitting Earth so that his daughter may live. Aaron is too young to have experienced that. I didn't buy it.

Crystal Bowersox - "Me and Bobby McGee" - It was fantastic. Maybe the only good performance of the night. Therefore, I'd like to talk about how Miley ruined Crystal's guitar. Crystal gave you a gift, Cyrus. You don't deserve to sign that guitar and she allowed you to and then you take up all of that room. Just sign your name. Where's Pink going to sign? Where's Paula Cole going to sign? Where's the random lady who was spiritually inhabited by Karen Carpenter just to meet Crystal going to sign? Think next time.

Big Mike - "When A Man Loves A Woman" - I didn't even want to watch once I heard the song choice. One thing is for sure. Big Mike loves love. Big Mike loves women. And Big Mike loves loving women. Is anyone up for Mike mixing it up next week and rocking out, "Throw Some Ds on that Bitch?" At the very least it will be fun to watch him cornily mime picking up D cup breasts and throwing them at an imaginary bitch.

Andrew Garcia - "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" - I've given up on Andrew. I'll listen to whatever pop acoustic song he puts on YouTube but he's got nothing left. If there was one positive for this performance, it was his dedication to pointing to his ear every time he mentioned hearing something through the grapevine.

Katie Stevens - "Big Girls Don't Cry" - There was no edge to the vocal. It sounded like one long "Yayayayayayayayayayayaya" howl if those ya's were out of tune. Fergie is not one of those Idol untouchables (Mariah or Whitney) but she sings with attitude. Katie has the attitude of seahorse that was raised by the Amish. It did not work but the Non-Simons liked it.

Casey James - "The Power of Love" - He sounded exactly like Huey Lewis at times. It was scary. In the opening interview, he said he was going to focus on moving around and owning the stage. So how did he rock the stage? He started standing near his microphone and then walked to it. You know what? Owning the stage is a journey and that always starts with the one step he took tonight. I'm looking forward to next week!

Didi Benami - "You're No Good" - It was fine but it felt very Broadway. I hope this was an off week for her because I don't want her to be a Broadway Idol. She's better than that. I don't want her starring in "My Name in Heart Lights: The Music of Neil Diamond" by this time next year. Side note - I'd get tickets for that show regardless.

Siobhan Magnus - "Superstition" - Clean up on Idol 11! That was a mess and a half. Her body moves in slow motion. It is independent to whatever her mouth is doing. It doesn't look right. Is it because she can't see? She should crawl around feeling for stuff next week. Also, she screeched again at the end. Imagine that.

Bottom Three: While I know it is hard to pick only 3 going home-worthy performances, you have to factor in the number of fans people have. Paige is done. It was that bad. They can't afford to have her there next week even if the producers have to turn off her phone line. The other two spots are probably Andrew Garcia (he's done more than enough to deserve it) and Katie Stevens (her singing is like licking cardboard). I feel Tim Urban has too many girls in love with him. Same with Aaron Kelly.

Going Home: Paige Miles

Tor's News Nuggets: 9/3/09

The guy who played the Green Ranger on "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" is trying to break into MMA fighting. The main problem is he won't get in the ring. He just wants to do voice over while a Japanese guy fights in his place.

A man in Tampa, Florida, could not cash a check at a Bank of America because they require a thumb print and the man was born without arms. An accord has still not been achieved because, in order to reach an agreement, Bank of America must shake on it.

Madison, Wisconsin, officially named the pink plastic flamingo its official bird, honoring a college prank from the 70s. "We've really made a lot of wonderful changes during my administration," said Mayor Lawn Gnome.

Madison, Wisconsin, officially named the pink plastic flamingo its official bird, honoring a college prank from the 70s. In related news, there was a split vote on making toilet paper the official tree.

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The following are some jokes that I submitted to the iPhone app about 2 weeks ago. So, they might be a little old.

Barney Frank lashed out at a protester for carrying a poster of Barack Obama sporting a Hitler mustache. Frank was angry because he prefers his Obama in more of a Selleck.

Bernie Madoff's lover has written a tell-all book in which she mentions that Madoff had "a very small penis." So that's why he was rolling around in such a BIG Ponzi scheme.

Johnny Knoxville announced he and his wife are having a baby boy. A crew will be on hand at the birth to film the mother shooting the baby out of her body directly into Knoxville's crotch.

Michelle Obama is under scrutiny for wearing shorts in public last week. Newspapers are calling it the biggest White House fashion faux pas since Taft's thong.

Police are looking for two men who stole over $1 million in merchandise from a JCPenney. Police are not sure where to begin but they assume they are on the lookout for two men carrying a large building filled with customers and employees.

The winner of the women's world 800 meters is being asked to take a gender test because she has masculine qualities. Her gender was brought into question when she crossed the finish line 6 inches before her torso did.

Usain Bolt was honored by the city of Berlin by receiving a 3 ton section of the Berlin Wall. Bolt thanked the mayor of Berlin, picked up the Wall, and ran back to Jamaica in 48 seconds.

Miley Cyrus was spotted "full-on making out" at the Nashville Airport though her father claims it was just a peck. Billy Ray would know because he was sitting between them at the time.

The debate continues on whether Pluto is a planet. In response, Mickey said, "Look, he's old and he's always hungry. What am I supposed to do?"

Congresswoman Maxine Waters, in a recent town hall meeting, referred to some of the senators opposed to health care reform as "Neanderthals." Though this seems ridiculous, the Capital building is installing wooden club detectors as a precautionary measure.

A groundskeeper at a golf course found a 10-pound tooth that paleontologists believe came from a mammoth. The scientists were sure it came from a mammoth after they counted to 32 inside Hilary Swank's mouth.