Top 7 -- Paula, I Think I've Got Something To Say To You

Tuesday

Ryan's out in the audience, saying hello to us, wearing that confusing tie with the diamond squares down the middle again, and all scrubbly still. A credits sequence later, he comes out of the FANT ASIA stage and...everybody screams. Even though he was just out there. Marilu Henner, looking like the Emperor of Ice Cream and refusing to let her kids have any dairy, is screaming. Why? Ryan reminds us about how Bucky left, and that's very sad, and if you don't vote, you can't "boo," and he looks down at the judges and laughs angrily to himself, because the judges have been chatting like a drunken, bored Sunday afternoon in the garden the entire time he's been talking. "Pass me that sangria," says one, and the other says, "We're running out of cigarettes." Ryan shakes them from their summery reverie and introduces them to us, and they nod sleepily, Paula in so much Fellini-esque makeup she looks like the brilliant Pamela Gordon in the late evening of her life. Ryan says something about how Simon's underdressed but everybody is going to class it up -- Simon asks Paula to clarify, just to show how drunk they all are -- even though Simon's wearing what he always wears and the kids are all going to end up looking like they're in Bugsy crossed with Godspell, as performed by Second City.

Ryan talks a blue streak about Rod Stewart's "tight pants," which he pronounces like "pianist," and we learn how Rod Stewart went from obnoxious "rock" songs like ZZ Top straight to obnoxious standards, like fucking everybody else. Is there a single pop star that doesn't eventually relocate to a mental Vegas hotel? And more importantly: what about the "broken arrow/bottle of rain" and "Forever Young" era? Back when Mike + The Mechanics and their ilk could make you feel better about being a mid-thirties white man than even watching The Big Chill sixteen times in a row? The best era not including "Maggie May"? He seemed like a nice man back then, and Rachel Hunter was so, so pretty. Now she's a dancing bag o' bones, and Rod Stewart looks like Jonathan Crane, MD, and he's been singing everybody else's songs as long as my youngest brother's been alive. He explains to us how there was blues, and then jazz, and then standards came from that, and also swing, and thence the apocalypse. He dances like you think maybe the Gentlemen would, but he looks okay in the right lighting. Every picture tells a different story about how old he is ["Don't it? �Sorry." --Joe R]!

If you can't remember what Rachel Hunter used to look like, I'd like you to meet Rod's new fianc�e Penny. Yep. And their newborn, Alistair. Everybody keeps referring to the baby as Rod's, and nobody looks directly at Penny, which is understandable because how awkward, but also gives things a certain Suri TomKitten feel. As Rod and his chattel enter the room, the whole group is singing that annoying song about how "you're in my heart/you're in my beer" or whatever, that song that repeats over and over, faster and faster until you feel like the mulberry bush around which Rod chases his fianc�e. Kat loves the baby and Elliott loves the baby and they're both so showy and sensitive about everything, and nobody will look at Penny still, but it's not a cute baby. I know what a cute baby looks like, and...oh, what a cute baby! Never mind. ["I thought the baby was adorable." -- Sars] We see Rod pantsing around with the Idols -- saluting Paris, shoving Kellie's face into his knee, dancing with some bald gay black man, falling on the floor like a drunk and staring up Kat's dress -- and he tells how he "could never do what these kids do at their age," because at their age he was fucking old ladies who wanted to take care of him but he was like, "No, I'm going to be a pool shark." Everybody plays with the baby to the point where jealous Daddy bitches about being outshone, and I don't think they use the word "bastard" in Europe because nobody gets married there anymore because gay marriage ruined that particular sacrament forever -- In your face! -- but I still think it's funny to call Rod Stewart's baby a bastard.

Rod hugs Ace and says it'll be in the newspapers, ha ha, but just like every guest artist every week, he can't keep his hands off him, so who's the joke really on? He tells us how these songs aren't special or interesting -- I'm paraphrasing -- because anybody can sing these songs, and make loads of cash, because people are sheep and Baby Boomers are the fucking worst about this, and the only songs they like are songs they've heard a million times or more, because when you get old, your heart dies. So he's put out four hundred of these stupid sheep-fucking albums and has made a load of cash, of course, but now maybe the ultimate nail in the coffin of his relevance will be franchising them out to American Idol, and then he can die without any soul whatsoever, or maybe go back to doing "rock songs," such as "Hot Legs" or "Infatuation," neither of which are "rock" or "songs."

Has Chris Daughtry ever blinked his eyes in his entire life? He tells us we're going to be "surprised" by the song he's chosen, but the bar's set pretty high; I mean, one thing we've always been able to count on from Chris is fresh and original choices. Rod says some shit to him about how he's "done a lot of rock singing," which is funny, because one or the other of those words needs air quotes, but not both. Chris Taylors that the song has "so many values in it that mean so much" to him, and you know what, let's review. Song's got trees blooming "for me and you," so does he mean "sharing" is a value he loves? It contains the words "blessed" and "sacred," so is it vaguely religion-adjacent, empty terminology? We're getting closer. It talks about the colors of the rainbow also being on the faces of people all over the place, so maybe he loves the value of "racial profiling." And also how shaking hands also means "I love you," so maybe "HoYay." And...babies grow up and learn things. The value of "cognitive science." He's deep, y'all. He holds a lot of weird things in very high esteem. Or, and I stress this is only a possibility, he's as dumb and fake as Taylor, and doesn't even know the words of the song he's about to sing. Chris talks about how it's harder for him to "sing a song like this," I guess because it has a melody and was never performed by a single bald poseur in a Seattle coffee shop, and they embrace, and Rod talks about how Chris was "brought up on heavy metal," which is a simply ignorant thing to say, and then goes on a weird limb about how he "can't imagine Ozzy singing this song, for instance," and I fucking dare you to demonstrate for me the difference between Rod Stewart and Ozzy Osbourne in the world of 2006.

"What A Wonderful World" begins with a guitarist on the steps. Did you think that was Chris? Me too, I was excited. ["I was relieved when it wasn't, because it turns out in retrospect I hated Bo a lot and I hate when anyone even reminds me of him." -- Joe R] But no, it's just a guy. Chris enters from stage right, dressed as...a gangster. A real hep cat. He's wearing a pale shirt under his vest, so he looks like a truck stop Chippendale's dancer from far away, but up close he's wearing a...cravat. Chris? What did they...did you say something about "lifestyles" last week that I missed? Because that is a punishment. You look like a Brittenum. You look like the houseboy of Brittenums.

And then there's the singing, which...is lovely. Yes. It's wonderful, actually, and there's enough of that groaning, rubble-throated Chrisness to prove once and for all that he's not this year's Scott Savol, but nevertheless. It's not a telethon, and this is, for whatever reason, the most depressing song in the world to me, right up there with "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," and for whatever reason, your knitted eyebrows and the tears at the corners of your eyeballs and the frown lines and whatever, it makes me feel like I'm going to be adopting a child in a faraway land before this shit is over. Like, how can anybody be that intensely worried about, say, "clouds of white"? Whilst wearing a cravat? How? It's just always so charmless and personality-free and there's always the nervous vibrato and everything seems so disingenuous. The only thing he wouldn't seem disingenuous about would be something inherently fake. Like evanescence. Plus the very fake tattoo thing of, like, those guys who want to be hardcore but don't know from hardcore so they stretch the holes in their ears until you can fit a quarter through there and also, "I'M SO SENSITIVE, TOO," and it's just...that's a nice identity, but the identities that are real, and rock, are the original ones that come about organically. He tells, he doesn't show. He's young.

He purses his lips at the judges, who fall down groaning and twitching about how "original" it was and how he's got this other side to him but, like -- he sang the song. There was no "Chris" in the song, just Chris singing the song. But then, there's no "Chris," period, so I guess what they're saying is, "Don't you love how the 'controversy' about him picking well-known cover versions has finally blown over? Whatever will we stupidly engineer ?" Paula thinks that Simon now loves Chris, and also that Chris should see the entirety of her breasts, and in fact that we all should. Simon takes "credit" for the whole "transformation" and says it's because he personally said to cut that crap out, and it only took Chris five weeks to actually cut the crap out, so that's a success in Simon's book. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the stupid, ill-informed, rabid press about how singing a Live cover of a song somehow made Chris a corpse-fucking child-abuser, and everything to do with Simon's opinion of him. This whole story arc with Chris and his wife and whatever, him finding his way in this world without the placebo of Five Doors Down to get him through a single performance night is really...fucking...gay. Give me a break. Simon congratulates him on a "great performance," which it was, and the crowd shits themselves, because the only thing lamer than Chris's journey to the Evanescence Within is their journey toward Punch & Judy 24/7 without a thought in their fucking heads. Ryan gets all metro about "you lost the eye makeup!" and Chris apparently has been in desensitization therapy, because he actually looks Ryan in the eye and points out that he also lost the beard, which is why he is back to looking like a penis with sideburns. Ryan loses interest three words in, because he's got his eye on the clock, because he is a professional, and waits for Chris to stop stepping on his lines. He kicks out the numbers, and Chris is all scary eyes grimacing out into the camera. I wish he had hair. Grow some hair! Ryan's like, "I don't even know what you are. You're so alien to me." Ryan should step outside A/X sometime and cross the food court to Hot Topic, and he'd get a truckload of Chris.

Ryan accidentally makes some kind of either/or reference about how so far it's been "smooth songs" but now Taylor's going to sing, America, and that's the opposite of smooth, and then he talks about how they did a joke on -- he can't say the show's name, but I can, it was Saturday Night Live -- that included a parody of Taylor. Which I saw, and which was not uproariously funny, but fucking Ryan about pisses himself giggling about how funny it was, just like the memory of it causes him to convulse. I love that kid so, so much. Taylor says he "fell out on the floor" about it, and then they both...this is one of those Mouse And His Child recursive-iteration things that freaks me out, but: Ryan and Taylor, on TV, doing an impression of an impression by Jason Sudeikis, on TV, of Taylor Hicks, who he saw on TV. And they're both doing an impression of it, and Taylor's alternating this with his actual shtick, which is like an extremely fake and offensive impression of a developmentally disabled person anyway. So they "Woo!" and they clap! And Ryan loved it, because he was at home! Alone! And Ryan asks if Taylor didn't feel somewhat hurt afterwards, and Taylor, who is dumb as shit, says not at all, because "flattery is a great form of humor." Oh, is it now? Well sit tight, Taylor, because you're about to get a load of "flattery" from yours truly. Taylor then goes into his pre-performance package, talking about nothing, knowing about nothing, garbling grammar into nothing, something about music, he loves the music and only comes alive through music, whatever, and Rod Stewart dances around and sings while he sings, and they sing together, and Taylor says that you can tell Rod loves Sam Cooke. But what's awesome about that is that the way you can tell this is true is by how Rod's openly like, "You're almost worthy of standing in Sam's shoes, but that was okay too." Rod tells us that Simon is dumb, because Simon always says it's "not a dance competition," when apparently Rod would have us believe that it is, and furthermore that Taylor Fucking Hicks is Exhibit A of this truism. Rod Stewart blew his mind out with coke years ago, clearly, and besides, I heard he had to have his stomach pumped after a show. He ends on a pronouncement that Taylor "grabs the audience by the balls, as they say," and for once I can't disagree with Rod. That's exactly what it's like. And yeah. It hurts.

Somebody hits the "Samba" arrangement preset on their Yamaha, and half of Taylor and half of the band really go to town on "You Send Me." The other half? Boca. I have no idea where Taylor's head is at, ever, besides hanging limply over to the left with his eyes at half-mast in an attempt to be adorable, but especially in these spooky, lifeless performances he keeps giving. Maybe he actually just used it all up with the spazzing early, like he took years off his life through the black magic of twitching, or else maybe he set the bar so high for acting like a jackass that what would normally seem like a normal performance and only looks corpselike because it's him. Spooky eyes, boring, singing the most boring and repetitive song in the entire universe -- and just the boring, repetitive parts! Like, the song doesn't even have a bridge! My notes say, at three separate points throughout: "It'll pick up, watch."

He does the sincere hand movements like he's explaining the concept of "sending" and "being sent" and the song has a beautiful melody, yes, but it's four bars long, and it never stops or changes, and he's in the bottom of his range -- not uncomfortably so, but low enough that he just sounds like some guy, singing -- which means when he does go all shaky-spazzy, it's going to sound good, but that doesn't make it layered, it makes it lazy, because honestly he could have done all this at his midrange and it would have sounded a lot sweeter and more interesting, and finally the yelling comes, and the unattractive dancing, but still not energetic enough in either the vocal contest or the Rod Stewart Dance Invitational to justify the absolute bugshit that the entire audience goes, immediately on seeing the return of What's Embarrassing About Taylor Hicks. Just WAY out of proportion with what's going on. And the whole time, he's so internal and retreating-in, like he has to mentally will the audience away in order to get through this at all. Is he still tired? Go home, old man. Why are they all so nervous?

Randy wows about how "what a difference some different music makes" because, somehow, all of the Idols are in their element, and likes how Taylor put his own self into the song at the end. When he, predictably, freaked out. Randy congratulates himself on how this somehow means that Taylor was "listening to the Dawg" and "keeping it real." Paula talks about how "Sam would be proud," and how Taylor is "finally in the zone to go the distance," remarks on the "superb" ending, calls it "the best take on the song" -- compared to what -- and surmises that the Soul Patrol is probably "on fire." In the audience, Latoya London is on fire with boredom. Simon says that it started as a "lame cabaret," and then at the end ("snap!" go his fingers) it was magic. I like how talkative and interesting Paula is tonight, and how much Simon is enjoying the performances. I like that a lot. Ryan says "the show is on fire," and Taylor smiles fakely and whispers "Soul Patrol" to himself, and then Ryan kicks it to commercial after pointing out that Elliott and Kellie look like they're on a prom date. And it's sad, because right then Elliott does that stroked-out, teeth-hiding smile he sometimes tries, and Kellie is...Kellie, so while they do look like a prom date, it's the kind where they're brother and sister, and they're hoping to get lucky after.

Elliott Yamin. I have to agree, he does kind of look like a drug dealer. When he meets Rod Stewart, I bet you know exactly what he does: blows a gasket about what an honor it is, and cries and cries. Rod loves his voice, of course, because it is transcendent, and Elliott talks about how he grew up on standards, which is what his mother sang professionally when she was younger. She's so cute, I'd like to hear her bust out some standards. Rod says that Elliott's got a "blue-eyed soul voice," which is French for "co-opting black vocal style in a way that would make Elvis Presley and Rick Astley proud," and tells him he has "a great set of pipes." He informs Elliott that he was born the year "Do You Think I'm Sexy" was a #1 hit, which is disheartening on several levels, including the fact that, 27 years later, Rod Stewart still knows that. Please don't know those things.

Elliott sings "It Had To Be You" with many, many creepy smiles, head-shaking and shiny black funereal suit with lots of purple accents, and a little squatting. It's such a good, good thing that his voice is amazing and completely new-sounding and awesome. I cannot get the drug dealer thing out of my mind. This song bores me, but it's Elliott, so I'm liking it. He continues to tend the goatee which each week comes in a little bit more decisively, which makes him look better, and there is a crazy big-band part at the end of the song and he does some yelling and it's nice. He doesn't go to a Rat Pack place at all, even though you could not blame him for doing so. Also: he should wear purple all the time, he really has just the loveliest eyes. And the oldest parents. ["Well, when your kid is spiritually pushing seventy, you've no choice but to keep up, I suppose." -- Joe R]

Randy says it was "very nice," "relaxed," "in control," and that Elliott was "singing good" [sic]. Mimi Rogers and her kids, they just love him. He gets the Scientology vote. I can't believe we haven't hit a bad performance yet and we're almost halfway done. Paula says most insightful thing in the most bizarre way, about how he's "contemporizing a genre like Bubl," but with more soul, "like Harry Connick, Jr." Two people I despise, and yet she's completely right in that he's got a more personal style than anyone up there. He admits to her that he feels like he's "locked in, finally," and she agrees that he is, and I'm inclined to agree except for the rictus grin he keeps throwing in there. Simon says it was "a good vocal" -- however. Tonight more than ever, personality is going to play a key role, and the performance lacked "a degree of personality." I know what he's saying, which is that the moneyed public is not going to want to have dinner with what they see before them, and probably never will, but won't we all cry when he's eliminated. As though to prove the point, a woman starts screaming in the audience who has no teeth at all in her entire head, just a black cave-like space with bats in it. Randy tries to apply some other vector of spin about how "anybody can go at any point," because after a performance like that, Elliott deserves to stick around, so he needs the votes and not a critique right now of things he will never be able to change. Then onstage, Ryan does some kind of a weird thing I don't understand, like, he's stuck in a box, and he's afraid of the sun, or...I don't know, whatever. I hate mime.

Kellie Pickler yaps at Rod Stewart for a while, and he tells us one-on-one that she's "a little firecracker, if I may use the word," and I don't know what "firecracker" means in Scotsville, but I'm guessing it carries some kind of moron connotation. He makes a lame joke with her about how she said she needs to keep "the words" handy, and he's like, "and the lyrics," and supplies for her benefit that it was a joke, and she goes -- really Ugly American, really honking and obnoxious -- "HUNH?" And Bird's like, "Well, I laughed," like she needs to cover for Rod's incredible humor, and finally they explain to Kellie that "words" and "lyrics" are the same thing, and then she jumps out a window to her horrifying death, because nobody can keep up an act this revolting that long. She sings real pretty, though. He calls "Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered" a "girl's song," and compliments her phrasing, even tells her to exaggerate her pauses more, and says he thinks the song is "breaking out a little bit, for her," which given that it involves neither prostitution or a Martina McBride song ripping off the plot of a sub-par Oprah Book Club novel about incest and tornados, is probably right. She says that he "took a load off [her] chest," and he double-takes like a sickening pervert, like she's just soooo innocent that he blushes just having her make funny little innocent mistakes like that and he can't look at her because she's the new Natalie Portman, and meanwhile in the corner, his fiance and the mother of his newborn gets her period for the first time and proudly exclaims, "I'm a woman now!"

Ace Young wants to sing a "fun, playful song." How about "What A Wonderful World"? It's got "values." He gets some JT all over Rod's expensive rock star clothes, and Rod Stewart one-on-ones something curious about how Ace "stuck to the melody and then branched off from the melody." Ace complains that, though he puppy-stared and kitten-whined, Rod gave him no feedback, and from what we just saw, I see how that might be the case. No, actually, I'm sorry, he says that he was looking for Rod's "approval." Sigh. Ace, honey, the world is not built on what we, the people, think of you. Not even the authority figures who make it their business to sell you that concept. I am so damn sick of every week when Ace shuffles up to the front of the stage with the naked begging on his face, and if I hadn't heard the shitty singing myself, I'd think they were panning him just because he's begging for it. Grow a sack, "Ace." Finally, Rod noncommittally tells him that he's "got nothing to say but 'brilliant,'" and that's apparently good enough for ol' Ace, who says that "having a legend comment on your voice is a trip." We get one-on-one with Ace: "That's the most fulfilling thing I could have even" -- fake pause/fake shrug/fake tears/fakeness -- "asked for."

Onstage, he looks so fucking fucked up, I can't even. Why is his hair in a bun, for just one tiny little example? He looks like a pallbearer. He looks like he's at the wedding at the beginning of The Godfather. He looks like some kind of murdering majordomo-slash-catamite. He looks like the gay porn of young Japanese girl comics. You know in the gangster things there's sometimes the young guy trying to make his bones and he's just all wrong and can't do anything right and he's only doing it because his father and uncle were in the Mob but really he wants to be a landscape painter or pastry chef? That's Ace. He sings "Thats All" with some very "Careless Whispers"-sounding accompaniment. Why won't he sing that? That and "Cry Me a River," and then go away. But no, he's gotta go home tonight, before we get a damn thing out of him, while looking like the fruit Frankie Gotti threw out. In addition to the song being the most boring song I've ever heard, so much so that I don't know it's entirely his fault. There are some gross moments as he tries to get up into the falsetto so that Randy will love him and approve of him some more, but I can't even really...he looks like a fucking...fuck-up! God. His lip super-shakes on the last word for some reason, and it looks ridiculous, and he looks ridiculous, and then he smiles like a moron. I really think he's going home this week. It's time for the Quickening.

Randy's like, "Hey, I used to dress like Travolta too" or some shit, but whatever, get to praising the falsetto, and he does, with a quickness, and even says Ace should have done the whole thing that way. Paula says that "dressed like that, it's a whole new Ace," and everybody in unison: "The gay hitman kind!" And out in the audience. Out in the audience, like a little poisoned valentine with my name on it, just to prove that this show, and particularly this segment, have it out for me personally. Out in the audience, like all of a sudden Dave Letterman's going to psychically ask me to gay marry him, who should we see out in that audience, but FUCKING MICHAEL RAPAPORT. My mortal enemy! What Carrot Top does to most people, Michael Rapaport does to me, I don't know if you know this, but it's true. Carrot Top also does that same thing to me, but ohhhh the immense Red Kryptonite rage I get when I see Michael Rapaport. Worse than the Black Crowes, or people who self-importantly inform you how much they love the films of fucking Kurosawa, or people who get pissy in grocery store parking lots, or those little security magnets inside DVDs, or hate mail from illiterates, or men who write off women's anger as craziness, I hate, hate, HATE MICHAEL RAPAPORT. And he's there! Watching Ace sing! Dressed as a drag king! With a bun! It's too much. It's just too much! ["If it makes you feel any better, it sure looked like Michael was hating himself (and the life he's come to lead while hanging on the FOX teat) to an almost equal degree." -- Joe R] He makes me feel like Natasha Lyonne!

Berman on Holly Golightly: "Crazy. A phony. But a real phony, you know?" And you know the only thing I love more than a regular phony is a real one, which is why I prefer Kat to Chris. She sings "Someone To Watch Over Me" sitting down on the stage and smiling beatifically in that "I know you love me" way that divas have, before they become bitches. Glinda the Good Witch with the lighting just perfect. She then proceeds to smile this way throughout the entire song without stopping, and it's said that this is a vocal thing, but that could be apologetics, and she rocks from cheek to cheek, which is just such a "standards" thing to do, for some reason. Like, with bare feet. Katharine is wearing hella jewelry, and she always knows where her camera is. Simon's going to overstate it, but this is the thing he's trying to say: she knows TV, and she knows the stage, and she knows what sells, and she knows what her voice can do. And other than Paris, the other Idols know these things, but not all at the same time, or at the same level all the time, and they get distracted and drop a ball or two (Elliott's rictus, Ace's horrible awful voice, Kellie's fucking...whatever, you know what I mean), and when he calls them "amateurs" by comparison, he's just talking about how she keeps it all going at the exact same time. It's not a judgment call, it's a call on product presentation, which is all he's ever talking about anyway. The smell of money. She big-voices it through the middle part of the song, and there's so, so much drama, but personally, I have a high threshold, and she seems to be enjoying herself immensely. Fake smiles are a little grating, but...have you seen that show American Idol? The main issue here, as mentioned previously, is how it's presented in Face-O-Vision, what forum user rolledeyes called "the big face in my face," which is very overwhelming in fact. In ANTM parlance, we'd call this a never-ending succession of "beauty shots." I'm buying. I get scared of her fans sometimes, like, they want to watch over her forever, but this show exists for one reason only: to make you crazy.

Randy tries to comment, and Katharine divas it up hilariously: "What? Hmmmm? I can't hear you over the intense screaming after my performance!" Debra Wilson from MADtv is in the audience again, and just like every time, she's just a leeeeettle bit closer to Linda Hamilton from T2. Laugh now, but when the robots come, Debra's the only one that'll save your asses. Meantime, her body is only around 68% covered in tattoos. We'll keep you up to date. ["Hey, at least she isn't weeping uncontrollably like when Kelly Clarkson won. Am I the only one who remembers that? I think her tears drowned Brian Dunkleman that night. I'm speaking a strange foreign language from the past, aren't I?" -- Joe R] ["There are no tears in her now. Only Pilates." -- Jacob] Randy finally lets Kat know -- above the screaming and shouting that prevents her from hearing him --that she was excellent. People partially pipe down for Paula's pronouncements, because she is crazy: she enjoyed, among other things, watching Katharine "falling in love with the essence of who" she is, I think, and also she enjoyed thinking about Mr. Holland's Opus, and Katharine sparkles that she also thinks of that money in connection with this song, and they agree that she "picked the most perfect song" and that it is "so [her]," and Paula finishes by congratulating her on being so "eloguent." I love Paula Abdul. Katharine giggles and smiles and gets a kick out of all this approval from adults.

Rod Stewart "wrote the book" on boring worn-out tunes, but on the flip side, he helped make "the best American Idol ever" happen. Ah, there you go. Glad it wasn't just me. Rod comes out through the FANT ASIA backdrop with some Shaft music playing, and instead of singing, he heads toward the couch, blowing kisses all the while to, well, Ace. He sits down on the couch between Ryan and Ace, and Ryan gets very damned cozy with him, like puts his arms around him lovingly and they spoon while Ryan spoon-feeds him a soft-serve interview: "Did you find any of the kids to be assholes?" "Why, no! There was no attitude whatsoever, despite what sources might lead us to believe! Especially not from Chris or Ace!" Ryan reminds him how he's been nominated for 14 Grammies and won one for GAS Volume One, but words it so you can't help but notice that it sounds as though he therefore lost 13 Grammies, which is a terrible thing to say to anyone. "Why the classics?" asks Ryan, and Rod answers honestly: "Because I am literally thousands of years old, as mortals measure time. Also, my family used to sing them." Ryan says, "Now that you've recorded unnecessary covers of every single song ever written, what's ? Could you be original for like one second?" Rod Stewart laughs and says, "There's always something brewing for Mr. Stewart!" as he massages Ace's knee and thigh without even looking at him. Young Master Young laughs nervously, as usual. Rod thinks maybe a "'70s classic rock album," and everybody goes "WOOO!" -- including Penny, who was born in the 1970s -- because God forbid we grow or change or act our age.

Ryan begs Nigel to do '70s classic rock year, and Nigel is super-scary as he agrees. Whatever Lola wants. Also: probably enough of the holdouts will die between now and then that Nigel can intimidate a decent catalog out of their widows. Ryan asks where Rod gets his jackets -- tonight's, a hideous gold lam -- and they giggle all metro about how it's "old Dolce & Gabbana" and Ryan says it...matches the highlights. So I guess I can't make any more metro jokes for the rest of the episode. Rod sings "The Way You Look Tonight" (that is the "the way you wear your hat" song) which I always confuse with "Wonderful Tonight," which is only different in that (a) I like it and (b) it doesn't smell like Frank Sinatra's old man pants. Fast forward, either way, although I'm told there were a couple of pretty sour notes in there. Afterwards, the Idols rush forward like a wave of ladybugs and hug and kiss him, except for Chris and Taylor, who stare blankly and nakedly into the camera instead, moving whenever anybody stands in front of them. He's a legend, you assholes.

Kat looks fucked up in preparation for the elimination, but first, let's learn about week's theme. On Tuesday...WHAT? Andrea Bocelli. Last seen getting his "Con Te Partiro" bastardized with old Sarah drama-face whatsit. Fracking Celine Dion loves him, Carmela Soprano loves him, some famous chick that looks like Jeana Keough from Real Housewives but is probably the prenominate drama-face whatsit, she loves him too. Everybody loves a blind man. ["Um?" --Joe R] ["Exhibit A: Songs in the Key Of I Cried 'Til I Threw Up The Day I Met Stevie Wonder." -- Jacob] "Greatest Love Songs Of All Time," and I quote, is the theme week. You know it's going to be awesome because this announcement is accompanied by images of fireworks and naked Greco-Romans jumping into lakes of fire. No lie.

Here's how it's going. There are seven people. That's a prime number. So: two groups of three, one of which is the three bottom votes, the other of which is I guess the three top votes, by definition, and one remaindered soul, who is the George Huff Memorial Lone Wolf. If you recently got back from an abduction/hostage scenario, you might be forgiven for thinking that what happens is somehow new or interesting, but those viewers who have been watching the show for awhile see it for what it is: stupid and boring and pointlessly manipulative and "controversial." No matter what happens , the show is the only thing that benefits. (Although the smartest thing was actually what Joe R said to me, which was that if you take Bo and divide him by George Huff, you get Taylor anyhow, so why would we be surprised?)

Two groups. Elliott sang "It Had To Be You," and he's asked to stand up and book it to stage left. Not sure if he's a Goat or a Sheep yet, because he's kind of FUTR sometimes and we're culling. Chris sang "What A Wonderful World," and he goes to stage right. Still not sure, because while he was good, he was also first, and not memorable compared to the pyrotechnics of everybody else. It's why he won't win: he does a fine job, the exact same job every week, and is simply outclassed as a performer, regardless of his talent. So we're 1 and 1. "Princess P," Ryan says, sang "These Foolish Things," and she is sent to...join Chris. Well, considering she was the second best last night, I guess that means Chris is the Sheep group, right? RIGHT? "Okay, Pickler," says Ryan, and sends her "Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered" ass to the Goats, with Elliott. Ace is...stage right. With the Sheep. Crazy! Unless Chris and Paris are the other of the bottom three? But Kellie sucked NARDS! And that means Kat has to stand with her! In the Goats! What the hell?

So now there's two groups of three, confusing as all get-out because why aren't Ace and Kellie together, and Taylor on the couch. Kinda pissed-looking. At least he's seen the show before, and isn't grabbing at his pearls already. Taylor sang "You Send Me," and Randy liked it, "superb," "magic," whatever. "You may or may not have the highest votes," Ryan says. He did. I feel like he did. "But you're safe this week. Congratulations." Time for the eye-rolling: "One group is the bottom three, which is it?" The audience boos because Bo told them to a year ago and proved what a real American man would do in this incredibly gay circumstance and for no other fucking reason, and I do hate the audience a lot, come to think of it. Cut to commercial.

Okay, so: Elliot, Pickler, Kat -- versus Paris, Chris, Ace. Pickler and Ace are horrible, they're throwing me off. Paris and Chris were awesome, and were I a voting man, I'd vote for them. So then I'm saying Kat is a Goat, which I cannot believe. However, Elliott was boring and a little creepy, and Kellie sucked. So Taylor should go with Paris and Chris...and Ace. Who, while sucky and looking like a fruit puff, was still better than Kellie. But on the other hand, she acted pathetic about her suckage, which is good for votes because America is stupid and gets the Pickler it deserves. And Elliott acts like that every week, like a moron, so... This is hard. Not so for Taylor. Who mugs like a motherfucker and takes his sweet-ass time heading over to Chris, shaking his hand, and stalling just long enough for Ryan to start talking about how he chose wrong, before turning around, woggling his fucking eyebrows at us, the cameras, the crowd, and heading over to the other side. God, he's a piece of work. He makes stupid faces and acts like he just did it all. This is so fucking worthless. He apologizes to the other two about making fun of their sucking, but I don't know how that would help, if I were in that circumstance, already thinking about how probably I'm in the bottom three and oh, Taylor doesn't think so, so maybe I'm safe, that would be nice...hey, where's he going? Ha, ha, he just reminded me I suck! Again!

Ryan says they'll "Make it easier for..." Paris, of course, and it's her, and he sends her to sit with everybody else, so it's just Chris and Ace. Who have never, like, been onscreen together, and all of a sudden Ryan's talking about how they're the "Matt Damon and Ben Affleck of American Idol," which is offensive in so many different directions at once that it's just, like, intransitively insulting. Well, Matt Damon is ultimately the only one of the four that's not beneath contempt, so I guess he's the most insulted by the comparison. But also: Ryan, put down the nachos. Do you understand that this reference is almost ten years old? They're not the big Hollywood couple anymore. You might as well call them, like, "the Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie" of American Idol. The Kid Rock and Scott Stapp.

Ryan asks Simon if, since he nonsensically took credit for Chris's enormous transformation last night, if he'll take credit for Chris going home tonight, and Simon points out that hewasn't the one who was singing, so...Ryan asks who he thinks is going home, and it's clearly Ace. Who is then dismissed. Guess who cries like a freak, and the cameras immediately find her? Ryan and Ace hug, and Paula is sad, and Simon makes no expressions at all. This is the least surprising thing in the universe. He tells us he's "had a blast" and "can't wait to perform with the Top Ten" and "see all [his] fans" that "have seen [him] through the TV." Oh, words. They're how we make ourselves seem smart.

Talking loads of smack on his audition tape, and lots of nonsensical, vapid verbiage on the voice-over, he says shit like, "Prepare yourself, I'm ready to entertain you" in a Constantine voice, and "it's like a fairytale" in his usual breathy little-girl voice, and him making the same exact face whenever there is a camera on him, and looking like Scott Peterson, and right now, down in the corner, doing what I call "The Van Der Beek Nuptials," which is when you smile so impossibly big and fake and hard that you will not be crying for a week, and nobody busts it out that often, but it's hard to watch when they do. Poor Ace. Go do the R&B that you're supposed to be doing. Ryan is very cool and nice with him, because he is emotionally fragile on a good day, and then Ace calls out to the crowd: "This is my time! Here we go!" How little Ace really understands. And then he sings his song...exactly like David Radford would. It's weird. I guess Radford was going to cry that whole time, and not puke like we thought. week: Blind folks and love songs with Mr. Joe R., and Chris and Elliott hit the seal, but you didn't hear it from me.