American Idol

And then there were 11.

With Sanjaya being protected from on high for the time being (some are blaming young female American Idol fans besotted with young Mr. Malakar’s “cuteness” factor…some are blaming the impish snarky [and increasingly infamous] “Vote for the Worst” site which has adopted him as their candidate to push as far through the competition as possible), the fact that Brandon Rogers (above) was the first ejected from the top 12 wasn’t really a surprise (it certainly didn’t help that some of Brandon’s performances have had a tepid wedding singer quality to them and that he stumbled over the lyrics of “You Can’t Hurry Love”…)

Because of that the results show was anti-climatic…and not very entertaining (the opening group number was a big hunk of badly choreographed cheese…the contestants' Ford commercial was odd…and Diana Ross’ performance of “More Today Than Yesterday” was, in AI speak, “pitchy” and, “if I’m being honest”, more than a bit “cabaret”.)

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In other “news”, Paula Abdul swears that Simon Cowell is a “really good friend” and that during the show Cowell is like a bratty brother always doing things to try to throw her off. Between that and the “nod, nod, wink, wink, come out of the closet” on-air banter between Cowell and Ryan Seacrest on Wednesday’s show (dutifully rebroadcast at the top of Thursday’s show) I guess it must be one big lovefest there on the AI set.

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Chris Sligh, AI’s favorite (well except apparently when he’s trying to run a Diana Ross song through an ill-fitting Coldplay filter) rockin’ moptop, has a CD out already. Take a Chance on Something Beautiful is by Half Past Forever, a rockin’ band featuring Sligh as lead singer and songwriter. Samples are available on the HPF website (see here) and it’s available on Amazon.