American Idol Finale - Are You Fucking Kidding Me?

It started with a 15 minute extending boxing analogy, including Michael Goddamn Buffer (You know - "Let's get ready to ruuuummbllleeeeee") and Jim Fucking Lampley. (oh, Jim. Why would you sully yourself? Why?) And if you think it couldn't get more ridiculous than implying either of these two knows what boxing is, then you haven't heard the "winners" of the "songwriting" "competition". Details on how Collective Soul may sink the U.S.S. Cook on the other side of the link.

I need a deep breath before I start spewing all over the keyboard. Inhale. Exhale.

Nope, still pissy that this hour existed.

Clive Davis and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber are on hand, presumably to assist the Davids in their search for greatness. Not really. Clive wants to see who can bow down to him best, and Sir Andy needs people to buy tickets to the Phantom sequel (no, really!) that takes place in Coney Island (not making that up). The first song (I refuse to call it a "round") is picked by Clive. Who chooses 'Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For' for Cookie and 'Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me' for Archie. So Cookie gets the cooler song and Archie gets one of the most overdone songs ever. Hmm, Clive is making his pick obvious.

So they both do well. Okay, great. But then the judges, for some reason, have secretly decided they want Archie to win. Because while he did a really good job, they practically bounce him on their laps and spoon feed him honey dipped apples and pet his shiny fauxhawk. Randy says the word "hot" about forty two times and Paula summons a sparkling pony from her hair and lets Archie take it home as a pet, and then Simon (Simon!) calls it the best thing Archie's ever done. He, of course, almost bursts into tears right there, because the poor kid is seventeen and this is all a little much for a child who might actually have never held hands with a girl or a boy. (I haven't decided his path quite yet)

Okay, next song. Oh, christ. It's the damn songwriting contest choice. They each pick one, and I refuse to give the songs anymore credibility than the stupid show has, so let's just say that they are both filled with physically impossible metaphors and reaching out to touch the dream of cupping the face of destiny and one of the songs says something about a window holding perfection and even Sir Andrew can't believe it, and he's the guy who wrote an entire musical from the perspective of talking trains.

The reaction is exactly the same as the first song. "Cookie - you're good. Archie, I've built an alter that can't open its eyes either, all for you."

Last song. They each get to pick anything. Any song in the world. Do you know how many songs have been sung in the English language? (I'm going to allow for the fact that they didn't have time to translate songs from other languages). Billions. The answer is billions of songs. So, of course, Archie chooses to redo 'Imagine' and Cookie chooses Collective Soul, 'The World I Know'.

A note about Collective Soul - I love them. Anyone who knows me has had to endure 'Needs' on repeat. But the finale of American Idol is not the place for lyrics that include "I drink myself of newfound pity/sitting alone in New York City/And I don't know why". See how that's different from Archie singing "Imagine all the people/living life in peace"? Kristy Lee Cook got another two weeks out of waving the American flag - and she screeches like a holler monkey. Clearly, the voting audience doth not like complex emotions.

So exactly what I thought was going to happen, happens. Cookie is deemed "nice, but not incredible." Archie is deemed "Awe inspiring". Of course, neither of those things are true. Cookie is forced to defend himself on picking a new song, because all of a sudden Simon (Simon!) wanted him to rehash something he sang well a few weeks ago... and, hey! Do you guys think Archie's psycho stage father got some good dirt on Simon and is forcing him to sway the votes to his kid? That might be a reasonable explanation.

So here we are. Voting blocks are going to be identical to what they were before this farce, so the whole point of this night was for Ford/iTunes/Coke to milk as much airtime as they can before the show ends for 2008.

Tonight - the announcement. Who. Will be. The next. American Idol.