Top ten Idol moments

With American Idol done with a mostly-mediocore year, the moments that stick with me from Season Six:

-When Simon told the contestant with the big eyes, Kenneth Briggs, he looked like a'bush baby'. And then asked his rotund sidekick, Jonathan Jayne, 'Did you borrow Randy's trousers?'



-Sherman Pore, the 64-year-old who got a special exemption from Idol's age limit so he could sing 'You Belong to Me' for his deceased "lady love".



- Martik Manoukian, the panther guy from LA who told the judges "I'm the most exciting entertainer on planet earth" as he prowled around on the floor and flung his clothes off.



-Sarah Burgess, the teen from Ohio who secretly traveled to New York and couldn't stop crying as she told her dad not only wasn't she at her friend's house--she was on her way to Hollywood.



-When Jersey girl/Antonella buddy Amanda Coluccio said she made it past day one in Hollywood cause God likes good people. She got cut the next day. Maybe God was watching PBS that night?



-Sanjaya's sobbing 'fan'… who then repeated the same emotion for everyone else.




-Haley Scarnato's weekly battle to trade clothing for votes; and Antonella and her vibrant sundress.





-Sanjaya's consistent good humor and high entertainment value, intended and not. I still contend he's a great singer, when not nervous.



-Jordin Sparks, who rescued what could've been a disasterous season with her startling voice and impish humor. She's what Idol's all about--an unknown discovering in front of our eyes just how good she can be.

A Beatles tribute and finally, a winner

Kelly Clarkson comes out one more time to sing The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," accompanied by Aerosmith's Joe Perry. it's pretty good - I love Kelly Clarkson's voice and how she can rock out like a superstar and then come back and sing a beautiful ballad as soft and sweet as needed. She's fantastic.

Taylor Hicks comes out again and he sings The Beatles' "A Day In the Life." He sings it much better than he sang his own song, I think.

The next one up is Carrie Underwood and the tribute to The Beatles continues as she sings "She's Leaving Home." Ruben Studdard comes out and sings "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds." Andthen finally, the top 12 finish it off by singing "With a Little Help From My Friends."

Finally. Beatles music on "American Idol." I hope this continues - I hope next season is filled with The Beatles - I hope they dedicate a whole week to it.

But can we please, please get to winner now???

OK here it is... After 74 million votes this week, the latest "American Idol" winner is.... Jordin Sparks.

And that's it. It's finally over.

BETTE MIDLER!!!!!!

WOW!!! OK - I take back every bad thing I've said about "American Idol" in the past hour and a half. They've got BETTE MIDLER on the stage right now.

Oh my goodness and she's singing "Wind Beneath My Wings." I may cry - she's just unbelievable. I had the opportunity to see Celine Dion while I was in Vegas and I cried through most of that concert. I plan to see Bette Midler in that same theater when she takes over at Caesars and my feeling is that I will react in much the same way.

There's just something about watching someone so talented, so able to move an audience. It's incredible and touching and inspiring and a million other things.

This one song made my whole night - it made watching all this horrific filler worth it. I felt the same way last year when Prince took the stage and once again, "Idol" has topped itself. Bette Midler - geez, does it get any better?

Not sure how much more I can take

The African Children's Choir comes out and performs and holy cow - they're so adorable and just so cheerful!!! I wish i knew what the song was about, what they were saying. It seems like a real happy song. Awesome.

Oh Good God... Sanjaya. He's back and performing live with Joe Perry from Aerosmith. He sings The Kinks' "You Really Got Me" and it's just as mediocre as it was the last time he did it. I can't believe Joe Perry would agree to accompany such a joke like Sanjaya. They must have offered him a ton of money.

Is anybody else out there falling asleep? I'm not sure I'm going to make it to the end. Well, that's not true - I have to make it since it's work, but I really don't want to watch any more filler... OK - I'm done with the whining for now.

Next is Green Day. They perform John Lennon's "Working Class Hero." It's an absolutely fantastic performance - I love Green Day, though, and who doesn't love John Lennon? I may be a bit biased.

Oh... so it looks like back-to-back performances... Taylor Hicks is singing his song, "Heaven Knows" now - I just don't like it. I may fast-forward him.

And now it's Jordin Sparks with Ruben Studdard singing Marvin Gaye's "You're All I Need to Get By." I didn't watch the show when Ruben was on it, so it was nice to hear him sing - it's actually quite pretty. But really, can we get to the results? Please??? I'm so over all these performances - I feel like I'm watching Jerry Lewis' telethon

A real success story

So, they play like a flashback of all the Ford commercials to Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" and then Ryan hands Blake and Jordin keys to their very own brand-new Mustangs. Not bad - I'd be pretty excited to get a new car, especially if it was free.

Carrie Underwood is back again to sing The Pretenders' "I'll Stand By You" and it makes me yearn for the time when "American Idol" was exciting. Carrie Underwood's season was exciting - there was so much talent that year - all of different genres and different sounds. This year has been so bland and dull - no one who really sparks any interest, at least not enough to make me buy a CD.

Clive Davis comes out to praise Chris Daughtry, saying that he has sold over 2.5 million albums. He thanks the judges for what they do and makes reference to other "Idol" successes like Jennifer Hudson, Fantasia, Taylor Hicks and Katharine McPhee. But hs real reason for being there is to present Carrie Underwood with a certified award for having sold 6 million albums just in the United States.

Talk about a step up

After being too sick to perform during his mentor week, Tony Bennett comes out and performs "For Once In My Life." Now Tony Bennett is not really my cup of tea, but I have respect for his talent and how much people adore him. So, his performance isn't entirely entertaining for me, but I'm certain that there are millions out there who are loving every second of this.

Back to the awards - next one up is the Best Buddies award and it goes to Jonathan Jayne and Kenneth Briggs, one of whom Simon called a bush baby during auditions. Apparently they;ve been pretty busy - they've been on Jimmy Kimmell, the Grammys red carpet and some other stuff I can't remember. The bush baby guy forgive Simon for the comment because he says that if he hadn't said it, then he wouldn't be where he is now. I suppose that's true.

OK.... so they flash a picture of a real bush baby on the big screen. Is it really mean for me to say that he does kind of look like one? I feel terrible about it, I really do, but there is a similarity - his eyes are really, really big.

Next up, Melinda Doolittle gets to sing along with Bebe and Cece Winans, after having sung backup for them. I'm actually kind of emotional watching it - just because it's so clear that she deserved to win this competition. She's so much bigger, so much better than everyone else. It's really unbelievable that America got it so wrong this year.

Completely in sync

Back from another commercial, Blake Lewis performs with Doug E. Fresh, who is credited as the first human beatbox. I bet Blake is probably freaking out to be on stage with such a big name.

It's a bit chaotic and the beginnig is hard to understand, but once they get into the actual beatboxing, it's fantastic and totally clear that this is the type of music Blake should be working on.

Well, back to the Golden Idol Awards... the next award is for Most Original Vocal, and it goes to Sholandric Stallworth, whom I barely remember from auditions and who really didn't do anything crazy or original. I don't know who's choosing the winners of these silly awards, but in my opinion, they're 0 for 2 right now.

They make him sing without a microphone to see if the theater can hear him, and they actually do.

Now the top six girls come out and sing. They start out with "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and Gina Glocksen got an awful haircut. I kow that has nothing to do with anything, but it's just not cute - she sounds great, though. Stephanie Edwards is still kind of bland in my book, and is anyone shocked that they put hayley Scarnato in a short, tight dress? She looks beautiful and sounds pretty good, until LaKisha conpletely blows her out of the water.

Holy cow - the names are getting bigger and bigger. They got Gladys Knight to perform. She comes out singing "I Feel a Song (In My Heart) and then "Midnight Train to Georgia." She sounds amazing and the top six girl are way better backup than the top six guys were. They're totally in harmony together - it sounds beautiful.

Please forgive me

Ryan's giving out the "Golden Idol" awards next. The screen behind him says 2nd annual, but I don't remember this from last year - maybe I fast-forwarded through it.

The Best Presentation award goes to Margaret Fowler, the woman who showed up all dressed in yellow, who was way too old to be on the show, and who hid her contestant number under her shirt. In my opinion, X-Centric was robbed - he was hilarious. He better get some other award.

Oh my goodness - she plants a big old kiss on Ryan - it was actually uncomfortable to watch and then goes up to the pdium and puts on a bimbo act like I've never seen before. She reads a poem - have to admit, I'm really not listening to it. She reached my limit on annoying before she hit the stage, so I'm just ready to see her go already.

I'm not sure if there will be other awards, but Ryan's moved on to something else for now. The top six guys sing some arrangement by David Thomas and Sanjaya is sounding so good - I wish he had sung like this during his time on the show. Chris Richardson still annoys me - Chris Sligh is still awesome. Phil Stacey sounds great - and it looks like the Navy has allowed him to tour this summer. Smokey Robinson comes out and sings his song, "Being With You."

I got reamed big-time by Dorothy, my friend and most favorite person at work, when I commented about Barry Gibb and his Botox problems, so I'm almost afraid to say this, but it wouldn't be honest to keep it in. Smokey Robinson's eyebrows and forehead are frozen - they're not moving at all - now if that's not Botox, then I don't know what is. At least his teeth are not interfering with his performance the way Barry's did. (I know, Dorothy. You're gonna kill me. We'll discuss it tomorrow)

Oh how fun - they're doing "Tears of a Clown." I do enjoy this song and Smokey's eyebrows twitched just a smidgeon. Maybe the Botox is wearing off...

Clarkson's still got it!!

Ooh... get out!!! Kelly Clarkson is back and she's singing her new single, "Never Again." There's been all this talk about how her label isn't happy with her new CD and how it almost got scrapped - I'm kind of curious to hear it.

I love it - love the tune, love the words, love it all! Of course, I'm a huge fan of Kelly Clarkson. Her last album was out of this world, and based on this song, I will most definitely be investing in her new one. The song is basically about a breakup and boy, is Kelly mad. And who can't relate to that?

"It was you
Who chose to end it like you did
I was the last to know.
you knew exactly what you would do
Don’t say
You simply lost your way
She may believe you
But I never will
Never again..."

I love it.

Beginning of the end

So Ryan Seacrest makes a comment to Simon at the beginning of tonight's 100-hour-long finale about how he looks bored already. All I can say is that I feel his pain. I've been dreading tonight for weeks and now that it's here, I just pray it goes quickly. Two hours of nothing is just too much - it's too long to sit still, too long to stay focused. I wish I could just tune in during the last 5 minutes, but here I am, watching the entire thing and already hating, just as Simon is.

Badgely Mischka have designed some beautiful dresses for Jordin - she wore one of them last night - the black dress she wore at the end. I saw a picture of another design, which was even more beautiful - I think she'll be wearing that one at the very end of the show, although I'm not positive. talk about exciting - having big-time designers make dresses just for you. I can't imagine it gets any better than that.

But let's get on with the 116 or so minutes of filler, shall we? Jordin and Blake sing a duet, "I Saw Her Standing There," by the Beatles, the greatest band to ever live. It's cute - great song and it was nice to see the great relationship the two of them seem to have. As usual, Jordin looks beautiful - although I think her top would have worked better as a cute dress without the jeans.

Next up is Gwen Stefani, coming in live from her tour. She performs her new single, and her favorite song off her album, "Four in the Morning." I'm not even going to comment on how ridiculous she looks in whatever it is that she's wearing. I know people think she's really fashion-forward and stylish. I think she looks a fool half the time, personally. I mean, she's gorgeous - I'm just not a fan of her fashion sense, but that's just my personal taste. Her new song is actually nice - it has a soothing sound to it and some great lyrics - it's the kind of song you could find yourself crying to on a drive home, if the situation fits, of course.

Well, time for a commercial and then the top 12 return...