10:07 - The Jay, OUT! Bloop-Bloop!

10:06 - Congratulations to Jordin, she’s a great choice for an American Idol, will be a great representative for the show and a (moderately) successful solo singer. Best of luck to Blake, who entertained me so well for five months; I can’t wait for the shaky, beatbox-heavy debut album, and his future career as a hit record producer. And I look forward to seeing how the Top 12 shakes up the industry; who will be the next Daughtry, if Blake will flame out like Bo Bice, if Melinda can bring back Motown, if Sanjaya can capitalize on his pop culture trainwreck potential, if I’ll ever get another look at Haley Scarnato’s fine, fine gams. So many questions… I can’t wait to find out the answers (and illegally download the singles). Thank you to everyone for reading the recaps. See you in January for Season Seven.

10:04 - JORDIN SPARKS! What a shock. NOT.

10:02 - Oh look, the judges. I forgot they were even there.

9:58 - Wait, aren’t there supposed to be, um, you know, like, RESULTS? I’m missing all the resurgent Lost awesomeness! Charlie fighting with gun-toting underwater babes, Sayid planning an Other bombing, Jack being a douchebag. I need to get my Lost on! Let’s get a move on, Idol, damn! Why is it 10pm and we haven’t crowned Jordin yet? This is what you get for putting that stupid Golden Idol awards shit on for fifteen minutes.

9:57 - Mmm, Haley legs, just the thing I needed to push me through to the final moments. Thank you, Miss Scarnato.

9:56 - Watching Ruben makes me glad I didn’t become a real Idol watcher till Season 4.

9:55 - So is Carrie supposed to be the star of the night? Because I thought tonight was about Jordin and Blake? Am I wrong? She’s been on stage more than Ryan tonight. Not that I mind seeing her more than Seacrest.

9:53 - I’m confused, didn’t we decide to just forget Taylor existed on this earth? Who let the Idol Monkey out of the cage? Just breathe Jay, seven more minutes and you’ll be blissfully Idol free for six months…

9:51 - Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club? Umm, ok…. I like Kelly and Joe just fine, but can we stay a touch closer to the AI family tree please? It’s only the LAST TEN MINUTES OF THE SEASON? What is going on here? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!

9:49 - K-Ville looks tight. New Amsterdam looks, well, I hope David Boreanaz is getting suitably compensated for that mess.

9:41 - Really? Beaches? Really? Who approved this nonsense? I like Bette Midler just fine, but really, she has to take up five of the last twenty minutes of the season? We don’t get a Melinda/Tina duet, but we have to sit through “Wind Beneath My Wings”? Sometimes I really understand why so many people hate this show. Sometimes I remember that I used to be one of them.

9:35 - What does it say that they paired Blake with a non-Idolist and Jordin with a former Idol winner? Just the producers prepping her to join the fold. Do we really need to wait another twenty minutes to start the Sparks coronation? Even Blake has started drafting his proud loser speech.

9:34 - Can somebody get Jordin some hot tea, or honey or something? Girl needs help. Her voice is SHOT. Even Ruben is feeling sorry for her, and Ruben is in no position to feel superior to anyone from Idol.

9:31 - Look what you did America! Look who you chose last year. Are you proud of yourselves? We might as well just surrender back to the Brits, for all the smarts we have. Taylor freaking Hicks! I miss Katharine McPhee.

9:30 - Aw man, who brought the dick? Taylor Hicks brought the dick.

9:24 - And then they follow the doofy Sanjaya video and perf with a super-serious Green Day performance (?) in support of Darfur. Fuck you, American Idol! What is your stupid show about? Just crown Jordin already so I can go watch Lost. Gah! Also, if Green Day isn’t going to do American Idiot on American Idol then their presence is just not necessary.

9:19 - Imagine for a second if Sanjaya had made the finale. How crazy it would be. How much hate mail the show would receive. How many shots of that stupid crying girl we’d be forced to endure. The riots that would have been caused if Melinda had gotten the boot before him. A Blake vs. Sanjaya finale would have been cause for canceling the show. Simon would have had a meltdown on live TV. He would have strangled Paula, punched Randy in the face and cock slapped Ryan (just like they do at home) before cursing America for it’s stupidity.

9:16 - Here’s my problem with the Idol Gives Back nonsense: less than one commercial break before the adorable African Children’s Choir took the stage to make us all feel bad, Idol was giving a fake award and making fun of a developmentally-challenged kid. It’s just too disparate a dichotomy. The whole is fine on the surface, but REEKS of pretension and substantive desperation. Ugh. They might as well have put Sanjaya jumping a shark tank on a motorcycle up there, for all the good they want it to do. And that’s what I mean, they follow the sweet kids perf with a tongue-in-cheek Sanjaya Rocks video. What’s this shown supposed to be about, you know? I just can’t get over how much the whole Idol Gives back idea repulses me.

9:07 - I’ve been reading a lot of commentary about Blake and Jordin being the best final two in the history of the show, but watching Carrie do her thing I have to whole-heartedly disagree. Carrie and Bo were the best. Two phenomenal voices, two good-looking cool people. They shouldn’t be discounted because Carrie is a robot, or because Bo dropped an a-load of weight and nobody recognized him. I think because they were both country, their season gets discounted. The hicks running the asylum, so to speak. But I remember how much fun that season was. I remember how much I enjoyed watching Bo swoop in and school Constantine. Watch Carrie trounce all over the girls. Carrie is the biggest success that American Idol has ever produced, specific to record sales, her presence should not be discounted. Blake and Jordin are hip, fun and great talents, but I’d rather listen to Bo rock and Carrie belt, then Blake beatbox and Jordin try to emote. But that’s just me.

8:55 - The Wynans? What, was Tina stuck in the Thunderdome? I feel robbed.

8:52 - Did Simon just call Ryan an asshole? Cause if so, that would be legen - wait for it - DAIRY!

8:47 - Tony Bennett! That means it time for me to take a dinner break. Thanks, Tony!

8:42 - Look how happy Melinda looks! I love that! If she ends up doing a surprise duet with Tina Turner, her tiny no-necked head may explode.

8:39 - Dude, Gladys Knight! Melinda and LaKisha are so her Pips!

8:38 - Oh, Haley’s legs, how I’ve missed you! Excuse me, I have to go, um, lock my bedroom door…

8:35 - Who would win in a wigger-off, Blake Lewis or Eminem? That may be one of those unanswerable questions like Ginger or Marianne, Elvis or The Beatles, skinny pop Kelly Clarkson or pudgy angry Kelly Clarkson.

8:33 - I may have to recant my statement that Blake has no audience. Cause this beatboxing perf is in-SANE. He’s putting on a star clinic, and his skills are free!

8:29 - I can’t believe it took so long for 19 Entertainment to launch a band version of American Idol. That’s a bigger no-brainer than Kelly over Justin.

8:21 - Uh oh, make sure the prompter is working, Brandon Rogers is on stage. Also, holla Sanjaya. I think it’s possible I missed you. But then again, I used to eat paint chips as a young child.

8:18 - Why can’t I TiVo live TV? I did NOT need to see Big Bird french Ryan. You can’t do that to a poor tiny metro, you’ll ruin his foundation.

8:17 - The Golden Idol Awards? Really? Can’t we just move this along? I don’t need to see Sanjaya win ANYTHING. Also, J-hud is the house! You can’t give out gold boys with a flesh and blood Oscar winner in the front row. That’s just not how it’s done.

8:16 - J-Hud is in the house!

8:14 - Damn, she is good. Still the American Idol gold standard five years later.

8:12 - Someone hide crafty, here comes Kelly Clarkson! Just kidding Kel, you know I love you. But really, if you get a moment, a sit-up or two might be a good idea. Just something to think about.

8:09 - I’d just like to take this commercial break to mention that despite my recent axe prediction suckage, I actually picked Jordin, Melinda and Blake as the Top 3 TEN weeks ago. Don’t believe me, SEE FOR YOURSELF (written in Jordin’s recap).

8:06 - What is Gwen wearing? It looks like a Disney Princess Halloween costume made for a four year old. And I think I can see her whole new world, if you’re picking up what I’m putting down. Also, in regards to this song, zzzzzzzzz. Where’s Akon when you need him? probably grinding on a 14 year old somewhere, making R. Kelly jealous.

8:04 - They sound OK together, but they both sound ragged. Their voices must feel like Ashlee Simpson at the Orange Bowl by now. Melinda would have sounded as good as ever. Just sayin…

8:03 - Jordin looks good, for a giantess. I like how far away they started on the stage. It was like a forced perspective scene from Lord of the Rings. Does that make Blake the Frodo? Or the Samwise? Let’s just move on…

8:01 - Teri Hatcher is in the crowd. Odds on whether or not Ryan and her have an awkward on-screen chat? 5-2

8:00 - Blake is in a suit! I guess the argyle sweater wasn’t good enough for the Finale.

So, it is down to Blake and it is down to Jordin. After five months of singing, dancing, corporate shilling, song botching, Sanjaya Malakar-ing, Gina Glocksen crying, Sundance Head sucking, Haley legging, Melinda and Bon Jovi rocking, LaKisha diva-ing, Phil’s head shining, and Ryan Seacreast-ing, it is finally time to crown a new American Idol.

Since I decided to recap the American Idol performance night I have written more than 18000 words on the contestants. I have suffered the ups and down of Jordin’s “energy”. I have watched Blake struggle to find the balance between holy crap awesome and holy jeebus annoying. I have watched Ryan and Simon bicker, Paula try to sustain sobriety (and not always succeeding), and Randy becoming evermore unnecessary. I have been through it all. From the first audition to the final performance of last night (and how ironic that an AI loser closed out the season). And after all that, I knew I needed to do something special to mark the finale. So I’m breaking out the rare liveblog to chronicle what should be a spectacular American Idol Finale Results Show Spectacular.

Updates will post up, so make sure when you refresh that you are reading from the top down. So, without further ado, let’s get to the results…

THIS is AMERican Idol!