The 80’s are my era. That’s my generation. My youth. It’s the only music I like to dance to (OK, fine, also Montell Jordan… this is how we do it!), and my favorite music to sing at karaoke. So I was legitimately FRIGHTENED by what the guys might do with their song choices. But thankfully, I only suffered minor ear torture and only superficial greatest musical decade scraping (I can thank Noriega for that). For the most part I grooved out. Cook obliterated some Lionel Richie, Michael Johns had me quoting John Bender (”Eat. My. Shorts.”), I got to practice my gay strip club DJ speak and Archuleta had me racing to my iTunes to bust some 80’s Phil Collins, which is always good times (I can feel it, coming in the air tonight…).

It’s going to be a tough subtraction on Thursday. Luke is obvs getting kicked off, hell Simon practically packed his luggage for him, but the other boot is a bit cloudy. Castro and Chikezie are possibilities, but they are so unique as personalities, I’m hard pressed to see the producers letting them go so soon. My money is on David Hernandez, lately the victim of harsh, unfair internet drudgery. He’s a nice singer and wholly inoffensive, but American Idol is a family show and a corporate entity; they want NOTHING to do with a gay stripper. They’d rather have Danny Noriega violently repulse the audience, then suffer through another week of topless Hernandez pics popping up on every blog on the net. The lap dances end for David this week, trust The Jay.

As I do every elimination week, I recap the performances and grade the singers on a sliding scale of how much I wanted to, or did, TiVo-bloop through the song. At the end of each recap I’ll make my pick for who should (and hopefully will) get the axe on the mind-numbingly long results show. Let’s start the blooping!

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TRIPLE BLOOP

Luke Menard – The acapella guy with the questionable presence of man testicles voluntarily chooses to sing Wham? Well, I guess there’s something to be said for living up to stereotypes. But when Paula Abdul is questioning your song choice, I don’t know… yeesh, might be time to rethink your persona. This is the third week in a row he’s chosen a weak song, performed it weakly and looked like a stubbly pansy. If he makes it into the Top 12 Simon may quit the show. Somewhere in Los Angeles Sanjaya Malakar is involuntarily balling his fists (and being sucky, natch).

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DOUBLE BLOOP

Danny Noriega – HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! BITE ME WITH YOUR PURPLE HAIR AND YOUR DUMBASS TMTH LOL!!!! HATE! HATE! HATE! CHOKE ON YOUR SCARF IMHO!!!!! HATE! HATE! HATE! (If it were anyone else singing that song that way, I would have liked it. Warrants mentioning.)

David Hernandez – Get your dollars ready and welcome to the stage our saucy, spicy, hard-bodied David!!! He’ll sing you up, he’ll sing you down, he’ll sing you all around, he’s David!!!! He’s available for private dances, men, special Celine Dion drops and if you’re really lucky, private snap-off jobs in the champagne room. Oh yeah! Mike, Stage 2, Mike to Stage 2! You want David in your Dawg Pound then show him you love it. Make some noise, men!! (Oh, and way to cater to your new found rainbow fan base with the Celine, Davey Dave. I’ll expect to hear some Babs within the month.)

Michael Johns – Two hits. Me hitting you, and your gesticulating, crap low-range ass hitting the floor. You’re a neo-maxi zoom dweebie. Don’t you ever talk about my blog. You don’t know any of my posts. You don’t look at any of my posts. And you certainly wouldn’t condescend to speak to any of my readers. So you just stick to the things you know: whiny man rock, Fosters, your lame video packages, and your fugly, old ass wife in the Land Down Under. And as far as being concerned about what’s gonna happen when you and I walk down the hallways of Idol together, you can forget it cuz it’s never gonna happen. Just bury your head in the sand and wait for your fucking results show.

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SINGLE BLOOP

David Cook – I started out thinking “yikes” and ended up just like Simon. I loved it. He chose his arrangement to suit his style and NOT to suit his attitude like HATE (!) Noriega, which is how you get into the Blake Lewis fan club, not to mention the Top 2. Still not a fan of his vaguely Katie Holmes-ish singing out of the side of his face deal, but the guitar-playing is growing on me.

Jason Castro – I’m of two minds of his performance. On the one hand, “Hallelujah” is such a beautiful song you’d almost have to throw up on stage not to sound supes awesome, which didn’t happen to Jason. But on the other hand, Jeff Buckley is SUCH the business and his rendition is SO legendary that no matter how good Castro was, and he was good, he was NEVER going to live up to version we know. On an unrelated note, I cannot hear that song without thinking of the season one finale of The O.C., where Seth floats down the Pacific cause Summer dumped his emo ass and for one shining moment it seemed like I might have a shot at her (which I didn’t). Also, it reminds me of how awesome it was when the show killed Mischa Barton off cause they hated her so much. Hallelujah, indeed.

Chikezie – Back in a suit and sounding so good! The boy can straight blow. Where is I worry about King David Arch’s voice giving out and Castro voice’s getting burned from his bongwater, it seems like Chikezie is only getting stronger and more consistent. He can by no means win the competition, but he should absolutely make the Top 12. There’s no one else like him in the competition, especially on the men’s side, and frankly, the show could use some color. If Luke goes through instead of Chikezie and Kady makes it instead of Syesha, Idol will be throwing up a whitewash for the next three months. And American Idol without a powerhouse African American singer is like Rock of Love without 13 crazy jacked up skazzes. Just a waste of a good piece of trashy entertainment.

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A SURPRISE HALF-BLOOP

David Archuleta – Let me present to you the timeline of his performance:

Video Package Plays: Everyone in the world goes “awwww” at the exact same time. The resulting wind blast creates a free-floating Hurricane that destroys the entire eastern seaboard. Roland Emmerich immediately options the screen rights.

One Minute Into His Perf: Phil Collins suddenly becomes cool again. In a bar to celebrate his newfound relevance, a guy walks up top him and says “Hey, aren’t you the guy who sings that David Archuleta song?”

Two Minutes Into His Perf: Holy shit he just nailed that big note and now he’s getting up off the stool? Crazy oof! Josh Groban should re-fucking-tire! He’s only good for Late Night viral videos where comedians fuck late 90’s It-boys!

Two and a Half Minutes Into His Perf: Umm… wait, what’s happening?

End of His Performance: A nation tilts their collective head like a lab retriever puppy, confused by the lack of expected scrumtrillescence. Why did David not rule the world?

The Judges Judge Him: Randy nervously eats a whole ham. Paula forgets how to use her body parts. Simon goes into Defcon 1 and starts texting Disney executives under the table.

Ryan Talks To Him On Stage: Ryan will save the day! He’ll bring reason to this topsy-turvy world where the better David on the night has a last name of “Cook”.

The Numbers Go Up: David wanted to inspire the nation to help their fellow man? Awwww, all is forgiven!!!! Humanitarian of the Year!!! Bono, who?

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My Top 6 Boys (in order): David Archuleta, David Cook, Chikezie, Michael Johns, Jason Castro, Danny Noriega

My prediction for who gets the axe: Luke Menard and David Hernandez

Bangarang!