Two months after the release of his self titled disc, Daughtry continues to stake his claim for being the most successful Idol to not finish in the top two. There was some good news and some bad news for Taylor Hicks this week though. The good news is that he actually climbed three spots from number 53 to number 50. The bad news?

Sixth place finsher Kellie Pickler, probably helped by her appearance on The View, shot up from number 83 to number 51, nipping directly at Taylor's heels. Anyway you look at it, that has to be a bit of an embarrassment for the person who finished first.

Although I still believe The Pickle has a very limited range vocally, and that out of the country genre she's a mess, you have to give credit where credit is due. She did a good job of selecting songs that fit her, and stayed well within the country genre.

And the Carrie Underwood phenomenon continues as she stays at number nine, well more than a year after her CD Some Hearts was released.

I have to be honest. By the time I suffered through last night’s two hour marathon s I just didn’t care anymore to even hear the word Idol. I wasn’t even positive I could get this article written. I don’t know if the audience numbers are beginning to dwindle but they are very close to losing this writer at least until the final twenty four. It was bad, and not just because of the usual conglomerate of obnoxious singers and judges. It was bad because it seemed as if the Producers really have become confused about what’s entertainment and what is an absolutely horrid two hours of television.

Did you ever see so many tears? I bet there haven’t been so many free flowing suds since Queen for a Day left the air. There were times I had to turn down the volume because of segments that seemed to go on and on as if somebody had decided to scrape a piece of chalk across a mile long chalkboard. I really don’t know what else to say about it so let's head to the New York auditions which were actually in Jersey which explains tonight's article subtitle.

Tonight’s guest judge is songwriter Carole Bayer Sager, but do you really care. They are all pretty much the same after a while.

Right off the bat we get a reject from another famous reality show by the name of Ian Benardo. The show is So You Think You Can Dance which is a summer replacement reality show that airs on the same network and is produced by the same people. Now all we have to wonder about is who called who to get Ian on this show. He’s strictly here to give us a laugh a minute riot but the whole thing is so obviously staged that it’s neither funny nor remotely entertaining.

Next up is Sarah Burgess and we’re sure she has a chance to go on because we get a huge back story and one helluva lot of tears out of her. Her story is that Daddy Burgess doesn’t want her going off to become a singer and that Daddy Burgess doesn’t even know she’s in New York auditioning. Uh…huh. She sings the same song that the South American girl sang last week, Call Me, and actually does it better. But I don’t care. The overwrought tears, crying and phone call home to Daddy Burgess is a complete turn. If she wants to win me over, she can lose the tears and the story because I don’t believe any of it. When she calls Daddy Burgess, he forgets to do his part and doesn’t sound a bit surprised that Young Sarah is in New York. So the jury will remain out on Sarah in regards to talent and honesty.

Next up is Fania Tsakalakos. The name is Greek and don’t ask me how to pronounce it. She starts to go into some spiel and Simon who obviously has a hangover tells her to get on with the damn singing. She then takes too long to finish up her version of Africa so he not only shoots down her singing but her dancing as well. The only bright spot of it is that she’s not a whiner, crier, complainer, or curser and accepts her fate graciously. Be thankful for small favors.

Now at this point if I had known what lay in store I would have gotten up and downed a half of bottle of Tylenol. Ashanti Johnson has been here before having tried out twice and made it to Hollywood twice and no further than that twice. I think we’re supposed to believe that because Ashanti lost some weight and worked out that the third time makes the charm. Ashanti's sole purpose in being on the show again is so the judges can inflict as much pain on her and the viewers at home as humanly possible. No, it isn't that Ashanti’s singing was all that bad. In fact it’s probably better than some of the others they’ve already sent through to Hollywood. But again, this is all a big setup, although we’re never abosolutely positive if Ashanti is in on what the powers that be must think is a terrific gag. There was no way she was going to make it to Hollywood again regardless of what she looked like or how she sang. The criticism (too old fashioned) makes no sense whatsoever either, because that is something that would have kept her out of Hollywood the previous two years. Welcome again to American Snow Job. To put this in perspective, from the time Ashanti is introduced to the time she finished her song takes up roughly a minute and a half. The next three and a half minutes seems like three and a half hours as Ashanti begs and begs for them to tell her what she did wrong. The honest answer is that she did everything the producers hope she would do so that they could inflict more torture on us. So she really did nothing wrong by giving them just what they wanted.

After that torture, we get two very best of friends forever from now until eternity or American Idol death match they do part. The blonde’s name is Amanda and the brunette’s name is Antonella. They just do everything together and even start out their audition with the judges by doing a horrendously awful duet which leads us to believe that separately they will be just as bad. Of course the Idol joke is on us when the tables are turned and we discover that they both can sing a bit. Amanda goes first and while she doesn’t exactly wow the judges she does well enough to get sent to Hollywood. Antonella goes next and the judges think she is a lot better than Amanda who had supposedly been vocally trained.

Of course they send Antonella to Hollywood also so that the judges can do their level best to get them to leave Hollywood as ex best friends converted to worst friends forever (wff?). How far either of them can go depends on whether the audience at home can get over the fact that their back story made them appear to be like totally spoiled brats like without a thought in their heads and like with nothing to do but like spend daddy’s money and like play at the beach.

Quickly we get Clifton James, who stomps his way through some horrendous ZZ Top, pulls out a harmonica like Taylor Hicks as if it will help him somehow which of course it doesn’t and he is sent packing.

Unfortunately it’s crying time again which helps make me appreciate the bff’s from Jersey a little more than I did. Kia Thornton another Jersey girl comes in and does Aretha Franklin’s Ain’t No Way; Simon says wow and the water works spring a leak. They send her through and she goes out to collapse on the floor and cry as if her dog died.

On day two we get Jenry Bejarno is a sixteen year old who was adopted into a Bolivian household when he was one. What we don’t get is Simon who is nursing another hang over. It’s not like we need him anyway. Jenry does manage to tell the story without so much as shedding a tear. He’s got nice enough voice also that there may be potential here for the final twenty four.

Things start out well enough for the next audition by Nakia Claiborne. She starts out by doing Dancing in the Street and shows a lot of energy. The judges start giving her advice about toning it down a bit and I think they are going to send her through when for some unknown reason she takes that as a cue to burst into Selena’s Dreaming of You. She should just as well have begun humming the funeral march because listening to her a second time makes the judges reconsider and they quickly give her the old heave-ho. And of course when a contestant goes from a pure moment of joy to totally utter failure and rejection, you just know the plumbing is going to collapse which it does and Kia heads out to shed her tears in her mama’s arms.

The Selena song gets another workout tonight as Sarah Goldberg massacres it causing Selena to finally rise from the grave and shoot the Idol Producers, Directors, Judges and Host one by one. Afterwards Sarah claims she is a dancer who can’t sing but she’s got a a simply grand idea. Why don’t they train her to sing? That would be something new for the show. After the judges tell her what they think of that idea, Sarah not only gets belligerent she too sheds some tears and I’m hoping this will all be over soon.

Jory Steinberg was born in Canada but currently resides in Santa Monica. This does little to explain why she’s in New Jersey auditioning for American Idol’s New York auditions.
She sings okay I guess but her face reminds me of Danielbeast from the lonelygirl15 series on Youtube. Brother and sister maybe? They send her through but don’t tell us whether or not it’s for Canadian Idol or American Idol.

Rocky Balboa…uh..excuse me I mean Porcelana Patino from Elmhurst works out as if she is Rocky Balboa training to face Apollo Creed, or if not him at least the two contestants from last week who wore the Creed uniform. She tells us all about exercising and vitamins and all that boring healthy crap and doesn’t mention singing at all until one of the judges bring the subject up to remind her that it is a singing competition and that Simon doesn't do work out videos. While she doesn’t have what I would call a powerful voice, it is unique. We’ll see how far she makes it in Hollywood on vitamins, minerals, muscles, and unique.

After a boring montage of mispronouncing names, we get Christopher Henry who has been told that he looks like Simon Cowell or George Michael but actually resembles neither. He has a feminine type voice, but for my money he does quite well with it. Unfortunately, Diplomat Simon Cowell tells him he should be wearing a dress and stilettos. Of course the other judges are offended, I’m sure Chris is offended and apparently Simon Cowell either needs to join Isaiah Washington in sensitivity rehab or to join Glenn Beck on CNN so that they can have a deep discussion about their bigotry. I mean hasn’t any of these idiots ever heard of Neil Sedaka who made millions singing exactly this way? It disgusts me enough to desperately want to change the channel. And if anybody should know better, it’s certainly Carol Sager.

Rachel Zevita goes to school for opera and says if they find out she’s auditioning for Idol they will give her the boot. So this is do or die for her. They have her sing three songs, one of them opera and still the judges don’t seem sure. Simon presses her on who she wants to be and finally they send her through. Whether or not she gets past Hollywood remains to be seen but even if she does she reminds me a lot of Stevie Scott. If you’ve forgotten who Stevie Scott is already I’ll tell you at the end.

Virginia native Chris Richardson sings A Song for You which has been recorded by millions. The judges say he reminds them of Justin. No not Justin Guarini but Justin Timberlake. Simon says he could surprise them in Hollywood and they send him through.

Nicholas Pedro was on Idol last year, made it to Hollywood and then crapped out under the pressure. But this being the “new and improved Nick” he’s going to give it a shot again saying he’s ready for it this time. He may be better and Paula says she loves him even more than last year so he gets his second shot. For some reason he reminds me of Ace Young only with short hair. I wonder if the squealing girls are auditioning for Idol producers to put them in the audience during the final twenty four as they did for ace.

We finish it with another awful contestant, some girl in a cowboy hat that I don’t even want to write about and we can wrap this week up and put a bow on it. It doesn’t look to get much better next week in Birmingham. Birmingham is where Ruben, Taylor and Bo Bice hail from which brings me to another one of those odd bits of trivia. First, in case you forgot Stevie Scott was the first girl eliminated from the final twenty four last year. As for the Birmingham connection between those three artists, they have all three, other than Diana DeGarmo and Justin Guarini, had the most disappointing CD sales of the top two contestants. So why are we going back to Birmingham? That’ll do.

Let’s start with the bad news. The bad news is that it was another night of the same old same old, lame-o lame-o. But yes, I do have some good news for you. It was only an hour long so that’s about as positive as it gets I’m afraid. They ended up taking more contestants from Memphis than either Minneapolis or Seattle, but that doesn’t mean that we got to see much of them on the air, does it? But enough of that, let’s get started.

The first contestant is head cheerleader Frank Byers who not only brought the cheerleading squad with him, he brought along the school band for good measure. So did going through all of this trouble (certainly egged on by the Producers to do so) make the audition worthwhile for Frank? No. It’s not that he’s the worst singer we’ve ever heard, he’s just your average guy with an average voice. He takes his demise in good spirits but once out in the hall Ryan has him, the cheerleader and the band make a big racket. At this point Simon takes a look at his script, sees that it says, “Head Judge goes to door tells everyone to shut up” and does that just that before heading back to his seat. Secrest pulls a memo from his pocket which says, “Open door, call Head Writer a bitch” and then close door. And there you have it. That was the big moment you’ve been waiting all week for. Now excuse me for a second while I pour myself another cup of coffee.

Next up is Tamika Sims who goes through her audition in an irreversible coma. Simon mistakes her for Terri Schiavo and pulls the plug on her.

Next up is Christopher Rivera. He cranks out Stevie Wonder’s Superstition as if he is addicted to crank. I’ve seen torn jeans before, know it’s supposed to be a fashion statement but I’ve never quite seen torn jeans like these. And that’s all I can think about until the judges show him the door.

Next we come to Alexis Partee who does a Tina Marie song. At least I think that’s what she said and then sung. It’s really hard to tell because she’s got a mouth full of teeth and metal and all that crosses my mind is Richard Kiel’s Jaws from two James Bond Movies.

Next we get to our first contender of the evening, Jason Head, or Sundance Head as he likes to call himself. I don’t know why, don’t ask, it’s not even clever or catchy just dumb. His not so famous but previously famous dad is Roy Head who had a song called Treat Her Right knocked out of the number one spot by the Beatles song Yesterday in 1965. Uh-oh…I smell a fib or somebody didn’t get their story straight or something.

According to Roy’s web page and Wikipedia, Roy’s song never made it any higher than number two so how did it get knocked out of that number one spot if it was never there? Oh well, it’s just one of those small buggy things. But we do know that daddy Roy seems to still be holding a grudge against the Beatles these past 42 years. That’s a long time.

Jason sings some Bobby "Blue" Bland and I can tell he’s got the pipes. Whether he has the rest of the package remains to be seen. Jason, lose the beard. It looks like you’re getting ready to star as the Pharaoh in a remake of the Ten Commandments. After he left both Simon and Randy talk about how much better he is voice wise than Taylor Hicks. I think Simon still isn’t happy about having been stuck with Hicks last year and probably even less happy with Taylor’s album sales which have yet to reach the million plateau. (Not to Taylor fans: Don’t write to me. Being certified platinum only means a million CD’s were shipped, not sold.)

Next up we get Wandera Hitchye. She sings It’s Been a Long Time coming and I think she’s quite good or at least as good as some of the cardboard cookie cutter cutouts they sent through last week. But Paula, Simon, and Randy send her on her way anyhow and she is really upset, and it certainly is no put up job. I smell something fishy about the whole sequence. I don’t know what kind of fish but I smell it just the same. Next time Wanda, make sure you come armed with a hokey back story or that one of your relatives is an ex-NFL player.

On comes Travis McKinney, who has written a song about straight from the heart and when he sings it there’s going to be a whole lot of emotion all over the place. It’s bad of course, and if this is the kind of song he writes from the heart, he better check to see if it’s still beating.

Next up is another blonde singer by the name of Daniela McCullough. I think she has kind of a bluesy quality to her voice as does Randy and Paula. Simon wants to give her the ax, Randy and Paula out her through. If Daniela is going to go any further she’ll have to show that she has stronger pipes than what we hear from that song. You have to be able to hit those crowd pleaser notes on this show, and no originality aloud.

Christopher McCain has just given his cheatin’ no good wife the boot. He found out his cheatin’ no good worthless wife was having an affair, then she wanted to come back and he said, “Get out of my life you no good worthless cheating wife. When Simon asks him about it he says something that is censored but you can pretty well guess that the first word begins with an F and the second word begins with a B. If they don’t, you can rest assured that he called her something close to that. At any rate, I’m hoping Chris has some pipes, he doesn’t and they send him on his way after Simon says he got to at least he got to call his wife a bleep bleep on television. I imagine Chris got a rather nasty phone call from the ex after the show aired.

I’ve seen some contestants come on this show in less clothing than Janita Burks, but I can’t remember any where they were dressed in such a way that their boobs might come uncovered at any second. I’m actually think one of Janita’s boobs did play pop goes the weasel but we don’t get to see it thanks to fancy editing and the prudes at the FCC. But about halfway through the song Paula pulls her blouse tightly across her chest as if to signal to Janita she has a problem so that’s probably when it happened. Don’t hold your breath for an Uncensored, Uncut edition of American Idol on DVD though. Her singing isn’t that terrible but Simon tells her she’s a handful then sends her on her way.

Next up we get Sean Michel who tells us that people say he looks like a combination of Jesus Christ, Fidel Castro, and Osama bin Laden. The judges are surprised that such a good voice comes out of someone who looks like him after Sean sings some Johnny Cash and they put him through to Hollywood. Frankly, I wasn’t impressed with his singing at all and if he makes it out of Hollywood, he could become this years oddball contestant ala Chicken Little formerly known as Kevin Covais.

For my money, the best prospect from Memphis and maybe so far is up next. Her name is Melinda Doolittle from Brentwood Tennessee who has worked solely as a backup singer. And add to that the fact that Melinda is just so damn likable right off the bat.

She sings For Once in my Life and for the first time this year all of the judges and I are in complete agreement. This girl has got some pipes and really knocks For Once In My Life out of the park. If she can just improve her stage presence, she could be in the money. Best of luck to her!

Quickly we get Robert Lee Holmes who writes story and sings Elvis. When Simon asks him how his story ends, Robert says with a period. Yuk. Yuk. Robert gets out very little of Burning Love before Simon tells him they didn’t love that version.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to finish off the evening with another heartwarming back story to light the embers of your heart. This time around it’s Philip Stacy, whose wife has given birth to a baby girl while Philip has been out auditioning for Idol. Everybody say it along with me, “AAAAhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh HOW SWEET!!!!!!”
To add to this touch moment that will melt your heart, Philip sings My Girl to his family.
Afterwards I’m not impressed, neither is Simon but Paula and Randy put him through so that we can then see him at the hospital with his new born. Say it with me again, “AAAAhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh HOW CUTE!!!!” And if that isn't enought maple syrup and sugar for you can go to his My Space Page and listen to his daughter. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Isn't that cute!

And after we see a bunch of Gold ticket winners running out of the building, the show is over and for tonight I am also. Sorry about the lack of pictures this week because of technical difficulties. Catch you later.