Idol Chatter: The Live Blog #9.2: The Top 7 (Results/Idol Gives Back).

[I wanted to do this last season, but I got the idea a few episodes too late. I do admit, I watch American Idol. I really didn't start until a couple years ago, though (my mom was a much bigger fan). Similar in style to the Live Survivor Blog over at Blog Cabins, Idol Chatter (pun and all) will be a play by play of the episodes and what I think of what's happening. For those that don't know, just continually refresh this page to get new updates as the show goes on.]

It's here, ladies and gentleman. Idol Gives Back. The moment Ryan Seacrest hasn't shut up about all season. Oh, and somebody's gonna get eliminated. I'm thinking Aaron.

7:00: They're starting big, aren't they? Less than 10 seconds in, and they show a video of Obama and Lady Obama... and Obama quoting Randy and saying "Y'all my dawgs." Epic. Can you imagine Lincoln standing up, freeing the slaves, and ending it with "Be free. Y'all my dawgs!"

7:03: Ryan is pimping every single one of the show's sponsors. And then he passes it off to Queen Latifah at the other Idol stage.

7:04: The Top 12 are all back together and singing. I haven't really dug many of the group performances this season, but this one's pretty good so far. And... HOLY CRAP SIOBHAN THAT SKIRT IS LIKE... sorry. I think I got that under cont... OMG LACEY THAT SKIRT IS LIKE... ahem, sorry. Seriously. Can either of those skirts be any shorter? No, that's a request. Can you please make them shorter? ...Please? Do as the song says... keep my dream alive.

7:07: Jennifer Garner is talking about... some backwoods town that lives in poverty. And they're interspersing footage of shacks and trailers with large, plantation-sized mansions.

NOTE: I just want to take this time to say that I'm really not all that cynical about Idol Gives Back. I know I've been making jokes all season, and I know I have made (and will continue to make) jokes about it tonight. I appreciate what Idol Gives Back does for those in need. I just find it a bit... interesting... to see those shows where rich celebrities come on and beg the average American to give money to the aforementioned poor people, when said celebrities could probably give twice as much money to said poor people than the people they're trying to involve... if that makes sense.

7:13: Ryan was just talking with Victoria Beckham and two kids who... had an education and are doing better thanks to public school? I think I missed something, because I'm not sure how that connected with getting money as much as it had to do with, you know, just having a good teacher and students not having an idiot mentality in the classroom.

7:17: Cap'n Sully! I really won't beef with this guy. He's pretty cool.

7:18: Russell Brand and Jonah Hill being (scriptedly) funny, making jokes about everybody they couldn't get to work a telephone panel.

7:20: Black-Eyed Peas are now singing "Rock That Body." I kinda feel bad for that third guy in Black-Eyed Peas. Everybody knows Fergie and Will.I.Am. But who's the middle-aged Jacob Black? Oh, and this song sucks. I like BEP, but this performance is just... bad. Like, really really bad. Remember that one contestant a while back on Idol... the one with the lisp that I absolutely couldn't stand? I actually kinda miss her right now.

7:24: Oh, it's over. That felt like it took forever.

7:28: I just missed all the Africa stuff because my phone rang. But I'm sure there will be more later.

7:32: I think we're finally getting to the results. And George Lopez is gonna be fake-hosting the show. I love George Lopez.

7:34: He has them all stand up... and then sit down. He goes over to judge the judges. He's riffing on the judges, starting with Randy. This is epic. BURN on Kara. Wait, Kara has a nude magazine picture? And moving along to Ellen... not that great as expected, but we're up to Simon. He sends him back to England... but since there's a big cloud of volcanic ash keeping people from traveling, he has to stay. OH, Ryan came back and called George "Erik Estrada."

7:39: The Ford Music video. At least this one is visually cool.

7:40: Now we're really at the results. Crystal and Casey are up first, joining Ryan at center stage. One of them is in the Bottom 3... and that is...

7:41: I'm just calling it with Casey. Yup. Well, I'm pretty sure I did call a Bottom 3 of Aaron, Tim, and Casey, so I'm right so far.

7:42: Aaron and Lee are up now. If one of them is in the bottom, I'm saying Aaron (obviously). And the one in the Bottom 3 is...

7:43: Aaron. Now I just need Tim in the Bottom and I will have called it. And then Aaron going home. Switching back over to Queen Latifah who is introducing Jeff Beck and Joss Stone with a choir. They're doing "I Put A Spell On You." This is really cool. It makes the Peas performance look... well... either way, it was still terrible. But that was awesome.

7:47: AH! JUSTIN BEIBER. I have to go punch a puppy or something now.

7:52: The Secretary of the U.N. is talking now. Now Morgan Freeman is on stage, and he begins by saying "Hello. I'm Morgan Freeman." How awesome is that? He's talking about the public school system and how it needs to change. You're preaching to the choir, brother.

7:57: Am I really that cynical after only almost one year of teaching? It's no reading program that causes literacy issues with today's youth. It's the fact that most of them are lazy and would much rather just watch the movie than read the book (which I hear every single day--"Can't we just watch the movie instead of reading this crap?" I even put the subtitles on during Romeo and Juliet to help them understand what was being said, and I got a couple complaints about words daring to be in the same general vicinity as a video screen). They see reading as boring, hard, unenjoyable, and overall pointless to their everyday lives and/or futures. And no reading program is gonna change that. It's just gonna force them to do something they don't wanna do, which will just reinforce how much they dislike doing it. The change has to come from the home and parents.

8:00: I've never really cared for Alicia Keys. And she's being awfully pitchy tonight. And I actually prefer Jay-Z's part of "Empire State of Mind." I actually nearly dislike the song because of Alicia Keys' part, as I find it annoying. So changing up the song to be nothing but her part of the song... I didn't care for it.

8:04: Josh Groban. Yup.

8:08: Going back to Russell Brand and Jonah Hill. And after a string of fake celebrities, they actually show Slash... and Tatiana from a previous season... who is actually looking really good these days. And Jim Carrey! And he runs away.

8:11: Going back to Queen Latifah... the next act is gonna be... Carrie Underwood. Country music. Time to go back to ignoring the show.

8:16: Oh, it's over. Now Ryan's back talking with Ellen... who was with David Arquette about something to do with feeding people.

8:20: Now something about Malaria. I've really stopped paying attention to this show for now. Enough with the pathos. Let's just get to some results so I can get on with my night.

8:25: Surprise... another video. Ryan sitting down with Bill Gates. Yes. Bill Gates... asking for other people to support stuff with their money. I take a deep breath and continue to say nothing.

NOTE 2: I'm really not dogging on celebrities or rich people's philanthropic ventures. That's all fine and dandy. But I'd at least like some kind of comment from these people that is something like "we'll match whatever is donated."

8:29: Wanda Sykes is on now talking about how Simon plays with his nipples when he's bored. Alrighty. At least she's commenting on what I feel to be one of the strangest things on the show of which I've commented before (the Goodbye Video and Goodbye Song).

8:31: Back to the results! Siobhan, Mike, and Tim join Ryan on stage. You know, part of me wants this to be shocking so at least this 2-hour show would have been worth sitting through. But I know it'll be Tim joining them in the bottom. Still...

8:33: Siobhan is safe. So it's down to Big Mike and Tim. Big Mike is stiff safe and Tim is in the bottom... so yeah, I predicted this yesterday. Now all we need is for Aaron to go home.

8:34: Hey. David Cook. And... the excitement goes away as soon as Ryan says the word "Ethiopia." I literally just yawned. No kidding. Holy crap... that's something I didn't know. Apparently girls in Ethiopia can be married off as young as 5. And others are sent into the sex trade (well, that one wasn't really as shocking).

8:36: For a second, I thought the guitarist next to David Cook was Charlie from LOST. My initial thought was "David Cook's in Drive Shaft now?" I'm such a nerd.

8:42: Eek... skeleton girl. This is almost so bad I want to laugh, but then I'd go to Hell. "She's the weight of a newborn baby. She has pneumonia AND full-blown AIDS. She could have had a normal life with her mother... but her mother died during childbirth." This is really disturbing and depressing. Oh, but they returned later after giving the girl medicine, and the girl has gained normal weight and is fine (except for the whole AIDS thing). Alrighty then.

8:47: Annie Lennox is now singing. She's wearing a trademark "HIV Positive" shirt. She's not HIV Positive, but it's a shirt advertising the help of patients with the disease. I'm pretty sure that's the worst advertisement shirt ever. I mean, can you imagine a nerd's closet? "This is my shirt that says 'MUGGLE' on it, for my Harry Potter moods. Right next to that I have my '+1 Shirt' shirt, for when I'm feeling into D&D. Oh, and there's my 'HIV Positive' shirt. The other ones are epic, but that one really helps me get the ladies."

8:56: With only 4 minutes left, of course we're not going to the final results. We're going to an all-star band doing Stairway to Heaven. Mary J. Blige, Orianthi, Travis Barker, Randy Jackson... and probably somebody else I missed. I've never liked MJB, but she's actually not annoying me here.

9:01: And now that we're officially into overtime, we'll still ignore the results and go into yet another poverty video with Simon. Why not just do what most other shows would do? Put the extra stuff online to build more traffic to their website and just get to the results already.

9:04: And... Hobo Ben Affleck? I was really going to give another snarky comment about how, being 4 minutes overtime, we were going to commercial. But then they gave us a video of Ben Affleck with a scruffy beard and a ratty gray hoodie. Huh.

9:09: We come back with Queen Latifah who introduces Sir Elton John... who is going to be talking about AIDS. A gay, British, singing knight talking about a sexually transmitted disease. I smell sitcom!

9:11: Now he's singing. Imagine that. Another performance instead of the results. Holy crap, I *just* realized what song this was. It's sad that I didn't catch it until it got to the refrain, mostly because it's used in Moulin Rouge. I really wanna watch Moulin Rouge now.

9:21: Oh joy... next week is gonna be country with Shania Twain and her music. Anyway, on to the results. And one person is safe. And that person is... FUCK ME. Aaron?! That means Casey or Tim is going?! And that person is...

9:22: Tim! Tim is finally going home? You mean, Tim starts getting good and Aaron sucks hard... and NOW Tim is going home? America, you confuse me so much.

Final Thoughts: Results shows are convoluted to begin with, but this Idol Gives Back was nearly painful to get through. Part of me is somewhat glad it was Tim, because at least that made it worthy of watching for 2 hours for that surprise. But at the same time, I think Tim deserved better than a rushed goodbye. His video was overshadowed by ending credits, and he didn't even get the pleasure of singing his Goodbye Song. Lame. After all season with the ups and downs of Tim and the controversy surrounding him, THAT was his goodbye? I feel let down. Anyway... see y'all next week. I'm outta here!