Kansas City 2009

I totally enjoyed tonight's episode featuring auditions from David Cook's hometown of KC, MO...and not only because there were lots of mentions of him :) but because I think it's truly a slice of Middle America and we got to see a little bit of everything. I especially like the montage thing they are using this year to collect "bad" singers in the same song...so we can giggle in 3 minutes and get on (and poor Stevie Wonder, do you think he would giggle after tonight's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" montage? I wonder....)

AMAZING commercial featuring David Cook. In fact, I got me some Idol Shivvers. My hubby came home late, and I made him watch only 3 minutes of tonight s 2-hour show and they were those featuring DC. Kudo's to AI for such an amazing and compelling reminder of why we watch!

As with last night, we saw a nicer Simon, less interested in humiliating people and more interested in just moving things along, which I think is good. Paula was lucid again (yay!) and Kara and Randy did their thing.

Did we see the American Idol 2009 from tonight's auditions? If we did, it would be in the form of Danny, the 28-year-old music teacher who had recently lost his wife to a heart ailment. Gosh, I like him, not only for his incredible back story, but also for his soulful vibe and cool resemblance to Robert Downey Jr. :) I look forward to seeing his Heart and Soul in Hollywood!

I also give runners-up to Ashley Anderson who did Simon's "footsteps" proud; Lil Rounds from Memphis, the tornado survivor with 3 kids who reminded me of Fantasia and LaToya (sorry, same season!) all rolled into one! Wow! Those are some names to be associated with...and I think we'll like what we see from her in Hollywood.

Also a major runner-up was Anoop-"Dawg", the "didn't expect that" grad student with the geeky look....I hope he comes to Hollywood with some style to match that awesome soulful sweet vibe he put out.

I must mention Jason's bro Michael Castro and while adorable and obviously talented, I don't think he will survive Hollywood and maybe it's because he's just not that into Idol....Kara thinks he has a secret, and I have to wonder if it's that he thinks Idol is full o' crap!

Funniest parts tonight, for me, were Simon's comments, although more subtle than usual...I loved how he told Chelsea at the top of the show that she sounded like a "cat jumping off the Empire State Building"...LOL. I had to visualize that to fully appreciate it. I also laughed when Simon asked the singer who wasn't very good, "Just to be clear, the first records you bought were Paula's?" CLASSIC.

I had time to consider tonight the backdrop behind the auditioners which shows the American Idol winners. They have added David Cook and strategically positioned him to be exactly where the eye falls when one is watching the show. In other words, he gets the "pimp" spot. He is flanked by Carrie (to his left) and Jordin (to his right). Great company! In the wings are Taylor and Rueben....just interesting. What do you make of it?

Season 8 is off and running!