Bucky-ing the Trend

All right, I admit it. I may be the ONLY person on the planet who is devastated that Bucky has gone home. I truly enjoyed his performance and was jumping up and down to see someone brave enough to take on "Fat Bottomed Girls." (In fact, the first thing I said to Diva 3 last week when they announced the Queen theme was that it was tough, b/c I thought no one would sing any of their fun songs LIKE Fat Bottomed Girls and Bicycle Race (I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my BIIIII-ke...) or Killer Queen). Despite what Paula says, he sings better when he ditches the cowboy hat. And he has the idol qualities we all love -- nice smile, sweet personality and a hometown we've never heard of. In fact, I dare say that there must be more than one diva who was secretly hoping he would ride the dark horse (or maybe just the dark mechanical horse a la John Travolta) all the way into the top 4 or 5. (Oh yeah, I said it!)

All in all, I was again extremely disappointed in Tuesday's show. Not one single person sang "Under Pressure"?? The only possible excuse for Ace's falsetto? McPheever ditches "Don't Stop Me Now" for the hackneyed ballad from The Highlander? Ok, I love The Highlander, largely b/c it features Sean Connery in yummy form as the Spanish Peacock, Clancy Brown as a crazy looking but strangely attractive evil swordsman ("Its better to live fast than fade away!"), and has a soundtrack totally by Queen -- but the song choice was bad, and the outfit was worse (she must own something other than blue jeans, and the belt turned the top into something straight out of Katherine Parker's closet in Working Girl). In fact, Paris should have run for that song once McPheever ditched it -- a perfect choice for a young girl. Instead I got to see her channeling a drag queen version of Beyonce singing a song that can only be sung by Freddie Mercury (and is largely associated with his death). And McHottie? The song was good, but I felt like I was watching a dime-store version of the Pharoah in the Ten Commandments due to the heavy eye-liner and bald head. Very distracting.

Taylor made the only truly inspired change, but turned it into merely a re-visitation of the Dwight Yoakum version (and the accompanying Gap commercial). Someone take the mike stand away and seat him behind a piano next week. So, it is any shocker that Bucky and Elliott (who I thought was the best of the evening, with a GREAT song choice) were my favorites? I think not.

In truth, for me, this is quickly becoming AMERICAN I-DULL. Here's hoping Rod Stewart can drag us back from the edge of oblivion. Odds are, however, that instead of a night of Maggie May and If You Want My Body, we're going to get the old singers and standards from his last 3 records. The click you hear is my mental remote, tuning it all out...

Sadly, Diva 1

ps -- if you're not tuning into Top Chef on Bravo (10 pm Wednesday, with innumerable re-runs) you should be!!