No "A.I." Recap This Week (but a comment nonetheless)

Ah, "Idol Gives Back" week...Worthy enterprise or corporate P.R. time, or perhaps both? I won't venture into that discussion, at least not tonight. But having missed this week's Top 8 showdown, I have to say if there was a week I'd want to miss, this was it. Because the theme was - prepare gag reflex now - "inspirational" songs. And from what I can gather from the online chatter, I didn't miss much in the way of musical high notes (pardon the pun).

What I did miss, by all accounts, was the crash-and-burn of David Cook, my favorite and now the only A.I. contestant who's ever moved me to pick up the phone and vote for him...without even having seen the show! So you might say I was "inspired" this week, all right, but not for the right reason: according to the busy-signal-measuring pundits at Dial Idol, he was and still is in very real danger of falling into the bottom 3 this week. Say it ain't so! I did manage to see his performance tonight (courtesy of youtube), and I can say with a perfectly straight face that it wasn't anywhere NEAR as bad as everyone seems to be making it out to be. True, the song he did - "Innocent" by Our Lady Peace, one of David's favorite bands - probably wasn't the best choice for him (for once), because much of it is in a lower register that caused some pitch problems. But he's too good a musician to make a real hatchet job of any song, and he certainly didn't with this one. Unfortunately, America doesn't seem to see it my way. I feel like he set a bar too high for himself with his past performances, such that with each new one it's like everyone's expecting him to pull a rabbit out of his hat. Inevitable, I suppose, that he should stumble at least once, and get punished far too harshly for it.

What worries me more, in a way, than the possibility of him getting voted off is that tonight, once again, he wasn't giving off that energy and vibrancy that characterized his best performances. Perhaps he simply suspected the song wouldn't take; perhaps he'd had a bad rehearsal. Yet one also has to wonder if the stress isn't getting to him, when combined with his high blood pressure and his brother's cancer and who knows what else. I want him to continue on the show, obviously, and win it if possible, but I also just want to see a return of his joie de vivre. I hope he can channel it again, for his own personal mental and emotional health no less than his "Idol" viability.

So, good vibes to David C...and here's hoping I can prevent myself from twitching too much between now and elimination night...Figures that this would be the week we have to wait an extra day for results.