YOU'RE ALL WASTED: I'm sorry for posting over the top, and please don't use this as a general Idol thread, but we're midway through tonight's show and I feel very, very strongly about this. The moment in "Baba O'Riley" where the overlapping round on the keyboard resolves into those three power chords and the drums kick in and then Daltrey sings "Out here in the fields/I fight for my meals/I get my back into my living"? That is probably one of the two or three most powerful moments in rock and roll, and I can't think of the other one or two. It's downright criminal to bury that the way Cook did. I don't care if he's the rocker, or he's trying to change it up -- you can't whisper about how you fight for your meals. I am outraged.

HEAVY BOOTS OF LEAD, FILLS HIS VICTIMS FULL OF DREAD: I finally got around to Iron Man this evening, and man, that's some good stuff. Pretty much perfectly cast all-around (especially, and unsurprisingly, RDJ as Tony Stark), and with a ton of quips and good lines. One of the most difficult things in making a comic book movie is balancing making a movie "for the fans" with one that the rest of the audience will enjoy. This one hit it just about right, with enough in-jokes for the fans ("Maybe next time," the Stan Lee cameo, the group to which the government agent played by Sorkin Family Player Clark Gregg belongs), without becoming nothing but fanwankery. And man, that final post-credits scene, which raises some casting questions of interest for later films (Thor? Captain America? Ant-Man?).

9 IP 1 H 0 R 0 ER 0 BB 20 K: Ten years ago today, Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood had perhaps the most dominating nine-inning performance in baseball history. SportsCenter's Rich Eisen narrated the highlights narrated the highlights (new link).

IN THE JINGLE JANGLE MORNING I'LL COME FOLLOWING YOU: Ma nishtana ha'Idol hazeh? On most other shows Ike Turner is not alluded to even once; tonight, he's alluded to twice. Oh, and Jason Castro's going home. I mean, really ...

• David Cook: "Hungry Like The Wolf" was sung competently, but you've got to stalk the stage when you perform a Simon LeBon song. You've got to run through the crowd, taunt and tease ... you can't just wander in a five-foot radius. "Baba O'Reily" was awesome ... until five seconds before the ending and he shouted they're all WASTED!, which was great, and then he abruptly pivoted to a total Vegas/Idol glory note ending and killed the moment.
  


• Syesha Mercado: If you're doing to climb Mt. Whitney, Mt. Mariah and Mt. Fantasia, hell, why not try to scale Tina Turner's "Proud Mary"? Because you're not Tina Turner. She's performing with a ton of confidence, but a performer can't just follow Tina's steps and make it your her own recipe ... unless she's Beyonce. And, hello?, Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" is not a personal empowerment anthem, nor is it a place for random shrieks and belting devoid of any interpretive intent, which means that Syesha should be going home, except, of course ...


• Clifford the Crunchy Muppet: "I Shot The Sheriff" was a huge sloppy mess, a calamity down there with the Scott Savols and Corey Clarks of the world. It's not a singer's song, he started badly, and then committed the Anwar Robinson sin of letting the backup singers take the chorus. "Mr. Tambourine Man" was even worse, forgetting lyrics and just not caring anymore. He's the one who should have attempted "A Change Is Gonna Come," doing it like James Taylor did on The West Wing.
  
  Dan Fienberg wants to know if this is the worst pair of final four performances ever, and the answer is "not quite": Josh Gracin once tortured us with the Bee Gees' "Jive Talkin'" and "To Love Somebody", after all.


• Young David Archuleta: "Stand By Me" was technically solid and all, and then, whoa: he may have just won the competition with the falsetto at the end, no matter how dead his eyes may remain. The falsetto wasn't quite as there on "Love Me Tender," but again it was undeniably a good performance, and if you didn't already hate him tonight's performances would not have made you dread his winning the competition.

Any doubts, America?

THERE'D BETTER BE MORE THAN A FREE ALLEN WRENCH: The allure of camping out waiting for a store to open so you can be the first to buy a product generally eludes me. (Though midnight launches can have their allure--Harry Potter, movies on opening night, etc.) Eluding me even more is who exactly would camp out in front of the soon-to-open Brooklyn IKEA in order to be the first to experience the smell of lingonberry jelly and the joy of inexpensive, not particularly durable, furniture.

YES FISH EATERS, THE DAYS OF TROUBLESOME SCALING, CUTTING AND GUTTING ARE OVER: Nerve counts down the top 50 ad parodies of all time, which is predictably heavy on SNL clips. I was ready to dismiss the list until three of my all-time favorites--Samuel L. Jackson Beer, First CityWide Change Bank, and Old Glory Robot Insurance--showed up in the top 10. Still, the folks behind Shimer Floor Wax/Desert Topping and Taco Town have to be disappointed to be excluded.

And yes, 32 years later, putting a bass in a blender is still damn funny.

I SUGGEST "EXPLAINING THE SAME THING FOR THE FOURTH TIME TODAY WITHOUT GETTING SNIPPY:" I am quite sure we can add to McSweeney's list of "Classes My Top-Tier Law School Should Have Offered As Warnings About The Profession."