"I'm very obviously gay, and there are always gonna be people in America and everywhere else who are definitely going to hate."

"But I think that in the last two years there have been a lot of things that have really changed that, and have really made it a positive thing," said "American Idol" contestant MK Nobilette, as she awaited the judge's announcement whether she'd made it on to the next round as one of the final 30.

The first judge to speak was Harry Connick Jr., who said "Thank goodness" — meaning thank goodness a lot of things have really changed in the last 2 years.

The next judge to speak was Jennifer Lopez. She began with "This is a tough day," which was the kind of stalling they were using repeatedly when they were ultimately saying yes. (That's how they try to wring emotion out of contestants and audience members who haven't yet caught on that this is the tell that the news is good.) Lopez proceeds through the narrative arc, as if she were making the "tough" decision on the spot: "The world is changing, I think." And then: "We think that you could be an American Idol."

"Thank you guys so much," said MK, crying, and as she's walking out of the room, we see the third judge, Keith Urban, quietly, emotionally, pronounce the ultimate judgment: "The world is changing."

And so "American Idol," the long-time, middle American family show — a show which has had beloved gay contestants before, but never one who was openly gay — has gone all in for gay acceptance. The 3 judges — each in succession — carefully, gently, sweetly, informed America that the world has changed (or is changing). This is where we all are now (or where the arc of history is bending).

Come on. Group hug, America. 

"American Idol has nailed down its first alum turned judge: Jennifer Hudson."

"The other two spots are also intended for former Idol contestants: Kelly Clarkson and either Adam Lambert or Clay Aiken."

Is this something that can revive the old show?

Monkeytail beards.

Hilarious and repellent. Via ALOTT5MA, which also made look at these pictures of Adam Lambert. Try to resist.

Elvis and Adam Lambert.

Oh, there was so much potential for extravagant self-indulgence. But in the end, they were pretty much on the same level. And 2 must go this week. So everyone's at risk, and no one can be saved. Angsty!

IN THE COMMENTS: Lyssa says: "What I couldn't believe was that nobody, not even Randy, commented on Siobhan's 'sexy Elvis' Halloween costume."

Ha ha ha. Stray thought: When are they going to have Lou Reed night?

Obama is renaming the Iraq war — from "Operation Iraqi Freedom" to "Operation New Dawn."

It's supposed to represent some change in the nature of the war — presumably, that it's now going to be more like an improved formula for dishwashing detergent. But don't laugh. It does mean something. It means the President thinks switching labels is doing something.

ADDED: It's a new dawn! It's a new day! It's a new life! For me! And I'm feeling good!

The Daily News deftly juxtaposes pictures from the American Music Awards.

Check it out. It's like panels of a comic strip:

These pictures don't really relate to each other in the manner the sequence suggests, but the apparent story is hilarious.

In the first panel, Taylor Swift — the perfectly popular girl from whom a man once famously grabbed a phallic symbol — clutches her throat and looks with shock toward the second panel. In that second panel, American Idol also-ran Adam Lambert, clutching a phallic symbol, is angling back to get a look at the head going at his crotch. And, in panel 3, Jennifer Lopez, clutching a phallic symbol and looking quite angry, is falling backwards.

Juxtaposed, it looks like a story of sex and betrayal. In real life, the only intentional sex, simulated of course, came from Adam Lambert. He'd like you to believe he's fighting against discrimination:

"I do feel like there's a bit of a double standard in the entertainment community, on television, on radio... I feel like women performers have been pushing the envelope, especially, for the past 20 years. And all of the sudden a male does it and everybody goes 'Oh, we can't show that on TV.' For me, that's a form of discrimination and a double standard. And that's too bad."

The head in his crotch was female, by the way. Lambert subsequently canceled that discrimination by kissing a male.

Swift and Lopez weren't being sexual at all. Swift was expressing surprise — whether she felt it or not, we don't know — for beating out, as Artist of the Year, an artist whose big achievement this year was suddenly dying. And Jennifer Lopez was about to fall on what everyone feels compelled to refer to as her famous ass.

ADDED: The prime example of the womanly pushing of the envelope — in 2003 — reference by Lambert:

The Sexiest Man Alive.

According to People Magazine. I agree about the top choice — even though he'd be even better if he shaved.

Also, Adam Lambert gets an honorable mention, which is pretty ridiculous.

"As if a '70s time-capsule blasted off into space and you're watching it through a holographic filter."

Adam Lambert's description of his new album, the cover design of which is getting a big reaction:

Lyndsey Parker loves it:

Now, I adore this cover's absolutely fabulous retro vibe. (It looks so much like a beauty shot snapped by Andy Warhol in some glitter-dusted private party room at Studio 54, I can almost imagine Bianca Jagger riding a white horse in the background; what's not to like?)

Others are less enthusiastic. Ian Spaceman:

What do you get when you mix together My Little Pony, Ziggy Stardust, a cheesy 80s school picture, the Purple Rain font, and Microsoft Publisher? The new Adam Lambert album cover, that's what. This is artistically indefensible and, I suspect, commercially suicidal.

I'm not sure what "absolutely fabulous retro vibe" feels like to people who didn't live through the 70s when they were really happening. I've been through much of Andy Warhol's visual work and I've read his various scribblings — "Diaries," "Philosophy" — but nothing about that Lambert cover reminds me of Andy Warhol. I thought more of David Bowie, but browsing through old Bowie album covers — after looking at Lambert's — they all looked damned subtle and artful to me. Compare:

Girls love the gay guy, Adam Lambert.

It makes perfect sense:

[A] gay man with an unabashed affection for eyeliner and nail polish has emerged... as a new American sex symbol. "I think it's beautiful," Lambert says. "That's the way it should be. It shouldn't matter what a person's sexual preference is — it doesn't change their appeal."...

"There was one woman in Jersey who was actually gorgeous," says Lambert. "She had obviously had a couple of cocktails, and during an after–show meet–and–greet, she just slithered up next to me and started kissing my neck. I was cool with it. But then it started to get a little weird because she was, like, moaning. She gave me a note that said, 'I want to make out with you, here's my number,' and I was like, wow, this is crazy. But again, it's cool. Because yeah, I am gay, but I like kissing women sometimes. Women are pretty. It doesn't mean I'm necessarily sleeping with them...."

"I don't see how all this is any different than—let's take a modern sex symbol like Brad Pitt. How many of these women who fantasize about him actually get to sleep with him?... It's all fantasy—that's what entertainment is."

Accordingly, he grapples a naked lady in a photoshoot. It's all fantasy.

Adam Lambert certainly played the gay card well.

In yesterday's post about Adam Lambert, Christopher Althouse Cohen wrote:

Well, he certainly played the gay card well. He didn't acknowledge it but put out plenty of hints on YouTube prior to the show, refused to answer questions about his sexuality after the show was over just long enough to be "in the closet" and therefore able to stage a big coming out thing, used coming out as a way to get the best magazine cover you could possibly get, and somehow managed to negotiate a deal where that very magazine cover would make no mention of his coming out in the article and would appear to just be about how "wild" he is as a performer. On the show, he got all the credit for being out without having to deal with any of the consequences, and now he gets the big cover but gets the appearance of it not being about his coming out. He is quite media savvy and played the game for maximum attention.

Oh, I do like that he acknowledges in the article that he's fat. Bad skin isn't quite as much of a revelation, and people can forgive bad skin, but people act like he's hot when he's quite out of shape and can't possibly look good naked. But props to him for admitting it.

Ouch!

"I was like, 'I’m going to glue rhinestones on my eyelids, bitch!'"

At long last, Adam Lambert tells his "I'm gay" story.

Here's the cover:



A cute butterfly and a green snake approach Adam's exposed zipper.

AT&T unfair to Adam Lambert?

"Representatives of AT&T helped fans of ["American Idol" winner Kris] Allen at the two Arkansas events by providing instructions on how to send 10 or more text messages at the press of a single button, known as power texts. Power texts have an exponentially greater effect on voting than do single text messages or calls to the show’s toll-free phone lines. The efforts appear to run afoul of 'American Idol' voting rules in two ways. The show broadcasts an on-screen statement at the end of each episode warning that blocks of votes cast using 'technical enhancements' that unfairly influence the outcome of voting can be thrown out."

It was worth losing "American Idol" to not have to sing that crappy "No Boundaries" song.

When Adam Lambert heard he'd lost, he hugged Kris Allen and said "You have to sing that song now."

Ha ha. The winner has to close the show with a rendition of the special finale song, which is always bad — always bad in the same damned way. One difference this year was that the song was written by Kara DioGuardi — who's also on the judge's panel. (A terribly irritating intrusion on the show, by the way.)

Kris said:

"I was like ‘Ohhhh gosh!' I was like ‘OK, just sing it!’ I thought it went OK.”

You just know the 2 of them talked before the big results show and decided it was a win-win situation: Either you get to be the American Idol or you get to avoid singing that damned song.

“I like the song. It’s tough to sing, I’m not gonna lie. It’s a rough song, but Kara's a great writer,” Kris said. “It was so much fun working with her in the studio. She’s a lot of fun to work with.”

Kara's a great writer... but even great writers write a lot of crap.

Here's Kris performing the onerous task.

(Also in the linked article: Kris won by a lot.)

The "American Idol" upset.

View the last 5 minutes of the show.

Why did it happen? The Daily News has some theories. There's also a poll — where "Adam's look didn't appeal to Middle America" is currently winning, with "Adam's sexuality played a role" coming in second. Isn't "Adam's sexuality played a role" just a blunter way of saying "Adam's look didn't appeal to Middle America."

I think there may have been a sense among many of the hardcore voters — and they're the ones who matter, what with almost 100 million votes on the finale — that the American Idol should be a good role model for kids. In the final comparison between Kris and Adam, Kris Allen was the good boy whom they could picture as their own son or their high school boyfriend. That's the nature of the show.

Some of the voters surely thought that the idol, the role model, shouldn't be (or seem) gay, but I wouldn't get too bent out of shape about it. Adam Lambert did extraordinarily well and was embraced and eagerly loved. I didn't see any nasty homophobia on line that was about trying to make him lose — or win (there was no equivalent of the "vote for the worst" campaigns that in previous years have raged among the show's haters). And Kris was really sweet and natural standing alongside Adam week after week and talking about what good friends they are and so forth. That has been part of his role modeling.

IN THE COMMENTS: 2 gay males — Treacle and Palladian — make the same point: They prefer the Kris type. [Is Treacle gay? He hasn't be explicit.]

"I have a little confession: I don't like ['A Change is Gonna Come']."

Kim Cosmopolitan confesses (in the Throwing Things recap of last night's "American Idol" finale):

I'm sure that flags me as a social reactionary or something, but I don't like the song...

Ha ha. Yeah. I do like that song so I don't have that problem, but I certainly would be careful about expressing dislike of it. (Lyrics. Here's Sam Cooke singing it. And here's Adam Lambert singing it in last night's finale.)

It's like: Don't you care about civil rights? Really: Don't you hate when there's some work of art — e.g., "Schindler's List" — that you don't even want to risk looking at with a neutrally critical eye? Don't you hate when a work of art comes to you encrusted with moral/political importance that denies you the freedom to say it's bad? Well, say it's bad then! Fight back. It's a matter of moral and political importance.

Anyway, back at Throwing Things, Adam responds to Kim:

I'm just going to assume that the people who don't like Adam will find his "A Change Is Gonna Come" indulgent. I guess I was hoping for that little wink that acknowledged the gravity of the change Sam Cooke was singing about and which Lambert presumably was connecting with in his own interpretation. But he cut both the "too hard living but I'm afraid to die" and "go downtown"/"don't hang around" verses, the latter of which especially would have brought that home, and so what we were left with was a song sung well but without the depth that could have made it transcendent. What change, Adam?

Transform a song about black people into a song about gay people? Gay people aren't born by the river in a little tent. Would you buy a glammed up gay guy asking for sympathy for his troubles in words written about poverty and race discrimination? I guess it's possible to do that, but also probably in bad taste to horn in on the unique suffering memorialized in "A Change Is Gonna Come."

"For me, I hope that having the Christian vote doesn't help with anything."

Said "American Idol" finalist Kris Allen.

[Allen is] a 23-year-old college student who has worked as a worship leader at the New Life Church in his hometown of Conway, Ark. "I hope it has to do with your talent and the performance that you give and the package that you have. It's not about religion and all that kind of stuff."

So... some people think they are voting for religion and — what? — against some presumed immorality of Adam Lambert?

Lambert, a 27-year-old theater actor from San Diego who once worked in the Los Angeles cast of "Wicked," heartily agreed. He said he does not think the contest "has anything to do with your religious background, what color you are, your gender. It doesn't have anything to do with that. It's about music....."

Music and your package. That's what Kris said.

Alexander Rybak — the Norwegian fiddler who won Eurovision.

I don't understand Europe.

Give me "American Idol" any day. Look, here's Adam Lambert, when he was fat and blond, singing at his high school graduation:

Screams I missed.

I couldn't watch "American Idol" last night, so I'm reading recaps and checking YouTube for video. Here's an excerpt from Throwing Things:

Kris -- "Heartless"

Finally! Solo acoustic Kris Allen! FINALLY!! Loved it, especially after relistening to the original. A ballsy choice. But for the weird Hickesque fan support for Gokey, I'd say that Kris is a lock. But of course Gokey is Gokey, so who knows. -- Kim

My wife disagrees, but I thought it was brilliant. If the goal is the find The Next Pop Superstar, that's a Next Pop Superstar. Sincere, well-sold, ballsy and completely unexpected from the Bible Belt. Not a "singer's song," but a great performance -- it takes real musical smarts and confidence to take a autotuned rap song and make that out of it. Put him in the finals. -- Adam

You can watch that, badly recorded, here. [ADDED: I've removed that link. Go here — to the official site — to watch that performance. You can find the other performances from last night at that link.]

The Lambert -- "Cryin'"

"Dear Danny, Get out your notepad. This is how you fucking sing Aerosmith. Love, Adam." Seriously, to take an artist that your principal competition botched, and do it yourself the next week? We've never seen anyone do something so in-your-face before on the show, and needless to say it kicked ass. Text VOTE to 5703, people. Over and over again. -- Adam

Seriously. THAT'S how you scream your ass off on the Idol stage... Have we ever heard Simon say "don't fuck this voting thing up, people" so clearly before? And once again, Adam is nothing but gracious on stage, this time praising Kris and Danny. Sure, he can afford to be gracious, but he never fails to thank someone. Adam Lambert is a class act. Stop reading and start voting. -- Kim

Watch that here.

What about Danny Gokey? Here he is doing "You Are So Beautiful." I hope Kris makes it to the finale, along with my favorite, Adam, but Danny's from Wisconsin, so it's all good.

And all bad, of course.

Was it fair to introduce duets when there were 4 contestants left and 3 were males?

It meant — on "American Idol" last night — that one of the male contestants would have the advantage of singing with the lone female and the other 2 males would have to sing with each other. An added complexity is that one of the males is perceived as gay.

Is Adam Lambert openly gay? It's never talked about or alluded to on the show. And — the theme was rock — when he sang "Whole Lotta Love" for his solo last night the line "Way down inside, woman, you need me" was utterly convincing — thrilling, even.

But the perceived gayness of Adam made it a special disadvantage — or should I say a special problem — for him to be paired with one of the other males, and I think that was what determined that Kris Allen and Danny Gokey would need to be the male pair, and that Adam would go with Allison Iraheta.

Or do you think that the producers put Allison with Adam to hurt Kris/Danny? The theory is: Either Danny/Kris must go this week, because you want to keep the only female and you can't lose the truly exciting Adam. (Is Adam in danger? He was in the bottom 2 last week in a shocker, but he probably wasn't anywhere near the actual last-place finisher, Matt Giraud. And the seeming close call lit a fire under his fans, so they'd call like mad this week.)

So, put Danny and Kris side by side and let people judge who is better. In the duet, it was clear that Danny was better. Unfortunately for Danny, he subsequently performed solo, attempted to sing "Dream On," and was perfectly awful. Painful, really. What happened?

The whole point of "Dream On" are the screams Steven Tyler pulls off at the end, the ones that Adam Lambert could have pulled off at the end ... and as Gokey was going through this song, it seemed like he was just going to rearrange the song to avoid them. Jen and I kept looking at each other -- now will he? -- and then, when he did, it missed as much as Scott Macintyre missed everything on "The Search Is Over," as much as Corey Clark on "Against All Odds." It was brutal. Both on his cumulative downwards slide and especially on tonight, he deserves to go home now.

Spooked by Adam's superiority, then?

Speaking of "Dream On," I dreamed I was watching the results show — yes, lame of me to dream I'm watching "American Idol" — and Danny lost — not only lost, but they ran out of time and deprived him of the farewell video montage.

Here, now be careful:



AND: It's viral!

"This... is Quentin Tarantino." "And this... is 'American Idol.'"

I'm live-blogging this one, kids. Quentin Tarantino is guest-judging. I loved him in '04 — "JPL, you are the geekiest rock singer since Freddie and the Dreamers--all right?--but when you get into your geek mode--all right?--there's no one quite like you" — and I'm thrilled to see him back tonight.

7:01: Kara DioGuardi doesn't know what "provocative" means. And — wait — Tarantino isn't a guest judge. He's somehow "guiding" the contestants.

7:06: "The idea is to direct them."

7:07: Allison Iraheta is singing "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing." (The theme is music from movies.) Q thinks she's gonna do a great job. She shrieks about watching "you" sleep. The judges talk about spicy sauce (because she's Hispanic?). Simon says she's the girls' only hope, disrespecting Lil.

7:15: Anoop Desai does "Everything I Do I Do For You," and I realize I've long thought of it as the same song as "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing." Just move the words around a little and get your instant movie generic love song. Q wants Anoop to growl out the words. Q punches the air to demonstrate and, with that big jaw of his, he looks like Popeye. Anoop has a nice tone to his voice and he's modestly soulful.

7:20: Q only "got a taste" of Adam Lambert, who's doing "Born to Be Wild," and he's excited about tasting the whole thing. Adam is going to take the world in a love embrace. I just love this guy. Very thrilling and cool performance. (Hey, did I ever tell you I saw Steppenwolf in concert in 1970?) Simon tries to criticize him by saying "It was a little like watching the 'Rocky Horror' musical in parts." And Adam's all "I love that musical!"

7:29: "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman." Incredible. I've also long thought of that as the same song as "Miss a Thing"/"Everything I Do." Is everything by Bryan Adams? Matt Giraud, the boring guy who's supposed to remind us of Justin Timberlake. Q tells him to enunciate. He's pretty bad.

7:39: Danny Gokey is doing "Endless Love" and Q's advice is to put his hands in his pockets. Which he isn't doing. Blah. I hate this. Maybe I just hate everything now that Adam is gone. Simon gives him a boost by alluding to Gokey's dead wife — the song must have been "hard" for him to sing.

7:49: Kris Allen is doing some song I've never heard of from a movie I didn't quite catch the name of. Something about a sinking boat. Q has nothing interesting to say to him. The judges are judging 2 at a time, which means we only get to hear from Simon with every other performer. I guess it would be too mean to just kick Kara off the show, but that would be a much better way to save time.

7:59: Lil Rounds — who I said they were overpromoting — is given the finale spot, and she's singing "The Rose" — which Trooper York said Allison should sing. Q tells her to commit to both parts of the song, not just the gospel half. Tedious. Simon tells her she's "getting this completely wrong." And he's been telling her that over and over and he's "getting frustrated." Lil talks back. "I put it in there" she raves as the TiVo times out. So that's the last thing a lot of people will hear. Maybe some will like the feistiness, but it's dangerous to sass the judges on this middle of the road show, even when what they're telling you is — as Simon said just now — that you're too middle of the road.

8:02: I'm predicting Matt is out.