"American Idol" = Weirdo Gettysburg

Editor's note: Matt's watching "American Idol" for the first time this season in order to finally find out what all the millions are doing with their lives. It's not his cup of tea, so far. But if you see him voting when the contest gets going, make fun of him. Make fun of him a lot.

It's funny, but watching this week, I don't really think there's much to say that I haven't said before. It's pretty much just this one trick for the first few weeks I guess, with a few small storylines thrown in -- except now we get to start seeing the South's weirdos, who we all know are much odder than the weirdos of the North. We'd have lost in the weirdo civil war, people, believe me. I mean, there are some freaks in the cities up here, but geez, it seems EVERYONE down there has a quirk. This is the part of the country most of us on the coasts have no idea about.

Joining the parade of annoyingly odd was drunk Paula! She took off last week I think, and she only seemed about halfway gone. But still all the more entertaining than sober Paula. Drunk Paula is even better than Serious Randy (who pops in surprisingly between "dogs" and hysterical laughing) and Instigator Simon.

The producers really gave weight to the Kelly Pickler wannabe this week (sob story about her dad being paralyzed after shooting himself... I don't want to say mean stuff about the South here, but wow). It's a sweet story and they found a cute little teenager to focus on, even if she was just OK. I much preferred chubby Justin Guarini.

Randy summed it up when the "Big Bird" contestant came into the audition room: "WHAT is going on with this show?" Where do the THOUSANDS of people who show up at these auditions? I'm thinking they're extracted directly from my nightmares.

Shameless plug: I was surprised to see Randy lugging around a copy of Spearhead's "Yell Fire!" CD while signing autographs at the end of the show. Someone knows something about music (even if it's just some hippie kid who tossed it to Randy).