So thanks to my girlfriend, I’m addicted to American Idol from last season. I had never watched the show prior to last season when her and I watched and fell in love with Ray LaMontagne-singing, Jack Osborne clone Chris Sligh and now I’m hooked.

Now, I feel the need to discern between what I believe to be American Idol and the four-week whistle-stop freak show around the country where people that, you’d have to assume, realize they have no talent opt to go on national television and embarrass themselves. It’s far too mean-spirited and just not for me. I don’t start watching until the Final 24. So here we are, we saw four people go home last week and here are the four I believe will be heading back home tonight.

GUYS

This was a guy that I’d never really taken to and thought his performance last week of Three Dog Night’s “One” was alright but not attention-grabbing and his bad cover band-esque rendition of Foreigner’s “Hot Blooded” will send the former boy bander back to Melbourne, Fla. Randy Jackson said he wasn’t sure that rock was Carrico’s thing even though he dresses the part. Well if rock isn’t his thing, then what is? There’s only room on this show for one corporate rocker and for now David Cook and his inexplicably cheesy hair has that distinction.

I thought Jason Yeager deserved to go home last week and had it not been for the terrible performances of Colton Berry and the elfin Garrett Haley, Yeager and that weird streak of blonde hair would have left us last week. And I think we all would have been better off. Yeager’s performance of The Doobie Brothers’ Long Train Running, in which he grinned like an idiot through the entire thing, was schmaltzy and vapid.

WARM UP THE BUS

It pains me to have to prognosticate the departure of a fellow Hoosier from the program but Menard’s looks will only get him so far in this competition because the 29-year-old from Crawfordsville just isn’t that good. I thought he deserved to go home last week and he gets up there this week and tries to do Queen? Are you serious? Thankfully Jason Yeager is boring and Robbie Carrico is a complete poser otherwise Menard would be heading home to clean carpets. I haven’t liked either of his performances and wouldn’t be disappointed if he’s sent packing a week early.

GIRLS

The worst performances on a night of poor performances (save Carly Smithsen’s pitch-perfect rendition of Heart’s Crazy on You). Forget that she almost ate it coming down the stairs, Malloy labored through Heart’s Magic Man and never found the song. It was off-key, dull and generally terrible. It was high school talent show material. The girl can do a heck of a Britney impression, she’s apparently a good opera singer but she’s a crap pop singer.

This may be wishful-thinking but I certainly think Amanda Overmyer’s Idol days are numbered. Not only did she come out last night looking like she had stuck her finger in a light socket but the DJ Tanner look-a-like completely butchered Kansas’ Carry on My Wayward Son, a song laden with instrumental breaks, as Randy pointed out. When watching this, I couldn’t help but wonder what former Kansas member and Destin resident the Rev. Dave Hope was thinking as Overmyer growled through the song’s melodies. This girl has been a one-trick pony from day one and I think last night her weaknesses really shown through.

WARM UP THE BUS

It was honestly difficult to pick the next Idol-wannabe to go home on the girls’ side after how bad everyone was last night but I think Lushington has done her best to ride the middle of the road and stay out of the cross-hairs as weaker contestants get picked off but I don’t think it’s long before America realizes that they have no idea who she is and that there’s probably a reason for that.