Ah, the infamous Seattle auditions. That was the show that caused all the controversy. Simon was too cruel. The parade of wacko contestants was relentlessly brutal. Before the show even aired, Simon had publicly denounced the Seattle turnout as "the worst bunch of miserable contestants EVER." Even Paula agreed, labeling the auditioners as "unusually fantastically delusional."

Seattle was the butt of Idol's jokes, deemed a pool of untalented crazies. Yet here we are, down to the Top 24, and the last laugh may be on Simon. A total of FIVE semifinalists were found in that "atrocious" city. In comparison, only one semifinalist was found in Birmingham, lovingly dubbed "Idol Country" by the show's writers.

I'm having trouble finding words to describe how I feel about last night's stop in Birmingham. Plain English just can't do it justice. And, since my Latin is a little rusty, I think I'll have to use the beautiful language of sarcasm to describe my thoughts. Birmingham was soooooooo great.

Wow, I was sooooo surprised to hear them say the whole city had turned out to audition. They've never said that before. 11, 000 people, though, that seems like a low number ... Paula, Randy and Simon seemed pretty normal. Better than normal, in fact. I don't think I've ever seen Paula so normal in all the auditions thus far. I was sooooo surprised to see she didn't make it to the next day's taping.

Sometimes you find the strangest things on the internet when you weren't even looking for them. I read an article about Idol winner Taylor Hicks playing a little club show after his concert in San Jose and went looking for some video to share with the Idol fans at TV Squad. Sure enough, it's out there. You can see a couple clips from the show by following this link.

But wait... just like a Ron Popeil infomercial, there's more! While digging up the San Jose video, I stumbled on a little gem from the Birmingham City Scenes Festival. Taylor Hicks on stage rockin' the mic with Snoop Dogg. He spends most of the song dancing and playing harmonica, but about 2:30 in he does a little rapping. It's a strange thing to see. Interesting, but I like my Taylor Hicks a little more Dr. John and a little less Dr. Dre. Watch the video after the jump.