Move It, Pendejo -- Seattle Rules Latino Night on American Idol

We never thought we'd say this, but Sanjaya eclipsed all the other performers last night with his on-the-brink-of-bad-without-going-over performance of "Besa Me Mucho." We could make a snide comment about his new shorter hairdo (looked a little like the "Soul Glo" guy from Coming to America), but it really wouldn't be fair, considering he outdid everyone else on the show except for fellow Puget Sounder Blake "the beatbox" Lewis.

It was J-Lo (read: latin music) night, and for the first 40 minutes of the show, we thought the best thing that was going to happen was the part where J-Lo showed LaKisha Jones how to say the word "conga." MindyDoo tanked with her lounge singer act, KiKi and J-Sparks made us snore with their Gloria Estefan numbers ("Conga" and "The Rhythm is Gonna Get You," respectively). Phil Stacey was just creepy and the Chris that's not Chris Sligh was whiney as usual, and both guys chose songs from that Santana record where Santana played while white guys sang.

It was a bad, boring night for entertainment. We're talking Idol-Season-3-boring. J-Lo kept talking about how the contestants just couldn't seem to find their inner Latina, the fire and passion that fuels Latin music. Blake and Jaya didn't have the fire, either, but they managed to put on performances that weren't embarassing and forgettable. Blake did the one good Mark Anthony song in an old white guy fedora and with a confused look on his face, but somehow it was really good. Probably because he didn't prance around the stage trying to pull off Latin dance moves. Instead, he just kind of kept pointing at the camera and gesticulating with his one free hand.

Sanjaya did "Besa Me Mucho" in decently pronounced Spanish, sitting on a stool so he didn't embarass himself with weird hula moves and awkward hand motions. Lucky for him, the bar was low enough last night that it came across as really, really good. Even Simon had to admit he was genuinely impressed.

It goes without saying that, had Melinda Doolittle picked a better song (what was she thinking?), it would have been business as usual. Nonetheless, we were happy to see things shaken up a bit, with Doolittle getting such a sore response from Simon, her superfan, that it allowed our local heroes an opportunity to prove themselves.