That was unquestionably the strangest night of the season so far . The capper for me was when Paula went into her long diatribe to excuse Michael's John's bad cabaret version of "A Day in the Life", rambling on about the difficulties of trying to sing with a monitor in your ear.

Then she tried to mock Simon, saying, "Ha, ha, Simon is the only one who doesn't know about monitors!" To which Randy happily chipped in like there's no tomorrow, "Because he isn't a performer, right?"

Um, turns out there was someone else who didn't know about the challenges of singing with a monitor: Michael Johns, who, it turned out, wasn't using one.

Simon observed, "Well, that's embarrassing."

I wish he hadn't had said that because Paula then launched into a long, incomprehensible defense of her comments. I think her point was that  even though she had been wrong, she was still speaking in full sentences.

Apparently it's only embarassing for her when she lapses into complete Paula gibberish, as when she told Amanda Overbear ing last night, "You are quintessential, authentic, who-you-are."

Aren't we all, Paula?

For more of my thoughts on last night's Idol, go to:

www.daveondemand.com/dodblog