If you're not reading American Idol recaps by SF Bay Guardian's Tim Redmond, you're missing out. And how. The noted alt-weekly editor has been doing a surprisingly bang-up job wrapping up this year's revamped American Idol into interesting, bite-size nuggets. (We're surprised only because we typically read Redmond's thoughts on politics and other important-but-not-nearly-as-fun stuff.)

Behold:

But no, this is American Idol 2011, where Ryan fucking Seacrest fucking Productions, Inc. has to drag every bit of drama out of every possible minute and extend things endlessly, to make time for more commercials and expand the cash machine that seems to be all that's driving the show anymore. So we watched for an hour and a half -- 90 minutes -- before His Seacrestness was done breaking the news. (Ryan, Dawg: This isn't the Oscars. The envelope thing was lame.) Much hugging (wait -- if I go on Idol, can I hug J-lo?), much sadness, much joy -- oh, the humanity!

Come on, folks. "Ryan fucking Seacrest fucking Productions, Inc." alone deserves, say, a bigger award settlement, yes? Yes.

[SFBG]