The end is now just two weeks away, as Fox's "American Idol" eliminated another finalist tonight, Michael Lynche, 26, of St. Petersburg, Fla., after 37 million telephone votes were cast -- the biggest vote of the season.
It's not a huge shock. "Big Mike" was voted off the show once before, but remained in the competition thanks to a "judges' save."
Just last night, he told judges that his goal was to make the final three, leading to criticism from some of them.
That leaves three singers competing for a recording contract.
- Casey James, 27, of Fort Worth, Texas, was the first singer deemed safe on tonight's result show. But host Ryan Seacrest cautioned that the results were given "in no particular order."
- Lee DeWyze, 24, of Mount Prospect, Ill., was the second singer that Seacrest declared to be safe.
- Crystal Bowersox, 24, of Elliston, Ohio, was the last singer in the clear.
The three finalists return to their hometowns on Friday so "Idol" cameras can capture scenes of adoring fans.
In previewing those events, scenes of previous "Idol" finalists were shown, including Milwaukee's Danny Gokey last year at the Summerfest grounds.
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
