LINK

Well, you can start by blaming Ace Young, Bucky Covington, and Lisa Tucker, who might want to consider forming some kind of atonal New Age act known as the Bottom Three. Now admittedly, I've never been an Ace fan, but is there anyone left in America who still sees this guy as a potential Idol after his rendition of Train's ''Drops of Jupiter''? Why didn't he just microwave a giant vat of Velveeta and hurl it into the cameras, because boyfriend definitely brought the cheese! Forget the middling vocal performance — what really pained me was the way Ace opened his shirt mid-performance to show his ''sexy'' scar, the way he gently stroked his overstyled locks while mewling the words ''in her hair,'' the pathetic way he used two hands to encourage fans to dial ''IDOLS-03.'' (Dude, even my four-year-old niece can do it one-handed.) Still, I think Ace deserves safe passage into next week, if only because he inspires such flagrant fawning from judge Paula Abdul. Despite her increased lucidity levels tonight (granted, anything had to be an improvement on last week), she still couldn't resist purring to Ace, in reference to his old wound, ''One day, you'll have to explain to me how you got that one.''