Technically Incorrect

It is never my intention to spoil your most intimate pleasures.

However, what is left of my morality cannot hold back some new information about "American Idol."

I know many of you will be glued to your TVs on Tuesday to see what hot (for both sexes, I'm told) favorite Adam Lambert will be performing.

If you have been committed for the last 12 weeks to following this drama of the larynx and the tongue-lashing, you will know that the producers never reveal who actually gained the most votes in any particular week. This would, indeed, spoil the ratings. Um, I mean the high-quality entertainment.

However, a glitchette in the iTunes software seems to have revealed which of the contestants is enjoying the most downloaded love. And this just might be an indicator of voting patterns.

Adam Lambert, contemplating his downloads?

(Credit: "American Idol")

Lambert is, indeed, having the fruits of his vastly ranging throat downloaded the most.

However, in second place is not Danny Gokey, the gawky, raspy-voiced, nice chap, who dances as if he's wearing someone else's trousers.

No, in second place is Kris Allen. Yes, the short chap with the happy face and the, I don't know, mini-John Mayer demeanor--which, I suppose, is better than mini-Verne Troyer.

It seems unclear how the iTunes glitch occurred. Perhaps a fan of the sublimely powerful, cool, confident, deliciously pink-haired 16-year-old Allison Iraheta wanted to encourage more of her fans to get out the vote.

Perhaps it has something to do with Pirate Bay.

However, it surely will make everyone wonder just how many Steve Wozniak votes might have been left on the floor, or in the trash, on that other cultural votefest, "Dancing with the Stars."

In cubicles all around Silicon Valley, geeks will be weeping Wednesday.

Yes, despite the best efforts of every possible method of social networking, Steve Wozniak was eliminated, ejected, rejected and thrown into the tango trash by the cruelty that is the voting process of "Dancing with the Stars."

A theory had wafted through the danceosphere that techies would hijack the online voting process and project their lovable, but not entirely ego-free, hero to the sinuous summit.

The fact that he was sent home suggests three possibilities.

One, the producers, deeply depressed at having their integrity besmirched by Woz's accusations of vote fixing made sure that he would go no further (making one of the less sexy humans on the planet perform the Argentine tango was not exactly an act of altruism).

Two, techies were so embarrassed by Woz's honest but heartily incompetent efforts at passing himself off as a super trouper that they performed the online equivalent of euthanasia. They pulled the plug on their Macs and condemned him to the dance of a thousand fails.

"All I feel is the pain of what might have been."

(Credit: CC Eric Rhoads)

This despite the fact that the Twitter group supporting Woz numbered more than 103,000, which ought to have translated into a minimum of 2 million votes. (Woz admitted to his Facebook Support Group that he voted for himself: "I even voted and texted from my 2 cell phones last night, and this morning voted online from about 7 of my own email accounts.")

Or three, the chaps behind the Conficker virus interfered with Woz's inexorable rise to dancing's highest peak, fearing that his survival, and the uncontrolled excitement it would undoubtedly engender, would interfere with their attempt to dominate the online world April 1.

I think all three may have been to blame. (Although one has to be particularly suspicious about a voting system that claims to know when you have reached the limit of your allocated number of votes, but doesn't reveal the actual numbers)

Woz seems to have found himself in the middle of a perfect storm that might have blown Fred Astaire's umbrella clean out of his hands and into the arms of a passing lady of the night.

His professional partner, the infinitely sensual, flame-breathing Karina Smirnoff, did well to hide her displeasure as the ax fell gently upon her neck. At least she had avoided risk of injury in forthcoming weeks.

While Woz, as he stood for his final interview (together with the also-eliminated former Playboy model, Holly Madison), praised the show.

He even stretched credulity far beyond the four inches that he apparently shed from his waist with the constant jiggling, by praising the voting system.

Now we can only worry about his future. Will he become a regular on "Entertainment Tonight"? Will he occasionally step in for Drew Carey on "The Price is Right"? Or will he suddenly appear on "The Biggest Loser"?

Woz endeared himself to some and, frankly, enervated some others. But at least he showed character. Something the tech world's image has singularly and painfully lacked.

But if he calls you offering dancing lessons, perhaps it's best to take a rain check. Or, at the very least, claim a pulled hamstring, sore knee, ear infection, slipped disc, putrid patella, intestinal inflammation or just good old-fashioned gout.

He started with a rose between his teeth. He ended by spitting the thorns shoved into his mouth by the "Dancing with the Stars" judges right back at them.

Was Woz's sperm-infested Argentine tango any better than his worm-infested samba? Perhaps. In the same way that a poke in the eye with a short stick is better than a poke in the eye with a long one.

Hindered by an endearing lack of coordination, Woz succumbed to the same problem that had plagued him in rehearsals. He was unable to deliver the tango's nasty part.

His facial expression was that of a bank manager who suddenly finds himself unemployed and, to support his family, joins the Chippendales.

His professional partner, Karina Smirnoff, vigorously risked vim, limb, and, who knows, happiness in her forthcoming marriage by allowing Woz to lift her, contort her and support her with all the certainty of a 14-year-old on a date with Gisele Bundchen.

Asked to describe the dance, one judge, Carrie-Ann Inaba, said: "long."

"Argentines are good at polo and tango. I've tried them both now."

(Credit: CC Velofille)

The judges are in a difficult position. They know that the more they criticize Woz, the more likely he is to get more votes from the geeks, the freaks, the sensitive, the misbegotten, and the forgotten. (Most of America, indeed.)

But Bruno Tonioli, the most evocative of the Gang of Three, told Woz he loved him before declaring that the only part of the gutters of Buenos Aires that Woz had picked up was the stench.

Woz, who earlier had declared that "the geeks shall inherit the Earth" (a perilous thought for the geeks and the Earth, perhaps), shot back that he had just three words: "I'm still standing."

The judges gave him two more points than last week--12 out of 30. Yes, it was again the worst score. But was he really the worst on the night? It was close.

Former Playboy model and currently, oh, who knows, Holly Madison managed to fall off her stool and dance the rest of the way like a wounded gazelle in a horse box.

Former clown and "Jackass" jackass Steve-O, whose stupendous partner, Lacey Schwimmer, is tragically saddled with his physical deficiencies, wandered around the dance floor as if his severe indigestion had prevented him from finding a handkerchief that he dropped a couple of hours before.

Two couples will be sent home Tuesday night. And it is extremely possible that, with insane numbers of votes cast by utterly demented fans, Woz and Karina will live to fight another death.

Is this entertainment? Well, perhaps. But, underlying it all, there seems to be a deep desire on the part of Woz to hijack the proceedings by proving his Act of the Impossibles can actually win the show.

ABC won't let that happen, of course. However, the love-hate dance may still have a couple of weeks left in it.

Once upon a time, Debbie did Dallas. Monday, Steve Wozniak is fully intending to hump a little Hollywood. Yes, unbridled, uninhibited, unimaginable sex. In the form of the Argentine tango.

His e-mails to his Facebook Support Group have become so detailed, so intimate, that at times, I find myself wondering what it would be like if Woz grabbed me by the digits and whisked me onto the dance floor.

I imagine that his grip might be a little sweaty and uncertain. I also imagine that I would be wishing he were his professional partner, Karina Smirnoff.

However, Woz is determined to be the sexiest entertainer since Ru Paul. (Well, for some.)

In rehearsals for his Argentine tango, he has struggled to find the right eyebrow furrow. You see, the Argentine tango is a love-hate thing. And Woz is struggling with the hate part. You'd think that he would just imagine the judges.

He's also begun to play his dance music while he sleeps. This would lead me to suggest that he succeeded in popping down to his local Apple store, where the nice chaps at the Genius Bar soothed his iTunes back to life, though Woz has not revealed whether his MacBook did, indeed, lose some bits.

Don't think different. Think irrepressibly horny geek.

(Credit: CC Zabara Tango)

Perhaps to dial up the sexiness, so that you will dial up the voting lines, Woz has revealed a sexy joke that is keeping him and Karina in erotic stitches. (Oh, most of you have surely experienced erotic stitches once in your lives.)

It's the one about "the guy who checks into a hotel and asks for his porn channel to be disabled. The clerk tells him that their porn channel is normal and calls him a sick bastard."

Whatever gets you in the mood to tango, I say. And Woz is preparing to create a very special mood on Monday. With the help of Karina's fiance (the man who had to dance with the eliminated Denise Richards), Woz and his partner have concocted a move that seems to suggest that he is lifting up her dress with his foot.

"It's way out of character for this dance, but I can't help it," Wozniak wrote. "I'm sort of treating the judges like voyeurs at a peep show, ha ha ha."

Please, if you have never watched this show, nor ever considered voting for anyone in it, surely the moment has come for you to lay down your inhibitions and watch one of tech's most celebrated figures perform some peep for the peeps.

Then, why not do your technological duty and vote? (the Votewoz Twitter group now numbers more than 92,000).

Woz's Facebook Support Group would like to remind you (as my subjective objectivity forces me to remain impartial) that you can register lots of different e-mail addresses with ABC. This means you can call in 10 votes and e-mail at least 10 votes. If you're clever. Which all of you are.

Perhaps you, too, upon voting, will suddenly imagine that Woz's slightly sweaty hand is reaching out to you, while he whispers: "Let's tango, sugarplum."

(I will, because it is now my moral duty, be watching the show at 8pmPST- it's on at 7pm in the Central Sexuality Zone- and offering my views as soon after the dancing as my excitement allows me to form words. In advance, may I admit that I will, occasionally, be flipping channels to see how the Golden State Warriors are doing against The Grizzlies)

(Updated 12.23PST. Herewith Mark Cuban's latest Twittered news- with Dallas being smoked by Cleveland, Cuban tweeted: "just found out got fined25k by nba.) nice". Oh, Lordy.)

How can anyone not enjoy Mark Cuban?

A man who danced passably well on "Dancing with the Stars". A man who tends to say frightfully sensible things as loudly as possible in the hope that someone will hear. And a man who has been fined a total of $1.5million, some of it for complaining about NBA refs.

It seems as if he has been strangely quiet on that subject for a while. Until Friday, when he just couldn't take it any more. What does the modern human do when he just can't take it any more? He twitters.

A little context: Cuban's Dallas Mavericks aren't all that good this year. They might just scrape into the playoffs, but they wouldn't even scare the bobcat who walked into an Arizona bar last night.

On Friday they played the Denver Nuggets, a team that is slightly better, but also a team that has as one of its members, JR Smith. Regular Cubanists will know that the Mavericks' owner was fined $25,000 for walking onto the court in January and yelling at Smith.

Frankly, I've wanted to do that myself once or twice. The man's body is so dense with tattoos that it looks like a decaying English country house drawing room wall and he always seems to play with a little scowl. He also always plays well against my Golden State Warriors, so that might have something to do with it.

"Your Dad's not an NBA ref, is he?"

(Credit: CC Mil8)

In any case, after a perceived Smith transgression, Cuban tweeted: "how do they not call a tech on JR Smith for coming off the bench to taunt our player on the ground?"

Which he then followed up with: "scary part of that play: Same crew chief from game in Denver where they missed call - last play of the game & 1st JRSmith/Wright issue."

Fights aren't scary. Crew chiefs are.

One can only imagine how the NBA, an organization that seems uncomfortable with Cuban largely because he's more intelligent than most of its members, will react to his modern form of heckling.

And just in case you were wondering whether it really was Mark Cuban doing the twittering, may I offer you his latest tweet: "just so you know, I dont use a "ghost twitter" like some folks do:)"

Oh, if only they'd make him commissioner of the NBA. What fun we'd all have. Basketball would be better for it, too.

I know that most of you are, by now, so into "Dancing with the Stars" that you are being accused of ADD. Attention to Dancing Disorder.

So please pay attention, because I have an announcement to make. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak's iTunes has crashed. And it is affecting his rehearsals significantly.

I know that you will all want to join me at the heart of the problem. So here is Woz's own description from his latest e-mail to his Facebook Support Group: "it quits with horrible error messages...odd, since I'd had no crashes of any kind...I hope my MacBook Pro SSD is not losing bits."

I know that some may lose a bit or two at the thought of Woz wandering down to his local Apple Store to get his iTunes fixed. But that is precisely what he intends to do at some point Thursday.

"I think the judges have something to do with these error messages."

(Credit: Cc Dnak)

Here's why this is so important. Woz and his partner, the patient, pouting Karina Smirnoff, will be dancing the Argentine tango next Monday. And the tune to which they will be enacting their PG-13 sex ritual is not one that is familiar to Woz. Buddy Holly wasn't really a tango man.

This means that Woz needs to give it extra listens so that he can capture its rhythms and dark subtleties, and so that he can prepare his body for the moment when Karina wraps one of her legs around him and whispers sweet everythings into his ear, shoulder, or wherever her head ends up.

I don't know which Apple store Woz will choose, but I hope that every Apple employee in the LA area is on red alert.

It's not every day you can participate in helping a tech legend tango his way to the peak of entertainment.

The British are looking very hard in the mirror these days. Perhaps it is related to the belief that the country is running out of money.

In any case, who would have thought that they would choose to give up mandatory education about the Second World War and begin teaching their children about Twitter and Wikipedia?

The plans, leaked to the dastardly press (perhaps some devious cove just twittered a tiny URL to a password-protected site), give children relief from having to learn too many dates, place names, and pesky scientific formulas. You can google all that nonsense, anyway.

But if you can't tweet your progress in toilet training, what kind of adult can you expect to become?

The plans declare that children must leave primary school (to which children go until the unofficial drinking age of 11) fully conversant with the delights of blogging, podcasting, Wikipedia, and Twitter.

While I am aghast that Facebook appears not to be specifically mentioned, my eyes become moist when I see that children will be required to gain "fluency" in keyboard skills and learn to use a spellchecker.

"Very nice, miss. But when do we learn how to tweet our feelings?"

(Credit: CC Spiraltri3e)

Naturally, talking--and, presumably, typing--heads have already offered their 60 pence worth on the topic. Teresa Cremin, president of the U.K. Literary Association, worries about a lack of drama and "no emphasis on reading for pleasure."

Madam, please don't worry. We all read Twitter for pleasure. Can there be any other reason?

Other British critics seem to be worried that Twitter and Wikipedia are merely fads. But ladies and gentlemen, you are the great nation that brought us lasting pleasures such as "Dancing with the Stars," "American Idol," and the Dyson vacuum cleaner thingy. Things that the whole world marvels at and studies every day.

The creators of Twitter and Wikipedia can only hope to match the enduring quality of some of the great British contributions to history, science, and culture.

I am fairly confident in thinking that Steve Wozniak has never slept with Charlie Sheen.

Perhaps it was this small, imperfectly-formed thought embedded in people's minds that saved the Apple co-founder on "Dancing with the Stars" and condemned Denise Richards, the former Mrs. Sheen, to elimination. People's predilections are often based on such fickle suppositions--especially when it comes to voting up to 13 times.

Perhaps, though, it was also the tech industry that lifted Woz up on an emotional sedan chair and carried his beaten body to yet another week of competition.

In the elimination show, the world was even spared a reprise of Woz's less than sambadextrous dance. And worm. He wasn't even in the dance-off.

If you are wondering why, then you must be one of the few techies who didn't participate in what could have been one of the greatest get-out-the-vote campaigns since Reese Witherspoon fluttered her eyelids in "Election."

The votewoz Twitter group, which now numbers over 62,000 committed lunatechs, clearly had an effect. The derisory marks offered by the judges meant that Woz needed far more viewers' votes than last week, in a system that is so honest it has never required a visit from United Nations observers.

Woz got the votes. Even though, as I wrote in an earlier post, Woz's survival may signal the arrival of the Sargeant Effect, where more and more viewers vote for the contestant whom the judges most deride, just for the fun of it.

When ABC's Tom Bergeron announced Woz's survival, his partner, the delectable and slightly dangerous Karina Smirnoff screamed with an ecstasy never, ever heard in pornographic circles.

Is it possible that Fake Steve Jobs voted 13 times for Real Steve Wozniak?

(Credit: CC Mark Coggins)

And when Woz was asked whether he was surprised, he said: "I don't think I've ever been so surprised by anything in my life except maybe for when I got served with divorce papers."

I am not sure how many times he has actually been served with divorce papers by another party but am beginning to suspect he has started using jokes written by another party.

First, there was a passable Smirnoff vodka joke (rooted, some feel, in a picture caption on Technically Incorrect) and now a more than acceptable divorce jape.

You might have to take the rest of the day off work when I tell you that next week, contestants will have to take on one of two new dances: the Argentine tango and the quite wonderful lindy hop.

Please pray to whomever or whatever you believe in that Woz gets the hop. He can make an entertaining mockery out of that one.

Whereas it would be far harder to give the Woz treatment to a drippingly sexual creation such as the Argentine tango. Oh, and did I mention two couples will be voted off next week?

Now we'll really see how powerful the tech community is in its commitment to high art and, of course, forcing the world to see things the techie way.