Jason Gets The Hook (or Is He Just Off It?)

America's prepubescent chick-hood is prostrate with grief after Jason Castro got booted off "American Idol" last night, but he is relieved, telling show host Ryan Seacrest it saves him the bother of trying to learn three whole songs next week.

Tuesday night, performing two tunes he already knew proved too much for our pretty blue-eyed boy with the pettable hair. First he mauled Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff," after which he mangled the lyrics to Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man."

"I picked two songs I knew and even that I screwed up," he chuckles while chatting with Seacrest last night before his unveiling as this week's official hook-getter.

"Somebody told me that I shot the Tambourine Man. . . . I thought that was pretty funny," he guffaws.

During a taped infomercial for the Cirque du Soleil Beatles show "Love," Jason is seen calling a grab-and-kiss from a chick fan "scary" -- after which he's seen kissing a dolphin that appears to harbor the same dark thoughts about being kissed by Jason. On the way to Las Vegas, via private jet, to catch "Love," Jason is deeply impressed with a bed in the plane. "Sleepin' in the sky -- ooooh, cool!" he says.

Not surprisingly, during the Phone Company Presents Actual Phone Calls product-placement bit on the results show, Jason tells a caller the biggest challenge he's had to overcome as an Idolette is his brain being dead. That may be the most honest answer ever given to any question on "Idol."

For his got-the-hook tune, the show has Jason re-mangle "I Shot the Sheriff," which surprises the heck out of him. Apparently they did not feel he could learn that flubbed line of "Tambourine Man" in just 24 hours.

We are now one week closer to the inevitable showdown between the Two Davids -- Archuleta and Cook. Which means next week, I Am Syesha Mercado! has got to go.

* * *

In its third to last week, "Idol" clocked its smallest Tuesday audience this season when the four remaining Idolettes got to sing from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of 500 influential hits. "Hungry Like the Wolf" influential? Really?

With the competition down to the Two Davids, Syesha and Jason, more than 3 million viewers bailed out of the show compared with the previous Tuesday, leaving 21.8 million still hanging in.

During the broadcast, Jason succumbed to the rampant lyric-forgetting virus that killed the clear-winner status of David "Baby Elmo" Archuleta weeks ago during a Beatles tune, and obviously was brought into the Idolette camp by carrier Nanny Brooke.