"Please stop. I'll have to throw my Coke in your face..."

...said Katy Perry with restraint to Kara Dioguardi.

There was some undisguised friction between the two last night when Perry sat in as a guest judge on American Idol.










From the beginning, it's plain that the ladies aren't seeing eye-to-eye as critics and gatekeepers.

After very little of that, however, you can see Kara Dioguardi start to show every sign of a person offended...and Katy Perry not apologizing.

Katy is not the type of girl to sugarcoat things, and as she clearly expresses here, she doesn't think anything but star-worthy talent should be pushed through.

As a popstar, I trust her to both recognize "what it takes" when she sees it, and to know when she's not seeing it.

She wasn't judging unfairly. She was honest and straightforward.

Kara, on the other hand, had this to contribute:



"Well, I think we should just say yes."

(Perry-> "Well, I don't feel like we should ever 'just say yes'. I think -")

"Well, I feel bad..."



Give me a break. You're getting paid for this?

Perry didn't seem to have the patience to be charitable last night, and because Simon Cowell is never feeling charitable, she and he formed a natural partnership, denying passage to Dioguardi's favored lot of hopeful, but unqualified singers.

It's obvious that Dioguardi takes their objections very personally. It seems like she doesn't know how to handle more than one person disagreeing with her at a time.

The tables are turned, though, when Dioguardi shifts from offended to offensive; taunting Perry ("She-told-me, didn't she?"..."Are you 'hot' or are you 'cold' on John?"), talking to the surrounding people about Perry as if she weren't there ("We used to be friends! We were, like, close!"), and, of course, jeering one of Perry's own songs - or a ridiculous version of it - into her ear ("I kissed a dolphin, I liked it...").

That's when the cola threat comes in.




In my opinion, not only did Katy Perry behave reasonably, but I also think she showed commendable self-control - her rising animosity is palpable in this video...

...If someone were victimizing my own song right in my face, I'm sure I would threaten much worse than a soda facial...or I actually would throw my Coke in her face.




I thought a lot about this today. Especially because I spent a lot of today telling people about how funny I think it is.

I thought things like:

I wonder if they both simply stood and marched out after the show? Or if one of them surrendered some sort (probably the phony sory) of apology?

And:

How great would it be if Katy Perry had had a couple drinks before the show? She could fully take Kara Dioguardi if it came to blows...that would be worth seeing.