Hollywood in haiku form

Welcome to Hollywood! I bet that won't mean as much to someone who lives on Sunset Blvd. and realizes that going to the next round means humping it over to Pasadena for a week. (Yeah, the "going to Hollywood" round is more like the inland empire round -- that's TV baby!) Still, a golden ticket is a golden ticket. And there were 40 for Idol hopefuls in Los Angeles. Wow.

For the most part, it was a pretty dull episode. Same old stuff, you know? I had to pop in my copy of The Last Waltz to decompress before I got to putting my thoughts down. I think, though, if you look past the normal audition format of thousands turning up to audition -- the token weirdos, a few costumed candidates, pretty girls who can kind of sing, average people who can really sing, some who think singing one more song will convince the judges to change their minds, some who think lots of tears will change our minds, and the judges being exhausted at the end of the day -- there were some really unexpected moments.

The Sherman Pore story was pretty cool, I thought. Someone behind the scenes had a big enough heart to knowingly step outside the norm and give this guy a chance to fulfill the dream of his deceased wife. Moments like that give me a little hope in the B.S. on television. Oprah would be proud.

Something else unexpected was Simon getting up from behind the desk at the end of the show and trotting down the hall after Eric Mueller. I get so used to seeing the judges from the waist up behind the desk that it seems out of character to see a full-body shot -- let alone running. If you put the whole thing in fast forward, it would have been a Benny Hill episode.

A couple things had me laughing a lot last night. Anyone who says he has the fire of three men and calls himself "Eccentric" or "The Panther" is asking for it. Awesome. And annoying. I found myself wanting to punctuate everything I said with the word "eccentric" after seeing it again on Tivo. It'll be a while before I shake that, I think. Eccentric!

Also, I couldn't help but smile at the irony of Eric Mueller, who claims to have been working toward his audition for two years by cutting out his social life, listening to Led Zeppelin and Stained. But he auditioned with a Hillary Duff song -- singing it in her key, no less! Maybe he shouldn't have cut out his social life.

Like I said earlier though, it was a dull night. I was thinking of ways to keep myself entertained while writing about the same old thing. Let's be honest, one audition episode is about the same as the other. I was thinking about writing this whole thing in iambic pentameter, to shake it up a bit. But, um, that's a bit above my skill level to pump out in a few hours. Instead, enjoy this haiku I wrote and think about how cool it could have been.

I've got you profiled
Contestants, it's just TV
Begging is Ugly

[Jon Peter Lewis was a contestant on the third season of "American Idol." He has just released his debut album, "Stories From Hollywood." Visit his Web site, jonpeterlewis.com.]

Click here for more 'Idol' news, photos, recaps, rumors and more.