What is the sound of failure?
Is it tone-deaf? Is it shrill? Does it sound like bad karaoke? Is it a flimsy rendition of a Whitney Houston song that serves only to highlight the disparity between the imitator and the original? Is it the song coming from a woman who confesses that she dressed in the dark and may sound as disheveled as she looked? We hear she was awful.
We aren't allowed inside the "American Idol" audition room to watch contestants being gutted by celebrity judges. So we wait in the basement of the Renaissance Hotel on Ninth Street NW, outside a final round of Washington's auditions for the hit Fox show. We hear the crying afterward. Maybe that's the sound we're looking for.
"I can sing," says Melissa Considine, 20, of Toms River, N.J., teary-eyed in the lobby of the hotel after being ejected by the judges. Her two sisters are with her, and they've been crying, too. It's just unfair, one of them says.
Considine's dark hair has been pulled back and the top has been coiffed into a puff popularized by Paris Hilton. The look is not flattering on her. She resembles a raccoon. "They didn't say it was horrible," she reflects on her performance.
Lauren Davidson, 17, is crying, too.
"I gave it my best shot," she says.
"She's still a winner," says her mom, Lorry.
How is it, when we all know that we're winners, that we could lose?
The numbers are merciless. Of the 9,500 people who auditioned in Washington this week, only 117 made it to the third round, taking place yesterday and today, a spokeswoman says. Of those, an undetermined number will be sent to Hollywood to begin the long whittling process that is "American Idol."
The hopefuls wait outside the audition room in chairs, crossing themselves, fiddling with their hair, hugging each other -- young women in pink tops and short denim skirts; strapping, handsome men and tiny, effeminate men. Then they disappear behind doors to be judged by Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson, nasty Simon Cowell and guest judge Mark McGrath, lead singer of Sugar Ray. They are, in effect, consulting an oracle. The oracle will prophesy whether they can head west -- da da da da da da da Hollywood! Or not.
In a news conference, Cowell eviscerates one contestant from earlier in the day.
"She wouldn't shut up," he says in the pursed British accent that makes his insults sound so much more devastating. "They all believe that they're fantastic."
They sure do.
