"It's called Boot Camp for a reason," Simon Cowell intoned during the epic, commercial-free, 18-minute intro to Wednesday's episode of "The X Factor." Um, is that reason because IT IS AWESOME?

Okay, so that last sentence made no sense. Lots of things about the first episode of "X Factor" Boot Camp made no sense, really. Like when sweet blonde 14-year-old Drew Ryniewicz was forced to duet, quite creepily, on Radiohead's "Creep" with 49-year-old homeless funk-rocker Dexter Haygood. Or when singer-songwriter types like Josh Trajcik, Brendan O'Hara, and Brennin Hunt were forced to do Britney-style choreography to Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" with "So You Think You Can Dance's" Brian Friedman and Mark Kanemura. (Attitudinal child rapper Brian "The Astronomical Kid" Bradley actually refused to take part, snorting, "MCs don't dance. You don't see Jay-Z dancing." He sort of had a point.) Or when Simon started actually acting nice, making me think that at any moment he was going to put

When "The Sing-Off" Season 3 premiered two weeks ago--amid host Nick Lachey's frequently and incessantly repeated hype that this would be the "biggest season ever" that would "kick off a musical revolution"--I was actually disappointed. Few of the eight crews that competed on that episode truly impressed me. But then last week eight, more superior a cappella crews sang, and I got excited, convinced that the season had turned around. But now it seems like my elation was premature, based on this week's episode. Stop toying with me, "Sing-Off"!

So last night, the six crews that survived week one returned, which was a bit of a buzzkill in and of itself. But the real bummer came at the end of the night, when my favorite team, and certainly the most interesting team of the bunch, was sent home by the judges. This was the first seriously bad decision of the season, and actually one of the worst decisions in "Sing-Off" history. Usually I think Ben Folds, "the musical brain that keeps us

During its premiere week, "The X Factor" failed to find many stunning singers truly worthy of a $5 million recording contract. But this week things were looking up, when the Chicago and Seattle auditions yielded such promising contestants as hunky burrito-slinger Josh Krajcik, soulful teen wonder Drew Ryniewicz, and fiery-lipped firebrand Tiah Tolliver. But still, time was running out for Simon Cowell and his crew of not-always-so-merry music-makers this Thursday...as it was the final audition episode before the bootcamp rounds. (Really? So soon? Okay, then.) But the judges were in New York, and hey, if they could make it there, they could make it anywhere, right?

Right indeed. Thursday's East Coast episode was filled with promising auditioners, and this filled me with new hope that the show might actually spawn a superstar or two after all. From a teen rapper to a pushing-60 bluesman, from a female auto mechanic to a male model, "The X Factor" offered a little somethin' somethin' for

Thursday night on "The X Factor," budding Brooklyn hip-hop sensation Brian Bradley, a 14-year-old with swagger for days and dreams of one day outselling Kanye West and Jay-Z, wowed the judges and audience alike with his hilarious original rap song, "Stop Looking At My Mom," at the New Jersey auditions.

Said judge L.A. Reid, "I used to run this label called Def Jam, and all those years I was there, I was looking for YOU. And you never walked in. So I'm the luckiest guy in the world that you walked in today." And Simon Cowell proclaimed, "You are arrogant, obnoxious, argumentative...but you are one of the most talented young people I've heard in a long, long time. This is why I am in New Jersey."

Hey, being arrogant never hurt Kanye's career, right? Or Simon Cowell's, for that matter. Anyway, it turns out that Brian goes by the more suitable stage name the Astronomical Kid, and he has already made a music video for his soon-to-be smash hit. And it's kind of astronomically awesome.