MONDO EXTRAS

Perry's all jokey-jokey, talking about how amazing his girlfriend is, clearly in a ploy to get them to cast him as the "guy with a girlfriend back home who thus is tortured by hookup potential in the model house." Then he takes his shirt off and acts nervous about it, forcing one of the producers to assure him, "Dude, you're good-looking," to which he answers: "I know." All that, plus, he's giving me a touch of the K-Feds.

Next up is Dominic, a professional skin-boarder, who is tall so he figures he might as well be a model. He talks in a monotone, and I am ready to dismiss him until he reveals that he's fluent in Spanish, and would love to be on Telemundo. So, now I love him.

Yenier is twenty-one and from Cuba. His father thinks the fashion industry is "so gay." Yenier looks guilty for having to put it like that, but come on, Papi is right. He's super-thin and sort of weird-looking, so he will surely advance to the next round.

The last stop for the crew is New York, which turns out to be full of freaks. Who knew? The best two include a tiny scraggly-haired Jewish man in white shorts and a sparkly hat, and who goes by the stage name of Sex 21 Plus.

Poor, Beleaguered Producer: "So...tell us more...Sex?"

Sex 21 Plus: "I'm sexy-looking."

He isn't. Nor is the forty-year-old Robert, who looks like the Unabomber and was just walking by and saw the line and, probably thinking it was the methadone clinic, decided to stand in it and audition for whatever it was that was going on. As you do. "Awesome," says a producer, and I am forced to agree.

A pretty blonde tells the camera that she like, has like, morals and like, values and stuff and thinks she can be like, a feminist and still be on a model show. And then there is Ben, who came all the way from Nashville, taking time off from his job as a prison guard and traveling with his, I'll say it delicately, very normal-looking wife, to fulfill his dream to become a model. He's cuuuute and from the cowntry, and I guess he must have bad eyesight or something and the Army wouldn't take him, because he looks right out of the Go Army brochure.

Praise God, all that traveling is done, and the powers that be have narrowed down the thousands of hopefuls to just thirty-five, all of whom are flown to New York to be put through the wringer.