Happy this idol's from here

I wasn't halfway through my first cup of coffee when the screaming started.

Preteen girls, grown women, all screaming and waving signs in front of the KCPQ-TV studio like a plane was passing over their desert island. This is what happens when you take a chance and hit. This is the reality of being one of the top three finalists on "American Idol."

Blake Lewis, 25, of Bothell, reached that status just last week, and came back to Seattle Friday with an "Idol" camera crew in tow.

I followed every moment, from his appearance on the "Q13 Morning Show" at 8 a.m. to the national anthem at Safeco Field, trying to make sense of the screaming, the signs, and the crush of adoration.

Are our lives such that a talent-show contestant would make us use our kids as an excuse to get out of work? Do we truly worship at the altar of TV?

Or does Lewis have something we don't see that often? His friends sure think so.

"Everyone is getting spoon-fed garbage," said C.J. Stout, who performed with Lewis on KCPQ. "The last time a band came out that meant something was Nirvana. People can spot a fake."

And Lewis is hardly that.

"You know there's something about him and that he's going to be really big," said Patty Jordan, who drove over from Spokane for Lewis' visit. "There's a dynamic essence."

Time and again, people stopped screaming long enough to tell me how Lewis' beat-boxing sound was "unique" and how proud they were that he was from here.
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"This is like if Ringo Starr came from Bellevue," said Tom Hall, who brought his two daughters to see Lewis.

At Westlake Center, I watched as Lewis' father, Dallas, watched his son on the stage, and wiped away tears.

"It's wonderful. Extreme," Dallas Lewis said. "There's nothing better than seeing your son succeed. Nothing better."

Pat Monahan, the lead singer of Train and a resident of Sammamish, introduced Lewis at Westlake Center.

"It's weird, being in his position, because you have to manage the highs," Monahan said. "And you really need the security guys when it ends."

I ended the day in the quiet of Papa Murphy's, waiting for a pizza next to Ashley Bliss.

"Ever watch 'American Idol'?" I asked her. She laughed.

Bliss, 28, works at the Space Needle and heard that Lewis had eaten lunch there. The whole place went crazy, she said. People raced around, hoping for a peek.

"I guess it's a good thing to get excited about something," she said. "We've had 9/11. The fires in California. The war in Iraq. We need something that isn't a drag."

Blake Lewis has people screaming his name because "it's like you know him; he's from your hometown."

And hometown folks are not always up to things worth cheering about.

"Alls you hear about is somebody got raped, somebody got murdered or blown up in a tank," Bliss said. "Now it's somebody doing something happy and right."

Who wouldn't vote for that?