Sham-erican IdolIn search of the musically degenerate American Dream, I embarked on a two-day exodus, inside the heart of American Idolatry.
Day 1: The skies opened up
5am TuesdayMy cousin Kimothy and I were all kitted out in the line outside Gillette stadium with our camping chairs and umbrellas duck-taped to them, allowing us hands-free idling, making small talk with the natives. Although the American Idol and Gillette Stadium website stated clearly that "no one will be allowed to line up prior to 6am Tuesday, " we met many people who had been waiting and sleeping there since 11am the previous day. I thought we were being badasses showing up an hour early, but following the rules doesn't make for good TV.
Of course they'd have to let people line up earlier, or else if they kept it all gated until 6, there would be a stampede of frenzied bodies and cars and people would be killed. I am sure Fox considered that and weighed the pros and cons, and decided to let the most desperate of American Idol hopefuls wait in the rain and be interviewed by Fox25 news.
Suddenly, one of the guys near us noticed a photograph lying face down on the wet mud and handed it to me without looking at it, kind of asking with his shoulders if it was mine.
"Ohmygosh! It's my lucky Ed McMahon picture!!"
And it was. Somehow it must have gotten stuck to my bag or my butt or through the sheer soul-stealing will that only photographs have, conjured itself to manifest at my feet. Me and Ed McMahon at the Vegas Comedy Festival. He was there and ancient, accepting an award, and afterwards I ran up to him to beg for a photo op. He laced his fingers around me so tight, I was amazed at the strength still residing in his world-weary hands.
The fellow looked at the picture, and said,
"Girl, whatchoo doin' here? You're already famous."
I thanked him and laughed and tucked the picture away in my ziploc baggie that was currently holding all my required forms of identification and my American Idol insane release form. It actually says in the release form that they can "use your likeness forever and ever and throughout the universe." Throughout the universe???? Forever and Ever?? What is this, the Mists of Avalon?
Around 8:30 it began to pour, which wouldn't have been so bad were you on your own, not enveloped by a throng of singing wannabees, pushing and undulating, poking you with their umbrellas. At first, because there were so many people with umbrellas overlapping each other, we thought we would be fine, but the water found its way and instead of getting raindrops, the streams of water running off four or five adjacent and touching umbrellas began to pour on our heads and we were unable to escape. By 9, our hair was soaked as if we had been forced down a slip n'slide multiple times by angry hairy men. I really cannot explain myself properly in this weather. I have very sensitive hair.
I had made some ambrosia (those of you in the know know what that is) as there was no alcohol or any other substance allowed anywhere with the threat of immediate disqualification lingering over our heads. I don't know what I was worried about. I soooo could have brought in a fifth of vodka or something to kick sobriety in the face and numb the screaming in my brain;
"This is not real. This is not a real talent contest. You know better!"
Shut up! Shut up! I know! I know!
The security to get into Gillette stadium was like the security at Logan Airport pre-9/11. The bored blonde fellow at the gate I went through took a cursory look inside my backpack, asked "You don't have a camcorder in here, do you?"
And sent me merrily on my way.
We were in.
Once inside Gillette Stadium, I was appalled, but not surprised at the people just bursting into not-very-good song, and how many people still think "I Will Always Love You," is a good audition song. Oh and kids, while we're on the subject, please don't sing "I'll Be," "Fallin'" "The Star-Spangled Banner," "I Will Survive," or "Crazy," by Patsy Cline, not Aerosmith. No one's getting through but the worst of the worst anyhow, so make it easy on yourself and try doing something original for a change. I don't even mean something as hard as original as in something you wrote, because that would be foolish as it states implicitly in your signed contract that anything original you sing for them, they own. But how about not singing something that people probably better than you do at karaoke every night.
Oh yeah, and what I said about the worst of the worst being the only ones to get through......read on please. Unless you don't want your illusions of American Idol as a legitimate talent contest to be vanquished a la finding out the WWF is not real.
Myth Number One: Everyone gets to see Randy, Paula, and Simon, or at least one of them.Nonononononononono, my sweet, precious child. Here is how it actually works.
You wait all day for a ticket and a bracelet. Pink bracelets for auditioners, green for their one allowed guest or parent. Your seat ticket is your order in line, so you can actually leave and come back the next day, which is awesome and actually a good idea on their part. When the actual auditions happen the next day, there are thirteen tables set up all along the stadium with two "producers" at each who will be taking people in groups of four to sing 30 seconds of a song for them.
From this point you can either be sent home,(off to the left and out of the stadium,)or on to the next round, (off to the right and inside the bowels of the stadium,) to be seen by these "producers" again. If you move on to the next round, then you may see Simon, Paula, and Randy, but that's a totally different day and filming, for the auditioners in Boston (and by Boston, I mean Foxboro, because that's where this actually took place, but it doesn't sound as prestigious on tv) that would not be until October. That's right, the initial date of the audition was in August and the filming of the Simon, Paula, and Randy auditions are not until October.
This is why on the show, people do not look like they have been camped out without access to running water for three days.
Because they haven't.
They've had time to go home and quit their jobs and tell everyone to kiss their ass before they go back to audition and are forever humiliated.
Myth Number 2: "Producers" are the real producers of the showUmm, it would be amazing if they were, but out of these 26 "producers," no one was over 30, in fact, all of them looked younger than me. Much younger. Sorority sisters younger. 26 kids fresh out of college are not producers, I'm sorry. Aren't producers the ones that financially back and/or manage the show? I'm not buying that Alpha Beta was able to jump in and catch this wave before it crested.
And not to be all "I have a music degree and studied voice for 12 years and sing professionally now so I know what I'm talking about," but I do I did I do I do, you little bastards. These kids don't know shippity-do about singing.
Nor do they have to because, here it comes......
Myth Number 3: American Idol is a real talent contest and the best singers from around the country advance until they narrow it down to the best 12.Umm, do you sniff nail polish remover? Put jelly beans in your nose until they touch your brain? The voices on American Idol are not the best in the country. I heard a ton of girls crooning in the bathrooms and on the Concourse who were successfully replicating the sounds of Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood. I'm not saying these ladies don't have great voices. They do, and especially with the vocal coaching they received on the show and at present, but there are thousands of girls in the country who can sing exactly like them. People around me in the seats were singing and I was amazed at how good some of the people were that I met there.
"What are you doing here?" I would ask. Trained voices. Lovely voices attached to beautiful faces. There was a girl behind me who looked and sounded exactly like Charlotte Church. There was a good-looking guy next to me who drove in from New York who sounded just like George Michael.
Day 2: The belly of the beastWe got there around 5 that morning and went in without event.
We were told to be in our seats at 7:30 so they could take a "Chip shot"
This was two hours of moving people around because they forgot to ticket an entire section and it "wouldn't look good for the shot."
Then they forced us all to open our umbrellas and attempt to sing "singin' in the rain," for an hour and a half while they tried to get the shot right. Following was a few other things for the opening episodes where we had to chant as a group
"Boston Rocks," "I'm the next American idol," etc, etc.
9:30, the beginningAs the stadium was set up, you could see
everyone's audition.
There were sending so few people through that whenever someone would get a golden ticket, (Seriously, they gave out golden tickets. How lame.) and start walking off to the right, the crowds in the stands went bananas. A few times, they even did the wave. I am not shitting you.
You could see the people auditioning, but until you actually started to get close to the auditioning tables, you couldn't really hear them. Up until that point, I still had the faintest flutter in my belly
"Maybe it
is real. Maybe you won't have to go back to substitute teaching after all."
Ideally up until that point, I had had this awesome scenario in my head wherein I would make it to the top fifty or something like that, and then these trumped up drug charges would come out,
(Oh yeah, in the release form, they basically state that both truths and stuff the press or they decide to leak/
make up about your past will most likely come out and too bad so sad)...
and I would be disqualified a la Frenchie Davis, but it would propel the Steamy Bohemians into the limelight and it would be cool because although American Idol is not considered cool by the music community, getting kicked out for drugs is.
But then, after a few hours, as we drew closer to the singing, I began to watch. I saw some amazingly good performances by both the fat and thin, the hip and unhip. I walked by a girl singing just like Fantasia.
One of the "producers" was air traffic controlling people to one of the thirteen booths. The George Michael guy ended up right in front of me, I could see Charlotte Church a few tables down, and I watched in anguish as Fantasia sang from her belly so hard at judges looking somewhere else, and was promptly sent home, to the left.
I saw Charlotte Church running out and to the left, crying, stopping to hug another strange girl who was also weeping.
I heard and saw the four auditioners in front of me. They were all reasonably good. Good enough to be in what they show for the top 100 of American Idol anyhow. They were all sent away.
Then the foursome I was with moved up to the table.
The male "producer" was all
"I'll be right back I really need to pee."
And we laughed and waited. I made some glib remark and the young girl "producer" who would not make direct eye-contact smiled and looked down.
The guy came back within seconds as he was unable to find anyone to cover him and did the half-standy-leany "I-have-to-pee-really-bad" stance.
He asked if any of us were here together.
I told him that Kim and I were cousins.
And it began.
the girl to my right sang some Jessica Simpson song. And she was very very attractive and sounded better than Jessica Simpson (well, not that that takes more than an elementary understanding of how-not-to-use-the-human-voice), but she was really good. Nice, strong high register. No mistakes. Then it was my turn. I had bought the "American idol Advantage" book, which said to sing something very easy for you in your middle register and save the showy stuff for Simon and Paula.
I had been planning on singing "no rain" by Blind Melon, as I especially thought it would be ironic considering it had been hooning it down, but that morning Kim and I discussed and we sang for each other, and decided that "Stand By Me" would be a better song for these people as I think Lauren Hill covered it and that seems to be the kind of stuff they're into. What a waste of money that book was.
I sang well, no mistakes, no wavering in my voice, no weak notes, and no eye-contact from the judges, not that they really made eye contact with anyone, except for the.....
horrible girl at the next table. This was really the first girl I watched from start to finish and saw get a golden ticket.
It was so bad, I was pleading silently
"please stop doing that, whatever in hell's name you're doing." She sang perhaps the worst version of "Start Me Up" ever, while wearing a pretty ugly black and rainbow tie-dyed matching top and pants set.
The low part was pretty good but then she starting adding these unexpected, unwanted, screechy off-key high-notes almost as punctuation at the end of each phrase. The "producers" were watching rapt, with smiles on their faces as if they had discovered Mariah Carey. This girl was into it, and I realized she thought she was awesome. When they said that she was going to the next round, she was jumping with that "in your face" kind of 'tude, and I realized this poor girl was in for a whole world of pain.
I started looking around more, and I realized pretty much the only people I saw them put through to the next round were the ones that thought they were awesome, but that had some quality so musically appalling that you were biting your nails in cringe-worthy horror,Oh and the guy who dressed up like Gwar. I'm not kidding. Full body suit, helmet, 2 foot spikes. He made it through. I can only imagine what he sounded like through the mask.
None of the people I met and heard and thought were really good-looking and talented made it through. After the fourth girl in our row finished, and she sounded and looked just like the girl from Evanescence, the guy told us none of us were making it through, but that it didn't mean anything, just that we weren't making it through.
I realized it didn't mean anything because all four of us were good enough to be on American idolatry. Truth be told, probably about a quarter of the 8,000 or so who showed up were good enough to be on American Idol, but that wouldn't make good TV would it?
I really think that the ones picked to seriously move on are chosen well in advance of these cattle calls, and that these cattle calls are just to get the bad ones for Simon to trash.
And if I'm wrong, well Simon, Randy, and Paula, just let me know when my audition is. I'll take a shower and everything.
Now, the lucky Ed McMahon picture. I think saving me from having to participate in this sideshow was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me.
xoxoxo
