An American Idol Odyssey Part 4
0 Comments Published by ginny on Wednesday, August 27, 2003 at 12:07 AM.
Day Four, Wednesday
Section 1: The Hundred Dollar Shower
When we last left, well, me, I was heading out of the Dome, laden with sleeping bag and all non-essential items to go shower, get prettified and, hopefully, nap. I made it to my car fine. I packed up my things fine. I got out of the parking lot fine.
And then, I got completely and totally lost.
Remember how I earlier said that Atlanta is the most confusing city I've ever been in? (And remember, I've lived in London.) Yeah, this is where I found that out full-force. I pretty quickly discovered that the directions I'd gotten online from the Dome to the hotel where I'd reserved a room directed me to go down a road that didn't exist. Yet. I mean, the place where the road will be is there, but you can't drive on it. Like I tried to do.
So. Directions were out. Luckily, I'd printed a pretty rudimentary map of Atlanta from the Georgia Dome site. I would have to navigate from that. Which wouldn't, you would think, be so hard. I mean, this hotel was only one mile away. If I hadn't had so much stuff, I could have walked. Maybe I should have walked.
Because it was only after a good twenty minutes of heart-stoppingly almost turning the wrong way on one way streets, ending up heading in completely the wrong direction, turning around and then still being headed in completely the wrong direction, finding myself surrounded by homeless people and burnt-out buildings, and passing the same damn pizza place three times without ever figuring out how I'd gotten there, that I finally found the Super 8.
Now, a good deal of this is undoubtedly due to my miserable direction-finding skills. I can, as I have many times told people, get lost on my very own street. The last time I went to Charlottesville, I went the wrong way on Rt. 29 (the major shopping street) for about fifteen minutes before I realized my mistake.
But I also blame Atlanta here. People, this city is confusing. I'm actually kind of amazed that I'm not still wandering around somewhere down there, unable to find my way out. I can see why they have public transportation, because I'd hate to have to drive there regularly.
Anyway, I finally got to the hotel, and checked in. My voice, by this time, was very rough. I could feel it scraping in my throat, and that worried me. I needed sleep, and badly. I also needed water, which I was guzzling by the bottleful, but I definitely needed to sleep. I decided taking a nap was worth missing out on some extra primping/practicing time (remember, at this point, I still thought unless I was back at 3 a.m., I would be in danger of being locked out of the building. Since they kept threatening to start the auditions Early, which to me means, what, 5 a.m.?)
I lay down, and really tried to nap for an hour. I didn't succeed. I'm not sure any of the auditionees really managed to sleep that night, but I for sure didn't. I drowsed, yes, but I could not sleep. Too worried – that I was singing the wrong song, that I'd dressed the wrong way, that my voice was permanently damaged and on the way to being completely lost.
So at 1:30 a.m., I got up, showered, dressed, made myself up, and stretched a little. This part all went remarkably smoothly, actually – I'd obsessed so long over every detail of my outfit that I think I got ready quicker than I get ready for most days at work. Which maybe isn't good, but really, by 2:30, I couldn't think of anything else to do to my appearance.
I headed back to the Dome. Got lost. Of course. Got lost in pretty much all the same ways I'd gotten lost going to the hotel. Finally found my way back to the parking lot. (This time I really did drive the wrong way on a one-way street. Briefly.) Found that someone had taken my space, but, miraculously, I was able to squeeze into another. Walked back to Gate D.
Section 2: The Waiting Game
I got back to find that, of course, they hadn't turned the lights on. Hadn't begun signs of starting auditions at five and closing the doors at three. Which, I guess, I knew they probably wouldn't, but if I'd stayed longer in the hotel they probably would have. Out of spite. Plus, I didn't (don't) trust them.
My seatmates were grouped in the gate area, some of a number of people who were up and wandering about – like I said, I don't know if anybody really slept. Certainly the Dome was not very still – energy and whispering everywhere, people constantly moving about.
One seatmate explained that she'd had to leave the seat area because two people were actually having sex there! Which, if nothing else, is a bad, bad audition move – if you get kicked out for having sex on the Dome floor you are not making it on American Idol, my friends. And aside from that, I consider it massively rude. (One girl looked at me as if I were a prude for saying this. But I do not think I am. I think I am right. So there.)
I made my way back to my seat (the sex maniacs were gone), and sat there. For a long time.
Because, of course, they didn't really start auditions until 8 a.m., when they'd said they would, and in fact they kept on letting people in the doors up till that time, which is actually pretty gracious of them. (Several of these late late late arrivals thought they could maybe steal our seats, amazingly enough. Yeah, fat chance! We've been here since Monday morning – just you try it!)
Section 3: Warming – and Winding -- Up
At about 5:30, I went outside and around to the side of the building to warm up, I hoped. My voice was by this time pretty desperately rough, a situation that had me very worried. About half of my range was inaccessible, and the rest sounded much rougher and more shouty than it normally does.
I'm not really sure still why this happened. A combination of things, I guess: losing my voice back at the beginning of the month, beginning to get it back and then screaming for Clay and losing it for ten more days, sleeping in a lot of dust, and not sleeping at all. I hope to goodness that none of the damage has been permanent (as of now, Tuesday the 26th, my voice is still not completely itself. I'm not sure what I'm going to do if it doesn't fully recover by the 1st. Soldier on, I guess. Worriedly).
But anyway, that morning, my voice was Not Good, at least not to my ears, which meant that I had to warm up extra, extra, extra long, which I did, and finally came back inside about seven o'clock. By that time, I was really worried. I decided that, with the state my voice was in, I would have to make a last-minute change of song. I wouldn't sing "Yesterday," which, while prettier, put greater demands on my voice, but would instead sing "Hunter Gets Captured," a Smoky Robinson song I love, but which is very little known. I can, however, glide through it very smoothly whatever the state of my voice – so "Hunter" it was.
At about 7:30 they began asking us to go back to our seats. The atmosphere, by this time, if not quite frenzied, buzzing. Every bathroom had huge lines out the door, filled with girls desperate to get in just a little more primping. There were lines for the mirrors, lines for the sinks, and lines for the stalls.
(Total number of times I had to use the bathroom between 7 and 10? Approximately 800. Remember how I told you I have to pee when I get nervous? Yeah. I went to pee when I came back in from warming up. I got up twice before they started the announcements.
I went again right after they finished the announcements. I went again while they were organizing the first section of auditionees. I went four or five more times while they were auditioning the first section. I went again while our section was standing up waiting to go down the steps. And one last time while we were standing on the steps waiting to start down. Did I mention that I think the moment I may have fallen irrevocably in love with Clay was when, in the Group 2 performance, he and Ruben and Kim were up there on the stools and Ryan asked him how he felt, Clay made a nervous face and muttered "I really have to pee?" I identify, sweet moptop boy. I identify.)
I only saw one poor girl so nervous that she threw up (she skipped the stall line, poor thing), but I saw a lot of nervous people, for sure. And a lot of beautiful people too. The beautiful had gotten even more beautiful, and the sparkly, the tummy-revealing, and the spike-heeled had definitely come out in force.
Energy was high, though, curiously, there was much less last-minute singing than I'd expected. Apparently, in wanting to sing as much as possible before I perform, I am in the minority. Most people seemed to decide (some of them perhaps too little, too late) to save their voices. Not that it was quiet. The stage moms were screaming, the people of my persuasion were warming up, the late-preparers were gathering their stuff to take it back to their cars (you had to carry everything out beforehand or onto the field with you – there was no going back to the seats), and everyone was generally buzzing.
At eight they began announcements. (This did not stop the frenzy of activity behind us, but all of my seatmates were completely ready by that time. Aside from me. I had to pee.) They welcomed us again and told us how auditions would work: there were eleven tables set up on the fields, each with one associate producer and two…lackeys? I don't know what they were. Non-speaking people in t-shirts with clipboards.
Anyway, each section of seats would go in turn, beginning with the one to our right. You lined up, and slowly, slowly, progressed person by person, row by row, down onto the field. When you got to the direction-giving person, he would tell you which associate producer's line to go in. The associate producers took three people at a time. You sang for them a verse and a chorus – at least until they stopped you. And told you to go to the left, which meant you were out, or to the right which (oh, joy and celebration) meant you got through to the next round, which would take place the next day, and would be for the Executive Producers.
And then they did some group shots with a crane camera, panning over the crowd, getting us to yell "I am!" when they asked "Who here is the American Idol?" and getting us to do the wave. I have to say, actually, that in this department Atlanta performed pretty pitifully. Huge we may have been, but we were nervous and, well, the yells of excitement were just not excited enough. I doubt we'll make it onto the show much as a crowd, because that energy was just too nervous. I don't think it made for good footage.
Finally, they showed us a "treat" – a video of Ruben and Clay wishing us good luck on the jumbotron. Which was sort of minimally cool, but also kind of a crap video – very little original Clay or Ruben, mostly footage from the finale that of course we'd all seen a thousand times. Still, Clay wished us good luck. Clay wished me good luck! If not personally, at least as part of a group. Clay told us to "stay focused." Ruben advised that we "be cool." Good advice, I am sure. And then, it was time.
Section 4: A Moment Like This
At last. This was the night – er, morning –; we'd all been waiting for one moment like this, etc., etc. Finally, they started the audition.
A great cheer went up (a better cheer, frankly, than the one we did for the cameras) as the first people filed onto the field and up to the associate producers. We all watched, tensely, and then….every one of them was eliminated. One by one, they all filed off to the left. And so it went again with the next groups. And the next. And then, at last, yes! One had made it – a tall brunette in a red dress threw up her arms, hugged her producer, and ran off to the waiting cameras on the right.
My section waited from the start of auditions until about 9:30 to begin moving slowly down the steps to the field. I hit the field around 10. And during that time, I can't have seen more than fifty people skip, run, jump, and handspring off to the right – the vast majority of these eleven thousand people, it was obvious, were going to be eliminated without getting to finish their thirty seconds in front of the associate producers.
I pretty much gave up hope, I confess. I mean, with those kinds of odds, how would I ever make it? I'm not as pretty as Brittney Spears, and I can't sing like Whitney Houston – and so many of these people were and could. In fact, right as I got onto the field, I watched both a very skinny pretty blonde and a terrifically big-voiced diva type be eliminated at a blow. If they weren't making it – and obviously almost nobody was – how could I?
As I stood in line on the field, then, dancing up and down nervously, whispering to my neighbors ("Ooo, I hope I don't get that one! He hasn't sent anybody yet! Eeek! She looks mean! Oh my goodness, that girl lost her shoe!"), I watched both Miss Brittany Spears and Miss J-Lo get eliminated, shockingly. I watched girls whose voices I could hear from yards away go off to the left. I watched spiky-haired handsome boys shrug their shoulders and gather up their things. And I waited.
And finally I got to the liner-upper. And he sent me almost straight on, to table four, which housed….oh god! A handsome producer – a really handsome one! Not the one I'd thought was cute and my kind of dorky-type, not the one who was very all-american-guy handsome, but a Hollywood-type handsome one, with perfect Hispanic or Middle Eastern or Asian skin, and shoulder-length glossy black hair and masculine beauty! God, I'd never survive this one! Plus, he wasn't smiling at all! It was obvious he'd never pick me. Not in a million years. Not a BeautifulPerson – he couldn't possibly be really picking on personality. Could he?
But I had to go through with it. I mean, I was there, in line. I had my last-minute song. I had my hopeful, friendly smile. I was dynamic. (Man was I. I was dancing the whole time. Wanna know why? Yep, you got it. I really, really, really, really had to pee. Actually, I think associate producer may have noticed me because I was moving so much – he definitely looked at me a bunch of times before I got up to the table.)
I saw him send on one tall, pretty blonde from Michigan, eliminate everyone else, and then……then it was my group's turn.
We stepped up. I was grouped with a guy I didn't know and Andy, from my row. First the guy I didn't know sang – an R&B/gospel tune I didn't know. And actually, he wasn't all that good. He kind of wavered from the pitch. I think he was nervous.
Then Andy sang. And he was good. Remember, this guy got all the way to Simon, Randy and Paula last year – and he's a voice major. He had me dancing around a little. (And also, I had to pee.)
And then, it was my turn. Oh god.
Here went nothing. I started "Hunter Gets Captured," giving it all the sexiness I could (it's a sexy song). And he stopped me. "Here it is," I thought. "I didn't even get to the chorus, and I’m already eliminated."
"That's good," he said, and smiled at me, just a little, "But can you sing me something pop?"
"Oh…oh!" I said, eloquently. "Sure! Sure! I, um, I can sing you 'Yesterday' by the Beatles!"
"No," he said, "Can you sing me something more recent? Like within the last two years? Something you can dance to. I want to see you really move."
Emergency! Emergency! I hadn't prepared anything remotely like that! I mean, I listen to contemporary music, sure. I'm up on most of the music of the last two years, but do I know any of it by heart? Any dance tunes by heart? Dear god, no! In fact, I still don't know anything that would fit the bill – I've racked my brain and about the only appropriate thing I've come up with for my voice would be J-Lo's "I'm Glad." And I am not learning that. Besides, at that time, I definitely couldn't have thought of the words to a song I didn't like and performed it on the spot.
"I, oh, um, er, well, I……I can try to sing you Christina Aguilera's 'Beautiful,'" I finally stammered, seeing visions of being smashed by a producer-like fist that had undoubtedly heard way too many renditions of that song already. And I did try. For about a second.
At which point I stopped, looked him candidly and, I hoped, pitiably in the face and said "you know, I really don't know this, and I’m going to do a terrible job if I try. Let me sing you 'Yesterday.'"
"Well, okaaaaay," he said, making a face. "But only if you can really perform it."
"I will, I will!" I said.
And I did. Oh, man, I sang my heart out. I'm not certain I'd ever performed so hard in my life. I could hear my poor, hurting voice echoing from the ceiling of that Dome – which I'm not sure means anything, but it certainly was bigger and stronger than I'd been singing before. And I moved, too. I gestured, I swayed, I did everything I could – because I was desperate. This was it, the Last Chance. I performed so hard, I couldn't see or think of anything else but the song.
And then, I was at the end of the song, and…..I stopped. He hadn't stopped me. He hadn't told me to go home. He was still looking at me and……and he was smiling! Just a little, mind you, just a little, but he was smiling.
"Wellllll, you know what," he said, and he looked at me as if making a bargain. "I'm going to let you try that for the judges, but only if you can perform it even more. Tomorrow, wear what you're wearing, sing 'Yesterday,' and really, really perform it."
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow. Sing. For….the…..
I HAD MADE IT! I HAD MADE IT THROUGH TO THE SECOND ROUND!
I shrieked. "Oh, thank you, thank you, I love you!" I cried. He smiled a little, and one of the lackeys gave me a sticker with my wristband number written on it. "Go that way," she said, tiredly, as if she'd seen a thousand people like me – which, of course, she had.
My table mates, though, hadn't made it (as, in fact, had no one else I had gotten to know the whole time) – they were filing off to the left. I gave them one least look (I'm sorry, Andy! I'm sorry, guy I didn't know!), and then I moved to the right.
I danced across the field towards the cameras (looking pretty stupid, if pretty happy, I'm sure), and interviewed a little. ("I'm really excited!" I said. "Really, really excited!")
And I went up the stairs (nearly killing myself) to a table where they got a little more information from me, gave me a three-page contract to sign (my soul now really firmly belongs to Fox and 19 Entertainment), and gave me a pink sheet telling me where to go the next day. And I was out.
Section 5: Aftermath
Outside the Dome, I was interviewed by the local Fox affiliate, who saw me holding a pink sheet – one of precious few outside (in fact, I didn't see any others while I was out there). (I made the news, too, looking, I hope, cute, if a little foolish. I was on for a long time, though! Score! Camera time!). I was also interviewed by some student filmmakers making a movie about happiness ("I'm really excited!" I said. "Really, really excited!").
And I found my way (eventually) back to my hotel, where I first jumped around a little more ("I'm really excited!" I said to myself. "Really, really excited!"), then called home ("Eeeeeeeee!" I said), then tried, with Meg, to determine a song to sing tomorrow that would fit the "within 2 years and you can dance to it criteria" [Later, I went out and tried to find a CD store to help with this, but we never came up with anything, and I couldn't find a CD store. So that was that.], and crashed.
And that was that. I woke up later that evening in time to practice and work up a few new songs – "Heartbreak Hotel," "Dancin' in the Moonlight," and Christina Aguilera's "Infatuation," if they really insisted on recent – and to choreograph "Yesterday." And I worked hard on them, too. I'm a crap choreographer, but I wasn't about to let them know that, if possible. These things were gonna look good. These things were gonna look like J-Lo worked them out.
Which, I'd decided, was what I wanted. It was now more essential than ever that I seem to be bursting with personality – it's obviously why I'd made it, when girls with bigger voices and bigger breasts had not. So movement – me-movement, big movement, personality-full movement – was essential.
[Incidentally, here is my now much more developed theory of why people make it in American Idol auditions: you have to think of it, not as auditioning singers, but as casting a television show. They have parts already written -- they're just looking for the right people to fill them. So personality is actually more important than voice -- and, since apparently those parts call for all-American real looks more than slut-tastic good looks, personality is more important than looks too.]
I worked for probably a total of four or five hours, and then watched myself on the news, and fell asleep, praying for the full recovery of my still-aching voice.
And in the morning, it was, stunningly, not the Day After, but...Day 5.
Section 1: The Hundred Dollar Shower
When we last left, well, me, I was heading out of the Dome, laden with sleeping bag and all non-essential items to go shower, get prettified and, hopefully, nap. I made it to my car fine. I packed up my things fine. I got out of the parking lot fine.
And then, I got completely and totally lost.
Remember how I earlier said that Atlanta is the most confusing city I've ever been in? (And remember, I've lived in London.) Yeah, this is where I found that out full-force. I pretty quickly discovered that the directions I'd gotten online from the Dome to the hotel where I'd reserved a room directed me to go down a road that didn't exist. Yet. I mean, the place where the road will be is there, but you can't drive on it. Like I tried to do.
So. Directions were out. Luckily, I'd printed a pretty rudimentary map of Atlanta from the Georgia Dome site. I would have to navigate from that. Which wouldn't, you would think, be so hard. I mean, this hotel was only one mile away. If I hadn't had so much stuff, I could have walked. Maybe I should have walked.
Because it was only after a good twenty minutes of heart-stoppingly almost turning the wrong way on one way streets, ending up heading in completely the wrong direction, turning around and then still being headed in completely the wrong direction, finding myself surrounded by homeless people and burnt-out buildings, and passing the same damn pizza place three times without ever figuring out how I'd gotten there, that I finally found the Super 8.
Now, a good deal of this is undoubtedly due to my miserable direction-finding skills. I can, as I have many times told people, get lost on my very own street. The last time I went to Charlottesville, I went the wrong way on Rt. 29 (the major shopping street) for about fifteen minutes before I realized my mistake.
But I also blame Atlanta here. People, this city is confusing. I'm actually kind of amazed that I'm not still wandering around somewhere down there, unable to find my way out. I can see why they have public transportation, because I'd hate to have to drive there regularly.
Anyway, I finally got to the hotel, and checked in. My voice, by this time, was very rough. I could feel it scraping in my throat, and that worried me. I needed sleep, and badly. I also needed water, which I was guzzling by the bottleful, but I definitely needed to sleep. I decided taking a nap was worth missing out on some extra primping/practicing time (remember, at this point, I still thought unless I was back at 3 a.m., I would be in danger of being locked out of the building. Since they kept threatening to start the auditions Early, which to me means, what, 5 a.m.?)
I lay down, and really tried to nap for an hour. I didn't succeed. I'm not sure any of the auditionees really managed to sleep that night, but I for sure didn't. I drowsed, yes, but I could not sleep. Too worried – that I was singing the wrong song, that I'd dressed the wrong way, that my voice was permanently damaged and on the way to being completely lost.
So at 1:30 a.m., I got up, showered, dressed, made myself up, and stretched a little. This part all went remarkably smoothly, actually – I'd obsessed so long over every detail of my outfit that I think I got ready quicker than I get ready for most days at work. Which maybe isn't good, but really, by 2:30, I couldn't think of anything else to do to my appearance.
I headed back to the Dome. Got lost. Of course. Got lost in pretty much all the same ways I'd gotten lost going to the hotel. Finally found my way back to the parking lot. (This time I really did drive the wrong way on a one-way street. Briefly.) Found that someone had taken my space, but, miraculously, I was able to squeeze into another. Walked back to Gate D.
Section 2: The Waiting Game
I got back to find that, of course, they hadn't turned the lights on. Hadn't begun signs of starting auditions at five and closing the doors at three. Which, I guess, I knew they probably wouldn't, but if I'd stayed longer in the hotel they probably would have. Out of spite. Plus, I didn't (don't) trust them.
My seatmates were grouped in the gate area, some of a number of people who were up and wandering about – like I said, I don't know if anybody really slept. Certainly the Dome was not very still – energy and whispering everywhere, people constantly moving about.
One seatmate explained that she'd had to leave the seat area because two people were actually having sex there! Which, if nothing else, is a bad, bad audition move – if you get kicked out for having sex on the Dome floor you are not making it on American Idol, my friends. And aside from that, I consider it massively rude. (One girl looked at me as if I were a prude for saying this. But I do not think I am. I think I am right. So there.)
I made my way back to my seat (the sex maniacs were gone), and sat there. For a long time.
Because, of course, they didn't really start auditions until 8 a.m., when they'd said they would, and in fact they kept on letting people in the doors up till that time, which is actually pretty gracious of them. (Several of these late late late arrivals thought they could maybe steal our seats, amazingly enough. Yeah, fat chance! We've been here since Monday morning – just you try it!)
Section 3: Warming – and Winding -- Up
At about 5:30, I went outside and around to the side of the building to warm up, I hoped. My voice was by this time pretty desperately rough, a situation that had me very worried. About half of my range was inaccessible, and the rest sounded much rougher and more shouty than it normally does.
I'm not really sure still why this happened. A combination of things, I guess: losing my voice back at the beginning of the month, beginning to get it back and then screaming for Clay and losing it for ten more days, sleeping in a lot of dust, and not sleeping at all. I hope to goodness that none of the damage has been permanent (as of now, Tuesday the 26th, my voice is still not completely itself. I'm not sure what I'm going to do if it doesn't fully recover by the 1st. Soldier on, I guess. Worriedly).
But anyway, that morning, my voice was Not Good, at least not to my ears, which meant that I had to warm up extra, extra, extra long, which I did, and finally came back inside about seven o'clock. By that time, I was really worried. I decided that, with the state my voice was in, I would have to make a last-minute change of song. I wouldn't sing "Yesterday," which, while prettier, put greater demands on my voice, but would instead sing "Hunter Gets Captured," a Smoky Robinson song I love, but which is very little known. I can, however, glide through it very smoothly whatever the state of my voice – so "Hunter" it was.
At about 7:30 they began asking us to go back to our seats. The atmosphere, by this time, if not quite frenzied, buzzing. Every bathroom had huge lines out the door, filled with girls desperate to get in just a little more primping. There were lines for the mirrors, lines for the sinks, and lines for the stalls.
(Total number of times I had to use the bathroom between 7 and 10? Approximately 800. Remember how I told you I have to pee when I get nervous? Yeah. I went to pee when I came back in from warming up. I got up twice before they started the announcements.
I went again right after they finished the announcements. I went again while they were organizing the first section of auditionees. I went four or five more times while they were auditioning the first section. I went again while our section was standing up waiting to go down the steps. And one last time while we were standing on the steps waiting to start down. Did I mention that I think the moment I may have fallen irrevocably in love with Clay was when, in the Group 2 performance, he and Ruben and Kim were up there on the stools and Ryan asked him how he felt, Clay made a nervous face and muttered "I really have to pee?" I identify, sweet moptop boy. I identify.)
I only saw one poor girl so nervous that she threw up (she skipped the stall line, poor thing), but I saw a lot of nervous people, for sure. And a lot of beautiful people too. The beautiful had gotten even more beautiful, and the sparkly, the tummy-revealing, and the spike-heeled had definitely come out in force.
Energy was high, though, curiously, there was much less last-minute singing than I'd expected. Apparently, in wanting to sing as much as possible before I perform, I am in the minority. Most people seemed to decide (some of them perhaps too little, too late) to save their voices. Not that it was quiet. The stage moms were screaming, the people of my persuasion were warming up, the late-preparers were gathering their stuff to take it back to their cars (you had to carry everything out beforehand or onto the field with you – there was no going back to the seats), and everyone was generally buzzing.
At eight they began announcements. (This did not stop the frenzy of activity behind us, but all of my seatmates were completely ready by that time. Aside from me. I had to pee.) They welcomed us again and told us how auditions would work: there were eleven tables set up on the fields, each with one associate producer and two…lackeys? I don't know what they were. Non-speaking people in t-shirts with clipboards.
Anyway, each section of seats would go in turn, beginning with the one to our right. You lined up, and slowly, slowly, progressed person by person, row by row, down onto the field. When you got to the direction-giving person, he would tell you which associate producer's line to go in. The associate producers took three people at a time. You sang for them a verse and a chorus – at least until they stopped you. And told you to go to the left, which meant you were out, or to the right which (oh, joy and celebration) meant you got through to the next round, which would take place the next day, and would be for the Executive Producers.
And then they did some group shots with a crane camera, panning over the crowd, getting us to yell "I am!" when they asked "Who here is the American Idol?" and getting us to do the wave. I have to say, actually, that in this department Atlanta performed pretty pitifully. Huge we may have been, but we were nervous and, well, the yells of excitement were just not excited enough. I doubt we'll make it onto the show much as a crowd, because that energy was just too nervous. I don't think it made for good footage.
Finally, they showed us a "treat" – a video of Ruben and Clay wishing us good luck on the jumbotron. Which was sort of minimally cool, but also kind of a crap video – very little original Clay or Ruben, mostly footage from the finale that of course we'd all seen a thousand times. Still, Clay wished us good luck. Clay wished me good luck! If not personally, at least as part of a group. Clay told us to "stay focused." Ruben advised that we "be cool." Good advice, I am sure. And then, it was time.
Section 4: A Moment Like This
At last. This was the night – er, morning –; we'd all been waiting for one moment like this, etc., etc. Finally, they started the audition.
A great cheer went up (a better cheer, frankly, than the one we did for the cameras) as the first people filed onto the field and up to the associate producers. We all watched, tensely, and then….every one of them was eliminated. One by one, they all filed off to the left. And so it went again with the next groups. And the next. And then, at last, yes! One had made it – a tall brunette in a red dress threw up her arms, hugged her producer, and ran off to the waiting cameras on the right.
My section waited from the start of auditions until about 9:30 to begin moving slowly down the steps to the field. I hit the field around 10. And during that time, I can't have seen more than fifty people skip, run, jump, and handspring off to the right – the vast majority of these eleven thousand people, it was obvious, were going to be eliminated without getting to finish their thirty seconds in front of the associate producers.
I pretty much gave up hope, I confess. I mean, with those kinds of odds, how would I ever make it? I'm not as pretty as Brittney Spears, and I can't sing like Whitney Houston – and so many of these people were and could. In fact, right as I got onto the field, I watched both a very skinny pretty blonde and a terrifically big-voiced diva type be eliminated at a blow. If they weren't making it – and obviously almost nobody was – how could I?
As I stood in line on the field, then, dancing up and down nervously, whispering to my neighbors ("Ooo, I hope I don't get that one! He hasn't sent anybody yet! Eeek! She looks mean! Oh my goodness, that girl lost her shoe!"), I watched both Miss Brittany Spears and Miss J-Lo get eliminated, shockingly. I watched girls whose voices I could hear from yards away go off to the left. I watched spiky-haired handsome boys shrug their shoulders and gather up their things. And I waited.
And finally I got to the liner-upper. And he sent me almost straight on, to table four, which housed….oh god! A handsome producer – a really handsome one! Not the one I'd thought was cute and my kind of dorky-type, not the one who was very all-american-guy handsome, but a Hollywood-type handsome one, with perfect Hispanic or Middle Eastern or Asian skin, and shoulder-length glossy black hair and masculine beauty! God, I'd never survive this one! Plus, he wasn't smiling at all! It was obvious he'd never pick me. Not in a million years. Not a BeautifulPerson – he couldn't possibly be really picking on personality. Could he?
But I had to go through with it. I mean, I was there, in line. I had my last-minute song. I had my hopeful, friendly smile. I was dynamic. (Man was I. I was dancing the whole time. Wanna know why? Yep, you got it. I really, really, really, really had to pee. Actually, I think associate producer may have noticed me because I was moving so much – he definitely looked at me a bunch of times before I got up to the table.)
I saw him send on one tall, pretty blonde from Michigan, eliminate everyone else, and then……then it was my group's turn.
We stepped up. I was grouped with a guy I didn't know and Andy, from my row. First the guy I didn't know sang – an R&B/gospel tune I didn't know. And actually, he wasn't all that good. He kind of wavered from the pitch. I think he was nervous.
Then Andy sang. And he was good. Remember, this guy got all the way to Simon, Randy and Paula last year – and he's a voice major. He had me dancing around a little. (And also, I had to pee.)
And then, it was my turn. Oh god.
Here went nothing. I started "Hunter Gets Captured," giving it all the sexiness I could (it's a sexy song). And he stopped me. "Here it is," I thought. "I didn't even get to the chorus, and I’m already eliminated."
"That's good," he said, and smiled at me, just a little, "But can you sing me something pop?"
"Oh…oh!" I said, eloquently. "Sure! Sure! I, um, I can sing you 'Yesterday' by the Beatles!"
"No," he said, "Can you sing me something more recent? Like within the last two years? Something you can dance to. I want to see you really move."
Emergency! Emergency! I hadn't prepared anything remotely like that! I mean, I listen to contemporary music, sure. I'm up on most of the music of the last two years, but do I know any of it by heart? Any dance tunes by heart? Dear god, no! In fact, I still don't know anything that would fit the bill – I've racked my brain and about the only appropriate thing I've come up with for my voice would be J-Lo's "I'm Glad." And I am not learning that. Besides, at that time, I definitely couldn't have thought of the words to a song I didn't like and performed it on the spot.
"I, oh, um, er, well, I……I can try to sing you Christina Aguilera's 'Beautiful,'" I finally stammered, seeing visions of being smashed by a producer-like fist that had undoubtedly heard way too many renditions of that song already. And I did try. For about a second.
At which point I stopped, looked him candidly and, I hoped, pitiably in the face and said "you know, I really don't know this, and I’m going to do a terrible job if I try. Let me sing you 'Yesterday.'"
"Well, okaaaaay," he said, making a face. "But only if you can really perform it."
"I will, I will!" I said.
And I did. Oh, man, I sang my heart out. I'm not certain I'd ever performed so hard in my life. I could hear my poor, hurting voice echoing from the ceiling of that Dome – which I'm not sure means anything, but it certainly was bigger and stronger than I'd been singing before. And I moved, too. I gestured, I swayed, I did everything I could – because I was desperate. This was it, the Last Chance. I performed so hard, I couldn't see or think of anything else but the song.
And then, I was at the end of the song, and…..I stopped. He hadn't stopped me. He hadn't told me to go home. He was still looking at me and……and he was smiling! Just a little, mind you, just a little, but he was smiling.
"Wellllll, you know what," he said, and he looked at me as if making a bargain. "I'm going to let you try that for the judges, but only if you can perform it even more. Tomorrow, wear what you're wearing, sing 'Yesterday,' and really, really perform it."
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow. Sing. For….the…..
I HAD MADE IT! I HAD MADE IT THROUGH TO THE SECOND ROUND!
I shrieked. "Oh, thank you, thank you, I love you!" I cried. He smiled a little, and one of the lackeys gave me a sticker with my wristband number written on it. "Go that way," she said, tiredly, as if she'd seen a thousand people like me – which, of course, she had.
My table mates, though, hadn't made it (as, in fact, had no one else I had gotten to know the whole time) – they were filing off to the left. I gave them one least look (I'm sorry, Andy! I'm sorry, guy I didn't know!), and then I moved to the right.
I danced across the field towards the cameras (looking pretty stupid, if pretty happy, I'm sure), and interviewed a little. ("I'm really excited!" I said. "Really, really excited!")
And I went up the stairs (nearly killing myself) to a table where they got a little more information from me, gave me a three-page contract to sign (my soul now really firmly belongs to Fox and 19 Entertainment), and gave me a pink sheet telling me where to go the next day. And I was out.
Section 5: Aftermath
Outside the Dome, I was interviewed by the local Fox affiliate, who saw me holding a pink sheet – one of precious few outside (in fact, I didn't see any others while I was out there). (I made the news, too, looking, I hope, cute, if a little foolish. I was on for a long time, though! Score! Camera time!). I was also interviewed by some student filmmakers making a movie about happiness ("I'm really excited!" I said. "Really, really excited!").
And I found my way (eventually) back to my hotel, where I first jumped around a little more ("I'm really excited!" I said to myself. "Really, really excited!"), then called home ("Eeeeeeeee!" I said), then tried, with Meg, to determine a song to sing tomorrow that would fit the "within 2 years and you can dance to it criteria" [Later, I went out and tried to find a CD store to help with this, but we never came up with anything, and I couldn't find a CD store. So that was that.], and crashed.
And that was that. I woke up later that evening in time to practice and work up a few new songs – "Heartbreak Hotel," "Dancin' in the Moonlight," and Christina Aguilera's "Infatuation," if they really insisted on recent – and to choreograph "Yesterday." And I worked hard on them, too. I'm a crap choreographer, but I wasn't about to let them know that, if possible. These things were gonna look good. These things were gonna look like J-Lo worked them out.
Which, I'd decided, was what I wanted. It was now more essential than ever that I seem to be bursting with personality – it's obviously why I'd made it, when girls with bigger voices and bigger breasts had not. So movement – me-movement, big movement, personality-full movement – was essential.
[Incidentally, here is my now much more developed theory of why people make it in American Idol auditions: you have to think of it, not as auditioning singers, but as casting a television show. They have parts already written -- they're just looking for the right people to fill them. So personality is actually more important than voice -- and, since apparently those parts call for all-American real looks more than slut-tastic good looks, personality is more important than looks too.]
I worked for probably a total of four or five hours, and then watched myself on the news, and fell asleep, praying for the full recovery of my still-aching voice.
And in the morning, it was, stunningly, not the Day After, but...Day 5.
Labels: american idol, celebrity, trips, tv
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