An American Idol Epilogue, Part 1
0 Comments Published by ginny on Tuesday, September 9, 2003 at 2:33 AM.
So, let me start by relieving you of the suspense (in case, somehow, you haven't read my last entries) – that way you'll feel much less stressed reading this entry than I did living it.
I didn't get in.
That's why this is an epilogue, not a continuation. (Is there a sequel in the works, though? Studio execs remain closemouthed, but rumors are flying – more on this later in the episode. I mean entry.)
But before I get to that part, I should start where my American Idol Epilogue started – on Sunday August 31st, when I went back down to Atlanta in preparation for the third round of American Idol auditions the next day.
Section 1: In which I boldly go where I have not gone before….well, before last week, anyway
This time around, getting down to Atlanta was a much less stressful proposition: I didn't have to leave straight from a family beach trip, I only had to pack for one night (auditions for me and about sixty others were Monday and Monday only. Another group of auditionees were coming on Tuesday, but no one had to stay both days), and, most importantly, I didn't have to plan for staking out a place in line and camping at the Georgia Dome. That's only one of the benefits of making it to the third round of AI auditions, folks – the accommodations are better. And I hear if you make it to California, they even put you up in a hotel themselves!
So the drive down to Atlanta went fairly easily: I left Roanoke around 11:30 and got to the hotel I'd booked (and it was a bargain, it turned out, being as it was way nicer than the one I'd stayed in – or rather, washed my hair in -- last time) about 6:30.
At which point my plan was to get everything laid out for the morning, walk the route between the hotel and the America's Mart, where the auditions were again, and go to bed. Really, really early. In order to rest my voice, you know. I mean, I didn't want anything to interfere with my doing well at this audition. I'd put my all into it, and I was going to do my best.
So I did that: I laid out my stuff and I left the hotel to walk to the America's Mart. Now, one of the things that made this hotel better than the one I'd been in last time was that to get to the America's Mart you had to walk on Peachtree Street, which is a pretty cool street right in the heart of downtown Atlanta. That's where the Hard Rock Café and things are, and there's a Macy's too – or at least there used to be. (It kind of looked closed to me.) So on the way back from locating Building 1 of the America's Mart, I took a little time just walking slowly down Peachtree, looking at the buildings and the shops and the people.
And as I walked, I noticed that there was something extraordinary about a great number of the people right up by the bigfancy Hyatt and Marriott hotels: they were in costume. They were in sci-fi/fantasy/horror costume. They were in wonderful costume.
The first one I saw was a Star Wars Storm Trooper, in full plastic-suit regalia. I was amused and delighted (very few things delight me more than people being costumed in public), and smiled broadly, figuring that he was a Big City Eccentric, just out for an afternoon on the town in his Storm Trooper outfit.
But then, as I crossed to the side of the street where he had been, I began to notice that he was not the only person dressed eccentrically: for here were a group of four or five Glorious Goths, velveted and vinyled and laced to the nines – one even seemed to be not only a goth, but a vampire goth (my very very favoritest kind. Aside, that is, from historical vampire goths, whom I love so much that my heart is in danger of bursting smilingly when I encounter them).
And here, not a goth, not a Storm Trooper, but someone in a cyber-anime sort of costume! And here was, my god, one in Renaissance garb…and then, as I watched, an absolutely perfect Legolas, wig and all, emerged from an underground food court/mall.
Transported, I began to have a vague memory of Cy mentioning a huge sci-fi/fantasy/horror convention called DragonCon that was to take place in Atlanta, and I realized that I must have, by grace of God and AI production staff, landed in Atlanta coincident with it! Joy of joys – instead of lying in bed trying to sleep, I was going to get to costume watch!
Section 2: In which I finally, after all these years, acquire a superhero name
And costume-watch I did. I made my way down to the underground food court, where I encountered – oh, such costumes. There were recognizable characters – sci-fi, fantasy, anime, and even some horror; there were goths of every shape and size; there were fancy-dress people of neither description, decked out with wings and sparkles and halter-tops and cloaks and swords and bodices and body-mod and boots and wigs and everything else under the sun; there were even, to my inexpressible delight, a number of pirates and historically dressed folks from the seventeenth, nineteenth and (be still my heart) eighteenth centuries.
Costume-watching is really one of my favorite pastimes, and I very, very rarely get to do it (I mean, how often do you even get a bunch of people in costume in the same place at the same time to watch? Not often, is how often), so I was in seventh heaven, smiling like a fool, I'm sure. And very excited, not only by my extreme good fortune in happening upon the convention folks, but by the prospect of auditioning again for American Idol – both of which things made me more than usually gregarious.
Which is how I ended up striking up a conversation with a very nice Arkansan named Chad in line at Subway. He was not in costume (probably why I began talking to him, instead of just smiling foolishly and excitedly), but was wearing a DragonCon badge, indicating he was part of the convention. He told me that he'd come with a friend of his who was part of a battalion of Storm Troopers – Chad had never been to a convention before, but was enjoying himself, though not, he said, as much as his friend.
"See, he's a computer geek," he told me, "and I'm just a stuffed shirt. So this is much more his scene than mine." (He later told me, though, that he actually writes comic books, though he hasn't published any yet – so he wasn't giving himself enough credit, which, I think, is his typically un-self-assuming style.)
Nonetheless, he happily continued talking to me and listening to me chatter on about how excited I was by the costumes and by my incipient American Idol status. (He was impressed by my having made it to the third round. "Wow!" he said. "If you win, now, you have to hire me as your financial planner!")
Eventually, as we talked, he mentioned that there was going to be an actual costume competition in about an hour, part of the convention. "You don't have a badge, though," he said. "If we could just get you a badge, you could go – you'd love that!"
I indicated that, oh, yes, I would indeed – but neither one of us had any idea how I could finagle a badge, being as I hadn't paid to attend the convention and wasn't part of it. He suggested I claim that my costume was "American Idol girl" (I was wearing my AI auditions t-shirt), but we ended up concluding that this would not fly.
"Tell you what," he said. "Let's go over to the Hyatt where my friend is and see if anyone there knows how to get you a badge." And so we did.
Section 3: In which I am immortalized as a woman wondering
And once again I was overawed – because, people, this was be the most impressive hotel atrium I have ever seen. It stretches up the entire height of the building and features fiberoptic shimmeries and super-science-fiction pod-like elevators gliding up and down at light speeds and is flat-out gorgeous. (Bear with me – this description is not just owing to my extreme state of energetic gregariousness at the time, but actually has some bearing later on the story.)
We approached the information booth, where I hopefully and as charmingly as I could muster asked the staff if there was any way I could obtain a pass just for one event, explaining that I was in town for AI, and not for the convention. They said there wasn't, but the guy did take my picture in case I became the American Idol.
(In fact, people were wonderfully and ego-boostingly excited about my AI status everywhere I went that day – they asked me to sing for them and wanted to shake my hand in case I made it. It really made me feel good. Ah, such a famewhore am I.) Also, the girl there worked for a PR firm that had worked with Tamyra Grey. She says Tamyra is skeletally thin. I am not surprised.
I was ready to give up – after all, I did have the plan of sleeping, and had gotten a ton of beautiful costume-watching in just on the street and in the lobby of the hotel – but Chad suggested we try to find his Storm Trooper friend. We started upwards towards the mezzanine, at which point we encountered a red-headed man lying on the ground taking a picture of the gorgeous atrium skylight and elevators.
"Oh, it's beautiful, isn't it?" I said, pleased to see someone be as excited about this hotel as I was. (So many of my passions in one day – gorgeous hotels, costumes, sci-fi/fantasy/gothness, and famewhorery – I must have been in heaven.)
"Yeah," he said, "the writer wants it to be in an upcoming issue."
And then Chad said to me "Do you know who he is? He draws Wonder Woman."
"Oh my god! Do you really?" I squealed.
"Yep, sure do." He got up off the ground and shook my hand. "Drew Johnson. And you're….an American Idol?"
I explained my status, and he explained that he was photographing the atrium because the comic's writer, who had been at the convention the day before, had decided he wanted Wonder Woman to fall through the skylight in an upcoming issue.
"In fact," he said to us, "If you guys want to stick around a minute, I'll take a picture of you over there by the railing to use for a reference, looking up at her falling."
Did we? A big famous comic book artist was asking us if we wanted to be in a comic book (the fact that I do not read any comics, let alone Wonder Woman, is immaterial) – of course we wanted to be in it! So we posed, and he took our picture. I looked concerned and surprised, like "what is that falling through the roof while we are on our vacation here in beautiful Atlanta? It kind of looks like a woman in blue underpants, but it couldn't be that, now could it?" Because, you see, I am a Performer. I can carry that sort of thing off.
He told us that Chad should e-mail the comic's inker (who was standing beside him) and then they would e-mail back when the comic came out. Pretty cool, huh? I'm going to be in Wonder Woman! Or at least, the back of my head is. But that's more of me than has ever been in a comic book before!
Chad explained that we were looking for a pass for me so that I could go to the costume competition. "Oh," said the inker, "I might know where you could get one! My wife's friend was supposed to come, but she never showed up and now we're leaving – I could give you her pass. Follow us!"
And so we did. The wife (who looked like a comic book heroine herself, with cool spiky hair with long tendrils coming down – like Madame Hooch, but more sci-fi) looked for the badge a little but couldn't find it.
"Oh well," I said. "Thanks so much for trying. That's really cool of you!"
"Nah, wait," said Drew Johnson suddenly. "What am I thinking – you can have my badge! I'm leaving now anyway because we're late on the next issue. Here, just tear off this banner thing and you can pass as a Guest." And he handed it to me.
We thanked them profusely and shook hands again, and walked out. "Did that just happen?" Chad asked. "I think so," I said. "Whoa," he said. "Yeah," I said.
And so, I crashed a sci-fi convention. Masquerading as the artist of Wonder Woman. Amazing.
Up, up and away! Go to Part 2. The lasso of truth commands you
Labels: american idol, celebrity, trips, tv
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