An American Idol Epilogue, Part 6
0 Comments Published by ginny on Monday, September 15, 2003 at 5:01 AM.
Section 13: In which I explain my confusion
Why was I so confused? I'm sure it won't be apparent if they show my audition on the program. It will, in fact, probably look like I'm confused because I think I'm terrific and they didn't let me through – but that's not it at all.
It's….well, actually, logistically I was confused at first because when Simon said "Are you serious," I, as an American, heard only "Are you kidding me?" – but I think he didn’t mean that at all, but meant instead "Are you serious about this." (I wonder now – if I'd known what he meant, could I have changed his mind? Too late to tell now.)
But there was much more than that to my confusion.
See, here' s the thing: when I walked into that room, there were a ton of things I was totally unsure of. I didn't know whether they'd like my voice. I didn't know whether they'd like my performance. I didn't know whether they'd approve of my song choice. I didn’t know what they'd think of my looks.
But the one thing I did know, knew with all my heart, all my soul, and all my being, was that I wanted this. I wanted it like I'd never wanted anything in my life. And I knew that I would give anything in my life to get on this show.
Every time I perform, right before I go onstage, the moment before I step out there, I ask myself this question. I say to myself "Do I want to be here?"
And I always answer myself "Yes. Yes. Oh, yes." And I also know that if the answer is ever "No," then it is time to stop performing. When you perform, if you're going to really do it, you have to be committed to it with your entire soul. At least, I believe you do.
And before I'd gone on to the soundstage, right before, I'd asked myself the question – "Do I want to be here?" And the answer came back not just "yes," but "More than anything in the world."
So that I had appeared to Simon, Randy, and Paula as if I did not want to be there – that I had seemed to them as if I had taken this thing unseriously – it totally threw me. I mean, I took this thing more seriously than I had ever taken anything in my life.
This is something it took me until the drive back to fully enunciate, but really, I don't think I have ever committed to something like I committed to auditioning for AI. For one thing, the material commitments were enormous: not only did I pay for hotel rooms (one just for washing my hair in!), gas, an expensive dress, shoes, and makeup, the time I committed to AI was expensive – risky – time.
I quit one job to come to that audition, despite the fact that it might have caused problems for me in the future, and despite the fact that I needed the money. And I put even getting the next job – a job I wanted very much – in serious jeopardy. I mean, it was very, very likely that the principal at the school wouldn't even hire me if I told her I might up and quit to be on a reality t.v. show. My mother, in fact, though it was almost a certainty that she wouldn't. And yet, I still auditioned. It didn't stop me, not even for a second.
And more than the material commitments, the emotional commitments I made were, perhaps, greater than any I'd ever made. I overcame tremendous fears to go down there.
I am not – or I have not been – a very socially brave person. I'm shy. I'm reticent. I'm unconfident. I had never made such a journey, or thought I could make such a journey by myself. I was desperately afraid of sleeping on the street, and of being in such an unfamiliar situation, jumbled together with a bunch of complete strangers. In fact, I was so afraid, I had nightmares about it for months. I mean, I'm the person who used to sometimes avoid leaving my room because I might have to talk to people I didn't know.
I had, too, to overcome my fears about performance singing. This is something I haven't even admitted until this moment, but a fact that had terrified me all along was this: before AI, I had never once completed a solo vocal performance without screwing up the words.
Never.
I have screwed up the words really, really badly before, too. In my first performance as Dorothy in the one musical I was in at my high school, I forgot half of "Over the Rainbow." Completely.
Why this happened, I have never been sure. It isn't as if I didn't know the words to the songs I was performing – and I've only ever frozen and forgotten the words once in a spoken-word performance. But something about solo vocal performance….well, until AI, I had never gotten it right ever.
And I knew that with those kinds of odds against me, chances were I'd do it again if I auditioned for AI. But I also knew that I could not do it. I could not afford to. I had to do it right, for the first time in my life, and I had to make it stick.
And by god, I was going to. Despite all that fear, despite the tremendous odds of my never having been so brave as this in my entire life, I was going to do it.
I never really doubted it. I threw my self, my whole self into it, and I did it.
I didn't let the costs stop me. I didn't let the risks stop me. I didn't let my fears of being alone, of being on the street, of not knowing anything about the situation, of my weaknesses as a singer and performer stop me.
I didn't even let my body stop me. I knew I didn't have the AI look when I began thinking about auditioning back in late Winter – and so, I worked harder than I have ever worked my entire life…and lost forty-five pounds. I mean, I have never been able to achieve that kind of weight loss before, and I have been trying desperately to since I was twelve. But I knew I would not get on the t.v. show if I weighed any more than 125 pounds – and so, by the time I went down to Atlanta, I weighed 122. Was the speed at which I did it healthy? No. But I did it. By god, I did it.
I didn't even let the people I love most in the world stop me. I think the fight I had with my parents about going to this audition was the biggest fight I have ever had with them in my life – and I am not exaggerating. I have always been a completely, maybe even morbidly and obsessively, obedient child.
It's my first-child syndrome, I guess. Honestly, I can remember only three times in my life previous to this point that I actually insisted on doing something I clearly knew was against my parents' wishes, and no times when I actually did it, once the dust had settled.
So for me not only to have this huge, screaming fight with my mother and father – which I never do – but also to go ahead and audition even though I never really got my mother's blessing (though eventually, to my surprise, I think she may have reconciled herself to my going), was unprecedented. I would have thought, actually, it was impossible.
I even had the only fight I've ever had with one of my very best friends in the world over this – and still I went ahead and did it. I lost my voice the worst I have ever lost my voice two weeks before the audition, and I still did it.
I risked a year of my future for it. I fought my own inner demons for it. I may have changed my relationship with my parents forever for it. I changed my body drastically for it. I changed my self for it. Come hell, come high water, come what might, come what might not I would audition for American Idol.
And so. To have that be the one thing that wasn't visible to the judges, to have them question me on the thing for which I had sacrificed or risked so much – my commitment – was, well, baffling. I don't think I'll ever know why they saw what they saw, and what they meant.
I think, probably, they partly didn't like the manner in which I approached them – maybe my attempt to seem friendly and approachable made me seem overconfident instead. Or maybe they wanted me to grovel more – certainly, I felt like groveling, but I thought it would be a mistake at the time. And they also may have picked up on something that I didn’t even know I would broadcast: that one of the things I love so much about AI is that I think it does not take itself too seriously. It has a sense of fun, of self-deprecation. But maybe I should have tried hard not to project that in the audition. (Actually, I think if this is true that the judges don't know their show as well as the producers – because honestly the show would not be nearly as fun if it did take itself too seriously.)
Maybe, though, they just meant that I didn’t have enough energy – certainly that's the fault I found most with my performance. If that's so, I agree with them completely – I can certainly see eliminating me for giving an audition that wasn't dynamic enough.
Or maybe they just sort of made something up because for some nebulous reason, they just didn't think I was right for the show. Who knows. I'll never know, anyway. At the time, I admit, it hurt a lot. Not because I'd got cut, but because they seemed to be cutting me for the thing I had been most sure I'd had in the right place – my heart.
Section 14: In which I attempt to straighten out my story – and associate producer Patrick
I exited the double doors. I knew that Ryan knew I hadn't made it. I also still couldn’t figure out why I hadn't made it. (It took me another twenty minutes or so to figure out what "Are you serious" had actually, at least literally, meant.)
Ryan briefly interviewed me. (Without ever looking at me, actually, which was weird.) I said what had happened, and said "I'm confused" several times – because I was, but I'm afraid this sounded whiny, even though I didn’t mean it that way. Ryan shook my hand (with his left hand, which just added to his not seeming like a real person at all – Ryan Seacrest is a little weird in person), and I walked down the hall.
There I did the second exit interview – with several cameras and an associate producer asking me questions. "Do you hate Simon?" she asked me repeatedly. Now, I'd seen them do this before. It was obvious that they were trying really hard to get a violent, angry reaction against Simon from somebody.
I get this. It's entertaining. But I wasn't about to do that for them – I mean, I wasn't angry at Simon (though I was still very, very confused), and I'm not that kind of person anyway. Nothing makes me hate myself more than when I'm mean about someone – so I'm not going to do it on national television, obviously!
"No, no," I said. "I don’t hate Simon. I wish I knew what he meant, but I don't hate him!"
"Do you think Simon's a jerk?" she asked, insistently.
"No!" I said. "I mean, Simon's just…Simon. He's….unique." I made a face and raised my eyebrows. This was performance on my part – actually, I don't even have that much antipathy towards Simon. Not only was he not really mean to me, I understand that most of his meanness is an act. (Or at least, I thought it was. It is possible that since he's so keen on "serious" he actually is serious himself about it. In which case I feel kind of sorry for him.)
"Hmph," she snorted. "Well, that's a very girl way of putting it."
After that exit interview, I had one more – a follow-up to the interview I'd done earlier with Patrick's camera – just me in the booth with the camera, and nothing else.
I went in and he curtly told me where to stand again.
"You were very confident coming in," he said. "So I want to know what you feel now. And a lot of people have been coming in here and being fucking patronizing.. I don't want to fucking hear that. I don't want to hear any shit about 'the judges know what they're doing' or 'I guess I wasn't good enough' or shit like that. I. Don’t. Fucking. Care."
"Well," I said "I'm not going to be angry at them, but I'll do my best to be honest."
"Right," he said, disgruntledly, and turned on the camera.
Once again I told my story. It was getting a tiny bit more coherent by this time, as the daze of having been eliminated for reasons I completely did not expect and did not understand wore off just a little, but I know I still said "I'm confused" a whole lot.
Finally, I said something like "I don't really understand what they meant – I mean, I really felt like I took this completely seriously – but, hey" – and here I made a wry face and flattened out my voice with an edge of sarcasm – "they're the judges, right?"
At which point Patrick snapped "NOT right!" and turned off the camera. "Interview's OVER," he said. "I don't need you to be fucking patronizing! I TOLD you that!"
And I snapped back. I mean, at that point, he crossed the line. I'd just been cut. I was emotional. And though I was prepared to accept and understand them trying to manipulate me, them being pushy with me, and even them treating me somewhat disrespectfully or as if I wasn't very important (because, of course, I wasn't very important), I was not prepared to accept being actively bullied, yelled at, or abused. On screen, I would have put up with abuse from Simon or Randy, because that's part of the game, part of the role. But off-screen? By an associate producer whose role is to interview me? No. That isn't his role, and it isn't his right. And so I snapped back at him.
"Listen," I said, and my voice cracked a little, because though I hadn't cried yet, being bullied after all this had put me almost in tears.
"I wasn't being patronizing, I was being sarcastic. And you're not going to get me to be angry at them, because I'm not! And I don't think you're going to be able to push anyone else who doesn't want to into it either. I'm not a hateful person, and you can't bully me into seeming like one." And, doing my best not to cry from a combination of disappointment and anger, I walked out of the room with as much dignity as I had left.
And you know what? I think I might have gotten through to him, just a little. Because he looked down a little ashamedly, and then, as I left the room, he spoke. And he didn't bully me, and he didn’t yell at me, and he didn't say something irritated or disrespectful – he thanked me. He thanked me twice. Which was the first time I had heard this guy thank anyone for anything the whole time I'd been there.
"You're welcome," I said. And then I left.
Are you ready for this to be over yet? Go to Part 7
Labels: american idol, celebrity, trips, tv
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