Matt's Seattle Washington Idol Audition Recap
Hey ya’ll i'm back! No I didn't make it to the next round - what a crock, huh? Oh well I wasn't expecting anything. There were some interesting things though about my long and exhausting (and wet) day!First of all we got to the auditions at about 5 AM..apparently that was late since there were already three to four thousand freaks already there by that point. BTW – as a note for any future idol rejects, showing up early on audition day is COMPLETELY unnecessary. You need to show up early to register, but you can roll in super late on audition day and still be fine. I could have slept in and showed up at Noon and still had extra time to gnosh on fries and be annoyed by fellow auditioners before I sang (1:30). My friend registered late on Sunday, showed up to the auditions at 2:00 PM on Tuesday and auditioned within 45 minutes of getting there...lucky bitch. (He didn’t make it though so I guess the joke’s on him). Anyway, I guess the whole point of auditioning early is to be a part of the whole cheesy chants, cheers, and group songs...or as I like to call it - let's see how many people we can make lose their voice before the auditions start. Damn those powers that be!
Now that I mention the “powers that be,” I think they might just be bigger than anybody expected. Seattle’s weather has been sunny and dry this whole summer – so why is it that the day they show up in “rainy” Seattle is the first freakin’ day it actually rains?!? Talk about having God on your side. You don’t wanna mess around with those bad asses. Anyway, when we first arrived the downpour hadn't quite begun. I was super happy about that since the end of the line was in a very exposed area. Speaking of exposure, around 5 AM is when I was first exposed to the many annoying people that I would row to hate more and more as the next few hours progressed. Of course I couldn’t get stuck in an area with fascinating talented people…just irritating ones. My morning consisted of avoiding eye contact with many people as to avoid not being their next chosen prey.
The first girl we landed by was with her mom and little brother. Before she started talking I could already tell she wasn’t going to make it. Her look was bland. Secondly she was far too perky for 5 AM – she reminded me of one of those way-too-generic-high school-drama-musical-theater
Hmm, some other semi-memorable people were these two nappy white girls that were both named Mackenzie or something (obviously not that memorable) and they couldn’t stop talking about it (their names, not not being memorable). Their makeup was done terribly and I’m pretty sure they were both wasting their time by being at the auditions. I felt bad for them. I lost interest in eavesdropping on their conversations quickly.
The only one around me that I felt had a slight chance of making it to the 2nd round was Ruben Studdard Jr. He looked just like Ruben Studdard, but with a little bit more “blacne.” …is that racist? I don’t intend it to be, but whatever it looks different than white people acne. Anyway, he flew up to Seattle from Houston just to audition. I don’t think that was necessary – I don’t think they would want a Ruben look-a-like in the finals. He said he had it to the 2nd round a few years ago but Nigel told him he sounded too much like Ruben Studdard. I’m gonna have to agree with Nigel on that one. He started singing and it was a carbon copy of Ruben but not quite as good. Not bad either. He used a lot of falsetto in his singing, a bit too much if you ask me.
My favorite (and most unavoidable) girl of the day, though, was this little chunky mannish looking thing in a big blue sweatshirt. She had her short corn roll braids pulled up into a side ponytail with a yellow scrunchie… That’s some hardcore style right there! Think Queen Latifah (the early days) but more lesbianic, shorter, and fatter. I can almost guarantee you that a McDonald’s somewhere in Tacompton (Tacoma) was short one employee that day. It was so funny to see how other people around us talked to her at first, but after about 2 hours had let people cut in front of them in order to get out of her sight. (this includes Ruben Jr., the mackenzies, and drama chick). The Notorious A.N.N.O.Y.I.N.G attempted to talk to me a couple of times – but I was not about to get involved in that mess so I casually acted like I didn’t hear her and every time she’d start saying something I would turn to my friend and act like I was talking to her… I was saying “OMG I think she’s trying to talk to me!” Seriously though, once this chick thought she’d piqued somebody’s interest she just went on and on and on and on… about her friends who were down for her and supported her (who, ironically, weren’t there with her), about her amazing singing voice, and about how she was up all night singing with her friends trying to practice. I’m surprised I didn’t hear about the crack she had clearly smoked earlier that morning. The moment I knew little Lezzie Mcguire would be a terrible singer (in addition to a crackhead) was when I heard her bragging to Ruben Jr. about how she won her high school’s talent show. I had to hold back laughter at that point. I mean this girl was not a treat to look at and NOBODY that’s a good singer starts talking about how amazing they are two minutes into a conversation. I could not wait to hear this girl sing…fortunately for me, I wouldn’t have to wait much longer.
It started pouring shortly after we moved up under a covered walkway. Thank Freakin’ God because that was the point that the line officially stopped inching forward (probably about 6 AM) and this was where we spent a majority of our time. Drama Theater Geek was still unsuccessfully trying to amuse people. Lezzie Mcguire was busy annoying Ruben Jr. and the Mackenzies and my friend Lydia and I were just taking it all in and laughing quietly to ourselves. At one point I mentioned I was getting hungry and some guy turned around and told me he had some crackers if I wanted them. Lyd mentioned that they would make my throat dry and then I made a joke about them being his special “cyanide” crackers that he offers to sabotage the competition. I don’t think he thought it was funny. Him and his girlfriend apparently came from Hong Kong to audition. Some more crazies!!! I drove about a mile to get to the auditions. Literally.
After awhile some thuggish black guy (he was wearing an oversized shirt that said “I’m the ladies’ man”) tried to cut in by asking Lezzie Mcguire if he could hop in front of her. She told him if he sang she would let him. He did (sounded pretty good actually, lots of melisma, but well placed) and she let him in. I got excited…was this the moment I would finally hear her sing? Nope…it wasn’t. “The Ladies’ Man” looked a bit too ghetto for American Idol unfortunately – which could work against him. It looked like he had probably taken the bus from Tacompton up to Seattle to pursue his dream. I actually genuinely hope he makes it though. I think ‘Ladies’ Man” regretted asking LM for cuts though – he was her victim for about the next hour. Poor guy.
So then the moment we had all been waiting for finally arrived. No, not the line moving forward, but LM started to sing!!! She gave us a soulful rendition of “If I Ain’t Got You.” She was everything I’d hoped for and more! Out-of-tune, bad pitch, crappy tone, failed vocal runs. I wanted to hug her! This was a priceless American Idol moment. If only I could have been at the talent show she supposedly won. I can imagine there was some real stiff competition. I really hope they put her through as a bad auditioner – she totally deserves it. My highlight of the morning was over so now it was just time to wait to be ushered inside.
Another highlight during the morning hours including group songs started by some diva about 30 people ahead of us. She started us all singing (with harmonization) “This Little Light of Mine,” “Lean on Me,” “Oh Happy Day,” “Amazing Grace” and some other churchy choir songs. I think after waiting so long we were getting delirious. Some people from Kube 93 came around offering up free Krispy Kremes and some people gave us “stress balls” which advertised the Fox show “’til death.” Now I know what a stress ball is and those were not it. There were more like Nerf balls.
Finally at around 7:30 AM the line slowly started moving forward. We walked quite a way underneath the overhang which was nice but then finally we got to an area which required umbrellas. Thankfully us Seattlites check the weather frequently and knew to bring umbrellas. Some conniving “girl without umbrella” cornered me and started talking to me as we were walking. Interestingly enough GWU is suddenly interested in learning more about me (guy WITH umbrella) as we start approaching the rain. She flew up from Portland to be here (not too bad) and …well that’s all I really remember I guess. I cut her out of my life by the time we hit the rain. I didn’t want to obligatorily have to invite her into my dry space. I’m an ass.
At the front of the line was everybody’s dear old friend William Hung. I guess Kube 93 brought him to Seattle to…get soaked in the rain? He didn’t serve much of a purpose. I guess they probably just wanted everybody to make fun of him some more unbeknownst to him. I feel sorry for the poor thing. He was wearing a Kube 93 sweatshirt and wasn’t under an umbrella. He got kinda fat. I’m still embarrassed for him.
Once we got inside (probably about 8:30/9:00) we made our way to our seats – they were already starting to teach the city’s song “We Built This City” to everybody. The guy teaching the song was trying to be funny. Lydia liked him – he bugged me. (IMAGINE THAT!!) It took us awhile to learn and then we sang it a trillion times just for practice…I still don’t know the words to the verse. For some reason my memory was not working all that well. Finally after awhile they brought out the cameras and we sang the song for the cameras. Then we did a ton of cheers, “Seattle Rocks,” “Welcome to Seattle,” “Cheer Up Simon, It’s Only Rain,” “American Idol starts (pause) Right Now!” and “I’m The Next American Idol.” Plus they took random shots of us cheering. In order to con everybody to participate the Rob the MC guy or whoever he was reminded everybody that there were already being judged and if they didn’t participate they probably wouldn’t make it through. What a crock. They also had us learn and sing the song “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head.” Then they had everybody open up their umbrellas and spin them around while singing the song. That made for lots of water flinging all over the place. I don’t think it was such a good idea.
After awhile they introduced, “special guest,” Ryan Seacrest and he came out to massive fangirly cheers. They had him come into the crowd to film lots of crap and he wasn’t mic’d so we couldn’t even hear it, yet we were expected to cheer when the MC guy gave us the cue. That took for freakin’ ever since idiotic-ass girls kept on yelling things to him about how hot he is, how they want his number, how they love him, etc. etc. etc. I wanted to shoot each and every one of them…and I feel like many others did as well. People were starting to get REALLY annoyed. It was about 11-11:30 AM by this time and we’d been sitting around cheering and acting happy for at least 2 hours. They had the video screens up and you could text message things and they would show up. I text messaged a picture I took of a picture clipped up in my cubicle. It has Paula Abdul on it with tears in her eyes and there’s a caption that says “You Moved Me Matt.” (My co-workers put it up one day for me)!
It showed up literally three hours after I sent it. Ha – another highlight of my day. It got a bit of a reaction from the crowd. The reason I brought that up is because somebody texted “Can we sing yet?” and everybody cheered. We were getting angry.
Finally the MC guy gave us the stock line that we were probably the best and most energetic audience of the whole season. Yay for us. We don’t care. Then they started bringing out tables and another “special guest” Nigel Lythgoe took the mic. Nigel – oh Nigel – you are quite the odd little man. He was talking about ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ forever and then started dropping names out of nowhere just to get cheers. Benji and Travis and Donyelle and Ivan (who’s from Seattle). Just wasting our time. Then he talked about singing your best and not to sing Shakira or Fergie. (He actually started mock-singing and dancing to ‘hips don’t lie’ and ‘london bridge.’). FREAK! He talked about how producers audition Wednesday and judges later this week and then kept saying other freakishly weird things but I tuned out and went to get raped by the Key Arena by purchasing some overpriced disgusting french fries and a $4.00 bottle of water.
Finally around 1:00 our section started to move. This is 8 hours after we arrived at this place. By this time we hated American Idol. We saw about 30 people make it through by this point. (People cheered every time somebody went through). There were quite a few overweight people moving on. Lots of black people too. One of them is this little annoying sassy gay guy with dreads that I see every time I go clubbing. He’s so annoying. I wonder if they moved him through as a bad auditioner or not. Guess I’ll find out if he ends up on TV…or if I run into him while I’m out sometime. We were about the 6th section (out of probably 25 sections) to audition. We made our way down and they did the whole ‘separate into groups of 4’ thing and we waited to go to a table. (there were 11 tables total). We were unlucky enough to be the first to go to a table where the judge/staff member had just come off a break. He didn’t look very nice either. And I was the lucky one to sing first. GREEEEAAAT. I sang “Jealous Guy” by John Lennon and I wasn’t comfortable with my performance at all. But whatever, I didn’t care – after I sang I knew I pretty much bombed it and wouldn’t make it through. I couldn’t hear anybody else in my group sing. We were standing too far back. When we were done the guy told us that he wasn’t going to put any of us through and then said something else but I couldn’t really hear. So we grabbed our shit, went and got our wristbands cut and took the “walk of shame” through the exit that all the rejects go through. HA.
Afterwards (about 2 PM) we went to “Ozzie’s” a huge dive karaoke bar that has karaoke 7 days a week, and ate lunch and drank a bit while wallowing in our misery (not really, but it’s more fun to say that). Then we went home and took a well-deserved nap!
Did I enjoy myself? Yes – I always wanted to experience the audition process and it was fun making fun of people in my head.
Would I do it again? HELL NO – way too much filler and way too much waiting. They know what they want and I doubt it's my cynical ass!
Anyway – that was much longer than I thought it would be so congratulations if you read through the whole thing – www.myspace.com/matthewpauldav
