American Idle

In honor of Clay Aiken's coming out party (also known as, his desperate attempt to stay famous without appearing on Dancing With the Stars), I figured I'd finally get around to chronicling my American Idol audition from two months ago.

I'd been waiting for them to hold auditions in Salt Lake for years, figuring that getting some friends together to observe the freakshow that is the Idol auditions and maybe get on TV in the process would be a great time. I was right.

My friends Megan, Marlene and Katie joined me in making the trek up from Utah County early in the morning (they've streamlined the audition process, eliminating the need for camping out overnight, which made Katie's experience much scarier when she auditioned in Detroit a few years ago) and joined the back of the line, already behind thousands of people even though the doors to Energy Solutions Arena wouldn't open for another two hours.

But there was plenty to keep us entertained while we waited. I brought my camera, but as often happens, I didn't bother to get it out. The most eventful thing that happened to me outside was having some girls spill coffee on me, but my friends wandered around to check out the competition. All of the following pictures were taken by Marlene and Katie.


This guy was all over the place, mugging for the cameras. I'm not sure if he even went inside to audition, but you'll definitely see him when they air the SLC audition episode.


Upset at her recent elimination from the National Spelling Bee earlier in the summer, Marlene's new friend here set her sights on another competition. Overall, there weren't as many freaks and weirdos as I had hoped for, but the quality of freaks present was pretty high. Alas, I don't have many pictures of them; maybe my friends have more they can send me.


Oh my gosh! It's AI season 1 runner-up Justin Guarini! Star of the hit movie From Justin to Kelly! I can't believe it's really him! Marlene was one of the lucky few to get Justin to pose for a picture, because his break was over and he had to get back to stocking shelves at Circuit City.


We finally got inside...only to wait several more hours, most of which was filled by take after take of big, sweeping crowd shots, of us sheep singing "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and saying things like "Welcome to Salt Lake City!" and "First Archie, now me!" (a reference, of course, to Murray, Utah's second favorite son, David Archuleta) and cheesy stuff like that. If I'm on Idol at all this season (or ever, since next year I'll be too old to audition) it will be in one of these group shots.


Our foursome was slightly separated inside the arena, allowing Marlene to get this excellently juxtaposed shot (I'm in the green shirt). Calling me Husky Idol is nicer than calling me Fat Idol, or Ruben Studdard, I guess.

Finally, the auditions begin. Once the camera was taken down, the number of tables doubled. At each table sat two producers, and four people at a time would get sent to each station. One at a time, each person sings until one of the producers would hold up their hand to stop you. After all four sang, the producers would huddle behind their clipboards, then tell the group whether any of them were moving on to the next stage. There were so many people that it was hard to hear individual singers, but everyone could see when someone got a golden ticket, and a cheer would erupt from the 8,000 or so in the arena.

Did it just get tanner in here? Ladies and gentlemen, it's Ryan Seacrest! The auditions were paused for a few minutes while we did a few more group shots with the Idol host. I can't stand him, but I will admit that he's very good at his job. He reads a teleprompter without making it seem like he's reading a teleprompter better than anyone I've ever seen.

Here's Katie, once we finally made it down to the arena floor (a mere eight hours after we arrived). During that wait, I had bumped into my friend Talitha and her friend Emily, who played Trish in Napoleon Dynamite. They were both glammed up Pat Benatar-style, and auditioned together. Their combined talent worked, as they advanced to the next round--pretty impressive, since throughout the day it seemed like only one out of every 40 or 50 got to stick around. The next stage involved filling out some paperwork and singing for more producers, and if they liked you then you got to come back in September and sing for Simon, Randy and Paula (apparently they were too busy to come to Utah within six weeks of the original audition date). Talitha isn't allowed to tell me what happened, but I'll be watching for her in January.

Megan and I taking our walk of shame. When we got up to the table, I belted out "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (which narrowly edged out Bowie's "Golden Years" as my song of choice). They let me go for a while, probably about 45 seconds. I tried hard to hold eye contact with the more stern producer at my table and didn't really pay attention to the other one, but Megan told me after that she saw her lean over towards her partner and say "he's adorable." I gave it my all, but it wasn't enough. After the four of us sang, we were told that we were good, but "not quite the quality of voices that the show is looking for at this time." Marlene and Katie received the same verdict and similarly hollow encouragement at their tables. It was time to piece our broken egos back together and head home. So sad. I guess, though, that it's at least slightly encouraging that I'm talented enough to avoid being one of the "bad" auditions on the show.

As we rode TRAX back down south, this couple boarded the train, and proceeded to stroke each other's faces for the entire journey, with their eyes closed the whole time. It was pretty creepy. But at least they were oblivious enough that we were able to document their weirdness. Which, again, was what this whole day was about in the first place.

(By the way...I'm becoming a big fan of the idea of using spokesmodels to illustrate my blog posts. Thanks, Marlene, Megan and Katie. I'll have to use this tactic again during the next sweeps week.)

I'm so glad I auditioned for American Idol. I didn't expect to make it, and I didn't; I did expect to have a great time, and I did. The show is a juggernaut, and being part of it is much better than getting crushed by it. Hofmann out!