Existential Idle

I spoke to this guy once. He had tried out for Idol and made it as far as the celebrity judges before getting rejected. And when I asked him about it, he was dismissive, keen to change the topic and even feigned a poor memory of it.

I couldn’t understand it at the time. Surely it was more significant than that. Surely it’s like one of those once-in-a-lifetime things that you wouldn’t mind reliving over and over. This was two years ago. I was young and naïve back then.

Now I think I know why he was like that.

My Idol experience on Saturday, I must say, was completely underwhelming.

Yes I went.

Finally.

And no I didn’t get in.

It was a big drama going into it. I’ve been talking about it for years and then finally my friend (whom I shall refer to as ‘May’) and I finally decided to go this year. We had a half-hearted training regime (three trips to happy hour Karaoke World) and for once it looked like there wasn’t much stopping us from going this time.

But a mere week away, May started to get cold feet and I got the cold. By Thursday I was feeling better and we went to check out the line for Friday morning. There were maybe thirty people waiting overnight, and one party brought a tent. It didn’t look too bad. I said that I wouldn’t audition without her and she said OK and so we were back on.

Come Friday, we’re both prepared to camp out the night. I was thinking if I didn’t get in, there may still be a chance that a Channel 10 producer might pick out my dashing good looks and land me a spot on Neighbours.

And then the rain came down. Another setback. So Friday, in the rain I walked down to the Sydney Convention Centre and checked out the line. But there was no line. So I found Hall 6 where the auditions were being held and this lady told me that numbers have been down this year so there was no need to camp out. This was perfect because it just so happened that May and I were not at all keen about camping out in the pouring rain. So we were back on.

And from here, everything takes a downward turn.

I won’t give you a blow-by blow rundown of the audition day because, like that guy I mentioned at the top of this entry, I can’t remember much.

But let’s just say that all in all, it was rather unpleasant.

Was it that we were disappointed for getting rejected?

I don’t think so. We never expected to make it. But I guess I just expected more. Expected it to be fun. Maybe gain some insight. But instead we were too tired and everyone was too half dead for it to be fun. At least the girls could get free makeup and hair done. All I could do was watch the girls getting the free makeup and hair done. And when the auditions finally came around some nine hours later, it was swift and clinical and I suddenly got so nervous and clammed up and felt like a balloon about to burst and my voice was shaky and then one of the judges said ‘Thanks, good effort, but I’ll have to say no for the moment.’ And I was out of there. And in no time during all that did I find any of it the least bit ‘fun’.

If I was to make an analogy about it, I would liken it to waiting for nine hours to download a porno only to find out that it’s actually snuff. There may be a slight perverse curiosity to it, but by the end you'd probably feel lesser for the experience.

Stripped bare of all the wonders of video editing, the rush of reality was not something I was expecting or hoping to see. All the TV bits they filmed looked so fake. All those shots of happy people lining up you see on TV are actually measured lapses where the producers managed to get people to look excited for about 30-second intervals with bribes of naff prizes like free hair products.

This line made me cringe.

‘Spread out a little more so that when we film, it looks like the line is a lot longer.’

The only three really genuinely excited people I saw all day were JP, the heavy metal guy who’s been trying out every year, a little girl in a red beret who wore too much makeup and thought she could dance and a huge girl who acted like she thinks she’s a lot smaller that what she is.

There was also a sever lacking of silliness. The only one was a naked man in nothing but a blanket. And when he took off his blanket it turned out he was wearing undies anyway. (Not that I WANTED to see a naked man but you know, it was kinda disappointing that he wasn’t fully naked)

There was a Kelly Clarkson look-alike waiting with her parents and I told May ‘She’s a shoo-in.’ But she didn’t get in. Came out of the audition area to the consoling arms of her parents. And May said, ‘she must be a really bad singer.’ Another girl, two ahead of me in the audition line said this was her third go and the last two times she made it all the way to the celebrity judges. She didn’t make it either. Those two depressed me.

I think that I no longer knew why I was going to audition except for the fact that I had harped about going for a couple of years and I needed to shush my own hype.

But I think that maybe going made me realise that wannabe karaoke singers shouldn’t be in a place like this and that disappointed me. This was a place for people who are used to singing on stages and recording. There’s no fun to be had here for the rest of us.

I think that maybe I was too tired to take any fun from it.

I think that maybe I should have taken it more seriously.

But I think that maybe if I had taken it more serious, I would be crossing the ‘sad’ line, I’d still not get in and I’d be depressed for it.

I think that maybe this show is losing steam and that this could be the last year.

I think that maybe I’m just too old for this crap.

I can’t say I’m sorry I went because at least now I will no longer be left wondering. And I’m very glad that I had May with me because waiting alone may have gotten me close to killing myself by swallowing lethal amounts of free hair products. But I am sorry that I lost a Saturday of my life that I will never ever get back.

That in itself is bad enough.