Elimination Night (13 page)

If it wasn’t for the security team hired by
Icon,
I’m pretty sure the prejudges wouldn’t make it out alive. You’re spat at, punched, kissed, bribed, threatened, flashed… and nearly crushed by the hugs of those who make it through. All the while, Len is yelling orders into your earpiece. “Guy in yellow shirt, Bill. Three o’clock. Yes, him. That’s a non-sponsored drink he’s holding. GET IT OUT OF HERE. He’s… sorry, what’s that?—It’s a, oh, it’s a
medical
drink? Well, for the love of God, Bill, POUR IT INTO A SPONSORED CUP, JUST GET THE LEPROSY JUICE OR WHATEVER IT IS HE NEEDS TO STOP HIS BALLS FALLING OFF AWAY FROM THE CAMERA, DO YOU HAVE
ANY
IDEA HOW MUCH MONEY OUR DEAL WITH FREAKY-COLA IS WORTH? JESUS CHRIST ALIVE, BILL, GET A FUCKING GRIP.”

(Five minutes after this particular rant, I saw Len hold an impromptu prayer gathering with a group of auditioning choristers from a Baptist church in Biloxi, Mississippi.)

I probably don’t even have to point out that the contestants who make it into the Talent Lounge aren’t necessarily any good. That’s why
their tickets are stamped with a secret code, almost impossible to find unless you know where to look.

“Think of when you book a flight somewhere and try to change the time at the last minute,” as Len explained to me. “The first thing the call-center operator will say to you is, ‘Oh, you’ve got the wrong
code
for that.’ Only you didn’t know the code
existed
when you bought the ticket—and even if you had done, you wouldn’t have known what it meant. The idea, Bill,
is to confuse you.
And we do the same. That’s why I need you to give a code to everyone who gets through. This week, we’re going to use N for a definite ‘yes, they’ll go on to Hollywood’; X for a ‘maybe’; and Y for a categorical ‘no, but the kid looks like a crier or a psycho, so roll the cameras.’ And remember: NEVER explain this to anyone.”

I nodded, wondering how much longer my soul had left to live.

“Another thing,” Len went on, breezily. “If someone has a good gimmick—y’know, dying kid, mom in prison, amusing facial tic—put a star in the top right corner.”

The Loneliest Place on Earth

IT WAS ALMOST THANKSGIVING
when
Project Icon
arrived in Houston again—this time
with
the judges. Unusually, all of us were put up in the same hotel, which would double as the venue for the shoot. Bibi was in the presidential suite; Joey in an inferior suite on the same floor that had also been named “presidential suite” for the occasion. (The hotel charged us a thousand dollars for the plaque, but Len figured it was worth it.) JD and Wayne were somewhere in between. The rest of us were on the lower floors, but I couldn’t have cared less. I was just grateful that we hadn’t been booked in a motel by the freeway and told to take a bus to the set, as was often the case when we were on the road—especially during one of Len’s austerity drives (in which he never seemed to take part). Not that the king-size bed in my room helped me get any sleep. I can
never
sleep before filming.

First item on the schedule for the next morning: “Prepare for judges’ arrival at hotel.” Now, this might sound confusing, given that the panel was already
staying
at the hotel. But for the sake of the cameras, they couldn’t just step out of the elevators and roll into the audition suite. That would be boring. Instead, they had to pull up outside in limos,
work a line of screaming fans, raise their arms in the air, wipe away tears, say “oh, my God!” a lot, and… well, you get the idea. We also had to make it look as though they were turning up to a stadium, not a hotel. All of which was going to take a lot of work, hence an early “call time” (by celebrity standards) of eight a.m. This didn’t actually mean eight a.m., though, because we were all fully aware that Joey would be late. And however late Joey would be, Bibi would be later by a fixed ratio of time calculated by Teddy, who is said to have invented his very own mathematical formula for such etiquette. So the
real
call time, as the crew named it privately between themselves, was WTFBIR—“whenever the fuck Bibi is ready.”

WTFBIR turned out to be noon.

Even Len, who had never displayed anything but total obsequiousness to Bibi, couldn’t disguise the pinkish flare of irritation in his cheeks. “Right, good. Let’s go, shall we?” he said, grabbing her arm, when she eventually stepped out of the private, bellhop-operated elevator from her room (I noticed Joey looking at it quizzically, but I couldn’t decide if he was wondering why
his
presidential suite didn’t have its own elevator, or if he was simply ogling Bibi’s ass). Then we were off, following Len and Bibi down a hidden service corridor that led to the hotel’s underground parking lot, accessible only by valets and VIPs. Three black Jaguar XJs were waiting: one for Bibi; one for Joey; and another for JD, Len, Maria, and Ed. (In case you’re wondering, Ed was wearing a cowboy hat and checked shirt, which made him look like an actual-size Woody from the
Toy Story
movie.) When everyone had climbed in, the Jags pulled expensively out of the garage, circled the block in near-silence three times, then headed back to where they’d started, only this time at the public entrance on the opposite side of the building. There, about two hundred rent-a-fans were waiting. They cheered while brandishing signs and banners (“Bibi,
I LUV YOU
!”) that looked homemade, but had in fact been manufactured by Steve, our props guy, and handed out that morning, along with free coffee and donuts.

Anything for a bigger crowd.

And then, with a bump of adrenaline that took me by surprise, we had climbed a flight of thick-carpeted stairs to the audition suite, and it was
on.

Season thirteen of
Project Icon
was underway.

I stood with my trusty clipboard at the side of the room, amid a heap of cables that resembled the corpse of some multitentacled sea creature, taking in the scene. It was hard to think of anywhere outside a foreign interrogation cell that could be so intimidating. The judges’ table was positioned in front of a tinted wall-to-ceiling window offering a giddy view of Houston’s downtown oil company skyscrapers. On the other side of the room was a massive piece of wheeled scenery, covered entirely with sponsors’ logos. And halfway between the two was the Loneliest Place on Earth: A circular podium, about a foot off the ground, upon which each contestant would have to stand while trying to win the panel’s approval. Above, two dozen or so microphones hung, ready to capture and amplify every mangled lyric, bad note, and mistimed breath. Cameras peered intrusively from every possible angle. And the lights, wow,
the lights.
Each one like an oncoming train—and hot enough to fry a steak. Meanwhile, an “X” made from duct tape let the specimen know exactly where to stand, and an arrow—directed off-puttingly to the left of the judges’ line of sight (this was deliberate)—indicated where they should look, assuming their eyes were open when they sang. Underneath, in marker, Len had written, “
ARE YOU REALLY GOOD ENOUGH?
”

So… the auditions. One by one, the contestants arrive. Bug-eyed, way tall nerdy guy. Plump, almost pretty aw-shucks girl. The Deep Voice. The Squeaky Voice. The Whisperer. The desperate, weeping, borderline talented but possibly crack-addicted waitress. Clean-cut brothers who hug each other too much and sing in falsetto. The inevitable underage pageant veteran (impressive fake birth certificate) whose first appointment after leaving her mom’s birth canal was probably an audition for a diaper commercial. Hipster chick with tattoos and flapper outfit who sounds exactly like
every other
hipster chick with tattoos and a flapper outfit (about three per season, mainly because they
tend to show a lot of flesh, of which Len approves). Here they come, every size, shape, race, musical genre, dress style, and personality you can think of. Sweet hula girl from Pacific military base with nice voice but nothing to say. Mouthy rocker chick with beer breath and ashtray complexion. Rapping ex-Amish kid. Chinese American football player who’s big into Johnny Cash. Acrobat from the Houston circus who can perform any physical feat
except sing on key.
Beauty queen from Idaho—just turned eighteen yesterday!—with a hot pink T-shirt that reads, “I Da Hoe.”

There’s a twist to all this, however. Before any contestant is allowed into the room, they must first be screened one last time by Len, Maria, and Ed, who form a kind of decoy panel, a psych-ops team, whose aim is to confuse and demoralize. The strategy might not be complex, but it’s effective: They tell the singer the
very opposite
of the truth. The bad ones are informed of their greatness, their limitless potential, and, yes, their
Gift
(“Darling, you’re a tonic for our weary, cynical ears!”) And the good ones? They’re torn into a thousand bloody pieces, informed with a concerned, ever-so-sorry frown, of their obvious, multiple failings, and the
unusually high quality of the competition this year.
If they don’t want to go any further, Len tells them, that’s okay. No shame in quitting. He understands.

The purpose of all this? Drama, of course.

Take contestant number three: A terrible, terrible singer. As pleasing to the ears as a rock stuck in a vacuum cleaner—but he’s been told by Len & Co. of the great talent he possesses. His “instrument” is truly a Gift from nature, they enthuse.
He must respect its power.
So in he goes to the audition suite to torture the panel with twelve bars of
River Deep—Mountain High.
It’s atrocious. A musical homicide.

When it’s over, JD shakes his head and goes into one of his “oh,
man,
” routines.

Bibi can’t even look at the podium because Teddy has ordered her never,
ever
to sneer. “Oh, sweetie,” she coos, trying to sound maternal.

A difficult silence.

Then—

“THAT FUCKIN’ SUCKED ASS!” blasts Joey, who for reasons known only to himself has taken the desecration of Ike and Tina Turner as a personal insult. “Seriously. You should be fuckin’… [sighs] just get the hell outta here, man. This ain’t for you.”

In the contestant’s eyes: disbelief. Only three minutes ago, he had been compared favorably to Otis Redding; he had been asked to give “serious thought” as to who might produce his first album. He had been told to
respect his Gift.

“No, no… this can’t be right!” he says, remembering that he’s signed a contract agreeing never to disclose any “private discussions with the producers,” especially not on the podium. “I
know
I’m good. They told me! Let me sing you another—”

“Duuuuude,” says JD. “Joey’s right. This ain’t for you.”

“But it…
is!
”

Bibi: “It isn’t, sweetie.”

“But… but… [beginning to whimper] my
instrument!
”

Close-up on face. Len’s voice in my earpiece: “Are you getting the tears?
Are you getting the tears?
”

The contestant throws his orange ticket on the floor, stomps petulantly, then storms out in a rage. Only we’ve directed him to the wrong door, and it won’t open. He rattles the handle. He’s burning with shame. Humiliation on humiliation. A handheld cam in his face, pushing closer, pushing closer. He swats it away, finds the right door—this takes some time—and practically throws himself through it, anything to get away from this horror, this travesty. But there, on the other side, is none other than the Evil HostBot himself, Wayne Shoreline.

“This must be the worst day of your life, right?” asks Wayne, chirpily. “Wanna tell me about it? It’ll feel
good
to get it off your chest.
Tell me why you feel so betrayed.
”

Now the contestant falls to his knees. He’s forgotten all about Len & Co. now. He simply
knows
the truth. His Gift is a fact established beyond any question. It has nothing whatsoever to do with what was fed to him a few minutes ago by a trio of manipulative television producers. But this Gift, with its great power, and the great responsibility that
comes with it,
has not been recognized.
Why?! Why would the judges so deliberately ignore it? Are they jealous? Is this… a case of
professional jealousy?
How else could they not see what was so
obvious?
But he can’t get any of this out because he’s wailing, gnashing, beating his fists repeatedly on the floor. “It’s j-j-just so, uh, uh… j-j-just so…
unfaarirgh!
”

At this point we’ve got what we needed.

“All right, cut,” someone yells. Security intervenes.

And then it’s time for the
good
singer to come in, and we go through this all again, only in reverse.

Snake Break!

I SUPPOSE THERE’S AT
least one thing to be said for filming a TV show this way:
It’s quick.
Len makes drama as efficiently as General Motors makes cars. In fact, it takes just three and a half minutes to “process” a contestant in the judges’ audition suite. Enter. Sing. A few words from the judges. Yes or no. Then on to the next. (The yeses are told, “You’re going to Vegas, baby!” referring to the last round of the prerecorded shows, held in Las Vegas, where the contestants are filtered yet again before the live episodes finally air. The nos are given any number of euphemisms for “you suck,” including the JD classic “you’re not ready yet.”)

And how did Joey and Bibi do?

Well, they were cordial, at least. And if they were bored, they at least disguised it, unlike Nigel Crowther during season twelve, when he barely kept his eyes open during the auditions—on the few occasions he bothered to show up at all.

Len’s fears about
camaraderie
proved well-founded, though. It wasn’t so much bad as just nonexistent. Sure, every so often Joey would get mad about the vandalism of a beloved song—thus providing
the highlight of the day’s filming—but for the most part he was uncharacteristically inoffensive and uncritical. What had happened to the piano-hugging Joey from the sanity checks? As for Bibi, she was an even bigger disappointment. She didn’t even seem to be
looking
at the podium half the time. In fact, if one person held it all together during that first afternoon, it was JD, with his reassuring “booya-ka-
kas
” and genuine efforts to offer musicianly advice. Without him, the footage would have been a write-off.