[Kitsa]

We recently had a local "audition" for Deal or No Deal at a tiny area mall. It was embarrassing how nuts people went. I mean, people at my dad's and boyfriend's places of employment were taking days off just to stand in line. It was the biggest thing on the news, and they were doing remotes with camera-pans down the line of yokels going "I'm on TV, hurr-hurr-hurr, WHOOOO!" And then they had this line of local high-school girls in Sears prom dresses, pretending to be the Deal or No Deal girls, only one must have gotten there late and they didn't give her a matching dress. So you have ten or so very, uh, local-looking high-school girls in shitty burgundy ballgowns and one girl in a shitty almost-burgundy, ill-fitting cocktail dress. And they couldn't find matching suitcases, so they had ersatz ones from the mall CD store...you know those CD cases that are shaped like suitcases? Oh, it was so sad.

The line was a maze that went throughout the mall and out into the parking lot.

What I couldn't figure out was, why were they at some dinky suburban Midwestern mall looking for people? I mean, I can understand getting contestants from around the country, but yeesh, there's a big city 15 minutes south with three HUGE malls and a more...photogenic...populace.

They never said whether they picked a contestant or not. I'm kind of thinking maybe it was just some huge publicity stunt.

I imagine the American Idol auditions are way worse. You've got 5% aspirants with talent, 70% aspirants who think they have talent, and 25% wacko yahoos who just want to get on TV. And with the first few weeks of American Idol being a cavalcade of freaks these days, they actually stand a chance.