LA photo essay, part 1

If your cross-country flight is ever delayed and you get stuck in the Memphis airport in the early afternoon, be advised that you will be completely, mind-numbingly bored as this composes the four-hour lull between the busy morning and evening times. That is, unless luck is on your side and you happen upon the first annual Northwest Idol competition held in the B terminal. What better way to kill a couple hours while you wait for Northwest to pull their shit together? "Broken aircraft", my shiny metal ass!

NI strayed from the original format to included a variety of acts: short stories, dancing, singing and public speaking. It was fascinating to be one of the only non-NW people there. Every performance yielded new insight into the inner workings of NW employee relations, and the revelations were sometimes unexpected. For example, the lady in the gold hat got a huge amount of sincere applause. The little white guy in the red bow tie (not pictured) did not fare nearly as well. He read a short story about a man and his dying wife. The woman standing next to me thought it was fucking hilarious.

Interviewing paparazzo

The judges

Interviewing Ms. Paula

Dancing: sexy, in an 'oh God Mom, you wore THAT to church' sort of way

Fashion modeling: new NW flight attendant uniform

Final dance number: they dragged away a chick who joined in the dancing 'on-stage' but let this random fat guy do whatever the hell he wanted

I don't know where he came from but he knew all the words and possession of the microphone, however it is obtained, is nine-tenths of NI law

The winner isn't pictured here--she performed near the end when my camera's battery started fading--but she was good. (I could tell because everyone clapped.) Though the best performance was from Paula Abdul. From thirty feet and a squint she was a dead ringer for the real dame, and she stayed in character the entire time. The best Paula Moment was during the performance in which a woman delivered a 20-minute tirade against injustice while instrumental countryish music played in the background. Everyone looked kind of uncomfortable, giddily embarrassed over the strange combination of solemn subject matter and setting. I looked over at the judges' table to see how they were taking it. Randy was keeping a straight face under his dark glasses and Simon was looking very much like he would give anything for a pair of his own, but Paula--Paula was just boppin' along to the beat. I've never been a fan of the show (Randy's carefully stunted vocabulary drives me nuts, Simon's comments are predictably mean, and I've always found Paula to be a mess of vapid niceties) but time spent with Fake Paula has really mellowed me. Tonight I'm feeling her.