American Idol

So I just started watching American Idol this week. I usually skip the auditions because they're painful and as far as the producers of the show are concerned, the more painful the better. So now that the auditions are over the REAL show can begin. I had heard that they're trying to do more back-story on the contestants and it's already begun. There were several contestants that they showcased that were immediately cut. I feel bad but it makes me laugh when these kids, who are barely 20, complain that their life is over. "This was my one big chance and now it's gone!" Ah, kids.
Anyway, a couple of people stood out to me. Brooke White was the first person to sing during Hollywood week. They showed a clip of her original audition and she mentioned that she had never seen an "R" rated movie and doesn't drink or smoke so I immediately thought she was LDS. Now she's in the top 24 so I'm sure we'll find out. Also, David Archuleta is from Salt Lake. Hooray! He's a very cute boy and he sings great for someone his age, or even someone older for that matter.
Another cute boy, Kyle Ensley, unfortunately was the last to be cut. He did really well with a Josh Groban song but it still wasn't enough. I just know we're going to have some guy that stinks in the finals and we'll all wish we had Kyle back.
Okay, now I have to talk about Josiah. He is actually the reason I'm posting this since it's really too early to be talking about the show just yet. The first time I heard him he had a nice sound. It was a little different. The back-story they were giving us was of a homeless kid who lives out of his car and is trying to make it in the music business because it's all he has. Well, his last audition was absolutely horrible. He never quite got it together with the band and so he sang A cappella. Big mistake. He sounds good with a band because his voice gives the song a certain flavor. Take the band away and you realize that he can't actually sing. His vibrato is too fast which means he's not singing correctly and is hurting his voice. So after that and all the crying he did about how this is all he's got and he doesn't know what he's going to do after this started to bother me. And here's why: based on his personality, his confidence and his emotional softness, I could tell that he was raised in a good home. The way he talks about how he's had a hard life didn't fly with me. I just got the impression that everything hard in his life had happened because he chose to have it that way. I figured that I could be wrong, but that's the impression I got. Before I posted this I thought I should check to make sure there wasn't something in his back story that I had missed as to why his life was so hard. Guess what I found! He dropped out of high-school, said his mom wasn't too happy about it and he's been living in his car. He also said that he doesn't think his family knows he's living out of his car. He hasn't told them because he knows they'd be upset and want him to come home. I was exactly right! So I'm glad he didn't make the final 24 because he needs something to make him go back home. All this crap about how he's homeless. He has a home, he just chose to leave because his family doesn't "get" him. It's time to be a man, Josiah. Go home, finish school, and for heaven's sake, toughen up a little!