But if you make the slightly-longer (by 5 miles) drive to Louisville, you get to do your tryout at Churchill Downs . . . and if you’re really good, you can try both!

American Idol should be properly named American Ripoff. This BS show abuses its ability to expose talent by forcing every talent that appears on the show to sign away the rights to their performances in perpetuity. Perpetuity means while they are live, after they are dead, and forever. The shows owners get infinitely rich while the singers starve. This business model was dreamed up bye the same criminal who thought of the Pyramid Scheme. The whole thing is a scam, and the fact that the Post Dispatch is helping advertise is proof that the newspaper is either ignorant of what is going on, or owned by the same parent company. This is why Monopolizing an industry in this nation was outlawed. Go listen to Michael Erker or some other local talent who deserves a national stage like the Feed’s Dave Grelle, or The Jones Street Boys currently playing in NYC.

To Salvatore,
You are pretty right on, but it sounds like you are jealous. That’s just the way things are. The american public is so blind to this fact that they will watch this garbage on TV and pay for the product it puts out. The educational system in our country dumbs down the general public so the few who are able to rise above the systematic life planned out for us as americans indeed should. You sound like you could take advantage of this system, but you probably don’t. Personally, I am because I realized the flaws in the system like you have, and I have taken advantage of these flaws. As far as the PD is concerned, they do print stories that are of interest to the general public which as I said earlier are raised to think a certain way and the owners of the paper are indeed intelligent enough to take advantage of the system to fatten their own pockets, not American Ripoff’s. In the meantime, let’s hope for the best for these people who are losing everything from the flood. Those people helping in Winfield right now are the true American Idols.

Salvatore…
I think you should consider swithching to decaf. Nobody forces these people to sign anything. Nobody forces these people to try out. If they don’t want to participate they don’t have to. A scam? It is what it is…entertainment. Why do you watch it if you are not entertained. Lastly, take a deep breath, you’ll never have to sing in front of Simon.

The article omits the fact that the most successful idol, Carrie Underwood, auditioned in St. Louis in 2004. She came up from Oklahoma to WOW everyone. So who knows who will show up in KC. This is a good choice of cities for AI.

hi!