My Dinner WIth Simon Cowell

With the new season of American Idol starting this week, I thought I might mention my experience with the show: the time a few years back when Mads and I went to dinner with Simon Cowell at Ming Tsai's Blue Ginger restaurant. Mads and Simon are apparently old friends.

Not more than twenty minutes into our meal, one of the wait staff asked Mr. Cowell if she could show him how well she could sing. Though Simon didn't like the idea, since he was off the clock, Mads was intrigued, so she hit us with a little sumthin' sumthin'.

I'm sure everyone has seen the audition episodes and watched the horrid singers and gotten a kick out of it, but being essentially one of the judges, and having to tell someone how badly they suck, is a different story. I felt exteremly uncomfortable. The girl sounded like Homer's friend from The Simpsons. Simon laughed at her, so she turned to Mads and I for some kind of reassurance.

I looked away and shrugged my shoulders. Mads, on the other hand, said with a mouth full of bread:

"Jesus Christ, woman, you sound like Homer's friend from The Simpsons. How in God's hell can you not hear how atrocious that was? Why don't you help us out here and grab me some more water."

She was insistent that they didn't know what they were talking about, and I knew what that meant. I'd been to enough restaurants to know not to upset the staff, so I mouthed the words "I'm sorry" to her. I figured I'd be the only one who wasn't violently ill that night.

I was wrong, though. I went to see Mads and Simon at the hotel the next day, and found them buck naked with three Blue Ginger waitresses, one of whom was our little auditioner from the night before. Even though for an older guy, Simon kept himself in pretty good shape, I still threw him his tailored black Armani pants and implored him to put them on. Mads, of course, I was used to seeing nude.