We are a nation of fierce individualists, raised to believe in ourselves no matter what anyone says, raised to believe in the greatest love of all, as the prophet Houston has said. If I fail, if I succeed, at least I lived as I believed / No matter what they take from me, they can't take away my dignity.
Or we are a nation of hopeful idiots.
We ask contestants who this year's William Hungs might be and are pointed toward a young woman named Maria Harris.
"I was in chorus briefly in sixth grade," says Harris, 26, of Columbia. Harris says she mostly sings in the car. She tried out for the show to prove to herself that she could sing in public. We don't hear her sing, but even Harris seems to think it's surprising that she's here.
"I think my voice is definitely unique," she says. "I'm not sure if it's they're looking for somebody different and they really appreciate my voice or it's just they're sending people through that they know aren't -- that they know aren't what they're looking for." She puts this last part delicately, as if she's talking to a small child.
At the top of the escalator, far from the madding crowd, Aleks Will, 28, a Los Angeles singer and festival performer originally from Germany, consoles himself on his loss. This is his second time auditioning this year, the first time having been in Cleveland, and it's the second time he was told he wasn't quite good enough. This time, he says, the judges told him not to come back.
He says they told him he sounded too much like Freddie Mercury.
"Freddie Mercury, you know -- it's just kind of in my genes," he says.
He sings:
We are the champions my friend / And we'll keep on fighting till the end.
But we aren't. We are the losers.
