Turning Up 'American Idol'

When Kevin fought back, it had been seven months since QB Doc had performed my cochlear implant surgery, and about six -- after a cushion of time for my head to heal -- since the device had been turned on. At first, the world had just buzzed like a TV tuned to a dead channel. Then it became a gleeping machine, then every voice sounded like a female Darth Vader, breathy, high and synthesized. But that quickly improved. I began passing auditory milestones I'd never dreamed of reaching. The first conversation with someone in the dark. First conversation with someone in another room. First coherent dinner party in a noisy restaurant:

"I'll have the steak au poivre."

"I'll have the salmon."

"Does the red snapper come with tomatoes? Because I get a rash from tomatoes."

"I'll take her tomatoes."

I could hear it all! Every day the input got clearer. And then, in January, "American Idol" returned for season five, and I went from introductory to master class.

Before the cochlear implant, I had almost never understood a single word on television without captioning. And even if I had, voices were just a way of conveying information -- my focus was on understanding what was said, not how it was said. But with the clarity of the implant, understanding was so much easier that, for the first time, I could really focus on the quality of the voice. I still had Simon's descriptions, but now I could hear the performances, too.

I watched from the season premier, missing only two episodes -- one for a stalled subway and one for half-priced martini night with a beautiful woman in a red dress. The audition shows were revelatory. None of the supplicants had accompanying music, and most of the songs they performed I'd never heard, so I couldn't compare them with the originals. (Save for the highway patrolman who sang "I Shot the Sheriff" 16 times in a row, frightening the judges.) Yet, suddenly, I could tell who could carry a tune and who couldn't.

How so? Easy. First, we'd hear five or six no-hope singers in a row, and the judges would cut them to shreds. Then after the chaff had been banished from the auditioning room to cry on host Ryan Seacrest's shoulder, curse like sailors, or do panty-less high kicks out in the street (don't ask), a shy young 'un would shuffle up, take a deep breath and make time stop for 10 seconds. The talent was that good. Or maybe it just sounded that good in comparison with what had come before. But whenever these blessed ones stepped forth, there was magic. And I didn't need the judges to tell me what I'd heard; I could recognize it. A piano note sounds like a piano note and a drum sounds like a drum, but a voice, holy smokes, a voice . . . I realized it can take you to places you didn't know existed. When, closing one audition show, this little curly haired thing named Lisa Tucker strode into the audition room and sang a ballad, it was like being dragged back through the history of heartbreak to the original sin.

"You're going to Hollywood!" the judges said as soon as she was done.

"I'm going to Hollywood?" she cried.

"Yes, you're going to Hollywood!"