A sharp contrast slaps many young people when they move West: Back home, they were envied -- the prettiest people in town; in Los Angeles, they joined the sea of great-looking waiters, waitresses and homeless people.
Didi Benami -- the latest person ousted from "American Idol" -- can tell you that. Here's the story I sent to papers today:
By MIKE HUGHES
On the day after her tears, Didi Benami
realized that her life has perked up.
“I can go on tour,” she said. “I
don't have to work as a waitress.”
And after the chaos of recent years,
that's a huge jump. “I faced a lot of ridiculous hardships …. You
get kicked out a lot,” she said.
Mostly, her life offers a warning:
Moving to Los Angeles isn't nearly as easy as it seems.
By all logic, Benami should have been
the perfect person to make the move. She was 19 at the time, four
years ago; as her Web site (http://didibenami.net)
indicates, she's been a spectacular beauty as a blonde (currently)
or a brunette, with approximately zero body fat.
She seems ideal for California, but it
didn't work that way. There were troubles with romance and with
starting a performing career, she said. “I moved six different
times (the first year). I lived in my car sometimes …. You get kind
of used to starting over.”
She had grown up mostly in Knoxville,
Tenn., with a given name (Vered) that's Hebrew for “Rose.” Her
sister dubbed her “Didi” and she now uses both.
Benami went to Belmont, the Nashville
college known for its music program. She was inspired by her
roommate, Rebecca Joy Lear, she says …. then was stunned when Lear
was killed in a car crash, while heading home to Kansas for Christmas
break.
Soon after that, Benami moved to Los
Angeles, where she found waitress work. “I taught myself to play
the guitar …. I'm really shy (but) my songwriting is my passion.”
She hadn't been an “Idol” viewer,
but went to try-outs and “got a lot further than I thought I
would.”
That's 10th, passing the key
cut-off: Each year, the top 10 go on tour; last year, that meant
doing 52 concerts to a total of 484,000 people.
It's a summer – and maybe a life –
without waitress work. “I'll be doing what I really want to do,
what I love to do, this summer.”