The Raving Redhead: Dreamin’ a Dream

Want a good cry? The good kind. The therapeutic kind!

A few days ago, my hubby sent me a vid on Facebook, sent to him from an actor bud of his. It was of a woman named Susan Boyle singing on the British show, Britain’s Got Talent, and when I watched it, it had had about 119,000 views. I just watched it again, and it is now up to 12,116,512 views! (Just after 9:15 Thursday morning.) Probably due to me and my Facebook friends watching it repeatedly. I just cannot cry enough, apparently!

Susan Boyle. My hero.

In the pre-interview, she is having a sandwich, talking about her cat, Pebbles, and how she’s never been married or even kissed. She’s unemployed. She looks older than her 47 years. She’s sweet, but not exactly projecting star-power. She’s the kind of woman you would ask for her biscuit recipe.

She walks onstage, this frumpy woman, with messy hair, no makeup, in a Sunday-go-to-meeting dress and white shoes. She takes the mic, and tells them her dream is to be a professional singer, as famous as Elaine Paige. Everyone is smirking as soon as she states her age, and the audience shots show people rolling their eyes and whispering to each other.

The audience is ready to pounce.

The judges are ready to pounce.

We are ready to pounce.

In comedy, they say you kill or you die. It’s true. When an audience smells a tinge of fear or weakness, it’s like survival of the fittest, literally. Pack mentality. They are hungry, so don’t let them sense an injured doe.

Chomp chomp slurp slurp, breath mint, anyone? Next.

We are so jaded as audience members, no? I fully confess that my favorite parts of American Idol are the early auditions. After that, not so much. I mean, there are tons of polished people out there. The interesting part is the diamonds in the rough. Or just the plastic Bedazzled fake baubles who never quite achieve actual precious stone status. All serve to entertain. Or entertain to serve.

Back to my hero.

As soon as she finishes the first phrase from “I Dreamed a Dream” (from the Broadway musical Les Miserables – she couldn’t have picked a better song) at least one of the judges is tearing up. All their jaws have dropped, and the audience is cheering.

Enter my waterworks. We are watching someone’s dream come true. And it’s freakin’ awesome!

Here’s the part which is beautiful to me: Behind all this is a woman who did the work. Who practiced singing into her hairbrush or spatula in front of a mirror. For years, maybe. Who, in her little town in Scotland, kept dreamin’ the dream. She kept doing the work, faithful in the pursuit of her dream if she ever got a real shot at it. When her opportunity came, for Simon Cowell, Starmaker, to see her, she was ready. No injured doe here, more like, as Simon muses after he regains speech, “a tiger.”

It’s fabu to see Simon Cowell slack-jawed, but even more amazing to see him with his hands on his cheeks looking at Susan as if she is an angel sent from heaven. Watch closely. He even sighs!

I think what Simon is seeing, like all of us, is a woman with inner greatness, which has heretonow been overlooked due to the lack of slick packaging.

That, or his pupils just turned into dollar signs.

12,116,512 people can’t be wrong.

Teresa Roberts Logan’s dream was to get her house clean this week, but due to watching Susan Boyle repeatedly, it never happened. She is a standup comic and artist who is featured on the upcoming comedy DVD from the producers of Apostles of Comedy, “Comedy Angels” and has appeared in the hit comedy series “Bananas” and “Evening at the Improv,” as well as the best-selling DVD “Thou Shalt Laugh.” Her website is www.LaughingRedhead.com and her new book of cartoons is “The Older I Get, The Less I Care.”

For more selections from Teresa and the other NCV writers, please visit the New Christian Voices Clean Comedy Store.