February 7, 2003

Simon Says, Puh-leeze

By JAMILAH EVELYN

Drew Cummings, a Hollywood executive turned professor, wanted to take on Simon Cowell, the brutally honest judge on the Fox television show American Idol.

The professor was going to sing the Frank Sinatra tune "Fly Me to the Moon."

"If they had just let me audition, Simon could have said, 'Drew, you stink,'" he says. "I would have left."

But the reality-based show, in which contestants try to outperform one another in a series of auditions, has an age restriction: Only

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