photo submitted/paul marturano“No one was as committed to free expression as Paul Marturano,” Ryan Seacrest, the host of American Idol, said as Marturano strutted his way into the audition room. He grinned as he gazed at 80’s pop star, Paula Abdul. Randy Jackson sat next to her with a puzzled look on his face as Simon looked on discarding a piece of paper.
“There is this girl I know, I follow her around. She hasn’t noticed me it really gets me down,” Marturano sang as the judges sat with smiles on their face. “I broke into her house, when she wasn’t there; took off all my clothes and tried on her underwear.”
The judges’ faces went from smiles to horror the second Marturano uttered the word, underwear. Where on earth could a man so creepy come from? Paul Marturano comes from none other than Cabrini College.
That’s correct; Marturano is a graduate of the class of 1997 and is now a famous celebrity because of this stunt. Since the show aired on the 15th of this month, Marturano has been interviewed by over 100 radio stations and even appeared on a recent episode of Access Hollywood.
Not only has Marturano made these appearances, but he came very close to appearing at this year’s Superbowl. Paula Abdul is set to perform the half time show at this year’s big game and WIRN radio personality, Sean Krause, thought it would be a great idea to have Marturano on the show.
FOX and the NFL saw Marturano as too big of a liability and a threat to Abdul. WIRN will now have to cover the show from their homes as they have been uninvited by the NFL.
“Once again, Paula Abdul should not be scared. It was a joke,” Marturano said, “It’s unfair that WIRN has been denied press passes because of an idea pitch including me.”
Despite the whole Superbowl fiasco, Marturano has gotten much attention for his out-of-the-ordinary song.
“I sang ‘Stalker’ on ‘Idol’ because, first of all.it was really fun,” said Marturano, “I went to the auditions with Milo Turk.the ‘No Sex Allowed’ guy. We got out of the car and just started performing in front of all these people.”
Marturano did not just get up one day and decide to do this. He is actually a full-time musician. Marturano is part of a rock band called “Paul Marturano the Toasty Walkers.” They play original material that is similar to Billy Joel and Ben Folds.
He is also part of a musical comedy duo called the “Hairy Aureolas.” Paul plays the part of Pauly Nipple while Robbie Nipple is played by fellow Cabrini grad Robert Marish ’97.
“The audition process seemed endless for ‘Idol’,” Marturano said. “I was in line for hours and hours and had to get through three sets of producers before getting to Randy, Paula and Simon. Unfortunately, Simon didn’t get the joke.”
The words “Paula Abdul’s Stalker” were some of the most searched words on Yahoo! and Google this past week. Marturano has definitely made an impact with his performance.
“Thinking of the lyrics wasn’t really that hard,” Marturano said. “When I write a comedy song I usually think about a character and the characters point of view and it all comes out. Like, if I were to write a song about Neal Newman I’d probably stick in the words ‘how now brown cow’ somewhere along with something about him always wearing a cape. Does he still wear those all the time?” Maraturano referred to a former Cabrini theater director.
Marturano fondly looks back at his years at Cabrini, and attributes much of his success to his favorite professors, Dr. Zurek, Cathy Yungmann and Neal Newman. Marturano and his professors say he was just as crazy at Cabrini as he was on “Idol”. He would perform one-to- two piano concerts a semester for the school and was actively involved in Cabrini’s television and radio stations.
“I would do it over and over again if I could,” Marturano said. “Half of America is laughing at me, and the other half thinks I’m a creepy stalker. That in itself makes me laugh.”
More information about Paul Marturano and his musical endeavors can be found on his website, www.paulpiano.net. Marturano is a student who definitely took Cabrini’s motto to heart, do something extraordinary.
