To People, he’s just another hot bachelor. To us, he’s the man.

The waiting line to interview “American Idol” winner David Cook is now quite long, and a metro newspaper from his most recent place of residence doesn’t rank near the top of the list these days.

Ahead on the list are US Weekly, People magazine (which just named Cook to its list of “hottest bachelors”), Rolling Stone, Larry King, coast-to-coast radio stations, Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel, Regis & Kelly, the Today Show.

It’s been about a month since his slam-dunk, 12-million-vote victory on “American Idol,” and Cook is still in high demand.

“I can maybe get you 10 or 15 minutes on the phone with him while he’s in the car on his way somewhere,” a publicist says.

He makes no promises, and wonders: “Can you e-mail questions instead?”

A few months back, Cook was just a Tulsa bartender-musician toying with the idea that “American Idol” could be his ticket to the rock-star success he’d always dreamed about. Some of his friends laughed when he told them he was going on the show. He didn’t even plan on trying out at first, just tagged along to support his little brother.

But Cook’s rocker style, gravelly
voice and switch-ups of classic songs struck a chord with fans during this season of “Idol.” He morphed into a frontrunner and has been setting up shop on the Billboard charts ever since. Did anyone see that coming?

Cook reportedly text-messaged one of his Tulsa friends back in February, because he was excited about his first Tulsa World interview as a solo artist. He was witty, polite and asked to pass along a “hello” to a music writer and photographer he’d met back when he was playing with the Midwest Kings.

The publicist calls back, after canceling twice. “We can get you sometime in July, maybe.”

They grow up so fast.

David Cook yawn

At our pre-arranged phone interview time, the phone rings. Another publicist: “We’re running about 15 minutes behind.”

Twenty minutes later: “He has an appointment. Can we do it at 1 p.m.?”

At 1 p.m. sharp, Cook is on the phone and laughing about how much has changed in the past few months. He’s no longer a bartender trying to give away copies of his own album. He is headline news on gossip Web sites, snagging top spots on Billboard charts, peering at you from magazine covers at the checkout stand. Your “American Idol.”

Cook’s average day now lasts from about 7 a.m. to 10 or 11 p.m. with a packed schedule of interviews, rehearsals, song writing and studio work, and performances. As he’s describing this, he lets out a giant, audible yawn over the phone. He is beyond tired.

“I had to schedule that, so ” Cook jokes. “I would almost be willing to pay an exorbitant amount of money for a nap.”

The work, he sees as fun. The celebrity stuff is weirding him out a bit.

“It’s weird, because it sounds so cliche, but it’s really the truth — I got into music to play music, so the whole celebrity aspect of it — I can see the absurdity,” he says. “If it’s what I’ve got to do to allow me to play music, then so be it.”

Even if it means ending up on People magazine’s list of this year’s “hottest” bachelors?

“How absurd is that, honestly?” he says. “It’s a bit unnerving. I mean, I’m honored and very appreciative. But I think if you ask my friends to describe me I don’t know — I’m a goober, man. I’m a ham.”

Beyond the Gray Snail

Even when Cook sneaked back to Tulsa a few weeks ago to hang out with some of his friends incognito, he learned life as a regular guy may be over, at least for now.

“We were eating dinner in the back room of the Celebrity Club (near 31st Street and Yale Avenue), because I wanted to take everybody out to dinner and say ‘Thank you,’ ” he recalls. “And the waiters had to keep coming in and out of the room, so I guess some people saw when they opened the door that we were there, so they sort of crouched by the door and waited, and sort of bombarded us. They were really nice, though. But they totally got caught sneaking.”

He does miss being able to hang out with friends as much as he’d like, driving around a town he knows and playing acoustic sets at the Gray Snail, he says.

“There’s something very ethereal in that,” he says. “There’s something very romantic about the Midwest.”

Not that he would trade any of his current success, considering he’s recording a major-label album, getting the full Hollywood treatment and dating former Idol star Kimberly Caldwell (”She’s amazing,” he shares).

And he got to give “Little Miss Sunshine” an iPod.

Cook and cutie pie, A-list actress Abigail Breslin — star of “Little Miss Sunshine” — were booked on the same “Tonight Show with Jay Leno” episode a few weeks ago. He heard during her interview that she lost her iPod in New York. So a couple days later, he gave her a new one, because she had told him she was a huge “American Idol” fan, he says. She did not mention whether she rooted for him over runner-up David Archuleta, however.

Source: Tulsaworld.com