In which Simon Cowell tells me I'm not as bad a singer as I thought I was

I had an audition today for a classical a capella group. No small-time college group, neither. This is the motherfuckin' St. Louis Chamber Chorus, son. Because I don't have enough embarassing moments in my life. I mean, check out what they sang last year alone. That's a helluva lot of singing right there.

I'm not sure why I decided to audition for this group -- I think I was just bored one night and said, "Eh, what the hell? At least I'll be able to say I gave it a shot" So, with that attitude set, I drove to St. Peter's Episcopal Church. Fortunately, I got there early, because I locked my keys in the car and my mommy had to come with her spare set. Yeah, I do stupid things when I'm nervous.

So I go into the little room for my audition, and the first thing I notice is that the Artistic Director has a British accent. Yep, I'm on the classical music version of American Idol. Now I'm thinking I'm gonna be on the "embarassingly shitty" reel -- you know, the one with William Hung (a.k.a., the "She Bangs" guy). But actually, he was a lot nicer than Simon. Don't get me wrong, he still said things like:

"Everything that's wrong with your voice comes from breath control."

Which is, y'know, honest. And true. But, hey, singing is a hobby for me, so it's no skin off my nose if Simon Cowell doesn't like my voice. Then he concluded with:

"I think I'm going to recommend you as an Alternate.

This is kind of like being an understudy. So if another tenor can't make it to a concert, I'm in there, baby. To me, this is ab-so-fucking-lutely un-be-fucking-lievable. I was fully expecting to get laughed out of the room. That Simon (I'm gonna keep calling him that even though his name is Phillip) would even consider throwing me in as an understudy is ... surreal.

Thus proving that, if you can sing tenor reasonably well, you'll be able to get gigs a lot more easily.