For the past week, my apartment looked like the set of a porn shoot.

Allow me to explain. There’s a little show called Glee on Fox. You might’ve heard of it. It’s about a high school glee club. It comes on Tuesday nights after American Idle. I don’t own a TV, but I’ve watched several episodes on Hulu.com. Starting March 30, Myspazz hosted a nationwide cattle call in search of new talent. Fans of the show or, Gleeks, submitted a veritable avalanche of video auditions. Mine was among them.

My high school, Crowley County (in southeast Colorado)–didn’t have a glee club. There was a choir class, but, alas, I wasn’t in it. I think I intuitively knew I was capable of becoming a decent singer, but I apparently preferred to practice in private until that happened. Considering I’ve been doing singing telegrams for nearly six years now, I’d say it worked out pretty well. I am definitely not opposed to bigger and better things though. So I borrowed a video camera from my singing telegram boss and some lights from photographer Jonathan Shoup and went to work.

Needless to say, it was a learning experience. The original deadline was Monday, April 26. I finally got my finished audition uploaded after the last submission window yesterday, almost two full days late. What took me so long? Well, turns out I’m a bit of a perfectionist. Maybe not quite anally so, but damn close. First, I tried to shoot it without lights. Too dark. Next, the karaoke track I’d downloaded from iTunes wasn’t in the right key, so I had to learn the song I’d chosen, Bill Withers, “Lean On Me”–on guitar. When I started to transfer and edit a decent take on Monday night, I was re-reading the rules and realized I’d broken the one that prohibited mentioning copyrighted music (aside from songs on the song list); I’d mentioned Outkast in my intro monologue. Then, my boss suggested I try smiling more. So, I shot a few more takes.

My final submission isn’t perfect, but at least it’s live. Feel free to give Orange George a gold star.