I'm not going to say that my voice is horrible - on the offhand chance that a Broadway musical director is reading my blog as we speak - but I also wouldn't comment that it is anything stellar. As I was growing up, I had an affinity - dare I say obsession - with singing. I sang everything; usually extremely loud and off key. My mother repeatedly threatened to throw me out of moving vehicles if I sang on the way to school in the morning. It's not her fault; I often tried to emulate Whitney, Mariah, or Celine. My young gay pre-teen couldn't understand that it is hard for a 12 year old white boy to sound like Whitney Houston but lord knows I tried.

Over the years, I slowly and surely improved my vocals through proper instruction and practice with musicals. Well, the moment of truth came when fellow Utility Player Amanda was not at our most recent show. I had to step in for "Boy Band" and work with the three members of our band to come up with a solid performance. We pulled Jes' dad and stepmom up on stage - obviously - thus making the game a little more comfortable - with familiar folks there - however increased the pressure immensely; Jes' dad and stepmom wanted a phenomenal performance and we could not disappoint.

Typically when we have rehearsed this game I have gone last. Typically I don't have the best sounding voice, but usually can improv a decent rhyme scheme and hilarious lyrics that the audience doesn't care. Matt, Ian, and Ariel stepped up to the plate and delivered their improv verses with hilarity. Now it was my turn. Pressure on. Ariel had just delivered an incredibly performance, passed me the mic, and gave me the "alright you're up look". Time to bring it home. I decided to focus on Jes' stepmom - Cindy. Prior to this moment I was thinking of all the things to rhyme with Cindy. Time was running out and my options were unfortunately limited - not many things rhyme with Cindy. What happened after that moment was a mix of luck, divine intervention, and great improv coaching. Check out the video below; I think that I pull off the "straight-dude-trying-to-get-with-the-older-woman" well.

For the life of me, I cannot fall asleep. Reno has blossomed into Summer and with that means unbearable heat. I have both of my windows wide open, praying that a slight breeze might come my general direction. I am way too hot and uncomfortable to even think about sleeping anytime soon. So aside from rocking out to the FAME soundtrack and engaging in an epic game of RISK on Pogo, I thought I would do a blog entry.

It's been two weeks, so I thought I would do another couple of selections of my favorite song covers for the week.

CHER - COVERING "WALKING IN MEMPHIS": Now, it has been established that award winning actress and entertainer of the millennium Cher is one of my idols and icons of life. It is not very well known that Cher in 1995 she covered Marc Cohn's infamous hit Walking in Memphis. Once you adjust yourself to hearing Cher sing this, it is actually a really good cover. 

SAM TSUI & ALLISON WILLIAMS - COVERING "BREAKING FREE": Yes, shocking as it might be, I am probably one of the biggest high school musical fans in the world. There was a period in my life where all I did was listen to High School Musical - or HSM as groupies call it - all day, everyday, imagining that Zac Efron was singing to me instead of that annoying girlfriend of his Vanessa Hudgens. So I am constantly on the lookout for good covers of HSM songs. Now, Sam Tsui actually has a lot of videos on youtube and even a youtube show called College Musical. It's definitely worth checking out - witty writing mixed in with great vocals.

ALANIS MORISSETTE - COVERING "MY HUMPS: I remember working office hours at one of my student org. jobs back at UW-Madison and a co-worker coming in saying that we had to check out this video. I had always been a big fan of Alanis Morissette. Jagged Little Pill had rocked my 4th grade mind and though I did not understand most of the lyrics of the songs at the time, they spoke to my soul none the less. More than anything the video is just hilarious. It showed this humorous and comedic side to Alanis that I don't think necessarily comes across immediately.

Stayed tuned for more selections and feel free to post your own choices as well!

Last night, for whatever reason, I was jamming out to Rihanna's Disturbia - one of my top jams of life - and suddenly had the thought; "I bet an acoustic version of this song would be fabulous, I wonder if it exists"

The resounding answer to that question was yes. I was overwhelmed by the amount of covers that existed for some random pop song that came out years ago. Of course, a significant portion of them were crap, but there was some amazing talent that existed out there. In a time when youtube sensations are commonplace everyone is jumping on the cover-song-band-wagon. Makes sense. American Idol in all of its grandeur bred a culture of performers who crawled out of obscurity into international fame by beautifully covering hit songs week after week.  I even watched a clip of Ellen's talk show a couple of days ago which featured Greyson Chance - the 12 year who did a cover of Lady Gaga's Paparazzi - who got a FREAKING CALL FROM LADY GAGA HERSELF. It was actually pretty adorable, he called her Miss Gaga. People around the world are recording covers of songs with their own unique spin on it, posting it on youtube, and then sit back and watch their video go viral - Greyson's video of him singing Paparazzi has over 20 million hits already.

So I thought I do a new segment for the blog: Ginger's Cover Jams. I decided that every other week that I am going to post some of my favorite cover songs that are on youtube. I decided that Tuesday would invariably be the best day because of GLEE who has pioneered and revolutionized the art of covering songs.

So here are my pics for the week:

1. GREYSON CHANCE COVERING LADY GAGA'S PAPRAZZI - as I mentioned earlier, quite a spectacular video. He is an amazing perfomer and I absolutely just love Lady Gaga

2. CHRIS DAUGHTRY COVERING LADY GAGA'S POKER FACE - Ahhhh I can't help it!!! For whatever reason I find Chris Daughtry extremely extremely attractive. There is something about his sexy baldness, aviator sunglasses, and guitar playing that gets me all hot and bothered. Here is a great acoustic version of Poker Face performed by my sexy mens. Really random digression. I had the thought as I was going through photos of Chris Daughtry - he looks like the illegitimate love child between Vin Diesel and Howie Mandel. Observe;

hmmm Vin Diesel :)

3. BOYCE AVENUE COVERING RIHANNA'S DISTURBIA - Last but certainly not least. My roommate found this band called Boyce Avenue that have a number of covers up on youtube. All of them are pretty fantastic. The lead singer is incredibly cute and adorable with a fantastic raspy masculine voice. He also did a cover mash-up of Britney Spears' Circus and Lady Gaga's Just Dance that made me cream in my pants.

Enjoy!!!! Stay tuned next week for some more youtube cover song recommendations. Now I am off to mentally and physically prepare myself for the majesty and wonder that is GLEE