How Do You Solve a Problem Like Richie?

One Sunday evening about four years ago, my roommate yelled to me that he'd be back in a few hours. I got up and opened the door to my room to see him off, but he was in a real hurry to get out of the house. It's a good thing that he forgot his sunglasses and came back into the house to grab them, because I never would have been able to see what he was wearing to go out! It looked a little like a sailor's outfit, but he was also wearing short shorts that matched the top so I assumed that he was going to a costume party or a European schoolboy-themed orgy. He finally confessed that he was dressed up like one of the children from "The Sound of Music" and that he was on his way to a Sound of Music Sing-a-long.

Thinking about it still makes me giggle. To this day, I still make fun of the fact that he attended a sing-a-long (that's how it was spelled on the flyer) with 499 other sad gay men and straight women who secretly think that they can magically convert them. When he came home from the show, he told me all about how everyone would clap after each song and some people would get up and mimic all of Julie Andrews' gestures as she sang about her favorite things. My roommate had to stop his first hand account of the evening because I kept interrupting him by laughing. He was not amused. But, really... imagine all those costumed queers singing along to The Sound of Music and tell me that it's not the least bit nerdy.

Then one day, my friend told me about a little event that would happen at the Music Box Theater here in Chicago. They would broadcast one of my favorite Buffy episodes, "Once More, With Feeling" onto a movie screen with subtitles for people to sing along. My bitch side wanted to slam it the way I slammed the Sound of Music sing along, but the frosty side of me wanted to hold my dry cleaning up in the air and proclaim that THEY GOT THE MUSTARD OUT!

I really loved that episode of Buffy, but it's still a sing along and I hate sing alongs! Fortunately, it was the same night as the Gwen Stefani concert, so I had a reason not to attend the strangely alluring but ultimately lame in my mind event at the Music Box.

If you haven't already guessed, there's a reason why I have issues with sing alongs. It's because I can't sing. I can't carry a tune in a sedan chair, I'm so bad! Whenever I'd attend a birthday party, I'd always have to mouth the words to "Happy Birthday" because I could never be in tune with everyone else. My inability to sing has brought me much shame throughout my life, especially during the elementary school Christmas carol assemblies.

My freedom from my shame would come in the form of a certain platinum blond girl from Orange County named Gwen Stefani. She told everyone at the concert that she loves people who make signs for her to read, but she loves people who sing along even more. She explained that it didn't matter if you didn't know how to sing, only that the feelings and the positive energy behind the words are what really matter.

Epiphany! Any woman who can see through Sanjaya's questionable singing ability is definitely someone to listen to. Needless to say, a little bit of doubt about my own singing went away after seeing her and hearing her speak about it. Gwen Stefani said it was okay for me to sing, as long as I felt good doing it. Be sure to look for me at all of the karaoke bars in Chicago this week during Gay Pride! There is no doubt that Gwen helped me get over my own issues! Ha ha... no doubt.