My husband performed the previous two nights at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco with the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus in a program of music by Broadway (Wicked, Godspell, Pippin) and film composer Stephen Schwartz. The concert also premiered a new work, Testimony, which Stephen Schwartz composed specially for the Chorus. The lyrics are taken from and inspired by the "It Gets Better Project". Mr Schwartz collaborated with Dan Savage, creator of the groundbreaking "It Gets Better Project", to weave a breathtaking and emotional song that speaks to anyone who has ever felt out of place.
The SFGMC recording at Skywalker Sound
Testimony was recorded and filmed at Skywalker Sound two weeks ago. Take a moment to watch it and share it with someone.
If you are not familiar with It Gets Better, this internet based project was founded in by Dan Savage and his husband Terry Miller in September 2010, in response to the suicides of teenagers who were bullied because they were gay or because their peers suspected that they were gay. Its goal is to prevent suicide among LGBT youth by having gay adults convey the message that these teens' lives will improve. The project has grown rapidly: over 200 videos were uploaded in the first week, and the project's YouTube channel reached the 650 video limit in the next week. The project is now organized on its own website, the It Gets Better Project, and includes more than 30,000 entries, with more than 40 million views, from people of all sexual orientations, including many celebrities.
I saw this posted on the Stanford campus. The modern paper chase: do you want an old-school babysitter or high-tech geek sitter? Are there pros and cons?
For more fun with QR Codes check out this blog collection of ridiculous QRs. WTF QR CODES
My favorite FAIL from the WTF QR CODES site. The first couple times I looked at this ad I thought it was selling yogurt. It is actually for a fitness website.
How to make a sexy man unappealing.
I made my own self referential GuyDads QR Code. How sexy is that?
Last week our household had lots of excitement. At the start of the week, we began with our annual physical checkups. In and of itself, not very exciting as our doctor said we were both in good health. However, in the parking lot, I carelessly slammed my thumb in the car door. Fortunately I didn’t break it or snip apiece off. It just hurt a lot. So much so, I started feeling dizzy and had to sit down. I than blacked out and fainted. This, quite naturally, startled my husband. He thought I might be having a stroke or seizure. My eyes had rolled to the back of my head. My mouth hung open and I was drooling. My body was slack and unresponsive. He started shouting for help. A frantic security guard came by to see what the commotion was about. When I came back to consciousness it took me a few moments to figure out who the guy (my husband) was that was shanking me.
If you faint in the parking lot of a medical center, you will spend most of the day in the emergency room. My hand got an x-ray. I had blood and urine tests done. I was given an EKG. I was hooked up to an IV bag. It was a lot of excitement for a bruised thumb.
The excitement at the end of the week was totally of another kind. My husband describes it as:
"Recipe for an Experience of a Lifetime"
- Take the near 300 voices of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus.
- Add an amazing, never-performed-yet song, "Testimony," written exclusively for SFGMC for the ‘It Gets Better Project’ by world-renowned, Tony/Grammy winner Stephen Schwartz.
- Stir in multi-Grammy-award-winning recording engineer Leslie Ann Jones and the famed Skywalker Sound Studio (of Lucasfilm).
- Introduce four ridiculously talented filmmakers from Apple.
- Bake under the direction of the visionary artistic leader, Dr. Tim Seelig.
- And voila: Out of the "oven" will come this Saturday a recording and video that literally will change the world for many people, those young and old who are thinking today that there is no tomorrow for them, who cannot yet believe that it does get better, and who just need to hear a compelling, personal "Hang in, hang on" message in order to turn the corner.
Link: http://youtu.be/sHtcSgsK1kE
The world premiere of this one song is well worth the price of a ticket to our March 20 or 21 concert at Davies Hall. I truly believe this song will touch thousands of lives, as it eventually will be heard across the nation and the world.
Link: http://youtu.be/-zkj9B_DeiQ
