"Love Calls Back" Ad During Tonys Telecast Has People Weeping

A scene from the Verizon/Pflag ad "Love Call Back."

Last night, during the Tony Awards on television, Verizon, the telecommunications giant, and Pflag, a advocacy group for the LGBTQ community, aired an ad that had many weeping, including me.

The ad, calls "Up To Speed," or "Love Calls Back," featured young LGBTQ people who were estranged from parents or other loved ones.

The conversations when these youths came out of the closet to their families went badly, so there was little or no communication after that.  

Everybody hurt because of these situations, obviously.

In the ad, Verizon and Pflag arranged do-overs for these initial conversations. Parents, brothers and others who initially had reacted badly to their kids' orientation since the first bad conversation had time to think about it, and had come to realize there really wasn't anything wrong with their LGBTQ kids, and that they still loved them.

The ad is a nice bit of hope for people who are estranged, and I hope it encourages more do-over calls to reunite people.  The whole thing, of course, is timed to coincide with June, which is Pride Month.

I fully realize that not all families have such happy endings. Some LGBTQ youth and adults remain estranged from stubborn, ignorant parents forever, which is sad to say the least.

I was lucky when I came out. My father immediately supported me. My mother reacted extremely harshly and negatively, but eventually came around. It took a little work, but she did it.

The video is below.  The first 1:40 of the video explains what it does. After that Kleenex alert!  It is a weeper, but worth watching:

Pentatonix Made Me Cry Today (In A Good Way)

A Pentatonix cover of "Can't Help Fallin In Love" has me
thinking of my late dad, my marriage and how well things have
worked out. An essay in this post. 

I totally admit I'm a Pentatonix fan boy, having posted a few entries into this blog thingy about them and their a capella music.

Today, Pentatonix made me cry a bit.

Because I'm a sentimental fool.

Pentatonix dropped a new video today. It's their rendition of "Can't Help Falling In Love."  You can see and hear the video at the bottom of this post.

Zillions of people have performed this song.  Perhaps Elvis Presley is the most famous example.

"Can't Help Falling In Love" was one of our wedding songs when me and Jeff got married. As I like to tell anyone, my wedding was by far the best one I've ever attended. (Duh!) And I'll always remember like it was yesterday that moment when they sang "Can't Help Falling In Love" at our wedding.

So yeah, I've got an attachment to that song, to say the least.

I think it's interesting that Pentatonix released this video today on what would have been my father's 97th birthday.

Dad died a year and a half ago.  But here's the thing. Dad always worried about me. Would I do OK? I had some rough times as a kid. Would I slip back into trouble? Would anybody be there for me if I needed someone?  Would someone catch me if I fell?

There was a very noticeable change in how my father regarded me after I connected with Jeff, and after he met Jeff.

Dad still loved me as much as ever. But I could tell dad had stopped worrying about me.  Because I had Jeff. Jeff would protect me. Jeff and I would protect each other. Everything would be OK. And it is.

When I watch the video of my wedding, there's a great moment before the ceremony started. My dad was already seated, and Jeff's dad came in.  You can hear my dad loudly and warmly greeting Jeff's dad by saying, "I saved a seat for you."

Jeff's dad and my dad instantly connected and bonded. They were fast friends.

Jeff's dad is now gone, too. I like to think that my dad and Jeff's dad met up again somewhere in the afterlife, and they're having a great time. And neither of them is worried about us because Jeff and I are doing just fine.

And here I am on a routine day when nothing special is going on, and I'm getting teary-eyed over Pentatonix singing "Can't Help Falling In Love."

It's 5:15 in the afternoon as I write this. I can hear Jeff snoring softly as he takes an afternoon nap. The dogs are curled up with him, just quiet and happy. I'm trying to summon the energy to go out and work in the garden, a garden that both Jeff and I love and are building together.

Everything is OK. I can't help falling in love with Jeff every day.

Dad was right, as always. I'm OK. I guess I'm writing this because I miss my dad on his birthday. But everything is OK. Dad and Jeff made sure of that.

So watch the video below and if there's anybody in your life that you love, and makes everything alright, hug them and tell them everything is OK.

Revolutionary Cows And VERY Different Love Songs For Your Monday

A strange musical journey brought me to
"Cows With Guns"  

I had the pleasure of visiting my sister Lynn and brother in law David yesterday.

When you go to their house, you never know what kind of music will be playing, and I was certainly not disappointed in that regard.

So un-disappointed that I MUST share a few of the tunes with you.

We'll get to the lovey dovey stuff in a minute, which is certainly something you can't miss, but we need to first deal with a bovine revolution.

I might have posted this one a few years ago, I don't know. (I couldn't find it in the archives) But even if it's a repeat, it's worth it.

I present you the Dana Lyons classic, "Cows With Guns." Musically, and lyrically, the thing is brilliant. So is the animation in this video by Bjorn-Mange Stuestol:



Next, I present you with, seriously, two of the best singer songwriters out there. And they both have great senses of humor in their songwriting.

One is the droll, clever John Prine, who has a long history of crafting ingenious songs for himself, and for performances by the likes of Bonnie Raiit, John Haiit and others.

The other is Iris DeMent, a super-gifted songwriter with a beautiful and unique voice.

They did some duets, and these two offbest love songs are at once mushy and laugh out loud funny. In a way, the songs remind me of my own marriage, which is a very good thing.

Pay close attention to the lyrics in both. The first, "We're Not The Jet Set" starts out over the top sweet and sticky, but that's part of the joke. It's awesome:



The next one, "In Spite Of Ourselves," is a couples' ode to one another, despite the imperfections of both parties.

You get lyrics like "He drinks his beer like it's oxygen," and "She swears like a sailor when she shaves her legs."

Ah, bliss: This is awesome too:

When Two Lives Combine Into One: My Happy But Tricky Story..

My husband Jeff and I had a fight about money the other night.

It wasn't even a fight, really, at least not a conventional one. We do things differently than most couples. The issue wasn't the type of money problem most couples face. Some spouses say the other spends too much money on frills. Others complain the other doesn't keep track of finances adequately.

The issue between Jeff and me was not like that at all.

A still from the play "4,000 Miles" at the
Vermont Stage Company in Burlington, Vt.

From my perspective,  he was nicely staying within our household budget, but spending too large a share of the money he earned on keeping me happy and comfortable, and not enough on himself .

I was frustrated because I didn't feel like I was contributing as much of my income on keeping up the household as I should, I needed to cut back on unnecessary frills for myself, and contribute more to our mutual well being.

He met me that evening at Leunig's a fairly upscale restaurant in Burlington, Vt. before we went to see the play "4000 Miles," a production in which he designed the set.

Jeff's a well-regarded, busy theater set designer, and that was one of his jobs. Of course, he'd seen it upteenth times during rehearsal, but he wanted me to see it, and I also really wanted to go.

After dinner and a drink, we went to the play. It was set in an elderly woman's New York apartment. On the set, bookshelves and tables were cluttered with books, photographs and knick knacks.

The play, presented by the Vermont Stage Company was very well done and well worth seeing, but this is not the place for a review. But I was struck by a running theme running through the dialogue. It showed how   we negotiate life with family and those closest to us with a complicated stew of emotions. Love and devotion, mostly, but also uncomfortable moments, misunderstandings, gaps in good communication, and little shards of frustration.

On the set Jeff designed, he'd used some of the stuff he had accumulated over the years, items that came to grace our shelves and rooms when he moved in with me three years ago. He'd also grabbed some of the stuff I had accumulated over the years. (We have a long standing agreement that pretty much anything in the house is fair game for any of his theater set designs.)

Jeff also used family photographs from his side of the family, and my side of the family on the "4,000 Miles" set.

As I watched the play and noted where our stuff was on the stage set, I found myself marveling about how his life and my life became our life. I know that's not remarkable in the grand scheme of things. Zillions of people get married every year and establish happy, combined households.

I'm devoted to Jeff and he to me, that's plain.  But even with that devotion, it takes time to fully understand the implications of a life that was his and was mine, and is now ours.

That situation was   the basis of our money "fight."  Like every couple, we will spend the rest of our lives exploring and losing ourselves in our combined life.

There will be bumps along the way, and I hope Jeff remains patient with me. I'll probably never learn to negotiate our combined life perfectly, but I'll keep trying and loving the effort. Now that we've been together for nearly four years and married for seven months, I can't imagine living life any other way than I do now.
How lucky can a man get?