The It Gets Better Project is an incredible inspiration and I hope that the message keeps spreading because it needs to. The It Gets Better Project supports The Trevor Project, GLSEN, and the ACLU LGBT Project. Google is now behind it and one of the many reasons that I believe that there is absolute genius behind this company. Their products are amazing whether you want to talk about the Google phone (Android) and witness its outstanding GPS powered by Google Earth, its search engine, YouTube, or even Blogger, they spare no expense in the pursuit of excellence.The above advertisement was paid for by Google and was run during this week's episode of Glee during the first commercial break. I watch Glee irregularly as I just prefer different "kinds" of shows. But I do occasionally watch it. But that's not what I wanted to say here.
Google is using its dollars to speak about an important cause. There continues to be so much negative and hateful speech out there for LGBT people and this was a huge counter to that. They are an enormous company sticking their neck out to purchase ad time on one of TV's top shows and saying to the world that they support gay people and that it does get better. Gay youth are a huge part of the homeless problem everywhere and I see it in Utah. Kids that are born gay are kicked out of their homes and forced to live on the streets because their parents see it as a lifestyle choice.
Thank you Google and to all of the people that signed on with this message in this advertisement from celebrities like Lady Gaga, Adam Lambert, Kathy Griffin, and Anne Hathaway to people I've never seen.
One message,
"There is art to be made, there are songs to be sung, and your life is going to be amazing. However bad it is now, it gets better, and it can be great. It's worth sticking around for and you are perfect and wonderful exactly the way you are. We love you without even knowing you."
Writers please be responsible with your words. You are more powerful than you can possibly imagine and what you put down will be read by people that you can never know. You have so many stories to tell, so much talent, and I just want to ask you to please be aware of this.
Your work shall outlive you and become your legacy. What you pen today can change the world.
I really wasn't intending to write a review of Saturday night's concert but after seeing it, I was so stunned at how awesome it was that here I am doing just that :)
Lady Gaga was everything that I expected her to be and more.
Before the show, there were these huge television screens that people in the audience could text and Lady Gaga responded to the texts so it was like watching a huge chat room. Plus, all the proceeds from the texts were going to her favorite charity (she donates $20,000 from each concert to help homeless LGBT youth that have been kicked out of their homes.
One of the first costumes that she wore early in the show.
When she took the actual stage, the lights dimmed and everyone in that sold-out Energy Solutions Arena (a crowd of 20,000) absolutely screamed. There was this four-story curtain that separated the stage from the general admission crowd that started showing a black and white short film to her music that slowly became more transparent revealing what was behind it. In silhouette was Lady Gaga in costume, standing on ironworks, overlooking a beat-up rolls royce with the license plate "Gaga".
Then the show started and wow was it good.
Before she started to sing her "Telephone" song much later, she called one of the numbers chosen randomly from that billboard and the girl that answered it got a spotlight on her (she was in tears). Lady Gaga told her that she was the ambassadoress of her favorite charity that night and represented all of those people that had donated, thanked her, and invited her backstage after the show to have a drink and get a picture taken. How sweet is that?
She had a camera on the end of this
staff and was using it to highlight
people at the ede of the runway
stage as she spoke to them and
complimented them on their costumes.
Lady Gaga impressed me on so many levels. Her vocals are astounding (keep in mind I'm not musically trained but they blew me away) and she said she wasn't lipsyncing in her own way, "No one wanted to come out to this concert just to see some blond bitch lip sync!" She was also incredibly humble. While playing the piano version of "Born This Way" to a suddenly quiet audience focused on her, she asked for us to remember that her album comes out May 23rd. Here is the biggest pop star in the world, smiling, being appreciative of her fans, and reminding us of her release date. I was taken aback by it. I've been to concerts before...Elton John wouldn't have done that. He would have just assumed you had nothing better to do than follow his greatness and be in line at the proper time.
Lady Gaga also stopped the show several times with profound messages. But the one that hit me personally was that she told us about how she was a nobody that got bullied, that got told by other people that she was a failure, and that she'd never make it.
She said to all of us in the audience to not believe that.
Hold on to your dreams because they can and will come true.
Don't let any one person bully you and tell you that you are a freak.
If you feel that you are a freak, she said, look around you because this whole place is filled with fellow freaks. Twenty thousand like-minded individuals. She said that she'd made a home for her little monsters that night and that her song was sitting proud at the number one spot in America for the fifth week in a row and that nothing looks better than a number one done with a middle finger. Then she stated that tonight, the people on the outside that judged her and judged any of us were the freaks.
So there it is...I'm passing this message on to you. Hold onto your dream. If you ever thought you were a freak for anything you believed in or wrote, you aren't. Don't let any one person bully you or destroy your dream. You were brought into this world perfect just the way you are. Stand up and be proud because just like Lady Gaga, you are amazing and the world will take notice of you. Any of us that haven't found an angent or a publisher for our work, well...we're just in a BAD ROMANCE with publishing right now. But it won't last forever...our break is going to happen. Hang in there my colleagues and don't ever let life get you down.
Faith is not a gift that I ever received, but I can respect those that do have it as long as it isn't used to destroy human rights. Thus, I was curious what this icon had to say about the topic. When asked by Larry King what her feelings toward religion and the church were in general, Gaga replied in a very candid fashion, "I struggle with my feelings with the church and that really, religion and the church are completely separate things. In terms of religion I'm very religious, I was raised Catholic...but at the same time there is no one religion that doesn't hate, speak against, or be prejudiced against another racial group, religious group, sexual group...and for that I think religion is also bogus. So, I suppose you could say that I'm a religious woman who's confused about religion that dreams of a future where we have a more peaceful world for the younger generation."
Lady Gaga was born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta and raised Catholic. Her inspiration was glam rock. Her fuel is fame itself. What she does with her fame, however, is amazing.
What has she shown writers?
<=== 1) To bare your soul. To not be afraid to show your most personal inner self to the world through your writing. This is where the good stuff lies and many of us shy away from it for fear of being judged. Lady Gaga gets judged every day of her life and does she care? Not one bit
2) To dance in your underwear when you have cause to celebrate. When was the last time you finished that extraordinarily difficult manuscript that you've been laboring over to produce and got up from your chair and just danced? You owe it to yourself to do this...it'll feel amazing and you totally deserve to feel amazing. Writing is hard.
3) Lady Gaga showes us that if you live in America, when you add amazing looking men to anything, it makes the production that much better and makes a hell of a lot of money. Stephanie Meyer knew this, Hollywood knows this, the CW (creator of Smallville, the Vampire Diaries, and Supernatural) knows this, and young adult writers know this. But do you know this?
I'm seeing Lady Gaga in concert this Saturday and I can't wait. She's a living legend and she's going to be at Energy Solutions Arena in downtown Salt Lake City (the place where I live).
If you feel that you are a freak, she said, look around you because this whole place is filled with fellow freaks. Twenty thousand like-minded individuals. She said that she'd made a home for her little monsters that night and that her song was sitting proud at the number one spot in America for the fifth week in a row and that nothing looks better than a number one done with a middle finger. Then she stated that tonight, the people on the outside that judged her and judged any of us were the freaks.
