Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Joe.My.God. reports on New World Waking.

My friend, Joe Jervis, who writes one of the top gay oriented blogs, was the inspiration for one of songs in New World Waking. It's called "Dead Inside." His most recent blog post contains his own report of the night. He took this great picture of me outside the venue.


It was thrilling for me that he flew out from New York and was able to be in the show. He took a wonderful picture of Jim and me.

He says:
But like many in the audience, I lost it during the two songs dedicated to two mothers, Gabi Clayton and Carolyn Wagner, whose sons were the victims of anti-gay violence. Together they founded Families Against Hate and were in the audience and recognized from the stage, to many tears. Here's Steve's backstage video of the women meeting the chorus members. There's a few laughs in the clip, but you should get a hanky.

What Joe doesn't know is that Carolyn has been struggling with a lot of health problems. She is battling cancer and, for a very long time has been in the hospital and on intense medication, barely able to speak. We didn't even know if she would make it.

But it was the chorus members themselves who got them there. They pulled together frequent flier mileage and money. It was so amazing. More later!

3 comments:

Chris said...

I wanted to leave a special message to you, even though I commented on Joe's site...I was not able to attend due to illness, but I was so excited for you that the evening turned out well...My husband and I are fans of the SFGMC, and read their very wonderful piece on you and the production on their site. I will definitely be wanting the download!! Monday was a hard day for me, and I was so needing my soul to be filled up with your music...thank you!!!

Steve Schalchlin said...

Chris, I'm sorry you couldn't be there. It was so wonderful -- and the best part was that we were able to raise money for three AIDS groups. I hope you enjoy the CD. Kathleen tells me it sounds spectacular. She's doing the mixing now and it will be ready before Christmas, believe it or not.

I will look forward to hearing your reaction to it.

Chris said...

You will definitely hear from me, and I will be buying this for my Christmas present to myself! I know you have a special place in your heart for the AIDS cause, as do I, so thank you for supporting it with this very successful night. I think you had your soul filled up as well!!!!!! Bravo!