"Somewhere Over the Rainbow"
I am now somewhere over the rainbow...well I'm certainly not in New York City anymore. I'm in Salt Lake City. I just got back a few days ago after the run of a lifetime. It's heaven being with my kids...and yet I miss the City. I have a tradition with my kids here in the City of the Saints. On Sundays I take them to "Music and the Spoken Word", the longest continuous radio broadcast in history. For over 76 years the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has put on a show for the world at Temple Square. It is one of the great constants in the world. Every Sunday at 9:30, glorious music and pithy, benign sermonettes presented by "America's Choir." We go hear the choir and then go to brunch at the Market Street Grill. I believe in exposing my kids to Mormonism through the choir because it represents the very best of the people from whence we come.
So there we are at the Conference Center (the largest indoor religious facility in the world--you can check your facts on this) yesterday and the choir sings, for its final number, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." My son who is 10 leans over to me an whispers, "They're good, but not as good as Judy Garland." I responded with a question, "And do you know who her daughter is?" He answered confidently, "Liza Minelli!" Now that is a son of a gay man. He has earned his gay merit badge!
The last show I saw before leaving NYC was a new Off-Broadway one-and-a-half person play called "The Property Known as Garland." I enjoyed it and meeting Adrienne Barbou after the show.
If the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (with all its closeted gay members) can sing a Judy Garland song, there is hope in the world!
6 Comments:
Gay Merit Badge--that made me laugh out loud! If only, eh? The world would be a much more tolerant place...
My Grandmother was in the Tabernacle Choir in the '70s. She sure loved it.
Anyway, I'd love to see your show come here to Palm Springs!
You got me thinking...I'd like to see the Tabernacle Choir put on a dance number. Hopefully, they would wear better costumes.
In light of the Mormon church lobbying Congress to ban gay marriage, I encourage everyone to contact their senators and rep. to let them know that you think Mormon Temple marriages ought to be banned constitutionally because those secret rituals are kind of creepy and not very much in keeping with traditional marriage.
(This is a rhetorical argument to make a point, people. Don't get too worked up about it.)
For more info about this lobbying effort to ban Mormon Temple marriage (and to find your reps' email address), go to www.stenar.org
That's funny my man...ten year olds are magical and I liked hearing how he made his dad proud!
When you coming to Los Angeles, brother?
I wanna catch the show. I'm a member of the GLAAD theater committee and just met Peterson Toscano when he brought his show here.
He was delightful. Even better he met some of my friends.
Best to you!
We sure would like to see some current blogs about where you are playing now and what you are up to!!!!!
Hey Steve,
Long time no hear!
It seems to me that you must have eaten a lot of Wheaties since high school graduation. I think I like you better in your suit and carrying around The Book of Mormon. That is how I best remember you back at Guinn and Clark. Your dual-natured picture shocked the hell out of my wife(Mariann Smith). You remember her? She remembers you serenading to her while you would dance with her at the school dances. Isn't it ironic how you and I would share pictures on the same page in the school yearbooks but our journeys in life went in totally opposite directions. You went through years of being LDS and then fell out of the church and I went through years of being a non-member to find the church and get baptized while in the military. I, too, served a mission in California, Arcadia waiting for a visa to go to the Ukraine Donetsk Mission. I had to be reassigned to the Russia St. Petersburg mission because the Ukrainian government told me that I was a spy and had to leave the country. It's true, I did spy on them(USSR) when it was still Communist. Mariann served her mission in the Texas Dallas mission and our missions overlapped by a month. I was in the MTC when she came home. Well, we have two beautiful daughters Emily Ann who is 8 and I was able to baptize her in April and Mallory who is 3 and is finishing her stint in nursery. Look, I don't have anything against you or what you are doing right now but I have one request: don't misrepresent anyone or anything in your play that happened at Guinn or Clark unless you have some damn good reason to do so. Mariann and I are living up here in Bountiful, Ut and think that it is a much better place to raise a family than down in Sin City(even though that's where the three of us grew up in)
Take care and good luck,
Greg and Mariann Fessia
Guinn Junior High class of 85 and Clark High School class of 88.
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