(for those of you who have not been following this blog, please note that I am a fanatical Grobanite, i.e. a follower of Josh Groban. If you don't understand what that is, all of this might make no sense to you.)
After Josh Groban's concert at Lincoln Center's Allen Room this winter (2013), I had a gift I wanted to give him. I guess he gets a lot of gifts. He commented that he needs a warehouse for all the gifts he gets. He apparently has gotten oil paintings of himself, for instance -- which seems like a princely gift indeed, given how much time goes into a painting like that, especially if it's any good.
My gift wasn't in that category. It was just a custom designed tee shirt.
Darren, the security guard, wouldn't let us give him gifts at the exit. I suppose that was Josh's instruction. Darren said he would take the gifts and give them to Josh later.
Afterwards two of us gave him plastic bags to take to Josh. He walked off with them. I have this suspicion that he actually threw them in the trash and never gave them to Josh. I might be overly cynical, but that's my suspicion.
Oh, well. At least I tried -- and I felt this strong compulsion to give him that tee shirt, so, as I said, at least I tried.
I also included some written messages, which he probably didn't get either, or, if he did, he probably didn't have time to read them.
So, I suspect my effort at communication failed. This leads me to think I probably should just blog about it, as he has said that he reads what is written on the Internet about himself, especially if it is critical, which this was sort of, though it was supposed to be in a positive way.
It all started with the Serious Fun concert in April of 2012.
That was really an amazing event. It still sticks with me. Josh was only one of many performers. The event was to raise money for a chain of summer camps that were originally founded by Paul Newman under the name "Hole in the Wall" camps.
These are camps for the benefit of kids who are seriously ill, who need continuous care by a doctor or a nurse, kids who normally can't go to camp. I learned that there are now numerous such camps, all over the world. I think I recall that they said at the time that there were 28.
The concert had some celebrities, like Josh Groban and Paul Simon, but a lot of the performances were by campers -- kids who were well enough at that point to actually get on stage.
The kids were the most amazing part of the show. They were superb performers. There were two kid performances that still stick in my mind.
One was by a young man with dwarfism, who is confined to a wheel chair with oxygen. He was articulate and funny. HIs name was Josh also. At that point, Josh Groban was still doing guest co-hosting on Live with Kelly. I tweeted to both of them that the other Josh would make a great guest co-host, but so far as I know nothing came of that tweet. He was good enough to do that. Really he was.
The other was by a young French woman or teen. She played the piano and sang a song about her fellow campers who had died. She was stellar and the song was a real tear jerker. I have a couple of times tweeted Josh Groban that he ought to produce that song for her, but, again, so far as I know nothing came of that.
The third performance, or rather speech, that really caught my attention was by a mom. She talked about the respite she got by being able to send her sick kid to camp for a couple of weeks.
Now most people, looking at that concert, may have focused on the celebs, or on the kids, but I was struck by that mom. I am a mom, too, a mom of kids with disabilities. My kids are not sick enough to go to that camp, but still they require extra effort.
I thought about how painful it is to think about very sick kids just for an audience in a concert hall -- and how those moms have to think about those kids all the time, not just at the occasional concert.
Now, we need to go back to the history of Josh. Josh was thrust into the public eye by super star producer David Foster, who positioned Josh as a singer of serious, nearly classical music in the adult contemporary category.
Josh did what he was told, and suddenly found himself surrounded by much older fans, telling him how his music helped them deal with overwhelming problems, problems beyond what he might previously have imagined himself. He has commented that he would perform this music and deal with these fans and then go home and watch "South Park" and play video games.
From what I can tell, a lot of Josh's more recent PR efforts have been directed at trying to make what he perceives as his real self better known. He wants us to see that he drinks and swears; that he is wilder, funnier, more sexual, and less religious than the public image that was made for him. He seems to want fans his own age and to reach out to younger people as well, with his music. He doesn't want to be presented as David Foster presented him.
Actually, since I grew up Episcopalian, like Josh, I kind of relate. When people sing religious music, like the Noël album, fans are attracted who are conservative fundamentalists. For those of us who grew up Episcopalian, those songs don't necessarily mean that to us -- at least they don't to me.
In the church I grew up in, Episcopalians were a liberal lot. They sang traditional songs and did a lot of rituals in the church, because they found these things beautiful and moving -- not because they believed the literal words of what they were saying and singing. The more they liked rituals: vestments, Latin, incense, elaborate organs, etc., i.e. the more high church they were, the less concerned they were with the literal truth of all these words.
Episcopalians tend also to be strong advocates of social drinking, something Josh shares, as he has said he wants to come out with a wine that has his picture on it. Josh loves alcohol. So far as I know, he is only a social drinker, and only drinks when he is not on tour. This is in keeping with how Episcopalians tend to view alcohol.
When I was growing up Episcopalian, I was told that saying the Apostle's Creed or the Nicene Creed, even if one did not believe in the virgin birth or the resurrection, was an example of mature, adult flexibility. We did those things because they were rituals, because it was the social thing to do, not because we believed in them.
I'm not going to say that 's true of all Episcopalians. I have met Episcopalians who are more traditionally Christian, but, still, watching and listening to Josh, I think he grew up the same sort of Episcopalian that I grew up.
Also, like him, I had a father with Jewish background. My father's cousins also became Episcopalian when they came to this country. I think that could be a pattern, precisely because of the liberal attitude of many Episcopalians.
I personally am no longer Episcopalian. I have become a Quaker. I don't think Josh is very Episcopalian either now. I suspect that he's not very religious, though he still does sometimes say "God Bless" at concerts, and he did sing "Galileo" on the last CD, which mentions God, so I suspect he's not an atheist.
Still, I can imagine Josh having this conversation with David Foster about the Noël album, choosing hymns, which he knew from childhood, and which he enjoyed singing, but which he did not likely have a strong belief in.
I can imagine, too, his discomfiture, finding himself surrounded by a bunch of very conservative, Christian fans, who did take the words of the hymns to be literally true, and many of whom were much older.
Still, the more Josh tries to distance himself from his traditional fan base, the lower his sales become, it appears. Because, tho he tries to appear cool, he still is a sort of staid, nerdy, awkward person, with a nearly classical voice. A lot of his humorous singing has capitalized on that, the funny juxtaposition of that serious voice and that persona with irreverent or sexual material. He's never going to be a Justin Bieber or a Justin Timberlake -- at least I don't think so, especially since he doesn't dance.
I have this sense, having seen what moves Josh, in terms of Arts Education and helping kids, that he came out of that Serious Fun concert seeing the kids suffering, but not seeing the moms suffering -- at least not seeing the moms suffering the way I see the moms suffering. Josh doesn't have kids. Josh can't understand what a parent feels for a son or daughter.
I did once tweet Josh a link to an article about how a mother's brain changes neurologically due to having a kid. There are a lot of articles about this, e..g
I've been through that. I've felt what happened when I had a kid. I've felt the obsession, the attachment stronger than the worst crush I ever had, the connection with people who are literally part of my body, but who have physically separated from me.
Josh doesn't know that feeling -- can't imagine it. I couldn't have imagined it before it happened to me.
But I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell him that it does help kids if you help moms. I wanted to tell him that that is the role he can best play to help kids -- to give comfort to moms.
Granted we aren't as beautiful a lot as the younger women. Becoming a mom does draw something out of you physically, especially with age you see it.
So I wanted to show him this picture from my family, which I included in the possibly discarded package.
This is a photo from my family. On the right is my grandmother. In the center is her older sister. On the left is her younger sister. I would encourage you to look at this picture enlarged, by opening it in a separate tab. I have always felt that the oldest of the three sisters, the one in the center, looked youngest. She is the one who never married and never had kids. My grandmother had 4 kids, but was always comfortable financially. The one on the left, the youngest, had two, but suffered financial stress. When I blow this picture up, as I am suggesting you do, I feel that the face of the youngest in fact looks oldest.
I wanted him to see that the older, tired, out-of-shape faces that he sees in his audiences are the faces of caregivers. I wanted him to see that by singing to us, he is helping kids, sick kids, other sick people.
So I designed this custom tee-shirt
I included a note explaining that I designed the tee shirt before those awful people calling themselves "million moms" started protesting Ellen because she's a Lesbian. Ick. I'm not a homophobe.
Sigh. It was $35, which is expensive for a tee shirt. I suppose Darren might have given it to Goodwill, but the inscription would hardly have fit anyone but Josh.
I personally love the latest album, "All that Echoes." I think it's a great album. I like it as much as the others, but it seems to be selling more slowly even than the last album, which was apparently the first one of his not to go platinum.
Now part of that is that Josh has changed. With age, his voice has grown richer and darker. The pop music market tends to favor lighter voices. Also, with age, Josh has gained confidence. He is no longer the scared kid who attracted maternal fans. David Foster once joked something to the effect that we didn't know whether to want to have sex with Josh or to nurse him.
I suppose that comment must have rankled. It wasn't a very prudent thing for Foster to say. I can imagine Josh still trying to recover some sense of dignity after that. Still, no one would feel that way about Josh now. He's clearly an adult. His voice is deeper than it was. His voice carries authority. He's entering his alpha male phase.
Part of the situation is, though, that Josh is trying so hard to let us know that he is not who people thought he was -- to distance himself from the image of a young man who comforts older women. Certainly, many of Josh's fans are, in fact, younger.
Somehow I don't know if he understands that behind those worn and drooping faces are families who are being cared for. I don't know if he understands that he *is* in fact helping kids by helping moms.
I would like him to feel that, if he accomplishes only that, it doesn't have to be a bad, disappointing thing. I'm not sure he can get his head around that.
Hence the tee shirt, which he probably never received.
I suppose he won't read this. It's too long. Probably no one will read the whole thing.
That's sort of always my problem. I always have more to say than anyone wants to listen to. That's what I like about writing. I can say at least say it all, without getting interrupted, even if no one ever reads it.
And, maybe I'll find out that Darren did in fact give the tee shirt to Josh. That would be a nice surprise.
[2400 words. Uggh. Blabberfingers]
