He set the word 'free' to a note so high nobody can reach it.

My insanely talented friend Jared posted this video on his website:



It features him (and my friends Michelle and Jim!) as part of the cast of the Spelling Bee musical, singing the National Anthem at a Giants game in San Francisco.

There's that moment in the National Anthem:

O'er the land of the free......
And the home of the brave

That always give me goosebumps, because it brings me back to a very specific moment of my growing up. Me, in middle school, at an Orioles game at Camden Yards. The cast of the touring company of Les Mis is there to sing the National Anthem. They sing, they sing, and they get to that part:

O'er the land of the free........

They coast on that note, the sopranos' vibrato shimmering in the springtime air... The tenors leap up a fourth and it's like lightning's struck and the evening's on fire, like the whole stadium is suddenly warm, flooding with the perfumed bathwater of these voices...

And that's when I realize I'm gay gonna spend the rest of my life making music.

(The Spelling Bee crew does a pretty kick-ass job with that moment in the song, by the way. Get your goosebumps a little before minute seven.)