Even better, you can spread the word to everyone you know about the new song (and maybe write a nice little review?!). It’s a great song to get you pumped during a work out (I’ve tried it out several times… though today I found myself working out to Debussy… explain that one. strange). Here’s a link to my iTunes store page: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/rising/id292299882

Posted below are YouTube videos of the song, including the two remixes.

I’m releasing new music! Next week I’ll be releasing a song called “If This Is Love.” Along with the radio cut, remixes will be available as well. More details to come!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcWfHauAVgM

I don’t even know where to begin in explaining why my mom is the best.  But what stands out to me is something I’ve really come to realize and appreciate in my adult life – my mom is the most selfless person I know.  She’s done and still does so many things for so many people without EVER expecting anything in return — whether it was in her job as a teacher, or as a volunteer working in the schools and maintaining the town gardens, or cooking COUNTLESS meals and desserts for people’s birthdays or when someone was sick, or putting our family’s needs before hers time and time again.  And my mom has done even more things that no one will probably ever know about, because it’s never been my mom’s way to be showy or to flaunt her benevolence.

One of the ways in which my mom is most selfless is in regards to her family.  Something I’ve always kept in my heart about the extent of my mom’s love goes back to when I was about to start my freshman year of college.  The summer before I left, I had an overnight orientation at college.  Well while we were there, my mom had a heart attack.  I didn’t know until weeks later when a family member inadvertently told me (not knowing that I didn’t know).  My mom didn’t tell me because she didn’t want to “damper” this major event in my life.  And that right there is one of the best examples I can give of the strength of character of my mom, and the extent to which she is willing to sacrifice for her family.  It’s all of the little things too… my brothers and I had the best birthday parties growing up by far.  She made games and accommodated whatever “theme” we wanted.  When my brother Tony was a teenager, she never refused letting his friends come over and “jam” at our house (often much to my chagrin, haha) and fed them on top of that!  (that’s a huge price tag as we all know the appetites of teenage boys!).  And over the years, I think we’ve had just about all of our male cousins live with us at some point.  My mom always organizes reunions for my dad’s family.  This isn’t something she has to do.  It requires a lot of work — but she does it because she knows how important it is to the family.

The biggest way in which my mom has been selfless has been in how she’s always encouraged my brothers and I to dream big and go after whatever we want — even though it’s meant that it’s taken us far away from her at times.  I think my mom understands that you should never let your own emotions stand in the way of another person’s destiny.  Not all parents can do that.

I have so many good memories of times that my mom and I have spent together.  Unlike my mom, I am a little selfish and I’m glad that I’ve never had a sister to have to share her with.  :-)  I SO MUCH appreciate that my mom has been letting me whine to her for 28 years!!!!  No one else would ever put up with my whining.  (Funny note – the first time my friend Tedi came home with me for a visit, she heard me whine to my mom and said “WOW, I’ve never heard you whine before!”  Yep, luckily for mom I save it ALL up just for her.  I know she loves it deep down……….. well, maybe not!).  And as an adult, she’s become someone I feel like I can have open and honest conversations with… and still whine too.  I very much enjoy making my mom watch movies that I find to be immature and that feed my teenage boy-like humor (oh how I loved making her watch “Borat” and “The Hangover”).  My two favorite memories of time my mom and I have spent together were on two different trips.  The first is a trip we took to Disney World, just the two of us.  The Aerosmith ride was new at MGM, and we had no idea what it was until we got into the ride.  Well, for those of you who don’t know, it’s a rollercoaster… and my mom does not do rollercoasters.  Ever.  I wasn’t about to let her turn around because I on the other hand LOVE them (this was after she’d had the heart attack too… Leah’s selfishness rears its ugly head again).  My mom, good sport that she is, made it through the ride just fine… but I’m pretty sure she was yelling the whole way.  My other favorite memory is on our cross-country road trip when I moved out here to CA.  I frankly am still shocked to this day that my father trusted the two of us to drive across country by ourselves!  We had a fight at least every day we were on the road as I recall (it got especially bad when my laptop fell out of the car………..moving along…).  But it was honestly the trip of a lifetime and I wouldn’t have wanted to do it with anyone but her.  The day she left though was probably my worst day in LA.  Truth be told… a lot of the time when I say I’m feeling homesick, it’s not really home I miss so much, it’s my mom – and the old man, can’t leave him out.  :-)

People have asked me as an adult where my confidence comes from.  People have asked me where my ability to accept and be open-minded comes from when I grew up in a pretty un-diverse place.  I attribute that to my mom.  Even though my mom came from pretty humble roots in a rural setting in northern Maine, she’s always treated everyone equally, and stressed how important it was for my brothers and I to do the same.  My mom has always stood up for what was right even when it wasn’t the easy or popular thing to do.

When I think of the term “unsung hero”, my mom is immediately who pops into my mind.  So many of you know my mom, and I bet if you know her, then in some way she’s done something for you.  My mom doesn’t want for or ask for a lot, but she deserves to be honored and to know the impact she’s had on others.

Happy Birthday to THE best mom, at least in my world.  :-)

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What I found interesting from a sociological perspective was the reactions that people were posting to Twitter and Facebook.  While there was an immediate barrage of people posting information to donate to the Red Cross and Wyclef’s Yele fund, there were also those posting their outrage over the outpouring.  Comments were made such as, “we should put our fellow Americans first – there are poor people dying on the streets here” and “when do we start putting the US first, especially in the economy we’re in?” and “enough with countries that don’t respect our policies and ‘hate’ americans until they need us.”  It got me thinking about it too… a report came out a couple months ago that Americans are becoming more and more isolationist in their world views.  We want to take care of our own first.  I also think that for a lot of people here in the US, when we hear about a catastrophic natural disaster, we think of Katrina.  We think of our very own people in desperate need of help, and the government failing them.  I understand all of this.  And to be honest, I felt a little torn after hearing these comments about whether or not I should help in the relief effort.

Well, my opinion is this…

The people in Haiti are in desperate need.  Do I think the US and every country in the world should intervene?  Yes.  I would prefer that the US intervene in situations of natural disasters than have them interfering in other parts of the world that don’t want us there in the first place.  When I think of all of the money that’s been wasted on useless, futile wars that could be used for emergency situations like this, it sickens me.

What really made me want to support the effort in Haiti though was that I started thinking about Haitian people I know.  Upon reflection, I realized I’ve taught voice lessons over the years to a handful of Haitian students.  I know all of them still have family in Haiti, as many Haitians here in the US do.  They come here in an effort to create better lives for their family members, many of whom can’t leave Haiti.  The earthquake didn’t just affect people in Haiti, it affected so many of our OWN citizens.  I find myself starting to cry every time I turn on the TV and watch Haitians here in the US not know what has happened to their family members… or when I see them find out that their family member is gone.  The worst was today on “Good Morning America”, when a woman found out that it would be impossible for her sister to be buried in the family plot, and she would have to be put in a mass grave.  Her grief was inconsolable.

There have been a lot of people donating to the Red Cross.  Like many of you, I have serious questions about how the Red Cross uses their money.  I have decided to donate to Doctors Without Borders.  http://doctorswithoutborders.org

I hope we can all get past politics and look deeper inside ourselves to our true humanity.

That was a quote inscribed on a gift that my mom gave me for Christmas.  I love it, and it’s probably one of the most important things that I not only came to understand, but learned how to ENACT in 2009.

What a mixed bag 2009 was!  I had some fantastic moments in my career.  I sang for the Dodgers not once but twice.  I performed at LA Pride.  I worked on a new project with fantastic producers, remixers, writers, and managers, and 2010 will start off with a bang as that project finally makes its way to the ears of the listening public.  I started singing with my church choir and that has opened so many doors professionally AND personally.

Not to say that 2009 didn’t have its low points………. but the last quarter of this year made me feel really proud of myself.  It proved to me that every day is indeed a new day, and a new chance to pick yourself up.  I’m starting to learn better resiliency skills.  I’m learning to expand my horizons.  My class at UCLA was such an eye-opener as far as showing me that there are many dimensions to life, and to me (I’m taking another class starting next week!).  I also learned that happiness isn’t dependent on where you are or what you’re doing… as spacey and new-agey as it may sound, happiness truly is a state of mind.

To sum it up, I am ending 2009 happier than when it started.  So 2009 – I consider you a success!

I wish you all the best in 2010.

For those of you who follow my tweets (ahem, twitter.com/leahdriscoll or just click on that nifty twitter link in the upper right hand corner of this page!!!), then you may recognize that quote from something I posted earlier this week.  It was the message on my “Throat Comfort” Yogi tea bag.  Yogi tea is also the maker of “Throat Coat” tea which is a MUST for singers, and helpful for anyone suffering from a sore or hoarse throat.  But I digress… I loved this quote!  And it absolutely popped into my mind a couple days ago when I made a trip to West Hollywood for the first time in probably a couple months.

I haven’t made it a habit of traveling east of the 405 recently.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with LA, the 405 is a major freeway that runs north to south all the way from Sacramento to San Diego.  It divides the “beach communities” – Venice, Marina Del Rey, the South Bay, West LA, and my fair Santa Monica from the other parts of LA, which includes too many areas/communities for me to enumerate on here.  One of those areas however, is Hollywood/West Hollywood.  My friends who are not “Westsiders” have been getting on my case about how I never want to cross the 405… heck, most of the time I don’t even want to leave Santa Monica.  One part of it is straight-up because of the traffic.  Depending on the time of day, the underpasses for the 405 can be SO backed up that a 20 minute trip could turn into an hour… or more.  The other part is I just like it over here!  It’s clean, the people are nice and laid back, you can easily walk around (and as an east coaster that’s a big deal to me), and it’s clean.  Did I already say that?  However, most of the “action” is happening in Hollywood… or at least the glossy, “cool” action.  Clearly, it’s important for me right now to be near “the industry”, but I prefer not having to live directly in it day in and day out.  Well this week, I had the occasion to cross the 405 to go all the way into West Hollywood *GASP* to meet a friend.  Within about an hour of being there, I was reminded of WHY I live  on the Westside.

I ended up at the Sheriff’s station.

Now before any rumors get started or anyone is concerned, I am FINE, I did nothing wrong, I was just a witness to some Hollywood insanity and went to the station as moral support.

I can’t go into the details of why I was there as I really don’t want to get involved in “the dramz”, however, it just reinforced to me what this town can do to some people’s heads.  So now I return to my quote:

“If you don’t love where you come from, you can’t love where you are going.”

A lot of people who come to Hollywood seem to be running away from something… running away from the past, running from themselves, (running from the law……..hehe).  So many people I’ve encountered seem to want to erase who they were pre-LA.  They get COMPLETELY sucked into “Hollywood”, which in a lot of ways is smoke and mirrors.  The people I’ve seen be successful in the entertainment industry, who have had lasting careers, and seem generally content in their personal lives, are the ones who have created a life that does NOT revolve around hanging out/going out in Hollywood… they seem to create a cocoon of normalcy.  Santa Monica is my cocoon of normalcy.  I feel that over the past year or so, I’ve done a really good job of not letting myself get sucked in to other people’s crazy lives, partying, believing everything someone says or promises (which is hard because by nature I WANT to be trusting).  But it is fairly hard!  You need to be a strong person… and you need to remember who you are.

I don’t think coming to LA, specifically Hollywood, ever fixed someone’s problems.  But I think as long as you keep your head on straight, the opportunities to tap here are endless.

And now I think I will go take a walk in my safe, clean, soothing neighborhood… and appreciate the warmth before the freezing cold of the northeast bites my butt next week!

I decided to record a cover of one of my favorite Christmas songs… “The Christmas Song.”  Yes, that is the real title!  …although most people refer to it as the “Chesnuts Roasting On An Open Fire” one.  My two favorite versions of it are by Nat King Cole and Mel Torme -- I like the classics!  I found a fantastic arrangement of it that I love.  Please enjoy, and I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season!

xo Leah