Andy Grammer is a pretty famous singer-songwriter.
You've probably heard some of his hit songs: "Fine by Me," "Keep Your Head Up," and "Honey, I’m Good."
Now he’s back with a new single and an inspiring video, too.
Grammer at the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Awards. Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images.
His new love song, "Fresh Eyes," digs deep into the hearts of listeners to open their eyes to the pain and struggles of folks who are homeless in Los Angeles.
Grammer explained why he turned his love song into an opportunity to close the divide between society and the homeless: "I was a street performer in Santa Monica," he said. "I’d talk to homeless people a lot. I’d eat pizza with them … it wasn’t us and them anymore. It was just us."
All photos by Ryan Bradley/Rubrik House.
Grammer wanted to change people’s perceptions of folks who are homeless, so he decided to focus his new music video on their lives.
He teamed up with Union Rescue Mission of Los Angeles and went to Skid Row to give the folks who lived there the attention, love, and care they desperately needed.
Union Rescue Mission works hard to care for the over 45,000 people who are homeless on the streets of Los Angeles. With Grammer’s help, the organization gave people makeovers and lifted their spirits for a day.
"I was trying to get to know them … make them smile and make them laugh," Grammer said. He said he had the chance to speak with a man named Michael about how he felt after his makeover. Michael told him, "I feel human ... for a change."
Grammer hopes this video will inspire others to see the homeless folks in their neighborhoods with "fresh eyes."
"If you want to have the best day you’ve ever had, go there [Skid Row] and give something away," he said.
Check out his new music video, premiering exclusively on Upworthy:
Andy Grammer gives a voice to the voiceless by spreading love and kindness to those who are homeless in his new video, "Fresh Eyes." An Upworthy exclusive.
Mia, Leo, Colin, and Laurent Pelletier pose on top of their camper van in front of adouble rainbow while in Mongolia.
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“Blink,” a new film by National Geographic Documentary Films shows how a family with four children, three of whom are going blind, embraces life in the face of an uncertain future. It’s a testament to the resilience of the Lemay-Pelletier family but also a reminder for all of us to seize the day because all our futures are uncertain.
Edith Lemay and Sébastien Pelletier are the parents of Mia, a 13-year-old girl, and three boys: Léo, 11, Colin, 9, and Laurent, 7. Over the last six years, they’ve learned that Mia and the two youngest boys have retinitis pigmentosa, a rare genetic disease in which the cells of the retina slowly die. As the disease progresses, the person develops “tunnel vision” that shrinks until very little vision remains.
The diagnosis devastated the parents. "The hardest part with the diagnosis was inaction. There's nothing they can do about it. There's no treatment,” Edith says in the film.
However, even though the parents couldn’t affect the progress of the disease, they could give their children’s senses an epic experience that would benefit them for a lifetime.
“We don’t know how fast it’s going to go, but we expect them to be completely blind by mid-life,” said the parents. Mia’s impairment advisor suggested they fill her visual memory with pictures from books. “I thought, I’m not going to show her an elephant in a book; I’m going to take her to see a real elephant,” Edith explains in the film. “And I’m going to fill her visual memory with the best, most beautiful images I can.”
The Pelletier family (from left): Mia, Sebastien, Colin, Edith Lemay, Laurent and Leo inKuujjuaq, Canada.via National Geographic/Katie Orlinsky
This realization led to an inspiring year-long journey across 24 countries, during which every family member experienced something on their bucket list. Mia swam with dolphins, Edith rode a hot-air balloon in Cappadocia, and Léo saw elephants on safari.
Colin realized his dream of sleeping on a moving train while Sébastien saw the historic site of Angkor Wat.
“We were focusing on sights,” explains Pelletier. “We were also focusing a lot on fauna and flora. We’ve seen incredible animals in Africa but also elsewhere. So we were really trying to make them see things that they wouldn’t have seen at home and have the most incredible experiences.”
Cameras followed the family for 76 days as they traveled to far-flung locales, including Namibia, Mongolia, Egypt, Laos, Nepal and Turkey. Along the way, the family made friends with local people and wildlife. In a heartbreaking scene, the boys wept as the family had to leave behind a dog named Bella he befriended in the mountains of Nepal.
But the film isn't just about the wonders of nature and family camaraderie. The family's trip becomes a “nightmare” when they are trapped in a cable car suspended hundreds of feet above the Ecuadorian forest for over 10 hours.
Leo, Laurent, Edith, Colin, Mia, and Sebastien look out at the mountains in the Annapurna range.via MRC/Jean-Sébastien Francoeur
As expected, NatGeo’s cinematographers beautifully capture the family's journey, and in the case of “Blink,” this majestic vision is of even greater importance. In some of the film's quietest moments, we see the children taking in the world's wonders, from the vast White Desert in Egypt to a fearless butterfly in Nepal, with the full knowledge that their sight will fail one day.
Along the way, the family took as many pictures as possible to reinforce the memories they made on their adventure. “Maybe they’ll be able to look at the photographs and the pictures and they will bring back those stories, those memories, of the family together,” Edith says.
But the film is about more than travel adventures and the pain of grief; ultimately, it’s about family.
“By balancing [the parents’ grief] with a more innocent and joyous tale of childlike wonder and discovery, we felt we could go beyond a mere catalog of locations and capture something universal,” the directors Edmund Stenson and Daniel Roher, said in a statement. “Keeping our camera at kid-height and intimately close to the family, we aimed to immerse the audience in the observational realities of their daily life, as well as the subtle relationships between each of them. This is a film built on looks, gestures and tiny details—the very fabric of our relationships with one another.”
Ultimately, “Blink” is a great film to see with your loved ones because it’s a beautiful reminder to appreciate the wonders of our world, the gift of our senses and the beauty of family.
The film will open in over 150 theaters in the U.S. and Canada beginning Oct. 4 and will debut on National Geographic Channel and stream on Disney+ and Hulu later this year. Visit the “Blink” website for more information.
Justus Stroup is starting to realize her baby's name isn't that common.
One of the many surprises that come with parenthood is how the world reacts to your child’s name. It’s less of a surprise if your child has a common name like John, Mohammed, or Lisa. But if you give your child a non-traditional name that’s gender-neutral, you’re going to throw a lot of folks off-guard and mispronunciations are going to be an issue.
This exact situation happened with TikTok user Justus Stroup, who recently had her second child, but there’s a twist: she isn’t quite sure how to pronounce her child’s name either.
"I may have named my daughter a name I can't even pronounce," Stroup opens the video. "Now, I think I can pronounce it, but I've told a couple of people her name and there are two people who thought I said the same exact thing. So, I don't know that I know how to [pronounce] her name correctly."
Just when you think you name your child something normal! #2under2mom #postpartum #newborn #momsoftiktok #uniquenames #babyname #babygirl #sahm #momhumor
Stroup’s daughter is named Sutton and the big problem is how people around her pronounce the Ts. Stroup tends to gloss over the Ts, so it sounds like Suh-en. However, some people go hard on the Ts and call her “Sut-ton.”
"I'm not gonna enunciate the 'Ts' like that. It drives me absolutely nuts," she noted in her TikTok video. "I told a friend her name one time, and she goes, 'Oh, that's cute.' And then she repeated the name back to me and I was like, 'No, that is not what I said.'"
Stroup also had a problem with her 2-year-old son’s speech therapist, who thought the baby’s name was Sun and that there weren’t any Ts in the name at all. "My speech therapist, when I corrected her and spelled it out, she goes, 'You know, living out in California, I have friends who named their kids River and Ocean, so I didn't think it was that far off.'"
Stroup told People that she got the name from a TV show called “The Lying Game,” which she used to watch in high school. "Truthfully, this was never a name on my list before finding out I was pregnant with a girl, but after finding out the gender, it was a name I mentioned and my husband fell in love with," says Stroup. "I still love the name. I honestly thought I was picking a strong yet still unique name. I still find it to be a pretty name, and I love that it is gender neutral as those are the type of names I love for girls."
The mother could choose the name because her husband named their son Greyson.
The commenters thought Stroup should tell people it’s Sutton, pronounced like a button. “I hear it correctly! Sutton like Button. I would pronounce it like you, too!” Amanda wrote.
“My daughter’s name is Sutton. I say it the same way as you. When people struggle with her name, I say it’s Button but with a S. That normally immediately gets them to pronounce it correctly,” Megan added.
After the video went viral, Stroup heard from people named Hunter and Peyton, who are dealing with a similar situation. “I've also noticed the two most common names who run into the same issue are Hunter (people pronouncing it as Hunner or HUNT-ER) and Payton (pronounced Pey-Ton or Pey-tin, most prefer it as Pey-tin),” she told Upworthy.
“Another person commented saying her name is Susan and people always think it is Season or Steven,” Stroup told Upworthy. After having her second child, she learned that people mix up even the simplest names. “No name is safe at this point,” she joked.
The whole situation has Stroup rethinking how she pronounces her daughter’s name. Hopefully, she got some advance on how to tell people how to pronounce it, or else she’ll have years of correcting people in front of her. "Good lord, I did not think this was going to be my issue with this name," she said.
Céline Dion and Kelly Clarkson are two of the best vocalists of our time.
There are lots of great singers out there, but only a small handful can rightfully be listed among the greatest vocalists of all time. Icons like Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey and Céline Dion earned their place on that list long ago, and Kelly Clarkson has made a strong case for herself ever since she came to fame as the first "American Idol" winner in 2002.
Clarkson has serious pipes, there's no question about it. That woman can sing her face off, and she just seems to be getting better and better year by year.
Céline Dion apparently agrees. In a heartfelt video shared on social media, Dion enthusiastically praised Clarkson's performance of "My Heart Will Go On" before sharing the video of it from "The Kelly Clarkson Show."
Watch:
— (@)
Dion said that she was moved to tears by Kelly Clarkson's own emotional reaction to Dion's performance on the Eiffel Tower at the 2024 Paris Olympics. "It touched me so tremendously," she said. "You were crying, and then you made me start crying. What's up with all this frickin' crying?" Then she said she was crying again seeing Clarkson sing the Titanic theme song, the biggest hit of Dion's career. "You were absolutely incredible, fantastic. I loved it so much," she said.
People praised Clarkson's vocals as well as Dion's strength of spirit, especially considering the formidable health challenges Dion has faced in the past couple of years.
Céline Dion has been fighting a disease that impacts her ability to perform
In December of 2022, Dion announced she had been diagnosed with an incurable disease that was affecting her ability to sing and perform.
"I have been diagnosed with a very rare neurological disorder called stiff person syndrome, which affects something like one in a million people," Dion said in an announcement posted to Instagram. "While we're still learning about this rare condition, we now know this is what's been causing all of the spasms that I've been having. Unfortunately, these spasms affect every aspect of my daily life, sometimes causing difficulties when I walk and not allowing me to use my vocal cords to sing the way I'm used to."
Since then, Dion has shared her health journey with updates through social media and in the film "I Am: Céline Dion," on Prime Video. She worked for months leading up to the Olympics to gain strength to be able to perform “L’Hymne à L’Amour” by Edith Piaf. It was a highlight of the opening ceremonies and Kelly Clarkson's tearful reaction to it was shared by millions around the world who knew what Dion had been dealing with.
Kelly Clarkson took on the notoriously difficult "My Heart Will Go On" and nailed it
People also praised Dion's generosity of spirit in complimenting Clarkson for her "My Heart Will Go On" rendition. That song is incredibly difficult to sing due to its belted high notes, but Clarkson can belt with the best of them. She took an iconic song that's hard to imagine anyone but Dion singing and made it her own while fully honoring the original, an homage that Dion clearly took to heart.
Clarkson has long been a fan of Dion's, often citing her influence on her as a singer and performer. Imagine having one of your idols praising you the way Dion did Clarkson here. It must feel like a dream come true, but Clarkson has earned every bit of those accolades.
Seeing these two incredible singers express so much awe and respect for one another is just beautiful. So often, people who rise to the top have a competitive spirit that can get in the way of camaraderie, but there's nothing but love flowing between these two. Icons recognizing icons. Talent praising talent. Women lifting up women. People love to see it.
Sometimes parenting tricks are deceptively simple.
Tantrums, meltdowns, and emotional outbursts are the bane of parents' existence.
Once they start, they're like a freight train. There seems to be almost no way to stop them other than staying calm and letting them run their course.
That is, until one dad on Reddit revealed his secret method.
A thread titled "Hack your youngster's big emotions with math" has every parent on Reddit saying, why didn't I think of that?
User u/WutTheHuck posted a simple comment on the subreddit r/daddit earlier this month.
"Heard about this recently - when your kid is having a meltdown, doing math engages a different part of their brain and helps them move past the big feelings and calm down," he writes.
"We've been doing this with our very emotional 6-yr-old, when she decides that she wants to cooperate - asking her a handful of simple addition and subtraction questions will very quickly allow her to get control of herself again and talk about her feelings."
So, basically, when the sobs and screams come on strong, having your kid tell you the answer to 3+3, or 10-7 is a good way to get them calm again, and fast.
OP goes on to call the technique "magical," and mentions that his 6-year-old is legendary in his household for her epic tantrums.
The unique trick became a popular post on the subreddit, with a few hundreds comments from dads who were intrigued and willing to give it a try.
A month later, the results are in. The math trick works wonders.
OK, we said SIMPLE mathAntoine Dautry/unsplash
What struck me as I read through r/daddit was how many follow-up threads there were that said something to the effect of:
The math trick worked!
One user wrote that when his kids woke up screaming from a nightmare, he responded with a simple addition question.
"Soon as my wife closed the door ... [my kid] wanted mommy and started yelling her head off. I remembered the math trick and went 'what's 2+2?' It worked like a charm; the screaming ceased by the second question," he said.
In a separate thread, u/LighTMan913 had a message for "whoever posted here a few days ago about having your kid do mental math when they're upset..."
"You're a mother fudging genius," he said.
"My 7-year-old got in trouble for being mean to his brother shortly before bed time. He was rolled over facing the wall in bed. Wouldn't say goodnight. Just giving mumbles into the bed that are impossible to hear for answers.
"Started with 2+2 and by the time we got to 4096 he was smiling and laughing. 5 minutes after I left the room he called me back in to tell me he thinks he figured out 4096 + 4096 and I worked him through his wrong, albeit very close, answer.
"Worked like a charm. Thank you."
It's not just random dads on the Internet. Experts agree that this method is a bona fide winner for dealing with tantrums and outbursts.
Helping kids calm down can be a challenge.Annie Spratt/Unsplash
Amy Morin, a psychotherapist and author, had this to say about the viral technique:
"When our emotions rise, our logic decreases. The more emotional we feel, the more difficult it is to think clearly.
"A simple math problem requires you to raise your logic, which automatically decreases the intensity of an emotion."
Morin says that the math trick basically boils down to a distraction. A distraction with the added bonus of re-engaging the logical side of a child's brain.
"If you do what's known as 'changing the channel' in your brain, you get your mind thinking about something else--like a math problem. When you shift your attention, your thoughts change," Morin says, adding that adults can use this concept when they're feeling overwhelmed, too.
"When a child is upset, don't talk about why they're upset or why a tantrum is inappropriate. Instead, help them change the channel in their brains and raise their logic. When everyone is calm, you can have a discussion about how the strategy works--and how they can apply it themselves when you're not available to remind them."
Now I just need to get my 4-year-old up to speed on basic addition and subtraction and I'll be made in the shade!
Being social doesn't have to entail lots of talking.
Not all bookworms are introverts and not all introverts are bookworms, but it's probably safe to say there's significant overlap between the two. And while some introverted bookworms might enjoy a traditional book club where everyone reads the same book and discusses it at length, others might not. For some, that much forced talking isn't desirable, but that doesn't necessarily mean they don't want some kind of social experience connecting them to other readers.
There's an ideal solution for those folks—the silent book club.
A user on Reddit (u/ccomplished_Arm3647) shared what a silent book club entails and how they accidentally created one at their local coffee shop:
"So, here's a funny little story about how I unintentionally created a new social group in my town. A few weeks ago, I was at my favorite coffee shop, deeply engrossed in a novel. An older gentleman approached me and asked what I was reading. We had a brief but lovely chat about books. The next week, I was there again with a different book. The same man showed up, this time with his own book. We nodded at each other, smiled, and went back to our reading. Week three: I arrive to find the man already there. He's brought a friend. They're both reading silently. I join them at their table, and we all read in comfortable silence for an hour. Fast forward to yesterday. I walk into the coffee shop, and there are TWELVE people scattered around, all silently reading books. The barista grins at me and says, 'Your club is getting pretty popular!' Apparently, word had spread about the 'Silent Book Club' that meets every Wednesday at 4 PM. People just show up, read whatever they want, and occasionally chat during coffee refill breaks. I've accidentally created the most introvert-friendly book club ever, and I'm happy about it."
Silent book clubs allow people to be sociable without having to be overly social
People are loving the idea:
"Omg this is the type of book club I can get behind!!!"
"Silent Book Club is the best idea anyone has ever had."
"This is the kind of book club I need. I want to be sociable but not that much by talking."
"Silence, books and coffee, I WANT this in my life."
— (@)
Others shared that silent book clubs are an actual, organized thing in their local areas:
"We have a few Silent Book Clubs in my area. My local library started doing it twice a month. I love the coffee shop idea though."
"My town has a silent book club that's so popular you have to sign up for meetings so they don't overwhelm host locations. While this is exactly the sort of thing I'd enjoy, apparently having to preregister is too much for me."
"We had one of these in NC. We met for a social hour, then all read silently for an hour, then wrapped up with another socialization before leaving. We had 20 people at times. The waiters thought we were a hoot - sitting together but not talking for a bit. But we tipped well!"
"I didn't start it but I went to my first one of these in my town recently and it was wonderful, can't wait for the next one this week. Reckon every town should have one!"
"My local library does Adult Silent Reading hours with snacks, sounds pretty similar."
"My local indie bookshop does this - we meet in a nearby pub, everyone brings whatever they want to read. We talk about what we’re reading for 30 mins, swapping ideas, then we read in silence for an hour. And have another 30 mins of chat after. So dedicated reading time!"
"This is so cool. In our country there was a silent reading event in a park, calling all book readers to come, find their own comfort and read together. No discussion, no chats, just people reading together in silence. People can come and go as they like."
There are established silent book clubs people can join all over the country
There's even a website you can check out that lists silent book clubs in various areas and where you can submit your own.
It might be hard for someone who enjoys talking to understand, but being sociable doesn't have to include a lot of conversation. Sometimes people want to be around others who share a common interest, even if that common interest is something being done as an individual and in silence. A little casual chatting about what books people are reading is more than enough for some folks; not everyone needs or wants a full-fledged book club discussion.
If you want to find an already established silent book club in your area, check out silentbook.club and enjoy an "introvert happy hour" with fellow readers.
“I apologize — this is just horrific,” said John Morales during live coverage of Hurricane Milton.
Venerated meteorologist John Morales couldn’t help but get choked up during his report on the potentially devastating impact of Hurricane Milton closing in on Florida—a mere two weeks after being pummeled by Hurricane Helene.
“It’s just an incredible, incredible, incredible hurricane,” Morales began, the weather forecast map almost completely in red.
Tears welled up in his eyes as Morales tried to notify viewers that “it has dropped 50 millibars in 10 hours.”
To most of us, those wouldn’t mean anything. But the anguish in Morales’s voice says it all.
Trying to gain composure, Morales quickly said, “I apologize — this is just horrific,” and continued with his broadcast offscreen, showing just the water map. His voice was still noticeably shaken.
We live in a 24-hour new cycle, which has made us aware of so many global catastrophes and also desensitized to them. But when moments like this happen, when even our ever-stoic messengers are so moved that it also touches us on an emotional level, we are reminded that what happens to one of us, happens to all of us.
That's probably why so many people commented to commend Morales for showing a bit of humanity—which they found particularly refreshing for a news anchor.
"Please don't apologize. Showing some empathy shows you care and aren't fear mongering. <3 We appreciate it."
"No apology is ever needed for being human and showing what we see so little of these days: genuine empathy. Thank you, sir."
"Your kindness and humanity are not a weakness, but the strength that we all need right now. Thank you."
"No apologies needed sir...for someone to show real emotions for other people...is real concern, real caring."
"He showed a vanishingly rare moment of authenticity and actual empathy, in an incredibly cynical and ugly world - a beautiful thing to see in this scary time. As someone whose family lives in the area that is about to be pummeled by this storm, I am very grateful to him for his decency and humanity in the face of this possible horror that my family are facing. He deserves SO much credit for this beautiful display of transparency and empathy - though he obviously didn't do it for the credit but rather, out of empathy."
— (@)
"I debated whether to share this. I did apologize on the air," Morales would later post on X.
He also urged folks to read his coverage of the relationships between climate change and extreme weather on The Bulletin, calling these recent hurricanes are “harbingers of the future.”
Global warming has changed me. Frankly, YOU should be shaken too," he wrote.
If a professional of 35 years is saying this…yikes.