Tears Are Falling: Crystal Shawanda-"You Can Go Home"

Now that Iowa eked out a win against my Alma Mater, Northern Iowa, I can resume supporting the Hawkeyes’ endeavors for the rest of their reason. The only time I cannot in good faith support the Hawks is when they play against U.N.I. It’s a matter of principle. Northern Iowa took more of my money, so I’m inclined to support an organization that swindled me out of several thousand clams.
So I’m watching Iowa destroy the despicable Iowa State Cyclones, the third public university in our state. Iowa State is known for a few things: agricultural studies, veterinarian studies, and a yearly event called Veisha in which the I.S.U. students get drunk and combative with the Ames police department. Even after repeated warnings, the students at I.S.U. don’t seem to have enough sense to tone it down a notch just to make sure they don’t get tazered, jailed, and reprimanded for future Veisha events.
Anyway, Iowa is walking all over the Hawkeyes and on every commercial break there’s this spot-obviously a public service announcement-for values.com.
The ad features a song from country vocalist Crystal Shawanda. Her song “You Can Let Go” plays over a video showing a father teaching his daughter to ride a bike, followed by that father walking his girl down the aisle to get married and ending with the daughter visiting her dad who is now dying in a hospital bed. The running theme of the song and video is that the daughter first tells the father how he can let go-from the bicycle, giving her the freedom to roam without the need of her father’s protective grasp, to the wedding day, when the father relinquishes his hand to her new husband. In the end, it’s the daughter who tells the father that it’s ok for him to let go of life-that she’s ready to face the world without him. It’s that assurance, her acknowledgement that she’ll be ok and that he can pass on without worry, that ends the song and the video shows the girl-now older herself-shedding a tear as she remembers the events in her life when her father was beside her helping her grow into adulthood.
I’d never heard the song before that day and I’d never heard of the organization, values.com. A quick internet search finds that the website is part of the non-profit group The Foundation For A Better Life, an organization that was founded nine years ago to “promote values that [it] sees as positive.” It suggests that it is not affiliated with any religion and does not accept any donations from the public. Its sole purpose is to promote through the media, messages involving one of the 52 values that it identifies. The value that the “You Can Let Go” spot is promoting is “everlasting love.”
A deeper internet search shows that “The Foundation For A Better Life” is funded entirely by Philip Anschutz. Mr. Anschutz is a Kansas native who is currently ranked as the 31st wealthiest person in the United States. His wealth was created from oil, railroading, and most recently in telecommunications. He generally supports Christian Conservative causes, was a major donor of both George W. Bush campaigns, and has helped fund the Discovery Institute, a Seattle think tank that criticizes evolution.
Interestingly enough, Mr. Anschutz also has dabbled in the entertainment business. He was a producer for the movie Ray, a biography on the life of Ray Charles. Mr. Anschutz found that a lot of the movie’s drug use and sex was objectionable and ordered it removed.
Most recently, the Anschutz Entertainment Group-or AEG-was the promoter for Michael Jackson’s “This Is It” tour in England. Since Michael Jackson’s death put a halt to those plans, AEG was faced with the reality that they would need to refund a substantial amount of revenue generated from the pre-sale of these events. To overcome this, AEG recently unveiled plans to issue “souvenir tickets” to anyone who purchased “This Is It” tickets prior to Jackson’s death. Since the “This Is It” shows are the intellectual property of AEG, the company can go through with the plans, despite the protests of the Jackson family. AEG is hoping that up to 50% of the ticket holders will choose the “souvenir ticket” option as it will amount to over $40 million in savings for the company.
As cynical and sinister as this all sounds, I am not posting this information to point out how hypocritical the values.com ad was during my Hawkeye/Cyclone game. I bring this up only after going to the web site as the commercial suggests learning more about the organization that was BRINGING ME CLOSE TO TEARS while I was watching a fucking football game. Shouldn’t this ad be running during Oprah? Isn’t this more appropriate for the Lifetime network? Why am I muting the speakers during time out breaks for fear that I will begin bawling while that fake daughter holds the hand of her fake dying daddy?
Why I watch football, I want to swear, fart, and eat Sterzings Potato Chips with lots of French Onion dip. I don’t want to be reminded of my own mortality and later learn that the dude who’s providing the necessary money to make me cry was a major funder of one of the most valueless administrations in history.
I'm not going to embed the actual commercial; look for it if you want to cry. And the morons at BMG records won't let me embed the actual single-they don't want too many people to actually know about the song, I guess-so here's another clip of the chick who sings the song and what it sounds like. It's nowhere near the tear-enducing drama of that stupid ad, but it gives a little insight on Crystal Shawanda.
$10 bucks says her name is made up.