Cali Rose | Cali Rose

10 Sep 2026

UKOMMUNITY-ISOLATED BY COVID, CALI ROSE CREATED A NEW FOLLOWING IN THE CLOUD-GUEST ARTICLE BY KIANA KALAHELE

The CC Strummers and Cali Rose are performing a Strum & Sing Along Show at the 2026 Los Angeles International Ukulele Festival. This article, written by Kiana Kalahele, is produced by the Journalism Arts Initiative, which is underwritten by donations from arts organizations and others interested in supporting excellence in arts journalism. This photo is from their Zoom interview.

UKOMMUNITY
Isolated by Covid, Cali Rose Created A New Following in the Cloud

By Kiana Kalahele

Even before Bob Dylan, musicians were making up life stories to give themselves a more memorable brand for their performances. Cali Rose was able to skip this step of career enhancement because her true story sounds more far-fetched than fiction.

She was in nursing school and working a late-night shift in the emergency room when her epiphany occurred. “I realized that I’m not doing what I want to do. Is that all there is?” she said in a recent Zoom interview.

Her supervisor met with her that night and said, “You’re doing great, but I have a feeling something is really bothering you.”

Cali broke down, admitting that all she wanted to do was to play music in piano bars. Her supervisor listened and then told her, “If you don’t do it now, you never will.”

She dropped out of nursing school and a short time later, through a friend of a friend, got her first paid gig in a Los Angeles red-light district piano bar.

She laughs as she remembers those early nights and how excited she was. The women working the streets took her under their wing, teaching her how to dress for a piano bar, how to carry herself. Those first performances were terrifying, she admits, but also electrifying. When someone left Cali her first tip, three dimes, she was so overjoyed that she glued them to a piece of wood and made herself a trophy.

Piano got her started, but ukulele turned out to be her teaching passion, and that’s what she’ll be playing at the 10th Annual Los Angeles International Ukulele Festival in Torrance Sept. 18-20, 2026.

Born in Washington, D.C., Cali was raised on the keys of her great aunt’s Steinway and learned early on that music could be both refuge and rebellion. Even as a child, she gravitated toward sound, treating music as a second language.

“It’s just one of those things where I could hear something, and then could plunk it out on the piano,” Cali recalled. “I think maybe I was 5 or 6 years old.”

She resisted the structure of lessons, instead choosing to follow her ear. Her great aunt did not appreciate that approach, but when she moved with her parents to California when she was 9, her new piano teacher embraced it and encouraged her to explore music in her own way.

“A good teacher wants to check in with the student and see where they are, where they want to go, to listen and follow their lead in a gentle but persuasive way,” Cali stated. “Ultimately, they remind the student that they are also the teacher.”

Her mother was a nurse, and as Cali started to follow that career path, she felt music pulling her. But she thought back to the fateful night that changed her life. “It’s crazy to me how many people in the world are not getting paid to do something that at least gives them the feeling of being alive,” she said. “And I thought, ‘Well, maybe I have a crack at that. Who knows?’” It helped that she also played guitar, banjo and wrote songs.

She stayed in piano bars for more than 20 years. It was at one of those restaurants that she met her husband, Craig Brandau, who sat in with her on his guitar and eventually embraced the ukulele himself.

Craig ordered her first custom ukulele. A Ko’olau Tenor. “It took them months to build it,” she recalled. Holding the beautifully crafted instrument in her hands, Cali knew what she had to do. “Oh my god, I better learn how to really play it!”

The quality of the instrument made her want to keep learning, and by May 2010, she was teaching her first beginner ukulele class at a local senior center. Within a week, her class began to grow.

“The staff asked me to teach another day and I said, ‘Well okay.’” Soon she was running a Monday beginner’s class and a Thursday intermediate class and it didn’t stop there.

“We outgrew the room. They had to put us into another room, but we outgrew that room too, and they had to put us in the really big room.”

For Cali, this momentum wasn’t a mystery. “It kept growing because of the magic of the ukulele and the magic of the community,” she said. “It creates a sense of ohana, of family.”

Today, Cali continues to write songs, has recorded several albums and teaches in person and online. “Before the pandemic, I had never even heard of Zoom,” she recalled. Yet within two weeks of the shutdown, she was online, welcoming anyone from anywhere into her classes. “I started Zoom classes to let anybody join our group, and that has persisted over the years.”

Cali’s ukulele community, the CC Strummers, now reaches more than 600 people through her weekly newsletter. “After the pandemic, people jumped right back into their lives, and I just let them know our doors are always open. Come when you can.”

Washington State based couple Bobbie Hasselbring and Anne Weaver are among the students who joined Cali’s beginner classes when she moved her teaching to Zoom.

“When the pandemic hit, I wanted to learn a new skill, and one of our friends was a long‑time ukulele player who knew Cali,” Hasselbring said. “I’ve now been playing ukulele for six years.”

Both Hasselbring and Weaver credit Cali for opening the door to a new passion. “Everything I’ve learned about ukulele is from her,” Weaver said, noting she had no ukulele experience at all before starting classes.

Since then, the pair have gone on to teach their own beginner and intermediate classes for people in their community. “We call ourselves the PT Strummers,” Weaver said. “Most of our strummers have never played music, and most of them are retired. So having that community part is the most important.”

Togetherness is at the heart of Cali’s teaching philosophy. She describes the feeling that emerges in her group as collective effervescence. “It’s the spark that happens when people gather, play, and become part of something larger than themselves.”

Even at ukulele festivals, collective effervescence happens. “There’s no hierarchy of performer, teacher, and student there,” she said. “Everyone is on the same ground floor, playing side by side and learning from one another.”

Cali can’t imagine another musical setting where that kind of connection comes so naturally.

At the festival, Cali and The CC Strummers, will lead a strum and sing-along for attendees. She hopes to get everyone playing, even if it’s just a chord or two. “It’s that type of togetherness that creates community,” she shared. “You’re not just watching the performance, you’re part of it.”

For Cali, the magic happens when people simply sit together and let the ukulele do the talking, because it’s in those moments when something real and communal can unfold. “I just don’t think you can achieve this with any other musical instrument.”

Kiana Kalahele, hailing from Oahu, Hawaii, is a 2024 graduate of Chapman University with dual degrees in business administration marketing and journalism. She currently works in accounting at her high school alma mater, Kamehameha Schools, while actively pursuing her passion for writing on the side.

This feature is produced by the Journalism Arts Initiative, which is underwritten by donations from arts organizations and others interested in supporting excellence in arts journalism.

_ _

10th Annual Los Angeles International Ukulele Festival, Torrance Cultural Arts Center, 3330 Civic Center Drive, Torrance. Friday, Sept. 18, 7 P.M. Feng E concert, $40, including fees. Saturday, Sept. 19, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (doors open at 8:30 a.m.). Entrance of $59, including fees, is for all performances by Cali Rose Brandau and other all-star ukulele artists throughout the day, plus all workshops by her and other performers. Performance pass of $29, including fees, is for performances only. Children 17 and under are free with a paid adult. Onsite parking is free. Ukulele Marketplace (instruments, accessories, open mic, food and shave ice) is free and open to the public, and there will be free classes for total beginners (does not include admission into the festival Saturday). Sunday, Sept. 20, Sunday brunch from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. is $69, including fees, for food, intimate ukulele workshops and jam sessions by festival performers. Sunday at 2 p.m. the internationally touring Langley Ukulele Ensemble performs at 2 p.m., $27.50-$37.50, including fees. For more information and ticket purchase, see https://losangelesukulelefestival.com For an FAQ about everything else, see https://losangelesukulelefestival.com/faq.

Contact Cali at https://calirose.com/wackyworld

5 Sep 2026

ET CETERA, ET CETERA, ET CETERA

This is a story about my first (and life-long) crush. We met at the movies. I was perched between my mother and father in a grand theater near downtown Washington D.C., my little legs dangling well off the floor. I remember the thick red curtains opening ever so slowly, revealing a screen of vibrant colors. And then there was music…an overture of rapturous sounds like I had never heard. Or felt. Maybe this was the first moment I realized I was alive. I was here in this world.

And that was only the beginning. Because it wasn’t long before I saw him. The man who taught me my first words in Latin: Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera. This exotic bald creature, with glittering clothes that hung loosely on and off his b-o-d-y. He wore an earring. Who does that? Mister Clean? I don’t know if he’s a good guy. Or a bad guy. And I don’t care either. I love my daddy but now I love The King too.

This earth-shaking afternoon ignited my enduring passion for the music of Rodgers and Hammerstein. And Yul Brynner. I forgave him for playing “Rameses the Rotten” in The Ten Commandments. But, like my father, I would never forgive him for smoking.

I saw The King in person. Twice. The second time was at the Pantages Theater for his last Los Angeles whirl in The King and I. It was 1983 and Yul Brynner had received the dire news that he had inoperable lung cancer. But still, he totally inhabited his role as the king and for those blissful two and a half hours, it was just the music, the king and me…all over again. At the curtain call the audience cheered as he playfully spun one of the pedestal props around in circles and laughed–a deep, resonate exclamation of joy that bellowed clear up to the mezzanine. I can still hear it. I can still feel it.

🛒

But…I also saw Yul Brynner at a local grocery store…circa late 1960’s. The story unfolds like this:

Just as I am pushing my cart around the corner to the canned vegetable aisle, there he is. Doing a full squat as he examines cans of green beans on the bottom shelf. I am several feet away, hanging onto the cart with a death grip. It’s a Twilight Zone moment. Time stops. Everything disappears. Except him. I watch, in stunned silence, as The King gracefully rises to his feet, like a freaky middle-aged ballet dancer, drops a couple cans in his cart and rolls away. And just like that he’s gone, gone, gone. And me? I can’t get my legs to work. Fortunately there is no one in the general vicinity to witness this or tap me on the shoulder asking if I’m okay.

After regaining consciousness, I resolve that the next time I see someone, anyone, whose presence has touched me deeply, I will put on my big-girl pants and thank them for their work. That lesson has stuck.

😬

So… What does all this have to do with my cracked night guard?

Well my teeth-grinder-dentist retired and sold his practice to a new guy who re-opened the office in my old neighborhood, which today is upscale hip and has lousy parking. Not my kind of hang and it’s been a long time since I’ve walked along San Vicente Boulevard. My husband’s night guard is wonky too so last month we both head north…just a few miles…into another world (and for me, another time). He scores a parking spot without a meter. Dude!

That’s when I spot “THE grocery store.” OMG it’s still there, with a big banner out front promoting its 78th Anniversary. I can’t believe what I’m seeing and all those Yul Brynner and daddy memories are flooding back. In torrents.

I have to check this out and Craig gamely follows me into the store. It’s uncanny how my feet know exactly where to go. “To the left. Make a right.” Whoa! There are the green beans—on the same bottom shelf in the middle of the very same aisle. My husband stations himself exactly where the cart and I froze, lo those many years ago, and snaps a picture as I drop into my best Yul Brynner squat. Unlike his graceful re-ascension to a kingly stance, I have to push myself up with my hands. It’s not pretty, but mind you, I’m unpacking memories here, and doing the best I can…at this intersection of past, present and who-knows-what.

So I just try to take it all in. Breathe. Breathe. Give myself a little hug and an “atta-girl.” Because…after all these years…I’m still here. And still amazed at the wonder of it all.

Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera.

“If I’m remembered 100 years from now, I hope it will be not for looks, but for books.” Thank you Dolly…

3 Aug 2026

HOW DO YOU GET TO CARNEGIE HALL?

Yes, there’s that “practice, practice, practice” thing. But it takes a village to get there. It takes a village to get anywhere. A village of one or two, hundreds, thousands…

Our Zoomers and local CC Strummers all know Tom Kuwata. He’s been strumming his uke and picking the U-bass with us since 2010. I remember the last song we sang and played together at The Culver City Senior Center before California went on Covid 19 lockdown. These 2020’s have been one communal trauma after another, but we were hopeful and really “feeling it” as we sang Don’t Worry Be Happy. Then, after the final strum, the last toot on a kazoo, we closed the door on that chapter in our history.

But two weeks later The CC Strummers re-grouped and reinvented ourselves on Zoom. We opened our new virtual doors to everyone, anywhere, who wanted to login and make music with us. Tom brought his grandson Ethan and we fell in love with this kid. I mean, just look at that smile, and he was strumming and playing fancy stuff on the uke at lightning speed.

By then Ethan was a veteran performer in his elementary school productions. A triple threat in-the-making: Singing, dancing, acting. His parents, Tom’s son Todd and Emiko, picked up on this too and wisely enrolled him in The Morgan-Wixon Theater’s Youth/Education Series in Santa Monica. And just like that, Ethan’s village grew exponentially. In 2017, he appeared in his first production: A Winter’s Tale. Grandpa Tom saved all the playbills.

This interview is gold! Ethan talks up the ukulele. We get to meet mom and dad! We get to see this talented teenager on stage. We get to applaud the remarkable village—family, friends, professionals, amateurs at The Morgan-Wixon who are supporting and inspiring each other through interesting times. Click Here to watch.

Ethan attended The Academy of Music and Performing Arts (AMPA) at Hamilton High Magnet School and performed in their productions. Through it all, several CC Strummers showed up to support his work and his remarkable family.

Ethan starred as Willy Wonka in The Morgan-Wixon production of Willy Wonka, Jr.

Left to right: Carole (one of our CC Strummers), Craig (my husband), Tom, Ethan and me, after the show.

Later this summer, Ethan begins his sophomore year at the prestigious Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at California State University, Long Beach. His freshmen year culminated with a performance at Carnegie Hall. With his musical village. Do you need a few seconds to take that in?

We don’t know what the future holds for Ethan. Or you. Or me. But somehow, if we are lucky enough to fall into the arms of a village (of some kind), we can learn the language, we learn to endure, we learn to thrive.

Ethan is part of my village and I’m rooting for him. I often think about the numberless people whom I have met in my life, who embraced me, in their own unique ways, who brought me joy or cast ominous shadows, who brushed by in seconds or lingered for decades. They bring me to this moment. All of them. Let’s give Ethan and his village a standing ovation…and include ourselves in that celebration!

3 Jul 2026

COLLECTIVE EFFERVESCENCE

I am not a “sports” person. But then something happens, like the local team does good or the underdogs do good or the entire world puts angst on hold and worships at the altar of G-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-L

So I do the Google-Deep Dive: Who are these UCLA women basketball players? Who’s this guy Jalen Brunson from the New York Knicks? As for the 2026 World Cup — inspirational stories of gumption and kindness are rolling in.

🌺

But something much bigger is happening for me. Collective Effervescence. French sociologist Émile Durkheim first described this in 1912. It can feel like an electric energy that brings on a spirit of joy. Revelry. Suddenly we sense a palpable connection-thing to each other AND to something bigger than just me and you. Like at the same time. But the magic recipe for this communal stew starts with a group of people who are sharing…a moment. What kind of moment? You fill in the blank…

One of my wise friends told me this story: Many years ago she attended a large conference led by noted psychologist (and trauma specialist) Bessel van der Kolk. He began his lecture by asking the audience — three-hundred health care professionals — how many people here sing with a chorus? Only a few raised their hands (including my friend). He asked them to stand up and announced that they were the luckiest people because making music together is one of the most potent ways to heal from trauma.

Click this image to watch

I don’t need stadium seating to snag a few moments of this out-of-this-world feeling. It happens when I put my Zoom classes on “gallery” setting and see everyone at the same time. It happens when we gather in person to play the ukulele and sing. It happens with the seniors at my Friday ukulele gig. “This is the highlight of my whole week,” they say. It’s not hyperbole. I hear this over and over. And I feel it myself.

But this bubbly feeling has a short half-life. I’ve given up trying to hold on to it nor do I get too bummed out when the feeling goes poof. Soon enough the allstar women of UCLA will be playing against each other at the pros. A few idiots will burn a car rather than hug a human as exuberant fans fill the streets to celebrate “The Knicks in Five.” Something is going to piss you off about the World Cup. That’s how it goes…

The thing is…I think just a whiff of collective effervescence can move “the dial.” Perhaps having an experience like this gets stored in our bodies. Somehow. Somewhere. By tomorrow what is left is a sweet spongy memory. But just remember, remembering what is possible… isn’t that good thing too?

I have a personal stake in this collective experience stuff. Believe it or not, I am an introvert. I love quiet and to be alone. Like many others, I experienced trauma growing up—in the crucible of family and in the wilds of public education. I felt much safer pushing people away than joining the circle. But at the same time, life pulled me, ever-so-stealthily, onward and outward. It wasn’t until I found myself in other people’s stories, their triumphs and travails that I discovered a sense of community within myself and in my daily life. For me, it taken a world of people to grow into myself. A little taste of collective effervescence, now and then, is a joyful byproduct of being an engaged social animal.

One of our CC Strummers special ordered these bags for us.

I’m so grateful to land in the ukulele world because, in my opinion, this singular instrument is the very stuff of collective effervescence. Why? It’s an instrument for everyone. It meets you where YOU are. There is a huge margin for error because the sounds you make are gone in a flash (there is no sustain pedal, like a piano). It’s easy to “fake it” and still play with the masses. Did grandma tell you that music doesn’t run in the family and you’re tone deaf anyway? Well I say who cares. Collective effervescence is there for you too. Just show up.

2 Jun 2026

LIVING WIDE

We don’t all win the “living long” lottery, but sometimes we can remember to live wide…

I’m calling him Mister 95 because he’s taken 95 spins around the sun. Well so far. That’s 832,753 hours of playing in the sandbox and the school yard, falling in love, enlisting in the military, college, getting that job at NBC as a lowly page and then spending the rest of his career in show biz. Eating, sleeping, growing a big family and deep enduring friendships, celebrating life, grieving loss and waking up in the morning. Still. Grateful. Joyful. Full…full enough to share the spotlight with you. We know how it feels to be around a human being like that.

Mister 95 decided to put on a big birthday bash for his friends at the local retirement home where I teach ukulele. He reserved the auditorium…and… an additional overflow room with a video feed. Because Mister 95 has a lot of friends. Like almost everybody who lives there.

This variety show has three musical acts (including me) and a magician who is like “crazy good.” After his set, the magic guy packs up his gear, leaving two doves and a rabbit in the green room because he loads them last in his climate-controlled SUV. The rabbit is snoozing inside a top hat. The birds are sitting quietly on a chair next to me as I stare them down and wonder which one will poop first. For the record, the birds hold it and I’m the one who has to sneak out to pee.

Mister 95 is all about audience participation. In a very big way. He purchased one hundred kazoos and distributed them to everyone with a ticket. Apparently some residents complained that their kazoos were broken because when they blew through the hole, nothing happened. So it was my job to teach them the right way to do this thing. I presented a brief “show-and-tell-and-blow” demonstration before we launched into the song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Because…yeah…

Share a few seconds with a hundred kazoo-tooting grandmas and grandpas. Click here to watch.

A few days later I meet Mister 95 before my Friday class. We are sitting on a hallway bench as he greets other residents passing by. There are big hello’s all around and after they move on, he shares a short vignette, a splash of “something special” about each person.

This reminds me of a story I heard years ago. It’s a traditional Sufi tale about a traveler who sees a wise man on the road and asks what kind of people live in the village up ahead. “I am looking to move from my present home.” The wise man asks “so what were the people like in your old village?” The traveler replies “oh they were mean, cruel, rude, so dishonest.” The wise man tells him that “you’ll find the same kind of people here too.”

Later on, another traveler approaches the wise man and asks the same question and the wise man again asks about the people in “your old village?” The traveler smiles and says “oh they are kind, courteous, polite. Just good people.” The wise man responds, “you will find the same kind of people here too.”

We see the world not the way it is, but the way we are.

🌺

I wrote special lyrics for the song ‘Proud Mary’ just for Mister 95 and his friends. It ends with this stanza:

So come on over, drop on by and meet people who are living wide.
Yeah the clock is ticking. The boat is sinking.
But we keep singing and staying alive…

Rolling, rolling, rolling down The 4-0-5.

If you are wondering, the “Four-Oh-Five” is a parking lot…er…freeway/superhighway/major coronary artery here in Los Angeles. But no matter, make up your own.

3 May 2026

SAY IT’S ONLY A PAPER MOON

“This was not easy…when you’re out there, you just want to get back
to your families and friends.” Astronaut Reid Wiseman

After a glorious spin around the moon, four astronauts aboard Artemis II splash down in the Pacific, just a few miles west of San Diego. We are glued to the live feed on my iPhone, watching this epic adventure come to a sweet splashy end. “My daddy would have loved this,” I exclaim to my husband and friends as we’re munching chips and salsa at our favorite Mexican restaurant.

My father would have turned 102 this year and was probably born “looking up.” I still remember the night he led my mother and me outside to see “the most amazing thing.” His words, not mine. We wait and wait until suddenly there it is: A little white light creeping across the dark sky. No chop-chop sound like a helicopter. There is no sound at all! What is it daddy? I’m breathlessly curious and scared at the same time. As he answers, his rich baritone voice goes even lower and slower. “THAT…IS…THE…RUSSIANS.” Like what? “How did all the Russians get up there?” My words, not his.

The memory of that Washington D.C. evening is seared into my bones. It also sets the trajectory of my father’s career. Soon after the Sputnik shocker, my aeronautics engineer-writer daddy got a gig at NASA. Apparently that Russian satellite freaked out the folks in the Pentagon too and the space race was on.

He worked in public relations and my father’s claim to fame was that he named the first two American monkeys that went into space (and came back). As the story was reported to me, scientists didn’t know which monkeys would be chosen for the big show until the last minute. Were the volunteer primates jumping up and down screeching “ME! ME! ME?” Well the point is the monkey names had to be non-gender-specific and start with the letters A and B.

My mother’s “complicated” family lobbied for my grandfather’s name (Abe) and my mother’s (Bernice). Well that didn’t happen. Little Able and Miss Baker made the historic round trip. The in-laws were pissed…as usual. My father finally threw up his hands and moved my mother and me as far away as possible — to Los Angeles — where he would spend the rest of his life in the aerospace biz. I’m a California girl because of those monkeys.

🌗

I got to meet the Mercury astronauts and watch a launch from Cape Canaveral. My father and I shared a daddy-daughter passion for Gemini and Apollo. For much of his career he worked at TRW, the company that designed and built the descent engine for the lunar landing module.

Do you remember Apollo 13? The lunar module was supposed to transport two of the guys from the mother ship to the moon’s surface (and back again), but it ended up being the lifeboat that got all three of them safely back to earth after the infamous “Houston-We-Have-A-Problem” near-disaster. Sometime later those three astronauts landed at TRW’s sprawling campus in Redondo Beach, tearfully thanking the men and woman in this noble industry for saving their lives. My father was there too and I could tell that afternoon changed him…

Years later my daddy and I would head to Edwards Airforce Base in the Mohave desert for the shuttle landings. His press pass got us a better view and good seats at the follow-up press conference. I remember people waving their NASA-issued glow sticks at the first night landing. I remember cheering for Challenger…the same space shuttle that would later explode on its tenth flight. I remember my father phoning me with the dreadful news and weeping. Just weeping. He was not a guy who cries.

Can you see the teeny-tiny space shuttle sitting on the desert floor between my daddy and me? My husband Craig snapped this picture with a real camera (BSP–before smart phones).

All these memories are flooding back. What a mishmash of happy, sticky sadness, “I-can’t- believe-it-happened” wonder. Just think about the numberless people who have worked so diligently to put human beings “up there” in the first place and moon-adjacent again. But especially I am hands-over-heart grateful to be my father’s daughter.

And what made those iPhone moments at the Mexican restaurant even more special? I am sharing them with people I love.

🌗 🌖 🌗 🌘 🌑 🌒 🌓 🌔

5 Apr 2026

GOT WATER?

We hear it all the time… “Hydrate! Hydrate! Hydrate!” So do you?

Staying on top of this hydration business makes sense, especially in the summertime. Sirens blaring, the paramedics have arrived at our ukulele jams or shows to rescue a player who has gone pale and slumped over in a heap. Thankfully this has only happened a few times and everyone was okay.

But one cool spring morning, an older fellow keeled over in my ukulele class. About ten of us were seated in a small second-floor classroom and, as you might expect, just strumming our ukes. The paramedics slogged up (and down) the narrow stairs with gurney and equipment in tow. Thankfully our friend recovered…after a couple days in the hospital. Diagnosis: Dehydration.

Flash forward to this month, March. It’s Thursday, the setting is Zoom Central at my desk in the living room. According to the calendar, it’s still winter in Los Angeles. But whoa it’s hot! I’m getting ding-ding heat alerts on my phone all day. My husband is out of town which means I’m a little discombobulated…well more than usual. But this afternoon I am blissfully getting ready for my class and not really paying attention to my body. All the windows are open, the fans are blowing. The temperature inside is 81 degrees but “I’m not feeling it,” says the lobster in the pot of tepid water as the burner heats up. Why oh why don’t I turn on the AC?

As the Zoom class begins my hands are shaking. Like what? Of course I’m sipping water. But only when I remember, which isn’t a lot because I just don’t get thirsty. Now it’s feeling like a word scramble in my brain and my office chair is wobbling. I muscle through the hour because that’s what I do and it doesn’t hit me until we are all saying good-bye that I am dehydrated. That my jiggly chair is okay. I am not.

It takes a few hours of water (and Gatorade) guzzling, peeing a lot, laying very still with a pillow over my head before I feel “normal” again. Well who knows what “normal” is, but it is NOT being dehydrated.

That evening I text my friends and they have plenty to say:

“Wow! And it happens so fast and one is slow in figuring it out. Yesterday was my day for confronting dehydration. I did too much walking and not enough hydrating, got the shakes and was a bit disoriented and fatigued. Someone I know fainted today and was treated by the paramedics. Heat related stuff is going around.”

Another friend tells me she has been admitted to the hospital twice for dehydration and now sips from her water bottle all day. At our ukulele jams she takes a swallow after each song. That’s 19 songs and a whole lot of chug-a-lugging. Who does that? I don’t do that. And my friend? SHE is the one calling 911 for someone else.

The next day I’m feeling good and sliding into my morning routine, EXCEPT this time the FIRST thing I do is DRINK a cup of water. And another. And another. You see, my usual MO is to roll out of bed, dive right into my creative thing and lose track of time or what my body needs. But not today! Not anymore.

Then I head off to the uke class I teach at a local retirement community. Of course I tell the residents all about yesterday’s drama because these people are Zen masters and I want to hear what they have to say. Each one nods in agreement and recounts their own dehydration-tale-of-woe. The major consensus is that you just don’t know it’s happening and are darn lucky if you figure it out before the paramedics are loading you into an ambulance.

Well let’s drink to that!

My friends, I send a weekly email newsletter to The CC Strummers which is all about the ukulele, zoom classes and our beloved community.
If you would like to be added to that list please email me.

With much gratitude for your ongoing presence…

Cali

2 Mar 2026

CALI ROSE – MINI BLOG & THANKS

“I say to kids when you practice slowly, you will forget slowly. In other words, when you practice slowly, it’ll stay with you.”

Itzhak Perlman

To My Dear Online Ohana!

I am sending this email to everyone on my elist—that would be six hundred CC Strummers AND you—the other six hundred beating hearts who signed up for my blogs and haven’t heard from me for a year…as if I went into a ‘witness protection program’ or something.

Nah—just busy with the music thing but I’m really missing our connection in that “bloggy” kind of way. So I’m thinking…let’s try an experiment.

But first let me catch all of you up…

My so-called business model for The CC Strummers and my online music work is based on donations only. I don’t do Patreon, don’t do pay walls and my friends insist I don’t do business very well either. Whatever… But many of you do value what I offer and the time we spend together. I’ve been sharing a “thank you” email with The CC Strummers every month because, to tell you the truth, I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to make music with you and be part of our warm and supportive community.

So thank you, my dear CC Strummers, for your February donations and continuing support. And a big thanks to the rest of you for showing up for your lives, however that shakes out in your corner of the world.

🌺

Now, if you haven’t already guessed, this email is about expressing thanks AND writing a SHORT mini-blog about the stories we tell each other in this crazy life.

Which brings me to Itzhak Perlman, one of my heroes and teachers (although we have never met and never will). As a sick kid and someone who is always dealing with health issues, I watch this guy move through his life with grace and gratitude. Think about his relentless challenges, like, just planning how to get from Point A to Point B. Still…he’s a joy maker…a music lover…an eighty year old Zen Master.

It was November 18, 1995 when he broke a string on his violin during a performance at Lincoln Center in New York. What a nightmare! But apparently it happened.* For starters let’s remember that a violin ONLY HAS FOUR STRINGS.

Wanna play make-believe? What if this happened to you? Say, the “G” string breaks on your ukulele…in front of a few thousand people whose expectations are as high as the price they paid for tickets.

Well, if it was me, I would immediately stop playing, tell my one and only ukulele joke:

How do you make a million dollars playing the ukulele? Start with two million dollars…ha-ha-ha!

Wait for someone to bring me a spare instrument and if that doesn’t happen, play a minus-one-string version of Row Row Row Your Boat, wave my arms wildly in the air to get the audience to sing along and if that goes well, try it as a round. Then say “good night everybody” and skedaddle.

But not Itzhak Perlman. He pauses for a moment then signals the conductor that the show will go on as he continues playing his three string Stradivarius (one would assume).

Dude!!!

He is aptly rewarded with a standing ovation and afterwards says this to the audience:

“Sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.”

Hey! Not everyone is a musician but we’re all human beings. Yes there’s that mortality thing. Our bodies do their dance then we try chair yoga. Our thoughts whirl and wander and go wonky (then maybe we change the subject by remembering to breathe). And our dear ones, the sentient beings who populate our lives…well ditto for them. We’re all on borrowed time.

And yes there is that ineffable urge to keep going, somehow… And just say “thank you.”

🌺

*It’s worth noting that the internet is brimming with different versions of this broken-string story and one dissent from snopes.com, saying it probably didn’t happen. To be honest, Itzhak Perlman (and other greats) can play beautiful music on three violin strings although that is definitely not preferred. But that iconic quote rings mightily true for me, especially coming from a man who truly walks the walk. Every single day of his life. Click here to see what I mean.

🌺

My friends, I send a weekly email to The CC Strummers which is all about the ukulele, zoom classes and our beloved community. If you would like to be added to that list please let me know.

With much gratitude for your ongoing presence…

Cali

P.S. You can email me and/or leave comments about this blog on my website by clicking here.

5 Mar 2025

FUN FACTS AND CATARACTS

Well hello everybody and I sure have missed writing and sharing my missives with you. The music thing is grabbing most of my personal bandwidth these days. But have I got a story to tell:

Yesterday I couldn’t see much of anything with my left eye…

and today, I can…

but…

oh those but’s…

I’ve been “legally blind” in my left eye since the Russians launched Sputnik. I could see vague shapes, shadows, colors and that’s all. Forget the eye chart. Couldn’t even see the big ‘E’ much less anything else. Like your face.

I had a point of focus though—about a quarter of an inch from my eyeball where I could read a blurry word or two. Fortunately my right eye is okay but you can imagine that the very notion of depth perception is a running joke in my life.

Flash forward to a January visit to The DMV when they insisted I return later this year to test all over again “because we want to see you,” said the nice lady with the clipboard. “Why is that,” I chirped, considering my driving record has been stellar for the last twenty years. (Everyone knock on wood, would ya). “Well you are legally blind in one eye and have a cataract…”

It just so happens that THE CATARACT of concern is in my legally blind eye so I’ve been postponing the surgery because, hey, I can’t see much anyway. But the cataract was getting really bad. So yesterday I finally land on a cushy highchair that will soon unfold into a surgical gurney. The chair and I are in a long row of patient “pods” at The Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA and the pre-op begins. I am comforted that this place has a gold medal reputation and my husband and I have good insurance.

The staff is kind and attentive. As I am leaving the gender-neutral bathroom one nurse points out the obvious–that toilet paper is stuck to my hospital gown and I’m dragging it down the corridor. You know, it’s the little things you remember.

The doc stops by to reassure me and explain that the back of my retina is very big and misshapen so there is only one mono lens she can use in the procedure and I’m thinking…can you give me the anti-anxiety drugs NOW?

And then it’s show time as they push me and my Barcalounger to the operating room. Even though the nurse anesthetist is by my side, I am NOT asleep but rather seeing lights flash and feeling pressure and tugging on my eyeball. But thankfully, there is no pain.

And suddenly it’s done. They wheel me back to my “pod,” unhook the telemetry, IV and send me packing with a parting gift: An arachnid-looking eyepatch that remains in place until I return 17 hours later for a quick post-op visit with my doc.

And The Big Reveal!

A tech guy removes the eye patch and instructs me to “look around” as he closes the door behind him.

Oh my God, it’s so bright in here. The computer screens glow neon like the Las Vegas Strip. There is an LED screen eye chart and I can actually see four fuzzy letters. Believe me, this is a big deal. I recognize my husband who is sitting in a nearby chair. I see his beautiful blurry face. This is a big deal. I extend my arms in front of me and the tips of my fingers mark my new point of focus. From yesterday to today, it goes from a quarter inch to about two feet away.

But my right eye, my dominant eye, is talking to me now and saying, “WAIT A MINUTE. WTF IS HAPPENING HERE?” And now my left eye is chiming in as I stare at the vertical edge of the office door, It’s wavy. I close my dominant eye and spin in place, gazing east, west, north, south and see soft wavy vertical lines. Everywhere.

Now it’s my brain’s turn to say “WTF! WTF!” When the doc walks in I quickly announce “this is a mixed bag” and describe the Alice in Wonderland experience I am having right now.

“But maybe it’s been this way all along? I was too blind to see it?”

She nods in agreement and shows me a picture of my retina on the computer screen. It looks like a gall bladder instead of a nice round eye. Kind of long and dippy. I’ve seen the image before, over the years, but right now I’m really eye-balling it—from the inside out. By the way, the fancy name for all this commotion is metamorphopsia.

Did you know the retina sees images upside down but the brain turns them right side up? Yay brain!!! My doc says this visual disconnect between my right and left eye will get better with time as the brain works its magic. But the waves…they are here to stay.

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude,” so says Maya Angelou.

Which brings me to my experience with time: I have floaters in both eyes. They have driven me crazy. Laser surgery helped until I got more floaters. For years it was “Oh-My-God-This-Is-Awful.” Then one day I realized I wasn’t saying that anymore. It’s not like those pesky clouds and slithery worms went away. They just became irrelevant.

Everybody has something, maybe lots of “somethings.” Our miraculous animal bodies are doing the best they can. So “thank you.” Thank you for this wild, wavy ride.

1 Jan 2024

HELLO 2024 AND HELLO YOU!

The last blog I wrote was about Will Smith taking a swing at Chris Rock at the Academy Awards. What year was that? Feels like ancient history, considering all that is happening in the world. In our heads. And hearts.

Well I’ve missed writing and connecting with you. The “music thing” has kind of taken over my life and this worker-bee loves to work.

I still do one gig a week, teaching beginning ukulele at a local retirement community. Our enthusiastic little band of strummers scat on Route 66 and go all country with Jambalaya. This is my Friday reminder, up close and personal, how music heals us. One strum at a time. Here and then gone.

The CC Strummers are busy and growing. It’s thrilling that our players, both local and totally not local, are forming their own groups, performing and teaching the stuff we learn in our Zoom classes. A few of them tell me they hear “my voice” in their head. Quick, call a shrink! But I hear the voices of my teachers too. Long gone, they are. Flawed, wonderful human beings who changed my life and didn’t always give me the best advice.

What a kaleidoscope of contradictions, this teaching business. I make mistakes. We all do. I don’t always get it right the first time. Do you? I change my mind and frequently ask “what do YOU think?” because I trust that we draw inspiration from the same well. We may scoop with different buckets and what happens next? Who knows… But aren’t we all students? And teachers? Elders? Elders-to-be?

Our windy rendition of “Sweet Caroline” at The WLA Farmers’ Market will blow you away.

The CC Strummers had an eventful November…The weather is supposed to be “breezy” but halfway through our last show of the year at The WLA Farmers’ Market, the wind suddenly whips up and sends various objects flying through the air including our song sheets, music stands, chairs, hats. But we soldier on and laugh through it. Maybe if this wind storm had been a tornado I would have yelled “RUN!” But shows can be about the ways we endure, too. It feels like we’re the band on the Titanic. We know how this is going to end, but we keep playing anyway. Because that’s what musicians do. Click here to watch.

I’m playing along with the bass and drum tracks to my song “Pony Ride” with Loki, the puppy-muse close by. Everyone should have a therapy dog on duty when they are recording!

And would you believe I’m recording again?

Over the years I’ve written several instrumentals on the ukulele with pretty melodies you can actually hum. But I’ve also had to “practice, practice, practice” as if I REALLY AM going to play at Carnegie Hall. Well MY Carnegie Hall is the spare room at my producer’s house. Together we’ve been working on my album, Looking Glass, for months. Soon my graphic artist will assemble the “gift wrapping” and while that’s happening, I’m preparing easier arrangements and video tutorials so YOU can learn to play these songs too. I’ll keep you in the loop as things progress. Please Click Here to watch.

Friday evening is date night with my sweet husband. There are meet-and-greets with friends, trips to Trader Joe’s because, when it comes to meal preparation, I need all the help I can get.

I am calling this “Ukulele Joy Around the World” and it was painted by one of our CC Strummers, Eve Myles.

Don’t laugh but this schedule is my idea of “cutting back” after I had a heart attack in the middle of the pandemic. Life is messy and complicated. When there is so much suffering and s-c-a-r-y in the world, it can be a slippery slope into the land of despair, but I’m so grateful that WE, you and me, are still here.

I send weekly newsy emails with class materials specifically to The CC Strummers. But when I send a blog, it goes to everyone on my master list…which means a lot of you haven’t heard from me for quite a while and may have thought I ran off to join the circus…

Please know I’ve missed this connection and hearing from you. I’ve missed the “ahh” feeling I get being part of our shared online ohana.

But if you would like to join The CC Strummers’ elist and receive my weekly missives (or unsubscribe), please email me. Our Zoom classes are on holiday break and will resume the second week in January, 2024.

___

“After all that we’ve been through in the world, I feel like we all want a place to be safe and connected to other human beings. Everyone has a thirst for community.” Beyonce.
From “Beyonce. Amen” by Michael Eric Dyson from The New York Times, December 3, 2023.

___

So here we are, on the cusp of the unknown…also called THE NEW YEAR! I’m girding myself for a BUMPY ride in 2024 and leaning into our community, and leaning into music, to uplift, reassure, embrace us in the fullness of this moment. May we flourish. May we endure. And may we strum happy…

“This will be our reply to violence: To make music more intensely,  more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” Leonard Bernstein

2 Apr 2022

A SMACK GOES VIRAL AND THE STORIES WE TELL

I’m watching the Academy Awards, answering emails and cleaning my desk. That’s when I see Jada Pinkett Smith, sitting in the swanky front row with her husband Will Smith. The next presenter, Chris Rock, lays into her with a lame joke about her hair. She’s rolling her eyes and looking very pissed-off. Hubby is laughing, kind of fakey-like. Until he isn’t. That’s when he bounds on stage, all huffy-puffy, and smacks Chris Rock in the noggin. My computer screen goes blank. OMG was that a comedy bit or was it for real? A few seconds later I see Chris Rock cradling his face and making a joke. Because he is a COMEDIAN.

This is what I’m thinking:
I hope Will Smith has his therapist on speed dial.

What a Rorschach Test moment for humanity, huh. I am so devastated by Ukraine, overwrought about Covid and global warming. Add to that toxic politics, racism and a litany of other troubles. So I appreciate a news story that doesn’t include annihilation or leaves me feeling utterly powerless. But as I watch that smack, something inside of me crackles. I think a lot of people are triggered. For a lot of different reasons.

Suddenly old memories wash over me, starting with this one: I’m in my early twenties, already working in piano bars and here I am, auditioning as a contestant on a new game show. One of the guest celebrities, a middle-aged comedienne, rags on me, making jokes about my appearance, especially my unruly red hair. All for laughs, of course, but I am mortified and her verbal volleys register quickly on my face. And not in a good OR entertaining way. In fact, after the show, she apologizes profusely and explains her process of making funny. At someone else’s expense.

Lesson #1: Don’t take it personally.
Lesson #2: It’s not personal.
Lesson #3: It’s probably about them and not you.

Unfortunately I am taking this whole thing too personally to process any of these lessons.

Fast forward. I am a middle-aged woman attending a five-day meditation retreat where everyone is supposed to be silent and follow the rules. Let me tell you about these retreats… The work is to lean inward. To watch the tangle of stories we tell ourselves. To notice how our emotions can go from calm to cuckoo and back again in one thirty-minute sit. To get cozy with the silence we desperately run from in our everyday life.

Not so easy…

But sometimes the clouds of our messy lives part, the sun shines through and butterflies circle overhead.

Until they don’t.

That’s when the walls close in and the personal stuff gets really big, menacing even, and blown out of proportion.

But at least the food is good….

Well no butterflies for me. Early into the retreat I overhear a couple participants saying something disparaging. About me. Never mind there is no talking here, you jerks. A match has been struck and suddenly my body is on freaking fire. It feels like I can ignite a hundred barbeques by just pointing my fingers.

The storytelling has begun! My mother has arrived in my head along with a cast of others from my past. Many of us know how it feels to be the butt of a joke or worse, the victim of someone’s loathsome behavior. It feels awful and these awful feelings can go unresolved, unprocessed and stuffed deep into our bodies. For maybe a lifetime. Or until there is a really big fire.

I’ve gotten angry in my life, but nothing like this. I am almost delirious with rage and my body is throbbing with a kind of energy that both terrifies and enlivens me. One thing for sure, the original verbal indiscretion, whatever it was, does not warrant this kind of feverish response.

It makes me wonder if I’m tapping into something bigger than myself. A collective fury that is about this moment and a billion other moments that stretch back in time. Sounds a little woo-woo, huh. But I also know this power surge is not good for my health, that I’m furious enough to smack someone and have to DO something to dissipate the energy.

I put on my sneakers and slam around the grounds. Up and down hills. Between buildings. Across parking lots. It takes all afternoon of bam-bamming over cement and through dirt for the anger to finally burn through and out of my body. I topple into my little retreat bed, a limp, exhausted mess.

Many years later, I am still processing what happened to me that day. I am very grateful for this experience and what I learned. I also hope it never happens again and can say the same thing about that smack.

Lesson #1: Don’t take it personally.
Lesson #2: It’s not personal.
Lesson #3: It’s probably about them and not you.
Lesson #4: I don’t have to believe everything I think.

So let’s enjoy our topsy-turvy lives and rejoice that a microphone isn’t set up in our heads for everyone to hear!

___

Ever wonder “How To Stop Taking Things Personally”? Read all about it in this short article from Forbes Magazine. CLICK HERE

12 Mar 2022

ONE YEAR LATER

One year ago, Friday, March 12, 2021, I had big plans for the day — two Zoom gigs and a Covid surge take-out dinner with my sweetie, wrapped and ready to go from our favorite Mexican Restaurant, Paco’s Taco’s.

But…

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans,” wrote John Lennon. Instead of enchiladas, I stared down a baby bowl of tepid vegetable soup that a guy from dietary delivered to my hospital room.

Many of you know that my husband drove me to the emergency room at U.C.L.A. early that morning because, well, something didn’t feel right. I was experiencing strange heartburn in my throat, tightness in my neck and jaw, mild pain that radiated down both arms, a little pushy-pushy in my chest. No drama, no clutching. But all this stuff happened like an arpeggio in music, one note after another until the whole dissonant chord was ringing. When I circled the living room trying to walk it off, I felt sick to my stomach and was breathing hard. “It’s a panic attack,” I told myself, rather unconvincingly, because I don’t get panic attacks.

Like many people, “denial” is my first strategy of defense. It’s a freaking miracle that denial gave way, quickly, to begrudging acceptance. I swallowed an aspirin and got to the hospital where I tried to play down the whole thing as the emergency room nurse greeted me at the door and asked what’s going on. “Oh I feel like an idiot being here, but…”

In minutes the nurses and ER doc were huddled around my EKG. X-Rays were ordered, an ultrasound of my heart. They started an IV immediately and brought on the blood thinners and God knows what else. The cardiologist arrived and did his twenty questions thing. It would take hours before a diagnosis was made because, for one thing, I was NOT “presenting” as someone in acute cardiac distress.

Well guess what…

I was having a heart attack, right there in the emergency room and if I hadn’t gotten help in time, there is a chance I would not have survived. The big firehose of a coronary artery, the LAD (Lateral Anterior Descending), also known as “The Widow Maker,” keeps a big hunk of the heart watered and fed. If it goes, so do you. Mine was 80% blocked with sticky goo.

The doc in the cardiac heart catheterization lab gave me a full report after the procedure and didn’t mince words. I have to take pills to lower my cholesterol (forever) AND blood thinners for one year otherwise my brand new stent may fail and I can kiss my ass goodbye.

So March 12th is not only the anniversary of my heart attack, but it’s the day I can THROW AWAY the Plavix. Bring on the trumpets!

For the past year, a dinky paper cut would bleed until cows fly. Mysterious bruises — colorful splotches of black, blue, purple, red — appeared on my body, out of nowhere. Did I bump myself? Walk into a wall? Take up wrestling? Maybe…maybe…nooooo. My hemoglobin is still in the dumper. I know this is a nothingburger price to pay for being alive. I also know that too many women (and men) do not survive their first heart attack. I wrote several blogs about what happened and lots of people shared their own stories with me. Sometimes things ended well and sometimes they didn’t.

News Flash: According to the American Heart Association, heart disease kills one woman every 80 seconds in the United States. And half of all women who experience a heart attack have no warning signs and only subtle symptoms. “Unfortunately, this has led to worse outcomes in women with heart disease compared to men.” Cardiologist Marcella Calfon Press, MD, PhD, co-director of UCLA Women’s Cardiovascular Health Center

I thought I’d bounce back quickly and resume my way-too-busy schedule. Like NOW. But even while I was building my stamina in Cardiac Rehab, I had to take naps to make it through the day. As a performer and teacher I’m used to standing up in front of an audience and bopping around. But it took nine months before I could jettison the chair and bop once more. Then there’s the “head space” thing. Stuff I thought I had worked through years ago — family traumas — came roaring back and almost knocked me out of orbit.

When something like a heart attack (or fill-in-the-blank) happens, it’s like a body blow that throws you off balance or flat on the floor or over the edge. I remember laying on that hard gurney under the flying angiogram machine as they inserted a stent into my heart and thinking, uh-oh…this could be it.

The curtains parted a little and I got a real good look at the BIG PICTURE. That I am a renter here and the lease will end. That everyone I love will leave, some way or another. Every thing I cherish has a short shelf-life, even when I measure it in spins around the sun. Every tasty bite of guacamole…chew, swallow, gone. Disappearing into the wild, whirling cauldron of life. 24/7 alchemy, it is.

I don’t need to look any farther than our beloved ukulele to feel the kiss of impermanence. We strum four strings, a chord, make a beautiful sound and it ripples in our bones. But almost immediately it changes or melts into the next strum or just fades away. Back to silence.

The best I can do is embrace this moment — this pixilated, messy, terrifying, dazzling moment. The best I can do is trust that somehow, somewhere woven deep into the tapestry of life, everything is okay. Even when it’s not.

“How wonderful to be who I am, made out of earth and water, my own thoughts, my own fingerprints—all that glorious, temporary stuff.” Mary Oliver

Thanks to Stuart and Doug for inviting me to be the guest on their recent Ooktown Podcast. I share a few laughs, some stories, songs and sing my one hit, “It’s A PMS Kind of Day.” You can click here to watch the video version or click here to listen to the Podcast (Ep.105: The PMS Song) on iTunes. Enjoy the whimsy!!!

Click this picture to watch The CC Strummers play “We’ll Meet Again” at our last Jackson’s Cafe Jam.

The CC Strummers are going strong, with four live jams a month and two Zoom classes every week (Monday and Thursdays). New players in SoCal are joining us in person and others from around the world are logging onto Zoom. This is definitely one of those silver lining things that happened because the pandemic happened. I am grateful beyond words for our community of players. We are helping each other bear the heaviness in the world. And feel the joy. Speaking of joy… Click here to watch us play and sing my own song Brand New Day at our most recent jam.

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Author Archives: Cali Rose