12 Aug 2014

SHARK WEEK

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It’s Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, but these days it feels like every week is a sort of “shark week” somewhere, somehow.

Usually this stuff goes through one ear and out the other in our house. Usually.  But last month my husband Craig and I actually did “swim with sharks” and not exactly on purpose.

Window Gazing

Here we are in beautiful Hanalei on the north shore of Kaua’i enjoying a real tropical vacation. I don’t realize how exhausted I am until we settle into our little studio bungalow a few steps from one of the most beautiful beaches in the world: Hanalei Bay. For the first couple of days all I can bring myself to do is eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, look out the window and go back to sleep.

But soon enough I return to life and it’s time to take a dip in the beautiful turquoise bay. First we baste each other with industrial-strength sun block, fortified with zinc AND titanium. I’m looking like a greased albino mammal trundling down Pilokoa Street, leaving little doubt that this specimen is “a tourist.”

Hanalei Bay–the “long” view

Craig and I lay our towels on the sand and head to the water. This time of year the bay looks like a great big blue bathtub with waves that are rubber ducky size. The water is on the cool side, well cool for me, and being a temperature-wimp, it will take ten minutes or so to completely submerge myself in the water. One body part, one joint at a time. On the other hand, Craig dives right in and swims “that-a-way” just as the salty stuff is lapping at my calves. You get the picture.

Except…

Just as we are dipping our toes into the ocean a man yells “SHARK!.” He’s standing close enough for me to guess his age… Fear smears across my husband’s face. Craig is channeling the movie “Jaws.” I just know it. As he makes a pitch-perfect U-Turn back to the sand.

I, on the other hand, just stand there, in mainlander shock. Or idiocy. (Craig reminds me that when we have an earthquake in Los Angeles, I run to the window “to watch” instead of ducking under a table.) Instinctively I turn to the lifeguard station, which is well within eyeshot, and there is Mr. Tan & Gorgeous, lounging nonchalantly on the ledge of his tower. Mmmmm.

Baby Hammerhead Shark

By now the “Shark Town Crier” is pointing at shadows moving underwater about a foot from my foot. I count them. Three. Three little sharks. Maybe eighteen inches long and one of them gets so close to the sand that it grounds itself, flipping and flopping as curious tourists gather around and gasp. Until the next wave takes him back to his watery home.

The man announces to the small phalanx of folks “they are Hammerheads. Just babies. It’s okay. They won’t hurt you.”

“Re-e-e-e-ally?” I say, not entirely believing him as I glance back at the lifeguard who is now chatting with some girls. But there is no panic in the air. Or water. Retiree types, little kids, young couples, midlings, are bobbing up and down in the gentle waves. So what the hell? I begin my ritual of dipping ever so slowly into the wet. Craig finally relents and dives in. When he comes up for air I notice he’s casually looking over his right shoulder and then his left and then his right…

Row, row, row your boat…

Long story short, we swim with sharks. Sort of. But I still have questions so I corral the lifeguard whose world-weary demeanor makes me think he gets “shark” questions all the time.

“They are juveniles. They won’t bother you if you don’t bother them.” At this point I’m wondering what that would look like–bothering a shark? And why would anyone want to BOTHER a shark.

“But you know,” I continue, “I’m thinking that maybe since these are, like, shark children, maybe MOM and DAD are somewhere close by, like, hovering…you know…”

“Probably not,” he tells me matter-of-factly. Once sharks are born (or hatched or whatever), they are on their own, he reports. Mom and dad’s job is done. This news is shocking to me considering it takes, what, thirty, forty years to raise an adult human. So the baby sharks have to figure things out for themselves, just like that. (This brings up all kinds of abandonment issues for me…but never mind.)

Don’t sharks have a “reputation” for being predators and biters and mean fish? Mean mean fish? I’m sure that’s not the whole story, but nevertheless, popping into the world just as mom and dad are swimming away would not put me in a good mood.

I’m just saying…

 

 

5 Jul 2014

FLASH MOB? DOES THAT MEAN WE HAVE TO “FLASH”?

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The idea to do a CC Strummers “Flash Mob” has been percolating for a long time here in the neighborhood. One of our ukulele scouts talks with folks at the local mall and reports back with their curt reply. “If we let you play, we’ll have to let anyone play.”

The Culver Hotel

Undeterred and fortified with ukulele gusto, we locate a parcel of public land in the heart of downtown Culver City. It is a triangular shape of concrete with potted plants and a fountain at the pointy end that beckons young and old to get up close and personally wet. To one side of the plaza is the historical Culver Hotel. During the halcyon days of MGM Studios, which was located smack dab in the middle of Culver City, this hotel was the happening place to put up the stars. Or put up with the stars… 75 years ago in our quaint land, they filmed The Wizard of Oz and here come the Munchkins. They are booked three to a room.

Three to a room. Please take as long as you need to think this one through…

Considering the gravitas of time and place, I decide we will do a couple songs from the movie. For starters. As I’m building a setlist and getting the song arrangements together it occurs to me that perhaps I should, like, call city hall, like, and tell them this is happening so, like, no one gets arrested…

And lucky I do. Listen folks, I’m a musician. My job is to “make happy” and ignore bureaucracy for as long as humanly possible. But three pages of rules and regulations land in my email in-box. So I start making phone calls. The folks at City Hall are delightful as I explain what we are doing. They say “okay” and promise to notify the Fire Department too. (Um really?…We’re pretty good, but I don’t think we set the world on fire…yet). The sergeant in charge of movie shoots and crowd control at The Culver City Police Department gives me, my toaster-oven-size-battery-powered speaker and The CC Strummers a “thumbs-up.” Our mother ship, The Culver City Senior Center, is vigilant and appreciative at the same time.

Maria, our wild Latin Goddess, actually thinks a Flash Mob means we are going to flash. Like a body part or something. She envisions her costume, sharing the details one morning in class after we do our hand exercises. It’s a kind of flesh colored cat suit, with, was it plastic flowers or something, strategically placed. Think Gypsy Rose Lee… Oh yes, and a trench coat that she will rip open at just the right moment. “And when will that moment be?” I ask. “After the Rainbow song.” She laughs. Her dress rehearsal, which happens in the privacy of her house, does not go well, apparently, and her stripper garb is scrapped. I am only a little relieved…

Finally the big day arrives. In true Flash Mob tradition we gather in the plaza and try to look inconspicuous. With our ukuleles and music stands, inconspicuous. By the time I hit the downbeat of our first song—the signal for all to gather around—The CC Strummers are already gathered around and waiting for me.  Marilyn and her percussion section are at the starting gate and away we go.

Our favorite song in the Flash Mob set is the big hit “Happy.” We have worked on this song for weeks and weeks, learning the language of syncopation. Rhythm and Blues. Hip Hop. What can I say? We are a whole lot hipper now than we were at Easter. My husband videotapes the whole happy thing and we have posted it on YouTube for you to watch. Click here for some “feel good.”

I have learned over the years that even though I make plans and I arrive prepared, something unexpected happens anyway. I used to freak out about this, but not so much these days because…what the hell. Life is short. Stuff happens and sometimes it turns into a splendid surprise.

Well I didn’t plan an encore because this is a Flash Mob, after all. We flash in, we flash out. Done. Goodbye. Except the unexpected happens. After our last song, which is a reprise of The CC Strummers Theme Song, the audience is clapping and calling out “more.” Over and over.

“More? I am thinking to myself. “You have got to be kidding. We don’t have more. What to do? What to do?” Well I confess to everyone within earshot that we don’t have more, but we’ll play another song anyway. You see I encourage The CC Strummers to play by ear. Too. We play a song by ear every class so we have a few in the bag and we pulled out Elvis, just like that. I was so proud of them. They responded like pros and we nailed it. Watch what happens! Click here.

Finally, a toast to all those Munchkins and the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Click here to watch the video. Maria doesn’t flash, but we have to deal with a sudden flash of wind and it’s right there, you see how kind and supportive ukulele people are. Anyone who has the good fortune to be in a ukulele group knows how quickly it turns into family, ohana. How quickly it becomes more than making music. It turns into an oasis, a safe harbor where we experience the best in ourselves. And others.

8 Jun 2014

THE BIG MIDDLE–UKULELE TOUR IN CALIFORNIA

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My adopted home state is tall and, well, stately. There is the top–where I went to college near the redwood trees of Humboldt County. There is the bottom–where my parents and I landed so many years ago, brand new immigrants from Washington D.C. And there is the middle–where I did a week-long silent meditation retreat in the Santa Cruz Mountains…and lived to tell about it.

Hubby and I are going “all-middle” at the end of June for a whirlwind ukulele tour to Modesto, Sacramento and San Jose. Because of our schedules–Craig teaches high school and I do shows and teach and write Monday through Monday–well we don’t get out of Los Angeles very much. But when we do, I’m like a wide-eyed kid on her first trip to Disneyland.

This mini-tour “fell together” because people in the ukulele community are really kind. And supportive.

For example, we met Stu Herreid at the Reno Ukulele Festival. Stu owns The Strum Shop which is a popular music store/performing venue near Sacramento. I have attended his festival workshops and marvel at his teaching methods. He is the “strum master” and above all, Stu’s honest. About the “P” word.

PACTICE…

There he is, alone on stage, perched comfortably in a chair and demonstrating some cool strum. Stu is telling everyone in the room that you can get this strum. Yes you can. Si Se Puede! IF you do it over and over and over and over. For…say…45 minutes…straight.

I am laughing so hard (well on the inside) that I almost spit up my Ricola because I know I can barely do anything for 45 minutes without running to the fridge or the computer or going off to fantasyland. If you get my drift…

Nevertheless, I completely agree with Mr. Herreird. Practice, hard-core repetition, is key to learning to play this or any instrument. And truth be told, I’ve done countless “practice marathons” in my life and…I’m tired.

When we email him about our plans for a mini-tour, Stu books us for a workshop and concert at the Strum Shop Friday night, June 27th. Just like that. Whoo Hoo!

Then I remember that my friend and former Skype student, Portor, lives in San Jose and I grab a map of California. “Oh San Jose is only “two inches” from Sacramento,” I exclaim to no one else in the room. Well, Porter gets to work and works miracles. He arranges a workshop and concert for us at Atria Willow Glen and goes above and beyond the call of duty, inviting several local ukulele groups from Silicon Valley to Monterey “to party” with us in San Jose.

Suddenly, out of the blue…of my computer screen…I get an email from Lorrie who helms the Funstrummers, based in Modesto. She sees we are performing at The Strum Shop and invites us to do a workshop for her group that same morning. Back to the map I go… “Ah, Modesto is a “little over an inch” from Sacramento. We can do that!

And now you see how we put a tour together. One inch at a time and with A LOT of help from our friends. Here’s the schedule.

Friday, June 27 in Modesto with The Funstrummers. 
Workshop at 9:30 AM. $20.
209-505-3216 for information
Email: FunstrummersUke@aol.com

Friday, June 27 at The Strum Shop in Roseville. 7:00 $20

Saturday, June 28 at Atria Willow Glen in 
San Jose at 2:00 P.M.
Workshop & Concert $20
Atria Willow Glen
1660 Gaton Dr
San Jose,, CA 95125
Contact info, pgoltz@me.com.

If you live in them there lands of middle California, please join us for some ukulele education AND fun. Craig, my chord-melody man, will do his thing. I’ll do mine, which means hot ukulele rhythms and singing and comedy from my Dr. Demento days. And we’ll do our husband-wife “let’s-play-together” thing too.

It’s almost summer, the earth is still spinning, so let’s make music!
And a big “thank you’ to Stu, Portor and Lorrie for making this possible!

 

18 May 2014

“AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU” & YOU & YOU

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I have added another song to the pantheon of birthday ditties. As if there aren’t enough, huh. But my song has a couple twists.  Astronomy and fire.

Astronomy:

The lyric of my song includes this line: “So your birthday has come. Another spin around the sun.” When my November birthday rolls by I remind myself that the Earth was at this same location on her 365 day orbit around the Sun as last year and the year before that. Give or take. Birthdays are locked into time and space and gravity. And Happy Birthday to Albert Einstein too!

The “Fire” Thing:

I remember hearing, or reading, or dreaming a phrase that went like this: “The more candles on your cake, the brighter your light shines.” Well that is sweet, isn’t it? And hopeful. And probably not true. Except for a precious few who light up a room without candles. But maybe there is some deeper mystery at work here. Something timeless. About us. It is quiet, yet bright as the sun, and has nothing to do with the birthday date stamped on our driver’s license. Please don’t roll your eyes. I’m only a little cuckoo.

Some of our happy CC Strummers smiling for the camera!

Well however one views the ineffable currents that move our lives, singing is fun and so is playing the ukulele and celebrating birthdays. Since we are all hanging out in the same earth orbit, I figure a birthday Shout Out to one is a birthday Shout Out for all. So, Whoo-Hoo!

Here’s……Michael

The CC Strummers and I have been practicing our birthday song for weeks and finally the big VIDEO day arrives. We wear birthday hats and crowns. There are balloons and a Happy Birthday sign I hang on the back wall. Michael, our video & techie dude has set up his wide-angle, high definition camera. There are more CC Strummers these days and we need a bigger camera!

As I am editing the video on my computer, a little thought bubble bursts over my head: Why not wish folks happy birthday in THEIR language too? Using titles and fancy fonts. So I Google “how do you say happy birthday in different languages?” Suddenly I am face to face with a roster of languages that scrolls from north to south. Many are written in alphabets that would make calligraphers swoon. So I copy and paste, copy and paste and voila (French!), my song “And Happy Birthday To You” has taken on an international flair.

Clowning around before we video our birthday song.

Of course I am making a bold assumption—that everything on the internet is absolutely correct. Are you laughing? Thai, Indonesian, Korean…they all look Greek to me and I can’t make out the Greek either. So I’m taking a leap of faith here that these phrases really mean “Happy Birthday” and not something like “You can take your birthday and shove it where the sun don’t shine.” Well, that IS kind of astronomical…

You gotta watch the video! CLICK HERE. It’s short, so sweet, “educational” and share-worthy. What would Einstein say? Maybe… “And Happy Birthday To You.”

Here are The CC Strummers in the recording studio where they play and sing on two songs from this CD.

This song is on my newest CD “Smile, Smile, Smile.” Please give the studio version a listen at iTunes, Amazon & CD Baby where all my CD’s and individual songs are available to download & purchase.

Thanks a million everybody!

 

 

1 May 2014

PASS IT ON

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Lucky me. I get to run in a lot of different circles. The desk calendar that hangs behind my computer is a patchwork of colors and circles and arrows and Post-Its. In three different sizes. Gasp…

One recent Tuesday I aim my car south because my calendar says “Scholarship Reception.” This is one “circle” that is brand new for me. I land at The Japanese Garden on the campus of California State University, Long Beach. For years my father-in-law Jack was a vice-president there and my mother-in-law Connie immersed herself in everything CSULB. She attended the basketball games, theater productions and helped co-found “Women in Philanthropy” which offers scholarships to deserving students. The staff, the students, the community of people who work together to make Cal State Long Beach such a warm and collaborative institution, all of this was the centerpiece of their lives. Connie passed away a few years ago and we lost Jack last winter.

So this year their long-time presence and contributions are being honored with a special scholarship in Connie’s name.  I am here to represent the family. The family I married into. Connie was the “good mother” to me, but I didn’t realize it, like in my belly, until she was gone. Why does that happen? That so much of our real connection with each other is obscured in the petty details of the moment that it seems we can only grasp the truth in retrospect? What a great big bummer that is…

From left to right: Susan (Connie’s dear friend), Jeanette and “Shorty” (me).

 

 

Folks gather under the tent, perch at the round tables where I meet some of Connie’s friends and Jack’s colleagues. I munch on the spring rolls and marvel at the whole gestalt of it all. A very lovely woman, Jeanette, who will earn her degree in Management Information Systems this year, is Connie’s Memorial Scholarship winner. She works in the “real world” while attending college and values the education she is receiving because nothing has come easy for her. I get to witness the power of “legacy” before my very eyes. If Connie was here, she’d be all aglow.

It’s interesting, the way we talk about “gifts.” As if a gift is a thing. A commodity. Like someone has a “gift” to write a poem or a song or paint a picture that makes you feel something. To grow a garden or a good kid or a new business. To bring out the best in others or to cook a perfect soufflé, to discover a new planet or medicine that cures the awful disease.

Of course what “we do” is important, but “what we are” is the true gift. I keep these wise words of author Natalie Goldberg at the ready, not far from my crazy calendar:

“Whether we know it or not, we transmit the presence of everyone we have ever known, as though by being in each other’s presence we exchange our cells, pass on some of our life force, and then we go on carrying that other person in our body, not unlike springtime when certain plants in fields we walk through attach their seeds in the form of small burrs to our socks, our pants, our caps, as if to say, “Go on, take us with you, carry us to root in another place.” This is how we survive long after we are dead. This is why it is important who we become, because we pass it on.”

14 Feb 2014

ORANGES AND UKULELES

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Crazy weather we are having these days? Have you noticed? Are you digging out of snow and ice? Are the temperatures hovering south of zero? Here in California it’s been warm and dry. Scary scary dry. Listening to the news this morning on my clock radio, the in-depth NPR report compared the drought in California’s central valley, the fruit basket for all of us who like to eat, to the Dust Bowl.

All of a sudden the politicians are talking about it. Freeways signs implore us to conserve water because we are in a serious drought. Which makes the oranges I received from a friend (and Mother Earth), an even more poignant and cherished gift.

Tom is one of our ukulele players in The CC Strummers and he makes frequent driving trips to the central valley around Fresno to visit his mother. His 97 year old mother. And her boyfriend… (You go girl!!!) The boyfriend just turned 100 years this month, still rides the tractor and works the family farm. They grow the fruit that we love to eat. Tom was just there with the extended family to celebrate the Big Birthday. The boyfriend got $100 bills as gifts. Not too shabby. He plans to spend them at “the casino.”

The family has a prized orange tree in front of the farmhouse. It was planted 100 years ago, about when the boyfriend was born. The tree is their private reserve and Tom brought me a bag of oranges from this very tree. A la natural and treasured. They are the size of grapefruit and taste like sweet, gooey orange sugar. Just think of everything that makes just one of these oranges possible—a hundred years of sunlight and soil, of people, generations of people, caretaking the tree and each other.

And the water… It’s all there in each bite.

Well, thanks to Tom, I’m getting plenty of Vitamin C this week so I’m feeling fortified for a really fun evening at Dave’s Island Instruments on Friday, February 21, 6:30 to 8:00 P.M. in Lakewood, California. This is a “good vibes” music store that sells not only ukuleles but all things “island-y.” You should see the exotic “drums”! Better yet, you should tappity-tap the exotic drums. Every month Dave and his fellow Island Music lovers invite a “special guest strum-along leader” to do a mini-concert and ukulele workshop. This month I “got tapped” for the job!

Admission is only $5 at the door and there is room for about 30 people. I will bring a handful of charts to share so we can make music together. We’ll talk about creating grooves on the ukulele and pumping some rhythmic intensity in our playing. What fun. Please join us.

Dave’s Island Instruments is located at 4115 Los Coyotes Diagonal, Lakewood, CA 90713. It is near the intersection of Carson and Los Coyotes Diagonal, behind the gasoline station. Lots of free parking. Phone: (562) 706-1719

BYOW! Bring your own water…

1 Feb 2014

A LIFE WELL LIVED

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The full-page obituary in the Los Angeles Times reminded readers that up to ten days ago Pete Seeger was chopping wood outside his farmhouse in upstate New York. And then he died. At age 94.

We should all be so lucky.

There is a marvelous Zen saying: “Before Enlightenment chop wood carry water, after Enlightenment, chop wood carry water.”

I have no idea what “enlightenment” is or “who” it may happen too, but I am suspicious of Mr. Seeger—that maybe he touched something very mysterious, something beyond the gray matter of his brain and lived his life from that place. It is reflected in the way he moved in the world, the ideas he valued and remained faithful to and the music, ah the music. Can you hum his songs? The ones he wrote or sang right into the national psyche? This Land is Your Land. If I Had A Hammer. Turn Turn Turn. We Shall Overcome. Are they part of the soundtrack of your life?

Pete Seeger showed us that music grows community and heals aching hearts. It gives us a rarified opportunity to experience something enlightening in ourselves. And in others. Music is sound AND silence. And there are untold goodies to be found in both.

Gigging a few light years ago…

I love doing my shows and probably got into this biz because I wanted to be noticed and feel special and fortunately I had a knack for singing and playing an instrument. The first gig I remember was at the Veterans Administration Hospital where I played the guitar and sang songs like “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round The Mountain” for the injured vets and encouraged them to sing along. I pulled off this stunt during a lunch break when I was in my first semester of nursing school doing clinical rotation at The VA. It was fun being the “girl singer” in a sprawling ward of men and I got my first glimpse of how a certain song elicits a smile or perhaps gives another a second wind.

That gig changed my life. I realized I liked this singing stuff a whole lot better than giving sponge bathes. I dropped out of nursing school and quit my night-shift job at the local emergency room. Soon I was doing what I love to do–making music–and getting paid for it!

But if you really want a big dose of “happy,” bring a whole bunch of people along on the ride. That way we all get to feel special. Pete Seeger was the living embodiment of this, beckoning and showing us what is possible. What feels right.

He says: “… when one person taps out a beat, while another leads into the melody, or when three people discover a harmony they never knew existed, or a crowd joins in on a chorus as though to raise the ceiling a few feet higher, then they also know there is hope for the world.”

Maybe a few among us reach the mountaintop and catch a glimpse of something that changes us forever. But we have to return to the mess of everyday life. We have to chop wood.

But we can sing too.

 

The CC Strummers Thursday Class at the Vets Memorial Building in Culver City, California

I whipped up an arrangement of “If I Had A Hammer” as a tribute to Pete Seeger for the Thursday class of the CC Strummers. We played through it a couple times and are feeling that “Pete Seeger” magic. It’s like taking a little trip to the top of the mountain.

We snagged a video so you can join in and sing along. Click here to watch.

21 Jan 2014

GAB FEST WITH FOOD

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It’s not easy making a living as a musician in Los Angeles. Or probably anywhere. In order to bring home the booty we need a reasonable command of our instrument, whatever that instrument is. But there is so much more.

We need bulldog tenacity. Abundant energy helps. And what about all those juicy distractions that seduce us at every turn? Gotta say “no” to them. Over and over again. Because they arrive like a flock of birds.

But if we are lucky we find our “village.” We discover other people who are gliding–or slipping and sliding–down the same road. Or at least on a similar trajectory.

I am talking about “networking” and I’ve been part of a long-standing network of women who play the keyboard for a living. Every year or so we gather the whole bunch of us and catch up on the latest dramas, offer moral support, share news about our new CD or musical or book and oh the gigs–glorious and otherwise. We have among us a jazzer who has been declared a living legend here in Los Angeles and a warrior woman who has taken on the power’s-that-be at the Grammy Awards for dissolving her category of music (Zydeco). We have talented writers, entertainers, teachers, business entrepreneurs. Keyboard players all.

And so it goes one Wednesday when twenty-plus of us pull our chairs around one long table in the food court at the Westfield Mall. There’s sushi to our left, pizza to our right, Vietnamese in front and a whole array of other tummy-warming choices stretching north and south.

I marvel at the conviviality of the whole thing. We are women who work in a field that is highly competitive. The economy has not been kind to artists. Of course we are taking care of ourselves first. That said, one can sense the generosity of spirit that comes through. Like any community, I feel closer to some than others, but that’s okay too because I know how difficult it is to be a woman and a musician in this town and appreciate that we are all working as artists, however that appears and unfolds. We are exploring new paths, reinventing old ones and above all, finding ways to keep doing what we love to do. We know, in our bones, that music is food for the body and heart and soul. Sushi is good, but the right song at the right time can change your life.

The great lyricist, Dorothy Fields, one of the first women to break into the male-bastion of American music, kicked open the door for women songwriters to follow, including the songwriters at our table in the mall. She hit it big in 1928 with her song “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love.”

She had to “play” with the big boys and not take their sometimes patronizing and dismissive attitude personally. The “boys” called her the “Fifty-Dollar-A-Night Girl.” I bet Dorothy got a kick out of that and maybe took it as a compliment. In those days, songs had about fifty words. A publisher would give her an assignment to write the lyric for a melody. She’d whip out something amazing that night, bring it back to the publisher the next morning and collect her fifty bucks. She wrote well. And fast.

I think Dorothy was one tough cookie. Today we need to be tough too. But we do have each other.

11 Jan 2014

SHOUT OUTS!

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We get into our routines, don’t we? Hubby likes to wake up super early, check his Facebook page and head to the local hole watering here in Culver City for coffee. Sometimes even before the sun comes up. The Roll ‘n Rye is his home away from home and the waitresses take good care of him. Sometimes he’ll report back later with a sterling tidbit about the morning. Like this…

The deli is post-holiday crowded as a little girl emerges from the bathroom with mommy in tow. She throws up her arms and announces, “I just went pee-pee!!!” She’s not holding back, this one. It’s a “shout out” and she might as well be telling the world she just won the lottery.

To tell you the truth, I often feel like doing the same thing since peeing is one of my favorite things to do, and why not share the joy? But alas I surrender to social custom and keep the excitement to myself.

Well, speaking of Shout Outs…

It’s a new year and I’m jumping back into the TEACHING thing… I think with the same gusto as our little “pee-er.”

My four-week workshop “Ukulele For Beginners” begins January 18, 2014, 11:00 to noon at Boulevard Music in Culver City, California. We meet consecutive Saturdays and start at the very beginning. You’ll be singing and playing a song the first day. Here is the flyer with all the shout out info.

Beginning February 15, from 12:30 to 1:30 P.M., I am teaching an ONGOING Ukulele Workshop, also at Boulevard Music. More tips and tunes, chords, strum patterns, finger-picking and nifty tricks on the ukulele. Sign up for four classes as a time. The ukulele is a joy, especially when we play with other people.

The CC Strummers, my ukulele group at the Culver City Senior Center, is a magnet for new players, new friendships and glorious fun. We have grown so much that they moved us to a bigger room. Classes meet twice a week, Mondays, 3:30 to 4:30 P.M. and Thursdays 10:00 to 11:00 A.M. We do rock and roll, swing and country music, Latin flavored songs, Hawaiian gems and songs in five languages. Because we can…

It was standing-room-only at our “Holiday Ukulele Show Spectacular” last month. Click here to see our snazzy version of “Chantilly Lace” on YouTube. It’s one minute of rock n’ roll fun.

I also offer SKYPE UKULELE LESSONS and let me tell you, this is so cool. It feels like we’re in the same room and learning from each other. I love doing this. Lessons are only $30 for an hour. Please email me so we can make arrangements for a lesson. You can use my website to pay via PayPal.

So here’s a toast to the New Year. For all of us. Pee happy!

25 Dec 2013

“HAPPY HAPPY” TO ALL OF YOU!

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A few lines from a recent article in the Los Angeles Times caught my eye. Actually it was an obituary, a beautifully written one, for the great actor Peter O’Toole. A man, whom by all appearances, lived very wide. As well as long.

“Once a thing is solidified it stops being a living thing. That’s why I love the theater. It’s the Art of the Moment. I’m in love with ephemera and I hate permanence,” he said.

While most of us check our safety nets every morning lest we fall from the high wire act of the day, he seemed to relish the ever-present potential for disaster. Or exhilaration. Knowing full well those moments come and go… A big theater, this life is, and we, the actors get to play our roles, steal a scene or two, disappear into the story, take a bow. For a while.

And now the winter solstice has come and gone. Barely. So has Thanksgiving and Hanukkah. Christmas and New Years will soon be memories too, melting into the ones that came before.

Of course we want the good things to last. Our love affairs and friendships and families. The great job. We wish each other good health. We want our body parts to keep on going and going just like the Ever-Ready Bunny.
And conversely we want the lousy stuff to go away.  And sometimes it does…sometimes it doesn’t. The love affair that goes from good to crazy. The friendship that suddenly changes sides. The toxic aunt who broadcasts bad news like a radio station. The job that sucks the life force from you. The achy knees, allergies, the chronic this or that, the bummer diagnosis. Be gone…
But Peter O’Toole, the actor, had the gumption to honor all that which does NOT last. Which is fleeting. A wise man, indeed, because it does appear that everything is fleeting. And SO precious.
Gotta love this great big ephemeral life! “Happy Happy” to all of you…

25 Nov 2013

HAPPY “TWILIGHT ZONE” THANKSGIVING

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Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone

The Butterballs are on sale along with spiral cut hams, golden yams, Brussels sprouts and pumpkin pies. Harbingers of the “thank you” holiday ahead. But I know it’s Thanksgiving, for sure, for sure, when I see the commercials for The Twilight Zone Marathon on KTLA. Ah, turkey and terror.

A long time ago, when my parents and I landed in another galaxy far far away—also known as Los Angeles—my father snagged a downstairs “two bedrooms and a den” in an adults-only apartment building. I am coached to act like a “young lady” so the landlord will not regret his decision to offer a one-year lease. I am able to maintain this charade long enough to make it through the probation period. There aren’t any kids on the block anyway so it’s not like I can go all wack-a-doo.

Then she appears. A thin scrappy girl, maybe a year older than me. Her dishwater blond hair hangs straight and scraggly over her shoulders. She is probably twelve years old and has a sort of pre-pubescent Jodie Foster vibe about her, straight out of the movie Taxi Driver.

And she curses. Oh I love that. She made a skateboard. MADE a skateboard. It is basically a board with a set of roller skate wheels screwed strategically in front and back. She named her skateboard “Damn It.” Those old-school metal wheels hiss like fingernails across a chalkboard as she sweeps past me down the alley until she spins out in the dirt. “Damn it!” I hear her wail from afar. I decide this is the coolest thing ever.

One day she tells me her father is Rod Serling. Yes, THAT Rod Serling. I will never know if she was telling me the truth, but why would she make up something like that? But then again, it’s not like we were living in the “high rent” district either. I wanted to believe her.

I also got the impression that things were a little dicey at home. Nothing specific is said, as I recall, but thinking about it now, maybe she had a little too much “alone” time. The memories of our brief friendship haunt me still.

Then there is “Little Girl Lost.” Episode 26 from Season 3 of The Twilight Zone. I saw this show when I was also a little girl lost. And it seared into my bones.

Here’s the quickie story: Little girl hears voices inside the wall of her bedroom. She crawls under her bed and falls through a mysterious portal into another dimension. All she can do is cry out to her daddy for help. Good daddy dives into the opening in the wall, tears through psychedelic blurs and blobs, grabs the little girl and they escape through the mysterious doorway before it closes forever. (Program note: The family dog earns an extra biscuit for bravery too).

Commercial. I start breathing again…

I saw that show light years ago, but to this day, I still cannot look under a bed, or any furniture for that matter, without thinking about the little girl and the doorway to The Twilight Zone. Just last week one of my ukulele students and I are perched on the sofa in the living room, which doubles as my teaching studio. Her yellow pencil topples off the music stand and rolls under the couch. I drop to my knees and reach my hand underneath along the floor… Oh God, there’s the wall… Is it opening up? Do I hear voices? My heart is racing…

The truth is, I have not been sucked into any mysterious portal to another dimension. So far. But then again, some crazy part of me believes this time will be different.

Actually I have been sucked in. By marvelous storytelling. By the work of a genius who understood our collective fears and brought the whole mess of them into the flickering light of day, right there on our television screens. In striking black and white. The truth is I found a little piece of myself in almost every episode.

So when Thanksgiving rolls around, I remember the gutsy girl who showed me how to ride a skateboard and who probably needed a friend as much as I did. I hope she found her way in the flickering light of this world. I remember the Little Girl Lost too. All I have to do is look in the mirror to find her.

And I remember to say “thank you,” every chance I get, “thank you,” for the whole glorious mess of it all.

Happy Thanksgiving.

3 Nov 2013

A SWEET SUNDAY IN HUNTINGTON BEACH

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Good Morning Desk. What a mess!

Do you hear this sometimes? Or even say it yourself? “There aren’t enough hours in the day, by golly.” Or “So much to do and so little time.”

Well today is your lucky day! That is if you live in one of the states that slides the clock back one hour to standard time. Around here, in our cozy condo treehouse, I’m using that extra sixty minutes to clear my desk. I mean REALY clear my desk. And then hubby, Craig Brandau, and I are going to rehearse for something pretty darn exciting that happens next Sunday, November 10, 2013: The “Fall for Ukulele” Mini-Festival at Island Bazaar in Huntington Beach, CA (that’s Surf City to the rest of the world).

They have invited us to be part of their first ever festival. Craig and I will be sharing the day with Sarah Maisel who is one hot jazzer and the incomparable Bryan Tolentino who brings his aloha spirit all the way from O’ahu. And Shirley Orlando, the mistress of teaching and owner of this musical oasis of joy, will show us “flutters and flourishes” on the ukulele!

Admission includes workshops all day, a catered lunch, a big fat wonderful ukulele strum along and an evening concert that will be spectacular. Tickets are going fast. If you live in Southern California, or know someone who does, please pass this along.

The ukulele is red hot these days. For so many reasons. Here’s one: It’s called the People’s Instrument. Why? Because almost everyone can learn to play a little and make happy. For themselves AND others.

So, please join us for plenty of “make happy” next Sunday. And don’t forget to make happy today. We get a whole extra hour of it…

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