Wanted Tambo Toco
Please check out my friend Silke’s great band “Wanted Tambo Toco” for some the best new music from germany. Wonderful vocals,soaring lyrics and inspired instrumentals! No ukulele playing but the aloha vibe is cranked up to 11!
PB
Do you have a unused musical instrument or 2 lying around and never being played?Do you want to enrich the life of a chronically ill child? This organization collects then donates musical instruments to a deserving kid,who knows you may influence the next Jimmy Hendricks!
http://www.childrensmusicfund.org/
Please check out my friend Silke’s great band “Wanted Tambo Toco” for some the best new music from germany. Wonderful vocals,soaring lyrics and inspired instrumentals! No ukulele playing but the aloha vibe is cranked up to 11!
PB
When I hear the word”music”,I don’t think of the word “compete.” When I listen to music I don’t think “is it better or worst than the song I just listened to ?”. When I make music,I try to do the best I can,but I never think “so and so can do it better or worst than me”,I just try to do the best I can.I mean,think about it,when did music become a sport? Are there people out there betting on which song will make it to number one? Has anyone committed suicide because they didn’t make the top 10? Really now, how far are we going to take this?I mean,its fun and all to see what other folks think about my music,but seriously,what dose it really matter if no one likes it? Obviously I like it or I wouldn’t be doing it,and I’ve never been booed off stage or had rotten tomatoes thrown at me,but then again I never heard the snide comments that mean people say to their friends but don’t have the guts to say to your face.
Maybe its the flu that I’ve been fighting for the past 2 weeks talking here or the meds,or maybe I’m not the competitive type,but I really think this will be my last month here.I think I’ve learned what I needed to from being here and I’ve met some nice folks and heard some music I like and some I didn’t, but this “I’m better than you “attitude really turns me off.
Its just music,you’ll either like it or not.
PB
Please visit my friend Chris and his podcast of contemporary ukulele music at www.ukecast.com. This month featuring Moi.
PB
People have asked me why there are only two lines in this song ( I am sorry,I love you ) and why I repeated those two lines in Spanish and Hawaiian. Here is the article that inspired the song
Ho’oponopono By Dr. Joe Vitale
Two years ago, I heard about a therapist in Hawaii who cured a complete ward of criminally insane patients—without ever seeing any of them. The psychologist would study an inmate’s chart and then look within himself to see how he created that person’s illness. As he improved himself, the patient improved.
“When I first heard this story, I thought it was an urban legend. How could anyone heal anyone else by healing himself? How could even the best self-improvement master cure the criminally insane? It didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t logical, so I dismissed the story. “However, I heard it again a year later. I heard that the therapist had used a Hawaiian healing process called ho’oponopono. I had never heard of it, yet I couldn’t let it leave my mind. If the story was at all true, I had to know more. I had always understood “total responsibility” to mean that I am responsible for what I think and do.
Beyond that, it’s out of my hands. I think that most people think of total responsibility that way. We’re responsible for what we do, not what anyone else does—but that’s wrong.
“The Hawaiian therapist who healed those mentally ill people would teach me an advanced new perspective about total responsibility. His name is Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len. We probably spent an hour talking on our first phone call. I asked him to tell me the complete story of his work as a therapist.
He explained that he worked at Hawaii State Hospital for four years.
That ward where they kept the criminally insane was dangerous.
Psychologists quit on a monthly basis. The staff called in sick a lot or simply quit. People would walk through that ward with their backs against the wall, afraid of being attacked by patients. It was not a pleasant place to live, work, or visit.
“Dr. Len told me that he never saw patients. He agreed to have an office and to review their files. While he looked at those files, he would work on himself. As he worked on himself, patients began to heal.
”’After a few months, patients that had to be shackled were being allowed to walk freely,’ he told me. ‘Others who had to be heavily medicated were getting off their medications. And those who had no chance of ever being released were being freed.’ I was in awe. Not only that,’ he went on, ‘but the staff began to enjoy coming to work.
Absenteeism and turnover disappeared. We ended up with more staff than we needed because patients were being released, and all the staff was showing up to work. Today, that ward is closed.’
“This is where I had to ask the million dollar question: ‘What were you doing within yourself that caused those people to change?’
”’I was simply healing the part of me that created them,’ he said. I didn’t understand. Dr. Len explained that total responsibility for your life means that everything in your life- simply because it is in your life—is your responsibility. In a literal sense the entire world is your creation.
“Whew. This is tough to swallow. Being responsible for what I say or do is one thing. Being responsible for what everyone in my life says or does is quite another. Yet, the truth is this: if you take complete responsibility for your life, then everything you see, hear, taste, touch, or in any way experience is your responsibility because it is in your life. This means that terrorist activity, the president, the economy or anything you experience and don’t like—is up for you to heal. They don’t exist, in a manner of speaking, except as projections from inside you. The problem isn’t with them, it’s with you, and to change them, you have to change you.
“I know this is tough to grasp, let alone accept or actually live. Blame is far easier than total responsibility, but as I spoke with Dr. Len, I began to realize that healing for him and in ho’oponopono means loving yourself.
“If you want to improve your life, you have to heal your life. If you want to cure anyone, even a mentally ill criminal you do it by healing you.
“I asked Dr. Len how he went about healing himself. What was he doing, exactly, when he looked at those patients’ files?
”’I just kept saying, ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I love you’ over and over again,’ he explained.
“That’s it?
“That’s it.
“Turns out that loving yourself is the greatest way to improve yourself, and as you improve yourself, you improve your world.
“Let me give you a quick example of how this works: one day, someone sent me an email that upset me. In the past I would have handled it by working on my emotional hot buttons or by trying to reason with the person who sent the nasty message.
“This time, I decided to try Dr. Len’s method. I kept silently saying, ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I love you,’ I didn’t say it to anyone in particular. I was simply evoking the spirit of love to heal within me what was creating the outer circumstance.
“Within an hour I got an e-mail from the same person. He apologized for his previous message. Keep in mind that I didn’t take any outward action to get that apology. I didn’t even write him back. Yet, by saying ‘I love you,’ I somehow healed within me what was creating him.
“I later attended a ho’oponopono workshop run by Dr. Len. He’s now 70 years old, considered a grandfatherly shaman, and is somewhat reclusive.
He praised my book, The Attractor Factor. He told me that as I improve myself, my book’s vibration will raise, and everyone will feel it when they read it. In short, as I improve, my readers will improve.
”’What about the books that are already sold and out there?’ I asked .
”’They aren’t out there,’ he explained, once again blowing my mind with his mystic wisdom. ‘They are still in you.’ In short, there is no out there. It would take a whole book to explain this advanced technique with the depth it deserves.
“Suffice It to say that whenever you want to improve anything in your life, there’s only one place to look: inside you. When you look, do it with love.”
Surf was up today
It started out 20 years ago as a simple jam song,just 2 chords,G and F and it worked pretty well. If beginners had trouble with the F chord,I’d change to D and C,and the melody players had a fun time noodling around. Over the years I had heard it with a lot of different instruments doing the melody and rhythm parts so I had a good idea of what could be done with it.I wanted to include it in my cd that will be out soon,but what works in a jam situation doesn’t really work in a song,so I need to rethink it.
Being just 2 chords is kinda boing after a while,so the first thing I did was to add a break.I settled on a simple rhythmic section that repeats the title. Next I needed some words,so I remembered a response of mine to a post on the Flea market bulletin board called “Going to Bradenton/Sarasota” by Lefty Ron in which I replied in the form of a poem.
Writers dream of things to come
Musicians dream of things to play
Artist dream of things to see
Dreams bring them down to the sea
2nd verse
Lands end and beaches bright
guided by the far stars light
moon and waves,sea bird songs
burdened by our rights and wrongs
Break: Surf was up today x3
and I went out and played in it
Not enough words yet,so I had to come up with more.My fishing buddy came by and reminded me of something that happened a while back,we were wading in chest deep water,so I had put some shrimp in my shirt pocket to keep them alive and then forgot about them.
Dry dead shrimp in my shirt pocket
no excuse I just forgt it
some chick said what’s that smell
O well,O well
(I can’t stay serious for very long) I needed one more verse so I started looking in my notebook for lines to steal from earlier songs and found the first line.The second line came from going to see the mermaids at Weeki Watchee.The 3rd line came from the ad in and old comic book.Remember “Sea Monkeys”? They show you these cute monkey things smiling and dancing,so you send them your hard earned cash and you get a bunch of tiny brine shrimp. The last line came from a really stupid joke my brother came up with when were little kids playing on the beach.
Black light morning 2 am
Mermaids singing 2 of them
Sea monkeys dance for money
Sand dollars,they don’t say nuthin
Once I had the words,the melody to sing them to came naturally.
So there it is,the evolution of a song.Vocals,Bass,Baritone and soprano ukulele’s are played by me.Drums,bongos,slide guitar,recording and sound effects by Nick Page.
Cd will be on sale in June. Thanks for all your support! PB
i’ve just added 70 golden solo papaya trees to my papaya plantation this week. I’ll be adding 180 golden maridol papaya’s in the next few weeks. The fruit will be ready to eat in January of next year.I’m thinking of starting a “Papaya a month club” so if you would like to have 3-4 organic sweet and juicy papaya shipped to your door every month drop me a note and I’ll put you on my list.At our farm in Bell we are still picking kale and collard greens. The tomatoes and watermelons should be coming in next month.
PB
I promise to write stuff in here sometimes!