Monthly Archives: April 2017

last weekend we drove to joplin and spent saturday and sunday celebrating sara’s birthday! sara is 15, and she still likes to spend time w/her family (thank god!). we blew out candles and sang songs on saturday, then we walked around the mall, played in the park, and sang more songs on sunday!

there’s a company that is supposed to pick up my trash on a weekly basis… and… well… they suck. i would GLADLY pay these aptly named 1963 rockers to do it instead. after all, everybody’s heard about the bird. yesterday my nieces were singing this song at the top of their lungs after they saw someone flip the bird in traffic.

i recently listened to a 4 hour podcast that was all about strange brew. i loved this movie when it came out in the early 80′s. bob and doug mckenzie were the main characters created by rick moranis (left) and dave thomas (right). i had NO IDEA this movie was based on hamlet! it makes sense now. dave thomas talks about it here.

last week jenny & i figured out a cost effective way to get new smartphones. this is the part where you might look at the image above and ask “did they find a service provider that is still storing voicemails on cassettes? wouldn’t that cost even MORE?” sorry for the confusion. we just switched to another provider. it should come as no surprise that one of the first apps i downloaded was a retro cassette mp3 player. this is how it looks when it is playing.

so after 10 days of looking at a blog post of me and joshua fairman, what do i do? put up another blog post about me and joshua fairman. it feels like something andy kaufman would have done. anyway, here’s a video that josh and i made right after christmas about my choice of footwear.

joshua fairman and i got together late this afternoon to record our version of WHY from jeremy messersmith’s ukulele songbook that i downloaded tuesday. right now there are 16 other cover artists that have contributed videos– but at this point, josh and i are the only ones to cover the song, WHY. the actual audio release is expected next week, and according to jeremy messersmith’s website: “It’s jam-packed with ridiculous songs about kittens, world peace, flying cars and the transformative power of love. Why? Because we all need a ray of sunshine every now and again. Because it’s important to not lose sight of how good things could be. Because the first step to a better world is to imagine a better world.” now you see why i wanted to be a part of this.

three days ago jeremy messersmith emailed me and a bunch of other fans a free download of his latest music– in the form of a songbook for ukuleles! it’s called 11 Obscenely Optimistic Songs For Ukulele: A Micro-Folk Record For The 21st Century And Beyond. his aim is for people to play selections from this new songbook before the actual audio release comes out. loads of ukulele players are uploading their versions of songs like everybody gets a kitten and we can make our dreams come true on youtube, facebook, and twitter. i learned one of the songs earlier today, and plan on posting it tomorrow. it will feature my guitar student joshua fairman on the ukulele.

last weekend jenny & i drove to lincoln for joe’s 90th birthday. joe is marijo’s neighbor. he lives two yards away, and even though he’s not related by blood, he IS family. joe celebrates with us at the reunions, mourns with us at the funerals, and is there for all points in between. there were over a hundred party-goers at the whitehall mansion for joe’s shindig. we ate lunch, told stories, sang songs, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.