Ohai there, i'm fresh out of puns

three of us UCBitches are expecting Pono Ohai ukes in the mail this week. basically, we all want to be like Boozelele. (i.e. tall and foppish)

"Forget it, Jake. It's Elephant Town"

Seeso is challenging all ukulele players to cover this amazing song. So c'mon! Record a video of you playing "Elephant Town" and post it on Youtube. Find your inner elephant!

How many ukuleles should you own?

Booze questioned the number of ukes he should own in an earlier post. Here's my answer:

1) Car Uke - You gotta have one in your car at all times in case you're caught in traffic (or on a long stretch of straightaway). It's gotta be tough so it doesn't split or bend from the heat and cold. It's gotta be small so you can put it in your purse or man-bag and not look too odd. My recommendation: an Ohana sopranino or an old Fin-Der plastic ukulele.

2 - 5) One of each size (soprano, concert, tenor and baritone) in reentrant tuning.

6-9) One of each size with low g or (as in the bari) low d strings. Some people don't like sopranos or concerts strung with low g, but I've got two strung that way and they sound great. For the times you want to play Mississippi John Hurt in tight spaces.

10) Decoy uke: This is the uke that you don't care what happens to it. But you act like it's your favorite because you know there will come the day when your spouse is completely fed-up with your uke obsession and decide to destroy what you hold dear the most. You have to be vigilant about this though. Every now and then you'll have to get the uke out, polish it, coo to it, tell it how much you love it so (when your spouse is within earshot).

11) Decoy uke #2: for your child, who wants to touch (destroy) everything Papa and Mama touches. Again, you have to act like it's a prized possession, otherwise the kid won't think it's anything special.

12) Banjo ukulele: To play when your house-guests have worn out their welcome and you desire to get rid of them quickly.

So there, Booze. Answer is 12 ukuleles. Anything beyond that is too much.

Morning Gripe

I was awoken way too early this morning so I'm in a lousy mood. So in that spirit, allow me to rant. Dent May must have a great publicist. I get daily Google reports on the word "ukulele" and Dent's name is on every report. And I don't care for his music. So somebody else does. Or he's got great publicity skills.

Ukulele Ray kind of frightens me. He sounds like a fine musician, and I've emailed with him and he seems like a pleasant fellow. But his videos are always the same - clip-art montages - and his arrangements are a bit over-produced. I guess it's his hair and beard. EDIT: Also, Ray is sponsored by Fender and plays a Fender uke. Why can't I get a Fender uke?!! Why can't I be sponsored!!?? Envy!!

The Ukulele Lady is just bad. Bad bad bad. Horrible videos, crappy songs, lousy sense of humor. And she's a partner on Youtube. Why? Yech!

Okay. Rant over. Sorry to the above-mentioned people. Honestly, I'm sure that they're all very nice and excellent people. They just don't appeal to me in their publicly-created personas.

First blog entry

Twitter has a 140 character limit and I never reach that. I can't believe Russ wants me to start blogging.

Woke up in the middle of the night and Uked all over the floor....

I was just looking at these five Ukuleles sitting around my living room, and wondering about the constant desire for more. Is it that five is not enough? Would six be just the right amount? What about seven? Or maybe ten? Or maybe there should be a uke exchange, where you can play one for a while, then trade it in for another one. Or maybe a uke library where you can check one out for a couple weeks. Or maybe, I should just unload all of these mediocre ukuleles, and get one really good one. But then I would only have one....think of the emptiness one would feel with only one ukulele....yeah, screw that....I think six will be the magic number.