Ukulele Player Magazine is now on MySpace. We created a MySpace “page” to enable us to post short video clips of us playing the ukuleles we review in order for people to “hear” them. Our goal is to help people decide what ukulele best meets their expectations.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=436965928
We have a lot of ukulele reviews in the works, stay tuned.
Well, I have sent this little poem to people for years as Christmas approached, but, this time, I thought I’d just turn it into a song.
http://www.myspace.com/mickeymaguirebluewaters
Click “A Letter From Santa” at the top of the music player.
Enjoy!
Well, Ukulele Player is off and running. Thanks a lot for all of the encouragement and positive feedback. Special thanks to Craig Robertson (Ukulelia), who allowed me to interview him for the debut issue and “CharlieC” from Ukulele Ireland.
http://www.ukulelia.com/
http://ukulele-ireland.blogspot.com/
We have lots of great thngs happening… so, stay tuned.
Mickey
Well, I don’t post enough, that is what my dear wife tells me. She assures me that I’d get more activity if I’d just post more frequently.
I have been busy, though, with the newest publication from our company, Tricorn Publications. This new work is called “UKULELE PLAYER” and is an online magazine dedicated to ukuleles and the people who play them. The magazine is in PDF format so that it can be read on any computer. It can be printed if you like. There is news and information about ukulele clubs and events world-wide. It is FREE to download from here:
http://www.tricornpublications.com/uke_player.htm
So, if you play ukulele, or always wanted to learn to play a musical instrument, then, by all means, check it out. You’ll be glad you did.
Mickey Maguire
In praise of Ukulele…
Yes, ukulele. I have played the instrument for over forty years. Why? Well, when I began my fingers were small and playing guitar, especially bar chords, was tough. My fingers did not have the reach for some chordings even in non-bar chords. I began with a soprano uke that was made of plastic, but, I soon had a baritone ukulele with a solid mahogany body.
Nobody ever played a dirge on a ukulele. Have you ever heard a funeral march on a uke? Me neither. Nope, a ukulele is a cheerful little instrument. It has nylon strings that lend it a bright, happy sound. You have four fingers and a ukulele has four strings. That is a convenient arrangement. Add to that the small size and light weight and you soon begin to realize that this is an instrument you can take anywhere.
It has been said that anybody can learn to play a ukulele. Yes, strumming a uke and singing a happy tune is easy. Now that they are becoming popular again, it is easy to walk into almost any music store and take home a pretty nice little instrument and start having fun. In fact, I know a lot of guitarists that play uke because they can take it anywhere and play it any time day or night.
So, today, I’d like to encourage anyone that loves music, whether they play any other instrument or not, pick up a ukulele and start having fun. You’ll be glad you did.
By the way, here is a link to nicely built, hand-made ukuleles by Dave Gjessing. Dave has some really cool designs and the ukulele in the picture above is one of his creations.
http://www.wsukes.com/
That is to say, Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Hear Ye…
With the financial climate what it is, this is a good time for encouragement. I am not speaking to the “people” of this great country, but to the legislative branch of our government. You know, the congress-people and senators that seem to find so many frivolous and wasteful ways of spending our tax dollars. To those governors I say this:
Remember last year’s “stimulus package”? Yes, the tax rebate. GW gave us “back” our tax dollars, in part, to stimulate the economy by putting that money into circulation through increased spending. Well, a lot of people used the money to repair cars or replace worn items that were necessities. Some people bought luxury items, too. Many people just stuck the money in their savings accounts to pay the tax on this money when it comes due next year. Yes, we have to claim that tax rebate as income. Well, quite frankly, that was and still is stupid!
Now that the economy is far worse than last year, why not make it right? Change last years legislation to make it so that we won’t have to claim that stimulus as income. In fact, why not give us more of the same and also make it so that we won’t have to claim it as income either. Increase the amount from $1200 to $2400 and stimulate the economy even more.
To tax our income, return a portion of it to the tax-payers, then charge them a tax on that tax rebate is stupid. You are paying taxes on your money twice in that case. Double-jeopardy in a criminal court is against the constitution of the United States of America. In this case, our double-jeopardy comes in the form of taxation. Why King George is alive and well in Washington D.C. With this sort of thinking, we need another revolution… not of guns and violent confrontation, since that is a war that we cannot possibly win. We need a revolution of ideas.
Prior to 1913, our country did not have a Federal Reserve. We did not, therefore, have a “Federal Income Tax” in place. Your federal income tax is collected to pay the government’s debt to a private banking institution called the “Federal Reserve”, or “The FED”, and how it works will astound you if you don’t already know.
The FED prints US currency and makes it available for distribution. The United States government is then given this money as a “loan”, which is then to be repaid to the FED after the government collects our income taxes. The cost of these loans from the FED accrue with interest, which is bought with our tax dollars.
When our government wastes money on stupid pork-barrel programs, that loan becomes even more burdensome. That is why we need a revolution of ideas. We need to look at government spending in a new light. First, ask yourself, how much money do you make per year? Can a representative of congress fairly represent you when he or she makes over four times the amount of your income, has a pension, a real honest to goodness pension, not some 401K tax deferment plan that could lose money over time, and receives all of the perks and status given to a member of government? I think not. A representative of the people that lives a life of privelege and luxury cannot possibly relate to you when you punch a time-clock and make ten dollars per hour. They cannot comprehend what it is that you go through from paycheck to paycheck.
I started this post like a town crier. The town crier was an herald in days of olde. The town crier was the king’s messenger to the people. In this case, I am the people’s messenger to King George and those representing us on Capitol Hill.
In this time, when the presidential election is just around the corner, and your opportunity to make a statement in the way you vote is before you, think of every congressman and woman in Washington. What have they done for you personally? You have a voice and your happiness, and the pursuit thereof, are your constitutional right. Be heard. Tell congress what you expect to see and hear. They work for you. You employ them. You can FIRE THEM, too.
I don’t generally use this blog as a political forum, that is not what it is for. Get Happy is meant to promote my book, Get Happy, Write Away, and to help people find happiness in their own lives and loves. In this one way, though, it is possible that you can help make a country that is not adversarial. You can send a message that you want to pursue happiness and catch it. You should not be burdened by taxation that is excessive. That is why we had a revolution in the beginning.
Go ye, therefore, and spread the word. Oyez, Oyez, Oyez… it means “Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Hear Ye…”
Cry out! Let the new revolution begin. Do it with a smile. Be light-hearted. Tomorrow will be better than today. I am sure of it.
-cheers.
Sometimes, indeed, everything just falls into place. Yesterday, it did just that.
Earlier in the week my wife and I had discussed going to Hocking Hills to take autumn leaf pictures. Being a big fan of leaf-peeping, I always look forward to the turning of leaves and brisk walks in nature’s wonderlands. Ah, but an all-day rain hit us early in the week and that would delay this year’s color show.
Checking weather forecasts, I discovered that Saturday, October 11th, and the following Sunday, would be sunny and bright. We changed our plans and headed south to the Ohio Renaissance Festival at Harveysburg. We couldn’t have made a better choice.
Our focus this year would be photographing the jousting tournament. I was armed with the right gear, and the weather was perfect. We took our spot along the arena and waited for the festivities to begin. By the end of the competition, I had the shots I have always wanted and we left a little bit later when we stopped to pickup a couple of festival coffee mugs to remember the day.
You can read my article on photographing jousting matches here:
http://www.dslr-mag.com/joust.htm
Every now and then everything just falls neatly into place and even when last minute plans are made, everything is serendipity. Yes, this was one of those times. I knew what I had to do to get the shots I wanted, but, all other elements fell perfectly into place as if I had willed them to happen just as they did. Serendipity.
Part of Getting Happy and staying that way is to look for opportunities where they exist and grab the Gold Ring when it comes within reach. When opportunity knocks, open the door. You just might love the results.
Cheers.
I have a passion for cycling. I think I always have. At least, from my earliest years, I longed to ride and I had dreams of riding fast.
Age has a way of changing things. I still love to ride, but, rather than rush headlong from point “A” to point “B” as brisk as humanly possible, I don’t mind if I slow things down and take a casual ride with my wife. Life is short enough. Why rush through things you love doing when you can prolong the event and make the most of it. After all, riding a bike is not like chomping on your favorite pizza where it tastes much better when it’s hot. No, riding a bike is something that I can’t do as often as I’d like.
My wife and I were riding a couple days ago when a “roadie” blew by us. He didn’t say a word when he passed (in cycling, the courteous rider would have said “on your left” as he went around us). Not that guy, nope, he just zipped by us as fast as he could. Maybe he wanted to show us how fast he could go, but, not so much as an acknowledgement. You see, we were riding mountain bikes… on the road. “Good heavens”, he surely thought, as he flew by. I am sure he scoffed, “two of those”. Yes, he might have been a road-bike snob.
Funny, I rode a custom-made road racing bike for years and if I were atop its saddle, I am sure that I could blow right by him and make him eat my dust, but then, that is not why we ride.
Life rushes by in a blaze of glory. Why not slow down a little and just enjoy the ride. That is what my wife and I do these days more and more. We make time for each other and we ride together. We take pictures along the route and we smile a lot. And that is really what it’s all about, being happy doing what we love to do.
Right now, America is in the midst of a presidential race. The latest news is all about Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska.
Alaska, the 49th state, originally known as Seward’s Folly, was admitted to the Union (the USA) for her resources. There are vast oil and natural gas reserves there. Sarah Palin, a former beauty queen and everyday Mom, seems to have what most Americans would admire fifty years ago. She is a mother of five children, a devoted wife, and seems to smile most of the time. She is passionate and positive. She admires her husband and looks up to him. He’s a working-class guy with a good attitude and loves his family.
The media is having a field-day on John McCain’s choice of VP (Sarah Palin). Either they love her or hate her, depending on which side of the aisle they call home. She is the Republican Party’s darling. She is the Democratic Party’s spawn of the devil. There seems to be no moderation, here. Talk about a love-hate relationship.
I have an old friend who used to say that he and his father had a strange and wonderful relationship… yes, dad was strange and I’m wonderful.
Families have their ups and downs and the average American is just that. We all have things that are unique to us, and, we are all alike in so many ways. What many people see in Sarah Palin is that she really is a regular person. She never came of age in some ivory tower. She was a small-town girl and became a small-town mom. She became a community leader and mayor, then a governor. Still, she remains a small-town girl.
The biggest arguments surrounding VP hopeful Palin have to do with her religious convictions. She is pro-life (yes, most media people are calling it anti-abortion). She would like to create a smaller government and ease taxpayer’s burdens. She is pro-gun-ownership. She is a hunter (like most Alaskans). She also promises to be an advocate of parents whose children have “special needs” and pledges to head for Washington to represent the people, not win praises of Washington insiders.
I see, here, a bunch of positive attitudes about life. I see optimism. I see a desire to help individuals and communities live a better life. Setting religious ideologies aside, laying aside religious convictions, I ask this question:
Why must America become polarized in every election?
We are all average folks. We share the same needs. We have the same troubles and the same pleasures. Most people live and work in much the same circumstances. But, when it comes to religious or political ideology, we swing to the far right or far left and abandon reason for madness (JRR Tolkien reference number 38). Yes, our sense of moderation gets thrown from the train and we run to one end of the boxcar or the other and catapult insults at each other.
What the country needs now, more than anything, is a positive attitude.
My wife and I moved into a townhouse over the last two days. It was on short notice due to a logistical foul-up, but, we succeeded thanks to the work of my brother Bob, my father, my good friend Jim Knapp, and the patience of my wife, Mary Rose. The townhouse gives us a little more space than we had before and is a temporary dwelling until we decide where we’d like to go to spend the rest of our days.
Life is short if you consider the grand scheme of things. My wife and I try to make the most of it. Part of doing that, for our future, is to simplify things a bit and make sure we plan to avoid clutter. We also have long-range goals that we want to meet. One of those is to have a family home that we can pass along to future generations. It is a concept foreign to most Americans, sadly.
The benefits of generations living in the same home are not mentioned these days, but, when you realize that truly wealthy people of today often come from families that have such a home, like the Kennedy family, the Vanderbilts, the Hiltons, and so on, you have to understand that part of the reason such families acquired their wealth is that they worked hard and passed it from generation to generation.
One thing people can do is put pressure on Congress to end the inheritance tax. These wealthy families mentioned above were wealthy before there was such a tax. It hinders people today from building that sort of wealth. The old money families of the last two centuries have political power and financial control, and inheritance taxes help them retain power by preventing competition from rising against them. Some people do build enormous wealth, like Bill Gates, but, overall, few people have amassed that sort of money and power.
Being happy is far more important than the aquisition of things. There are wealthy people that know it is true. Many are very generous with their money and give freely to charities. For them, money comes with great responsibility and “giving something back” is what they enjoy doing. The Kennedy family, again, has always been very benevolent. I tip my cup to them.
So, here I sit in my humble little townhouse. I don’t have a mansion, I have a home. We will slowly unpack and put everything in its place and we will be content for the time being. When we decide where we will live the remainder of our days, we will find a place that gives us solace. We will find a “home” that does not belong to us, we will belong to it. That is what home, ultimately, should be.
Home is where everything feels good and right. Home is where your heart is. Home is where your love is. Home is where your spirit is free.