16.3.13

Mis venas son gente



⎡Sid Vicious played a four-string Fender bass guitar and couldn't sing and everybody hated him except the ones who loved him. A ukulele has four strings, but Sid did not play ukulele. He did smack and probably killed his girlfriend Nancy Spungen. If only Sid had had a ukulele, maybe he would have been happy. Maybe he would not have suffered such a sad end. He maybe would have not done all that heroin. Instead he maybe would've sat around just singing nice songs to his girlfriend.

So play your favorite cover song, especially if the words are wrong 'cause even if your grades are bad, it doesn't mean you're failing. Do your homework with a fork and eat your fruit loops in the dark and bring your etch-a-sketch to work and play your ukulele. Ukulele small and fierceful. Ukulele brave and peaceful. You can play the ukulele too, it is painfully simple. Play your ukulele badly, play your ukulele loudly. Ukulele banish evil. Ukulele save the people. Ukulele gleaming golden from the top of every steeple.

Lizzie Borden took an axe, and gave her mother forty whacks then gave her father forty-one, and left a tragic puzzle. If only they had given her an instrument, those puritans had lost the plot completely. See what happens when you muzzle a person's creativity and do not let them sing and scream. And nowadays it's worse 'cause kids have automatic handguns. It takes about an hour to teach someone to play the ukulele. About the same to teach someone to build a standard pipe bomb. You do the math.

So play your favorite cover song, especially if the words are wrong 'cause even if your grades are bad, it doesn't mean you're failing. Do your homework with a fork and eat your fruit loops in the dark and bring your flask of jack to work and play your ukulele. Ukulele, thing of wonder. Ukulele, wand of thunder. You can play the ukulele, too in London and down under play Joan Jett, and play Jacques Brel and Eminem and Neutral Milk Hotel. Tell the children. Crush the hatred. Play your ukulele naked. If anybody tries to steal your ukulele, let them take it.

Imagine there's no music, imagine there are no songs. Imagine that John Lennon wasn't shot in front of his apartment. Now imagine if John Lennon had composed "imagine" for the ukulele. Maybe people would have truly got the message. You may think my approach is simple-minded and naïve like if you want to change the world then why not quit and feed the hungry. But people for millennia have needed music to survive and that is why I promised John that I will not feel guilty.

So play your favorite Beatles song and make the subway fall in love. They're only $19.95, that isn't lots of money. Play until the sun comes up and play until your fingers suffer. Play LCD soundsystem songs on your ukulele. Quit the bitching on your blog and stop pretending art is hard. Just limit yourself to three chords and do not practice daily. You'll minimize some stranger's sadness with a piece of wood and plastic. Holy fuck, it's so fantastic, playing ukulele. Eat your homework with a fork and do your fruit loops in the dark.

Bring your etch-a-sketch to work, your flask of Jack, your vibrator, your fear of heights, your Nikon lens, your mom and dad, your disco stick, your soundtrack to "karate kid", your ginsu knives, your rosary, your new Rebecca Black CD, your favorite room, your bowie knife, your stuffed giraffe, your new glass eye, your sousaphone, your breakfast tea, your Nick Drake tapes, your giving tree, your ice cream truck, your missing wife, your will to live, your urge to cry. Remember we're all gonna die, so play your ukulele.⎦


*Amanda Palmer. Foto de Toomy Kearns para Under the Radar Magazine´s Protest Issue.
* Ukelele Anthem. Amanda Palmer.

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