Ukulele

I ordered my first ukulele, a Flea, in July 2007 (because I had always wanted to own a pink instrument).   However, the website I ordered from had run out of my favorite color, so I settled for mint green instead. Strangely enough, my roommate at the time, Adina, was in London and had  bought me a pink ukulele as a gift at the SAME TIME*.

Within in a few days of receiving both ukes, I stumbled upon www.ukulelecabaret.com and contacted them about coming to see the show that weekend.  I was completely mortified when one of the show’s producers (whom I later found out used to live in my room in my Hell’s Kitchen apartment*) wrote back with a set list – with my name on it! I took this as a challenge, even though I only knew how to play one song. Getting over the initial shock, I quickly tripled my repertoire over the next few days and performed covers of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”, WWII ballad “When the Lights Go Out Again” and the Gershwin standard “Summertime”.

And I’ve been performing ever since! One gig turned into two, then four, and pretty soon I was out almost every night of the week. Later that summer,my web series,  Super Cute Sex Show, caught the eye of Bushman Music. They soon hooked me up with a customized model of their similarly-named Jenny ukulele. Jenny’s manufacture label also reveals that she was coincidentally made on my birthday*.

Although I was a trained pianist (Suzuki Method, hey-o!) and improviser (UCBT, what?), I found that the uke gave me new inspiration in bridging music and comedy.  There is no doubt that the sweet little ukulele lead me on a crazy path that I would not have gone down on my own.

To learn more about the fascination with ukes, you can read this New York Times article that I was featured in:
Those Four Irresistible Strings

I am not the greatest uke player in the world (and never will be), but  I always encourage everyone to pick up the uke and give it a try!  It can heal your heart with a little love -  like if a puppy were an instrument.

*Creepy ukulele coincidence/the universe trying to tell me something/what my friends and I call “The Spirit of the Ukulele”