Speaker 1: A man with a beard wearing a blue Hawaiian shirt
Speaker 1: strides onto a stage. He peers out into the packed
Speaker 1: concert hall. The audience is full of feathered hair and
Speaker 1: thick coke bottle glasses, bowl cuts and oshkosh bagosh overalls.
Speaker 1: It's definitely He pauses and takes a seat. Hello, Hi,
Speaker 1: boys and girls, Oh, mom's and dads. His eyes land
Speaker 1: on each and every face in the crowd like he's
Speaker 1: trying to make an intimate connection grandmas and grandpas. He's
Speaker 1: not in a rush, Hello, do you It's almost like
Speaker 1: he's slowing down time. And once he's sure he's got
Speaker 1: all eyes on him, he begins. The more we get
Speaker 1: together together together, the more we get together happier. The
Speaker 1: more we get together, the happier will be talk about
Speaker 1: a hopeful statement. I can hear you singing already. Oh
Speaker 1: the more we get together together. Hearing this song now
Speaker 1: with little kids singing in the background, it's almost too much,
Speaker 1: coming off nearly two years of isolation. Who doesn't want
Speaker 1: to get together? It's so obvious that this is what
Speaker 1: we're missing togetherness. I'm gonna sing it again and I'll
Speaker 1: see if I can get every single person in the
Speaker 1: whole place to sing, and maybe even the chairs will
Speaker 1: sing with this the more we get together. This guy
Speaker 1: is Raffie Kabukian, but you might know him is just Raffi.
Speaker 1: He's one of the most famous children's musicians of all time.
Speaker 1: He's like the Beatles of kids music. Raphy has released
Speaker 1: twenty four albums albums that went gold and platinum. He
Speaker 1: played for presidents the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela, Ring Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring,
Speaker 1: Banana Phone. He had a sold out show on Broadway,
Speaker 1: was nominated three times for a Grammy. The Simpsons even
Speaker 1: based a character after him. Something about this guy and
Speaker 1: his music is captivating. Down by the date where the
Speaker 1: Lotos go back to my home, I dare not go
Speaker 1: or if by dude, my mother will say, did you
Speaker 1: ever see a goose kissing a moose? Down by the
Speaker 1: bait down by bab Ralfie embedded himself in the childhood
Speaker 1: memories of his fans, and he showed adults that kids
Speaker 1: should be taken seriously, that their voices are just as important.
Speaker 1: Thousands of preschool teachers played Rafi's cassettes on repeat for
Speaker 1: sing a long time. His songs about the joys and
Speaker 1: wonders of growing up are universal and infectious. That's because Raffie,
Speaker 1: with his playfulness and patience, was making connections with his audience.
Speaker 1: Maybe he even connected with you. But here's a thing,
Speaker 1: there's a lot more in that music than you think.
Speaker 1: For decades, Raffie has been telling us to wake up
Speaker 1: to the needs of our children, to the kitten side
Speaker 1: of us into the destruction of our planet. From the beginning,
Speaker 1: he saw our potential. He believed in our capacity to grow. Now,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't necessarily know that by listening to opals and
Speaker 1: bononas or shake your sillies out. You need to talk
Speaker 1: with his old friends and collaborators, the people who built
Speaker 1: movements around him, and the man himself. I'm Chris Garcia
Speaker 1: and this is Finding Raffie, a ten part series for
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio and Fatherly in partnership with Rococo Punch
Speaker 1: about the life, philosophy, and the work of Raffie, the
Speaker 1: man behind the music. I'm a stand up comedian. I'm
Speaker 1: used to late nights and dark, crowded bars with an
Speaker 1: over served audience, but now this is how I spend
Speaker 1: my evenings free during the pandemic my wife, Val and
Speaker 1: I decided to make things even harder. We decided to
Speaker 1: have a kid, or at least start trying, and before
Speaker 1: we knew it, Val was standing in the bathroom holding
Speaker 1: a little stick with two pink lines on it, and
Speaker 1: a long came Sunny, Yeah, you're my best girl. I
Speaker 1: have sweet dreams. Okay, m sweetie. There was one aspect
Speaker 1: of being a dad where I felt confident music. I'm
Speaker 1: a music snob. I love music. My vinyl collection is
Speaker 1: slowly taking over the house. It's important to me that
Speaker 1: Sunny knows good music. So I began with my personal
Speaker 1: favorites Creed, Limp, Biscuit More, Creed, just Kidding, stuff like
Speaker 1: Brian Eno and Jazz. I tried music made for kids.
Speaker 1: A friend made me a mixtape Casper Baby Pants, Blippy,
Speaker 1: Elmo sings Hamilton's Let's No. I couldn't do that to
Speaker 1: her or me. And just when I was feeling really desperate,
Speaker 1: Bell introduced me and Sonny to Raffie about Sam Jim,
Speaker 1: one for me and one for David md Jim. I
Speaker 1: grew up listening to Raffie for a very long time.
Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't remember how many songs that I
Speaker 1: knew until I started listening to them with her, and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I remember this one. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: this one. Oh the corner grocery store. Oh, you know,
Speaker 1: beats and barley and all that stuff. And there was
Speaker 1: one day where she was being super fussy and a
Speaker 1: Raffi song came on the rotation and she immediately shut
Speaker 1: up and started smiling. It was like the baby whisper
Speaker 1: appeared out of the speaker and magically calm, sunny down.
Speaker 1: There was something to this. I had no idea what
Speaker 1: is it. Raffie's voice, the melody, the simplicity, whatever it was.
Speaker 1: I watched my daughter and my wife become entranced. It
Speaker 1: makes me think of summertime for some reason, and early
Speaker 1: sure why. It just makes me think of like being
Speaker 1: young and fun, carefree, listening to like sweet songs. As
Speaker 1: we talk, I see val snap back in time to
Speaker 1: a warm, comforting place when her parents played Raffie cassettes
Speaker 1: to help her fall asleep. I wish I still had
Speaker 1: my cassette of One Night, One Son, that would be
Speaker 1: sweet to player. Do you think your dad is it? Honestly,
Speaker 1: I would not be surprised if he still had that somewhere.
Speaker 1: It would be so sweet to play vows old Raphi
Speaker 1: cassettes for Sunnis, you know, so we call up her dad. Jeff,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny because we had several of them,
Speaker 1: and I said that to Mom the other day. I
Speaker 1: wonder what happened to those tapes and the answer is
Speaker 1: I don't have a clue. But that's not the same thing.
Speaker 1: I thought it would be come full circle that you
Speaker 1: could be playing those for Sunny. You used to play
Speaker 1: music before I go to sleep, right? Was that some
Speaker 1: of that? It was like, Willoby Wallaby an Elephants sat
Speaker 1: on you? Will it be Wallaby Woozing an elephant sat
Speaker 1: on Susan graphs? The best names for those songs? Will
Speaker 1: it be Wallaby Wanny an elephant sat on Bunny? Will
Speaker 1: it be Wallaby, Witness an Elephants sat on Dennis. I'm
Speaker 1: listening in awe. Jeff hasn't heard those songs in thirty years,
Speaker 1: but just the mention of Ralphie's name makes him break
Speaker 1: out into song. Jeff's six ft five professor from the Midwest.
Speaker 1: His idea of a fun Friday night is watching Turner
Speaker 1: classic movies. He thinks Will Ferrell is too goofy. But
Speaker 1: Willoby Wallaby woo. These words come to him in an instant.
Speaker 1: He doesn't miss a beat, and all this time Val
Speaker 1: has carried good feelings about Ralphie's music too. There's something
Speaker 1: emotional happening here, something really deep. The idea that Sonny
Speaker 1: can hear an old song decades from now and tap
Speaker 1: into a warm childhood memory that blows me away. And
Speaker 1: it seems like a cheap code something Sunny could rely on.
Speaker 1: If I couldn't be there to console her, maybe there
Speaker 1: was something for me and Ralphie's music too. Here we
Speaker 1: are awesome. Well, it's so nice to see you and
Speaker 1: um talk to you, Raffie. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: making the time. Let me first ask you, what is
Speaker 1: your daughter's name? Oh, my daughter's name is Sunny. Sunny, Yeah, beautiful.
Speaker 1: We named her after the song by Bobby heb We
Speaker 1: named her after that song. Well, let's dedicate this whole
Speaker 1: podcast series too Sunny and her bright future, because that's
Speaker 1: what we all want for the children we love. Not
Speaker 1: to brag, but that's me talking with Raffi. He lives
Speaker 1: in Canada on Salt Spring Island, off the coast of Vancouver.
Speaker 1: When I googled it, it looks like an idyllic place
Speaker 1: where the forest meets the sea, a place where you'd
Speaker 1: go to find serenity or hide the body Raphae seventy
Speaker 1: three now, and looking at his face on my computer
Speaker 1: as we talk, I realized I could see a bit
Speaker 1: of me in him. And it's not just because we're
Speaker 1: both fans of Hawaiian shirts or we both have beards.
Speaker 1: He kind of looks like me from the future, and
Speaker 1: he seems gentle and sensitive. I immediately feel at ease.
Speaker 1: I wonder what's driven him to make children's music all
Speaker 1: these years. Very early on, actually, I sort of steep
Speaker 1: myself in an informal education of what is childhood? Who
Speaker 1: are these impressionable young beings who happened to be fun
Speaker 1: and spontaneous and at times more than we can handle?
Speaker 1: You know, who are these beings? And what do they need?
Speaker 1: And so on? You know, And I think I gained
Speaker 1: a sense of my own self as a child. You know,
Speaker 1: what did I feel when I was younger and so on?
Speaker 1: It was not all rosie for me in my childhood.
Speaker 1: Mocked and humiliated at times, and I was hit and
Speaker 1: I couldn't square that with the fact that I knew
Speaker 1: I was loved, So why didn't I feel respected for
Speaker 1: who I felt I was? Respect This is a word
Speaker 1: that kept coming up over and over again in my
Speaker 1: conversations with Raffie. It's a word he studied, dissected, even
Speaker 1: meditated on. It's not enough to say we need love.
Speaker 1: As the Beatles song said, all you need is love,
Speaker 1: which is true? What kind of love do we need?
Speaker 1: And the word respectful came up. This connection between love
Speaker 1: and respect is something Raffie's devoted his lifetime exploring. Ralphie's father, Arto,
Speaker 1: was an enormous presence in his life. Arto was a
Speaker 1: well known portrait photographer and he was a perfectionist. He
Speaker 1: had him possibly high standards for his work and his son.
Speaker 1: Ralphie says that his parents saw him as an extension
Speaker 1: of themselves. They didn't see him as his own person,
Speaker 1: and that was painful and confusing. It turns out that
Speaker 1: Raffie and I have a lot more in common than
Speaker 1: just our looks. Rafi grew up in Egypt, but his
Speaker 1: family moved to Canada when Rafi was ten years old.
Speaker 1: This wasn't the first time the Cabukians fled their home
Speaker 1: in search of a new one. They'd already survived the
Speaker 1: Armenian genocide in Turkey. My parents escaped an oppressive regime
Speaker 1: in Cuba, eventually settling here in Los Angeles in search
Speaker 1: of a better life. When you grow up like Raffie
Speaker 1: and I did, with one foot in the New world
Speaker 1: and one in the old, it can feel lonely. I
Speaker 1: must say, I relate to you as um. A thing
Speaker 1: that I believe we have in common is that our
Speaker 1: parents are exiles and immigrants from you know, a different country,
Speaker 1: and you raised in Canada. I was born in the
Speaker 1: United States, and that was a sensitive child. And although
Speaker 1: I did feel loved, I was confused a lot by
Speaker 1: the way with which I was loved, because my parents
Speaker 1: had a certain expectation of what a young man was
Speaker 1: supposed to be, or what is interests are supposed to be.
Speaker 1: My father's a tough, masculine machinist, where I use the
Speaker 1: word journal as a verb. You know, I was very emotional,
Speaker 1: and I don't think they could understand how a boy
Speaker 1: born in Los Angeles in freedom could cry if he
Speaker 1: was moved by a movie or something like that. So
Speaker 1: a lot of the times I felt misunderstood or like
Speaker 1: I couldn't even express these emotions. Did they not ask
Speaker 1: you what you wanted to be when you grew up? Um? No,
Speaker 1: I don't think they really did. I think they were
Speaker 1: just like. May I say about respect, Chris, I think
Speaker 1: it's the word that is going to be in this
Speaker 1: Finding Ravy series of podcasts. It's going to be the
Speaker 1: word because, if you think about it, every human being
Speaker 1: wants to feel respected without exception. I don't think you
Speaker 1: could ask that question of anyone, Um, would you like
Speaker 1: to be respected? I don't think anyone would say no.
Speaker 1: Or maybe I think people would say, yeah, I'd like
Speaker 1: to feel respected for who I feel I am. Respect
Speaker 1: can mean so many things. For me. It's tied to authority,
Speaker 1: kids respect adults. I hadn't thought about it as a
Speaker 1: two way street. And trust me, I thought about my
Speaker 1: childhood a lot as a stand up comedian. My parents
Speaker 1: are the meat of most of my jokes. As a kid,
Speaker 1: I knew my parents loved me, but respect me. My
Speaker 1: mom's dope. She's adorable. She's tiny. She's four eight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's so small. She looks far away. She should have
Speaker 1: a little sign on it that says Cubans in the mirror,
Speaker 1: maybe closer than they appear. She's a lovely lady. She's
Speaker 1: very critical. We're hanging out recently. She's like, I don't
Speaker 1: like how you dress. You don't, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't like it. Too many buttons? Why the top button?
Speaker 1: What are you hiding? You look like you look like
Speaker 1: a You look like a teacher that nobody respects. You
Speaker 1: look like I'm agician with no tricks. It's very sad.
Speaker 1: That's cold blooded. Mom. She's like, you need to dress
Speaker 1: like a man, like a Cuban man. I'm like, what's
Speaker 1: a Cuban man supposed to dress like? She goes like
Speaker 1: pit bull. I love piple, I respect people, but I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna dress like a tuxedo mannequin that won the lottery,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. My mom Anna is the
Speaker 1: real comedian in the family, and she doesn't hold back
Speaker 1: like a Cuban female. Don Rickles, like, don't you Rickles.
Speaker 1: She came up with ima that when she comes to visit,
Speaker 1: she always brings a gift. She thinks she could buy
Speaker 1: the love and affection of the baby to the baby.
Speaker 1: Oh we need that, I think, Yeah, a perfect growing up.
Speaker 1: My parents didn't play kids music for me. They played
Speaker 1: music they liked. We're Talking, Sonny and Share the Beatles
Speaker 1: the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack in case you're wondering. My
Speaker 1: mom has no idea who Raffie is, so I play
Speaker 1: her one of his biggest hits, Banana Phone. I've got
Speaker 1: this fevering for us to get together. You like you
Speaker 1: say about whatever Anthony? She was hoping that I would
Speaker 1: play this Mark Anthony song that she loves so much.
Speaker 1: Ever since my conversation with Raffie, I've been thinking about
Speaker 1: the idea of respect and how that factored into my upbringing.
Speaker 1: I mean, even the thought of asking my mom if
Speaker 1: she respected me. It feels awkward. What the heck I ask? Anyway,
Speaker 1: a significant significant if they don't need you know. It
Speaker 1: turns out my mom has this whole philosophy about respecting children.
Speaker 1: She says, to respect a child is to recognize their innocence,
Speaker 1: to embrace them where they are. I'm realizing that respect
Speaker 1: has always been at the heart of how she raised me.
Speaker 1: She's always seen me for me, an individual with my
Speaker 1: own thoughts and emotions. Oh no, didn't get it. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: whoa mom. Wow, my name is Anna Garcia and I'm
Speaker 1: running for president. Ok is waste that maduena public level?
Speaker 1: I'm overwhelmed listening to my mom. She says, of course
Speaker 1: she respected me because she wanted me. She chose to
Speaker 1: bring me into this world. I always joked that I
Speaker 1: was an accident because I popped out twelve years after
Speaker 1: my sister Laura. She was born in Cuba during a
Speaker 1: particularly bleak moment in Cuban history. My parents probably didn't
Speaker 1: want to bring another kid into that chaos, so they
Speaker 1: had me once they could keep me safe here in
Speaker 1: the United States. It was part of their plan. They
Speaker 1: wanted more for me. This is not at all how
Speaker 1: my parents grew up. For a while as a kid,
Speaker 1: my dad was homeless, living on the street. My mom
Speaker 1: dropped out of school in the sixth grade because their
Speaker 1: family couldn't afford books. Neither my mom nor my dad
Speaker 1: knew their fathers, and my mom's mom, Maola Caruca, was tough.
Speaker 1: She wasn't the nurturing type, more of a get your
Speaker 1: shoes on and hustle those sig rats on the corner
Speaker 1: so we can buy dinner kind of mom. She was
Speaker 1: single and funneled all of her energy and just surviving,
Speaker 1: so I don't think my mom had much of a childhood.
Speaker 1: You're going to different, no mamas Amiga. She's saying that
Speaker 1: her mom is really strictum and she told herself that
Speaker 1: she wasn't going to be like that with us, which
Speaker 1: is true. It's interesting to think about how parenting skills
Speaker 1: and world views and traumas trickled down from that, and
Speaker 1: the amazing that she's so it doesn't seem to carry
Speaker 1: any of it, you know. It's just kind of blows
Speaker 1: me away. I get emotional about it. It's really little
Speaker 1: special person. My mom's on her own now. My dad
Speaker 1: died four years ago from Alzheimer's, and sitting here talking
Speaker 1: to her, knowing all that she and my dad had
Speaker 1: been through, I'm realizing that they had to invent what
Speaker 1: it meant to be parents. And what really amazes me
Speaker 1: about my mom is she always finds humor, especially in
Speaker 1: the toughest times, like when we cremated my dad, she
Speaker 1: asked the funeral director for a senior discount just so
Speaker 1: I would laugh. I'm not sure how she ended up
Speaker 1: this way, but I am, hands down a reflection of
Speaker 1: where I come from. I mean, you heard my stand up.
Speaker 1: Maybe Raphae's music reflects who he is too. M my
Speaker 1: mom says, but it's hard for me just I think
Speaker 1: this is my favorite Raffi song. I wonder if I'm growing.
Speaker 1: It taps into a feeling from my childhood. My parents
Speaker 1: left for work early in the morning, so they dropped
Speaker 1: me off at my friend Leo Vlone's house long before school.
Speaker 1: The house was pitch dark and quiet, and I'd awkwardly
Speaker 1: hang out with Leo's mom in the kitchen until everyone
Speaker 1: woke up. I knew my parents were doing it so
Speaker 1: I could have a shot at a good education, but
Speaker 1: it made me feel insecure, like I didn't belong. There's
Speaker 1: something about listening to this song. There's a vulnerability in
Speaker 1: Raphe's voice. It takes me right back to Leo Valone's kitchen,
Speaker 1: sitting there so unsure of myself, and by the end
Speaker 1: of the song, rapew reassures us that everything is going
Speaker 1: to be okay. It doesn't sound like a kid's song
Speaker 1: to me. Speaks to me now, and I think growing growing,
Speaker 1: and it's true, we're all still growing. I mean hopefully
Speaker 1: we are, and part of growing is making sense of
Speaker 1: where we've come from. Would you say that you're singing
Speaker 1: to yourself and is this a response to your own childhood?
Speaker 1: That's a start a question. Clearly, our past informs are present,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think there's a measure of Catharsis
Speaker 1: in my career that has benefited my whole being, and
Speaker 1: certainly in recognizing that I didn't feel respected and love
Speaker 1: for who I felt I was. You know, it was
Speaker 1: a possessive love. But my parents dolled out, if you
Speaker 1: will again, They loved me greatly and I love them
Speaker 1: for that, but I certainly had to come to terms
Speaker 1: with the difficulty of being their child, you know. And
Speaker 1: but every one of us actually is charged with making
Speaker 1: meaning of our life in our adulthood, and you're in
Speaker 1: that process yourself. You're you're actually in your comedic shows,
Speaker 1: as you say, you know, you're you're working through those
Speaker 1: emotions through humor, which is very interesting. Actually you're kind
Speaker 1: of doing your therapy and public as a stand up comedian. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's literally all I do, and a lot of what
Speaker 1: I'm working out deals with my sensitivity. To me. There's
Speaker 1: no such thing as a sensitive child. We're all sensitive
Speaker 1: because we have needs. And it's interesting to consider that
Speaker 1: the human infant of every culture is the same human
Speaker 1: being physiologically. Every child in the world at that early
Speaker 1: stage has exactly the same needs. The universal, irreducible needs
Speaker 1: of early childhood are the best place to see how
Speaker 1: connected are human species is the fact that we can
Speaker 1: see the interconnectedness of human experience most vividly in early
Speaker 1: years should make us jump from the rooftops and well
Speaker 1: at these shout from the rooftops. This is exciting. Here
Speaker 1: we are. Here's where we are one. We are one
Speaker 1: in the human infant. This is where we can see
Speaker 1: our our oneness. Isn't that joyful? Isn't that something to celebrate?
Speaker 1: I believe it is. I could see it in Sunny herself.
Speaker 1: Every morning I take her on a walk, and I'm
Speaker 1: observing the world through her eyes, so curious and so
Speaker 1: joyful and so spirited. My job is to hopefully guide
Speaker 1: her to maintain this for all of her years. But
Speaker 1: I wish I could bottle it and share it with
Speaker 1: adults and kids alike. What she's giving you is a
Speaker 1: vibration of frequency of a light that you can't help
Speaker 1: but shine because you see it's worth and you feel yeah, excited.
Speaker 1: See those little birds I'm singing for still, I'm a
Speaker 1: little concert for you. My daily walks with Sonny ground
Speaker 1: me and remind me that there's still a lot of
Speaker 1: wonder out there. Like Ralphie said, our curiosities don't have
Speaker 1: to wither and die when we reach adulthood. So I'm
Speaker 1: trying to notice how I'm growing with these new experiences,
Speaker 1: with Sonny's new experiences. It's a dog. Yeah, I'm telling
Speaker 1: it's so humbling to bring a child into the world,
Speaker 1: and at this tenuous point in history. She was born
Speaker 1: in the thick of the pandemic, and she doesn't know
Speaker 1: what's going on at all. She doesn't know that we
Speaker 1: had an insurrection or that the oceans are on fire.
Speaker 1: And I get to be her point of contact her father.
Speaker 1: I mean, as my mom said about me, Sonny didn't
Speaker 1: ask to be here. It's my job to help her
Speaker 1: become a confident person capable of accepting love and giving love.
Speaker 1: At least that's what I want for her. No pressure
Speaker 1: right next time on finding Raffie. If you were to
Speaker 1: meet Raffie, you wouldn't say, Oh, my god, grandson of
Speaker 1: survivors of a cataclysmic genocide who is scarred for life.
Speaker 1: Rafi's music is like the happiest music on the planet.
Speaker 1: There were stories of survival of my family, survival from
Speaker 1: the massacres of the Ottoman Empire, stories of how arts
Speaker 1: saved the day. Finding Raffie is a production in My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Fatherly in partnership with Rococo Punch. It's
Speaker 1: produced by Catherine Fennalosa, Meredith Hannig, and James Trout. Production
Speaker 1: assistance from Charlotte Livingston. Alex French is our story consultant.
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Andrea Swahee. Emily Foreman is our editor.
Speaker 1: Fact checking by Andrea Lopez Cruzado. Raphae's music is courtesy
Speaker 1: of Troubadour Records. Special thanks to Kim Layton at Troubadour.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Jessica Albert and John Parotti at
Speaker 1: Rococo Punch, Ty Trimble, Mike Rothman and Jeff Eisenman at Fatherly,
Speaker 1: and me Chris Garcia. Thank you for listening, and then
Speaker 1: I would end the song with Willoughby Wallaby Waffy, an
Speaker 1: Elephants sat on Raffie and I go whoa slide in
Speaker 1: my chair and gets squished and they loved it, and
Speaker 1: I was smiling too,