Speaker 1: I think for other problems we have in the world,
Speaker 1: the solution still lies in our children and how what
Speaker 1: tools we give them an how we teach them to
Speaker 1: communicate with the world. This is Ziggy Marley. I really
Speaker 1: love the guy because the man has heart. We approaching
Speaker 1: with respect and approach and with the knowledge that if
Speaker 1: we instill something in them and it's solidifies in them,
Speaker 1: then that is what they're going to put out there.
Speaker 1: So to treat the children them as a part of
Speaker 1: the process of making this world a better place. You know,
Speaker 1: Ziggy believes that treating kids with respect is the backbone
Speaker 1: of making the world a better place. Honestly, that reminds
Speaker 1: me of Raffie. It's something Ziggy inherited from his father,
Speaker 1: Bob Marley. My father had a lot of kids around.
Speaker 1: We had just children, even not his children. I mean,
Speaker 1: we can't learn a lot. That's why observing children recently
Speaker 1: in the middle of the pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests,
Speaker 1: Ziggy turned to his own kids for inspiration. I'm feeling
Speaker 1: emotions about what's going on in the society, um racial injustice,
Speaker 1: and you know, the cool of it and the planet
Speaker 1: and those things inspire me. To speak out and speak
Speaker 1: out in music. But then my five years so you
Speaker 1: know him, comes around with his Google Gaga thing and
Speaker 1: he's like Google Gaga, Google Gaga, and I'm like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm writing a song called Google Gaga. Now that's awesome.
Speaker 1: Ziggy emerged with a new kids album called More Family
Speaker 1: Time and yes there's a song called Google Gaga. He's
Speaker 1: one of the few singers I know who can successfully
Speaker 1: cross from adult music in the kids songs and back again. Yes,
Speaker 1: someone said that to me, like, oh, yore, you just pivot.
Speaker 1: You just go from wanted that so seen this um,
Speaker 1: you know, unless you want to be just with blindness.
Speaker 1: And none of us really are set in one way.
Speaker 1: So the duality of my of I can sing songs
Speaker 1: like your pienis mind, but I also have a child
Speaker 1: like part of me that wants to express itself too,
Speaker 1: and so I free that part of me without worrying
Speaker 1: about ego are what you might think. It gives me
Speaker 1: so much space to imagine. Yeah, I mean things would
Speaker 1: be pretty miserable without that childlike inspiration it to be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I need that chi, I need that childlike vibes.
Speaker 1: You know, it makes me laugh. It makes me have funny,
Speaker 1: it makes me be free. Yeah, I can feel it
Speaker 1: when I'm playing with my daughter Sonny. I make goofy
Speaker 1: faces to make her laugh and it's totally okay. Raffi
Speaker 1: has always preached that we should make space for playing
Speaker 1: our lives. But somewhere along the way, even ralf he
Speaker 1: forgot to have fun. He abandoned his playful side that
Speaker 1: urged to be silly. Doesn't die because we get older,
Speaker 1: We just get good at ignoring it. So why do
Speaker 1: we value playfulness and children and beat it out of
Speaker 1: ourselves when we become adults. I'm Chris Garcia and this
Speaker 1: is Finding Raffie, a ten part series for My Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Fatherly in partnership with Rococo Punch, about the life, philosophy,
Speaker 1: and the work of Raffie, the man behind the music.
Speaker 1: Today on our show, Rafie gets his Groove Back In
Speaker 1: Raffie decided he wanted to stage a comeback. He hadn't
Speaker 1: played to a young audience in four years, and he
Speaker 1: was coming off a pretty rough period in his life.
Speaker 1: You'll remember that he and his wife deb had split
Speaker 1: up and Evergreen ever Blew his ecology album aimed at
Speaker 1: teens and adults. Was pretty much a bust. So Ralfie
Speaker 1: goes back on tour and after a few months he
Speaker 1: decides to go big. Thank you very much and hello everyone.
Speaker 1: I've waited a long time him for this to be
Speaker 1: here with you on Broadway. Now, playing on Broadway is huge.
Speaker 1: Raf He sold out six performances, but you could feel
Speaker 1: his serious side battling it out with his playful side. Sure,
Speaker 1: Raffie sang some old favorites like Baby Beluga, but he
Speaker 1: followed it up with descriptions of whales dying from toxic pollution.
Speaker 1: Then to lighten the mood, he did impersonations of Bob
Speaker 1: Dylan and Elvis. You're just a little white wing on
Speaker 1: the good Yeah, Blue, the Baby Babylon. This was a
Speaker 1: new Raffi. He ditched the Hawaiian shirt and moccasin's for
Speaker 1: a dresser and a tie, and in between songs he
Speaker 1: incorporated a series of stage gangs. And that's when Raffie
Speaker 1: hit on something really big. You know now what picture
Speaker 1: this Raffie gets a delivery on stage. It's a shopping bag. Oh,
Speaker 1: it says here, organically grown bananas. Mhm. Raffie reaches inside
Speaker 1: and pulls out a banana. Hello, it's a banana phone,
Speaker 1: a phone with a peel. Here's a family that looks
Speaker 1: like you could use a bananular phone. There's so many
Speaker 1: reasons that I love this. As a comedian, I appreciate
Speaker 1: the misdirect. It's an all time classic bit. There's got
Speaker 1: your nose, pull my finger and using a random object
Speaker 1: as a phone. It's this corny stage choke that plants
Speaker 1: the seeds for one of Ralphie's greatest hits, one he
Speaker 1: hasn't even written yet. So how many people does this
Speaker 1: happen to you? You got a phone called nine in
Speaker 1: the morning and rapp He says, okay, listen, I got
Speaker 1: this thing. I picked up my guitar and I went
Speaker 1: prett ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring ring. Banana phone.
Speaker 1: Musician Michael Creeper toured with Raffi during this period, and
Speaker 1: he says, you know, what do you think? And I
Speaker 1: don't even know it's worth anything or whatever. And I go,
Speaker 1: I'm coming right over cold that thought, you know, because
Speaker 1: it was brilliant. So I drove across town in my
Speaker 1: volks like and bus and uh we sat there for
Speaker 1: a full day in roping at the phone and basically
Speaker 1: in a day on his kitchen table, Dong ding, dong ding.
Speaker 1: I never thought Banana Phone would becomes a most popular
Speaker 1: rashy song. It's the best beats the rest cellular, modular, interactive,
Speaker 1: bodge ring ring. Sure, a lot of the kids are
Speaker 1: gonna listen to Banana Phone, and they won't hear all
Speaker 1: the puns we put in there. Those are for adults,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't really matter. The whole the song is
Speaker 1: fun no matter who listens to it. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: all we did. We just created puns the whole song.
Speaker 1: Dog up phone, Grandpa phone and a brama phone too.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, my cell you learn bana, you learn fool.
Speaker 1: That playableness was good for us because we had fun
Speaker 1: writing it and performing it. It's a phone would appeal,
Speaker 1: and we do feel that those messages are eternal. You
Speaker 1: can have your phone and need it too. Kids need
Speaker 1: to know that it's okay. They need permission to play,
Speaker 1: you know, in their world, and adults too. We need that. Todd.
Speaker 1: Banana Phone is the moment that Raphie puts kids back
Speaker 1: in the center of it all. Using a banana as
Speaker 1: an imaginary phone is a wonderful former pretend play and
Speaker 1: then making a song about it. Then the play becomes musical,
Speaker 1: becomes a playful musical experience for the young child. You
Speaker 1: can feel the same energy from his first album single
Speaker 1: Bowl Songs, when he was just having fun and not
Speaker 1: caring about what people thought. Ralphie said he felt light
Speaker 1: and playful again. These were some of his favorite concerts ever.
Speaker 1: His parents Arto and Lucy noticed the change in Raffi two.
Speaker 1: There was something in his voice that moved them both.
Speaker 1: In his autobiography, Rafi wrote that his ailing father listened
Speaker 1: to the album every day, doing his exercises to the music,
Speaker 1: and Lucy danced to it with a family dog. Rafe's
Speaker 1: returned to playfulness was the key to his big comeback.
Speaker 1: The puns and basic silliness of Bananaphone allowed him to
Speaker 1: embrace the kidlike side of himself that he'd forgotten. But
Speaker 1: how do the rest of us do that? Can we
Speaker 1: change something so ingrained in our society? Do we even
Speaker 1: know how? I think so many of us have a
Speaker 1: hard time going back to these like playful, happy attitudes.
Speaker 1: We're working and we're worried about our kids. When can
Speaker 1: get dinner on the table, and rent is do and
Speaker 1: so on, And I think there's just this idea that
Speaker 1: that's silly stuff, you know, that's the stuff you give up,
Speaker 1: you know, once you get a real adult job. You know.
Speaker 1: I think when we, you know, forego playfulness, we do
Speaker 1: it at our own cost. Dr Lori Santos is a
Speaker 1: professor of psychology at Yale University and the host of
Speaker 1: the Happiness Lab podcast. She teaches one of Yale's most
Speaker 1: popular courses. It's known as the Happiness Class. The scientios
Speaker 1: we'd be more productive at work if we engaged in
Speaker 1: more playful practices. We'd end up being like more interesting
Speaker 1: to friends. We'd have hobbies and things to talk about
Speaker 1: with people. So it concrease our social connection, which also
Speaker 1: can increase our well being. Every available study of happy
Speaker 1: people suggest that happy people are more social right, they
Speaker 1: prioritize time with their friends and family members, and they
Speaker 1: really try to connect with the people around them. It's funny.
Speaker 1: The first song on Rafe's first album single, Songs for
Speaker 1: the Very Young, is the more we get together, the
Speaker 1: happier will be. It's like straight out of the positive psychology,
Speaker 1: you know. It could be a title of a like
Speaker 1: journal paper and then feel the positive psychology. The more
Speaker 1: we get together together together, the more we get together
Speaker 1: happy be because your friends are my friends and my
Speaker 1: friends are your friends. The more we get together happy,
Speaker 1: you will be. Lorie isn't just a professor at yet.
Speaker 1: She also lives on campus. She's ahead of college, which
Speaker 1: means she's kind of like a dorm mom. Laurie eats
Speaker 1: her meals with students, and she's there to experience the
Speaker 1: ups and downs of college life. When I took on
Speaker 1: that new role, I was expecting college to be, you know,
Speaker 1: fun and parties. What I wasn't expecting to see was
Speaker 1: the mental health crisis up close and personal, with so
Speaker 1: many students reporting that they feel depressed and anxious, and
Speaker 1: even ones that weren't you know, having like diagnosed mental
Speaker 1: health condition were still just stressed and kind of fast
Speaker 1: forwarding life, you know, and ask students like how's it
Speaker 1: going to be, Like, oh, I can just fast forward
Speaker 1: to mid terms or if I can just get like
Speaker 1: to the weekend, And it's like, you only get four years,
Speaker 1: you know, for our five years of college, right, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're lev seven, you only get seven years of college.
Speaker 1: You know, it just felt so sad that they were
Speaker 1: kind of watching them fast forward through. And so my
Speaker 1: interest in the happiness stuff came out of wanting to
Speaker 1: teach my students some better strategies, right I did. I
Speaker 1: didn't like seeing them so depressed and anxious, and I
Speaker 1: really wanted to help. And I realized, you know, this
Speaker 1: is such a universal problem where we feel like we're
Speaker 1: not doing it well. And if you're a parent, you know,
Speaker 1: it becomes an even worse universal problem because you're thinking
Speaker 1: not just about your own happiness, but what you can
Speaker 1: do to ensure that your kids are happy too. How
Speaker 1: do we get this back as adults if we become
Speaker 1: unhappier as we age. Yeah, I think, you know, this
Speaker 1: is actually something that I think about a lot, and
Speaker 1: the fact that I've been working on a lot, because
Speaker 1: you know, I sometimes pontificate and give all this advice
Speaker 1: about happiness that I'm not necessarily following myself. And one
Speaker 1: thing I realized often causes me not to have fun
Speaker 1: is that I'm just too hard on myself. Right, It's
Speaker 1: hard for me to take a playful attitude because I'm
Speaker 1: just so scared I'm not going to be perfect or
Speaker 1: mess up or you know, sometimes fun things require being
Speaker 1: a beginner. Learning some new game or some new skill
Speaker 1: can be fun, but not if you're like I have
Speaker 1: to be perfect. Oh my gosh, I'm so embarrassed, like
Speaker 1: how am I not perfect? And so I think the
Speaker 1: first step to dealing with that is to not worry
Speaker 1: about other people, because they're not usually as bad as
Speaker 1: you are. Judging yourself anyway, it's to work on your
Speaker 1: own self compassion. You know, that really resonates with me
Speaker 1: as a stand up comedian because everything I do is
Speaker 1: based on people's reactions, but it's never as terrible as
Speaker 1: the reaction I have afterwards. Like after a I'll think
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my gosh, I bombed. People will go, hey,
Speaker 1: that was really great. They will sincerely say it was great,
Speaker 1: But inside I'm like, oh that was terrible. Um, well,
Speaker 1: why why am I doing this? Doctor? Why do I
Speaker 1: do this to myself? Why did I choose to risk
Speaker 1: public humiliation as a career. You know the theme of
Speaker 1: so many of these things in this happiness field is
Speaker 1: that our minds lie to us. We think you're being
Speaker 1: so hard on yourself because it's going to make you better,
Speaker 1: you know, if not harsh on yourself, if you give
Speaker 1: yourself the benefit of the doubt, you're just not going
Speaker 1: to be a good comedian. Right. We think we have
Speaker 1: to be this you mean, integral sergeant to ourselves to
Speaker 1: get anything done, to be good at anything. But again,
Speaker 1: this is a spot where if you look at the
Speaker 1: scientific literature, it shows that our intuition here is just wrong.
Speaker 1: Researchers in the field of self compassion actually looked at
Speaker 1: veterans from Afghanistan and taught them, you know, ways of
Speaker 1: being more self compassionate. And what they found is that
Speaker 1: these veterans who experienced self compassion are less likely to
Speaker 1: develop something like PTSD, you know, they're less likely to
Speaker 1: be anxious after ward. So interesting. My my parents have
Speaker 1: gone through a lot of trauma, and especially my mom,
Speaker 1: and they've been through so much together. You know, my
Speaker 1: dad was a political prisoner. He had some mental health
Speaker 1: issues the last ten years of his life. He had
Speaker 1: Alzheimer's disease until he finally passed away about four years ago.
Speaker 1: And my mom is so resilient she could still find
Speaker 1: humor in any situation. We're at the funeral home after
Speaker 1: my dad dies. We're sad, and my mom asked the
Speaker 1: person there if they offer a senior discount, and we
Speaker 1: just all start laughing, and she's always she is the
Speaker 1: Queen of gallows humor. What is it about finding humor
Speaker 1: or laughter in the darkest moments? Yeah, well, I think
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's just a way of kind of
Speaker 1: shifting your perspective. And this is something you know that
Speaker 1: so much of the research shows. It's also something that
Speaker 1: I think a lot of really very wise ancient traditions
Speaker 1: showed us too. You know. The Buddhists had this wonderful
Speaker 1: parable that they call the parable of the second Arrow.
Speaker 1: The way it goes is that Buddha asks his disciples,
Speaker 1: you know, if a guy's walking down the street and
Speaker 1: he gets shot with an arrow, is that bad? Disciple say, yeah,
Speaker 1: it sucks to get shot with an arrow, And Buddha asked,
Speaker 1: you know, is it worse to get shot with a
Speaker 1: second arrow? You imagine, like you know, arrow number two
Speaker 1: comes and strikes you again, is that worse? People say, yeah, that,
Speaker 1: you know sucks twice as much to give us, you know,
Speaker 1: struck with you arrows, And Buddhist as you know, the
Speaker 1: first arrow is life. That's your circumstances. That's what they
Speaker 1: call duca. That's suffering. You can't avoid that, right, that's
Speaker 1: the you get alzheimer, as you get deaths in life.
Speaker 1: You have bad circumstances. But the second arrow is your
Speaker 1: reaction to it. And Buddha says, you know, the second
Speaker 1: arrow is the most painful one because it's shot by ourselves.
Speaker 1: Like whenever we get hit with the second arrow, it's
Speaker 1: us reacting in a bad way, and it's worth remembering
Speaker 1: that we can always control our second arrow. You know,
Speaker 1: this kind of advice for me has been really powerful
Speaker 1: because there's so many times in our life when our
Speaker 1: misery is caused by us. Listening to Laurie, it explains
Speaker 1: so much about my mom, and it made me wonder
Speaker 1: about Raffie too. He's also always found his way back
Speaker 1: to a playful place, even if it was it nurtured
Speaker 1: in his childhood. No one had to encourage it. It
Speaker 1: was just there, as it is in all children, you know.
Speaker 1: I think maybe the more interesting question is who discouraged it.
Speaker 1: Let's put it this way. There were many adults in
Speaker 1: my life as a child who didn't quite appreciate how
Speaker 1: the needs for play was so strong within me as
Speaker 1: a as a child. But that's a long, long conversation.
Speaker 1: It's it's not easy to put it into a short answer. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know what else to say at the moment, Hey, Tony,
Speaker 1: how's it going. It's going well. Gosh, you sound so
Speaker 1: good and I do not sound good. I don't know
Speaker 1: you should hear it from this vantage point, it sounds great, good. God.
Speaker 1: I need a lot of affirmation, constant affirmation, so do
Speaker 1: I actually, But thank you so much for talking to
Speaker 1: me this morning and taking the time. There are a
Speaker 1: few people who get paid to be playful and do
Speaker 1: it with such fun abandoned like Tony Hale. You probably
Speaker 1: know Tony as Buster Bluth from Arrested Development and Gary
Speaker 1: Walsh on Veep. In real life, he's a dad to
Speaker 1: his teenage daughter Lloyd. I wanted to talk to Tony
Speaker 1: because it's his job to be America's man child, so
Speaker 1: he's got to be the guy who knows how to
Speaker 1: keep that kid like feeling alive into adulthood. It's so
Speaker 1: funny because there's such a playful side in the characters
Speaker 1: that you've played. And um, I'm wondering if that's if
Speaker 1: that's just who you are. Are you like, where does
Speaker 1: that come from? Um? I think yeah. I mean I
Speaker 1: will say, like Buster and Gary, there's a I think
Speaker 1: there's an anxiety through line. When I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I was very anxious. I was an asthmatic kid, and
Speaker 1: I had a lot of anxiety around that. And I
Speaker 1: think I was when I was a kid, I just
Speaker 1: wanted everybody to like me and a lot of people
Speaker 1: pleasing stuff. And I had panic attacks when I was
Speaker 1: a kid. And so even though that sucked walking through
Speaker 1: that as a kid, it's been it is nice to
Speaker 1: kind of bring it into your work, like, I know what,
Speaker 1: I know what a panic attack feels like, I know
Speaker 1: I know what severe anxiety can how that can manifest.
Speaker 1: And so it's nice to kind of have that history.
Speaker 1: Even though it's not something that I struggle with as
Speaker 1: much as I used to, I really kind of relate
Speaker 1: to this anxiety, you know, and I am so cautious
Speaker 1: of it and I really don't want to like pass
Speaker 1: it down to my daughter, you know. And so even
Speaker 1: though when I'm with her, I do feel a great
Speaker 1: sense of calm uh and peace, then I I don't
Speaker 1: know I've ever felt like it's just such a warm
Speaker 1: and beautiful feeling. But some days I look at the
Speaker 1: front page to the newspaper, um and it seems like
Speaker 1: it's going to end today, you know, And so of course,
Speaker 1: of course, yeah, um, how do you, like, do you
Speaker 1: talk to your daughter about these big issues that are
Speaker 1: going on in the world, like climate change or the pandemic,
Speaker 1: or even anxiety. How do I navigate this? Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's it is hard. You've obviously heard of helicopter parenting.
Speaker 1: That's a very common term. But there's a new one
Speaker 1: I've heard called snowplow parenting, where you you just you
Speaker 1: just try to remove all challenges in front of them
Speaker 1: because you don't want them to walk through anything, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, I completely get. I don't want my
Speaker 1: daughter to be in pain. I don't want her to
Speaker 1: have anxiety. I don't want I don't want to be challenged.
Speaker 1: I want to remove all challenges so that she has
Speaker 1: a very easy and smooth path. The fact is, like
Speaker 1: you and I are who we are because of what
Speaker 1: we've been through, and so I have to I want
Speaker 1: so bad to fix and be like, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: how you can get around that challenge. This is how
Speaker 1: you can take this, you know, shortcut, and it's like no,
Speaker 1: I mean I gotta sit and listen and understand and
Speaker 1: allow her to walk through it. And that is really hard.
Speaker 1: It's really hard. How do you harness fun in spite
Speaker 1: of all the crap that's out there? Like what, like,
Speaker 1: what has it done for you to find happiness or
Speaker 1: laughter even in these dark moments? Yeah? I mean, this
Speaker 1: has obviously been a very challenging two years for so
Speaker 1: many people. But at the same time, I think it
Speaker 1: has it has forced me to slow down and even
Speaker 1: though it's been very frustrating, Like my daughter and I
Speaker 1: have kind of watch movies. We try to watch movies
Speaker 1: outside I don't know, Like we watch YouTube videos together
Speaker 1: and just I cannot it makes me laugh so hard.
Speaker 1: There's these YouTube videos of like people going on these
Speaker 1: roller coaster rides and screaming and her and I just like,
Speaker 1: how there's this one YouTube of it's really gross, but
Speaker 1: these have you seen that YouTube about the parents and
Speaker 1: if they're in the bathroom and they asked their kid
Speaker 1: to get them toilet paper and the kid comes in,
Speaker 1: comes in with toilet paper and then they put in
Speaker 1: the tela on their arms, as they're walking away and
Speaker 1: then they're and then they're like, oh my gosh, oh no,
Speaker 1: and these kids, these kids are like and they just
Speaker 1: absolutely lose it. It is the funny thing. I'll take
Speaker 1: that over any sitcom and so like we just like
Speaker 1: try to find stuff like that and laugh. Did you
Speaker 1: play a lot of music for your daughter when she
Speaker 1: was growing up? Yeah, we did, and we we always
Speaker 1: love when she was little. I missed those times we
Speaker 1: would little. We would always go to those play spaces
Speaker 1: and with other parents and you'd sit around a circle
Speaker 1: and you'd sing the songs. And when I was youtubeing
Speaker 1: Raffie last night, just those kids and that kind of
Speaker 1: five to six range where they don't give any crap
Speaker 1: about what people think of them or if it's cool
Speaker 1: or anything like that, and they just fully engage and
Speaker 1: then he engages back. It's that age is a really
Speaker 1: really beautiful age. It's so cool. We just actually started
Speaker 1: taking my daughter to a music class on Monday mornings
Speaker 1: and as soon as um, you know, the teacher of
Speaker 1: the musician starts playing like she goes bonkers, and it's
Speaker 1: like so free. She she's not self conscious at all.
Speaker 1: She starts like wiggling and throwing your arms up, and
Speaker 1: it's such a beautiful and pure thing um to watch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it. Actually it actually switches now and my
Speaker 1: donors fifteen. So now I do all those actions and
Speaker 1: she's humiliated by it, just like I was never humiliated
Speaker 1: by my challenge. She was young, but now I'm like
Speaker 1: the freak and she's like, you really need to just
Speaker 1: settle down. I couldn't let Tony go without getting his
Speaker 1: take on Banana Phone. I just want to sit here
Speaker 1: and list and two Raffi song Banana Phone with you
Speaker 1: ring ring ring, ring, ring, ring ring, Banana Phone. I
Speaker 1: love that so much. Do you know what I love
Speaker 1: about what he's doing is he's giving permission to these kids.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody looks at a banana and wants to
Speaker 1: pick up the banana, go hey glow Like it's just
Speaker 1: kind of it's just a common thing. But it gives
Speaker 1: a child permission to be silly, a child permission to
Speaker 1: kind of think beyond kind of whatever their present narrative is.
Speaker 1: And it's like, man, that is such a gift, I
Speaker 1: think to so many people. We all need it. To
Speaker 1: call a friend of mine, don't need computer or TV
Speaker 1: to have a real good time. I'll call for pizza,
Speaker 1: I'll call my cat, I'll call the Whitre house, have
Speaker 1: a chat in my place, to call around the world cooperator,
Speaker 1: get me bei Jing Jing jing Jing. Over the past months,
Speaker 1: I've spoken to Raffie a lot, and more than just
Speaker 1: a few times. He showed me his playful side, cracking
Speaker 1: jokes and just playing around. You know, long before the iPhone,
Speaker 1: there was the b phone. Yeah, the banana phone pre
Speaker 1: dated the iPhone by many years and I'm still going
Speaker 1: strong and it hasn't been reinvented. It's uh a pocket cellular,
Speaker 1: if you will. At first, I thought it was his
Speaker 1: way of breaking the ice and dealing with the awkwardness
Speaker 1: of being interviewed. Then I wondered if it was his
Speaker 1: way of deflecting a question he didn't want to answer.
Speaker 1: But now I see it as his mission, like he
Speaker 1: chose to be playful as a way to survive. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's how he deals with his strict upbringing, his divorce,
Speaker 1: or as an escape from witnessing a dying planet. It's
Speaker 1: amazing the amount of play that has been in my songs. Overtly,
Speaker 1: I sometimes listen to my old stuff and I go, RAPI,
Speaker 1: you dog, look at what you did, man, I just
Speaker 1: kind of you know, I really went for it at
Speaker 1: every point, I just yeah, baby, So you know, it's
Speaker 1: just my way of enjoying every single day. Joy is
Speaker 1: not something to be postponed ever. I love a great comeback.
Speaker 1: Story plays a way of life. Really, it's an intelligence
Speaker 1: and a way of life. And I actually think, um
Speaker 1: that as we grow older, we're not meant to lose play.
Speaker 1: I think we're actually meant to deepen our faculties in it.
Speaker 1: Next time on Finding Raffie, you know, are you only
Speaker 1: just gonna remember me for my six little ducks and
Speaker 1: apples and bananas and baby Buluga? That you're gonna look
Speaker 1: at my second career, my child honoring work. What about
Speaker 1: my thirty years as a climate activist? Will you take
Speaker 1: a look at all this music and advocacy activism? Will
Speaker 1: you see the coherence in it? The Earth and child link.
Speaker 1: Finding Raffi is a production of My Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: Fatherly in partnership with Rococo Punch. It's produced by Catherine Finalosa,
Speaker 1: Meredith Hannig, and James Trout. Production assistance from Charlotte Livingston
Speaker 1: Alex French is our story consultant. Our senior producer is
Speaker 1: Andrea Swahee. Emily Foreman is our editor. Fact checking by
Speaker 1: Andrea Lopez Crusade. M raph E's music is courtesy of
Speaker 1: Troubadour Music Special thanks to Kim Layton at Troubadour. Our
Speaker 1: executive producers are Jessica Albert and John Parotti at Rococo,
Speaker 1: punch Ty Trimble, Mike Rothman and Jeff Eisenman at Fatherly
Speaker 1: and Me. Chris Garcia, thank you for listening. Your name
Speaker 1: is probably the most fun friendly name you can have
Speaker 1: rap because it rhymes with daffy. That could be it