Repair Man(ifesto)

At home, I like to keep it simple, quiet and sweet, “lion” around with kitty, catching some local surf, and feasting on local cuisine whilst concocting me some fresh new mountainy music.

But on this layover between action adventure sessions, I feel the effects of having been gone for nearly two years by this empty old house having issues with my sleeping over.

Deferred Maintenance is the sad and sorry term and from it I do learn, therefore to my house I grovel in the gravel near its robust and rotund feet. Things like: how to fix a busted screen door that someone so cleverly created by walking through it while it was closed, how to probe, discover and uncover a septic system, and what to do when everything you repair inside a toilet still doesn’t work – are fun projects that I would rather pay someone else to do. Yet, I am embracing my inner plumber, flexing generously my fancy crack, pulling out my collection of mismatched tools, and taking responsibility for the property like a natural born Schneider. By doing this, I finally get to live by the Repair Manifesto! Check it out.



Unfortunately, the toilet is too old and is doing nothing to improve my water conservation efforts at home, so I bore the wax ring and installed a new, more efficient toilet. No, I will not be auctioning off the old toilet or sending it to a landfill. I have plans to make it a charming flower planter and seat to go near the garden Sasquatch.



What are you going to repair next?

Repair Man(ifesto)

At home, I like keep it simple, quiet and sweet, “lion” around with kitty, catching some local surf, and feasting on local cuisine whilst concocting me some fresh new mountainy music.

But on this layover between action adventure sessions, I feel the effects of having been gone for nearly two years by this empty old house having issues with my sleeping over.

Deferred Maintenance is the sad and sorry term and from it I do learn, therefore to my house I grovel in the gravel near its robust and rotund feet. Things like: how to fix a busted screen door that someone so cleverly created by walking through it while it was closed, how to probe, discover and uncover a septic system, and what to do when everything you repair inside a toilet still doesn’t work – are fun projects that I would rather pay someone else to do. Yet, I am embracing my inner plumber, flexing generously my fancy crack, pulling out my collection of mismatched tools, and taking responsibility for the property like a natural born Schneider. By doing this, I finally get to live by the Repair Manifesto! Check it out.



Unfortunately, the toilet is too old and is doing nothing to improve my water conservation efforts at home, so I bore the wax ring and installed a new, more efficient toilet. No, I will not be auctioning off the old toilet or sending it to a landfill. I have plans to make it a charming flower planter and seat for the garden. It will likely go near the lovely Sasquatch I ordered from Skymall.

Eat Surf Eat Surf Eat

I noticed a change in the tourist climate almost immediately as this week kicked off high season in the tropics. Last week we had the town to ourselves. The beach breaks were empty and the roads less tread made the potholes more predictable. Yesterday and today the tides washed in a significant number of pasty colored people out looking to do what I’ve been doing for 9 days. Glow.


Today was my last day after quite a lengthy run. Any longer in the sea and I would have developed gills. All aches aside, it was a solid visit with no major burns, cuts or bruises. Sadly, the borrowed blue “beloved” be-love surfboard was run-over today as I got caught inside of a merman’s late take-off. His fin tore through the deck at the back end punching a hole into its hollow core and flooding it with water. Luckily, my feet were nowhere near the tear. I can thank my sloppy frog-man duck-dive for that one. I’m manifesting an easy fix on the board like I manifested the guy with the water camera who will generously email me some clever shots.

I would’ve sent more surf reports along the way but the days ran together like chocolate sauce in a Trits Ice Cream Cookie. The waves were anywhere from waist high to overhead depending on the minute, the tide or the drift, and seldom were they sloppy, even in stormy Weather.


My schedule of events never varied more than Eat – Surf – Eat – Surf – Eat – Sleep – Rinse and Repeat. I did get a massage one day. And another time while picking up trash on the beach, I unearthed some rubber and harvested an entire tire. That was different. It occurred to me while digging in the dirt, that beach and river clean-ups are here to stay, forever. Even if we got every piece of garbage off the banks, there’s gonna be new bits washing up with every tide. Our water obviously wants to purge itself. Why else would the ocean be sucking down glaciers like Mountain Dew Slurpees?

Otherwise, when resting my bones I played lots of guitar on the veranda admiring pleasant jungle downpours and palm crawling monkey families with sandy melodies in my head drawing shadows from a waning gibbous moon.


To my own nutty delight I wrote a duet for a surfer dude and a merman who search for love on opposite sides of the glassy surface. One of them wants a surfer girl. The other craves fish obviously. I call it, Appetite for Mermaid.

My life continues to be a fantastically fast turning flipbook and I’m grateful for getting to shoot it in so many gorgeous locations with so many extraordinary cameo appearances (them’s being you.) In my movie, I portray a water bug with a moon-tan. My favorite part so far is being flung in front of a five-foot wave and finding my footing to surf it.


In a film, anything’s possible. It’s just a film after all. Every thing’s made up. So I hope you’re making up something saucy for your own scenes. Be a “I’m glad I did” instead of an “I wish I had.” Cause from what I’ve seen of it so far, the reviews are worth every bit of the rave.

May love be your wave,
-Jason

This week’s Water Conservation Tip:
Vote for Marriage Equality
How does that save water?
It just does.

GOING environ-MENTAL!!

From a remote beach in an undisclosed location I am happy to share this short film about the ocean and beach pollution.

A young filmmaker came up with an easy solution to how you can help. It's simple, Pick Up 3 and the difference you will see!



Last Sunday I had the pleasure of receiving the 2009 Missions in Music Award by the Environmental Media Association. Nervously I accepted the award from past Honoree Alanis Morissette and then played I'm Yours to the Hollywood crowd seated down two narrow city streets on the Paramount Lot. It’s an honor just to be acknowledged as an environmentally conscious person. In doing so, I’m created as so. Therefore, I get to be just that.

If there’s ANYTHING you wish to be, ask someone to acknowledge you as that, even if you’ve never done anything related to it yet. Just by hearing You as something new, you are introduced into a new context that you actually get to swim in.

Here’s a clip on the Green Carpet from The EMA Awards. I follow the dashing philanthropist, Sir Richard Branson.



I’m wearing one of my favorite tee’s from BlendApparel.Com, flip-flops made of recycled bike tires and sustainable hemp, while touting a water bottle with the word “Gratitude” emblazoned on it, courtesy of Spoken Glass.


With me on the green carpet is my constant friend, Tawney Bevacqua. A fun factoid about Tawney is how she appears in the original cut of the "Lucky" music video. Seen by only a handful of people, I had suggested to Colbie Caillat that the video end with us both dancing in the arms of another. I wanted to show that neither she nor I were singing to each other – instead, just being two grateful souls singing the same song of love. In the real end however, Colbie couldn’t get a guy in her shot as she filmed her scene in a spontaneous undercover operation, so seeing Tawney and I dancing made me look like a jerk, leaving Colbie unwanted, stranded on a desert isle. (More behind-the-scenes stories like this can be learned in the special features section of the upcoming Live Album/DVD, A Beautiful Mess - Live on Earth. Click here to order yours.

May your day be blessed with fresh and clean organics,
Jason

Thirsty Thursday: A Water Conservation Tip

Go Pee On A Tree

You are a child of earth – not of a building. When was the last time you thanked your mother? Activate and appreciate the naturalist in you and take your bathroom breaks outside.

The average toilet wastes 3 gallons of water per flush. Yikes.

Go put your coat on and begin adding your nitrogen enriched blend of liquid compost to the thirsty fertile soil. The earth will thank you for it.

Seriously. Do this. Visit Peeoutside.Org and join the millions who are volunteering to pee outside.

If it’s too cold to go outside and sprink, then that’s all the more reason to be grateful you live in a warm house. Many people don’t have that luxury.

If you live in a city and the cops catch you, let them know you’re up to big things, like re-creating the world - seeding AND watering it.

As you will with this Blog, spread your pee around. Don’t always go in the same spot. Urea, the organic compound found in the urine of mammals is one of the most widely used in fertilizers, favored by the soil for its savory qualities. So share it with every tree you see. Heck, you could might possibly potentially sell your pee! So why flush all that value down the toilet?

If you look near the base of this beautiful perennial, you might just see a rainbow.


Did you know that agriculture is quite possibly the number one cause of pollution on the planet, followed by the building industry, THEN, transportation? I mention this to remind you how crucial it is to support organic farming, the producing of goods without having to dump chemicals all over the earth.

Organic farming also creates jobs because it takes more farmers to tend to the weeds and the bugs; tasks that cheap chemicals can do quickly, but at a dangerous price.

So get going on. Create a space in your life for giving back to the planet. Set yourself free and go pee on a tree.

-J

4 Leaves Left

“I thought about one of my favorite Sufi poems, which says that God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now. I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen."
— Elizabeth Gilbert



I’ve never been lucky enough to find a four-leaf clover. I’ve been gifted plenty, but I never found one on my own accord down on my hands and knees. Then again, I’ve never committed to a long look. But I will admit that in all my years in this child body, whenever I found myself stooped in the grass, fingering between blades of green and those greener, I always hoped that that day’s first charmed discovery would be made by me.

In all of life, failure in the finding never got me down. The upset shows itself as a sign that that my luck would show up as something different, and perhaps a much larger version of itself. So, there was rarely a need to squander a precious moment and/or add a rare and mutant flower to the vision board.

I apply the same theory to never winning the lottery. I know I’m not supposed to get my millions for free. For this I am always eager to earn it.

There were plenty of jobs where I wasn’t hired, many of them in music and theatre. Rejection left me bouncing off of so many NO’s that I learned to be encouraged by the defeats. I found I had more talents to cultivate, more songs to write, more moxie to move. I was always complete in knowing I was moving in the right direction.


Yesterday I sprawled across an infinite patch of tropical clover on a near deserted stretch of one of Maui’s sacred shores, basking in a pink grapefruit sunrise. I warmed and awakened every sense and chakra taking sips of the new day, gulps of air and gasps of soul soothing ginger as tea. In my mind I harmonized with the crow of the cock and purred along with the hush and shush of the swaying palms in a Pakalani filled paradise. I pulled wild hairs from my eyes and allowed my body to dry itself of the sweat fostered a few minutes before in the steamy pre-dawn sauna.

Naked, I acknowledged the elements for granting me such a blessed life. With nothing to offer the world in that moment, my naked newborn self offered up love, laughter, and gratitude. From far out to sea, God, on a cruise ship perhaps, sighed as if to say “well done” and returned the love and gratitude in a breeze, and, on my behalf, cleverly kept the world as it is.

My gaze turned to the clover and I quietly remarked at how it wasn’t the traditional Irish Shamrock I usually familiar my eyes with. This tropical ground cover was so expansive you might miss it over its normalcy. Yet, what I noticed was how each and every little stem had only two pairs of pedals popping out of the sprout. The deeper I looked through the filter of appreciation, the more I realized I wasn’t just sitting on a grassy knoll, but resting rather, almost retired in the enlightenment, enveloped on a prairie in perfect company among thousands of 4-leaf clovers.

Luck is all around me.
Love is all there is.

May every situation be summed up in a smile.
-Jason

12 x 12 = 144 = 9

1.

howthesunrose : When are You-Jason your most authentic self???

Today in Yoga, Tricia led me thru a series of challenging balancing poses.

Tree to Dancing Tree. Half moon. Warrior Three with Airplane Arms. Reverse Half moon. Chaka Khan. Rinse and Repeat. I try my damndest to move through the flow without collapsing or dropping a leg, yet the pain in my ass sends thoughts to my brain with flashbacks of Susan Powter. Stop the Insanity! Muscles spaaazz and quiiiiver. Breathing becomes a moan and I throw it at my fearless leader, Love Flourishing Tricia who is balancing with ease, swimming in her own inner-bliss while still managing to lead my legs to oblivion. “Why is she doing this to me?” I question my skill level and whether or not she really knows me. What is her reasoning for choosing the poses, the order and the extended length? I begin to wonder if I really have time for class at all. My muscles gyrate more and more. The breath in my mouth is now visible frothy foam. For a few seconds I even hate Yoga. But therein this communication lie the yoga, the union with Self, and I realize I’m just resisting.

In the realizing of the resistance, I get it – and I finally let go, smiling into the pain. I know exactly why she’s doing this to me. It’s Because:
A) I’m in the class.
B) She knows I’m capable of strength
C) I can stop anytime I choose - on my own volition

In Reality, SHE isn’t doing anything to me other than speaking from a few mats away, reminding me that my breathing will get me by. I continue to let it all go and allow the pain to become the teacher.

This was a huge lesson for me. There have been times when my manager has made requests for more travel, more concerts, surprising collaborations, etc that require a lot of time and energy. I’ve been crazy to think, “Why is he doing this to me? Why is he adding this stuff ? Does he not know me? Does he not like me? Is he trying to kill me or keep me from having a life?”

Now I get it. He makes those requests because:
A) I’m in the class.
B) He knows I’m capable and strong
C) I can stop anytime I choose - on my own volition

I do it to myself.

So to answer your question, I’m my most authentic self when I remember that I’m in the class, grateful to be learning something, gaining strength and compassion for my ever tightening and slightly swollen gluteus. I am my most authentic self in this now moment.

2.

tommylittlefoot : how did the SPARC theater help you with stage presence?

The Wife of Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, 1st Lady Anne Holton, recently said, “Not all kids are Jason Mraz.”

Is she saying your child’s talent probably won’t be cultivated and carried beyond into adulthood’s economic fulfillment? It makes me nervous to hear this kind of limiting and resigned dialog. I owe ALL of my stage presence and skills to the arts programs that the State of Virginia afforded me as a child. And furthermore, I owe my success to NEVER believing in statistical comments like, “Not all kids will grow up to do what they love for a living.”

I attended SPARC - The School of Performing Arts in the Richmond Community, a program that is very active in central Virginia, nurturing the fundamentals of performance art and people skills. I also participated in Chorus, Band, and Drama in the Hanover County Public School System, and attended a summer music program at the Governor’s School, funny enough. I would love to see the very same programs I benefited from flourish.

I vote for more/continued support for the arts from our State and Federal Governments. Schools have an opportunity to produce any kind of result they choose. They can essentially grow any kind of human they so desire. We should celebrate and encourage the expressive side of learning and living by having Art as a feature in the curriculum, not just as an exploratory.

I think humans are natural born creative artists. Every decision we make in life is a creative choice. All we do is Create! Yet it seems our system educates us away from our passions. Is it too bold to think that school may be killing creativity?

Check out this inspiring Ted-Talk by Sir Ken Robinson. I had the pleasure of chatting with this chap in Vancouver at last month’s World Peace Summit. In this talk he gives a wonderful 20 on this topic. You may want to share this with your family, teachers, school board, etc. And perhaps fwd it to the Governor’s Wife.


3.

diieannuhh : who do you think would win in a fight- a taco or a grilled cheese?

Gooey grill cheese got nothing on taco. Los Tacos son asombrosos.

4.

songgock: What significance does the number "12" have to you?

I never thought of this before today. But 12 does kind of play a recurring role in my life. I always elect to put 12 songs on a studio album. This is the 12th post of 12 questions game, which, incidentally was intended for post yesterday, October 12th. My Saturn is presently in the 12th house. I got braces put on when I was 12. And there are 12 letters in the name “Holmes The Cat.”

In numerology, you can add the two numbers together to create a single digit “birth number.” Here’s what it says about threes. Consider now that my albums are threes (because of the 12 song track listing).

Number Three – courtesy of CaféAstrology.com

Number Three is a sociable, friendly, and outgoing vibration. Kind, positive, and optimistic, Three's enjoy life and have a good sense of humor. Ruled by Jupiter.

Keywords: jovial, friendly, positive, adventurous, self-expressive. If expressed negatively: extravagant, scattered, superficial.

As lovers: Number Threes are fun, energetic, and willing to experiment. These lovers need space and contact with others in order to feel content. If they feel confined, they will be unhappy and restless. Allowed the freedom to socialize and scatter their energies, they are exciting and happy lovers.

5.

iheartjasonmraz: How many hats do you have now, have you added hats from fans to your collection?

In my personal collection I have only 5 or 6 varieties of the same hat from past touring seasons as well as a few flexfit lids from LifeRollsOn.Org.

And then there’s the hundred plus hats sent to me this past year from random clothing companies and many that were tossed onstage as gifts from generous audiences.

I’ve decided I’m going to autograph the excess hats and get them onto the cold heads of Chemo patients, young and old. My Rad Aunt Sharon is currently being treated for Lung Cancer and has inspired me to share my hats with those in need of snazzy headwear.



6.

vaqkiddo: what is your stand on legalizing marijuana?

Marijuana is already one of the largest cash crops in the United States – I would love to see Farmers thrive and not be jailed.

It would be beneficial for the whole to not spend millions each year incarcerating and rehabilitating growers and users. I think it would actually stimulate the economy to have another taxable good on the market, much like tobacco and alcohol are taxable.

Marijuana is an awesome herbal remedy for most ailments and should be taken very seriously. Its recreational purposes should not be abused and those committed should clear the space for it, just as you would if you were going to have a 5-hour massage or take LSD. In every case, I think it needs to have an intention for use; a time and place, for spiritual and healing purposes.

In my opinion, marijuana is NOT a gateway drug. Most people experience this euphoria through alcohol first.

One in 25 deaths around the world is caused by alcohol consumption, and booze is now as damaging to global health as tobacco was a decade ago, according to a new study in the British medical journal the Lancet. – June 29th, TIME.com

7.

rosequartz21 What are you grateful for today?

I woke up this morning and this was the first text on my phone: “Hey Dood. Thank you again. Your fans are the best. They are a good crowd to play to as an opener. You are a great and generous headliner. You rule. Can’t wait to play/write with you again.” – Brett Dennen.

THANK YOU BRETT DENNEN.

I am grateful for that acknowledgment. Brett is someone I look up to. His music, his being, his actions - all good – every bit of it true. It was my pleasure to share this past weekend with him and his righteous music as we welcomed almost 50,000 people over the course of 3 days. If you haven’t checked out Brett Dennen, do so now.

www.brettdennen.net

8.

paw00paw: if you could break a record which would it be?

Free diving. At most I can hold my breath for maybe a minute and that’s if I’m okay with panic’s underwater disco. The current record for holding one’s breath underwater is 11 minutes and 35 seconds. That’s nutty.

9.

brandibomb: what is your favorite thing about Oceanside?

This.

10.

zainybrain: What would you say is your greatest flaw?

This is a tricky question, because I don’t want to create for myself that something is wrong or out of whack. I love whole Me as I am. But there are many people I admire for their wit and comedy and quickness to make light of a situation. Sometimes I find that I am very “matter-of-fact.” This makes it difficult to act or pretend I am someone else, which would be fun from time to time. I guess my flaw is that sometimes I can be too self-aware.

11.

J. Thomas Mraz: What is all this?

I’m not attempting to change the world in one blog or with one song. I’m just trying to keep the conversation moving along. My voice is just a small contribution to the big ongoing conversation that helped man live past his 40s. It’s the same conversation that overcame apartheid and is the same conversation that is establishing equality for all. It’ll be this conversation that will eventually lead to marriage equality and the end of all wars. I trust it is this kind of open dialogue that will bring a few more people up in the world with love and happiness as something they use in life to the point that they can pass it along to their kids. This is age old vernacular and its all been said before by many a hippy and scholar alike. I’m just one man’s view of life. And I enjoy my freedom and realizations in the telling of it. This is the era of the seeker; those redesigning their lives for sustainability and those redefining the God Myth for the one love and fair treatment of all of Earth’s inhabitants. I think this is an important time to be alive and I am grateful to be in action. You reading this means you are in action too. Welcome to our renaissance.

12.

nadiette: Besides your music, what do wish to be remembered for?

I hope the Eulogy goes:

He lived poetically,
He loved romantically,
He laughed authentically,
And he cried unapologetically.