Ok, you may find this hard to believe but I actually had my first paying gig as a full time ukulele player last Saturday.

I know what you must be thinking, what the hell?

Your trusting me to teach you ukulele and you may have already done more paying ukulele gigs than I have.

I'm stocked myself, but when I really got to think about it, it's true.

Many of you know that I have spent my musical career as a educator, studio musician, and composer.

Even though I began playing ukulele back in the 90's, yikes, it has only been the last 2 1/2 years that I got completely dedicated to ukulele. 

Then life happened which included twins, a up-rooting from Los Angeles after 20 years to move back to San Diego, a focus on my family and the Uke Like The Pros website.

I didn't really have the mindset to do a lot of gigs, I had responsibilities as a father and husband to be home and not be out late working.

So I essentially didn't take or look for a lot of gigs. 

Now don't get me wrong,...

I am very saddened upon hearing the news that Ukulele Ray has passed.

About 6 months ago I started getting replies to some of my Instagram posts from someone named Ukulele Ray. He had seen my Instagram posts and since we were both located in San Diego he invited me up his house to jam.

At the time I had never heard of Ukulele Ray, but based on his posts I could tell he was quite a character. We communicated back and forth, but were unable to get together.

A month later I got another message from him, inviting to come jam with him at a gig he had somewhere in San Diego. It sounded fun, but I was out of town and unable to make it.

Through social media, I was starting to get more familiar with Ukulele Ray. He liked every one of my posts and his photos showed up on my Instagram feed every day.

Around December 2017, he again invited me to come and jam with him at his studio. Again, it was something that interested me, but it just didn't work out.

In January...