Everything is Possible.

I am God,
I am Buddha,
I am Imperfect
Jason Mraz
All at the same time
I am empty space
I am all things.
I have all the time in the world to do what is to do,
To do the timeless doing,
Infinitely perfect within,
Why cry,
Why worry,
Perfect like the mind essence
And the minds of banana peels.

Adapted from Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac,
gifted by the beautiful Dawn Mitschele.


















(All bananas were eaten shortly after their appearance in these photos.)

Toad-Ally Awesome

Osa Peninsula, south Costa Rica: lost under a new moon. the darkness is the irony to my borrowing a laptop at the hotel bar. the local beer inspires this late sunday language. i feel i left without warning. Wednesday we were live and present in LA. Thursday we were Grateful and gay in San Francisco. Friday slipped away. And by the weekend i was wet on a nearly expired passport.

9 hours on a bus today. barely escaped the broken glass speeding thru the highlands. i assume a tree-child threw a coconut into the drivers face as we veered down the interamericana highway, though no such nut was found. we were stranded for only an hour surprisingly as there are only two buses heading to our final destination near Corcovado National Park; a swell hour from Panama on the Pacific Ocean. i am here for no reason other than being here.

since last weekend, i've made a solid commitment to live unreasonably. with that said, i celebrate this momentus memorial day in honor of my former self, the timid kid with secrets who once settled in solitude, moving only as a chess piece would whenever my king of a manager or queen of a girlfriend gave me the nudge. i celebrate the journey thus far with no regrets. this life is a beautiful one (to quote tristan prettyman on her birthday weekend) and the adventure is the only part of the story that i'll take to the grave. Mi casa, Mi pocketbook, Mi music will all be left behind; in Memoriam in some strange unknown future. I accept this clearing to now live an extraordinarily problematic life. (WHAT MEANS?)

Fact: In life there are problems.
So: which ones are you gonna have?

I'm choosing big. I'm bringing honesty back. and i'm bringing G. Love, K'naan, and Bushwalla with me. i'm spilling the beans into my notebooks and i'm refrying 'em on your g-spot.

Speaking of frying: What happens when you lick one of these brightly colored frogs down here?
i dunno - but it's "Toad"ally Awesome.

i guarantee the jungle won't have wifi, so i'm leaving this post here on a bar napkin. do what you want with it. i'll write you back with photos from los estados unidos next weekend. meanwhile, check the tour dates and make a date to celebrate this summer with us.

Your champ at camp,
Jason

too long to twitter

Dear Friend,
If you knew me and/or tried to call me within the last 6 months, you might have reached a voice mail message that says, “Hi. This is Jason and I’ll be away from my phone forever.” I’ve been taking little to no incoming calls, responding to very few emails, and overall, I’ve been a fair-weather friend. I pick-and-choose who to interact with and when to interact with them as long as it served my mood and who I was being on that occasion. The result I got was exactly what I wanted. Nobody bothered me. Very few questions and requests invaded my sacred space. I was busy enough as it is. I didn’t want more. I just wanted to finish the tasks and tour at hand and get back to the beach where I could cultivate courage, physical strength, balance, and flexibility thru surfing; where I can be a bum in the sun and waste all my precious time proudly at no one’s expense but my own, (rather than challenge myself to cultivate that courage and strength and balance on the road, or in any other aspect of my life.)

In that way of being detached for safety came another result I wasn’t expecting. I became unfulfilled, uninspired, and worse, uninspiring. A definition for the word inspire is: to breathe life into another and I gave up the chance to do that for others.

I’m writing this because it’s important for you to know that I am still very human and have been very afraid to admit certain truths and take on the many responsibilities that surround them. I am afraid of success just as much as I am afraid of failing. I have fears about how I’ll look in the eyes of my peers, my family, or my fans. And up until now I’ve had fears about sharing this information.

I’ve been praised a thousand times for my positive outlook and my positive contributions to music. And I’ve celebrated loudly and advertised myself as someone with an attitude of gratitude. But all it seems to take is one small moment of negativity, inadequacy, or fear, to break me from my most powerful nature, that of being the possibility of real love. So the failure I would create in THAT would reduce me again to feeling like just a worthless soul whose life will be over before it began so what’s the point in even trying.

Huh? All this is coming from the positive thinking guy? Is this the same cat who wrote I’m Yours – a song in which every stanza is about generosity, encouragement, and letting go?

If you asked me how I wrote it, I’d give something invisible to us all the credit. I would play my own life down, believing I was unworthy of receiving fame, fortune and acclaim. I would leave the parts out about my dedication to empowering music. I wouldn’t tell you that I wanted to create a song in modern times that could be as relevant as any Bob Marley song has been relevant since his time. I wouldn’t tell you the part where I tried to write I’m Yours. Even if I only spent an hour on the project, it took me lifetime of living and learning to get there. Instead, I would say, the song just popped out. and right there I would stop taking credit and downplay my life, etc.

In music, if I’m truly committed to letting go – to being completely open to the power of sound – surrendering to the love supreme of spirit – and acknowledging how (to me) success thrives in the instability of spontaneity – if I’m committed to any or all of those things, then I can transcend this world entirely, getting as close to or even being whatever God (or love, or happiness) might actually be. If the performance of a song goes absolutely well, it won’t even feel like a performance. In many cases, I won’t even remember singing the song. It becomes more like time-travel, because in that moment, I’m so not caught up in society’s game. My attention rests in a space where time and space cease to exist. That’s the state where infinity lies, and it’s the most intensely rewarding experience I’ve ever known.

But if I’m not committed or the song/performance goes wrong in any way, from a technical difficulty beyond my control to choking on my own spit between phrases or not being prepared to fulfill a fan’s request, fudging notes and playing or saying something that isn’t part of the arrangement that I become too aware of in the performance - When that happens I can’t help but to try to fix it, change it, control it, or worse, escape it. There have been times when I have said to myself, “I don’t want to be here” while I’m right in the middle of a song, in the middle of a show, standing in the middle of a stage in front of thousands of invited guests who all paid to see me.

Because I perform in at least 180 venues a year, I run into the case of making mistakes onstage more often than I would if I were performing only once a week. On those “off nights” you might call them, when I don’t morph into the God energy or vibrate fully with something grand, I take it pretty hard. I create an idea that I have failed. I create something that suggests, this means I am a fake. And so on. Those are the nights I don’t appear in the parking lot after midnight to thank my incredibly generous, spirited and loyal fans. In feeling sorry for myself, I can’t listen to any compliments about the show because I am already hearing in my head that it wasn’t. In wishing to be elsewhere instead of owning the present, I’m fearful that someone might think I’m not grateful.

I’m writing this for many reasons - mainly because I want to share with everyone my humanness. No one can ever escape that. We are beings and we have language therefore we won’t be able to stop the conversations that keep creating meaning about everything. Even in talking to no one, we talk inside our heads and create meaning about millions of matters we truly don’t know anything about. And that’s perfectly normal.

But what I have stumbled upon is the power in realizing that none of those meanings mean anything. If you think I suck, that doesn’t change me. I’m still here typing away. But the reality is, I don’t know you think I suck. And even if you told me, I’d still be me. It’s not a threat of any kind. Now, if you told me I suck and then pulled a knife on me - that might change me. I might fill my underwear with number 3 for fear that your intention with the knife could change me.

Remember that catchy phrase I won’t worry my life away? For the first time in my life it’s manifested into something more than just a concept. Worry is what happens when we create meaning in a way that brings us down and it’s usually about an event that never really happens. If a dog bites me, I might worry that it could happen again. But that’s me worrying about a dog bite that has yet to happen. It’s me holding on to being bit by a dog. My future is full of dogs biting me. Get it? Therefore, the power in saying a dog bit me has more freedom and truth than saying, “Dogs don’t like me,” which is a worry filled statement.

The moral of my story is this. Tonight, I’m appearing on American Idol, singing I’m Yours with a handful of contestants from this past season and for the first time I’m actually celebrating my own success. Even though I dreamed of having this life, I’ve been too afraid that people will find me egotistic if I actually show how much fun I have doing it. Even that SNL appearance in January was this fond-of-hats-fellow at 50% due to the worry about how it was going to translate on TV.

So I invite you to watch and share with me the joy I truly have in doing what I do. I’ll be singing I’m Yours tonight as if it’s the first time I’ve ever sung it. I’ll also be wearing a t-shirt designed by my good friend, Jon Marro at Blend Apparel. The design of the shirt asks the question, What it is going to take to have peace? For me, honesty and open communication are the keys to freedom. And freedom from yourself gives you the greatest peace: Peace of mind. Jon is someone I want to acknowledge for his tremendous dedication to the peace and happiness of others. His love has truly inspired me - breathed new life into me – and all I want to do is the same – share it.

THANK YOU, dear reader/listener/fan/friend for supporting my music and adventures after all these years, and being a part of the huge story that this has become. Even if today is the first time you’re tuning in, I Thank You for reading and singing along.

And to all who've been calling, my phone is back on (so much actually that I'm entertaining the idea of taking on twitter soon.)

Sincerely,
Jason,
-backstage at American Idol.

Moving Day

Wrapping up a tour is a lot like packing up and heading home from college. Our semester spanned a lengthy 3 months across four continents. The time and distance marked an endurance record for all of us out here. I marvel at the weight I’ve put on in bric-a-brac.

Boxes of books share space with random t-shirts, gifted bras and hats and tour laminates. A warped Scrabble board unveils its years and an affinity for absorption (referring to the annual liquid spill within the luggage.) The scents stand divided. Some things reek of wet shoes, sweaty pits or a turtle’s terrarium while other items emit the fragrant aroma of sage, nag champa, and weed seed. Stacks of generous demo CD’s tossed from the playful hands of unknown artists in audiences around the world await council from management. Non-perishables are divided amongst the parting band and crew. One year a crew-member revealed to us his inordinate storage of honey bears, jelly jars, and peanut butters - creamy AND crunchy; items that were part of our tour rider that season. After that haul my kitchen pantry looked like the sandwich fixins aisle at the grocery store. I ended up giving everyone a jar of jelly for Christmas; the peanut butter to a neighbor’s llama.


On this departing day I shake my suitcase clean. I liken this activity to vacuuming under the couch cushions. The booty consists of:
3 used chap-sticks
1 rubber lizard
1 mannequin’s finger
1 faded Polaroid of Merch-Man Jerry giving me “the finger.”
1 vivid Polaroid of Dad filming the show from the front row in DC
9 semi-sticky assorted foreign coins
3 Anya Marina Stickers
1 mood ring stuck on dark blue
A hacky-sack
1 tiny odd remote control to an unknown gadget
1 racy naked lady cigarette lighter and an empty book of matches

These items may seem random but indeed are quite precious to me. What doesn’t make a great stocking stuffer for the kids will be a worthy addition to the next time capsule I bury.

Casualties of Tour:
We lose hats in large numbers. Cables disappear. Someone always loses a shoe. Phone chargers are left behind. HPV is passed on. The list is too long and bothersome to describe. Tour life has also got to be a monk’s life. Renounce everything and whatever makes it home is God’s gift to you for showing up everyday.

I’m happy to be going home. Since I left, my cat had another feline friend move in so I’m anxious to meet the new roommate.

And thanks to everyone who came out and shared the music with us this spring. I always take home memories of all my friends holding their hands up high during Unfold and I think I’ll forever honor the thrill of ten thousand high fives being thrown my way during Dynamo night after night. Thank you Kansas City!


And I'll never forget the hours to which I tended to my mystical garden at the Peabody Hotel in Little Rock.



53 set lists and then some;
...All twisted up and smoked. If you missed it, well… then it sucks to be you. But we invite you to catch us again this summer, bouncing and jiving with your sister and her friends, spreading out across the great lawns of Europe and the Americas.



Hasta Pronto,
Jason

May the 4th be with you.

Cruising around the markets of Omaha Nebraska today I heard someone give me a shout out. “Yo, What’s up Jason Mraz?” The sarcastic timbre of the voice implied that they thought I was someone else, who happened to be influenced by the stylee hat-wearer that is I.

I assume this because when I was 13, I shaved some nifty horizontal lines in the side of my head. I was cool as Ice with my blow-dried flop atop a turtleneck and some hammer pants. That is until some kids at the mall said, “Yo, What’s up Vanilla?”

Same thing happened when I was 22. I dyed my hair a platinum blonde (to rid myself of the purple I’d be sporting.) It only took a few hours before the same noodle heads at the mall said, “Yo, What’s up Slim Shady?”

I guess I should stop hanging out at the mall and/or be flattered to have achieved caricature-icon status.

Stay Fresh Y'all.

Playing For Change | Song Around The World "Stand By Me" from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

From the Files of the Female Hand

Back in Copenhagen, Prestidigitator Sunny Cagara gave my right hand a new moniker. “My female hand” as its now known is tended to once a month exclusively by the Vietnamese “for to make strong and look nice.” I used super glue prior to acrylics as I’ve never cared for the common plectrum. At an open-mic I once asked, “Does anybody have a pick? I need a pick badly.” And the only response was, “No, you pick badly.”
Having lady nails give me the opportunity to frequent the salon with the special ladies in my life. Be it with Mom or my amazing GF or any of my openly gay managers or staff, I can go in, catch up on some Glamour magazine and spend quality time with loved ones. I’ve also had the pleasure of introducing my pal Bushwalla to the pampering service industry. He once inquired about waxing his back and the poor guy became victim to a cross salon shout-a-thon to a full capacity room. “You want wax back?!” screamed the old lady from the rear of the room, over the heads of 20 pedicured women peering from their celebrity tabloids to see my hairy friend and I shamelessly waiting with an obvious yes on our faces. “OK. You get wax back!”

So here I am typing this, admiring my nails as they work over the keyboard like its a miniature dance-dance-revolution, my female hand giving my left (the more trimmed and matted masculine hand) a run for its money, when Tricia, our tour Joyologist pops by to ask if she can upload a photo of the already infamous fingers to Twitter. I decline the request, as there is already a posting in progress.

But while I’m at it, here’s my take on twitter and why I’ve asked Tricia to take it under her wing. I simply don’t use my phone or computer enough to have the steam for sending texts and comments into the great unknown. However, I understand the technology and it’s potential for sharing great ideas and humor, and would rather use this medium to share with you some of the things she shares with us, such as the affirmations and the quotes of the day. Not to mention, she’s an insider on the tour with all access. She gives each one of us a hug before we take the stage. She feeds us the world’s healthiest eats. She keeps our fats heads from floating away amidst all the hype. She leads us in pre-show yoga (also known as show-ga). And above all she brings positive vibe and joy to all instead of allowing the road to stick it’s dirty dick into anyone’s attitude.

Besides, if it were I twittering, I would have only twat this:
Farts are like snowflakes. Each one is so uniquely adored. They make you want to just throw your head back and hope one lands on your tongue.

Or this: Twat? I cun’t hear you?
I might have an ear infucktion.
It happened in a screw-ba diving accident.

Be offended no further.
I’ll stick to blogging where I'm afforded more characters.
And character.
Female hand says Thumbs Up.
Time to sing.

Great, now I’m typing like a twit.