The More We Get Together

Meet Raffi: Singer, philosopher, children’s champion, and fierce advocate for peace, happiness, and lifelong respect. From Fatherly and iHeartRadio, in partnership with Rococo Punch.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
A man with a beard wearing a blue Hawaiian shirt
strides onto a stage. He peers out into the packed
concert hall. The audience is full of feathered hair and
thick coke bottle glasses, bowl cuts and oshkosh bagosh overalls.

(00:29):
It's definitely He pauses and takes a seat. Hello, Hi,
boys and girls, Oh, mom's and dads. His eyes land

(00:50):
on each and every face in the crowd like he's
trying to make an intimate connection grandmas and grandpas. He's
not in a rush, Hello, do you It's almost like
he's slowing down time. And once he's sure he's got

(01:13):
all eyes on him, he begins. The more we get
together together together, the more we get together happier. The
more we get together, the happier will be talk about
a hopeful statement. I can hear you singing already. Oh

(01:40):
the more we get together together. Hearing this song now
with little kids singing in the background, it's almost too much,
coming off nearly two years of isolation. Who doesn't want
to get together? It's so obvious that this is what
we're missing togetherness. I'm gonna sing it again and I'll

(02:05):
see if I can get every single person in the
whole place to sing, and maybe even the chairs will
sing with this the more we get together. This guy
is Raffie Kabukian, but you might know him is just Raffi.
He's one of the most famous children's musicians of all time.

(02:25):
He's like the Beatles of kids music. Raphy has released
twenty four albums albums that went gold and platinum. He
played for presidents the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela, Ring Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring,

(02:47):
Banana Phone. He had a sold out show on Broadway,
was nominated three times for a Grammy. The Simpsons even
based a character after him. Something about this guy and
his music is captivating. Down by the date where the
Lotos go back to my home, I dare not go

(03:11):
or if by dude, my mother will say, did you
ever see a goose kissing a moose? Down by the
bait down by bab Ralfie embedded himself in the childhood
memories of his fans, and he showed adults that kids

(03:31):
should be taken seriously, that their voices are just as important.
Thousands of preschool teachers played Rafi's cassettes on repeat for
sing a long time. His songs about the joys and
wonders of growing up are universal and infectious. That's because Raffie,
with his playfulness and patience, was making connections with his audience.

(03:53):
Maybe he even connected with you. But here's a thing,
there's a lot more in that music than you think.
For decades, Raffie has been telling us to wake up
to the needs of our children, to the kitten side
of us into the destruction of our planet. From the beginning,

(04:18):
he saw our potential. He believed in our capacity to grow. Now,
you wouldn't necessarily know that by listening to opals and
bononas or shake your sillies out. You need to talk
with his old friends and collaborators, the people who built
movements around him, and the man himself. I'm Chris Garcia

(04:41):
and this is Finding Raffie, a ten part series for
My Heart Radio and Fatherly in partnership with Rococo Punch
about the life, philosophy, and the work of Raffie, the
man behind the music. I'm a stand up comedian. I'm

(05:05):
used to late nights and dark, crowded bars with an
over served audience, but now this is how I spend
my evenings free during the pandemic my wife, Val and
I decided to make things even harder. We decided to

(05:26):
have a kid, or at least start trying, and before
we knew it, Val was standing in the bathroom holding
a little stick with two pink lines on it, and
a long came Sunny, Yeah, you're my best girl. I
have sweet dreams. Okay, m sweetie. There was one aspect
of being a dad where I felt confident music. I'm

(05:50):
a music snob. I love music. My vinyl collection is
slowly taking over the house. It's important to me that
Sunny knows good music. So I began with my personal
favorites Creed, Limp, Biscuit More, Creed, just Kidding, stuff like
Brian Eno and Jazz. I tried music made for kids.

(06:14):
A friend made me a mixtape Casper Baby Pants, Blippy,
Elmo sings Hamilton's Let's No. I couldn't do that to
her or me. And just when I was feeling really desperate,
Bell introduced me and Sonny to Raffie about Sam Jim,

(06:39):
one for me and one for David md Jim. I
grew up listening to Raffie for a very long time.
I mean, I didn't remember how many songs that I
knew until I started listening to them with her, and
I was like, oh, I remember this one. Oh yeah,
this one. Oh the corner grocery store. Oh, you know,

(07:00):
beats and barley and all that stuff. And there was
one day where she was being super fussy and a
Raffi song came on the rotation and she immediately shut
up and started smiling. It was like the baby whisper
appeared out of the speaker and magically calm, sunny down.
There was something to this. I had no idea what

(07:20):
is it. Raffie's voice, the melody, the simplicity, whatever it was.
I watched my daughter and my wife become entranced. It
makes me think of summertime for some reason, and early
sure why. It just makes me think of like being
young and fun, carefree, listening to like sweet songs. As

(07:44):
we talk, I see val snap back in time to
a warm, comforting place when her parents played Raffie cassettes
to help her fall asleep. I wish I still had
my cassette of One Night, One Son, that would be
sweet to player. Do you think your dad is it? Honestly,
I would not be surprised if he still had that somewhere.

(08:05):
It would be so sweet to play vows old Raphi
cassettes for Sunnis, you know, so we call up her dad. Jeff,
you know, it's funny because we had several of them,
and I said that to Mom the other day. I
wonder what happened to those tapes and the answer is
I don't have a clue. But that's not the same thing.
I thought it would be come full circle that you

(08:27):
could be playing those for Sunny. You used to play
music before I go to sleep, right? Was that some
of that? It was like, Willoby Wallaby an Elephants sat
on you? Will it be Wallaby Woozing an elephant sat
on Susan graphs? The best names for those songs? Will

(08:48):
it be Wallaby Wanny an elephant sat on Bunny? Will
it be Wallaby, Witness an Elephants sat on Dennis. I'm
listening in awe. Jeff hasn't heard those songs in thirty years,
but just the mention of Ralphie's name makes him break
out into song. Jeff's six ft five professor from the Midwest.

(09:11):
His idea of a fun Friday night is watching Turner
classic movies. He thinks Will Ferrell is too goofy. But
Willoby Wallaby woo. These words come to him in an instant.
He doesn't miss a beat, and all this time Val
has carried good feelings about Ralphie's music too. There's something

(09:33):
emotional happening here, something really deep. The idea that Sonny
can hear an old song decades from now and tap
into a warm childhood memory that blows me away. And
it seems like a cheap code something Sunny could rely on.
If I couldn't be there to console her, maybe there

(09:57):
was something for me and Ralphie's music too. Here we
are awesome. Well, it's so nice to see you and
um talk to you, Raffie. Thank you so much for
making the time. Let me first ask you, what is

(10:20):
your daughter's name? Oh, my daughter's name is Sunny. Sunny, Yeah, beautiful.
We named her after the song by Bobby heb We
named her after that song. Well, let's dedicate this whole
podcast series too Sunny and her bright future, because that's
what we all want for the children we love. Not

(10:45):
to brag, but that's me talking with Raffi. He lives
in Canada on Salt Spring Island, off the coast of Vancouver.
When I googled it, it looks like an idyllic place
where the forest meets the sea, a place where you'd
go to find serenity or hide the body Raphae seventy
three now, and looking at his face on my computer

(11:05):
as we talk, I realized I could see a bit
of me in him. And it's not just because we're
both fans of Hawaiian shirts or we both have beards.
He kind of looks like me from the future, and
he seems gentle and sensitive. I immediately feel at ease.
I wonder what's driven him to make children's music all

(11:27):
these years. Very early on, actually, I sort of steep
myself in an informal education of what is childhood? Who
are these impressionable young beings who happened to be fun
and spontaneous and at times more than we can handle?

(11:48):
You know, who are these beings? And what do they need?
And so on? You know, And I think I gained
a sense of my own self as a child. You know,
what did I feel when I was younger and so on?
It was not all rosie for me in my childhood.
Mocked and humiliated at times, and I was hit and

(12:09):
I couldn't square that with the fact that I knew
I was loved, So why didn't I feel respected for
who I felt I was? Respect This is a word
that kept coming up over and over again in my
conversations with Raffie. It's a word he studied, dissected, even
meditated on. It's not enough to say we need love.

(12:33):
As the Beatles song said, all you need is love,
which is true? What kind of love do we need?
And the word respectful came up. This connection between love
and respect is something Raffie's devoted his lifetime exploring. Ralphie's father, Arto,
was an enormous presence in his life. Arto was a

(12:55):
well known portrait photographer and he was a perfectionist. He
had him possibly high standards for his work and his son.
Ralphie says that his parents saw him as an extension
of themselves. They didn't see him as his own person,
and that was painful and confusing. It turns out that
Raffie and I have a lot more in common than

(13:16):
just our looks. Rafi grew up in Egypt, but his
family moved to Canada when Rafi was ten years old.
This wasn't the first time the Cabukians fled their home
in search of a new one. They'd already survived the
Armenian genocide in Turkey. My parents escaped an oppressive regime
in Cuba, eventually settling here in Los Angeles in search
of a better life. When you grow up like Raffie

(13:40):
and I did, with one foot in the New world
and one in the old, it can feel lonely. I
must say, I relate to you as um. A thing
that I believe we have in common is that our
parents are exiles and immigrants from you know, a different country,
and you raised in Canada. I was born in the
United States, and that was a sensitive child. And although

(14:02):
I did feel loved, I was confused a lot by
the way with which I was loved, because my parents
had a certain expectation of what a young man was
supposed to be, or what is interests are supposed to be.
My father's a tough, masculine machinist, where I use the

(14:23):
word journal as a verb. You know, I was very emotional,
and I don't think they could understand how a boy
born in Los Angeles in freedom could cry if he
was moved by a movie or something like that. So
a lot of the times I felt misunderstood or like
I couldn't even express these emotions. Did they not ask

(14:47):
you what you wanted to be when you grew up? Um? No,
I don't think they really did. I think they were
just like. May I say about respect, Chris, I think
it's the word that is going to be in this
Finding Ravy series of podcasts. It's going to be the

(15:10):
word because, if you think about it, every human being
wants to feel respected without exception. I don't think you
could ask that question of anyone, Um, would you like
to be respected? I don't think anyone would say no.

(15:31):
Or maybe I think people would say, yeah, I'd like
to feel respected for who I feel I am. Respect
can mean so many things. For me. It's tied to authority,
kids respect adults. I hadn't thought about it as a

(15:52):
two way street. And trust me, I thought about my
childhood a lot as a stand up comedian. My parents
are the meat of most of my jokes. As a kid,
I knew my parents loved me, but respect me. My

(16:15):
mom's dope. She's adorable. She's tiny. She's four eight. Yeah,
she's so small. She looks far away. She should have
a little sign on it that says Cubans in the mirror,
maybe closer than they appear. She's a lovely lady. She's

(16:38):
very critical. We're hanging out recently. She's like, I don't
like how you dress. You don't, I don't know. I
don't like it. Too many buttons? Why the top button?
What are you hiding? You look like you look like
a You look like a teacher that nobody respects. You

(17:00):
look like I'm agician with no tricks. It's very sad.
That's cold blooded. Mom. She's like, you need to dress
like a man, like a Cuban man. I'm like, what's
a Cuban man supposed to dress like? She goes like
pit bull. I love piple, I respect people, but I'm

(17:23):
not gonna dress like a tuxedo mannequin that won the lottery,
you know what I mean. My mom Anna is the
real comedian in the family, and she doesn't hold back
like a Cuban female. Don Rickles, like, don't you Rickles.
She came up with ima that when she comes to visit,

(17:51):
she always brings a gift. She thinks she could buy
the love and affection of the baby to the baby.
Oh we need that, I think, Yeah, a perfect growing up.
My parents didn't play kids music for me. They played
music they liked. We're Talking, Sonny and Share the Beatles

(18:13):
the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack in case you're wondering. My
mom has no idea who Raffie is, so I play
her one of his biggest hits, Banana Phone. I've got
this fevering for us to get together. You like you

(18:42):
say about whatever Anthony? She was hoping that I would
play this Mark Anthony song that she loves so much.
Ever since my conversation with Raffie, I've been thinking about
the idea of respect and how that factored into my upbringing.
I mean, even the thought of asking my mom if
she respected me. It feels awkward. What the heck I ask? Anyway,

(19:04):
a significant significant if they don't need you know. It
turns out my mom has this whole philosophy about respecting children.
She says, to respect a child is to recognize their innocence,
to embrace them where they are. I'm realizing that respect

(19:27):
has always been at the heart of how she raised me.
She's always seen me for me, an individual with my
own thoughts and emotions. Oh no, didn't get it. Okay, okay,
whoa mom. Wow, my name is Anna Garcia and I'm

(19:48):
running for president. Ok is waste that maduena public level?
I'm overwhelmed listening to my mom. She says, of course
she respected me because she wanted me. She chose to

(20:09):
bring me into this world. I always joked that I
was an accident because I popped out twelve years after
my sister Laura. She was born in Cuba during a
particularly bleak moment in Cuban history. My parents probably didn't
want to bring another kid into that chaos, so they
had me once they could keep me safe here in
the United States. It was part of their plan. They

(20:31):
wanted more for me. This is not at all how
my parents grew up. For a while as a kid,
my dad was homeless, living on the street. My mom
dropped out of school in the sixth grade because their
family couldn't afford books. Neither my mom nor my dad
knew their fathers, and my mom's mom, Maola Caruca, was tough.

(20:55):
She wasn't the nurturing type, more of a get your
shoes on and hustle those sig rats on the corner
so we can buy dinner kind of mom. She was
single and funneled all of her energy and just surviving,
so I don't think my mom had much of a childhood.
You're going to different, no mamas Amiga. She's saying that

(21:21):
her mom is really strictum and she told herself that
she wasn't going to be like that with us, which
is true. It's interesting to think about how parenting skills
and world views and traumas trickled down from that, and
the amazing that she's so it doesn't seem to carry

(21:44):
any of it, you know. It's just kind of blows
me away. I get emotional about it. It's really little
special person. My mom's on her own now. My dad
died four years ago from Alzheimer's, and sitting here talking

(22:07):
to her, knowing all that she and my dad had
been through, I'm realizing that they had to invent what
it meant to be parents. And what really amazes me
about my mom is she always finds humor, especially in
the toughest times, like when we cremated my dad, she

(22:31):
asked the funeral director for a senior discount just so
I would laugh. I'm not sure how she ended up
this way, but I am, hands down a reflection of
where I come from. I mean, you heard my stand up.

(22:53):
Maybe Raphae's music reflects who he is too. M my

(23:29):
mom says, but it's hard for me just I think
this is my favorite Raffi song. I wonder if I'm growing.
It taps into a feeling from my childhood. My parents
left for work early in the morning, so they dropped
me off at my friend Leo Vlone's house long before school.

(23:51):
The house was pitch dark and quiet, and I'd awkwardly
hang out with Leo's mom in the kitchen until everyone
woke up. I knew my parents were doing it so
I could have a shot at a good education, but
it made me feel insecure, like I didn't belong. There's

(24:12):
something about listening to this song. There's a vulnerability in
Raphe's voice. It takes me right back to Leo Valone's kitchen,
sitting there so unsure of myself, and by the end
of the song, rapew reassures us that everything is going
to be okay. It doesn't sound like a kid's song
to me. Speaks to me now, and I think growing growing,

(24:51):
and it's true, we're all still growing. I mean hopefully
we are, and part of growing is making sense of
where we've come from. Would you say that you're singing
to yourself and is this a response to your own childhood?
That's a start a question. Clearly, our past informs are present,

(25:11):
and you know, I think there's a measure of Catharsis
in my career that has benefited my whole being, and
certainly in recognizing that I didn't feel respected and love
for who I felt I was. You know, it was
a possessive love. But my parents dolled out, if you

(25:31):
will again, They loved me greatly and I love them
for that, but I certainly had to come to terms
with the difficulty of being their child, you know. And
but every one of us actually is charged with making
meaning of our life in our adulthood, and you're in
that process yourself. You're you're actually in your comedic shows,

(25:54):
as you say, you know, you're you're working through those
emotions through humor, which is very interesting. Actually you're kind
of doing your therapy and public as a stand up comedian. Yeah,
that's literally all I do, and a lot of what
I'm working out deals with my sensitivity. To me. There's
no such thing as a sensitive child. We're all sensitive

(26:15):
because we have needs. And it's interesting to consider that
the human infant of every culture is the same human
being physiologically. Every child in the world at that early
stage has exactly the same needs. The universal, irreducible needs

(26:36):
of early childhood are the best place to see how
connected are human species is the fact that we can
see the interconnectedness of human experience most vividly in early
years should make us jump from the rooftops and well
at these shout from the rooftops. This is exciting. Here

(27:00):
we are. Here's where we are one. We are one
in the human infant. This is where we can see
our our oneness. Isn't that joyful? Isn't that something to celebrate?
I believe it is. I could see it in Sunny herself.
Every morning I take her on a walk, and I'm
observing the world through her eyes, so curious and so

(27:22):
joyful and so spirited. My job is to hopefully guide
her to maintain this for all of her years. But
I wish I could bottle it and share it with
adults and kids alike. What she's giving you is a
vibration of frequency of a light that you can't help
but shine because you see it's worth and you feel yeah, excited.

(27:56):
See those little birds I'm singing for still, I'm a
little concert for you. My daily walks with Sonny ground
me and remind me that there's still a lot of
wonder out there. Like Ralphie said, our curiosities don't have
to wither and die when we reach adulthood. So I'm

(28:17):
trying to notice how I'm growing with these new experiences,
with Sonny's new experiences. It's a dog. Yeah, I'm telling
it's so humbling to bring a child into the world,

(28:40):
and at this tenuous point in history. She was born
in the thick of the pandemic, and she doesn't know
what's going on at all. She doesn't know that we
had an insurrection or that the oceans are on fire.
And I get to be her point of contact her father.
I mean, as my mom said about me, Sonny didn't
ask to be here. It's my job to help her

(29:02):
become a confident person capable of accepting love and giving love.
At least that's what I want for her. No pressure
right next time on finding Raffie. If you were to

(29:38):
meet Raffie, you wouldn't say, Oh, my god, grandson of
survivors of a cataclysmic genocide who is scarred for life.
Rafi's music is like the happiest music on the planet.
There were stories of survival of my family, survival from

(30:01):
the massacres of the Ottoman Empire, stories of how arts
saved the day. Finding Raffie is a production in My
Heart Radio and Fatherly in partnership with Rococo Punch. It's
produced by Catherine Fennalosa, Meredith Hannig, and James Trout. Production

(30:23):
assistance from Charlotte Livingston. Alex French is our story consultant.
Our senior producer is Andrea Swahee. Emily Foreman is our editor.
Fact checking by Andrea Lopez Cruzado. Raphae's music is courtesy
of Troubadour Records. Special thanks to Kim Layton at Troubadour.
Our executive producers are Jessica Albert and John Parotti at

(30:46):
Rococo Punch, Ty Trimble, Mike Rothman and Jeff Eisenman at Fatherly,
and me Chris Garcia. Thank you for listening, and then
I would end the song with Willoughby Wallaby Waffy, an
Elephants sat on Raffie and I go whoa slide in
my chair and gets squished and they loved it, and

(31:09):
I was smiling too,