Guinness World Record

By the way, we only saw Air Supply because we just happened to be downtown breaking a Guinness World Record.

I promise that just because I gained eternal fame and glory by breaking a Guinness World Record, I will still treat all of you as equals.

Saturday, at approximately 5:37 p.m. EST, the largest group of angklung players ever assembled joined together for five minutes to play "We Are the World."  We were given our instrument, taught our hand signal, and together we became one.

Here are our fellow GWR breakers.  Those shiny hats are what all the men were given, the women were given fancy scarves. (On top of breaking a record, given free accessories, getting to take home our angklungs...we were still given a free Air Supply concert!  Indonesia is the most generous country in the world!)

Here we are practicing "We Are the World."  What I love about this video is that Adrienne thought she was taking a picture.  That singing and smiling and swaying to the music that's captured in this video, that's all real folks, we didn't even know she was filming.

Honestly, "We Are the World" was cool, but what really gave me chills was the warm-up song, Home on the Range.  If it is possible for Home on  the Range to be achingly beautiful, I did not know it until that afternoon when the wooden chimes of the angklung rung up and down the hill of the Washington monument in a wave of soft melody.  Little Morgan, I so wish you'd been there to hear our song together played in such a sweet way.

I wasn't even trying to take this video - I just bumped my camera on!

Our conductor, Dr. Udjo, was the coolest, happiest man alive.  I don't think they could have found a better man for the job.  He built our confidences up with a few warm up songs (including Country Roads!) and then we were ready.

We weren't allowed to take pictures during the record song (everyone had to be holding their instrument and playing the song or we were all disqualified).  So I used what God gave me (my chin) to hold my camera up and film the song (I just had to document history). 

(what's with the sour puss girl at the end?  Does she hate unity and record breaking or something?)

And when we were done, you could not contain the crowd's excitement (except for that sour puss at the end of the video)!

We had done it.  We had battled the world record and together we conquered!

I just love it when a group comes together (I'm a lot like Hannibal Smith that way). It brings tears to my eyes.  And it makes me want to sing the Indonesian National Anthem.

So once again, please don't feel awkward around me just because I happen to be in the history books.  I may have a certificate to prove that I am awesome...

But it does have a typo.  Which means it could all be fake.  Hmm.