late spring articles

Eating cheesecake and sampling cocktails, yeah, I know, I make it look easy. But the painstaking hours of research paid off because both these articles look good enough to eat. And drink.

A Sergio Goes photo takes full page in the Hana Hou piece and the four (count em, 4!) pages in HI Luxury include a shot of my girl Chia making a sour face while muddling limes. haha.

April/May 2008

Hana Hou

• “Otto von Cheesecake.” Photo by Sergio Goes.

HI Luxury

• “Mixing it up! Get a lesson behind the bar at E&O Trading Company.” Photos by Ryan Ohara.

Manoa vog

The afternoon sun was an unnatural-looking orange smudge in the sky when I got off work yesterday. The city was covered in a blanket of gray. I honestly thought there was huge fire somewhere. Nope, just the vog back again.

These were taken the today, looking into Manoa valley.

9 a.m.

6:30 p.m.

Mel breaks down the vog phenomenon, for those unfamiliar.

Weather people say it should clear by the end of the weekend when the winds change. One TV newscast reports that the most noxious of the sulfurous fumes dont travel too far from the eruption. *cross fingers* Tho the Big Island gets the worst of it, vog is causing health problems across the islands and apparently economic ones, too.

My contacts feel like plastic wrap on my eyeballs; sinuses and throat are itchy. I think I’m building up an immunity tho, last month I was sneezing and sniffling like crazy. Meh.

More info:

• Vog Safety Tips [Honolulu Advertiser]
• Volcanic Emissions Cover State [KITV]
• Vog in Hawaii: Information and Resources [Virtual Scratchpad]

pressurizing the local

The band was in-between songs and there were still tables open when I walked in to the Dragon Upstairs last Saturday, just behind a group of retiree-aged hipsters. “C’mon in,” boomed a voice from a dimly-lit corner; the band gestured for us to do the same. I gamely follow a white-haired man in a pin-stripped fedora into the intimate, match-box sized club.

Ideas from the class reading bopped around inside my head:*

Stressing and pressurizing the local as a site of “critical resistance” posits a more dynamic way of imagining the relationship of a region, nation, and globe in which difference is not subsumed nor reified but circulated and affirmed” (Wilson 14).

I side-stepped the bell of a trumpet held close and low, nodding to the band while snaking past the potentially expectoration-flecked front line, to the raised seating area where Rowen, Miki and Hank sat holding court at the best table in the house.

It was only the second time I’d met Hank, the owner of both the Dragon Upstairs and Hank’s Cafe, another live music venue downstairs in the same Nuuanu Street building. Last year was the first time we’d met, I’d interviewed him for an article for Hawaii Luxury magazine. He’d impressed me with his charisma and passion for music. I’d sat at the bar drinking chardonnay, asking questions and scribbling notes for my story. Eventually he leaned in and spelled it out: “I want Hawaiian jazz.”

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earth day every day: plastic bags

It’s a pet peeve of mine how bag-happy the local grocery stores can be. Does the 12-pack of soda–with the handle–really need to be double-plastic-bagged?? I think not. Sheesh. My theory is they use as many bags as possible so you feel like your $80 worth of groceries got you something, but canvas, mesh and reusable plastic bags tell the truth, well, at least, they hold more and don’t require double-bagging.

A few years ago, I was too shy to bust out my own bag at the store. I didn’t want to be that granola chick holding up the line at Long’s offering a funky net bag or tote bag to the cashier. But when I got three of these bags for Christmas, I figured I’d at least use em at Kokua Market where the organic-loving clientele wouldn’t blink. Now I’m so used to carrying them around, I have no shame to bust em out at Safeway or the corner liquor store. Sometimes the clerk even thanks me.

Apparently normal plastic bags take like 1,000 years to degrade (or a few decades, depending on the source) and require obscene quantities of crude oil to make. When you combine that with the huge number we go through and the damage they can do in marine environments, it def becomes a problem–but a solvable one. You can easily find out more, it’s a trendy topic right now. Regarding that last link, I personally don’t see the need to make a fashion statement out of a shopping bag, I think it kind of misses the point that if you only have a few things to carry, any old bag will usually do, messenger, backpack, tote bag, whatever, but yea, whatever.

At the same time, banning plastic bags outright doesn’t seem totally necessary. They’ve recently done this in San Francisco and are discussing it in Hawaii and in a number of cities elsewhere. I think charging for (biodegradable) plastic bags would be fair and offering recycling for plastic bags seems like a great idea.

Of course if a store choses to ban them, more power to to them. But paper isn’t really environmentally that much better and there are a lot of ways to reuse plastic bags, from garbage to lunches, and my lil sis tells me that they’re essential for picking up dog poo. Or even these crazy lil craft projects that I’ll never do.

The Nation on Hawaiian sovereignty and resistance

A special issue The Nation is dedicated to the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy and ongoing resistance to U.S. control. Elinor Langer’s article “Famous Are the Flowers: Hawaiian Resistance Then–And Now” is, according to the editors “a probing exploration of the annexation of Hawai’i by the United States and of the issues of sovereignty and indigenous rights that persist in the wake of that seizure–accomplished not by treaty but by threat of force and unilateral act of Congress.”

Every article is not accessible without a subscription, but the main story is, as are some editorials and historic pieces of note linked from the Hawaiian Independence Blog. I thought the main feature was an informative read, tho I kind of kept expecting to hear about the armed resistance that took place at the time of the overthrow, because I wanted to know more. I remember something about rebels hiding out in Palolo Valley?! The armed resistance was apparently short-lived, but obviously worthy of consideration alongside the weighty petitions of protest.

Doug at Shaka Zine thought there might be some larger problems with the reporting, errors larger than the couple typos I noticed. Will be interesting to see the scholars and activists respond to this. Also the comments look like they might get good…

BTW Shaka Zine is by old school zine-ster, performance artist, poet and _________ Doug Upp–the man has many talents. (I’m so glad you’re blogging!! everybody needs more Doug Upp in their lives. Big fan. *smooches*)

flower drum song, the musical

I’m always down for a live performance. Regardless of event type, seeing things live always adds a new dimension to appreciate, be it a baseball game, stand-up comedy routine or concert of any genre. Last week, I experienced a Broadway style musical, Flower Drum Song on an extended run at Diamond Head Theatre. These performers are working it, singing, dancing, acting… they have my full respect. Having a live, mini-orchestra there was also unexpected and fun.

This youtube clip of a 2006 performance looks like someone snuck it in the theater. Minus the thong(!) it is very much like what we saw at DHT. (The last minute or so appears to be some… thing… else….. perhaps was under the recording?)

The dailies of course loved the show. They love everything that’s locally produced; it’s the CODB in Hawaii. (see comments) Me I’m not really a “musicals person” (and yea those are “scare quotes”). LoL. But I tried to put that aside since I was there for a class assignment to think about the performance in terms of the reading we had done the previous week in a book by Coco Fusco called English is Broken Here.

The task was to consider what Fusco would say about the Flower Drum Song performance at DHT. As concerned as she is with Latino/a issues, I do not think Fusco would speak too directly to the content of a supposedly reappropriated (re-reappropriated?) performance of Asian otherness in a United Statesian* style in the illegally occupied Kingdom of Hawaii. But that’s an admittedly presumptuous guess.

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Nirvana live at Pink’s Garage in Honolulu 1992

I was always kinda sick I missed this show. What you can see of the crowd in the flashes of light looks crazy. This is “Negative Creep” off their first album, Bleach.

make it rain on your parade

Peace parades in Waikiki vary greatly in goals, turnout, funding

It caught my eye right away on Friday night as we’re driving into Waikiki to catch Johnny Fiasco at Lotus. There is a giant, blinking, orange sign right where Kuhio and Kalakaua split, a changing display that looked like: PEACE MARCH SUNDAY 6 PM ROAD CLOSED PEACE MARCH SUNDAY 6PM. Peace March? WTH? It struck me so odd that I twittered it.

Immediately conjured in my mind are earnest hippies in tank tops (armpit hair) and face paint playing drums and leading a small group in a tinny anti-war chant while sailors on leave curse and give them the finger. Some punk activists would probably be in the mix, cute revolutionaries with shaved heads and low-slung fatigues. But I’m thinking, isn’t the anniversary of the Iraq war past already? I put it out of mind, went to the club and danced the night away.

So Sunday around 6:20 PM, I bike into Waikiki expecting to see some hippies and home-made signs. I notice a fairly heavy police presence, with lots of the main roadways blocked. This must be some big-ass peace protest. It’s overcast and my hair is already wet from the swim I took earlier; I figure if I look a little bedraggled, I’ll blend. I picture myself riding alongside the protesters, easily mistaken for one of them, yet not slow to laugh if the street theatre gets too ridiculous.

As I head towards Kalakaua Ave, a red-bearded bum smiles and says “nice dreads.” Great, I guess I do blend. Just then surreality slaps me upside the head. A day-glo troupe comes dancing down the street, rows and rows of them, singing and smiling, looking like Falun Gong meets Up With People.

I’m a little frightened as I capture these short video clips. Focus!

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reservations about Anthony Bourdain in Hawaii

Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations is one of my all-time favorite televisions shows. He writes, he travels, he eats and he’s hungry for more! I can’t get enough of this guy. So when Anasarca from Asita Recordings posted up in the QuadMag forums about his December visit to film in Honolulu, I was geeked!

The Hawaii episode aired last week and I have to say, I’m disappointed. I guess that’s somewhat inevitable when you have such high expectations. Honestly, I couldn’t believe how much I disliked this episode of No Reservations. I watched it twice just to make sure I wasn’t trippin.

The whole episode is available on youtube–for now–so watch while you can.

Below is a loose play-by-play of the episode with my commentary.

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Coppé at Next Door in Honolulu

Coppé of Mango and Sweet Rice records played in January at The Next Movement at Next Door in Honolulu. It was wonderful to catch her live again, only the second time I’ve seen her in Honolulu. A former island resident, Coppé passes through on occasion, though clearly(?!) not nearly often enough.

To my ears, much of what Coppé does has a trippy underwater electronic hallucinatory feel to it, but she’s prolific and collaborates often, so no single description (no matter how packed with adjectives) does her music justice. That night at Next Door, for example, it was her glitchy, part-Japanese take on the jazz-pop standard “Fly Me to the Moon” that had me swooning.

In this clip she talks about her performance, new album, influences and being well-received in Europe. The video (and the interviewer!* ugh) are not the greatest but… well, whatever… Coppe’s spark still shines.

As I’m loading this on youtube, I see that Dark has uploaded some videos he did for her songs and I’m reminded that he was supposed to do visuals for her show. For whatever reason, his work didn’t make it on to the screen that night. It’s too bad, they would have added a lot.

Dark’s videos to two of Coppé’s song are included below.

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every midnight is the start of a new day

Wrote about a great spot that Rowen has been telling me about for over a year, The Dragon Upstairs. The piece came out okay. But the place itself is very cool and a must-do in Honolulu, if you appreciate jazz even a little bit.

I submitted one more story to HI Luxury, and I’ve enjoyed working with them. The staff I’ve talked to seem like fun, intelligent people. Hopefully someone as sparkly-prosed, literate and in-the-know as myself ;~j takes the nightlife entertainment writer position and that door will close for me.

I’m also resigning quadmag.com, my pet project of the last ten years. I will always represent for that site, but I’m officially retired. (I’m living the dream! retire by 30 haha.) We’d love to see it keep going, but with TeN in San Francisco and Lance in Portland, it’s been hard to keep the momentum and these technical lumps are demoralizing. I’m just done.

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Moomin and Lost: the revelation

I forgot I had this in my queue of things I might blog about. Very funny and astute. From Matt Madden’s blog, Moomin and Lost: the revelation.

However, Lost is now on season four (I only watch because it is filmed in Hawaii…), and there has been an incident where a helicopter(!) has left the island and completely disappeared! Crash landed? We don’t know. Presumably the characters are not dead.

I’m not ready to make more Moomin-Lost connections but if anyone wants to go ahead and do so, I’m all ears.

huge shark deep under waters near Molokai

Says one of the University of Hawai’i researchers who captured this footage: "It’s not the biggest shark ever seen, nor is it a new species. It captures a moment when an experienced pro meets that kid he was when he started out so many years ago."