Flaco and Me

There really is no Flaco and Me, but I thought it would sound good.

In the day, in the college town where I colleged, there was a bar called The Club. As I remember it, not as it was, it was on a corner, where the sidewalk ended and the dirt started. It was an old man bar -- dark wood, dry oak floors, two pool tables whose overhead scoring abacus (what else would you call it?) hung with dust. Around the rest of the room were booths, and a back alcove held a perpetual poker game that you could only get in on by invitation.

The Club served minors.

I really only went there a few times, because I didn't want to get busted, but the best times were on weekends. Not sure how, but a guy I knew from class invited me out for a beer one Saturday. As I recall he was from the Central Valley and was studying city planning. Wore a light blue pearl button shirt, which spoke volumes about where he stood, and what his roots were, despite what he was learning at college. He was intellectually provocative, shall we say.

Anyhoo, he hipped me to what I was missing that day as he bought tokens from the bartender and plugged them in the jukebox. That was the day I learned about Flaco Jimenez and the sound of accordion. Damn. In 1983 accordion was considered desperately uncool, but here was this tremendous music spitting at my notion of what it was. That was a great day.

After I moved away the next year, I went up to school a few times on a weekend and sat at the bar with the old guys. They put their dentures on the bar, drank short mixed drinks and watched baseball. I didn't want to interrupt, so I don't think I got to listen to Flaco again in the space where I became acquainted with him, but I never forgot the name.

A few years later, I was living over an Irish bar. I'd briefly played ukulele and sang harmonies in a band that played a combination of pop originals, 70's Americana covers and Texas border conjunto covers. My bandmates brought up Flaco's name again. Shortly after I was tossed out of said band (long story), Flaco came to town. Not only that, he was set to play at the cultural center that was next door to the building I lived in. Faaaantastic! The venue didn't have a backstage, so when Flaco needed to warm up he went into the walkway behind the building and did so. My apartment was on the first floor, so I quietly jimmied my window up a few inches and had a private concert. 

It was divine. Thank you, Flaco. The concert inside an hour or so later couldn't have been as good as these few moments I had you to myself.

Hawaii 2025, Day 6

On Day 6 we had breakfast in Manoa, at Waioli Kitchen & Bake Shop, which mrguy found. Breakfast was tasty, and we learned that everybody who works there pretty much is part of a rehab program. Good on them. The baked goods are gorgeous and even our parking space was pretty.

It felt great to identify a new breakfast joint to look forward to since Koko Head Cafe is just...over. Next time? Kaneohe Pancake House or Koa Pancake House and Waioli.

Moving on. Mrguy's oncologist had suggested the cat cafe on Kapahulu. It was great. The people were nice and they made an *amazing* Americano. And the kittens were so fun. These two enjoyed a little morning calisthenics. And mrguy found a kitten to match his favorite Cook Island aloha shirt and played with her for much time. It would have been possible (with a lot of effort) to bring her home, but someone would not go for it. She was adorable.

Mrguy made reservations for a sunset cruise. We'd done this years before and it was kinda gross, but also pleasurable? But this one was a complete pleasure. The music selections were great -- something for everyone -- and our fellow passengers were a nice group. I met some folks from Austin by way of Germany, and I have video of mrguy singing along to the song Brandy by Looking Glass. I have a love/hate relationship to the song because it's so singable but the point of view of the lyrics is of all the man who's not around, a sailor who gave her some shiny stuff and booked because he loves the sea more than her. F you, sailor. Ahem.

On the way home we stopped at the beach cafe and got some dinner. The entertainment was a guitar player and his wife who could barely walk but sometimes got up and danced. I impressed myself and exactly nobody else by knowing the melodies and often a few of the words to his hulas. Best quote of the day was him saying that he liked to play at this restaurant because you can play as loud as you like.

You go!

Coincidence

I'm trying new things these days. A person in one of my local fb groups suggested a meetup for people who do craft projects. I took up the needle and joined in, admitting that most of my handiwork is aspirational. I brought some of my projects. I even went to the yarn store prior to the meeting, in order to get some thread. And I showed up at our local bar.

I very much admire the work of the person who had suggested the meetup. She does visible mending and has amazing taste.

We ordered beers. I was judging her taste a bit, it seems.

The bartenders were playing some great music while we talked -- Os Mutantes, some reggae, Beatles songs that we both like that aren't overplayed. Then they played a song -- already forgot which one -- that I used to play in a band 800 years ago. I mentioned this fact, and she asked me what instrument I play.

"I played bass"

"I also play bass." Then she listed her basses, most of which I didn't know but she *did* play a Rick. Ooooh. I've always loved that bass for its sustain. It really feels special when you're playing it.

Then she said:

Her: "I played in a band called (very obscure band name)"

Me: "After (name of previous girl bass player) left? My husband is mrguy"

So she had recorded with my husband at his studio. Also I remember meeting her in the basement of a club in the City. Her band had opened for his the week we got married.

My mind was completely blown. She had replaced my former friend in that band, and my ex-friend had long-term unpleasant feelings about that band and its members back in the day. Like my former friend, this girl had a hard time in this band and felt separate from the other members. Well the first part of that last sentence is accurate and the second applies only to her. My ex-friend wasn't very open about her own experience in that band. Or perhaps I wasn't listening. There were many things you weren't allowed to ask that person about.

Anyway, we talked and talked. Had many common interests. And we sewed.

Musical Knives

Years ago when we were in Aukland, our friends took us to a restaurant called Musical Knives, run by a guy who had been Madonna's tour chef. I always wondered about the name.

Today I was served a spammy FB post about musical knives. Who knew? I did an image search, hoping to post the original here, and found really interesting information at V&A (love their cataloging!!) and you can listen to some of the music on the knives here.

Explore The Silence

The prompt was to explore the silence.

But what if there is never silence? Or stillness? The birds are cheeping after a brief shower, and the sound of 90s rock bands drifts up to me from downstairs, where the husband is digitizing 4 track tapes in the man room. There's tinnitus and traffic. But the sound that I carry around with me most is not the sound of breathing or internal organs but my internal music. I have an internal jukebox that is almost always spinning snippets of familiar songs.

The inner jukebox currently features the songs of The Kiffness, a musician who autotunes memes of funny animal sounds as the basis of musical collaborations. His songs are devilishly catchy.

Currently playing: Hold Onto My Fur

But my head could be conjuring any song or part thereof. The theme from Suits. Or Jerry Lewis singing "I'll See Your Light". This is a pop song that a friend who died sent me summer before last. Every time I think of him I see the youtube video in my mind, where a fervent and sweaty Jerry Lewis gives it his all, wearing a cherry red golf sweater, on Hullabaloo. He looks like he might have some artificial energy going on there...and it is really compelling.

Sometimes I don't even know the songs are there. I find my foot jiggling in a certain rhythm and work back to see what my brain is doing. Or my fingers are working a specific pattern and I find I'm typing out a lyric to a song I didn't even know was in my head.

I'm not sure I'm cut out for silence. Or stillness. But I'll look for some today.

'Awapuhi Blooms in Suburbia!

A few years ago a neighbor was giving away ginger rhizomes. She had dug so many out of her garden that it looked as if a dump truck had unloaded them on her driveway.

I didn't end up planting that many in the garden because our dirt was hard as a rock. So I potted some in big old plastic pots with potting mix and put *those* on top of the dirt underneath our kitchen window. I keep meaning to plant them for real at some point...and then I don't. 

In the meantime the ginger seems to like it where it is.

And this week our first yellow ginger flowered. It smells amazing. As the song goes:

My yellow ginger lei

Reveals her scent through the day

Enchanting moments with you

Make me love you.

Kuʻu lei ‘awapuhi melemele

I puīa me ke ʻala onaona

Hoʻohihi ka manaʻo iā ʻoe

E kuʻu lei ʻawapuhi

Quick Quiz!

I'm going to take a guess that this song was written by Johnny Noble, because he often used the metaphor of a fragrant flower to describe his beloved (he was blind).

Wrong!

I looked it up, and My Yellow Ginger Lei is by a guy I don't know, John Ka'onohiokala Keawehawaii.

Johnny Almeida and John Keawehawaii perform it on this recording.

Listening to the original, I kinda get why artists like Led Kaapana make a medley out of it with other songs. It's super repetitive. And maybe that's a reason that it's popular with non-professional hula dancers -- the verse in Hawaiian and English is the same, which means that the dance is easy to remember.

Another random thought: on this particular recording they don't credit the female vocalists. Bummah, but a quick search of Discogs shows that JKK's group, The KeaweHawaiis, credits Linda De La Cruz as one of the vocalists. They were lucky to have her.

A favorite version of a song we used to do in the big ukulele band.

Oh Siri

After seeing Waipuna last night (first time in person since before the pandemic), we went out for a beer. Our bandmate said that he keeps a Hawaiian state quarter in the pocket of his puffiest winter coat to remind him that warm places exist.

Then I reminded him that mrguy keeps an original Hawaii dime in his ukulele case. Thennnn I got to talking about Mercury dimes and how I want my Tubmans (delayed until 2030), and we looked at a current quarter and ended up asking Siri about the Bombay Hook.

But Siri went wacky and this is what she found:

Whatever, Siri.

Pants Freedom

Once upon a time mrguy and I were members of a very large ukulele band. Leading up to the Aloha Festival Auntie Mary (real name) was firm: we had to wear black pants and closed-toe black shoes. She said, quite specifically, that she didn't want to see our toes.

On the day of the festival Phil, a much beloved member of the band, rolled up backstage wearing his usual almost pants -- shorts that were only about 4 inches above his socks. As punishment Auntie made him stand in the back row. He was about 5' 2", and nobody would see him back there. We still talk about it. 

A few years later, when a bunch of us formed a ukulele band of our own, we were joking around in the car on the way to our own gig. Our bandmate made a joke about the fact that he was wearing shorts, not pants. Mrguy said "I declare pants freedom!" by which he mean that pants were mandatory but the kind of pants was not. 

For some reason mrguy's been talking a lot about pants freedom this week, clarifying that pants freedom is freedom of pants, not freedom from pants.

And speaking of pants my friend's mom, who lives in independent living in the community where my mom lives, declared pants freedom of her own recently. Apparently she went to the lobby without any on, and was invited to move to memory care soon after. She'll be three doors down from my mom. 

Sorry I missed the inciting event. 

When Nothing Turned Out Right, But It Did

This weekend things worked out ok. The caregiver that my sister was worried about turned out to be really great. I took my mom and our daytime caregiver (who was 40 minutes late) on a jaunt to McDonalds and then a ride along the bay. On the way home I stopped at an estate sale and it was full of cool Japanese stuff. I came away with an aluminum bento box stamped with a mark for the University of Osaka. And I bought some cassette tapes that were deliciously transporting -- the kind of thing you'd hear in a restaurant in 1990.

This morning I returned to pay the nighttime caregiver in cash for her first two shifts. This means that I got to meet her and I thought she was thoughtful and charming. She had no problems with my mom.

Today is our 28th anniversary, and after shopping and Japanese music and a little Ted Lasso with my man, I felt pretty relaxed.

It's amazing what a few hours to oneself without my mom shrieking at me will do. We tidied up the pots on the front porch this morning, and I got the wild idea to put a loveseat out there in the future. It's cool and shaded in the summer and could be a perfect spot. The deer visited the street plantings today, and a fat brown bird took a ten minute bath in the saucer of one of the giant pots that came from my grandfather's Nash dealership. The bird plopped into the saucer, flapped his wings about, jumped up onto the fence, tapped the water out of his beak, and then flopped back in the water, repeating several times. He did his ablutions for about ten minutes stirring the water so that it made reflections in the glaze of the pot like something in a Hockney painting. Anyhoo, today is an ok day. I'm cooking a chicken for mrguy, and he's poised with a squirt bottle, trying to train boy kitten not to eat his one-eyed sister.

Enough for now. Someone posted a prompt today that spoke to me. "Think of a time when nothing turned out right."...

We four arrived at JFK from SFO and picked up our bargain rental car. The passenger seat was so cramped that I had to sit sideways. The glove compartment couldn’t be opened unless we pulled over and I got out. On the way to Hoboken, Mary, in the back seat, got super excited by a neon sign and rolled down the window quickly so she could take a photo. She may be 5’1”, but Mary’s strong from all of those years waiting tables. She used such force that we never did get the window up. For this reason we enjoyed the heady perfume of rush hour exhaust during our slow ride through the Holland Tunnel.

We got to the club, and after sound check the guys borrowed some tools to try to get the window up because at some point this evening we were expecting a snow storm. Somewhere during Sarah Silverman’s set, in the middle of the hot, cramped club, I started having a panic attack. I went outside and sat in the cold, trying to calm down and not alarm anyone.

I don’t recall seeing my husband’s band, or Yo La Tengo, but I do recall that the blizzard didn’t happen until morning and that it was really freaking cold on the ride from Hoboken to JFK with a broken window at 2am. We also got lost and drove in circles around Ground Zero for a while. Finally we made it to the airport and exchanged rental cars, turned on the heat, drove back to Brooklyn, dropped off the bandmates, parked and slept like the dead at our friend’s place. 

In the morning, things turned around. I slept in and ate breakfast with our hosts. The band went to play on the radio and as the expected blizzard finally arrived and the clouds dumped their load of puffy snow, I sat on the edge of the bed with a cup of coffee staring at the radio, listening to them play on WFMU. 

The Rainbow Connection

Cross-posting

There’s an a capella group at the company where I work. Back then I was an active member. That’s already a blessing and I guess that’s like telling you that Rosebud’s the sled, but whatever. I had taken a sick day. Several, actually, in order to have some Mohs surgery on my face. It was more extensive than I had realized. In putting me back together the surgeon took one of my frown lines and cut it into little quilt pieces to cover the hole near my eye where the bad parts, now vanquished, had set up shop over the years. I would forever look frownier, but be less cancer-y. My face inflated painfully over the hours that this procedure took, and I’m as sure that someone said something to me about my return appointment as I am that the roar in my ear and residual tinnitus from years of rock music drowned it out. I did hear that they could not give me Tylenol. I’d have to white knuckle it on the long ride home.

Later that day, on the sofa with an ice pack over half of my face and a laptop in my lap, I read that the founder of our company had died. It was not unexpected, and in preparation I’d put together a collection of photos for just this occasion. I phoned a colleague to let her know where she could find the CD in my office. I felt both the loss of this founder, and the loss of sharing the loss with my colleagues.

The next day an email came in from the leader of the a capella group asking if there was interest in singing at a gathering. He’d restructured a song that the founder had liked, that the group had sung for him years earlier. Over the weekend we could rehearse on our own. We rehearsed it twice as a group before the gathering, knowing that if it was awful we could just bail, but it sounded so beautiful and heartfelt. It was good to be with my people in that moment. I had spent the previous three days on the sofa with more ice packs and my face resembled, in the eloquent words of my husband, “as if Albert Einstein had gone through the windshield of a car” (although I felt Edward G. Robinson was more apt). My face was shocking to see, but nobody in our group gawked or joked or made much mention. They could tell that my presence was an act of devotion. I stood in the back, face bandaged.

We rose to the moment. The late Autumn sun streamed into the room where the company stood when we sang. In a perfect world, the final notes would ring out and people would quietly disperse. And that’s what happened. I went back to bed feeling better than when I left.

Hawaii 2022 Day 6

Monday is a great day for misanthropes visiting Hawaii. Fewer people (i.e. children) at the beach. Fewer people on the road. We headed out to Hungry Ear records, stopping first for lunch at Highway Inn. We put our name on the list and sat outside, as the signs instruct you to do. It was a beautiful day. Or I at least think it was. When our table was ready, the nice man who seated us thanked us profusely for following instructions. 

One of the many great things about Highway Inn is that poi is on the menu every day, just there for you whenever you want it. So I had an ahi salad and poi. Fantastic lunch, and we didn't feel out of place. 

At Hungry Ear, mrguy and I retreated to our corners. He is more omnivorous in his musical appreciation and taste. Me? I go straight for local music and International music. This is vinyl, by the way. I sometimes traffic in the odd cassette tape, but not often.

Record shopping in Hawaii has changed so much since we first started visiting in 2006. Usedtawas that there were a number of stores. Jelly's had several locations, and they had lots of used books, to boot. There were records to be found at the thrift stores. And Hungry Ear was in Kailua. The record stores had listening stations! But that was before we all had smartphones and could look up music on youtube and see if we like it before buying. These days I find that impolite and I just buy stuff. I will use my phone to remind myself of the name of the arranger that I like, because I will buy anything he has worked on (that's Benny Sax, by the way).

Anyhoo, this was a very special day, because I looked through every record, starting with the As, and when I got to the Ps, I found my holy grail: Pacific Musicale, by The Coconuts.

In 1993, when we visited New Zealand, we went on holiday with our friends who lived in Auckland. Somehow we managed to have two flat tires before even leaving town, which gave me hours in which to review in detail the contents of a gas station mini mart. I learned that corned lambs tongues in a can were a thing that you could at least find in two city gas stations. Anyhoo, our amazing friends took us to the Coromandel, and specifically to Thames, where two amazing things happened:

1) Mrguy bought his first pair of shorts. We went to New Zealand at the end of their summer and *someone* staunchly refused to buy short pants. Levis 505s and Converse or Docs it was. Until we got to Thames and it was sweltering and he bought some shorts. 

2) Our friends bought Pacific Musicale at a thrift store. When we got home a few days later they put it on the stereo and we were all amazed. That was really a catch. Mrguy made a cassette of it while we were there, and decades later made me a set of digital tracks of it. Still, we always wished we could find our own copy and maybe learn more about the artists. All we knew, years later, was that they were from the Cook Islands. Recently, before we went to Hawaii this time, I had found a copy of the record listed on Discogs, but it wasn't for sale. Years before that, I remember asking which of our friends got the Coconuts record in the record tribunal at the end of their relationship. It went to the man, and on one of his visits here, when I asked if he still had it and could he please take a photo of the cover he said that the record sleeved had turned to mush when his basement flooded.

So we're at Hungry Ear and I find it. I am gobsmacked. I put it behind my back. I walked over to mrguy and asked for his attention. 

Me: I found it.

Him: You FOUND it? You mean you found the single of Alan Akaka singing "At the Coco Palms"?

Me: No. I found IT.

Him: You found IT? The Coconuts record?

So happy. There was information aplenty on the record sleeve. The rhythm of the drumming is so unusual and sometimes unfollowable, but fantastic. We figured they were all drinking kava while playing. Maybe, maybe not, but I howled when I found out that these folks are of Norwegian (and Cook Island) descent. Jonassen is the name. Their ancestor was a Norwegian sailor (natch) who was shipwrecked off Tahiti and then made his way to the Cook Islands.

Our copy of the record is really clean, and it feels really great to find something that you have literally looked for assiduously for 30 years. Whoa. 

Hawaii 2022 Day 4

After our morning swim, Mrguy found us a new place to eat, in walking distance from our hotel. They had a weird homemade veggie burger, which made so happy that I ate it on two different occasions. Super tasty -- with flavors in the curry palate.

After lunch we went to see some friends play at the local ukulele festival at the Waikiki Shell, also walking distance. It was sparsely attended, and mostly keiki were playing, but it was fun. 

Since we were halfway there we walked up Monsarrat to Diamond Head Grill. Nothing inside really spoke to us but our usual shoyu ginger wasabi ahi did *not* disappoint.

We took it back to the shack and had a beer on the lanai and then our ahi.

What I Love About Facebook

In general, the fb feed of people of a certain age, IN a certain age we live in can be dismal. Shootings, Rage, people dying young or old. The hits keep coming. 

But then there's the Hawaiian music feed -- the world renowned slack key guitarist who will take you on a walk in his neighborhood in the early morning while not really saying anything. You can see what it looks like where he lives and hear the chickens waking up. He doesn't really say anything. He also posts videos and a venmo link later in the day when he plays daily concerts in his carport. Then there's the guy who -- how do I even know him? He came to work? He's a well-known ukulele player who we do actually "know" and he posts the best food photos from restaurants in Honolulu that I would never know otherwise. He's the guy who we went to see at the Hibiscus Club, which was one of the coolest times ever.

Anyhoo -- then there's the singer who is arguably best lei maker in the world, (traditional Niihau shell and non-traditional flower lei) who occasionally posts about his kitten he got during the pandemic. Today the lei maker posted that his kitten passed the rubber band he'd eaten the other day. And the world of fans like me heaves a great sigh of relief and has a laugh. That's what the fb is for, People.

You gotta take the happiness where you can find it these days.

Friday Vacation Day Is Much Appreciated

John Deere gave us an extra vacation day last Friday. It ended up being perfectly timed.

It was dreamy. I went to the jeweler and they fixed my mom's favorite necklace that she ripped off her neck while raging in the ER. They fixed it on the spot and did not charge me. Then I went to pick up some salmon teriyaki plates for dinner. Then I took the long way home and happened to see that the doors to the record store were open. Wheeee!!!

I made a beeline to the back room where they keep all the stuff I like. Turns out that they had a vast number of Japanese records, and even two records of sumo wrestlers singing (which is a genre). I bought them both, even though I suspected that I already had a copy of one of them. I intend to give that extra to clam dip (who I think does not appreciate her nickname).

I totally scored. I doubled my collection of Japanese LPs with smoking dudes on the cover, bringing the total to four. And some of the music was actually good. This Spanish guitar record with a Japanese twist was excellent.

Here are the singing sumotori records. Kotokaze, in orange, is a former ozeki (second highest rank in sumo) who retired in 1985. I really like his record, which you can find here.

And the other guy is Masuiyama II, also a former ozeki. From looking at old posts I can see that I do have his record already, so I look forward to gifting it to clam dip. You can hear the record here.

I won't go through the rest, but this cover really struck me. She's a Japanese woman with a big tattoo on her leg. Isn't that just for yakuza? Had to have it. Showed it to mrguy, who said "She's trans". Oh! Still didn't understand about the tattoo, but sure enough -- her name is Maki Carrousel, and she was one of the first openly trans women in Japan who had gender confirmation surgery, and she was one of the first people to have her gender changed in the official family registers. Super cool! I love that her website lists her blood type. Maybe that's a thing.

Odd Vacation Activities

Relaxing also means reading the obits. Robert Pritikin, recently deceased, had a very full life. Among his many accomplishments? Recording an album that I actually own, called "There's A Song Inside My Saw".

I can't find it on Youtube, so you'll just have to imagine it. But while we're discussing Robert Pritikin, and while I was looking for the video, I found this:

Anyway, here's to lives thoroughly lived. To Robert Pritikin, and to Tom Gonzales, a lovely young colleague who left behind a wife and young children, and had so much more left to do had he been given more time.

Old People Is Us

Recently we went to a memorial for a musician friend of mrguy's. It was my first show since the pandemic. I wore a mask, people! Do not want the old woman in my life to get Covid because I went to the memorial of a significantly younger person.

Anyhoo, here are my thoughts or just one thought: we are old. You know how there are always people in your rock scene who look older than they are? And they kinda stand out? The whole crowd looked like that. I went to this gig and I couldn't tell if two of the old people were actually those people or whether they were people who grew up to *look* like those people (cause the people who you *think* they are should look much older now, right?).

It messed with my mind. 

Good news: my old people can still play guitar like a mofo. At least that hasn't changed.

Halloween

Lucky you! I have complicated feelings about Halloween. First, I never had my own ideas about how to dress. As a young kid I was dressed up by my older sister: a bunny (she dressed Chinese), and for kindergarten, I was dressed as a Famous French Painter. Because in 1966 that was going to be easy to explain. I had a friend a few years later who had all the ideas: sea otter, stained glass window -- whatever she came up with I *also* wanted to be, because I had no ideas of my own.

Once, when I was in my twenties, I did a retread of 1965 -- I put on my boyfriend's "coolie" hat and the satin jammies that my granny got in Hong Kong...did eyeliner and put on Opium perfume. Looked in the mirror and went WTF!!! You can't dress as Chinese in 1986! Realizing what I had so easily done without thinking (And hello! I took Asian American Studies in college), I decided to declare that I was dressed as a "Racial Stereotype," explaining for the rest of the night how wrong I was.

Similarly, there was a trend when I was in middle school to dress as a "hobo". It was the easiest and most relaxed outfit. We didn't know about homelessness. Makes me sad when I think about it.

Twenty years ago I landed a job at the home of competitive Halloweening. I don't always get the references, and sometimes the outfits are inspiringly clever, so I just watch.

Then there's the nighttime part of Halloween. The part where you interact with children. The awkward times. I let mrguy do the candy giving because he's better at it. Speaking of awkward, my aunt from Norway was unaware of Halloween customs when she visited us in October of 1973. She answered the doorbell, and brought the little lion who had run the bell into the kitchen. His frightened parents retrieved him a few minutes later.

I think the last straw on Halloween for me was the infamous gig at the brewery. Our bandmate in the Hawaiian band loves Halloween, and doesn't love that we play music in the Hawaiian language (only one of us has a connection to Hawaii). She was quitting the band after we had had periodic conversations about her discomfort with playing Hawaiian music as non-Hawaiians. And I love her but don't love Halloween. She got us what would be our farewell gig at a brewery and at the last minute she asked us to play The Monster Mash and the theme to the Addams Family.

We played the gig at the brewery. We set up our own PA. We played Hawaiian and Monsterian music on the sidewalk of a busy street, next to the Taco Bell drive-thru window. The brewery, which makes beer, did not give us beer or pay us.

This has been "What I Hate About Halloween" by mrsguy. I'm going to try to get over it now. It's no fun to be waiting for Halloween to pass, especially when Halloween is now a season. 

I'd rather go to church.

Cue The Plague of Frogs

Pandemic.

Shelter-in-place for six months.

Wildfires galore that mean you can't open the windows for weeks.

Heat wave after heat wave (without opening the windows).

My favorite cousin died on Thursday after a recurrence of leukemia. Amazingly, on Tuesday he sent me a text that just said "call" and we had one last phone conversation. Took a bereavement day on Friday.

Last night it was 101.7 in the kitchen last night and 120+ in the aku room. I watered the tomatoes 5 times, and the canna corms I've been resurrecting started the day underground and ended the day with 1/4" of growth. 

Several weeks ago, while on a toilet paper hunt for the mama at a local bodega, I passed a bottle of piña colada mixer. Impulse buy! It came in really handy last night. Why did I always think that making blended ice drinks was difficult? It is not.

Among all of the awfulness, we are not alone. Friday night cocktails with friends. Saturday evening zoom with our good friends who were good friends with our cousin after we introduced them. Sunday morning conversation with Cack and Blick. Sunday evening conversation with my cousin (youngest brother of the one who died).

In honor of my cousin, who someone described this week as "an animal of music facts", listen to some Richard Thompson and use the word fuck. 

A LOT.

Hawaii 2019, Day 7

Monday was the day we started our family history research. What could be better than genealogy in Hawaii?

In the morning we went to the sugar plantation in Puunene. We didn't know a ton about the family's involvement, other than there was an aunt who was a nurse and came from the Mainland to run the plantation hospital. She then married the foreman of the plantation. Her brother came over and was the facility engineer. We have sepia-tone film of the family on Maui in the 20s or 30s. There you go.

So we went to the plantation museum, and I sat down on a bench near a map and pulled out a binder they had for visitors to look at. There, a few pages in, was a map that showed the location of our family's house. So cool. This is the map but not the house:

They had sumo at the camp back in the day:

We took photos of the maps, and set ourselves the task of locating the site of the family house.

But first we met up with a friend of mrguy's who had recorded with him at the studio. He has a place here where we live, but he and his partner picked up and moved to Kihei. Go figure. It was nice to meet someone who was starting over in Hawaii. He bought a beat up house that was filled with termites and is gradually rehabbing it.

After lunch and a tour of his house, we went to the Friends of the Library store. I can't recall why, but it was interesting and full of treasures and mold. I sneezed a lot.

We met up with our friend Ramona for dinner. She's awesome and on our last trip she came all the way over to Oahu to meet up with us, which was a ball. I can't believe that I didn't take any pictures of us, our meal, whatever. We went to a local place, and the music wasn't really tremendous until a guy in the crowd came up and played one of the most beautiful versions of Hawaiian Soul I've ever heard.

The sunsets on Maui are terrific.

Hawaii 2019, Day 5

We started our day with another swim. Oh my gosh. I love this beach.

We then went to a vinyl and photography equipment swap meet in Kaka'ako. On the way, we passed the Wailana Coffee House and are happy to say that it is now closed. The last time we went there it smelled like pee and we couldn't get waited on and there were screaming children tossing wet sugar packets in the dining room. Which of those was the deal-breaker? Hmmm.

Didn't know what to expect at the swap meet but ended up having a nice conversation with a guy who was selling the vinyl that he had already sampled. He is mostly out of the DJ business now, and started a DJ lifestyle clothing line (whose name I've forgotten). He mentioned that there was a DJ battle happening during the World of Dance convention at Blaisdell later in the day, which could have been super fun. I'd recently seen a Q&A with DJ Q-bert...but we passed because that seemed like a big time investment.

Then we ate lunch at the Highway Inn, which was tasty and we'll definitely do it again if it still exists when we come back.

The end of the day was epic. Bryan Tolentino had posted that he and George Kuo were going to be playing at the Hibiscus Club. We've never been there, it's old school, but I've taken many pictures of that building over the years because it has a great sun shade. Of course I can't find any at the moment so that's why I am not posting them.

It was so cool!! Bryan and George do not play gigs like this ever, but a friend who ordinarily plays / books the club was going to be late coming back from seeing the Rainbow Warriors play in Las Vegas so they sat in. With Kalani Kockett, also. This was all happening around dinner time.

Then Greg Sardinha got off work and walked in for some refreshment, with his instrument in hand. Then the musicians on stage started heckling him to get on stage with them. 

For the next hour or so everybody was on stage, and trading instruments and the guy who was coming from Las Vegas, whose name I did not catch arrived and he can apparently play all instruments. It was so fun and so jolly and we felt 100% lucky to see such an amazing show. We left with huuuuuge smiles on our faces.