Traveling Thursday Equals Hana Promise

If you did not enter for a Hawaii goodie box giveaway you have until Sunday night.

I was planning on featuring Hana Maui today. One of my closest and dearest friends has made Hana her home for many years now. We met in 1982 when we both cocktailed at Bobby McGee's in Waikiki. She was a music major. After she graduated she moved to LA for a few years and whenever I would go home to visit family we would hook up.

Eventually she moved back and our friendship has morphed through many phases.

She was in a Flashback Show in Waikiki back in the early 90's. She was a back up singer and dancer for Elvis and she also played Judy Garland. I used to hang out at her house sometimes when she got ready. Daughter was a toddler and would sing on my friend's karaoke machine, pound the piano keys, and play make-up at the vanity. Not to mention sometimes Daughter and I would tag along and see the show. I credit my friend's influence for my daughter's musical theatre passion.

Serendipity? My daughter's voice instructor at UH is the daughter of my friend's voice coach from her UH days...

My friend is the musical director for Hana Performing Arts. A non-profit. They had a huge fundraiser on a Halloween theme. I don't know much more because I have been sick the last few days. But I do know they had Thriller rehearsals for weeks and my friend worked her butt off. There was a fundraiser the night before Halloween and Halloween night itself there was Thriller zombie march.

I am so proud to say the zombie front and center is my friend.

Enjoy the video and come back next week when I will feature Hana with my very special guide.

Meet cool zombie woman.




Link your Travel post on up through Mr Linky. There are no rules as to the definition of Travel. So take us away!

Media Assholes: Back the Fuck Off

Knobhill Drive in Sherman Oaks Summer of 1970. I was 12, going to be 13 in November, and was between 7th and 8th grade. The home belonged to my Uncle, my dad’s older brother, who had never married and made a home for their mother,my grandmother, my Bahquine.

Sanctuary. My Bahquine and Uncle Kent were for me those two adults who cared and who cultivated my resilience. My sisters and I grew up spending occasional weekends during the school year and a couple weeks every summer at Bahquine and Uncle Kent’s. The connection I felt with them and that home have stayed with me until this day.

They always put a card table up in the living room during our visits and we would spend hours playing card games and board games, something my parents never did with us. My Bahquine saved old dish soap bottles, pin tins, and cookie cutters and when we were younger we would play in the rose garden making and decorating mud pies. After they dried in the sun, we would take them over to where Bahquine was sitting in the shade, mending or knitting, and she would pretend to nibble our concoctions and tell us how delicious they were.

I was never anxious my world might explode when I stayed on Knobhill.

In the Summer of 1970, I had discovered music and pop radio. My parents were not big music people (or picture taking camera people) and they did not own many record albums. A radio was never on in our house, I’m not sure if we even owned one. But in my Uncle Kent’s bedroom, he had a big leather chair next to a table with an antique radio on it. I had crush on a boy, and probably boys in general that summer, and my favorite song was Michel Jackson’s I’ll Be There.

On weekdays, while my uncle was off working as a special effects cameraman at Universal Studios, I would lounge around in his leather chair by the hours, fidgeting with the radio dial, until I found my favorite song. Then I’d sing along. At the top of my lungs, no holding back. It was such a popular song that summer I could find it no problem at least three or four times an hour.

Those lazy summer days where I morphed from childhood and embraced adolescence are symbolized for me by that song in that house.

Billy Bean, Beat It, and so many of Michael’s songs are more than a stitch in the fabric of my youth. His music is woven through my early years and is connected to some of my best memories.

My husband called me from his work yesterday to tell me about Michael Jackson’s sudden death. He asked me to turn on the news and find out what happened. I watched CNN for an hour and then MSNBC. Neither of these cable news networks spent much time on his early life, on his music successes. It was all about his trials, his financial problems, and his addiction to plastic surgery. Don’t ask me why I did not try watching FOX, if you’ve read me for any amount of time you would know I don’t support the bullhorn for Rupert Murdoch.

Anyways.

I don’t think focusing millions of people on the negative aspects of Michael Jackson’s life is the right way to go, and so I turned off my TV. Michael’s demons were his demons and not mine to judge. I will, however, judge the fuckers who air such crap, and yes, I also judge those who support it.

Michael Jackson Rest in Peace. Thank-you for the joy and memories your music and your talent added to my own life.



Flurrious has the video of The Jackson Five on the Ed Sullivan Show. I might have used it had I not read her post before I wrote my own.