MC in the Midnight Kitchen

Adios

2010-03-13T19:20:00.000-10:00

Bye blog. I'm leaving you. I found someone more modern and hip. I did a few posts behind your back, and now I'm ready to go public.

kanewai.travellerspoint.com

Back to Byzantium

2010-03-04T12:23:00.008-10:00

I fly to Istanbul in two weeks, to kick off a longer adventure to Upper Mesopotamia ... I guess it's time to resurrect the blog.

This will be my third trip. People ask Why Turkey?, and I usually give some on-the-spot lame answer that makes their eyes glaze over. No one ever asks, Why Rio?, or adds a caustic aside about, Oh, Paris again. But Istanbul confuses people, and that confuses me, because this is one of the more fascinating and beautiful cities on the planet, and Turkey itself has seen more empires come and go than any land I can think of, and how can people not know that? Or be intrigued by that?

Here's my agenda for the first couple days ... ten reasons Why? for Istanbul:

Have a massage at the Cemberlitas Hamam,

Attend a Mevlevi sema at Sirkeci Station,

Take a public ferry up the Bosphorus to a village on the Black Sea,

Visit St. Savior in Chora, a church decorated with Byzantine mosaics,

Spend Friday afternoon at the Eyup Mosque, founded on the spot where Mohamed's standard-bearer fell outside the medieval city walls,

Get lost again in the Grand Bazaar,

See the six-winged angel recently uncovered at Hagia Sophia,

Eat the best food in the Eastern Mediterranean,

Have a drink with the bears,

And then dance 'til dawn.

That should be enough for four days ...

Bike Plan

2009-08-28T10:49:00.002-10:00

I just turned in my comments on the O`ahu Bike Plan. I'm in a dark and cynical mood this month, and I don't really have much hope that the plan will be implemented. None of the past ones have been - all the money gets spent on consultants, and there's never any left over to actually build the bike lanes. I can still hope for a surprise.

I represent St. Louis on Neighborhood Board No. 5. I have been a bike commuter on O`ahu for the past 14 years. I currently commute daily between Kaimuki and Downtown. These comments are based on experience:

1. A major issue commuters face is a lack of connection between existing lanes and routes. This is not shown on your map. A few examples: A) The McCully / Kapiolani intersection is dangerous, and impossible to navigate in a legal yet safe manner. Riding makai down McCully, and a biker needs to make a left hand turn into a narrow gap in the stone wall that is usually occupied by pedestrians, while cars heading mauka inch into the area prepping for a right turn. B) The Bike Path that runs behind the Convention Center is broken into segments; bikers need to navigate a mid-block crossing on a blind hill twice. C) The intersection at Kapahulu and Ala Wai is not dangerous, but is messy & requires hopping on the sidewalk to make the connections. THE existing bike maps that you use treat each of these intersections as areas that are already functioning!

There are similar problems heading from town to the airport. There will be a great path, and then BAM! Nothing!

2. We have been told at the Neighborhood Board that there will be no money to implement this Plan. If this is the case, then the City would appear to be not in compliance with Charter Amendment 6, and this plan would be no different than the other plans that have been written, filed, and not implemented. Please address how the City and County can integrate bike planning into existing day to day operations. For example, if a road is repaved then we could add a proposed bike lane in then.

I would like to note that when issues regarding sidewalks, potholes, parking, etc. are raised at our Neighborhood Board meeting, the County will respond. When bike issues are raised we are told: Wait for the Bike Plan. We need to be able to address biking issues on an ongoing basis without needing a new Master Plan every decade. We don't wait for a Master Plan for sidewalks before building them.

3. Like other bike commuters, I don't understand what a "Bike Route" is. Two of the existing bike routes downtown - McCully and the one in Kaka`ako - are two of the worst urban roads for bike commuters. What will the benefit be of adding more "routes" if there are no infrastructure improvements to the route.

4. The urban hubs for bike commuters are UH, Ala Moana area, Waikiki, and Downtown. There is a good connection heading from UH to Downtown, and a passable connection Downtown to Ala Moana. If we have to prioritize, I would argue that we should focus on the flow between these areas.

I'd be willing to ride with any planners, or point out the areas where minor work on improving connections would result in major improvements. My email is kanewai@earthlink.net. Thank you.

Michigan

2009-07-05T17:29:00.004-10:00

Wrapping up my holiday back in Ann Arbor. I fly out tomorrow morning, and I'm trying to tire myself out tonight so that I sleep on the plane. I need to hit the ground running: Tuesday morning is the first candidate's forum, Tuesday lunch I meet with the Advertiser Board and try to win their love, and Tuesday evening I need to get my butt back to practice.

The whole family is here. Beth had a rough delivery but is doing well, Anne had her child three weeks early - just in time for me to meet him! - but is handling it like a pro, and John and Valerie have finally set a date for their wedding. I've spent a lot of the days cooking, first for the Fourth picnic (I tried a variety of Mediterranean meze, which ... I liked, at least ... but the Coney dogs were way more popular), then helping Sue prep food for Jeff and Anne. I'm staying with Jim and Jen, & their new house is right off our old neighborhood, so I've gotten the chance to wander through the past a bit.

I forgot how green and lush Michigan was. And how flat. But the township has changed so much that I can't say I miss it. The farms are gone, and now there are endless subdivisions of ugly new mansions. A lot were built on spec, and some of the neighborhoods are disturbingly quiet, full of giant houses next to vacant fields and empty cul-de-sacs. Our old neighborhood seems to be falling into disrepair. Some people are keeping up their houses, but one has been completely abandonned and others are fighting a losing battle against nature.

It can all be so sad, but it is also all so pretty and green. Now it seems that this whole construction boom was just a game. People bought and flipped houses, and never intended to live in any of them, and now we have more houses than people here & the game is over.

Into The Breach

2009-07-05T17:15:00.005-10:00

I did it ... I put my name in for the Council Seat. There are sixteen of us - the former incumbent, one well-known Democrat, two union guys, a handful of Republican regulars, a horticulturist, and moi. It's a mail-in election, and the campaign season is only a few weeks long, so there's a fair amount of randomness in the system. My goal is simple: I need to make an strong impact in the debates, and I need to get some positive media attention - and at least move up from the "also running" list.

I refuse to stand on the corner and wave signs, and I'm going to hold off on fund-raising until I see how the first week of debates go. I won't spam my friends. Nathaniel Kinney (29, lawyer for the union) is trying to get all the candidates on twitter, and I was tempted, but I think I'm going to maintain my anti-Twitter stance. I just can't see myself twisting myself into someone I am not for the sake of a campaign - and if there is any campaign where we can present ourselves honestly, without cliche and facade, it will be this one.

Someone new will be elected; I don't think people want the same old faces again. The papers portray this as being between Kobayashi and Matsunaga. The papers are wrong. There are whispers that Kinney has Mufi's backing. He definitely has money and supporters from somewhere. The general mood is, give us someone new. I need to get to the top of the 'new' pack.

Below, my first announcement:

Aloha all!

As some of you know, I've registered as a candidate for Honolulu City Council, District V, representing Kapahulu, Kaimuki, Palolo Valley, St. Louis Heights, Manoa, Moiliili, McCully, Kakaako, and a portion of Ala Moana and Makiki.

This is a Special Election that will be decided by mail-in votes. You must be registered by July 8 for this election.

REGISTER TO VOTE NOW!!!
http://www.honoluluelections.us/voter_info/voter_registration

OK then.

First Campaign Promise: I won't be spamming my email list with endless updates. You'll get this one, and then one more if there is a public debate or if I decide to hold a benefit. That'll be it. I set up a website at http://www.michaelcain.net/. Go there for more information. For people who want to get actively involved, or just want to get lots of emails, write me at michaelcainhnl@gmail.com.

Some big names have entered the race, and there is some big money behind them. My hope is the hope of all long-shots: get a strong grass roots campaign going. Luckily, it's a crowded field, and therefore there is room for political newcomers to make an impact. My concern now is getting my name out there by focusing on core ideals.

For now, check out the website, let me know if you have any ideas or feedback, & if you like it pass this along to your email lists! I'll be tweaking the website over the weekend, and then trying to get some media coverage early next week.

Mahalo!
MC
http://www.michaelcain.net/

Post Mortem

2009-06-18T12:50:00.003-10:00

I've been meaning to come in for awhile now, and do one final post before letting this blog drift on into oblivion.

I figured I'd resurrect it when I travel, but I didn't really see a use for it beyond that. I've been pulling away from on-line life a lot lately. I deleted my accounts from most of the forums I took part in - I got tired of the flaming and the trolling and the irrationality (this morning on metafilterI was actually accused of being a front for Eminem, whom I detest). I boxed up my home computer this past April, which was liberating. I've been clear at work that I will answer emails on Fridays, and I delete them after I've read them.

The internet can be amazing, but I no longer think it's healthy in high doses.

I'll miss easy access to music. I thought I'd miss easy access to recipes, but I've got a pretty major collection of cookbooks that has must been gathering dust. I miss Facebook - it just doesn't work the same on my phone. And ...

... that's about it. I don't miss much else. It was hard the first weekend, but in the end quitting internet was far easier than quitting smoking. And it feels like I have a bit more of my life back. I've been going to the gym a lot, reading actual books, and socializing more with flesh-and-blood people. It's been liberating. I've been living like we all used to live in the old days, back all of fifteen years ago.

******************************

Not that I've totally quit internetting. I still log on from coffee shops about once a month, and I still ready the news and emails on my iPhone. And I'm thisclose to putting my name in for special election on the open City Council seat. And if I do that I'll have to be online a lot more. Only this time it won't be an addiciton. It'll be business.

The Slush Fund

2009-02-21T01:44:00.002-10:00

I just put down a deposit on an Atlantis Cruise in October, I committed to doing the Vaka Eiva series of races in Raratonga, I'm off to New York this March, and I'm fantasizing about an extended trip to Eastern Turkey next Spring ...

... and for the third time today, someone has asked where I get the money ...and do I have a secret slush fund? ... especially since every other weekend I am mostly broke.

Here's how it works:

- I ride my bicycle to work almost every day. Savings: let's say $2500 a year over those of you who pay for parking and gas.

- I cook my own meals. Lunches, at least these days, are mostly vegetarian and made of what I find at the Kapi`olani Farmers' Market. So, twenty bucks a week for me versus forty if I ate at the lunch wagon: that's maybe a grand a year, plus at least another grand over those of you who eat out for dinners.

- Add to that the weekends that I am happy and content nursing my garden or reading books rather than drinking at the bars ...

And that's already three trips to Paris, at least, airfare and hotel included.

And that's how I do it.

Fananu

2009-02-20T13:29:00.004-10:00

Just experimenting with the new Google Earth here. If this works, then that should be Fananu below on the left, my home for two years while I was with the Peace Corps. Ikup, on the right, is not inhabited.

View Larger Map

My life for two years is contained in that little map: the school that got washed way by the storm wave, the ice plant that was destroyed during a riot, the boat house I slept in, for the second year, with the other unmarried young men after my host-father tried to shoot his son, the reef where I would go spear-fishing every afternoon, the taro patch where I would hide out with the guys to drink some god-awful moonshine, the beach I would hide out at when I needed time away ... they always try and make Paradise look something like my island, but I've lived it and know things about "Paradise" that a lot of people don't.

Fananu Demographics: Population 250 (249 Chuukese, 1 Haole), plus another 250 or so off island; 0.1 square miles; and far from everything.

Lost Worlds

2009-02-08T20:19:00.003-10:00

The wind is full of ghosts tonight

That tap and sigh upon the glass

And listen for reply.

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

I usually hate nostalgia. I've been so nomadic all my life that remembering yesterday means remembering lost worlds and forgotten friends and lives I could have lived but didn't. Nostalgia is always melancholic. It's about loss. I hate it. Usually.

The most exotic people for me were those who spent their whole lives together, cohorts that were born, lived, and died in one small town. It fascinated me that some people go through this journey with the same companions all the way. For me, my memories are scattered. Each period of my life has involved a new tribe, and only a few people seem to cross with me from me. I'm always chomping at the bit for different and new horizons, but living this life has it's cost. I suppose that all lives do.

I moved to Hawai`i with the inention of staying put, come hell or high water, at least ten years (and I think it's been fourteen already). I wanted to know what it felt like to have one single group of friends for longer than a few years.

You can stay put, but this world is still nomadic. I never quite realized how much. I have lived as many lives, and have as many lost worlds, as if I had stayed on the move. Fourteen years, but I've easily been through four or five lives here, and they don't really intersect.

Facebook triggered this round of nostalgia. It's been good website for nomads - suddenly I'm finding people that I lost track of years ago. Maybe that's why it's become so insanely popular; we've all gone nomadic, and this is allowing us to reconnect.

And I've been ok with this. Nostalgia isn't all bad. And so I spent yesterday digitizing old photos, and I'll be putting them up online this week.

Chemical Burn

2009-02-06T15:56:00.007-10:00

I see this plant all the time at Home Depot, and thought it would make a pretty addition to my herb garden. Sure, they call it "rue" - but I figured, maybe the plant had just been saddled with a bad rap.

But no. The plant has fully earned it's name. Witness what it did to me:

That's a chemical burn caused by the above Ruta graveolens. Rue doesn't burn right away - rather, the oils get on your skin, and then intense sunlight will trigger it to bind to your DNA, effectively killing the cells.

Or, as the scientists would say:

One of the more dramatic, uncomfortable and persistent plant-and- skin conditions is phytophototoxicity. This can occur from skin contact with plants containing chemicals known as psoralens followed by exposure of the area to ultraviolet light. Psoralens sensitise the skin to sunlight and the phototoxic effects are due to ultraviolet-induced binding of these chemicals to nuclear DNA and subsequent cell death. Resultant skin damage can be severe (Lown and Sim 1978, Song andTapley 1979).

Phytophototoxicity. It's almost worth the burn to be able to say that.

Not that I knew all this off-hand. I just knew that somehow I had burned myself, and couldn't figure out how. It was a bit surreal, since generally these sort of things involve fire, or hot stoves, or other things that are hard to forget. Second-degree burns don't suddenly appear for no apparent reason, yet this one seemed to have done just that.

I looked up everything I could think of, and quickly ruled out fungus, staph, bugs, allergies and stigmata. I was stuck, and I had certainly never heard of phytophototoxicity. Nor did I think that my friendly neighborhood garden center would be selling plants that burn.

Then I found this anecdote on WebMD: The leader of a "Native American storytelling and crafts workshop" told a bunch of school children on a field trip that the Indians used to rub rue on their bodies to ward off mosquitoes. Since rue is from the Mediterranean it's a pretty safe bet that he totally made this up. I guess he figured, it kind of smells like menthol and couldn't hurt. The kids and parents dutifully smeared it over their bodies.

The article has photos of the results. Mystery solved.

Luckily the fake Injun didn't make tea for the kids. The Greeks did use rue medicinally - to induce abortions.

Laphroaig

2009-02-04T12:21:00.005-10:00

It's Wednesday, and my weekend just ended. It was a good one.

Friday had sushi with Fred, John, Boyd, and Sumner. I was the kid at the table, allowed to join the grown-ups for the night. Afterwards we went to see Souvenirs at Diamond Head Theater. It was awful, and I left at intermission. It was a two-person one-joke play (a rich lady can't carry a tune, but thinks she's a diva) with a life-affirming message at the end about how being true to our dreams is important. I didn't need to stay until the end to know that - you could see the moral coming from five minutes into the play.

It was so bad that I actually went online to do some research, and to try to figure out just what the authors were thinking - and how it managed to make it to Broadway. Turns out it started as a lounge-type act, and I can see it working there. I don't know how anyone thought it would work in a theater.

I skipped the cast party at Town, obviously.

Saturday I went to Ozomatli with Ken Zen. We tried to recruit others, but the ones who were interested were broke, and the ones who had the dough weren't interested. Too bad; it was a fun show. Later we went to Ke Kai's for a night cap. It was dead: two transvestites, the bartender, two other male customers, and a mentally impaired guy who was the boyfriend of one of the transgendered ladies. One of the trans chicks danced on the bar for a bit, but that kind of thing sounds more risque in print than in reality.

This was not enough to make the bar interesting

Sunday was Swamp Romp practice. Allen had us run 1.95 miles (according to Google Earth) and I didn't die. That surprised me. My thighs still hurt. I did the first 1.6 miles in 17 minutes (that's a sprint in my book). The last stretch was on soft sand, and that was hard.

Later went to Hulas for one drink, which turned into more than one drink. Monday I behaved. Last night I went to Hawai'i Opera Theater for Puccini's Manon Lescaut, and honestly enjoyed it. The last two times I tried to go to the opera in Hawai`i I fell asleep, and I'd given up. My opera friends had told me that they refused to go with me again, anyway. This crowd doesn't know my history. I made plans to see Carmen in March with Ron, and Sumner might have an extra ticket for Abduction from the Seraglio ... it looks like I'll get a dose of culture to counteract all the circuit parties.

Julia Kierstine as Manon was the star of the show

Ron and I rounded out the night with a nightcap - or maybe five or six nightcaps - at his place. Our final drink was a thimblefull of Laphroaig - which is the single best whisky I have ever had, by far. A sip, and you could almost taste the wind blowing across the moor. It would settle in, releasing smoke and peat and whatever ice age elements were carried in the peat.

I will have dreams about that whisky

And that ended my weekend, just in time to get ready for the next. Since I overspent this past one, this one, I think, will be much quieter.

Cha Cha Friday

2009-01-30T17:00:00.002-10:00

Glad the weekend is finally here. I'll join one gang at Tokkuri Tei tonight for sushi, then heading to Diamond Head Theater after that for the Hawai`i premier of a musical I've never heard of. Saturday joining the surf crew for Ozomatli. Sunday is Swamp Pig practice. It'll be a nice and busy weekend.

And I couldn't find any videos of dancing Marines that were better than Old Jews Telling Jokes ... so cha-cha this:

How to Waste Public Money

2009-01-23T10:50:00.002-10:00

Our Division of Accounting and General Services (DAGS) just printed up some nice shiny posters asking us to conserve energy. They're cute - the posters ask us to "Kill A Watt."

Meanwhile, the thermostat is set to 50 degrees and it's freezing and we've been complaining about this for a year but they can't seem to fix it. We've been emailing them and calling for months asking them to remove half our lights (we have close to 100 fluorescent lights, for an office of seven, and it's bright enough we should wear shades inside). Sometimes they tell us they're working on it, sometimes they just ignore us.

We're supposed to be saving money, and maybe even set a good example, the State is broke, and yet they're still spending more time and money on a PR campaign than in actually doing anything.

Fast, Day 4: Breakdown

2009-01-21T13:52:00.006-10:00

That didn't last long.

Yesterday at work was rough. Every time I passed the front desk my hand would reach out towards the cookies and chocolates and other snacks piled up. I'd catch myself mid-grab, and will my hand back. Gollum wants his precious, and all that. It had all become so automatic. Lesson 1 is, I need to eat willfully. Not eat on the run, and not snack on the computer, and not just grab a bit of everything I pass.

Last night I had a date with this guy, also a paddler, from Tahiti. I wasn't about to pass that up for a stupid fast, and my choice was either spend too much time explaining myself, or shut up and have a beer. I chose beer.

Today was the opening of the legislature. Speaker Say gave a long speech about how bad the economic indicators are. It's the worst he's seen in 32 years in office, and it's going to hurt. There was a nice Socialist subtext to a lot of his comments - we're all going to share the pain equally, rather than force it all on one group; we need to address land tenure issues here (yeay!); we won't cut the State workforce (super-yeay!) but we will be looking at cutting benefits (ok, something has got to go, but I still vote for furloughs), we need to confront the fact that the major land owners now live in the mainland and have no loyalty to the people here (viva la revolution!).

It would have been even more inspiring if it wasn't so difficult to stay awake while he talked.

Then, in a strange Hawai`i tradition, all the Senators and Representatives open their doors and serve lunch. All the little old ladies and country people line up outside each office to grind.

There were many fashion mistakes.

And I thought I was going to pass out from the smell of katsu and fried chicken and everything else wafting down the halls. I was ready to break for a plate lunch cart (no way could I wait in line), but luckily Allen seemed to know half the staff of Blake Oshiro's office (our new Majority leader), so we got in early. And I broke my fast; there was a table full of mochiko chicken, namasu, walnut mochi, tofu with bonito flakes - and I couldn't pass it up.

And so my waist remains x. I'm still in shock over that. I might stick with the mostly-vegetarian meal plan for awhile:

From the top: white beans in olive oil, green beans with rice, roasted eggplant, radish salad, watercress salad, carrots in yogurt and garlic, couscous, and pomegranate seeds from the yard. I can keep this up for awhile, as long as I make it to the Farmer's Market each Saturday.

It won't be cheap. This haul from Saturday was almost thirty bucks.

Fast Day 2

2009-01-19T17:50:00.002-10:00

Wow, I've been a spaz today. I channeled it, for once - filled up two more boxes for Goodwill; moved a shelf outside; removed all the louvers and washed them for the first time in many, many years; removed all the plastic from the windows (I put it up to keep the cool air in, but I never use the air-con these days); dusted ... I finally finished the "deep cleaning" that I keep talking about. I think I need to plan out more of these four day weekends. Three should be enough, but really, I think I need four a couple times a year. I use up all my vacation days traveling, and I forget how nice it is just to take one here.

45" 'til the sun goes down. I'm hungry!

It's amazing how long a day is when I'm not eating, snacking, or effin' off online.

Had Maika over last night for dinner. I warned him that it would be all veggie, no wine, and that some dishes were experiments. I don't think he was impressed. I tried to do a whole mix of mezes, and most were good individually, but they didn't all come together to make a meal. Others were awesome when I made them (Hamakua mushrooms in yogurt sauce, and roasted peppers in feta) but just so-so the next day. I'll keep experimenting.

Fast 09, Day 1

2009-01-18T18:08:00.003-10:00

I started a fast today. Bsic kind: don't eat sunrise to sunup, and stick to natural foods for meals. No corn syrup, processed food, hydrogenated oils, or meat. No snacking. Coffee in the morning, afternoon, and evening ... and that's it. No alcohol.

And I can't wait for the sun to go down. It's taking it's own sweet time.

I didn't take a fast last year, and kind of missed it. Paddling season got under way early, and I couldn't do it during the season. This year I need it. I've been picking up all sorts of bad habits, and I've been excusing most of them by saying well, at least I'm not smoking. But the past couple weeks it's been nuts. There are tons of snacks left over from the holidays at work, and I munch on those all day. Then I'm not even hungry for lunch, and don't eat a decent meal until 2pm or so. Meanwhile, I pound the coffee to keep going. I head home, but am not hungry because I ate so late. So I pour a cocktail. And since I haven't eaten proper food find that I'm smashed after one drink. Then I f' around online until it's time to go to bed. It's taken me three frakkin' weekends just to do a deep cleaning for the new year.

And each thing feeds into the next, and then the nicotine cravings came back hard and out of the blue. That was unexpected - but maybe this was all a build-up or a delayed reaction. I bummed a few cigarettes one night, and a few more a different night, then caved and bought a pack mid-week.

I'll fess up to that. I don't even want to print what my waist is right now. I'm still at 202 pounds, but since I haven't been going to the gym regularly since Rio I can't even claim oh it's all muscle. Cause it's not. Muscle doesn't jiggle like that.

So I need a radical break. It's like I gave up one addiction and added four others to replace it (chocolate, bourbon, coffee, & internet - I drew the line at crack whore), and then went ahead and added the original addiction back.

So it ends. Now. I went to the Farmer's Market and bought thirty bucks worth of veggies. I cooked up a bunch of mezzes and salads yesterday. We'll see how the week goes. I have two cocktail parties this week, so there will be some temptation along the way.

Sun is down. Dinner time.

Obamarama

2009-01-15T23:09:00.001-10:00

I just Obamaconized my ass.

Yeah, I'm bored tonight.

Cha Cha Friday

2009-01-15T17:26:00.002-10:00

Just in case government is canceled tomorrow, I'll bring the dancing Marines out a day early:

At one a week the war might end before these run out, so here's another:

Armageddon

2009-01-15T17:14:00.003-10:00

There are going to be winds gusting to 60 mph tomorrow. Civil Defense is on it! Public schools and the University will be closed, and the Gov is thinking about keeping all State Workers home. The announcement should come tonight (so, uhm, I guess I shouldn't be leaking that). And all I can think is ...

Flying to Timbuktu

2009-01-13T15:21:00.005-10:00

Sometime tonight (9 am Wednesday in the UK) Giles Cardozo and Neil going to drive/fly their skycar from London to Timbuktu. The skycar is a cross between a dune buggy and a paraglider.

Things don't get much cooler than this. If the US automakers had any soul they would be spending the bailout money on building these for us. The stats:

In “fly mode” the car will have:

a take-off speed of 60 kmph
a top speed of 110 kmph
a range of 300 km.
a cruising altitude of 2000 – 3000 ft
a maximum altitude of 15,000 ft.

In "road mode" the car will have:

independent 4 wheel suspension
rear wheel drive
acceleration from 0-100 kmph in 4.5 seconds
a top speed of 180 kmph
a range of 400 km.

Of course I want one, but the best we can do now is get a parajet Volution for 5950 pounds. That's a bargain, given that a frikkin' stand-up surf board is 1200 US, plus 250 for the paddle.

Cha Cha Friday: The Cupid Shuffle

2009-01-09T15:50:00.002-10:00

I haven't posted any videos of dancing marines lately:

And they're almost as good as Mrs. Wong, a resident at the home Tom works at ...

Neighborhood Board 5, Season 2

2009-01-09T09:32:00.002-10:00

We had our first meeting of 2009 last night, and our first peak at what the coming season might bring. It promises to be more of the same, really, but with a few new cases. I saw some of the same villains lurking in the shadows hoping for a comeback, an old ally returned but he might have crossed over to the darkside, and there are glimmers of hope that one infamous obfuscater might be changing his act and that another might finally be losing her grip.

We started off with the standard, repetitive, complaints that there are homeless living in the park near the rich people. Only it's not phrased like that. It's we are concerned with the public health implications of all those shopping carts and why doesn't the Department of Health do something about them? and What about the tourists? and (courtesy of MM, chest heaving like an aged Scarlet O'Hara) I am just ... worried ... about the maintenance ... of these public lands ... At least she didn't bring up the sacred trust of our beloved queen this meeting.

She's losing it. Even the cops stopped pandering and spelled it out to her and her cohorts: Being homeless is not illegal. And there were times when I heard the other Board members giggling over some of her more ... dramatic ... pauses. Ah, but we will still have a special Executive Meeting to address the homeless issue.

There was relatively little drama over the minutes, although, again courtesy of MM, we will have a special Executive Session to ... discuss ... some of the ongoing ... issues ... with the minutes.

Duke Bainum, who back-doored his way onto the City Council this election, came in person. I tried not to growl when he got up to speak. And at first it was all cliches and platitudes. He's honored to be here, he's humbled, he has a dream team behind him, he's ready to tackle the issues, he's going to drive me insane. I actually worked for members of his family once, and I thought he was one of the good ones (it was a bat-shit crazy and possibly corrupt family). Now I'm not so sure. But he actually addressed the issues with his election, and introduced a measure that would stop anyone else from pulling the same stunt. That was interesting. And he was pro-rail at one point, but then allied himself with the anti-rail people to get back into office, and then seemed to be backing off on that tonight. So: I don't know what to think of this guy now.

Charles Djou, City Council, replaced most of his staff. I don't know the back story on that, but his old staff mostly pandered to the LCD, and the new rep seemed to have his act together. I wonder if this means that Djou is cleaning up his act, and that we'll get less grandstanding and more actual work on the issues. I asked the new guy about Djou's proposal to start the rail project in town rather than `Ewa, and if this was more posturing or if he was serious this time. New guy assured me that this is a serious proposal.

Rail. The Stop Rail people were there. They lost the public vote, both their mayoral candidates went down, even the anti-rail politicians have been backing off (see Djou and , above), but no one actually believes that they're going to stop. Slater & Co. have too much money invested in privatizing our roads. They'll be billionaires if they can stop rail and built their HOT system (a private toll-road that will run above state roads). The only question was, where would they attack next?

Matson went off on a tangent about a sewer bond coming due. "Concerned member of the community" also had questions about the sewer bond. I had never even heard of this, and suddenly all the sketchy characters are talking about it. Then Matson tips her hand: She wants to know how the sewer bond might be affected by the proposed rail bond ... and there you have it. Tom-A-Hawk actually foreshadowed this (see comments on January 6: i've actually been convinced not to support light rail anymore when i look at how much money needs to be spent on infrastructure: keeping raw sewage out of the ocean ... keeping the lights on ...), and I didn't really know where this was coming from at the time. I still don't know how Slater's people intend to play this out, only that it will be another headache and will cost us a lot of money.

So, for a Season Opener, it was ok. We won't have the highest rated show on the island. If we can stop the divas from making themselves the center of every meeting and discussion we might actually get some work done.

Turtle Dreams

2009-01-08T16:38:00.003-10:00

I went to a friend's going away dinner last night, and one of the guests happened to have her latest art work on hand. It was standard Wyland-inspired stuff: dolphins and whales and turtles back-lit against the sun (or flower of life, or rainbow, or something else similarly bright and shiny).

It was so Hawai`i; every other local artists paints the same motif. And yet, so not really Hawai`i. It's all images that they carried with them when they landed, rather than inspiration they took from the land or culture. In the end, almost none of us have actually swam with a whale. We see them breach from a distance. Dolphins are awesome, but in my experience pretty much indifferent to us. They come up, see what we're doing, and swim away. Sharks do the exact same thing. I've actually been bumped by sharks, and there's plenty of other stories out there, but no one ever talks about how they communed with the shark and how it was communicating ancient healing knowledge to them.

And turtles. Google turtles and symbolism and you hear that turtles are all about vitality and fertility and good luck. But once night in Micronesia I woke up to hear the women wailing. Someone had died, but we didn't know who. One of the girls, my hanai sister, had dreamt of a turtle, and it meant death was coming. Everyone just accepted this: the dream was real, the symbolism was uniquivocable: someone was going to die.

The next day we learned on the radio that one of the boys had fallen to his death from an apartment in Guam. There are only a couple hundred people from this island, and so I really don't believe in this stuff it was also too unlikely to be a coincidence.

I was a good boy, I oohed and aahed over the paintings with everyone else, and I didn't tell anyone what else the honu meant. Still, I prefer my art darker, or at least more complex and with more shades of meaning. I'll take Kamapua`a over rainbows any day.

above, from Solomon Enos's Gallery

Turkish Veggies; Risotto alla Milanese

2009-01-07T12:31:00.009-10:00

I’ve been doing pretty well in the kitchen since I came back. I did a week of plate lunches, drive-ins, and microwave cooking, and then reverted back to home cooking. I bought a mess of vegetables and some good olive oil, and have been experimenting with Turkish dishes. Turkish cooking reminds me of Japanese – both emphasize maximizing the base flavors of the vegetables The major difference is that Turks do this with touches of lemon, pomegranate, and olive oil, whereas the Japanese do this with soy, vinegar, and miso.

I’ve been really happy with the results. If I ever opened a restaurant I think I would focus on Turkish salads, beans, and vegetables. I think it’s one of the great undiscovered cuisines in the U.S.

Sources:

Binnur’s Turkish Cookbook

Yemek Tarifi

Almost Turkish

This first one is pretty much like a bruschetta topping. I used too much pepper, so it was really spicy.

Kirmizi Biber Yemegi

(Red Pepper Paste; Binnur’s)

1 red bell pepper, diced
1 scallion, chopped
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp rice, rinsed, drained
2 large tomato, peeled, diced
1 Hawaiian chile pepper
Salt
Pepper
1 tsp pomegranate syrup

Saute the onion with olive oil until it's softened. Add the red pepper, rice, tomatoes, chile, salt and pepper. Put the lid on. Do not open while its cooking. Cook for 20 minutes under medium heat. Turn the heat off, add pomegranate syrup, stir.

Sprinkle some chopped parsley all over. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Dible is from the Black Sea region. It tastes good warm or cold.

Dible

(Green Beans and Rice; Binnur’s)

500 gr flat green beans, cut 1.5 inches long
1 medium sized onion, chopped
1/2 cup rice, washed and drained
1/2 cup water
50 ml extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

Saute the onion with olive oil in a pot for about 2-3 minutes. Add the beans, salt and pepper, and cook on medium-low heat for another 5 minutes.

Using a wooden spoon, place the beans in a circle around the edge of the pot. Put the rice in the hole in the middle. Now cover the rice with the beans. Pour the water in from the sides. Cover the lid and simmer for about 30 minutes. Make sure not to open the lid too often to ensure that the heat stays in the pot. Wait until the water evaporates. You can also let it cook a bit longer until the rice is caramelized.

This one is just delicious. I never peeled the potatoes, and that was fine. I liked it better cold.

Patates Salatasi

(Lemon Potato Salad; Binnur’s)

2 medium waxy potatoes

Sauce:
60 - 70 ml extra virgin olive oil
2-3 tbsp lemon juice
Salt
Pepper

Garnish:
2 fresh green onions, chopped
Some red onion, sliced

Boil the potatoes. Remove the skin and cut in medium sized chunks. Whisk all the sauce ingredients. Toss it with the potatoes while they are still warm. Sprinkle with fresh green and red onions.

I don’t know why this next one tastes so good; the ingredients are all simple. I also don’t know why it’s important to build the pyramid out of tomatoes and beans, but it is. I tried just cooking all of this together and it was average. The technique makes all the difference.

Zeytinyağlı Taze Fasulye

(Beans in Olive Oil; from Almost Turkish)

1 kg green bean
3 medium tomatoes
3 cloves garlic
2 large onions
2 teaspoons salt
3 teaspoons sugar
8 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup hot water

Snap off ends of beans. Divide into 2 portions. Leave 1 portion whole. Cut remaining portion into 3-3 1/2 cm long chunks. Place 1 whole tomato in center of a shallow saucepan. Arrange whole beans around tomato, side by side. Spread cut beans over. Sprinkle with garlic cloves. Top with thinly sliced onion and tomatoes. Seasons with salt and sugar. Add olive oil and hot water. Cover and simmer for 45-50 minutes or until tender. Remove from heat; cool. Turn up side down on a serving plate.

Serve cold.

I also made my first risotto a few nights ago! This wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be, though it took a long time to find all the right ingredients.

Risotto alla Milanese

(House and Garden, 1962)

1 marrow bone
5-6 tablespoons butter
1 scallion, finely chopped
2 cups rice
1/2 cup white wine
1/3 cup sherry
6 cups stock
1 teaspoon salt
Saffron
Parmesan cheese

Soak marrow bone in warm water until the marrow is tender and can be pushed out in one piece. Poach the marrow in 2-3 cups water. Save stock. Make another stock out of the bone. Save.

Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a heavy skillet. When it is bubbling, add the onion. Cook for 2-3 minutes; do not allow the onion to brown. Add the rice and stir it well with a spatula; do not allow it to color. Be certain that the onion and rice are well coated with the butter. Add the sliced marrow; then add wine & cook until wine is almost gone.

Add sherry and ¼ cup stock. Let each round of stock cook away before adding more, ½ cup at a time. As the rice becomes tender, stir it with a fork to keep it from sticking to the pan (I stirred with a spatula the whole time; maybe that’s why I needed 6 cups of stock and not the 3 cups the recipe called for).

When the rice is done, Add salt and a couple big pinches of saffron (House and Garden says to add “a touch” – but what’s the point of that?). Stir 3 tablespoons of butter and a little grated Parmesan cheese.

Serve at once.

For the leftovers, form them in patties and fry in oil or butter for riso al salto.

House and Garden says to add sliced white truffles when serving. That was a bit beyond my budget. I'll save that bit for if I have a hot date I need to impress.

I bought organic “beef broth” at Whole Foods and it was vile. They almost won me over by having marrow bones at the butcher. It worked out in the end, because my improvised marrow stock worked really well. So, this is the recipe as I cooked it, and not quite as the book called for. I’ll do it my way next time too.

Fire on the Water

2009-01-07T09:47:00.004-10:00

So for those of you who ask, "how was the cruise?" - my answer is:

There were girls ...

... and more girls ...

(none of these photos are mine, by the way; I took them off the firewater webpage. I'm still waiting on photos from our crew)

... and one drunk twink doing a strip tease to Britney ...

... which would have been more appropriate if the dj's hadn't actually been playing hip-hop all night. Britney was only in his mind.

There was also a band, but I only passed them once on the way to the upper bar:

There were lots faux-hauks on the dance floor. I think these are the promoters.

Then there were guys like this on deck:

We spent most of our time on deck.

Oddly enough, these guys seemed to have been scoring more with the girls than the faux-hauks. "Wee hoo fuck yeah!" must be some kind of mating call that only straight people can understand. And for those of you who have fantasies about what you can do with straight boys when they get drunk ('cause three people have already asked): yeah, some of the guys were getting a bit close and really kind of touchy by the end of the night. Their breath smelled like fresh vomit. It was eau de pas de chance, and not my fantasy. We went to Fusions to dance the rest of the night.

Lonely Voices

2009-01-06T10:51:00.002-10:00

Nino and I went to check out an open-house this weekend. We knew the Realtor, and Nino is thinking about moving back here. The whole thing was a bit surreal and sad. The bedroom window opened directly onto a parking lot and the front window onto a dirty pool with a cement deck. There were no other windows. The place was small and dark and 400 thousand dollars. It's for the location! said the Realtor. Perfect if you want to buy it and flip it! He added.

I don't know if he even believes his own words. At one point I thought these guys who were treating land like a commodity were the enemy. They were doing incredible damage to real people, all in the quest of the almighty dollar. Now they're suffering, and they're bringing us all down with them, and yet they're stuck on repeat, desperately trying to make a buck in a system that we all know now was flawed.

There was an article in the New York Times today that mentioned the 'lonely voices' who warned that all this speculation on housing wasn't sustainable, and that we were heading for a crash. Just for the record, I was one:

April 2006

The talk at work this morning was all about real estate and money. It was I know a guy who bought a condo that was under construction for 350G and sold it before he even started paying his mortgage for one million and I heard that a guy was paid 40G by someone who wanted his place in line and I hear you can do that for escrow to and it was all money money money blah blah blah make a lot of money yakkity yakkity yak.

The last time I heard talk like this was during the dot.com boom. Semi-literate lunk heads would be talking stock options in the gym lockeroom, and the guy who changed the toilet paper at Yahoo! was convinced he'd be a millionaire by December.

Then as now, I feel like an outsider looking in. I make my salary, I save a bit, I spend more, and I'm usually broke two days before pay day. And I think, if I just understood capitalism a bit more then I could make my millions and retire. Just like ... no one I know. And I know it's not gonna happen, and that those who talk the most about how much money they're making are the same ones who will spend the rest of their lives slaves to the banks.

… The real estate boom [and coming bust] is having a real impact. Towers for the rich are going up everywhere. It started a couple years ago in the countryside, as landlords kicked working families out of their homes to build illegal bed and breakfasts. Then it was vacant land in the city. Now they're targeting homes for the elderly and low-income citizens, tearing them down to build fortress-towers for the rich. … All the talk in this city of new urbanism - pedestrian & bike friendly, mixed use zoning, attractive streetscapes, affordability - has gone out the window in our quest for mainland money.

April 2007

This weekend I saw that the homeless colonies are back all up and down the Wai`anae coast. They've also moved back into Ala Moana Park. There are small camps all along the bike paths between my house and downtown.

And the focus of our government is all on building Trump Towers in Waikīkī and condos for millionaires in Kaka`ako. The Senate just refused to reconfirm the Chair of our Department, in part due to revelations of unethical backdoor arrangements between Title Companies and the Bureau of Conveyances. And though I initially supported him, I have a simmering anger about the endless Land Crimes being committed in our state, and in the end I agreed with those who said that he had to go. We have an economy based upon land speculation, a government funded by realtors, and a system where indigenous people are forced off their land to make room for time shares and condos and resorts.

I know things need to change.

Jan 2007

There is no recourse. The system guarantees that the poor and the working class will get screwed when it comes to land. I don't have a strong enough economics background to know what the solution is, but I do know that things have to change before we all end up homeless and living on a Wai`anae beach.

2009

2009-01-02T12:57:00.003-10:00

Well, that wasn't so bad for a year that the astrologers said was gonna be hell. I had a pretty good time of it. Bite that, stargazers.

I was pretty low energy my first week back, but still managed to pull off a decent party that Friday. I think we had thirty to forty guys. It was low-impact: I put up some lights, cleaned the bathroom, and bought a couple cases of beer. Haulani had hers too, and though we were hoping the crowds would merge they never did. My crowd all left by midnight to go to Hulas.

Next up was Fred and Boyd's party. This year Nick and Greg hosted, and their house was mid-century gorgeous. I still don't know how people make enough money to afford places like this. I mean, I think I have a decent salary and I struggle here. You could quintuple it and I still wouldn't be able to afford some of these houses. But I'm happy to be a guest, and they were great hosts and the bartenders were cute and poured me a martini just the way grandma used to drink them - on the rocks and with plenty of vermouth - and didn't blink or make nasty comments. So, yeay. All the gay boys left at midnight to go to Hulas ...

Ah, but the economy and the credit crunch and blah blah blah - this would be the only house on the hill I would be invited to this year. Either the men who live in big houses weren't having their parties this year, or they weren't inviting us working folks. Honolulu club life has sucked for years, but at least we had a great house party circuit ... or so we told ourselves.

Did a North Shore party at Ruby's, and that was fun. The gay guys went to a party in Kahala that I wasn't on the list for, and then all went to Hulas ...

Yes. There is a pattern here. You can be at a fabulous party here, but most of the gay men will make a break for it and head to Hulas, the same tired bar they go to every weekend. And when you ask how it was, the answer is always "it was ok" or "it was fun, I guess." It's not like everyone is making a break for somewhere fantastic. I don't get it, and it's been like that for close to a decade. Gay men like to tell themselves that they have more fun than our straight counterparts, but they're lying to themselves. Or maybe they believe it, and are just deluded.

And so we come to New Years. A few guys suggest doing the Firewater Cruise. I say yes. They back out. Everyone was waiting to see if someone would throw a party, or if a better offer would come along. None did. And so they all either stayed home, or went to H. Ugh. The boat was Steve & Tetsuo, Francisco, Jason (from Austin), Ruby, Sebastian, and their North Shore crew. The rest of the boat was a mix of thugs (there were lots of neck tattoos) and cute young twenty-somethings. The music was awful, there was lots of puking in the bathroom, there was a little bit of unexpected and inappropriate tongue action from some quarters but I was feeling good and did not toss him overboard, and we had fun.

Went to Fusions with Francisco and Jason afterwards, and there the music was good for once and it almost felt like the old days (not so many years ago, but it already feels like a lost age). Walked on the beach 'til we were sober to drive, and called it a night. It was good - the best NYE I've had in awhile, actually.

Nino is in town for a few days, Steven K comes in next week, and Gary comes in mid March. I've budgeted for Black Party at the end of March & it looks like I can pull a whole week in New York City then, so I'm feeling pretty good right now.

My New Years Resolution was to clean no more, and to hire a maid service. And ... that is out of my budget, so here it is day 2 of 2009 and the only resolution I made is out the window.

Big and Strong

2008-12-30T10:10:00.002-10:00

Vanity Fair is running a piece on oral stories from inside the Bush White House. It's sad and depressing, and at times horrifying. We didn't kill people for oil, or to fight terrorism, or to spread the love of Jesus. We killed them to look big and strong:

Richard Clarke: That night, on 9/11, Rumsfeld came over and the others, and the president finally got back, and we had a meeting. And Rumsfeld said, You know, we’ve got to do Iraq, and everyone looked at him—at least I looked at him and Powell looked at him—like, What the hell are you talking about? And he said—I’ll never forget this—There just aren’t enough targets in Afghanistan. We need to bomb something else to prove that we’re, you know, big and strong and not going to be pushed around by these kind of attacks.

And I made the point certainly that night, and I think Powell acknowledged it, that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. That didn’t seem to faze Rumsfeld in the least.

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. It really didn’t, because from the first weeks of the administration they were talking about Iraq. I just found it a little disgusting that they were talking about it while the bodies were still burning in the Pentagon and at the World Trade Center.

New Years Eve Orphan

2008-12-29T18:14:00.002-10:00

There are no parties on the hill this year. The big houses are closed to us. And everyone is waiting around to see what everyone else will do. No one is making a commitment for anything.

I went ahead and bought a ticket for Firewater, a four-hour cruise in the harbor, thinking that I could lead by example.

No one followed. Everyone is hoping that something better will come along. They still have faith in the nightlife in this town. Silly boys.

Black Out

2008-12-27T09:46:00.002-10:00

As far as I can tell, what happened last night was that lightning hit a power pole, and the entire electric grid shut down sector by sector ... in HECO's own words ... "to avoid a catastrophic power failure."

I don't know what the difference is between a catastrophic power failure and a 12-hour island-wide black out. I don't think we'll ever know. This spin is already happening - according to the papers we handled the storm quite well.

Although there wasn't actually a storm. There was just some lightning. No wind, no rain, no tornadoes, no water spouts ... just a lightning bolt. The governor says we learned our lesson from the last disaster, and installed portable generators at the airport.

The president-elect was safe. In other headlines, Obama ate a tuna melt for lunch yesterday, his daughters had shave-ice at Sea Life Park, and he made it on time this morning to the Marine Corps base where he works out, thought the McDonalds he usually meets his friends at was closed.

I was set to go to Tom and Joe's party last night, but figured it was off due to the black out. Now I hear that it went on and it was fun. Damn. I should've known my friends wouldn't cancel a party for silly reasons like this. I wish I had gone. Instead I bothered some friends on the phone, talked to Steve in Cali for awhile and Dawn out in Hawaii Kai, then had Maika over for some beers. It was a pleasant Friday, so no complaints. Just bummed that I missed the party.

12 Gays of Christmas

2008-12-24T19:07:00.000-10:00

Just Click. You know you want to.

Food Policy

2008-12-24T09:17:00.003-10:00

How's that for being one day ahead of the zeitgeist? Both the Christian Science Monitor and the New York Times ran strong articles this morning on the hopes for a new Food Policy in the US under Obama.

I'm not too optimistic. So far he's been pretty traditional in his pick of advisers - there hasn't been anything remotely progressive about most of his agenda so far. Still, at least he is rational, so there is some hope after the ideological madness of the past eight years. Christopher Cook of the CS Monitor offered these steps as a start:

New public investments targeting sustainable agriculture, defined as organic, small- to mid-sized, diversified farming.
New investments in local/regional food networks and foodsheds – to help build up the connections between farmers and consumers, to open up and expand new markets for organic farmers and those considering the transition; for more farmer's markets and food stores that feature local produce.
A moratorium on agribusiness mergers, and strenuous antitrust provisions and enforcement to protect what little is left of diversity in the food economy.
A moratorium on all new genetically modified (GMO) products, and an expansion of existing ones, and appointment of a blue-ribbon panel/commission to assess the impact of GMO foods on our environment and our health.
A moratorium on – and gradual phasing out of – concentrated animal feeding operations, aka factory farms, which are among the nation's top polluters of water and air, and breeders of widespread and virulent bacterial strains.
Dramatically expanded regulatory enforcement and staffing in the US Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration to protect food safety and meat industry labor and environmental practices.
Slowing the hazardously fast meatpacking (and poultry) assembly line, to protect workers and consumers.
Incentives for small-scale urban, suburban, and rural farming ventures oriented toward diversified local food systems.
Bold public investment in a raft of public awareness campaigns that build support, and expand markets and demand, for sustainable alternatives such as urban agriculture and gardening, and reducing fast-food consumption.

Food vs Stuff

2008-12-23T08:52:00.007-10:00

I suppose the holiday is going to happen whether I do anything to prepare or not. Christmas wasn't so commercially in your face in South America. Rio had a big artificial tree floating in their lagoon, and a church I toured in Uruguay had Advent decorations. That was about it, I think. Things were low key even in Miami, which is more or less South American anyway.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, decorations are everywhere and the consultants are sending the office expensive but bland cookies and waxy chocolates and chemically-enhanced Japanese candies. I came in this morning and my stomach almost lurched when I saw another box of ... junk.

I'm having serious food withdrawals. Buenos Aires didn't have much of a cuisine - it was pretty much steak, lamb, potatoes, and wine - but what they had was world class. Grass fed and organic and fresh. And even though it's their beef that's famous it's the Patagonia lamb that I'm craving the most.

There was no 'stuff,' nothing from a can or frozen or processed or pre-made. It was a bit like Ireland and Turkey. It was real food. And even though it didn't look like people ever ate vegetables or fruit, and even though our diet gurus say Meat is Bad, the guys there were pretty fit and lean.

Michael Pollan tells us to 'eat food, not stuff.' Easier said than done. I went to Cost-Co last night and had a hard time finding food. Even the meat came from ranch-factories that feed their animals on products and hormones. I wandered the aisles, but couldn't find much. They seemed to have stopped stocking the few foods that I would normally buy. I picked up some nuts and cheese and called it quits. I ended up going to Tamuras to pick up some gourmet ingredients. It stretches my budget, but sometimes I need real food and it is getting harder and harder to find that in our stores. Even the stuff they call 'organic' and 'free-range' at Whole Foods doesn't really taste that much better.

Tamuras seems pricier, but I'm not quite sure. Good food had so much flavor that I eat less of it. I made a pasta with serrano ham and wahoo that was delicious. It was pretty thick and creamy, and I think it would only work if you use good pasta and real cream and good fish, etc. Otherwise it would just be a nasty tuna casserole.

Saute sliced shallot in 2T olive oil until shallots are slightly brown
Add 1.5 T orange zest, 2 anchovies, and two slices of minced serrano ham; saute for 5"
Add 2 T mashed green olives; saute 2"
Add 4 oz. tuna and a bit of oil; saute for 2-3"
Add .75 c cream; saute until reduced by half and sauce is thick.
Add pasta.

And that's it. Good pasta will have enough extra starch to thicken the sauce, so this was almost the consistency of a risotto. I'll make it again, maybe even tonight.

Island Life

2008-12-16T21:59:00.003-10:00

It took almost exactly 48 hours to get home - long enough to make it all seem like a dream, something disconnected from this reality. It was 12 hours to Miami, then 12 hours in Miami. I rented a car, had breakfast, went to the beach, got bored with the beach, went to the gym, and then later realized I had forgotten my hat - a genuine peccary leather beret from Uruguay - at the gym. I liked it enough that I think I'll order another one on-line. Then it was a flight to San Francisco, and an over-night on Paulo's couch. When I left Hawai`i he was single; by the time I got to San Francisco he had a new boyfriend who had already moved in. What is it with you California boys and your new boyfriends every three months?

I unpacked right away, which was a first. Usually I leave my bags unpacked for a few weeks, as if I'm in denial that I'm back. This time I intended to dive right in, so when Ulu called with an extra ticket to the Na Leo Christmas Hula Extravaganza I jumped. Never mind that I am broke, or that I need sleep, or that I've invited a hundred people over for Christmas cocktails and the yard needs some ICU-level TLC. I live so intensely on the road, and yet at home I'm always watching my budget or making sure I get enough sleep or staying home to clean. I want to live intensely year round, not just during select seasons. I always pass when Ulu calls me. Tonight I say yes.

We'll see how long this lasts. I forgot that I'm dealing with Honolulu here. I drive and park in Waikiki, and our tourists seem so bland compared to Miami Beach or Ipanema, and I think: who are these people? At the show, I can't get over the sheer falseness of it all; it's all fake bourgeois nostalgia, Hawaiian style. Worse, it's in the old Waikiki Nei theater, where Peter had his show. He strove for authenticity when the producers wanted glitz and flash and flesh. His show was killed. Now we get this: lots of am-radio style ballads, and keiki in cellophane skirts and Carmen Miranda headdresses doing hula to Feliz Navidad, followed by a call to "bring Hawaiian culture back to Waikiki." It was total Donny and Marie. The crowd loved it. I cringed in horror. The one bright spot was Kamakaiwa Lopaka Kane'ole, who had a beautiful and powerful voice and brought a lot of needed mana to the stage.

90 minutes later, they gave us a 20" intermission, and I knew then that I was going to claim jet lag and not return. But first, to the bar of Honolulu's "dance mecca," Level 4. I get a flyer for New Years Eve, but when I ask who the dj will be I get a blank stare. They never thought to advertise that, which is a bad, bad sign. Since I feel like suffering, I order a martini. A regular martini, I stress.

Gin or vodka? the bartender asks. I suppose that's a legitimate question these days, and I give him a pass. Gin.

He pours a double shot of Hendricksfuckingville in the shaker, shakes it, and pours it into a plastic cup. Ulu asks what I ordered. I tell her I ordered a martini, but that I'm not sure what it is that he made.

We have the standard conversation. It's a martini, the fake bartender says. No, I say, it's a shot of gin. Cheap gin, I think. The bartender tells me that he hasn't put vermouth in a martini in six years. I have nothing to say. He tells me that I'm a traditionalist, and he says people used to complain that they couldn't taste the Grey Goose when he added vermouth, and I'm worse than speechless because my mouth is moving but no sound comes out. He gives me a completely made-up and inaccurate history of the martini, and adds some vermouth. I sip the "martini", and it's crap.

Did I tell you that in Buenos Aires the bartenders could make an excellent negroni without asking what goes in it? Here they can't even make a basic cocktail. How can we have fallen so far as a culture?

Libertad

2008-12-14T08:51:00.002-10:00

I changed my mind. I´m not ready to go home after all. I had a great afternoon & I´m back in the ´don´t let this life end´frame of mind.

I was wrong about La Malba yesterday. It wasn´t a film actress that shut the place down - the were screening a film about an activist who challenged the dictatorship, and the right-wing had threatened to bomb the museum. They´re going to screen the film tonight regardless. Freedom is not just another word here.

Hollis spent most of the day in bed; I spent it at the museum. I went for Frieda Kahlo (Still Life with Monkey and Parrot), but stayed for the hundreds of other artists whom I had never heard of. It was all 20th C Latin American art, and it was more dynamic and exciting than any modern art that I´ve seen before. There was also film - they were screening silent films from the 1920´s and 1930´s in one room - and music, from Kurt Weil to Ravel, taken from the museum´s founders collections. I wasn´t alone; it was a beautiful sunny day yet the Malba was full of young people. I was one of the older patrons, and I loved being in a place were art was actively relevant. It was fantastic.

The street fair was in full swing when I got back. They took all the tables out of my square (like that? One week and it´s already "my square") and it´s full of antiques dealers and the queens that love them. The side streets are full of musicians, including half a dozen barefoot and scruffy tango orchestras. It´s a great day, and it´s too bad it has to end, but it´s time for me to pack.

Last Hours in Buenos Aires

2008-12-14T03:08:00.004-10:00

And I´m ready to go home. I´ve stayed away just long enough, or maybe a day or two longer. It´ll take a bit over two days to get home, so there´s still a long way to go.

I don´t think I´ve done Buenos Aires right. There´s been parties in the old plaza outside our hotel all night for the past few nights. The city here only really comes to life after 1 am. The people I´ve met, or traveled with, have been more conservative. They go out, for a few hours, but don´t dive in. I want to dive in. There´s so much here I haven´t done. I´ve seen the main sites and taken the photos but haven´t lived the full experience. And so it´s been fine, and in most cities that would be more than enough - I´ve been coming home between 3am and 6am each night - but I know that that is only a nibble. I know because I hear the party every night. Even now, at 10am, I can hear the musicians in the plaze. Last night it was flamenco, formally, then a South American street jam, informally, when the stage was taken down.

If I make it hear again I want it to be with the wild friends who stay up all night and sleep all day. I think Hollis and I saw most of the Daytime Sites. Not all, but most.

So. Tuesday. Hollis and I arrive, and head to Siga la Vaca for our first parilla. It´s an all you can eat grill featuring every part of the cow and quite a few from the sheep. I have bif de chorizo (porterhouse) and morcillo (blood sausage) and mollejas (sweatbreads) and lamb ribs that a juicy, crackling skin. The lamb was the best. Lunch came with .5 liters of wine, and Hollis doesn´t drink, so I had to finish the carafe myself. Napped, and then wandered to Plaza Mayor and on to the Obelisk. We get caught in a cold rain, and wait out the storm in a cafe along Corrientes, the theater strip. We´re off to a good start.

Wednesday. We head to Recoleta. The streets there confuse me, and we walk and walk and walk trying to find the cemetery. We finally do, and it is fantastic. It´s a marble necropolis that houses all the famous poets, leaders, villains, and revolutionaries of the last few centuries, and some of the tombs were beautiful works of art. Hollis wants his photo taken in from of Evita´s tomb, and I refuse to take it at first, it seems disrespectful, but everyone else is doing it & I start to feel silly sticking to my point and give in. Later we hit the Museum of Belles Artes. It´s a great collection, with a number of sculptures by Rodin. He was the surprise for me; I knew The Thinker but had no idea how raw and sexual his main body of work was. I loved it. Hollis was bored.

Wednesday night I want to go to a all-male milonga, but can´t find anyone to go & it sounds to intense to do solo and without many language skills. Instead I take a wander through downtown, hitting two smaller bars that I had marked on the gay guide to Bs As, Toms and Flux. I love walking the city at night like this. The first joint is pretty cruisy, but the guys are odd. One tries to force me into a back corner, which: fat chance. Guys here are slim, and I have a dozen pounds on most of them. I don´t hurt the creep, just twist his arm hard enough to give him the message that that macho shit doesn´t fly with me. The second bar was run by an ex-pat UK and Russian couple, and everyone inside it spoke English. That was a nice surprise. They drank like the English too - everyone was totalled. I pretended I didn´t speak English to one shit-face American. Good times. The bartender made me a Negroni that was awesome. I taxi home.

Thursday we took a ferry to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay. The highlight is a centuries-old village on a promontory that has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There are now lots of artists living there. We have lunch on a garden on the Rio de la Plata. The second highlight is the exchange rate: 25 pesos per dollar. I go shopping for the first time in two weeks. I really like this town. Hollis and I are back on the same page.

Thursday night. Did we sleep? I forgot what we did Thursday night. It´ll come back to me, I hope.

Friday we go to the La Boca neighborhood. It looks pretty rough and tumble - wide dusty streets and lots of poverty. In the center are a few smaller streets that have been renovated and have become a major tourist attraction. Friday night we head to La Canitas on Dave G´s suggestion, meeting Dave, Eli, and Donielle for dinner at the famous Campo Bravo. This is my fist taste of the beautiful life in Bs As. San Telmo, where we stay, is full-on bohemian - narrow buildings and plazas with old men drinking wine and cobble stone streets; I expect Garibaldi to come along and liberate it at any moment. La Boca was rough and tumble, Centro was major urban inner city, and Colonia was artists. La Canitas was fashion and glitz and the newest place to see and be seen. It was quite a change. Mariano was supposed to join us, but turned Latin on us - he called and was surprised that we had grabbed a table so early. At 9;30 pm. By 3am The rest of the crew goes to bed. I try one last club. I skip the mega club in favor of a smaller place, and get more macho weirdness. Think 20-year olds who want me to call them ¨Papi." It just doesn´t work. To make it extra weird, the exact same kids who would try to come on macho would then melt in my arms when I´d stop them from biting or grabbing or squeezing or whatever.

Yeah. Biting. I´ve never had so many men try to bite me. At least not in public and at the bar. I get home at 6am. Back in my barrio the party in Plaza San Dorrego is still going strong, but I´m still dressed trendy from La Canitas and don´t really blend well with the working-class vibe.

Saturday I want to go to the Malba, the Latin American museum. I never make it. Hollis and I decide to walk. We spend a few hours wandering, then Hollis gets pickpocketed while we watch a tango show. The criminals are good - the opened his bag and opened his wallet and got 300 pesos without being seen. All I saw was a flash, and I couldn´t tell where the hand came from. It was amazing, really. It puts Hollis in a capital-f Foul mood. Of course. I've been there to, and there's nothing much to do but slowly work through it. No museum for him. We have a late lunch at an outdoor cafe. A thief rips a necklace off of another patron and darts into the street. She screams and cusses, la puto! and ladrone! And half the men jump up and chase the thief down the boulevard, but he is too fast. That´s enough crime for one day. Hollis goes home, I go to the Malba, but we are evacuated after a half hour so that a film-star can tour the collection. I don´t know which one, but if I find out I will forever hate them. The collection looked awesome, and I´ll try to visit again before my check-out.

Saturday night, and it´s no disco for MC. Poor me. I go to a parilla with some guys from the hotel. It´s good. The steak is far better than what we get in the states, but I still haven´t had that piece of so-soft you can cut it with a fork slab of meat that this country is famous for. The hippie member of our party, who was already getting on my nerves both for his slimy bragging about how much ···· he gets from his young boyfriends here and for his lack of fashion sense (red and yellow Pippi Long Stocking socks with Birkenstocks, commits a fatal error at dinner and I let my inner monster out and slash into him, hard and loud.

If anyone is actually reading this far, here´s a warning. I tip well at restaurants. It´s my choice. Do not try and stop me. Last night we divide the bill, then I throw an extra ten pesos in. Hippie announces it´s too much and takes the money as his change. I throw another ten pesos in. He again insists its too much, that the waiter was rude and doesn´t deserve the tip, and redistibutes it to the other members of our party.

Can you say dead in the water? The bitch was nothing but road kill after that. I threw in more money, he started to reach for it, and I laid into his ass hard. That pretty much broke up our party. I went to a small bar with two guys from Montreal, but I think they were a bit nervous around me and things were too subdued for a Saturday night.

And now its Sunday in San Telmo and I only have a few hours left. I´ll go to the museum, pack, and spend my final hours drinking wine in the plaza, as I should have been doing all along.

Gear Shift

2008-12-10T12:30:00.002-10:00

You could here the gears grinding in my brain when I tried to switch from Portuguese to Spanish. It didn´t help that one of the guys at the Bed and Breakfast is from Paris, and that the guy who works in the evening is actually from Brazil. I couldn´t even speak basic English; the best I could spew was some unintelligble mush of four languages.

Doing better today. The Spanish here is pretty damn different than any I´ve heard, but since I don´t actually speak Spanish that isn´t much of an issue. I´ve been doing ok if I can think of what I need to say ahead of time, but I am not having much luck in speaking on the spot. And even then only a few people actually understand what I am trying to say. Luckily one was a bartender. ´Punt e Mes´ is on all the menus here, and I´ve read about it & that it´s great in manhattans and negronis and the elusive sazerac, but I´ve never found it. I finally got to try it. It´s a bitter, a vermouth I think. It was a bit of a production - the bartender brought a tub of ice, some orange slices, sparkling mineral water, and the bottle to the table. He put in an orange, added ice, some Punt e Mes, muddled it, added another orange, another cube, more vermouth, muddled it again, then added a bit more vermouth, another ice cube, then topped it all with the soda.

It was tasty, and I´ll be bringing some back.

South America Update

2008-12-09T11:41:00.004-10:00

I´ve been doing Facebook more than blogging this trip - the days have been too packed to sit down and do this properly.

Our group had a mixed reaction to Brazil. I loved it, but I was one of the few who found a life down here outside of the race. For most of them they were Kamehameha CC 100% of the time, from the moment they stepped off the plane. For me, I had met two guys - Marcos and Cim - and spent a fair amount of time hanging out with them. Hollis came down from NYC on the weekend, so we hung also. Friday to Sunday I was all Kamehameha. I think there were some tensions among those who never escaped the group, though I didn´t even notice until I was set to leave.

The breakdown:

Tuesday - arrive, and I am so beat I can barely function. It´s a bit cold and grey. I take a walk along Ipanema beach. I meet one guy, Marcos, and make plans to go dancing later in the week. At night I have coffee with Cim, a friend of a friend of a friend, and we hit it off and also make plans for later.

Wednesday - it´s cold and rainy. I run into Ruby by chance - she had been down here camping - and we head downtown to the museums. They weren´t that interesting, and Rio´s downtown was standard: beautiful old buildings and thousands of people bustling and hustling. That night more of the group arrives, but I can only convince Allen to go out with me. We hit Galeria Cafe, a small art studio that turns into a gay dance party at night. We meet Marcos, and dance until late at night. Everyone dances; there is no standing still. It´s all Brazilian music, and the crowd is cute and friendly and surprisingly normal - no twinks, muscle heads, or fashionistas. Just guys having a real good time.

Thursday - I work out for the first time in a week, then chill with Jake and Allen and Roz at Ipanema´s gay beach. The men are drop dead hot. I get too much sun. That night, our last night of freedom, no one will go out with me. Lame. I have a great time with Cim on my own.

Friday - Roz has us meet at 7:30 for a team work out - core, a bit of strength, and a run on the beach. Ouch! I hurt after that! The rest of the crew arrives, and we head to Urca to get the canoes ready and meet Nicholas, our Rio Vaa rep. The water is big, and it´s an intense trip from Urca to Copacabana and then back to Praia Vermelha. Luckily Mariano turns out to be an amazing steersman, with a talent for riding the backwash of the waves as they crash against the rocks and cliffs. It is either exhilerating (most of my crew) or a bit scary (yours truly). We ride the cable cars up Sugar Loaf after. That night I ditch the crew to hang with Cim. I wasn´t impressed with the restaurant choices, and it was getting too expensive to always be eating with a group at nice places. I love having dinner with groups like this, but it was getting to be too much. Plus, well, yeah you´re seeing a pattern.

Saturday - We put together a Master´s Crew for a 6km race: Jake, Allen, Jake, MC, Steve, Mariano. The water is choppy and confused, and I can´t say that we blended very well together, though it was the first time we had paddled together in this lineup and it was different. We come in 4th. Out of 4. We spend all day at the beach, then nap and later head to a nice Italian Restaurant for our team dinner. I have a Rosa de Bacalhau, a pasta stuffed with codfish in a tomato sauce, and it´s great. The first great meal I´ve had, really. We get to bed later than I wanted to.

Sunday - Race day. And I remembered, once again, and as usual too late, why they call these races "iron." Because of course if it were easy it wouldn´t be iron, or impress anyone. If anyone is impressed. We went from Praia Vermelha to Ipanema and back, and then into the Bay to Urca and back to Praia Vermelha - 42 kilometers without rest through all kinds of water. And I was loving it and later hating it then loving it and then just kind of delerious. Our line up was Eli, Jake, Lance, MC, Steve, Mariano. And we came in last, but I´m ok with that - we were a master´s crew, and the only Master´s Crew that even attempted the full iron course. That night we partied with the Rapa Nui guys at Baixa Gavea, which was basically a standard issue college type party where everyone drinks in the streets until the late hours of the night.

Monday - Ah sweet freedom! No tensions or anxiety, no worries about training, and one mean hangover (Eli and I had to keep one step ahead of Donielle in her caiparinha intake, cause it just would not have been right to let her drink more!). Those two took off to Buzious, the rest of the group took a cab ride to Corcovado, and Hollis and I climbed the mountain. ´Cause I haven´t been physical enough the past week, I guess. It was nice, though it sucked up the last of my body fat reserves. I have abs again! That night I finally got people to come dancing with me - Pam, Roz, Phil, Ruby, Lance and I went to Carioca de Gema in Lapa to hear some live Samba. We ran into the Tahitians, and had a great time dancing. I can, almost, I think, at least in my mind, samba and keep in step with the slower dancers here. Fun times.

And now Hollis and I are in Buenos Aires and a whole new movie has started. It´s a world apart; our neighborhood is cobblestone streets and narrow houses and could be Cervante´s La Mancha if it were on a different continent and you removed the buses running up and down the street. And I´m liking this too, but more on BA later ...

Rio

2008-12-04T13:37:00.004-10:00

Arrivals are always the same. I think that I am doing pretty good with the language, but can't even order a coffee at the airport and so switch to English. I plan on diving right in and taking the bus, but I'm tired and confused and so splurge for a taxi. The route from the highway passes through tenemants - tall, crowded, brick or cement, half-finished buildings that seem to radiate heat and oppression, and I wonder how anyone survives here, much less brings a new generation to life.

The City and its poverty always goes on and on, and I wonder how many days until the next revolution. I get to my hotel, and crawl into bed. I need to shower. I'm hungry, I'm tired, I have no local money, and I don't want to leave the room. I don't know what the week will bring and I can't imagine that I will ever make sense of this particular city. I wonder why I travel, and put myself through this. I debate spending the week in my hotel room.

Hunger wins, and I eventually shower and head out into the street for a quick bite before taking a much needed nap. I leave the hotel, without a map, never with a frikkin map, because I don't intend to wander far. And I end up wandering far, and taking wrong turns, and spending hours putzing about.

So that's the part that's always the same. From there on out it's all particulars.

Rio has been fantastic. I slept half of Tuesday, but still managed to meet a guy, Marcos, and make plans to go dancing later, and later to meet up with Cim, who I had friends in common with.

Wednesday it was cold and rainy. I ran into Ruby, and we headed downtown, to Centro, to explore the museums. The museums were just alright, but it was fun being in the middle of a big city again with all it's 19th Century architecture and bustling crowds and chaos. The second crew came in that night, we met Mariano, our steersman from Buenos Aires, and then Alan and I went to Galeria Cafe, met up with Marcos, and danced until 3am. It was a gay bar designed by a local artist, so the space was great and the crowd was fun. It was all Brazilian music, but a wild mix of faro and samba and hip hop and techno and who knows what else. And Marcos turned out to be an amazing frakkin dancer, so that was special to be dancing with him.

This morning I worked out and then a group of us went to Ipanema Beach to sun and cruise. Later we all met Mariano at Praia Vermelha and went over the course. It looks hard core. I might race a second race - there are some women from Maui looking to put together a mixed crew for Saturday. Then we took a hike through the forest, then took the cable cars up to the top of Sugarloaf. Tonight I ditched the crew. Some are taking naps, some are going out for sushi. I had planned to meet up with Cim, but he had to work late. And though I love my crew, they're all going to be early and I have no plans to. There's another club I want to check out designed by the same artists as Galeria, so I'll grab an acai and head there and see what the night brings.

Not bad for only 2.5 days. I have to switch back into training mode tomorrow, with a 7am practice, so this is my final night to be a bit wild. Then I have to be very good for three days. I can do it.

Rio

2008-12-04T02:06:00.002-10:00

It's been fun so far, and I haven't had time to do emails or post. Just dropping a line here to let you all know I'm alive! I had to change my Facebook account after someone hacked in and posted obscene comments, so now I don't know if I can do that from my phone anymore. So much for technology.

All is good. More late. Off to the beach.

White Party Miami

2008-12-01T09:19:00.002-10:00

A guy walks up to me in a Miami Beach bar here and asks if I used to model.

I smile and tell him "no" ... and his eyes glaze over and he walks away as if he had never spoken to me in the first place.

And that was my experience with The Beach. These guys are so style obsessed they make West Hollywood look like a bunch of granola-eatin' love children. It was a bit much at times. I could see guys checking me out, but if I turned to look they'd get whiplash they's turn away so fast. Or maybe they weren't checking me out. Maybe they just had never seen a gay man who wasn't wearing Dior sunglasses.

It's early Monday morning, I've checked out of my hotel, and I have an hour until the SuperShuttle takes me on to the next adventure. Time enough to try and recap a bit ...

The Beach really was stunning; the architecture alone is worth a visit. They people, all blue-eyed Cubans, really are beautiful. It's a great place to meet up with friends, and I enjoyed the first few days of reunions and dinners and cocktails with guys I hadn't seen in awhile. Bill, John and Neil were in from New York, Mike was in from Maui, Steven K and his group were in from LA, and Ron stopped by on his way back from Puerto Rico. I got to catch up with Louie, who I had met in Montreal years ago. I tried to see Bugie, and ran into a sadly tweaked-out n... a few times.

So, with that, I didn't mind the attitude at the bars. Besides, I had some fabulous parties to attend.

I'll try to be objective here, and there were some great times, but this did not work as a "Circuit Weekend" for me at all. First the bitching:

SCORE: FONSECA - I skipped this night, but friends say Fonseca was On & that they think he's a great choice for Palm Springs. The club was crowded and smoky, so they didn't stay long.

FRI: TONY MORAN & CHRIS COX - Again, I passed (tried to pick up online since the bars were a failure for me. Depending on who you ask, it was either a great party, an ok party, or a just regular club night.

SAT: POOL: NIZRI - There might be some wet angry queens after this ... the pool wasn't packed, but they were making people line up because it was 'full.' We were sent inside by a worker to use the restrooms because the outside line was too long. Security stopped us and sent us back. Management stopped her and had to escort us through the ballroom to the bathrooms! "They are our guests and you will treat them like guests" she snarled at one rent-a-cop.

SAT: VIZCAYA: BILL HALLIQUIST - Vizcaya was really beautiful, and I thought it was an excellent way to kick off a weekend. It was a mansion / estate built like some mini- Versailles. I had a great time, and Ron said it was the highlight of his weekend (he never does after-hours) and was thrilled. The other guys skipped it. BUT I think this event has changed a lot; it was not what we were led to expect. There were no fabulous arrivals by yacht. There was some food - I think four restaruants had tables. It was hardly 'dinner.' There weren't people in fabulous costumes, celebrities, A-list queers, etc. But it WAS a dance night for us - and we were told not to expect that! Bill's set was close to my favorite over the weekend - it was high on vocals and happy house, and most songs were new to me. I'd love to see a track list. He's not main-room style yet ... he wasn't able to maintain extended stretches of peak energy. But it was fun, and the dance floor was packed for four hours. Good job. Fun party. But One Hundred Fifty bucks? I won't do it again at that price.

SAT SHUTTLES - What's a party without shuttle drama. Our bus was re-routed for some unknown reason, a French guy accused another guy of 'hijacking' it, and we sat in traffic jam while the two of them and the driver had a bitch fight.

SAT: PARKWEST: JOE G - I love Joe G. Great remixes, he kept the energy up, I finally got to hear this "Like a Prayer" dance mix all of you have been talking about. I could have danced all night and been so happy, except that Joe was just the warm up, and the main act was ...

SAT: PARKWEST: VICTOR - who gave me a headache. I know some guys, including dj's, who love him. He has his fans, and I tried to find what they find. But it was all beat! No melody so no love; no syncopation so no sex; no groove and so no dancing. The guys who stayed all shifted into a dull march. Interaction ended on the dance floor. If you even brushed someone they would stiffen and pull away (and seriously, guys, if your job is folding clothes you might want to tone down the attitude, no matter how pretty you are). I tried. I went inside to find the groove. I went outside and tried to pick it up from the crowd. I chewed half my tongue off. I was not having fun. I left, and this was my last chance for Victor. Never again. I don't care that they were all "his own beats." Music is more than a fucking beat.

SUN: BEACH: PHIL B - Ooh did I wake in a bad mood! I don't attend many events, and it felt like there was a big hole at the center of this weekend. I didn't want to get out of bed, and so missed Wendy Hunt. Some of my crew never got out of bed, and missed the Beach Party entirely. No loss. At first, I was happy to hear love and vocals from Phil. It was a Victor antidote. But ... it was too vocal. It was just top dance remixes, one after another. No surprises, no progression, nothing that couldn't have been done randomly. I swear I'm not always a bitch like this! But most of my crew stayed home, it was cold and windy, the crowd was a bit aloof, and once you're in that bad place it's hard to pull out. After 2hrs Phil put on Kung Fu Fighting and I went home back to bed.

SUN: CAMEO: MANNY AND ABEL - Brothers, I was not feeling it by Sunday night. My original plan was to be the first in the door and the last out. Instead I drank Guiness and watched a football game at Jerry's Deli while a storm swept in from the ocean. And I found more brotherhood there than I had yet at any of the parties, and that's shameful. I was hating the Circuit, and thinking: yeah, maybe it is dead afterall. I finally went to Cameo around 12:30. Manny was good. Manny is always good. There were rumor mills going around that he had "fucked up" his last visit to Florida and that people were booing and throwing water bottles at him & so no one local was going to go. I don't believe these rumors. Then Abel came on, and did his thing, It was a great night, the music was hard and sexy, the guys were friendly and interactive, people smiled and danced with their neighbors, and I finally had the night I had come all this way for.

My theory, and I'm sticking to it, is that Rauhofer & Co., drew off all the assholes to Mansion on Sunday night. In which case, I am all for competing events. We should make them standard!

So overall, I reunited with friends, and had some good club nights. My legs are still sore from dancing all half the night Saturday and straight through til dawn last night. There was no Central Event (for the most part, the guys at Vizcaya were not the ones at the parties). There was no "progression" a la Palm Springs or Orlando, where you all share the same journey throughout the weekend. And so, no "circit." I would come again if other friends all came, but I won't be leading the charge.

On to Rio ...

A Proclamation to the Mormons

2008-11-26T16:17:00.002-10:00

Donny Osmond, who isn't gay at all, has been quoting from a 1995 Mormon text The Family - A Proclamation To The World to explain why gay marriage was wrong:

We warn that individuals who violate covenants of chastity, who abuse spouse or offspring, or who fail to fulfill family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God. Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets. We call upon responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society.

Here's the problem I see: the Mormon and the Catholic Churches have been pouring millions into attacking marriage. You want the government to strengthen the family, then the government ought to recognize all families. And if the Mormon Church is going to attack our marriages, and fight rabidly for the disintegration of our marriages, then ... in the words of their own "prophets" ... they'll be the ones to blame when the calamities foretold come to pass.

And - they need to lose their tax-exempt status now.

Cha Cha Wednesday

2008-11-26T07:57:00.003-10:00

I missed posting any cha-cha clips last Friday, but since today is my Friday I'll post two sets to make up for it. The first is Gwen Verdon doing a Fosse routing to Mexican Breakfast - this is where Beyonce got the moves for Single Lady.

And finally, the first and only video on samba de roda that I could understand. I don't know how many dozens of friends have tried to teach me; all were vaguely incoherent (you step out, and then kind of do this little like I don't know like a jump but not a jump maybe a hop but not like that oh well close enough ...).

Finally I get it! Now I'm ready for the samba train!

Global Personality Test

2008-11-25T22:33:00.004-10:00

I love these tests, even though most are so transparent as to be silly. This one asked me if I exercise three different ways, and then told me in the results that I was physically active.

Advanced Global Personality Test Results

Extraversion	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	58%
Stability	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	74%
Orderliness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	38%
Accommodation	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	46%
Interdependence	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Intellectual	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Mystical	\|\|	10%
Artistic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Religious	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Hedonism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Materialism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Narcissism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Adventurousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Work ethic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Humanitarian	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	83%
Conflict seeking	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Need to dominate	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%

Romantic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Avoidant	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Anti-authority	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Wealth	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Dependency	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Change averse	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Cautiousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Individuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Sexuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	83%
Peter pan complex	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Family drive	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Physical Fitness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	%
Histrionic	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Paranoia	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Vanity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Honor	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Thriftiness	\|\|	10%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality test by similarminds.com

So I'm poor, smart, and slutty. Raise your hand if this comes as a shock.

Native Species Defense Fund

2008-11-25T14:11:00.002-10:00

We have done too good a job of raising awareness of the threats to the indigenous and endemic species of Hawai`i. Now it seems that any tree that isn't pre-Contact isn't properly green enough, and doesn't have real value.

The lawyers for the Development came in this morning, arguing that their parcel should be rezoned from Conservation to Urban. The parcel is covered in trees, but none are native says the haole lawyer, and they're basically giant weeds says the Chinese lawyer.

There is a patch of laua`e fern, and they are willing to make that portion a 'cultural reserve' for traditional gatherers who use laua`e in hula practice ... though it's not native laua`e says the Chinese lawyer. Snort, says the haole lawyer. Snort, agrees the Chinese lawyer.

Off with their heads! shouts the commie urban planner, pulling out his samurai sword and taking both lawyers out with one graceful stroke.

Not really. In reality, the commie urban planner sat quietly, because he knows that the community - the indigenous and the non-native - is already mobilized to fight the developers, and their lawyers.

Gucci Fags

2008-11-25T11:00:00.004-10:00

The upside of the downturn is that Waikiki is going to have to reach out to a wider population, and move their focus beyond just Japanese Shoppers and American Upper Middle Class Families. They're going to have to acknowledge that bohemians and artists and queers and club kids and other tribes exist, and are even more likely to travel when times are tough.

At least, that's my theory.

When they renovated the Ilikai I suggested to one of the investors - gay himself - that a low-key gay bar would work on that side of town. He shuddered in horror. Gays were bad for business, the whole hotel would get a 'reputation,' the families would stay away ... you get the idea. Money trumps loyalty.

RumFire, the former Esprit Lounge, is the first to take aim at a gay crowd. Too bad their aim was off. They missed, badly. This was in my in-box this morning:

The party itself is called Phoenix—tagline is “Get your flame on…” So, while the party definitely caters to the gay community—it is not exclusively a gay party… We want to include everyone and anyone who wants to have a good time in a beautiful outdoor venue like RumFire. You can dance around a firepit into the Sunset… while being oceanfront with the best view of Diamond Head with a martini in one hand… and your Gucci man-purse in the other! Russell Tanoue - fashion photographer extraordinaire - is helping out, as is Dr. RJ Matyas who is leaving Hawaii!!! We are offering bottle service provided by SKYY as well as drink specials.

If I even had a man-purse I would bitch slap the promoters with it. I expect the follow-up email will complete the Sex-in-the-Wannabe stereotype by offering Deconstructed Cosmos and referring to Jimmy Choos.

The Cat is Alright

2008-11-24T10:44:00.003-10:00

It took three days, but I think my cat is ok. I didn't find any swelling yesterday. The only problem now it, I was giving him tuna for being good while I worked on him - I know it hurt - and now he thinks that tuna every night is a right and not a privilege.

So much with this trip remains in flux! We lost two paddlers early on, but Allen joined in & we found a steersmen from Buenos Aire (Mariano Larghi of Manu O Ke Kai Argentina, and he looks awesome). Madame Lim canceled on Miami long ago, and though I keep giving her shit for it I never believed she was coming in the first place. Last week Steve's visa fell through, and he's trying again but it's going to come down to the wire for him. He already delayed his flight a week. And now Hollis had an incident with his car & might have to cancel on Buenos Aires. Which sucks. I was originally prepared to go to BA solo, & was happy when he joined in. He still might make it; we'll find out soon.

Random stuff: I'm so very glad I didn't put my life on hold so that I could buy an over-priced condo here. So very, very glad. And I know that real people are suffering in this meltdown, but ... some of those who are going down are the same land speculators who made so many of us suffer over the past half dozen years. Land is not a commodity, and now we'll all pay because some tried to turn land into something that could be bought and sold and traded.

The Modern Traveler

2008-11-22T13:12:00.004-10:00

Once upon a time I went to Europe with only a carry-on. I went to Jamaica thinking I could wing it. I went to stay with a bronze-age culture in Sumba with only a letter of introduction.

Once upon a time friends and I could just jump in the car for a road trip and make it up as we went along.

(Kelley and MC in Washington; thanks K. for the photo!)

That was then:

This is now:

Four days to go and it will take me all weekend to pack and prep. Hitting the road with a change of clothes, a pack of cigarettes, and a passport is over. If Kerouac were alive he'd have changed and adapted to. Here's part of my current to-do list:

Download Season 2 of Ugly Betty onto my i-phone (check)
Download Portuguese and Spanish lessons into my i-phone (check)
Start tanning, teeth bleaching, and home micro-dermabrasion (in progress)
Get a pedicure (check)
Print Google Earth maps of the neighborhoods I'll be staying in (in progress)
Check out Manhunt for potential amigos.
Set aside clothes for Vizcaya and the clubs in Rio and Buenos Aires.

It's all so very modern. The kid in the first photo would've been horrified.

Though some things don't change - I have about 60 hours of flight time total, and have picked out two very, very fat epics for the journey: Robert Fagles new translation of The Aeneid, and Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky's new translation of War and Peace.

I tried War and Peace once before, but got lost somewhere past the middle. The language in this translation seems much more dynamic and poetic, so I think I'll have an easier going. I've read the first chapter, and it's brilliant.

And of course, I am not flying the extinct, and possible mythical, PanAm (above). I'm flying American (below). I'll dress nice and wear a jacket regardless. I'll be fabulous just to spite the bean-counters. The second half of the trip is on Aerolineas Argentinas, which was just nationalized. I hope that's a good thing - Latin socialists can't possible be as dour as Eastern European ones.

The Barefoot Vet

2008-11-20T21:16:00.002-10:00

I just got done performing surgery on my cat. He was acting super docile and affectionate the past few days; I figured it was age, and that he was just nearing the end. Turns out that one of his wounds - he gets in a lot of fights - had become badly infected. I went to drain it, thinking it was no worse than any other gash he gets from protecting his turf. This one went deep, though, and smelled god awful once I opened it to drain it.

He's sleeping on the couch now. I'll find out tomorrow if I got all the infection out.

mea culpa

2008-11-15T13:28:00.002-10:00

Honolulu had it's march / rally in support of gay rights this morning, and I slept in. I was so absolutely sure that it was going to be the same crowd that brings us the world's most embarrassing Pride that I didn't even consider going.

I was wrong. Friends who went say there were close to 400 men and women, and that it was a high energy crowd with lots of young folks taking the lead. Next time I'll try and be just a little bit less cynical. Just a little, though.

Nights Out in HNL

2008-11-15T00:09:00.002-10:00

It's Friday and midnight and I'm home already & I'm not quite understanding how that happened. Maybe I've been reading too much on Rio and Buenos Aires and Miami and New York, where the nightlife doesn't even kick into gear utnil 1 or 2 am. I forgot where I was.

It's been a fun week. Gary is in town with his new beau, and we've been joing up with Peter and Allen and his friend Mika & going out a lot. Last Thursday was Chiko's, Saturday I cooked Mexican at Gary's condo, Sunday was Hula's beer bust, Tuesday I took Francisco and Joe up to Ka`au Crater and yesterday was Aku Bone.

So tonight we went to see Zamora Linmark's new disco and sex fueled stage version of Rolling the R's at Kumu Kahu theater. I pulled together a group of about 15 guys, and Leanne pulled in an additional five women. That's enough for a party, right? Most of us started off with drinks at Bar 35. I've always avoided that bar thanks to the long line of suburban kids I see outside on First Fridays. Turned out to be pretty cool on a regular night. It's a lounge, and had all the requisite beautiful people inside, but was still mellow and chill enough to be very fun.

The play was fucking awesome, and it still runs for another week or so & it should not be missed. It's local underground, so there were obvious rough patches, but it was also obscene and funny and surprisingly poignant. Or, as Village Voice put it on the novel: Linmark has done more than simply use the argot of equatorial poverty as a sexy, colorful idiom. In its structure, tone, and depths, Rolling the R's is true to the furious and witty rhythms of a vernacular culture of resistance.

Then things got weird. Not bad. Just strange. We had different groups of guys, and though we all went out afterwards everyone stayed in their own tribe. I tried to get people to mix - I mean, it was Friday night and we were downtown and we all have some connection, but they wouldn't. I actually had to play go-between: this group wants to go to Smiths, and these guys want to go to Mercury, and the women are up for grabbing a bite to eat. I told them to talk to each other, but that carried zero weight. It was strange, as they were all standing in their own group not five feet from each other.

And so I was part of all groups and central to none. We went to Mercury, and the bar was as lame as I remembered. Half the patrons had emo hair, and the artwork was gothic and pretentiously hip. Eyeballs with the word 'death' scribbled across. I know so many guys who think this bar passes for a discovery. I don't get it.

Neither did most of the group, and after one or two drinks everyone was out of there. One group went to eat and some guys went home and one group went to the Dragon and and one group left without a real agenda and suddenly I was standing alone in the bar - literally, as even the other patrons had left - with half a beer.

So I chugged it and went outside and caught up with some of the stragglers. Said our goodbyes, made plans for drinks on the beach Sunday, and it was only 11:30pm and I don't get it. It was a pretty awesome night; it was strange for it to suddenly poof and end like that with no warning.

Cha Cha Time

2008-11-14T16:23:00.002-10:00

Thirty minutes til the work week is over!

Obama Cool

2008-11-13T15:19:00.003-10:00

I don't have it. One of the things I really admire about the man his how graceful he is under pressure. I would have snapped long ago. I don't even have the patience these days to gracefully handle the small-time local con artists we have at home, much less assholes on a national scale.

Fri Update: I managed to take down one of our trouble makers at our Neighborhood Board, and did it with a bit of tact, but she is rich and bored & is unlikely to stay down for long. I had less luck controlling an unruly applicant at this morning's Land Board hearings. All he had to do was sit still and not say anything and let me do the work; he'd have gotten his permit and saved his house. As it is ... he spoke ... and now might lose it all.

NOB5: Battle for the Minutes

2008-11-07T23:37:00.006-10:00

I wonder a lot about what the point of being elected to the Neighborhood Board is. In terms of political or social influence we fall somewhere between "condo association" and "dogcatcher." There is potential here; if we spoke clearly and rationally we can make an impact.

So far Neighborhood Board No. 5 has only had an impact on parking. Specifically, they saved one parking lot from being developed as a store - and that took a year of protests. Luckily I had to excuse myself from the issue as I work for the State and there was a potential conflict of interest.

So we have potential. But instead, we spend our time dealing with nonsense side issues. I thought becoming an Executive Member (i.e. Secretary) would at least let me influence things a touch. Instead, I am fighting to accomplish simple things like getting the minutes approved.

This will bore most of you. The political junkies will enjoy it. Maybe. I don't care. I am hereby unilaterally applying the sunshine law to my webmail and liberating these executive emails for public consumption and review. For background, a representative from the Neighborhood Commission provides meeting notes for us. The secretary reviews them, and then every other Board on the island votes to approve them. Not us. We go half a year at a time without getting minutes approved.

This is the shit we deal with each month, and this is why we never get shit done.

From: Michael Cain
To: 4 board members, Chair, and Michelle S. Matson   
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 11:34 AM
Subject: Fw: Draft minutes for October

Aloha all,

Here are the draft minutes from October. Monday should
give everyone enough time to go over them.

If you have suggestions for corrections, I'd like to
ask one favor: keep them brief and substantive.

 Thanks
 Michael

From: Michelle S. Matson
Sent: Nov 7, 2008 9:54 AM
To: Chairman Bert Narita NB#5, Michael Cain
Cc: (4 Board Members, and 1 Commission Official who has
blocked our emails)
Subject: Re: Draft minutes for October

The NB meeting is Thursday, November 13.
See attached Reso provided at the October meeting.
Apparently this was not reviewed by the regular NA
to have any initial effect.

What is the proposed status of the previous two
months' minutes,(August -deferred in September and
October- and September - deferred in October)and
their substantive and formatting corrections as 
previously provided for the record?

From: Michael Cain
To: Michelle S. Matson ; Chairman Bert Narita
Cc: (4 Board Members, and 1 Commission Official
who has blocked our emails)
Sent: Friday, November 07, 2008 11:05 AM
Subject: Re: Draft minutes for October

1. The resolution was introduced but not, to my
knowledge, voted on or approved by the Board.

2. I will be moving to accept the August and
September minutes at the upcoming meeting. Members
are free to object or vote against approval.I did not 
incorporate the nine pages of edits you sent. If you
need an explanation I will do it publicly and on the
record at next week's meeting.

 - Michael

From:  Michelle S. Matson  
Sent: Nov 7, 2008 8:46 PM
To: Michael Cain , Chairman Bert Narita NB#5
Cc: (4 Board Members, and 1 Commission Official who has
blocked our emails)
Subject: Re: Draft minutes for October

Michael:

1.  The Resolution was received by the Board and deferred
to the November meeting since there was no time for approval
of this or the corrected minutes at the end of the October
meeting.  As in previous months it was also suggested that
the regular NA review the recommendations and try to
work on some of the improvements.

 2.  There were not "9 pages of edits" but specifically
digital tracked changes within the minutes text, which showed
the substantive and grammatical corrections and formatting
improvements as a helpful convenience to assist comparison.
Is simple text without showing the corrections preferred?

 3.  If / when all substantive corrections provided by Board
officers and members have been incorporated into the August
and September minutes,respectively, we would appreciate
receiving your corrected draft minutes prior to the November
meeting so that we know what has been corrected for approval
of the minutes. In turn, for convenience of comparison please
 indicate where the corrections have been made.

 Michelle

From:  Michael Cain 
To: Michelle S. Matson; "Chairman Bert Narita NB#5
Cc: (4 Board Members, and 1 Commission Official who has
blocked our emails)
Sent: Friday, November 07, 2008 4:03 PM
Subject: Re: Draft minutes for October

No.

You waste too much of too many people's time with this
silliness. It stops here.

You can take it up at the Board meeting if you have a
problem with this.

From: Michelle S. Matson

To: Chairman Bert Narita

Cc: Michael Cain (& five board members and one commission
official who has blocked our emails)

Subject: Re: Draft minutes for October

Date: Nov 7, 2008 7:02 PM

I believe we are all looking for a democratic approach
to resolving current issues with the ongoing timing,
formatting, grammatical and often substantive deficiencies
in the minutes - deficiencies also acknowledged by 
Board Member Cain in previous emails (attached).

Is it too difficult to provide open disclosure to the Board
of any corrections to the minutes prior to the Board
meeting(s) at which such minutes are anticipated to be
adopted?  One would expect that any revised/corrected
minutes would be mailed/emailed to all Board members prior 
to the meeting date of any noticed anticipated approval.

As a constructive suggestion apart from the apparent
presently-imposed acrimony, an NCO regularly-issued
recorder could provide the NA with needed assistance for
any substantive areas of question.  The bottom line is that 
we would like to see positive and productive outcomes for
the whole in the form of readable and referable substantive
reflections of all Neighborhood Board meetings for the
collective community.

It is interesting to note that for some unknown reason
September's deferred minutes were publicly posted today,
November 7, with the unanimously deferred August minutes.
Both are absent any preliminary approval by the 
Executive Committee or ultimate approval by the Board:

To: Michelle S. Matson, Chairman Bert Narita NB#5

Cc: (five board members and one commission official who
has blocked our emails)

Subject: Re: Draft minutes for October

Date: Nov 7, 2008 11:31 PM

This discussion needs to occur in public and on the record.

Please cease your emails to me on the matter. I do not feel
they are appropriate.

Although I guess it is on the record now. Or at least in public.

A Butler Well Served by This Election

2008-11-07T18:06:00.000-10:00

For 34 Years, Eugene Allen Carried White House Trays With Pride. Now There's Even More Reason to Carry Himself That Way.

By Wil Haygood
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 7, 2008; A01

For more than three decades Eugene Allen worked in the White House, a black man unknown to the headlines. During some of those years, harsh segregation laws lay upon the land.

He trekked home every night, his wife, Helene, keeping him out of her kitchen.

At the White House, he worked closer to the dirty dishes than to the large desk in the Oval Office. Helene didn't care; she just beamed with pride.

President Truman called him Gene.

President Ford liked to talk golf with him.

He saw eight presidential administrations come and go, often working six days a week. "I never missed a day of work," Allen says.

His is a story from the back pages of history. A figure in the tiniest of print. The man in the kitchen.

He was there while America's racial history was being remade: Brown v. Board of Education, the Little Rock school crisis, the 1963 March on Washington, the cities burning, the civil rights bills, the assassinations.

When he started at the White House in 1952, he couldn't even use the public restrooms when he ventured back to his native Virginia. "We had never had anything," Allen, 89, recalls of black America at the time. "I was always hoping things would get better."

In its long history, the White House -- just note the name -- has had a complex and vexing relationship with black Americans.

"The history is not so uneven at the lower level, in the kitchen," says Ted Sorensen, who served as counselor to President Kennedy. "In the kitchen, the folks have always been black. Even the folks at the door -- black."

Sorensen tried to address the matter of blacks in the White House. But in the end, there was only one black man who stayed on the executive staff at the Kennedy White House past the first year. "There just weren't as many blacks as there should have been," says Sorensen. "Sensitivities weren't what they should have been, or could have been."

In 1866 the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, sensing an opening to advocate for black voting rights, made a White House visit to lobby President Andrew Johnson. Johnson refused to engage in a struggle for black voting rights. Douglass was back at the White House in 1877. But no one wished to discuss his political sentiments: President Rutherford Hayes had engaged the great man -- it was a time of high minstrelsy across the nation -- to serve as a master of ceremonies for an evening of entertainment.

In the fall of 1901, another famous black American came to the door. President Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington, head of the Tuskegee Institute, to meet with him at the White House. Roosevelt was careful not to announce the invitation, fearing a backlash, especially from Southerners. But news of the visit leaked quickly enough and the uproar was swift and noisy. In an editorial, the Memphis Scimitar would write in the ugly language of the times: "It is only recently that President Roosevelt boasted that his mother was a Southern woman, and that he is half Southern by reason of that fact. By inviting a nigger to his table he pays his mother small duty."

Fifty years later, invitations to the White House were still fraught with racial subtext. When the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow pianist Hazel Scott to perform at Constitution Hall because of her race, many letters poured into the White House decrying the DAR's position. First lady Bess Truman was a member of the organization, but she made no effort to get the DAR to alter its policy. Scott's husband, Harlem congressman Adam Clayton Powell, subsequently referred to Bess Truman as "the last lady of the land." The words outraged President Truman, who vowed to aides he would find some way to punish Powell and barred the fellow Democrat from setting foot inside the Truman White House.

The first black to hold a policy or political position in the White House was E. Frederick Morrow, a former public relations executive with CBS. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower's presidential campaign operatives were so impressed with Morrow's diligent work during the 1952 campaign that they promised him a White House executive job if Ike were elected. Ike won, but Morrow ended up being placed at the Department of Commerce. He felt slighted and appealed to Republican friends in New York to force the White House to make good on its promise.

The phone finally rang in 1955 and Morrow was named administrative officer for special projects. He had hoped the title would give him wide responsibilities inside the White House, but found himself dealing, for the most part, with issues related to the Brown desegregation ruling, the Rosa Parks-led bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., and the 1957 Little Rock school crisis.

"He was a man of great dignity," says Stephen Hess, senior fellow emeritus at the Brookings Institution, who worked as a speechwriter for Eisenhower. Morrow was in a lonely position, but "he did not complain," says Hess. "That wasn't Fred Morrow."

When Morrow left his White House position, he imagined there'd be corporate job offers. There were not. "Only thing he was offered were jobs related to the black community," says Hess. Nonetheless, "after Morrow, it was appropriate to have a black person on the staff of the White House."

'Pantry Man'

Before he landed his job at the White House, Gene Allen worked as a waiter at the Homestead resort in Hot Springs, Va., and then at a country club in Washington.

He and wife Helene, 86, are sitting in the living room of their home off Georgia Avenue NW. A cane rests across her lap. Her voice is musical, in a Lena Horne kind of way. She calls him "honey." They met in Washington at a birthday party in 1942. He was too shy to ask for her number, so she tracked his down. They married a year later.

In 1952, a lady told him of a job opening in the White House. "I wasn't even looking for a job," he says. "I was happy where I was working, but she told me to go on over there and meet with a guy by the name of Alonzo Fields."

Fields was a maitre d', and he immediately liked Allen.

Allen was offered a job as a "pantry man." He washed dishes, stocked cabinets and shined silverware. He started at $2,400 a year.

There was, in time, a promotion to butler. "Shook the hand of all the presidents I ever worked for," he says.

"I was there, honey," Helene reminds. "In the back, maybe. But I shook their hands, too." She's referring to White House holiday parties, Easter egg hunts. They have one son, Charles. He works as an investigator with the State Department.

"President Ford's birthday and my birthday were on the same day," he says. "He'd have a birthday party at the White House. Everybody would be there. And Mrs. Ford would say, 'It's Gene's birthday, too!' "

And so they'd sing a little ditty to the butler. And the butler, who wore a tuxedo to work every day, would blush.

"Jack Kennedy was very nice," he goes on. "And so was Mrs. Kennedy."

"Hmm-mmm," she says, rocking.

He was in the White House kitchen the day JFK was slain. He got a personal invitation to the funeral. But he volunteered for other duty: "Somebody had to be at the White House to serve everyone after they came from the funeral."

The whole family of President Jimmy Carter made her chuckle: "They were country. And I'm talking Lillian and Rosalynn both." It comes out sounding like the highest compliment.

First lady Nancy Reagan came looking for him in the kitchen one day. She wanted to remind him about the upcoming dinner for West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. He told her he was well ahead in the planning and had already picked out the china. But she told him he would not be working that night.

"She said, 'You and Helene are coming to the state dinner as guests of President Reagan and myself.' I'm telling you! I believe I'm the only butler to get invited to a state dinner."

Husbands and wives don't sit together at these events, and Helene was nervous about trying to make small talk with world leaders. "And my son says, 'Mama, just talk about your high school. They won't know the difference.'

"The senators were all talking about the colleges and universities that they went to," she says." I was doing as much talking as they were.

"Had champagne that night," she says, looking over at her husband.

He just grins: He was the man who stacked the champagne at the White House.

Moving Up, but Slowly

President Kennedy, who succeeded Eisenhower, started with two blacks, Frank Reeves and Andrew Hatcher, in executive positions on his White House staff. Only Hatcher, a deputy press secretary, remained after six months. Reeves, who focused on civil rights matters, left in a political reshuffling.

The issue of race bedeviled this White House, even amid good intentions. In February 1963, Kennedy invited 800 blacks to the White House to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Louis Martin, a Democratic operative who helped plan the function, had placed the names of entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. and his wife, May Britt, on the guest list. The White House scratched it off and Martin would put it back on. According to Martin, Kennedy was aghast when he saw the black and white couple stroll into the White House. His face reddened and he instructed photographers that no pictures of the interracial couple would be taken.

But Sammy Davis Jr. was not finished with 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. He got himself invited to the Nixon White House to meet with the president and talk about Vietnam and business opportunities for blacks. He even slept in the Lincoln Bedroom once. When Davis sang at the 1972 Republican convention in Miami, he famously wrapped his arms around Nixon at a youth rally there, becoming forever identified with a White House that many blacks found hostile.

Lyndon Johnson devoted considerable energy and determination to civil rights legislation, even appointing the first black to the Supreme Court. But it did not translate to any appreciable number of blacks working on his staff. Clifford Alexander says he was the sole black in Johnson's White House, serving first as a National Security Council officer, then as associate White House counsel.

"We were fighting for something quite new," says Alexander. "You knew how much your job meant. And you knew President Johnson was fighting on your behalf." As a young man growing up in Harlem, Alexander had heard about Morrow. Mothers and fathers pointed to him as a grand success story. "Fred was a lovely man," says Alexander. "But they did not pay any attention to him in the Eisenhower White House."

Colin Powell would become the highest-ranking black of any White House to that point when he was named President Reagan's national security adviser in 1987. Condoleezza Rice would have that same position under President George W. Bush.

The butler remembers seeing both Powell and Rice in the Oval Office. He was serving refreshments. He couldn't help notice that blacks were moving closer to the center of power, closer than he could ever have dreamed. He'd tell Helene how proud it made him feel.

Time for Change

Gene Allen was promoted to maitre d' in 1980. He left the White House in 1986, after 34 years. President Reagan wrote him a sweet note. Nancy Reagan hugged him, tight.

Interviewed at their home last week, Gene and Helene speculated about what it would mean if a black man were actually elected president.

"Just imagine," she said.

"It'd be really something," he said.

"We're pretty much past the going-out stage," she said. "But you never know. If he gets in there, it'd sure be nice to go over there again."

They've got pictures of President and Mrs. Reagan in the living room. On a wall in the basement, they've got pictures of every president Gene ever served. There's a painting President Eisenhower gave him and a picture of President Ford opening birthday gifts, Gene hovering nearby.

They talked about praying to help Barack Obama get to the White House. They'd go vote together. She'd lean on her cane with one hand, and on him with the other, while walking down to the precinct. And she'd get supper going afterward. They'd gone over their Election Day plans more than once.

"Imagine," she said.

"That's right," he said.

On Monday Helene had a doctor's appointment. Gene woke and nudged her once, then again. He shuffled around to her side of the bed. He nudged Helene again. He was all alone.

"I woke up and my wife didn't," he said later.

Some friends and family members rushed over. He wanted to make coffee. They had to shoo the butler out of the kitchen.

The lady whom he married 65 years ago will be buried today.

The butler cast his vote for Obama on Tuesday. He so missed telling his Helene about the black man bound for the Oval Office.

Election Day

2008-11-04T00:29:00.002-10:00

And I can't sleep. Damn.

This is the first national election where I've voted for the candidate I like rather than against the guy I hated. I really liked Mondale in 1984, but even more so I thought that we had to Stop Reagan. I'm still shocked that Reagan has become a hero in retrospect - as if AIDS, third-world death squads, and the willful destruction of our inner cities never happened. The Democratic Machine picked Dukakis for us in 1988 and Kerry in 2000, and neither thrilled me but whatever. I voted for them if only to stop the Bush's. And though I voted for Gore, of course, I didn't really care - I had no idea how hideously right-wing Bush Jr. would turn out to be.

I was overseas and never got my ballot for Clinton in 1992; we only got the news every two months so I pretty much missed that one. And I left my ballot blank in 1996; I refused to vote for that backstabbing shit who sold gays, blacks, and everyone else down the river rather than take a stand on anything.

So. 2008. I'm 42, and for the first time I really, really like a candidate. Sure I have issues with Obama - I'm not starry eyed and dreamy - but there's something there. He'll smash through the ebony ceiling and that means a lot to me, but it's more than that. It's like this: I could've known this guy. I don't, but I know people like him, intellectual community activists who held faith in an ugly world. And I'm just amazed that someone from this crowd, my ideal crowd, is set to lead the country.

14 or so more hours and we'll know. My country might finally do the right thing.

Training

2008-11-03T20:43:00.003-10:00

My brief louche season is over, and I'm back on a training schedule. It's back to healthy eating, limited drinking, plenty of sleep, and hard core training - paddling, capoeira, weights, surfing, and abs abs abs. And though I've been invited to five election parties (which is more than the total number of parties I've been invited to all fall) I'll be good and stay sober.

Three more weeks and I get on a plane. I'll give myself two days of hard-core decadence in Miami en route to Rio (the Vizcaya event is sponsored by an absinthe company, Joe Gauthraux is spinning Saturday after-hours, I've got a white sunga from Alejandro for Muscle Beach with the circuit grandmother and goddess Wendy Hunt, and it's Abel all night on Sunday - it'll be hard-core for real!), and then I buck up again. This race is real - 18 miles, the same as Kona - so I've got to be real about it. The only way I can pull off both White Party and Rio Va`a is to get myself back in peak form in 3 weeks.

Which should be no problem.

Sad Sack Halloween

2008-11-03T12:06:00.003-10:00

I got the message from Jake that I need to stop sounding like such a sad-sack in this blog. Which: oops, again. It's so much more fun to write when you're bitchy than when things are going well, and sometimes I'd incriminate too many people if I wrote about the fun times ... so I guess this tilts more negative than I mean it to. 'Cause things are actually going really well - but who wants to hear that?

I did come close to baggin' on Halloween, though. I'd been up late on Thursday helping Scott and Katherine move. Francisco was there also, and one beer let to another & soon it was way past my bedtime. I was hurting on Friday. I knew that Tom would be downtown at the Loft, but I didn't realize tickets were $30 ... and I'm being cheap these days (translation: an iphone, 2 new car tires, Rio fees, White Party tickets, and an overhaul on my bike have pretty much ko'd my bank account). I was going to head downtown anyway, but my group faded out one by one. Luckily I called Jake (and his crew had also bailed, one by one), and we hit Waikiki Friday night.

I was Ninja, and got no attention. Jake was Harry Potter, and got lots of attention, and not just 'cause he was passing out candy to kids! We did a pub crawl from his place on Ala Moana to Lulu's on the other end of Waikiki. It was fun, and kind of trashy, and kind of a perfect night. All the obvious places had lines (Senor Frogs, Yardhouse) or covers (Red Lion) or both (Hulas), so we hit the second rate places - both Cheeseburgers in Paradise, Coconut Willy's, and Lulus. And it was completely tragi-fabulous.

I haven't opened his pics yet, but I'll post when I do.

Lingle Watch

2008-11-03T11:41:00.003-10:00

How many personalities does our governor have? Here's an article from Salon this morning about a McCain rally:

The rally got its cocky swagger back with Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle, who managed to work the crowd into an anti-Obama lather with her heavily emphasized assertion that "people are looking for a person they can trust to lead America. They want to elect a president who is proud of their nation." Everyone able to crack the code on what Linda Lingle is saying here? She then turned to an argument that has mostly been heard on the Democratic side of the political spectrum for many months, imagining what supporters would say to their children and grandchildren down the road, when the little whippersnappers ask them, "What did you do when you had a chance to make a difference? What role did you play in that crucial election?" Surely, Lingle concluded, they would want to be able to say that they "worked every hour in those last few days to do everything [they] could to make sure this election turns out the way we know it should for the people of America."

Cocky swagger? Our own right-wing pandering closeted-lesbian governor is cocky on the road? This is not a face she ever shows in Hawai`i.

But this lady has many faces. For years I've been confused about why a Jewish governor would so closely ally herself with the Christian fundamentalists here. I forgot about the whole strange relationship between fundamentalists, Revelations, and Zionism. This letter from Lingle to The Jewish Press (Palin Looks to Queen Esther as Role Model) shows us another face ...

If there were any doubt that Sen. John McCain will shake up Washington and institute real change, the selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as the Republican vice-presidential nominee has put that question to rest. Few people can match McCain's maverick spirit and bipartisan nature like Gov. Palin.

I've known Sarah Palin since her election as governor in 2006. I am confident she will be a great friend of the Jewish community and Israel, as well as a terrific leader and great vice president.

...

Finally on Iran - an issue of critical importance to readers of this publication - Gov. Palin gets it. She recognizes the importance of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons while advocating for strengthening the strategic U.S.-Israel relationship.

It is also clear that Gov. Palin is a woman of deep personal faith. She has established a good relationship with the Jewish communities of Alaska, supported the residents' desire to create the Alaska Jewish Historical Museum and was present at the reading of Alaska's resolution commemorating Israel's 60th anniversary.

In her office in Juneau, Gov. Palin has hung an Israeli flag. She displays the flag because Israel is in her heart.

...

Shortly after coming into office, Gov. Palin asked her former pastor for examples of biblical people who were great leaders and for the secret of their leadership. The pastor suggested she re-read the story of Queen Esther, the Jewish woman who rose to help her people and become queen of Persia.

Like Queen Esther, Gov. Palin has faced tremendous adversity, and time and again she has risen to overcome obstacles. This is the sign of a true leader.

...

Linda Lingle is the governor of Hawaii and a Jewish Republican.

I guess it doesn't matter. Lingle is pretty much out of options in this State, and pimping herself out to Palin's (I mean, McCain's) trainwreck of a campaign isn't going to help her nationally. She can join Harris, Fasi, and Cayetano in whatever club faded Hawai`i pols hang out in when their day is over.

The Big Life

2008-10-28T19:35:00.004-10:00

I was so full of big talk, all I'm coming out now that paddling is (kind of) over and I can stay up late again. It was going to be non-stop parties all winter long.

The Big Life lasted a week. I was over it by this past Friday. And though friends like to say "it's age," it's not that. I didn't get tired, the town did.

I did a lot of dating in my one social week of the season. There are two guys I'd like to stay in touch with. Other than that, nada. Sex and the City could fill half a new season with the tragedies I met. Closet cases, guys who come on hard then turn tail and run, one guy turned out to be married, and one guy who was so nervous he never stopped talking. I had a beer, he had a diet pepsi, and he told me about the fall of the Roman Empire. And that might have been interesting except that he didn't really know shit about it beyond what he might have learned watching I Claudius reruns.

He had offered a massage earlier, and I was too tired to handle. I finished my beer, interrupted his monologue, and just laid it out. This massage thing? It's not going to happen. And I know that was the total asshole way out of it but I just didn't have the energy to come up with something more civil. He decided it was time to get on the bus.

So, that was the end of that social experiment. I stayed home the rest of the weekend. I need to start cross-training for Rio Va`a anyway, so I decided to finally go back to capoeira. Tonight was my first class in maybe four or five years. It's been a long time. I remembered the individual attacks and escapes, but the combinations were hard, and it was all combinations. Peter led it, and there were only tow oter students tonight. Which was good, I needed the attention. I should be feeling pretty damn good by tomorrow morning (i.e. the pain will be systemic and total).

Fare Wars!

2008-10-28T15:00:00.002-10:00

$243 Los Angeles to Honolulu, $437 NYC to Honolulu ... so far it's only for November, and only if you leave on Wednesday and return on Monday. I'm hoping this spreads. If fares drop for March and April I'm buying the tickets now and asking the boss for permission later. And boys: now would be the time to come out!

International News

2008-10-28T10:17:00.005-10:00

Just some random interesting things that should have been noticed, but haven't been ...

From allAfrica.com:

Rwanda's newly elected Members of Parliament voted in the first ever woman Speaker today (October 7, 2008), setting a record as the first female-majority parliament in the whole world.
Ms Mukantabama Rose, representative of Kigali city beat Mr Mukama Abbas the only male contesting for the same post with 70 votes to become the leader of Rwanda's Chamber of Deputies.

_____________________________

Norway, Brazil, the Netherlands, Paris, and NATO now mandate that all government documents be produced on open-source software. It's something we should consider - right now almost every document our office, and maybe the state, is produced in a format owned by Microsoft (.xml). I don't know what we pay in license fees; I am sure that it runs into the millions. And we are stuck with them; there is very little room for negotiation since they, in effect, own us.

Here's Eric Kirss, Massachusetts Secretary of Administration and Finance: It is an overriding imperative of the American democratic system that we cannot have our public documents locked up in some kind of proprietary format, perhaps unreadable in the future, or subject to a proprietary system license that restricts access.

_______________________________________

And finally, Canada, with it's well-regulated financial system, seems to be escaping the world economic meltdown. American liberals should be using them as Exhibit A on why right-wing economic theory fails, and why traditional New Deal style government really does work.

Flora-Dec Ninja

2008-10-24T18:40:00.003-10:00

Every All Souls' Day I feel all inspired, and promise that I am going to come up with one drop dead fucking awesome Halloween costume the next year.

Since the age of consent I have given: two half-assed attempts, one vaguely decent attempt, and borrowed a costume. Twice I ended up naked in public anyway, so those times it really wouldn't have mattered.

It's not a good track record. This year I caved, and bought one pre-made. I wish I had that creative gay gene that the television insists that I have. I don't; and though everyone tells me that a home-made costume has more meaning, no one is willing to make me one (I ask, and all I get in response is a blank stare and a forbidding sense that I better not push it).

I didn't even know what Flora-Dec was until Monday. I pass it all the time, but I just assumed it was something to do with floors, and so ignored it. Or rather: completely deleted it from my mental map of the universe. Turns out it's really a crafts emporium. It's also where straight guys go to by complete costumes, ready made. And here's another fabulous gene I missed: I always buy off the rack.

The boss's new girlfriend is having a party tomorrow, they're decorating some abandonned house in the woods, I can't get a single fucking queer in this town to go with me, and though my body will be there, hell if I'm showing face ...

so I'll be a "Made in Vietnam" Ninja:That's the Flora-Dec Deluxe Ninja. I actually bought the Imperial Ninja, and there's lots of gold sashes and slashes and things to sex it up. XL, mind you, because my legs were too big to fit into the L. I am so losing at least 20 Gay Points for this. This totally wipes out any Fabulousness I won by winning the Gayest Shirt of the Night prize at Johnny's last Saturday (an unbuttoned barong Tagalog from Chinatown; and I didn't win an actual concrete prize, but if there were one I would have).

It's so nice to be going out again. Though we need to start training for Rio - Eli has already done three OC-1 Diamond Head runs since Moloka`i - so these will be my last decadent days for awhile (37 days). And even this weekend, I'll be in lock-down mode except for the one party. I need need need to turn off the phone, unplug the computer, and give this place and my yard a long weekend of hard labor.

Madonna at CBGB

2008-10-20T20:10:00.002-10:00

Synchronicity is fun. Last night Tomahawk was talking about the early hip Madonna. Tonight Tina Brown posted this clip of pretty awesome clip on the Daily Beast (which is becoming a must-read for me these days) ...

Strange Fruit

2008-10-15T09:04:00.003-10:00

I've been out of media contact for about a week, and now that I'm tuned back in it's like I've landed in some strange world where the Freedom Rides never happened, where the Supreme Court rejected Brown v Kansas, and where the bombs are still going off in Selma.

I've seen racism in my life, but nothing like what we're seeing now on the news and all over the internet. Or rather, I've only seen it in old news reels. I thought that this was a time that had passed.

It's hard not to feel a cold chill of fear when you see the anger in these people's faces, or when you see the clips of nooses and lynchings alongside pictures of Obama.

But maybe we need to see this. Maybe this will finally expose the "Republican base" for what it is. Too many people have made accommodations with these folks' twisted theology of hate, from the spineless political independents to our own lesbian Jewish governor. Now it's out there. Now the face of bigotry is exposed. Now, if you vote for the modern Republican party, you know exactly what you're getting.

The Crossing, 2008

2008-10-12T19:22:00.004-10:00

And it's over. The Tahitians took four out of the top five spots, and Shell Va`a set a course record for the third year in a row. We saw some of the guys, and they looked like hard-core awesome athletes. The initial results have Kamehameha at 81st (our team) and 85th (yellow) out of 106 teams. I'm happy with that.

It was a good crossing - especially compared to last year, where I puked the whole way across.

Moloka`i

The early crew flew over at 8am Friday. There were 21 of us in a 3 bedroom plantation house in what used to be Moloka`i Ranch. I guess it still is, but it's turning into a ghost town now that the Ranch was decided to starve the people out. We overwhelmed the septic system before the first day was out. Luckily there were lots of fields nearby for business, and a construction site with a porta-pottie a short walk away. It's a good thing we all get along.

First Hour
I start off on the escort boat with Rod and Eli. Conditions look ok; not rough at all like last year. Even though I have the patch on I'm still a bit stressed about the channel & am worried about getting sea sick again. The first run along the Moloka`i coast is smooth. We pass La`au Point, we do the first change, and suddenly, after so many months of prep, the race is on & I'm in some other world.

Alex is steering. Eli strokes the first piece, then Dave. I'm in seat four. This section is a bit of a washing machine, with the wake of 100 escort boats combining with the currents running through the channel. We take a more northern route, but it looks like the bulk of the pack is taking a southern route.

Second Hour
Dave, then Eli are in one. I'm in three. We turn south, and hit some amazing and fast runs. It's fun. Later, when we have to turn west, we slow down and struggle a bit.

Third Hour
Dave pulls a double in seat one. I'm back in four. We can see Diamond Head! I didn't think we would be able to see it so early. Seas are about six feet. The currents aren't super smooth. We can catch some big waves, but get tossed around a bit in between. Again, we run fast when heading south but bog down a bit when running west.

Fourth Hour

Rod moves back to steer, Eli pulls a triple, and things start to get rough. Rudy jumps into seat two, but the previous two didn't set the paddle right & it floats down the gunnel. Lance needs to bail, but the previous guy didn't attach the bailers when he was done. We stall. Water comes in, and it seems to take forever for to bail. We aren't balanced at all, and so I stay on the left for a long time 'cause the ama pops or we take on water every time I switch. We're all tired. It looks like Portlock is only an hour away, and I'm sure that we'll be there by the end of this hour. And though I had the same illusion last year, I fall for it again.

Fifth Hour
We still haven't passed Portlock. We won't even pass it by the end of this set. Mentally I'm ready for calmer waters, but the seas instead start to get tricky. We're all tired, I think, and this part is just hard.

Sixth Hour
Lucas gets in to stear a set, which is good experience for him. We finally pass frakkin' Portlock, and I was hoping for clean waves but it's still choppy. Not as rough as the previous hour, but not the smooth fast ride we were hoping for for the Hawai`i Kai run. The boats start to converge here. `Anuenue comes in fast on the inside. I don't see where Keahiakahoe was, they seem to appear out of nowhere; we walk on them for a bit, then they pull ahead. I'm in seat 3, it's a shorter blade, and my flexibility is shot. I hurt.

Final Run
We pass Diamond Head, and we're in home waters. Roz puts the first time crossers in the canoe - Lucas, Eli, Lance, and Anthony. Alex and I round it out. This run feels good. We can't catch up with Anuenue or Keahiakahoe, but we stay well ahead of the crews behind us.

Final time: 6 hours 24 minutes 50 seconds. That's about 22 minutes faster than last year, and a big jump in the rankings. Again, I feel good about it.

I was thinking this might be my last year for distance. I stress too much about being on the escort boat. The ocean is unpredictable, and some years the crossing is brutal. But this year felt awesome, I like our team, I would cross again with these same guys without hesitation ... so damnit, I guess I'll be back.

Les Misbarack

2008-10-09T08:55:00.002-10:00

This is pretty awesome.

Yeah, they get slaughtered at the barricades at the end - but history never repeats itself, right?

Moloka`i Boogie

2008-10-08T20:21:00.002-10:00

I'm all packed - I've squeezed three days worth of supplies into a ten-gallon wetbag. I've started my carbo-loading, kicking it off with casarecce pasta in a smoked salmon & tomato-cream sauce. I believe in fattening up right.

And every second thought is "Moloka`i," and it has been for awhile now. Two weeks ago my mood was: why the hell am I doing this, I am so not built for this lifestyle. I am not a jock and I get seasick and I'm just going to heave the whole way, that is if I don't hit the wall again and bonk and let my team down. I think (I hope) I mostly covered it up.

I've been mostly cool this week. Physically I'm as ready as I can be. As last year, I am in peak shape right now. And I'll have the scopalamine patch on, and I haven't been smoking, so I should do better than last year. And I feel good, and I feel good, and I'll see photos of our competitors fresh from the Olympics and I'll think wow and I'll feel really good, 'cause we're just guys from the neighborhood and we're going up against them!, and then I'll stress a bit again, and it'll pass.

Tomorrow we do sprints, than a pasta dinner at Buco. Friday we fly to Moloka`i. Saturday we rig and do last minute prep. Sunday, at 7:30 am, we hit the seas. I start off on the escort boat with Rod and Eli, which means I'll be in the first change around La`au Point, and in the canoe for the roughest seas. For me, that's better than being in the escort boat.

Post Debate

2008-10-07T16:39:00.002-10:00

McCain and wife have disappeared.

Barack and his wife are busy shaking hands, smiling for the photos, and signing autographs. I think he's shaking everyone's hands in the audience, and the camera is just following him around. He definitely won the post-debate.

Bad Communication

2008-10-07T16:09:00.003-10:00

The neighbor knocked on my door yesterday, and said he had a huge favor to ask me. His friend is homeless, and he asked if the friend could pitch his tent in my yard for a couple weeks.

I didn't even have to start cussing for the neighbor to know what I thought about that idea. I think I rolled my eyes so far back in my head that they spun right back around to where they started from, and that was all it took for the neighbor to start apologizing and telling me it was ok and to not worry about it.

I'm still flabbergasted. I think neighbor might be drinking too much again. I want some guy shitting and pissing in my garden? And doesn't neighbor have a yard of his own? I just don't get it.

Dinner was with Manny & friends. He's in town for a conference, and this is a surprise visit. It's good to see him again, though mentally I'm a bit preoccupied with Moloka`i. There was one strange moment at dinner where everyone had their i-phones out and were communicating with those instead of actually talking. Luckily another round of cocktails came and they had to put their toys away. Drinking still trumps texting, at last for now.

Though I'm not sure what the point of talking is at the moment. I have the presidential debate on in the background. Obama is doing somewhat ok, and once in awhile he actually answers a question. McCain is just making noise.

Moloka`i Crews

2008-10-05T10:49:00.006-10:00

Roz named the crews for Moloka`i Hoe this morning. I'm happy with our crew. My goal for the next week is: sleep right, eat right, don't panic.

(Red) Manu Kai
Alejandro, Eli, Dave, MC, Lance, Lucas, Rudy, Anthony, Rod
Coach: Roz
Driver: Holo

(Yellow) Kahoepawalu
Reid, Chauncey, Rob P, Kulani, Hoku, Scott, John, Rob B, Jayson
Coach: Ulu Assistant: Eric
Driver: Theron

Ants in my pants

2008-10-03T09:06:00.003-10:00

and I don't know how they got there but they started biting me on the drive to Kapoho. They were nasty little red things hardly larger than a period, and I had to pull over and strip down and hunt and kill them. Luckily I was in Puna, and given all the local color I probably wouldn't have stood out much if anyone had seen me.

I was in Puna to lead a public meeting on a development proposal we had received that local cultural practitioners were lining up against. I was hoping to head off a conflict, and the boss gaveme permission to go down and let me hold a meeting, my style. We met in a tent on the grounds of Kalani Honua, and had a couple hours of finger pointing and dramatic speeches and a fair amount of tears. It went well. I have real hope now that the final proposed plan will be something the whole community can back. We'll see.

Otherwise, my life is now about the Moloka`i crossing. I'm nervous as all get out. At home, at work, I think: I don't want to do this. This is too much. Sure I did it last year. And I suffered. But during practice, once we're on the water with the guys, I think: I want this. I'm ready.

There are 20, maybe 22, of us for 18 seats. Roz will name the crews on Monday. We have one more hard practice on Saturday - four hours! We'll paddle for an hour along the coast, then take the canoes out to sea for an hour, then turn around and head back. Next week is all about sleep diet. Three days of protein loading, and three of carb loading. And Friday we fly out to Moloka`i, and Sunday we race back home.

Smoking Dreams

2008-09-27T13:58:00.002-10:00

I've been dreaming all week that I've started smoking again. I wake up feeling crushed, and can't believe that I fell & have to go through all that suffering again. But I also dreamt that I had great hair, fabulous hair even, and I think: how is that possible, when I cut my own hair in the mirror? And that's how I realize I've been dreaming.

I don't even feel any cravings or temptations during my waking hours. It's nine months since I quit for real, and six months since I cheated. And I'm feeling great, though my cardio still isn't normal. We did one-man outrigger time trials this morning, and I was like the little duckling waddling behind the pack. Everyone came in around 30 minutes, give or take a minute. Then there was P. at 35, and me at 36 minutes. Yikes. For our 3.2 mile run I was 39 minutes; I think the rest of `em have been under 30 so far. I've gotten big since I quit, in a good way, but I think people look at me now and think that I am in far better shape than I actually am.

Lost World

2008-09-25T21:09:00.001-10:00

I just want my country back.

Ghetto Child, A Pááfeng Wedding, and the Fall of Troy

2008-09-22T07:01:00.011-10:00

She looks so innocent. Don't be deceived. This child is twenty-five pounds of trouble. Daddy went AWOL Saturday morning, and Emily and I had a wedding to attend. We threw a dress on her and assumed custody for the day.

Emily is now living in another ghetto, but it's just like all the other ones: rows of concrete walk-ups on a barren hillside, this time in Kalihi. I don't know what slum lords have against trees on this island; a touch of shade would make everyone's life here more bearable.

I went inside their hotbox to use the restroom. The child had a "progress card" from her social worker taped to the door. K- uses two hands to drink her bubble drink. She handles the straw well. Goal for next week is to have her continue to manipulate objects.

Social Workers certainly set the bar low when they deal with the poor. The child is wild, but she is not mentally challenged. If this is the most we expect from her, then she is pretty much doomed.

But expecting more takes energy. Lots of energy. The Ghetto Child threw her first tantrum when I wouldn't let her get a press-on tattoo at Longs. I told her that she was not going to win an argument with me, so she could just save her breath. That didn't work. The tantrum continued when she wouldn't hold my hand to cross the parking lot, and escalated into full blown war when I told her that she absolutely would wear a seat belt in the car.

Ten minutes into this and I was over it. I went from vaguely empathic to declaring martial law. You will sit here, and you will wear the seat belt. No threats, no begging, just one scary-daddy voice. She froze, and spent the next hour crying softly to herself.

Fine with me. She behaved the rest of the day, and asked to move in with me by the end of it. So: I won.

On to the wedding. I never did figure out exactly who the lucky couple was - just that they were part of the clan and therefore family.

Emily, doing alright once Child was taken care of.

There was lots of dancing and singing. One of the things I like about the Pááfeng is that they haven't been completely Christianized. The other Chuukese communities seem to spend all their time praying. It's non-stop Church for them.

The Pááfeng Islanders thank God, and then bring on the dancing girls. I like this style better. Adult women will sit cross-legged and call out the beat. The younger girls dance Tahitian style - most of the traditional Chuukese dances have been forgotten here. And I guess that's ok; Micronesians re-taught the Polynesians how to navigate by wave and star, and now the Polynesians have re-taught the Micronesians how to dance. The adults will also spray the dancers with perfume, and stuff dollar bills into their clothes. I don't think that last part is Tahitian.

And then we ate. This was serious business. Notice how no one is carrying a normal paper plate - these guys bring troughs to their picnics.

Maruchu with lunch.

So after that I was ready to hibernate. I'm still not very good with the language, and between being a dad and not speaking English all day I was beat. That, and I had just finished reading Fagles' translation of the Iliad, and I was hooked. It was slow going, and at times too bloody to really enjoy ... but there was also some beautiful and stunning poetry there. It's basically the story of a holocaust, of how the Achaeans and a few angry goddesses united to destroy the sacred city of Troy. I never realized that the Iliad was a tragedy; I never realized that the Trojans were the more civilized, and the more tragic., of the civilizations. These new translations of the Odyssey and the Iliad have really opened my eyes to why Homer is so famous, and so immortal.

So I was feeling overly inspired, and went to Borders and grabbed all the 'sequels.' The rest of the great epics have been lost, but the Classical Greek dramatists - Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides - all wrote plays detailing what happened after the fall of Troy. And my plan was to disconnect on Sunday, to turn off my email and phone, and to curl up on the couch and disappear back into the Bronze Age and find out what happened to Andromache after she was sold into slavery, or how the doomed queen Hecuba took her revenge, or how the curse on the house of Atreus played out.

I started with Euripides. And I remember why I was so bored with these guys in high school. The poetry of Homer just soared; these guys - at least in the Penguin Classics translation of Euripides - just plod along. It's painful. I'm familiar with the characters, so it's just barely interesting enough to read. I just wish we had poets to translate these works instead of a bunch of dry professors of classical lit. Next up is Ted Hughes' translation of the Orestia, and I have higher hopes for him.

I picked up the Aeneid too, and I heard this is a great translation. I want to save it until I travel - it would make a nice heavy book for the plane. We'll see if I have any self control.

Mole Verde for an Army

2008-09-18T09:42:00.004-10:00

I just finished up the first half of the pork in mole verde I'd made for the women's race a few weeks back. The other half is still in the freezer. I only used one pork shoulder, but the dish was so rich that a little went a long ways. I based the pork on Diane Kennedy's Cochinita Pibil recipe, and based the mole on Karen Hursh Graber's chicken in mole recipe on Mexico Connect.

Not mine, but it looks close enough

This, for the record, is similar to the mole verde that put my sister-in-law into labor. I wanted to make papadzules, a Mayan enchilada in pumpkin-seed sauce that I had in Mexico City, but I haven't been able to find a good recipe. The mole verde is close, and the pepitas /tomatillo / chile combination is luxurious. And the cochinita gives a pork that is really close to Hawaii's kalua pork - one that's better than anything you can get at the store.

As usual, the amounts here are a guess.

COCHINITA PIBIL
10 pounds pork shoulder, fat left on
6 teaspoons salt
12 tablespoons citrus juice (lemon, lime, orange mix)
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon oregano
24 peppercorns
6 whole allspice
12 cloves garlic, peeled
1 teaspoon smoked hot paprika
1 teaspoon smoked black Turkish pepper
ti leaves
Night Before
Pierce the pork, then rub with salt and 1/3 of the citrus.

Grind the whole spices. Sift in a fine strainer, then grind what's left.

In a molcajete grind the garlic, paprika, pepper, and salt. Add the rest of the citrus juice and the grated lime peel. Add to other spices to form a thick paste. Coat the pork with the paste.

Line a dutch oven with ti leaves. Place the pork on top, and wrap with rest of ti. Marinate overnight.

Cooking

Add about 1/2 cup to 1 cup water. Cook in a 325 degree oven, basting frequently, for 3-5 hours (until meat is falling apart).

MOLE VERDE

1.5 cups pepitas. Toast, grind, sift, regrind until powdery
16 tomatillos, cut into quarters
1 medium white onion, coarsely chopped
4 large cloves garlic, peeled and halved
8 serrano chiles, partially seeded
8 poblano chiles, roasted, peeled, seeded
8 romaine lettuce leaves
6 sprigs cilantro
6 sprigs parsely (or epazote, if I can ever find it)
1 bunch radish leaves
liquid from the pork
lard
Boil tomatillos, onion, garlic, and serranos for 5 minutes. Drain. Add to cuisinart and blend. Add poblanos, lettuce, and radish leaves. Blend. Add herbs and pepitas. Blend.

Heat lard. Add mole. Thin with juices from the pork. Reduce heat, and simmer for thirty minutes or longer. Season with salt.

FINAL

Shred pork. Heat lard in pan. Fry pork. Add mole. Simmer another thirty minutes until flavors have blended.

This makes enough for 40 or more. It's a lot! I don't know how to reduce it, since the pork shoulder is so big.

Next up: Haulani and I have set our Chirstmas party for December 19. I want to try one of the other seven classical moles, but ... since I'll be coming back from Brazil ... a feijoada might be in order. I'll make sure to try a lot of them while I'm down there.

Ayau Results

2008-09-15T12:33:00.003-10:00

Place	Team Name	State	Div	Time
1	Lanikai - Koa	Hawaii	ALL KOA	4:11:45
2	Kui Lanakila Pa'a	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	4:17:17
3	Kailua 2	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	4:21:50
4	Outrigger Koa 1	Hawaii	ALL KOA	4:23:06
5	Hui Nalu 1	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	4:24:24
6	Lanikai 3	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	4:27:09
7	Hui Lanakila	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	4:30:01
8	Kai Opua	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	4:32:54
9	Outrigger 40	Hawaii	MASTERS 40+	4:33:34
10	Waikiki Beach Boys 1	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	4:35:22
11	Keahiakahoe Black	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	4:36:15
12	Manu O Ke Kai	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	4:37:10
13	Kailua 1	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	4:37:12
14	Outrigger	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	4:37:58
15	Healani Blue	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	4:41:03
16	Lanikai 1	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	4:46:02
17	Kailua 50	Hawaii	MASTERS 50+	4:46:30
18	Hui Nalu 40	Hawaii	MASTERS 40+	4:48:02
19	Anuenue 2	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	4:48:56
20	Hui Nalu 2	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	4:49:51
21	Hui Nalu / Team Bradley	Hawaii	MASTERS 55+	4:51:06
22	Leeward Kai	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	4:51:38
23	Lanikai 2	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	4:55:29
24	Kailua 40	Hawaii	MASTERS 40+	4:59:10
25	Waimanalo	Hawaii	MASTERS 55+	5:00:23
26	Waikiki Beach Boys 3	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	5:01:00
27	Healani White	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	5:02:27
28	Anuenue 1	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	5:04:34
29	Lokahi 40	Hawaii	MASTERS 40+	5:05:02
30	Kamamalahoe	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	5:05:41
31	Koa Kai	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	5:08:18
32	New Hope 1	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	5:09:32
33	Lokahi	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	5:11:06
34	Outrigger Koa 2	Hawaii	ALL KOA	5:12:11
35	Koa Kai 55	Hawaii	MASTERS 55+	5:17:07
36	Lanikai 5	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	5:17:25
37	Kamahameha 1	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	5:19:34
38	Kai Paha	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	5:22:16
39	Waikiki Beach Boys 2	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	5:22:31
40	Keahikahoe - White	Hawaii	MASTERS 40+	5:28:12
41	Outrigger 55	Hawaii	MASTERS 55+	5:31:38
42	Kaneohe	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	5:37:08
43	Kai Oni	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	5:38:15
44	Imua	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	5:40:50
45	Honolulu Pearl	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	5:42:06
46	Alapa Hoe 1	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	5:44:03
47	New Hope 2	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	5:47:37
48	New Hope 3	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	5:51:48
49	Koa Kai 3	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	5:52:06
50	Kamehameha 2	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	5:55:10

51	New Hope 55	Hawaii	MASTERS 55+	6:20:20
52	Alapa Hoe 2	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	6:32:38
53	Koa Kai 4	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	6:57:44
54	Pure Light Racing	Hawaii	OPEN GLASS	7:16:21

Henry Ayau 2008 - Redemption

2008-09-14T18:59:00.004-10:00

Our crew did good today in the 32-mile Henry Ayau. We needed it. Mentally, I needed it. I was starting to lose heart in the season, and wondering if I was even cut out for long-distance paddling. I love the culture, I love the guys, I love what it's doing to my body ... but I was seriously suffering in the races. I was tired of being humbled. You reach a point where you're just over it.

Today we ran solid lines. I kept up my strength the whole time (eating every change helped - one change a fruit cup, one change applesauce, poi on one change, etc). I was mostly in seat two and four. I feel good about how I stroked in two. Four was a bit more difficult; I couldn't find the groove as well back there.

In the end we finished in 5:10, roughly. The results should be up tomorrow. It's actually slower than we did last year in our B Crew, but it's hard to compare. The were only small swells, and plenty of areas were flat (though we seemed to ride more than last year). The vog was rough, and you couldn't see Wai`anae for a lot of the race - we just paddled out and into the haze.

The big boys shot ahead, but we caught a great line outside the first buoy and passed lots of canoes. The first change was rough, we lost ground. Gained it back while passing Diamond Head, and then had some great runs going towards Pearl Harbor. Alex took us way outside; I think we were in international waters. There were about three canoes we were battling with. I sailed past one, but couldn't shake the Koa Kai 55+ canoe.

A nuclear sub held up a lot of the boats behind us, and by `Ewa we were pretty much locked in place. We couldnt' catch the boats ahead of us, and then we had some rough spots & Koa Kai and then Lanikai shot ahead.

But it felt good, the whole time. No "what ifs?" or "If onlys." And now I feel a bit refreshed, a bit more prepared for the crossing.

NB 5

2008-09-11T21:21:00.003-10:00

I just got back form our neighborhood board meeting. It was better than some - certainly not the worst. We had a record zero members say they were just concerned for the children, although there was one anti-rail comment that was disguised with an "I'm just concerned for the disaabled."

I only had to get blunt once with the divas.

Nothing of import was discussed or decided upon. We will host a candidates forum next Tuesday, though the mayor won't show up and the Board doesn't want him to send a rep (he might send ... and I'm not making this up ... "one of those professional media people" instead, and they "might be smarter than us and make us look stupid," and the Board wasn't going to tolerate that).

At the end Duke Bainum's rep came up to debate with me. He was one of those guys who only speaks in talking points and spin, and who doesn't engage in conversation so much as try to score points. I didn't have the grace to hide my feelings. When he tried to tell me that HOT lanes stopped traffic congestion completely in Tampa and that every single city in the mainland uses HOT lanes - and I clarified and he repeated, every single one - I just threw up my hands, told the ceiling that there was no point talking to this guy, and walked away. How can you debate someone who lies?

Part of it was my disgust at learning that Duke Bainum is Cliff Slater's bitch. I can't believe we're going to get stuck with this guy representing us. And while I'm not a fan of our mayor, the two alternatives in this election are so bad that I'll end up voting for him out of default.

The Stop Rail Now Lobby

2008-09-11T15:53:00.002-10:00

I found this on the Fire Dr. Panos Prevedorous website. He's a professor at UH who is trying to pass off his lobbying efforts as academic research. Now he's running for mayor.

And the Stop Rail people? The list says it all - cement contractors, automobile dealers, taxi and tour companies, and realtors. It's a pretty damming list.

University of Hawaii, Panos Prevedourous

Paradise Cruises, Reg White, Ronald Howard

Charley’s Taxi and Limousine, Dale Evans

Ampco Parking, Steve Choo

Polynesian Hospitality, Lawson Teshima

Generals Contractors Association, Bill Wilson

Hawaii Automobile Dealers Association, Dave Rolf

Hawaii Asphalt & Paving Association, Les Pederson

Cement & Concrete Products Industry of Hawaii, Tom Arnott

Safety Systems, Al Kanno

Hawaii Transportation Association, Gareth Sakakida

Maritime Consultants of the Pacific, Bill Anonsen

Hawaiian Cement, George Stewart

Robert’s Hawaii, Robert Moore

E Noa Tours, Katsumi Tanaka

Grace Pacific, Bob Creps

Ameron, George West

Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, Jamie Story

Hawaii Activities and Tours Association, Dale Evans, Reg White

Elite Limousin, Eugene (Bucky) Yee

HonCab

Kahala Kai Taxi

Moana Taxi

Pegge Hopper Gallery

Star Taxi, Bob Alfred

The Cab, Howard Higa

Waikiki Taxi

Superstar Hawaii Transit, Ronald Howard, Reg White

Talk Story Magazine, Inc., Mike Fuller

Andy’s Pool Service Corp., Andy Mertz

E.N. Kemp & Associates, Eddy N. Kemp

Maui Divers of Hawaii, Inc., Cliff Slater, Robert Taylor

Small Business Hawaii, Sam Slom

Waikiki Residents Association, Reg White

Hawaii Reporter, Malia Zimmerman

StudioRyan, Eric Ryan

East Hawaii Realty, Walt and Aria Harvey

The Brand Strategy Group, Gloria Garvey and Brook Gramann

Geoffrey Paterson AIA Architect in Hawaii

Henry Ayau Line Up

2008-09-11T11:20:00.005-10:00

Roz named the teams for Henry Ayau this morning. It looks good. We didn't have enough for a master's crew, so shes breaking it up by body size. I like that idea. Now I just need to perfect my mental telepathy and psychicly convince her that we need tall guys in seat two.

Red team

victor, eli, lance, mc, rob, alex, rod, jayson, scott

escort boat driver: holo

Boat coach: sherron

Assistant mark

Wa`a ; Force (kahoepawalu)

Yellow team

dave, lucas, rudy, john, steve, reid, hoku, jonathan, kulani

escort boat driver; mark

boat coach; roz

assistant; ulu

wa`a: Bradley (Manu Kai)

Liliuokalani 2008 Results

2008-09-08T10:41:00.002-10:00

It was a hard race for us ... but I thought for sure we were dead last, and was surprised at the end when I saw how close we were to so many other boats, and even more surprised at how many we beat.

Iron open nonkoa

1. Team Livestrong No. 2 1:54:06
2. Outrigger No. 4 1:56:26
3. Paa 1:57:32
4. Quicksilver-Lanakila 1:57:46
5. Kailua No. 2 1:58:41
6. Tui Tonga No. 1 1:59:17
7. Kai Opua No. 3 2:00:16
8. Keaukaha No. 1 2:02:05
9. Hui Lanikila No. 5 2:02:22
10. Namolokama O Hanale No. 1 2:04:18
11. Outrigger No. 3 2:05:20
12. Hui Lanikila No. 6 2:06:26
13. Waikiki Beach Boys No. 1 2:06:41
14. Kailua No. 1 2:07:15
15. Kihei B 2:08:07
16. Healani No. 1 2:08:40
17. Leeward Kai No. 1 2:09:30
18. Waikiki Beach Boys No. 2 2:11:36
19. Puuwai No. 4 2:11:38
20. Kai Aniani 2:12:01
21. Noosa No. 1 2:12:16
22. Kaneohe-Blue 2:12:19
23. Kaipoha No. 4 2:12:22
24. Vancouver Ocean Sports No. 4 2:14:05
25. Kaiola No. 1 2:14:15
26. Lae Ula O Kai No. 5 2:15:34
27. Hong Kong No. 1 2:15:55
28. Kamehameha Hilo No. 4 2:16:15
29. New Hope No. 6 2:16:29
30. Kaneohe-White 2:17:26
31. New Hope No. 5 2:18:31
32. Keola O Ke Kai No. 1 2:19:09
33. Waikiki Beach Boys No. 3 2:19:27
34. Hawaii Cali Mix Plate 2:19:55
35. Lotus Sports Club 2:20:33
36. Honolulu Pearl No. 2 2:21:11
37. Kawaihae No. 2 2:21:54
38. Puuwai No. 3 2:22:07
39. Alapa Hoe Teal 2:22:40
40. Waikiki Beach Boys No. 4 2:23:55
41. Kahana No. 3 2:23:59
42. Imua No. 3 2:24:55
43. Santa Barbara No. 1 2:25:00
44. Vancouver Ocean Sports No. 3 2:25:43
45. Kukuiula No. 1 2:25:59
46. Waimanalo No. 2 2:27:22
47. Kai Oni No. 1 2:27:55
48. Kihei A 2:28:39
49. Ikuna Koa 2:29:07
50. Koa Kai No. 3 2:30:54
51. Shonan Outrigger No. 2 2:33:23
52. Hawaiian Outrigger Yokosuka 2:34:24
53. Hong Kong Outrigger No. 1 2:34:33
54. Alapa Hoe White 2:34:48
55. Hayama OCC No. 1 2:35:04
56. Kamehameha Honolulu No. 1 2:37:30
57. North Shore No. 1 2:39:40
58. Pukana O Ke Kai 2:41:40
59. Kaipoha No. 5 2:44:45
60. Santa Barbara No. 2 2:45:07
61. Hui Lokahi O Ke Kai No. 2 2:49:16
62. Makapo/NAC No. 1 2:51:05
63. Nca Outrigger No. 3 2:54:21
64. Team Arizona No. 1 2:59:44
65. Kawai 3:06:39

Iron open koa

1. Puna No. 4 2:02:40
2. Tui Tonga No. 2 2:05:53
3. Kai Opua No. 4 2:08:55
4. Outrigger No. 2 2:12:24
5. Kawaihae No. 1 2:18:42
6. Keoua No. 2 2:20:18
7. Keola O Ke Kai No. 2 2:22:48
8. Kai Ehitu 2:25:08
9. Newport Outrigger 2:37:25

Iron masters nonkoa

1. Lae Ula O Kai No. 4 2:10:18
2. Keahiakahoe No. 1 2:17:11
3. Lokahi 2:18:56
4. Kahana No. 2 2:19:42
5. Team Ray No. 1 2:21:42
6. Wai Nui Okanaka No. 5 2:33:09
7. Manu O Ke Kai No. 3 2:34:34
8. Wai Nui Okanaka No. 6 2:46:31

Iron masters koa

1. Kupaa Kailua Kai Kalama 2:14:52
2. Waikoloa No. 5 2:22:53
3. Alapa Hoe No. 3 2:35:32

Iron senior masters

1. Namolo Kama 2:11:12
2. Lanakila No. 4 2:13:21
3. Koa Kai No. 4 2:19:47
4. Kaiola No. 2 2:28:21
5. New Hope No. 2 2:31:24
6. Waikoloa No. 9 2:52:29

Golden masters

1. Waimanalo No. 3 2:13:36
2. Keauhou No. 1 2:18:54

Masters

1. Keauhou No. 6 2:01:58
2. Kai Opua No. 8 2:10:19

Senior masters

1. Keauhou No. 5 2:04:37
2. Team Leighton Kailua 2:07:17
3. Keaukaha No. 2 2:37:48

Iron golden masters

1. Noosa No. 2 2:13:50
2. Team Pacific 2:24:39
3. Keoua/Team Arizona 2:25:32
4. Keoua No. 3 2:31:35
5. Imua No. 1 2:32:06
6. New Hope No. 4 2:33:52
7. Kihei C 2:34:32

Grand masters

1. Outrigger No. 7 2:22:03
2. Anuenue No. 1 2:33:50
3. Waikoloa No. 7 2:43:31

Hawaiian racers

1. Tui Tonga No. 3 2:04:39
2. Mokunui/Big Isalnd toyota 2:05:50
3. Puna No. 5 2:09:46
4. Kaiola No. 4 2:10:33
5. Anuenue No. 3 2:11:25
6. Hanalei No. 3 2:12:01
7. Hualalai 2:14:11
8. Kai Opua No. 2 2:15:51
9. Kawaihae No. 5 2:18:22
10. Laka 2:19:19
11. Ka Mamalahoe No. 3 2:19:28
12. Na Vaa Hanakahi No. 2 2:23:13
13. Kamehameha Hilo No. 2 2:29:11
14. Pure Light Racing 2:31:33

Iron grand masters

1. Anuenue No. 2 2:17:36
2. Great Lake Grand Masters 2:23:48
3. Lanikai No. 2 2:27:21
4. Kamehameha Hilo No. 5 2:50:36
5. Havasu Outrigger No. 1 3:01:35

Nontraditional

1. Team Livestrong 1:55:28
2. Kona Athletic No. 1 2:14:30
3. Waikoloa No. 3 2:22:11

Unofficial

1. Kukio No. 1 2:34:12

Labor Day 2 - Halemaumau, Queen Liliuokalani Iron, and Buddhists

2008-09-08T09:54:00.006-10:00

After our site visit the ladies of Opihikao brought out the food. We ended up hitting the road for the drive to Kailua Kona around noon. Later than I wanted, but we still had plenty of time to make it.

And then, from the road, we saw the volcano ...

The photos in the paper make it look like a really big steam vent. I didn't realize how much of an eruption it really is. I took a detour into the National Park to get a closer look.

This is the view across Kīlauea into Halema`uma`u Crater. Notice the blue skies on the left, and the ash and sulfur-clouded skies on the right. The whole Kona coast is hazy from the eruption.

Dave and I at the vent, on Day 2 of our five-day date. This was the longest second date of my life, with no runners-up even close. And it all went really well, too. I wish I had a photo of him with his ukulele; he's got a great voice, and spent a lot of his free time (not that any of us had much free time) practicing songs he'd learned.

We landed in Kailua Kona late afternoon, and met up with the rest of the Kamehameha team for dinner.

This is what we came for: The Queen Lili`uokalani Canoe Race - an 18-mile iron.

The women left first ...

Kamehameha: white boat, middle left

There were 132 canoes in the women's race, which ran from Kailua Kona to Honaunau. There was some useless drama the week before, and half our women backed out. The three Kamehameha women - Pam, LeAnn, & Ulu - picked up three other women to form a team. There were some novices in the boat, they had never paddled as a team, and they did really well - coming in at 2:47:57, and placing 62nd out of 74 in their division.

The men paddled back, leaving Honaunau around noon.

from left: Victor, Alex, Rudy, MC, Eli, Phil.

We suffered.

And I'll leave it at that.

We wandered Kona on Saturday night. I had heard that the post-race parties were out of control wild. I had a great time ... but it was hardly the wild nights of legend. Sunday we chilled. Monday Dave and I checked in to a "Buddhist Bed and Breakfast," which was really a plantation house in an old village. It was peaceful, but we were the only ones there. It might have been more interesting if there were other guests. As it was, there were lots of ghosts (not that I believe in ghosts) and coqui.

Labor Day 1: Punatics

2008-09-04T09:06:00.003-10:00

I went from work to the airport on Thursday evening, and from the airport to work Tuesday morning. By the time I got home I had been gone six days - close enough to feel like a real vacation, even if I worked a good chunk of it.

I spent Thursday night with Dave at Kalani in Puna. It was nicer than I expected - electricity, rooms with walls, a nice pool and some large hot tubs. I was prepared for yurts and stinky boys with dreds. The whole place had a summer camp for hippies vibe. I felt like I had landed in one of those Southeast Asian backpacker towns - there was a good mix of people, the eccentricity was there in spades but without all the Rainbow-Child Look at me world I'm alternative! posturing you find in the mainland, and people seemed genuinely low key.

So it was a nice place, I'd willingly stay there again (though not if I had to pay full price) - but I still think the workers are being exploited there, and I still think all that damn 'personal growth' talk is silly. It's on the website, it's in the logs, it was scrawled on the bulletin board in the dining hall - Thanks Kalani You Changed My Life. Namaste! I want to tell them, life is change. Paddling changed my life. Being a state worker changed my life. Getting kittens changed my life. Each year changes all of our lives. There ain't nothing magical there.

Friday morning Dave and I drove to Opihikao Church to meet with Kale Gumapac of the Kanaka Council. We are getting a lot of development proposals in that area, and he had arranged for me to do an informal walk along the coast with members of the community.

I was not prepared for how much we saw. The Senior Kahu of the church, Reverend Makuakane, led us down a trail through some thick brush to the coast ...

... to a site with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of burial mounds.

This is not on the maps. This is not in the State records. Surveys mention "some" burial platforms in the area. The surveyors could not have talked to anyone here and missed this - it is a major site. The Kahu thinks that this might have been the burial site for the entire ahupua`a.

We then walked through a hala grove that had been, based upon the evidence we saw, intensely managed since historical times. The terrain in the area is rough and treachorous - jumbled a`a and pandanus roots covering ankle-breaking holes. The ground in the grove was smooth and even - the a`a had all been removed, and the undergrowth cleared so that the hala could grow large. One of the kupuna with us said that this hala was known for it's soft leaves, and was the best kind for weaving.

The archaeological survey for the area missed the hala grove entirely - all they saw was an "undisturbed forest." As one of the activists in the group pointed out: archeologists can only see things made out of rock or bone. They don't know how to recognize living sites.

We had a representative from Hawaiian Affairs there, so at least OHA knows about this also. I'll have to arrange an official visit with all the players so we can get this all on record, and start working on protecting these sites.

Four Day Weekend

2008-08-28T15:57:00.002-10:00

I'm taking tomorrow off, giving me a four day weekend. I'm going to try and cram a week's worth of living into it.

I fly into Hilo tonight, and then drive down to Puna. I'll crash with Dave at Kalani Honua tonight. It's a strange place, an 'eco-resort' where guys from New York and California pay the landowner to work there. They're building him some kind of alternative community, which is all fine and good. I just don't understand the part where people pay him to work for him, although I'm told it's all about the experience. Part of the experience should include a hot tub under the stars, and I'll be fine with that.

Friday morning we'll meet Kale, members of the Kanaka Moku O Keawe Council, and some representatives from Office of Hawaiian Affairs to walk the coast around Opihikao. There are a lot of development pressures in the area, and I'm hoping to learn from these guys more about what we need to protect. As I am on vacation I think we'll have the freedom to explore a bit more deeply than if I was there in my official capacity.

Friday afternoon we drive to Kailua Kona. I've rented a 3BR condo in Keauhou for the race, and was originally going to share it with Dave and the women's crew. Now the women's crew has collapsed, and I don't know for sure who will be there. I'll be out of cell phone range, so I'll find out when they knock on the door.

Hopefully, we have time to stop by Volcano NP. I want to see the new vent at Halema`uma`u.

Friday afternoon we rig. Friday evening I'll cook a carb-heavy dinner for the crews. I picked up a lot of ingredients at Tamura's already - Italian Pomi tomatoes that I hope don't blow up in my luggage, Flott tuna from Sicily, Novia del Sol anchovy-stuffed olives, capers from Turkey, and anchovies. I just don't trust the stores in Kona to have what I want. I'm making pasta all puttanesca, and I'm a picky putta.

OK. Dinner for 16, then we make our ho`okupu, our offering to Kanaloa, for the next days race.

Saturday is the Queen Lili`uokalani Canoe Race. The women will race the canoes 18 miles from Kailua Bay to Honaunau, and the men race the canoes back. We're hoping for calmer waters - the race is long and hot. It's also the largest long distance canoe race in the world - 100 international teams will be competing.

Saturday night is a torch-light parade through Kailua-Kona, and then what is rumored to be a massive and legendary blow-out that night.

Sunday is more racing (not us), then a luau, then Dave and I drive back to Hilo side to Akiko's Buddhist Bed and Breakfast. I'm really looking forward to this place. It's in Wailea, a fading plantation village that seems to have skipped past most of the latter part of the 20th century.

I guess we can relax on Monday.

And then it's back to Honolulu, and back to work, Tuesday morning.

A Hostile Witness

2008-08-27T23:52:00.003-10:00

Just once more, and for the record - and since both of you will end up reading this - I saw two aggressors last week. Two. I did not see a victim and a perpetrator.

I've written my own statement, in detail, that will be ready if I am ever called to testify.

Only I am increasingly confident that I will not be called to testify. Because if I am, I will fuck your cases up. All I have to do is relate what I heard and saw, and then name the other witnesses. The simple truth, and you will both have a credible defense against the other's claims ... and both of your own claims will collapse.

Neither of you can win. Sit back, think about it, and then drop this - as you both should have before it reached this point.

The Interventionist

2008-08-27T16:41:00.003-10:00

Kristin Chenoweth does an intervention, in song ...

Distorted Tunes

2008-08-26T10:53:00.004-10:00

The scientists have spoken. I'm tone deaf. I took the Distorted Tunes Test, and failed. It's not a lack of training, and it's not poor self-confidence; I have a genetic reason for not being able to carry a tune!

I am now officially and forever excused from karaoke night.

Kailua Men's Iron Challenge 2008: Interesting Water

2008-08-25T14:20:00.005-10:00

After last week's Duke Race Jake told me that his favorite races were on the windward side, because the water was more interesting there.

I'm still getting used to "interesting" water. We train so much off of Waikiki that we're a bit spoiled, and we don't always have enough strong steersmen to take all the crews out past Diamond Head and into more challenging waters. Last weekend was my first time in big waves since last year, and so I wasn't totally prepared for this race at all! I did ok; for one of our guys it was his first time in water like this, and ... as he put it ... it was eye-opening humbling. But he kept going, and kept up with us, and sometimes that was all I could manage last year.

Our open crew line-up for the Kailua Men's Iron was Dave S, Lucas, MC, Scott A, Steve, and Alex. Three Novice A's and one B - we were an inexperienced, if older, crew! It's funny being a novice after 40. Each year your skills are going to increase, even if you're strength doesn't.

We had a good practice with this line-up on Thursday. I was playing around with my stroke, trying to work in more leg power. The only part of the Olympics I really watched with any dedication was the 1000-meter C2 sprint canoeing. It was stunning to watch how in synch the men were, and how much power they were getting from using their whole bodies in the stroke.

What I want to be when I grow up

I wanted to bring some of this into the wa`a. And I was dropping more off my seat and onto my knees, and paddling from a lunge position. It worked ... in the relatively flat waters off Waikiki.

It didn't work so well at all in choppy Kailua! We were drenched by a sudden downpour right at the start, and had water in the canoe before we even began. Still we hit hard, and made for the first marker - Mokoea islet, about 2.5 miles offshore.

Mokoea looks so close ...

And we learned real quickly that we weren't as solid as we thought we were! We kept up with the pack until the islet, but past that we watched the other canoes disappear into the distance. We weren't bad, we just couldn't get out groove on in this water. I was having trouble too, and was focusing too much on balance and not enough on power.

Our line was for the right hand side of Mokumanu, an island I never even knew existed until Saturday. Of course I had heard of it, but I thought it was probably just another pile of rocks. Turns out it's a 200' high big chunk of rock surrounded by big waves. And though it was only 2.5 miles beyond Mokoea, it seemed to take ages to get there. And I kept thinking, I'm a master. I'm over 40. I'm a flat water paddler. Why am I in this race? The other master's got to turn right at Mokoea. Why are we still heading another 2+ miles out to sea??? Next year I'm claiming my spot in the masters' crew!!!

and Mokumanu looks so far ...

We took on a lot of water, and had to bail more than the other canoes around us. It was frustrating, as each time Scott or I would stop to bail another canoe would creep past us. Still, it was necessary - last week we learned the hard way what happens when there is too much water in the boat!

OK, so I was tired and sore & vowing never to do this race again before it was half over ... but it was pretty cool seeing Moku Manu up close. It's a seabird colony, and as it's just off-shore of the Marine Corps base it's rare that anyone is allowed near it. A beautiful brown booby sailed past us on the ama side just before the island, and there were hundreds of shearwaters and terns flying around the rock faces. The far side of the island had some sketchy waves, but the leeward side was refreshingly calm & offered us (or at least, me) a nice break from the turbulence of the first five miles.

Life got easier for me on the five-mile downwind run toward the Mokuluas. The swells were still decent, but at least they were predicatble. I relaxed a bit more, and was able to put more power into my stroke. I think the other guys must have been feeling better also - Alex picked a good line to the outside, and we passed 2 or 3 canoes. Yeay. Finally. There was one bad point where I felt pretty light-headed and faint, but I had loaded my camelback with cytomax and a few gulps of that helped it pass.

Passing through the channel between the Mokuluas was fun, as usual. We caught one really fast wave, and that kind of made everything worth it. In the final sprint we were next to a Lanikai boat; we'd creep up on them and then lose power, and they beat us by a couple minutes.

We're still waiting for them to post results. Roz guesses that it took us 2 hours and 20 minutes. The lead canoes finished in 1 hour 50 minutes, so ... we've got some work ahead of us!

SNS Ghosts

2008-08-22T10:32:00.002-10:00

I have zombie profiles all over the web, and I don't know how to kill them. Classmates and Hi5 and Friendster and Plaxo keep reminding me that they miss me and don't I want to come back and see who has said hello? I don't even know what Hi5 is. I tried doing a MySpace page once, but got irritated after five minutes and never went back. My page is still out there, lost. I wonder if it is in an actual place, if there is an actual physical serverin some back corner of North Dakota with a few lines of code devoted to me.

Facebook is fun. I found some old circuit brothers, can drop notes to other paddlers before and after a race, and keep up with my relatives. I discovered I have a cousin named Øyvind Gletne, and that alone was worth the effort.

I want an Ø in my name.

Dance Mixes 2008

2008-08-18T21:42:00.006-10:00

These are some mixes I did earlier in the year. I emailed the links out to my list, and about twenty people downloaded them. Which leaves about 80 downloads each on my account, so I'm tossing them out into the ether. It's all harder dance music, and they're great for a pre-workout pump. I'll post-em on CPI in a week or so, and use up the rest of the bandwidth.

Just click on the link and save the mp3 to file.

Twelve Inches of Summer (July 2008)

This is the tape I made for Allen's Fourth of July party, and we could've blasted it if the cops hadn't have shut down the party. I took the Billboard No 1 Dance Hits for July from 1977 on, and mixed and mashed 'em up.

Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam - Let The Beat Hit `Em (Ultimix)
Bomb the Bass - Beat Dis
Deee-Lite - Runaway
Todd Terry - Something Going On
Madonna - Ray of Light
opus iii - When You Made the Mountain
Maurice - This is Acid
Yazoo - Nobody's Diary
Kristine W - Feel What You Want
Ultra Nate - Free
D Ream - U R The Best Thing
Saint Etienne - Nothing Can Stop Us
Frankie Knuckles - Rain Falls
Everything But the Girl - Wrong
Alicia Keys - Like You'll Never See Me Again
D Ream - U R The Best Thing (Paul Oakenfold Remix)
The Jackson 5 - Forever Came Today
Taste of Honey - Boogie Oogie Oogie
Donna Summer - Last Dance
Tavares - Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel


Wildcats Gotta Move  (June 2008)

This is my experiment with funkier dance beats.

Freedon Dub - Emotional Rescue (2 Many Beats Remix)
Ursula 1000 - The Big Score (Dropped Remix)
Thunderball vs. Liftoff - Welcome Back Cooper
Rex Riddem - Salvador Diaspora (Fk5 Remix)
Club des Belugas - Wildcats Gotta Move (Becker vs. Gaetner Der Lueste Remix)
PM Dawn - Trippin' (DJ Icey Remix)
Freemasons - When You Touch Me
Max Sedgley - Devil Inside (Kraak & Smaak Remix)
Motorcycle - As The Rush Comes
Abba - The Visitors (Best Rollin' Mix)
Fragma - Toca Me (Inpetto 2008 Remix)
Madonna - What It Feels Like for a Girl (Stephane Pompougnac Remix)
Watch TV and the Primetimes - Voodoo Royale (Thunderball vs. Fort Knox Five Remix)
Deep Sensation - Somehow, Somewhere (There's a Soul Heaven) (Maw Dub)
Frankie Valli - Beggin (Pilooski Remix)
Betty Brooklyn - Dirty Things (Sheldon Romero Club Mix)
De-Phazz - The Mambo Craze (Ur Craze Remix)
Woody Herman - Mambo Herd, Part 1 (All Good Funk Alliance Remix)
Godley & Creme - Golden Boy
Godley & Creme - Save A Mountain For Me
Bob Marley - Duppy Conqueror (Fort Knox Five Remix)
Rare Earth - I Just Want to Celebrate (Mocean Worker Remix)

Has Your Man Got Soul (Spring 2008)

And this is standard, vocal happy house.

Erasure - Sunday Girl
Alison Moyet - A Guy Like You
Milk & Sugar - Has Your Man Got Soul (Jamie Lewis Dark Room Mix)
DJ Chus pres. The Groove Foundation - That Feeling (Chris Mucho Drums Mix)
Dario G - Ring of Fire (Young Punx Mix)
Rihannna - Don't Stop the Music (Jody den Broeder Big Room Mix)
Ron Perkov - Live Love Dance (Tony Moran Full Mix)
Amuka - I Want More (Bermudez/Klubjumpers Mix)
Hugo Rizzo feat. Drumkode - The Pursuit of a Dream (Southern Brothers Remix)
3Ficherspooner - The Best Revenge (autokratz Righteous Retribution Mix)
Banco de Gaia - How Much Reality Can You Take? (Jack Dangers Mix)
Roisin Murphy - Let Me Know (Joey Negro Origin)
Boogie Macs - Girl From Ipanema
Titan - Corazon (Nortec Remix)
Erasure - Storm in a Teacup (Koishi & Hush Club Mix)
Paul van Dyk - Let Go (feat. Rea)
Everything But the Girl - Five Fathoms (Club 69 Future Mix Edit)
DJ Chus meets Pete Tha Zouk - There is a God (Paco Buggin Jo)
Banco de Gaia - I Love Baby Cheese (Skippy Mix)
Tamarra's World - Trampoline (Akabu Dub Exploration Mix)
Louie Vega - Africa ... Brasil (Isolee Dawn Mix)
Belle - Surfacing (Rize & 7th Heaven Mix)

Duke Kahanamoku Race 08: Swamped

2008-08-17T19:02:00.005-10:00

Our canoe swamped, half way through the race, and we had to be rescued at sea. Ten more minutes and we would have made the point and been in calmer waters.

But honestly, we were doomed before that. You could feel it there, at the end. In retrospect it almost seems inevitable.

5:00 am: Wake up time. I try to eat, but I'm too nervous & I can't even keep down a cup of coffee. I check the weather reports. There's a southwest swell, strong trades, and a tropical depression off the Big Island. It sounds like it could be messy. I have the usual why do I do this? reaction I always have on race days.

8:00 am: Kailua. The canoe is set and we're ready to go. Nothing to do now but wait. And wait. The race is delayed. We wait. The winds pick up. We still wait. I take a nap in the shadow of the boat.

10:00 am: Holo's Escort Boat. I take the first leg with Eli and Hala in the escort boat. Mark and Rob are on hand to help Roz out. The race won't start until 10:10. The seas are really big. I have the patch on, and hope that's enough. There are 47 canoes in the race. The start, I hear, is a mess. Too many va`a crammed too close together. At least one canoe hulis early.

We wait in the escort boat for Kamehameha to appear. And there we are, a few boats from the end. Damn. I'm not sure how we're so far behind already.

First Run: Waimanalo. Seat 3. I jump in just outside Bellow's Beach. Victor is stroking, and Alex is steering. He's never been in waves that big, but he handles them like a pro. The ama is popping constantly, but we catch it each time. We make good time, and pass some other boats. Our second crew isn't as quick, but we hold our place in the lineup. I can feel the adrenalin coursing through me like ecstacy, and I love these guys in our boat with all my heart.

Second Run: Makapu`u. Seat 3. This was the roughest part in both races last year. This year it was challenging, but it was actually far rougher before this. We're battling with Outrigger and Imua through the channel. We pass Beachboys on the inside, and that feels good. I feel strong, and am not ready to change when I 'm called. Funny how this feels so much less tiring than practice.

Escort Boat: We do a change just past the channel. Alex comes in, and Rod takes over steering. The three canoes are right on top of the rocks, and at one point we collide with Imua. I'm glad I'm in the escort boat for this; it looks scary as hell. I start to get a bit nauseous on the escort boat from being tossed around, and hope that I don't get seasick.

Third Run: Alan Davis. Seat 4. The waves are behind us, and we catch a few runs at the beginning. I had to rock and roll it into the boat from the water - a swell came just as the boat was approaching us, and I had to dive up (not sure how I did that) and swing off the `iaku like a little Chinese gymnast. I'm not sure how I did that either, but I land in the boat. But I feel light headed. We're not running cleanly, and I so don't want to get sea sick but I just can't shake it. I try not to focus too much on the future. Just make it past this, is all I'm thinking. Focus on technique, and don't pass out.

And then on the first change we huli --- outside Hanauma Bay, at almost the exact spot we did last year. The other guys hadn't even made it to the escort boat yet. I'm convinced it was too much water in the canoe. The waves were coming from the side, and the water in the boat sloshed up and put a few extra hundred pounds of force on the downwind side. Over we went. I pop out ok, but Phil seems to be stuck underwater. I can see his hand struggling to free himself, and he finally makes it.

We flip the boat up quickly, and Rudy and I try to bail. Water is coming in fast, but eventually we gett enough out to continue racing. We're all scattered. Phil looks bad, and is still in the water. I dive in and he takes my seat.

So I'm back on the escort boat, earlier than I thought I would be. We let the canoe run another fifteen or twenty minutes, and then Lance and I get back in the water and prep for our change.

Fourth Run: China Walls, Seat 3. I get in the boat, and things are not good at all. You could just feel it. Victor has slown his pace down a lot, but Hala in 2 is having trouble keeping up. I'm greatful for the slower pace, because I'm still a bit light. Behind me Lance is pulling strong. Rod is steering. We seem to be close to the rocks, closer than I like, and we're mostly paddling on the left trying to stop us from flipping and then fuck fuck fuck we're upside down and in the water again.

We get the boat up, but it's fucked. Big waves poinding against the cliff, and we can barely hear the person next to us. OK, we're all ok so far. We right the boat. Victor gets in and tries to paddle us out. I jump in and try to paddle from five. Lance is bailing, and the other guys seems like they're in a bit of a daze. Phil's shoulder is hurt, and he's cramping. Water keeps coming in. The canvas is broke where I am, and it won't close in seat six either, and every wave dumps water in the boat and it's faster than we can bail and we're not going anywhere with the paddling and then it's too late, not that we even had a chance. The boat is swamped. The gunnels are underwater. We can't get out.

Holo tosses us a rope. It gets tangled in the canoe. I can't hear Roz or Holo, and we have no idea what they're yelling at us to do. And I am so tired from hanging on, and I go under every other wave, and it looks like everyone else is struggle also. We try to tow the boat a bit, but the back rim, where the rope was tied to on Holo's boat, comes ripping off.

I don't know how long we were out there. No one had any strength left. I'm burned, I swallowed so much water - it was rough. Lance and I swim to a fishing boat that was nearby; Phil is cramping and can't let go of the canoe. But even if we had experience and technique down, our canvas was torn up and we were taking on water.

We all survived. We stuck together. That's the key. We're still a team. We had beers and barbecue after and processed it and found a few things to laugh about, amid all the drama.

But I'm gonna have some scary dreams tonight.

*************************

Monday: I am so sore and beaten up today. I slept well, though!

The results are in. I thought that 46 canoes started off from Kailua; only 38 finished the race. We saw at least one with a broken iaku, and had heard that another boat had gotten caught on the reef outside Diamond Head.

Lanikai finished first with 2:58.42, followed by Outrigger with 3:04.29. Healani, with Jake, Romos, and Aweau, finished at No. 22 with 3:35.33. Of the canoes we were battling with at the channel, Outrigger 55s pulled out ahead to finish at No. 28 with 3:45.23, and Imua came in at No. 34 with 3:57:14.

Kahanamoku 08

2008-08-16T19:41:00.003-10:00

We have a solid crew for tomorrow: Victor, Eli, Rudy, Lance, Hala, Phil, Alex, Rod, and myself. Conditions might be rough, but we should be competitive.

I had hoped to join Dan and his mom on their circle-island drive today, but had a rare rational moment and backed out. It's a good thing, as we didn't finish rigging the boats until 2:30. I got in an hour nap, and a fair amount of eating, into the rest of the day. Did my prep work, and picked up all my gels and liquids. I still need to do some pre stretching, and do one more round of carb-loading. I'd be dying if I had joined them & still had to do all this tonight. I needed the rest, too - I've been fighting off that stupid cold that's been going around.

Had a busy day yesterday, and got to spend a fair amount of time with Dan. We went surfing in the morning, and Dan managed to catch one really solid wave - his first one ever! Had a lot of shorter rides after that. In the afternoon we went to Chinatown, then to the Nu`uanu Pali. Evening it was Waikiki Nei, which Peter has really punched up a lot. The result is spectacular; it should have a solid run. After it was a round of mai tai's at the Moana, then a seemingly long run of shopping. We had planned dinner tonight, but it's already to late for me ... so hopefully I get to see them again tomorrow before they leave.

Back to the race: last year it took us 4 hrs 18 minutes, in six segments, with rough conditions. Three of us were first-year Novice B (Lance, Chris, myself) and no second-year Novice A. This year we have four Novice A (Eli, Lance, Phil, mself) and the rest are more experienced. Should be a good run.

Foretaste of Kona

2008-08-14T21:50:00.002-10:00

We had five boats in the water tonight - it looks like we might have a women's crew after all! My crew was Victor, Alex, Eli, Me,open, and Hala. It sounded like a superstar line-up, but we struggled. I'm not sure why. Eli thinks that Victor has a unique stroke, that he hits before you're expecting him to. That's a good thing, but we're not used to it and we spent the time trying to keep pace.

We juggled a bit and tried Victor, Eli, Hala, MC, with Alex steering. And we flew - the canoe seemed to fly off the waves. And that's pretty close to our Kona lineup (Victor, Eli, Phil, MC, Rudy, Alex). We should do well!

Roz will name crew tomorrow for this weekend's race. I think the four of us are in, but can't be sure. Hope so.

Now, though, I need to grab a nap. I am so incredibly tired, and was aiming to call in sick all week at work, for at least half a day, but there just wasn't the time. Dan gets in in an hour, so that's time enough for a quick refresher! Lucky thing tomorrow is a holiday.

Deconstruct This:

2008-08-14T09:16:00.004-10:00

The headlines are all over the place today: American Whites to be a Minority in 2042.

And yet, no where in any of the articles does anyone back this headline up with straight-forward facts. Read it carefully ... each of the authors is very careful to only report a fraction of the story, and to leave out any numbers that contradict the dramatic headline. They can only say "Whites will be a minority" by excluding all Caucasians of Latin descent from the count. Otherwise, the numbers seem to hold: the US will be 76% Caucasian in 2042.

OK now, race is a social construct and there is no real science behind terms like "white" or "black;" while "Asian" covers such a wide range of cultures as to be an almost worthless term (Japanese, Russians, and Israelis are all technically Asian, yeah?), and "Latin" is a culture (and since California probably has more folks of Spanish descent than Argentina couldn't we argue that everyone born in California is also Latin?).

And so I'm wondering what the motivation is behind all these headlines. I can't tell if they're based on fear mongering, or wishful thinking, or what. I do know that the only way to make the headlines true is to exclude anyone whose recent ancestors spoke Spanish from the definition of white. Racial classifications are stupid and irrational enough, but this seems to be stretching things a bit much.

Gauguin in the ER

2008-08-13T23:42:00.003-10:00

Emily called yesterday from Queens. She had gone to the ER with chest pains at 1am, and was admitted a few hours later. I went down to check on her, and she didn't look good. She had lost her cell phone, her boyfriend's phone was busted (of course), and she couldn't reach anyone from the community.

I only have a few numbers, but managed to reach Theo and gave him a brief rundown. Not that I knew much: her blood pressure had fallen, her chest and lower back hurt, and she was scared. The doctors were going to run some tests. "OK." said Theo. "I know what this disease is."

I don't know what he meant by that. Did he mean that he understood my broken Chuukese? Or that he could diagnose her with such little information? His father - and my uncle - was one of the island's top navigators, and his father's father was famous for his knowledge of traditional medicine. Knowledge in Chuuk is guarded closely, so most of us outside any given lineage never know what has been lost and what has been secretly preserved. Theo is the de facto steward of the Re Fananu in Honolulu; I assume he learned a lot from his father.

So maybe he can tell things the western doctors can't.

This morning the traditional doctor called me in to translate. Emily has an infected gall bladder, and they want to remove it. The best I could manage worked out to "there is this thing, small thing, right about here near your stomach, and it is sick, and they want to open you and take it out and throw it away. They will enter you through your belly button with this other thing, this tube thing, unless that doesn't work, then they will cut you open."

That didn't calm her down much. It was the best I could do with my low-level fluency.

I went back in the afternoon, and some of the Fananu women were there, all piled on the bed around Emily. One was massaging her forhead, and the other massaging her hips and thighs. And this is part of Chuukese medicine that I really liked - it is heavily touch and massage based. They can do incredible things with massage - from birthing babies to setting broken bones to clearing infections.

It is not Western, or even Asian, style massage. It can be brutal, and it can hurt. A lot. As in, have your friend hold you down hurt. They were gentle with Emily; they were doing it more to calm her down and ease the pain. And it looked for all the world like a Gauguin painting, only set in a hospital room. There was a beauty there, in a culture learning to navigate in a foreign world, in knowledge surviving modernity, and in the basic humanity of it of family watching out for family.

Meteors and Rain

2008-08-11T21:19:00.004-10:00

Now it rains. We're in a frakkin' drought, my garden needs the rain, the islands need the rain, we all need rain ... I just wish it wasn't tonight. An hour ago we had light cloud cover, and could see the stars and moon clearly.

In ninety minutes I'm supposed to meet a group at Hula's to take them to Makapu`u lighthouse for a night hike to watch the Perseids. We had about fifteen guys ready to go, plus a handful of 'maybes.' I was looking forward to it. I took a nap afterwork and everything. And woke up to the gentle sound of falling rain.

I'll play it by ear, I guess.

_____________________

10 pm - The rain seems to be drifting west. We're heading east. I just talked to Tom, and he's still game, so there are at least two of us. That's all I need.

_____________________

Three Brazilians walk into a bar. I walk out.

If only it were that easy. These guys have some kind of preternatural gift for skewing the best laid plans.

11pm, and Jake and Tom are en route to Makapu`u, and Kristine will meet us out there. Everyone else has decided to stay home. They all had to process first, though: Should I go? It's up to you. Do you think it will rain? I don't know. Chance 'em. Will we even see anything? I don't know. It's an adventure. You just go, and see what happens. Not everyone seems to understand that adventures, by definition, don't have guaranteed outcomes. Sometimes you get wet.

I decide to swing by Hulas to see if there are any surprise visitors. Paulo while I'm on the road, and he and Tanea are coming and can I wait for them it will only be ten minutes? Sure. I'm surprised - I really didn't think he'd make it.

I walk into Hula's. I see Paulo's boyfriend sitting at the corner of the bar with an old man pressing into his space and buying him drinks. And I can see the future. I can name this drama in three notes. I head out, and wait in the lobby.

Twenty minutes. No Paulo. No Tanea. I'm late, for the hike I organized. Frakkin amazing. I hit the road.

_____________________

We lucked out. There was no rain at all on the east side. There were a lot of clouds, and I misjudged where the moon would set, but we still managed to see about half a dozen shotting stars each in the breaks in the clouds. And it was fun just being out there at night, meteors or no. And after bad mouthing them a bit, I was pleasantly surprised when Paulo and Tanea really did show up around 1am.

And in the end six was just about the right number for the night.