The Pele Farm, Hau'ula, Oahu Hawai'i

Here are some flicks I promised, visuals for the farm. Size: just shy of 5 acres, situated at the base of the Ma'akua Gulch Ridge. Cleared to the top of the boundary in August 2007. What a release of energy! hau'ula flows different now, just a bit...things is loosened, and we are grateful that Maui was able to usher that phase in. We mourne the fact that he is being held at O.C.C.C. and pray that he returns home (foki ki api) as soon as is humanly or angelically possible.

The Artist and Society: BioPolitics of the Condemned Body

"Katchafire" Concert Review: Kahuku High School, Home of the Red Raiders, Oahu, Fundraiser for Big Boyz Football League (?), Labor Day (9/4/07)

This was the last concert on Katchafire's U.S. Tour, which commenced on July 25th. Note Maori ending, and two or three hana ho songs. Conversation with Samoan cop, noted that the football field was not the venue (my suggestion/question) because of crowd control issues.
Photos by Lea Lani Kinikini.

2 guitars,
1 bongo drum set
drum set
sax
keyboards (2)
vocals-all

Recommendations: Visual Slide Show on projector to emphasize Fundraiser, Band, etc.

'Aina as teacher

I've been totally occupied by farming, and have tied in some research about educational community farming....its going to be very interesting to write now that i've experienced the past couple months.

First of all, my greatest teacher thus far has been the 'aina....I used my savings of $1400 to hire a bulldozer to open up the remaining three acres that stretch up to the mauka, and never realized how sanitized my life had become. And in case I haven't ever mentioned this before, I'm talking about our family farm here in Hau'ula. Pictures to follow. And currently I'm brewing ideas for community development---how participatory methods speak to community development processes. The Pele Farm in Hau'ula is one of my case studies in this applied research.

I'm gearing up to transition again, this time to Tonga, for a four month stint, to complete my participatory film projects. I've just purchased an imac on ebay which is being UPS'd out here, its got all the film making and music making software, so my open house idea for music and art making LIVES. This will be very coooooool, for I've been meeting artists nonstop and the prospect of bringing music and inner vision to the outer world and work, will be fruitfull.

Media, Priests and Mad Men

I just watched the new cable tv show on AMC, called "Mad Men". Its set in an advertising agency in New York in the 1960s. Its a good show--really well-written and acted with a clear tone of authenticity, from the perfect wardrobe to the camera eyeing between nice long takes of interesting conversation, that like building blocks is coded into plots...the social customs really standout, like the cigarette smoking, the females in the workplace what the 90s begin to call sexual harrassment. Anyways, the episode today had one of the ad execs have a conversation with a hippie-beatnik type, and this hippie-beatnik accuses the ad exec of being basically a high priest (media is a vessle, an oracle) of the new capitalist religion of mass consumerism...somewhere I've read and copied down the phrase "it wasn't the oracle, it was the priest behind the oracle"---(that must be from a movie).

Hau'ula

snapshots of hau'ula

The ridge of pine trees that casts a long shadow over Hau'ula sets it apart from the other villages on the Northshore. Right before the Mormontown of Lai'e, Hau'ula is what some would call a castaway, or throwaway community. In a close reading of the politics of the Northshore, the capitalistic enterprise of La'ie (which includes BYU-Hawai'i and the Polynesian Cultural Center) dominates the three sister villages which line this end of the Ko'olau mountain range: Hau'ula, La'ie and Kahuku. La'ie is a space in the Mormon collective imagination, one of particular meaning-making for LDS people in the Pacific, but also for Euro-American LDS from the continental US.

White kids from the continent come to school here at BYU-H to get an education. Some come to surf, and enjoy the land of music and flowers, like my mother in 1962.

Life stories can begin in a number of time-space crossings. I guess you could say mine began at the star-crossed meeting of two lovers who both enrolled at the Church College of Hawai'i (now BYU-H). La'ie and the campus of BYU-H holds memories for my parents, who met and courted between the meticulously manicured lawns and soft beach breezes of girls Hale 3 and boys Hale 5. For me, La'ie is a place where the speed limit drops to 25 from 35, where only McDonalds and Chevron are open on Sundays, and where no alcoholic beverages are sold.

I'm certainly not a local by any means, not by a long shot. I'm one who passes through. But I do feel rooted in some way to Hau'ula, where the pine trees on Ma'akua Gulch Ridge always cast a striking silhouette against an often sea-grey clouded sky.

The weather differs in marked ways between Hau'ula and La'ie. The Ma'akua Gulch is like a suction cup that calls clouds from the sea up its narrow cleavage, and often these clouds carry wetness that falls as they prepare to journey up the Mountains which are a green majestic core at the center of O'ahu. While Hau'ula is marked by this sea-grey cloudiness and precipitation, a mile down the road, as one approaches La'ie, right before one gets to the PCC, the sun bursts forth and shines more days than in Hau'ula. Those LDS builders who foresaw the tourist boon that has become Hawai'i really picked the spot.

Place and Time Collide in Tonga July 07

I am about four weeks into my 'fieldwork', and its like that scholar whats-her-name said, its more like "homework". I attended the TRA conference in Tonga, July 11-14.

From memory, I think that poet Kalo Mila summed it up the feelings of the TRA academic thought waves which pulsed in Nuku'alofa, she said it in a poem she composed just for the event, and read on the closing day. She is really a wonderful poet! I spoke with her briefly because I had heard of a poem she wrote about the flames of 16/11, and she directed me to her blog site at Huia Publishers, where I found the poem...which will be great to discuss when I open my chapter about Eyewitness Accountings of 16/11...that chapter will be about the eye-witness verification for narrative knowledge aka "storytelling".

a spade in black and red
a line of thought
deep rooted to the sky
tou'a and Filipe Tohi
a spade in black and red
as he flicks the line of thought
earth it breaths
that clings to the root
up into my sky
Something I heard today:
john jones
the dead man's chest
has john jones heart
our rectangle, national flags form the shape of a coffin

Streets

Films to consider for media nights:

Scarface (1932)
Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
Godfather (1972)
Black Caesar (1974)
Scarface (1983)
Goodfellas (1990)
Menace II Society (1993)

Rain, Laughter, Storytellers

The rain began pouring an hour into my emailing session. Its steadily pitter-pattering, and I'm contemplating whether to wait it out, or not. I sit here in town, not so contentedly, but with an urge to write. The thing is to write without anything to say, seems futile. Okay, so I'll describe a common practice here in Tonga. Not sure what its called, I'll find out and get back to you. But this is soooo common, its rainbathing....so it happens when it rains and pours, then you go outside with a bar of soap and just take a big ass rainbath, clothes and all....I mean like people (mainly youth) are walking around the streets of Nuku'alofa with suds coming off their heads and lather on their limbs with broad smiles of abandon spread like mad across their faces ...enjoying every minute of it. Laughter upon laughter, as if its accessible from an undending supply. The laughter isn't contagious to me --- but I'm curious, at how this deeply welled kata is sourced --- even in my wildest fancies, I don't laugh like this, I just couldn't laugh like this, just wouldn't know where to start...perhaps its the reserved nature of my Danish ancestry---the strongest line in my maternal pedagree---that keeps me from this explosive way of expressing humor, joy, and ultimately, what seems like transcendence of the individual ego...even my Tongan women relatives are more on the quiet contemplative side of the fence...some aunties are gossipers, but my father says its from the 'Uiha side, because the "Fahefa side never gossip like that", he says...my auntie here (dad's younger sister) is joyful, and her children gather round her like planets around a sun...her laughter is loud, her eyes beam like pillars of light when she talks and laughs...and although I have no idea what is so funny (boy do I feel outa place, again), I am simply amazed at the conjuration (is that a word?) of pure laughter... at the power... much like how I marvel at men who fight, men who kill... a couple dudes from the states smashed these two other dudes from the states friday night at Billfish...crack! crack! and the two unfortunates lay on a heap against the back wall, a lump on the floor. It was really hilarious, but so silly you know? Later it gave us something to talk about, and even a little laugh...
I diagnose myself as missing this laughing gene, while inheriting too many contemplative, thoughtful genes. I wish I were a navigator...these genes seem well-suited to long journeys on the sea...Laughing and violence rock the boat...meditating, contemplating, thinking things through bring us to safe harbor, and propel us on a stable line between disconnected stars...we are the storytellers.

Detour Middlemore Hospital

I took the wrong bus on Friday. This slightly threw me off because I didn't have time to stop off at the cheap copy shop (5 cents) to run off some articles from all my gangster film books from the library.
I ended up taking the bus to Middlemore Hospital. I got off. I went inside and got a chai latte. The two girls at the coffee shop were cheerful and pleasant, but the service was incrediby slow. I browsed one of the gift shops owned by an Indian lady. I purchased a thank you gift for my fam bam here, a grey wooden placard with a blessing written on it. I waited while my chai was done, then I went out to wait for the bus going in the opposite direction.
Three school girls chattered away, and I noticed their different styles of talking: one was loud and even broke into song occasionally to dominate the floor. One was supportive, and offered laughter to punctuate the loud one's comments and stories. The third was silent and listened.
Soon, a man, maybe in his sixties came and sat down by me, he was in a robe and slippers, wearing glasses, holding a plastic to-go container of cut melons. It looked sanitized and dead (the fruit). In his other hand he had a pack of loose tobacco.
Without looking up at me, he says, "Its an awful place." Of course I know what he means: walking through the hallway with my chai latte, I smelt sickness, stagnant illness, and slow death brewing below....I could not smell the life.
He went on to conversate, he was hungry to share his story. I learnt he was an engineer, and before that he worked on ships and owned his own "trawler" sailing the seas. He told me he had patented this invention thingy that somehow made electricity from methane in sewers and that he made a lot of money selling the patents to companies that needed carbon credits. I wonder if he's crazy. (Crazy people are attracted to me, I don't know why). He tells me he's got some kind of vascular cancer, that its "springing leaks all over the place". He's found out just two months ago, and since then he has been coming in for days at a time for cancer treatments. A man in a blue sports coupe whizzes by the bus stop, where me, the school girls, the sick man sit waiting for Godot. The sick man says, "That's my doctor, in that blue car." And then, as an aside, "He lets me smoke..."
"....You don't know how lucky you are," he says and I shrink knowing that my morning was spent in my mind worrying about my damn photocopying and in irritation at my getting on the wrong bus.
"Do you have any children?" I ask.
"A son, he's in Australia, I haven't seen him in years. I've been trying to get ahold of him." His son is 22. His wife passed away a few years back.
An hour of waiting for the bus (Auckland buses are slow, unreliable I've noticed), my bus comes, I get up to leave. I can tell he still wants to talk. With a longing in my heart for peace of mind for this ex-engineer with cancer, I say, "Take care, it was nice talking to you."
The next day, I stop at the Mangere Presbyterian Church cemetary on my jog. The gravestones date from the turn of the century, many of them are immigrants from Scotland. I breath deeply. I let my thoughts slip away as I try to feel every bit of life that courses through me. You don't know how lucky you are, he said as he puffed a rolled cigarette...
The smell of death lingers with me.
I do know how lucky I am. I just don't always feel it...."Let me feel life," I pray to the crumbling gravestones.

Walking Papers

Coincidence. As per usual, come Thursday and I have the strong urge to visit the Moana-ki-Nui recreation center, where $2 gets you admission into a chlorinated hot water spa. As per usual, I take some reading material, so that 1) I can avoid talking to fellow spa-goers & 2) actually finish must reads (more for #1 as of late, pushed by #2). I was reading Sometimes Rhythm, Sometimes Blues: Young African-Americans on Love, Relationships, Sex and the Search for Mr. Right, edited by Taigi Smith. All of a sudden a dozen Samoan men (mostly young with a few older ones) make big waves as they wade into the spa, I keep my cool, however it was short-lived....the temperature of the water immediately rose miraculously. I don't know if it was the amount of people in the spa, their testosterone, my estrogen, or just the faulty jet streams and piping, but whew, was I hot. However, too ma (embarrassed) to leave in a bikini in front of a dozen gazing admirers (at least I hope they would admire), I sat in the spa for a full hour, waiting for them to leave first...which they did, all the while I ignored furtive glances, and even comments made by the bolder (more obnoxious) youngbloods, who said in Samoan something about me studying. Yes, I was studying, studying a book full of short essays written by a range of Black men and women about one thing: the rhythm and blues we call "love"...
...On my walk home from the Moana-ki-Nui spa, I pick up four pieces of white paper, stapled together. It is the walking papers ("release licence") from the Dept of Corrections of NZ, for "offender subject to short-term sentence who is released from prison or home detention on court-imposed conditions". The offendors name: William James Parata, #139222. Date of release: 15 Dec 2004. Prison: Mt. Eden Mens, "Where you have been serving a sentance of imprisonment, which started on 24 Nov 2004, for the offence(s) of: Default in payment of fine, driving in a dangerous manner, drove under influence drink/drugs-3rd/Sub, other assaults with weapon."
I've got my walking papers. I leave on Monday for Tonga..."fieldwork", which in my case, is "Homework"...I will be taking a journey to find my homes.
I see finding the walking papers of William James Parata another coincidence, a sign that I am on a path, that is not 'right' nor 'wrong'. I'm on a path that, simply stated, is authentically mine. And no one has ever walked this path before. Somewhere recently (I think in the book "Participatory Methods") someone wrote that there is a saying that says "A path is made by walking. Paths don't exist until someone makes the first steps." Or something to that effect. My passion for prison abolition remains. Who is William James Parata? Is he still on the streets? Or did he become another recidivist offender? His crimes were fairly minor...and he served only three weeks of a six month sentence. However, I 'm thinking if this guy was in the states, and was a non-citizen, and committed the same crimes, he would probably be deported to his native country. "Assaults with weapon" sounds to me like an "Aggravated Felony" ala IRA-IIRA 1996.
How did WJ Parata's walking papers get here, to the Bader Dr. sidewalk nearly three years after they were first distributed? And the paper is still white, looks like its been indoors for ages. I can still see the bends in the paper, as if it had been folded in an envelope. Up at the top in blue ink is handwritten "copy" (looks like a girl's writing). I deduce that this must be WJ's actual copy. Where are you WJ? I hope you are free, and having a good, loving life.

"Education of the Chieftan" by Pablo Neruda

Se hizo crystal de transparencia dura.
Estudio para viento huracanado.
Se combatio hasta apagar la sangre.
Solo entonces fue digno de su pueblo.

He became glass of transparent hardness.
He studied to be a hurricane wind.
He fought himself until his blood was extinguished.
Only then was he worthy of his people.