Consider Me Entertained

Did you check out "Entertain Me" Saturday night  on KHON?  It's a new, locally produced variety show like in the "old days" (i.e. when there were no remote controls and you had to stand up and change the channels).  No voting or judging, just plain entertainment: singers, dancers, jugglers, comedians, etc.'  Yay, no mindlessly hitting "redial" over and over for 2 hours.  Huh, what?  Not me, why would I waste my time doing that?

If you're over "a certain age," and grew up in Hawaii, you might recall "Televi Digest" with Barbara Kim.  Oh my goodness, I haven't thought of that show in ages!  "Televi Digest" was a similar variety program featuring Hawaii's amateur performers.  When I was 11 or so, I, along with a couple of other students, performed a tap dance on the show.  Sadly there was no videotape or youTube in those ancient times, so I have no "proof" that I performed on TV.  *LOL*  And maybe that's a good thing, since I don't think we were exceptionally good.  Oh well, at least I can say I appeared on local television a few times.  [FYI I just learned that "Televi Digest" went off the air in 1965, the very year we performed on the show.  Remember my blog post about all my former employers going out of business after I quit?  Spoooooky, huh?]

My favorite performer on the debut of "Entertain Me" was Grant Uchida.  I'm not sure if there's an official genre label for his music--he does parodies of popular current songs as well as his own original compositions--but let's just say he does music comedy like Weird Al Yankovic.  Possibly because he's part of the younger generation, his lyrics are a bit edgier than Al's, I think.  Nevertheless, I thought he was funny and liked his style.  Check out this video.  It's not quite as good as his television performance because it was done on his friend's porch, complete with someone sneezing, friend's laughter, and other extraneous noises.  Das ok, still funny to me....

The rest of "Entertain Me" was "alright". I want the show to succeed because it's good for the performers to have the exposure, and it's good for us viewers to see Hawaii's talent. I still can't get over one performance, not because the singer pretty much butchered "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey, but because there was actually a scrolling caption on the screen as he sang with an apology and a long explanation of why they didn't edit this guy out of the show (he's a nice guy, he told us he had a good range, he had to wait six hours to perform, on and on).  Whaaaat?!  I sat there wondering if it was a cruel joke. and I felt bad for the guy.  He would have been better off performing on "Televi Digest"-- no scrolling captions in those days or any lasting public evidence of his performance to haunt him later!

ESP Must Need Vitamins

I've been having a dry spell. I haven't had a "coincidence or not?" moment in a couple of months. I won't go so far as to claim I have ESP, but a couple of years ago I started to write down some "coincidence or not?" moments. I do believe in the "paranormal" and you have to admit that there are forces in nature that we have not yet defined, much less understand. Here are a few of my interesting moments from the past 3-4 years:

• My husband was mowing the grass on the easement between our yard and the street. I crossed the street to check the mail and because the grass by the mailboxes was long, thought "He should mow over here by the mailboxes!" Then I thought "Well why would he do that, he'd never cross the street to mow! Crazy!" That night on the way home from a party he said "I mowed by the mailboxes today!" That was the first time he ever did that.

• After almost FIVE YEARS of wearing braces, Jordan's braces were supposed to come off very soon. The day she was scheduled to visit the orthodontist, I thought to myself "Even though it took almost 5 years, at least we were lucky she didn't have to wear headgear or rubberbands." When Jordan came home that afternoon, not only did she still have her braces on, she had on RUBBERBANDS!!

• On a visit to Honolulu my husband and I had a conversation about Woolworth's Waikiki where I was an assistant manager almost 30 years ago. Although I had worked with about a dozen other managers, the first "I wonder what happened to..." that I thought of was Cornell Lam. I'm not sure why since I hadn't been any closer to him than the others. Well just a couple of days later, we went to Ross, one of our favorite Honolulu stores which we always shop at. I was on my way out after paying and noticed a free-standing sign near the door saying "Store Manager: Cornell Lam".

• We went to Mini Garden Chinese restaurant on another trip to Honolulu. I was hanging my purse on the chair back and thought "I'd better zip it closed in case the waitress spills food on it". I don't recall thinking like that before. Well before our food arrived, a waitress dropped a milky drink behind me which splashed on me.

• On the ABC news show "20/20" they featured a story on Dubai and how the city is developing in such an ostentacious fashion. They showed workers who were virtually slaves from other countries. I thought to myself "I should write to Essar to warn him against going to work in Dubai." Essar is an internet friend of mine from Pakistan who talked about wanting to emigrate somewhere (he never mentioned Dubai). The very next day I checked my email and found he'd written me a couple of days ago saying he was living now IN DUBAI and enjoying being in a new environment. Happily, he was employed by the same employer he'd been working for in Pakistan (TV company).

Now before you think that I'm able to ask for things and they happen, fuggedaboudid! I go to Vegas every year and no amount of imagining myself winning a jackpot has ever paid off!!

I have more stories similar to these that I shall share later. Meanwhile I'll try to think of reasons I haven't had as many of these cool coincidences this year...I may be lacking some essential nutrient (ice cream, I hope)...or maybe not exercising enough?
Right now it's past midnight and time to read my Stephanie Plum!

My Smokey Robinson Story

From what my readers have been telling me--hehe, "my readers" sounds pretty impressive, but for all you know it might be three very loyal friends-- many people start blogs and fail to maintain them. As Cousin Al said, "Make sure you take care of it and 'feed it' often."

Weeeelll I'm pretty busy this week, so I'll feed you a "re-broadcast" instead. I wrote this about 12 years ago, but it's pertinent because it's still a major story in my hermitesque life and also, we recently saw Smokey again after 12 years. So here's the story:

If you ever get a chance to see Smokey Robinson perform in person, don't miss it...you'll love him. And if you happen to sit up front in the first row, be forewarned...you'll FALL IN LOVE with him...anyway, that's what happened to me when I first saw him perform live in Las Vegas! Must be those green eyes??

Whatever it was, it turned me from a Smokey fan into a Smokey fanatic! I started buying every Smokey tape and CD I could find. I read Smokey's autobiography then other Motown biographies and books...they all fascinated me. In the 60's when Motown was at it's peak I was too busy being a Beatlemaniac to care much about Motown music, so this was all "new" to me...and fun!

I had two new purposes in life now:to see Smokey perform again and to MEET him. I decided to write to him to let him know how he touched my life and just as I finished the letter, I had this great idea. I bought one of those disposable cameras and sent it with the letter, a couple of goodies from Hawaii and a stamped self-addressed envelope. I asked him to please have someone snap a couple of pictures of him and mail me back the camera in the envelope (you have to make it convenient if you want a response!)

Well I didn't hear anything for almost two months so I figured that was that. Then one day while I was taking an afternoon nap the phone rang. It was Ivory Stone--Smokey's back-up singer for over 20 years now. I recognized her name immediately and wondered if I was dreaming. She told me they thought the camera was a great idea and she'd been snapping pics of him while on tour... but she'd lost the camera at O'Hare Airport! She promised to buy another one and send me the pics ASAP. After we hung up I was SO excited and wanted to tell someone about it. My dad, who was visiting me, had been outside in the yard and when he came into the house I blurted out the whole story. He told me "Are you sure you weren't dreaming?" I said "Well, didn't you hear the phone ring?" He said no....ARRRGH! *LOL*

I waited very impatiently and finally THE PACKAGE arrived, full of goodies (tshirts, concert program, autographed 8X10, etc.) and THE PHOTOS!! Ivory explained that this had turned out to be a photo fiasco because after she had lost the first camera, the pictures she took with the second camera turned out badly and so she finally used a "real" camera and took a third roll. She sent me over a dozen pics of Smokey. Most of them showed him in different stage outfits, obviously she took a pic every night before he went onstage. It occurred to me that if she went through three rolls of film before she finally got a good set, then he had to pose about 30 times... OH MY GOD...he is a true prince to have put up with THAT!!! I had wanted him to remember me, but not as the fan that made him pose 30 times!! *LMAO*

I wrote back to Ivory to thank her for all her efforts and asked her to let me know when they'd be in Las Vegas again. A few months later she sent me a note saying they'd be there in March so my husband and I were able to plan another vacation to Vegas then. We ended up seeing Smokey's show 3 TIMES (I'm blessed with such a sweet, patient husband who puts up with my crazy whims *g*) and got to meet Smokey and Ivory backstage. My dream come true! He was exactly as I expected: gorgeous and unbelievably gracious--even when someone tried to "rescue" him from me because I was taking up too much of his time, he didn't rush off. He was very patient with me while I did my "Kathie Lee" bit, showing him a picture that my daughter drew, making him autograph it, etc. I will truly remember my Smokey Encounter for the rest of my life...but considering what I put him through, I think I'll give him a few years before I ever try meeting him again!!

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Well, I gave him 12 years and truth be told, when I found out he'd be performing at the Waikiki Shell, although I fully intended to attend the concert, I didn't feel it necessary to try to meet him again. Until...Jordan asked to meet him. As giving her as many unique experiences as we're able to is important to us, I felt obligated to make this happen for her. Luckily Ivory Stone had not moved and I was able to write her and again bribe her with dark chocolate mac nuts. Nah, she would've done it for nothing, she's such a nice person. She put me in touch with Smokey's manager and we were even offered free tickets (but I had already purchased them).

Smokey was even more amazing twelve years later. I urge you to see him perform if you get a chance. He is not a NARAS Living Legend for his past glories, he can still out-sing and out-entertain most young musicians popular today. What's more, he's a gracious prince of a man, not to mention gorgeous.

Unfortunately, we were at the end of the line to meet him at the Shell and his manager wanted to rush him off so although we got the photo clicked for Jordan's photo album, I didn't get a chance to remind him of how we met the first time. I'll never know if he had to pose 30 times for any other fan!

Everybody Have Fun Tonight...Everybody Bon Dance Tonight!

I just love attending and participating in bon dances (bon odori) every summer. In brief, bon dances are a Japanese Buddhist tradition and in Hawaii, take place at a different Buddhist church every weekend from June through early August. There are just enough churches on Kauai so that there is one bon dance going on twice each weekend (Friday and Saturday nights) for ten weekends, so a true bon-addict can attend them all if so inclined. I'm pretty sure there are people who attend 20 each summer because it seems that every time I go to a bon dance I see the same people. Either that or they're thinking the same thing: "That lady must go to EVERY bon dance because I see her at every one I go to!" *LOL* Actually, we attend maybe 10 nights per summer.

I can't think of anything like a bon dance, although I'm sure there must be similar traditions in other cultures that provide a comparable experience. The beauty of the bon dance tradition in Hawaii is not limited to the beauty of the tradition itself: dancers in colorful garb happily dancing around a wooden tower on a balmy moonlit night, paper lanterns swaying--ok let's not think of the occasional termite swarm. The beauty is also in the sharing and integration you're guaranteed to experience.

First of all, you'll notice that the dancers are not just Japanese. Bon dance has evolved into a Hawaiian tradition and consequently you'll see people of all ethnic backgrounds participating. Many of the non-Japanese know the dance routines well, but newbies are also welcomed to join in. No one needs to feel self-conscious. On Kauai, there's this one Japanese guy who dances like he's at a disco, never attempting to learn the routines and rarely even dancing with the flow of the circle. Ok, no one doubts he is probably mentally ill, but he is not ridiculed or asked to leave. Of course when I see him nearby it throws off my concentration and makes me miss a step or two, but it gives me a chuckle.

Another beauty of bon dance is that all ages are represented in the ring. Adorable toddlers decked out in teeny tiny yukatas follow their moms or dads, stopping occasionally to stare up at the lanterns, at the other dancers, or to watch the drummers. Groups of teens, male and female, jostle each other as they invariably head for the innermost circle (Why is that? My guess is typical of teens, they don't want to be seen too easily so they go to the inside to hide). Grandmas are well-represented, of course, and a few grandpas, too.

My very favorite people to watch at bon dances are the tourists and obvious newbies. I love that they're eager to participate, and it's fun watching them concentrate on imitating the movements of the seasoned dancers. When you look at someone willing to look silly to learn a "foreign" dance, you're looking at a person enthusiastically embracing cultural diversity. That's a beautiful sight.

One of my mottos is "It's all about energy," and at a bon dance, you get a healthy dose of good energy. I swear that the steady beat of the taiko drums is somehow in sync to my "bio" rhythm. You don't have to dance in the ring to get it. Dozens of people are playing carnival type games, buying food at the food booths, or shopping at the church's white elephant sale. Dozens more sit around the ring watching the dancers, "talking story" with friends, and enjoying the favorite bon dance fare: teriyaki meat on sticks, flying saucers (round toasted bread filled with sloppy joe style beef), shaved ice, andagi (doughnut balls), and saimin noodles. I said you get a "healthy dose of good energy", not a "good dose of healthy food." I tell myself the healthy energy makes up for the not-so-healthy food.

So if you get a chance to visit a bon dance, take your camera, a few dollars, your folding chair, and your smile. You'll be using them all and loving it.