I saw the news. Lou Reed died yesterday.  It’s 8am Hawaii time, and way too early for that kinda knowledge.

There’s much that has, is and always will be said about his influence on music and art.  He was an extraordinary poet, musician and composer. Very much a New Yorker, very much an American man, but from the edges of whatever it means to be in the love-hate relationship conscious Americans have with that identity.

I never met him, but I saw him perform once at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles.  He came out on stage and said something like, “I’m very sad for your city tonight,” then proceeded to perform a show that was more like a wake than a concert.  My friend and I assumed he was talking about the verdict in what became known as the Rodney King trial, wherein LAPD officers were acquitted for the brutal beating of King.  Unbeknown to us, at that moment, riots raged and parts of the city were burning.

Personally, his work inspired me with a sense of the incalculable value of being honest through one’s art, keeping things real, raw, and stripped […]

Loving Jamaica – An Evening of Poetry, Prose and Film with Esther Figueroa

Date: November 7, 2013
Time: Refreshments 6:00pm; Presentation 6:30-8:00
Where: Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies, HaLau ‘O Haumea, 2645 Dole Street
Sponsors: English Department, Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies

Here’s a link to a brilliant and informative interview Figgy did on KTUH’s “Iturnally Dread Meets Rudie’s Hi-Fi” show with DJs Tommy Fox and Irie-Sistable: soundcloud-file-esther-figueroa-interview

On November 7, Esther Figueroa, Ph.D., the Distinguished Visiting Writer in the English Department University of Hawai’i at Manoa will be giving the first ever reading from her forthcoming environmental novel Limbo (March, 2014, Arcade Publishing) and the first screening outside of Jamaica of her film “Cockpit Country is Our Home”. She will also be reading her poetry and that of others. The event is free and open to the Public.

A Jamaican independent filmmaker, writer, linguist, educator and curator/producer of art, literature and film events, Figueroa began her media-making career in Hawai’i. In 1985 she and Heather Haunani Giugni founded Juniroa Productions and produced numerous television series and specials, documentaries, educational videos, dvds, multimedia, and web content mainly focused on perpetuating indigenous knowledges, strengthening Native […]

On Friday, September 27th, FSRN, a daily, international news program that aired on stations throughout the U.S. and in other countries, went silent.  I listened to the last broadcast and wept when it was pau.

For over a decade, FSRN has provided independent journalists, like myself, with a space to produce and air stories that would otherwise not be heard anywhere.  Because of the collective talent and effort of professional producers, many stories about Hawaiian resistance to militarization, desecration and occupation had an audience of millions.  To my knowledge, the only other news program willing to broadcast pro-Hawaiian stories was Independent Native News (INN), and that went off the air in 2006.

As a reporter, I often found myself feeling embarrassed for not being a better producer, or for sounding like a zombie because by the time I got to the end of the writing and producing and was supposed to do my voicing I was exhausted and still fighting a deadline.  I usually did my voice over in a bathroom with a heavy wool coat over my head in a futile attempt to block out the urban sounds of Honolulu.  […]

We’re all being distracted and hypnotized by mass media, or by people and situations hypnotized and created by mass media, or by governments and industries that use media to massively hypnotize all of us into being too afraid to believe we can change anything.  But I digress.

Gifted hypnotist, Amy Marsh, EdD, DHS, ACS, CI (how’z that for an alphabet soup!), will be teaching the tools of the trade in Puna on Hawaii Island from 3 to 8 PM, Jan. 19-21. These are hypnosis certification classes, so if you are interested in a potential business, these classes lead to certification from the National Guild of Hypnotists.  But if you just want to learn this art for the inroads to healing it offers, all are welcome.

Although she lives in northern-Cal, Amy has a longtime connection to Hawaii Nei and is offering scholarships to Oiwi who are interested in learning how to heal through hypnosis, but may not be able to afford the program.  There is much more being offered here, so please check out Amy’s You Tube video and decide for yourself.

On a personal note, Amy Marsh is a dear friend […]

Joan and Puhipau have again graced us with something special. Na Maka O Ka Aina guys have uploaded a music video of Bernard Punikaia singing his song, “Where Birds Never Fly.”  (Punikaia performance)

30 years ago, Punikaia and Clarence Naia, two Hawaiians with Hansen’s Disease who refused to vacate Hale Mohalu, a place that had been home to victims of that disease, were forcibly evicted. Punikaia lived in his car and on the streets for years after this photo was taken of him being dragged out. He refused to be institutionalized.

This is a link to an old story from the archive of thehonoluluadvertiser.

Civil Rights activist and Black Power movement icon, Angela Davis, is interviewed about the Bombing in Birmingham on Hardknockradio.

Davis grew up there during that era, when it was a city referred to as “Bombingham” because of the frequency of KKK and police sanctioned bombings and murders.  During the interview Davis, whose neighborhood was referred to as “Dynamite Hill,” remarks that one of her earliest memories is seeing the house across the street from her home burn after it was bombed.  She also knew one of the little girls whose life was stolen on September 14, 1963. Their names were, and forever are Denise McNair,  who was 11 along with Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley who were all 14.

Spike Lee made an excellent documentary about this incident called “Four Little Girls.” It’s among his best films, so if you haven’t seen it I highly recommend it.

One of the important things about this interview is how Davis makes the connections between this event and the recent killings of young black men, Oscar Grant and Trayvon Martin.

UPDATE: See bottom of this post for news about Sai’s upcoming trip to Zurich.

KITV NEWS: Keanu Sai was featured in a KITV News story that aired on September 10th. It was produced by Hawaiian journalist, Catherine Cruz, one of a very few who have consistently reported on Hawaiian sovereignty matters over the years with clarity and honesty.

The focus of the story is the statue of President William McKinley in front of McKinely High School in Kaimuki. It’s the kind of thing you drive past and see from afar, but never look closely at. However, Keanu and plenty pro-independence Hawaiians have been looking at that statue for years. Some have even posted hundreds of names of Hawaiians  who signed the Ku’e petitions on placards in front of the statue to protest the lie it represents. Or, as Keanu has said many times, that statue represents the only treaty of annexation, because what is becoming common knowledge is that the United States never legally annexed Hawaii. It simply began an illegal, immoral militarily enforced occupation in 1898 and overwhelmed Hawaiians with more than a million settlers.

It’s a well done piece, so check it […]

Jamaican filmmaker and scholar, Esther Figueroa, is the UH Hawaii, Manoa English Department’s Visiting Distinguished Writer in Residence this semester, teaching Caribbean literature and creative non-fiction.

There’s so much I could say about this woman’s courage, soulful to the point of heartbreaking clarity, and unflinching dedication to documenting the corporate and colonial (but those are kinda the same thing, aren’t they?) cannibalism of Jamaica’s shores, reefs, rivers and other natural resources. She has literally witnessed and made us witness to the disappearance of her country. Through her lens we experience the insanity of over building hotels to satisfy the insatiable desire for foreigners who don’t mind killing the place so they can perform ritual fantasies with Jamaica’s culture and beaches.

Go to her YouTube channel (see Figueroa Films) and view some of her work.  Her feature length documentary, Jamaica for Sale, is enlightening, relentless and a genuine displacement of the tourism industry’s narrative of that place. I can’t imagine anyone with a mind or heart seeing this film and still thinking a vacation in Jamaica is a good idea.

If you have the opportunity to hear Ms. Figueroa, do so. She will be […]

Next Thursday, September 12th from 3 – 4:30 in Kuykendall room 410, Cynthia Franklin, UH English professor and author, will be discussing her trip to Palestine.

A piece she wrote several months back appeared in Portside, so this is a reminder about the event I announced there.  Franklin wrote something brilliant and sensitive about her journey– I can only imagine that her talk will be even more powerful. Perhaps equally as interesting will be the Q&A. I look forward to the talk and the community dialogue, particularly with the plans being readied for another US military action in the Middle East.

A news report says that the Irish bard, Seamus Heaney, died today. It’s hard to believe poets ever die. I think there’s something immortal about this type of human.  But we’ve all got feet made of clay, and die we all do eventually, although I still think of death as a bad idea all around. Or, maybe I’m just in agreement with Woody Allen, who once remarked that he isn’t afraid of dying, he just doesn’t want to be there for his own. So here’s one of many by Heaney, famous for much more than this humble piece. I love it because he comes from a history dug out of the earth with a spade, but he created a new history digging through time with a pen.

If you go the Poetry Foundation’s site at this link, you can hear the poet himself read “Digging”.

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:

My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds

Bends low, comes up twenty years away

Stooping in rhythm through potato […]