Aloha Dump

Why don't kids say that as a question instead of just a statement? I think we should give kids more tricks. It helps prepare them for life in that there are assholes out there who aren't always nice. Well, so many things have happened since my last post and I don’t know where to start. Tonight will be a short entry because my kidney stone is giving me some serious problems tonight. I wish this thing would just pass through already. After my CT, the doc said it was about 5mm in diameter. That’s bigger than it sounds, trust me. I think I might have to have an OB/GYN help me pass it. So all the freaks are out tonight and they blend in nicely with all the trick or treaters. My main bitch tonight is the Halloween policy of the complex I live in- absolutely no trick or treating in the complex. Now I am sure the board consists of a bunch of old farts who stay in their apartments all day just trying to find something to bitch about but really, why this rule? It could be handled i...

Not everything that happens on my street is a bad thing. About a month ago I heard the unmistakable noise of a high school marching band coming down the street. I grabbed my camera and started rolling tape. The parade consisted of local school children screaming, cars honking their horns, and the band playing a couple of songs. You can see the band and hear only the percussion for the first bit until they get by my place then started playing. The flag girls started doing their thing and the cheerleaders were trying to drum u p some cheers form the onlookers. Of course no school parade would be complete without the future-hoochies-to-be, the homecoming queens. Of course I use “hoochie” as a term of endearment. Now this “parade” was pretty lame as far as parades go but I thought it was cool the kids got out and showed some school spirit. I always get a kick out of watching kids because you can tell by their personality and actions what kind of adults they will be. Now, that is a ve...

Full Moon Madness (Also, a lunar eclipse night. Coincidence? I think not.) So it was about 8:00 p.m. last night when I heard the unmistakable sound of metal hitting metal. For the second time in 10 days a motorcycle collided with a car. After talking to an eyewitness (literally, she was 10 feet away when it happened) the motorcycle was coming down Ala Ilima when a car pulled out into the intersection from the adjacent street Ala Nanala. The bike was facing the other way when I got to my lanai and the driver of the white car had made a 180 degree turn and parked on the adjacent street. It was amazing how many people showed up with cell phones and how some bystanders finally realized their life long dreams of becoming a traffic cop. They wasted no time in directing vehicles around the debris from the accident. The rider got up after a few minutes of laying on the ground and sat on the curb until the fire department, police, and ambulance showed up (in that order). It took ...

I have been entertaining my parents who flew in from the mainland and I have been extremely busy playing tour guide. I took them to the Big Island for a day trip in hopes to see the lava flow I photographed in July. Note to self: Check with the Volcanoes National Park website to find out if the lava is flowing at the last place you saw it 3 months earlier. That would have saved us a trip to the trail. Madam Pele (the Hawaiian goddess of fire) is very unpredictable. Since I arrived on this island 13 years ago I have heard of superstitions that range from believable (if I had enough shots of Jack Daniels) to downright stupid. AAMOF, at dinner with my parents the day before we left for the Big Island a waitress cautioned my mother against taking some of the sand from Black Sand Beach home with her. The bad luck that would accompany my mother sounded more like factual consequence than a “step-on-a-crack-break-your-mother’s-back” nursery rhyme. I rolled my eyes. In fact, at Volcanoe...

Conversational Pidgin. That’s the main page of a website I found to help me write this next piece. As a resident of Hawaii for over 12 years now I still have not succumbed to the temptation of speaking the local ghetto talk known as Hawaiian pidgin. Although pidgin is an official language of some third world South Pacific islands, Hawaii locals have embraced it as a kind of Ebonics-like language. Unintelligible to most, pidgin is actually a complicated language to learn, if you ever feel the need to dumb down your vocabulary, because you have to take words you are familiar with and bastardize them to gibberish. Of course people who grow up here in Hawaii who speak it everyday may not even bother to learn proper grammar because pidgin is such a widely accepted “language”. Click here to read and hear Hawaiian pidgin It is hard for most people to resist the urge to pick up even a little of the pidgin talk with the most likely phrase to be used “da kine”. This 2-syllable gibberi...

Someone wrote a song "The Freaks Come Out at Night" and I only wish that were true. I am privy to many a freak on Ala Ilima St. most of which do come out at night. There are the rare instances when I do get a glimpse of the freaks on my street long enough to film. The first video is narrated and is about 8 minutes long. The star of the film is a crazy guy but from the looks of his appearance is not homeless. I could get some killer video on Fort Street Mall of some homeless people that would knock your socks off, one of which is the guy with 5 inch toenails. For now I will constrain myself to the people in view from my lanai (Hawaiian word for balcony). Crazy Guy woke me up one Sunday morning about 7:30 cussing and yelling. I went out to see the commotion and saw this guy going off but to my suprise nobody was around. Crazy Guy talking to himself; it was a Kodak moment waiting to happen. He went on for almost an hour and during that time was visited twice by the cops, hit ...

Justice Served I have decided to open this site with just a few comments on why I took the time to devote a site to the land of Aloha, specifically, where I live. This isn't a political overview or cultural analysis; it is simply a vent fueled by the ridiculousness and stupidity of the people where I live. Now this is not an anti-"whatever" site. If I lived in Roosterpoot, Arkansas and had neighbors that pissed me off then I would create a site. It just so happens I live in Hawaii and there are people here that piss me off and it is these people who will be showcased on my site. So where do I start? How about on a little street in Honolulu called Ala Ilima. I live in one of the many apartment buildings on this street that is affectionately known as concrete alley. I live in a gated community with a nice parking garage, a pool, and lush landscaping. However this little nook is not without its stupidity, but I will address that in later posts I'm sure. So the debut o...

I'm sorry officer, I won't do it again...

Was I speeding officer?

Writing the ticket