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In this issue: 1. So you want
to be a Captain?
2.
More of Erik's airport adventures
3.
Pirate Girl teaches you the Hula and gets Leid
4.
Deep does something... but I haven't been able to read it
yet!
So you want to be a Captain?
Captain Erik
It’s good to be the Captain
again. The Whaleshark tour is going great and in the process, I’ve
only spent a few weeks at home here in Lahaina. I’ve had and
continue to have a blast but nothing compares to that smell of the salt
water out there in the middle of the Au Au channel. With the sea
birds cris-crossing the bow wake looking for unfortunate flying fish,
and the sun on my back as it first comes over the west Maui Mountains,
I’m once again Captain Erik.
For those of you who didn’t know, I didn’t
always sing for a living. As a matter of fact I didn’t even
always sing at all. Since a few days after I landed here on Maui
I’ve worked the charter boats in Lahaina harbor. From starting
out with nothing, to living full time on my sailboat "Wizard"
it's been a hell of a ride. So now in this month’s Anchor
I’m going to give you step by step instructions on how to leave
the world behind and become the epitome of a sandy toed beach bum (aka
Lahaina harbor charter boat Captain). And I’m talking about
how to be a successful island bum (Not one of the guys under the banyan
tree sitting on the card board boxes). They’re just bums.
Are you ready? Good, here we go…
First you must prepare for your life in the islands.
This is very important. You slowly start dumping all of your worldly
possessions; selling what you have for little or nothing. Sure you’ll
have to take a bite on most of it but before long you’ll be rid
of all that crap. A good rule of thumb for getting rid of all your
crap (this works for everyone, not just future beach bums) is to look
at your junk and ask yourself if you’ve used it in the last year.
If you haven’t even moved it let alone used it, get rid of it.
Sure that nice compound bow and arrow you bought is really cool but it’s
got more dust on it right now than my shoes. Get rid of it.
Those bags and bags of clothes that you’re saving for, well, god
knows what we save that stuff for, have to go also. There’s
no need for sentimentality at this point, remember, your life will be
starting anew in no time. Plus you’ll have no need for most
of those clothes anymore anyway. You should keep repeating this
process over and over again until you can physically carry everything
you own. Perhaps the hardest part is getting rid of your wheels.
For me, it meant parting with my 87 Toyota Van that carried me down to
the Florida Keys that first time. So many great memories in that
vehicle! Sitting a couple blocks off of Duval Street facing the
ocean and trying to play my guitar just like I saw Michael McCloud do
a few minutes earlier… Yes that was my hardest possession
to lose. On the positive side, your wheels will transform themselves
into a nice block of cash you’ll need to start your life over with.
So away it goes… (Sigh)
So now you land on Maui, duffel bag in one hand,
guitar in the other, a surfboard strapped over your shoulders and ideally
with a couple thousand dollars in your shoes. You’ve made
it! Now you’ll probably want to find a girlfriend immediately
so your rent is really cheap. If you haven’t had luck in that
department, you’ll want to pick up a newspaper immediately and find
yourself a place to stay. You will most likely wind up with a crappy
room in an 80 year old sugar cane house for about $450-$550 per month
plus deposit and share said house with 4 or 5 other people just like you.
At least two of these will be criminals, so it’s a good thing you
have nothing of value. A bicycle is next on your list.
Lahaina is only about a mile and a half long but walking gets old really
quick. Please do not steal yourself a bike as it may belong to me. Just
buy one.
It’s now time to become a boat guy.
When you first get to your tropical island harbor paradise of choice,
it’s always the same. You start with the shittiest crew position
you can find (incidentally that’s always who’s hiring in the
first place) and you go from there. You make your own reputation
as you go. Just as a warning, it’s a small town and if you
start off as a bozo, then as a bozo you shall remain. So be careful!
You’ll probably move around from boat to boat as there is no stability
in any harbor. Just go with the flow. This is normal.
Soon your persistence will pay off and you will land a really cool job
on a decent boat, in a company that you like. Once you’re
settled in the time will fly by. Before you know it you’ve
been here for 4 years and you’ve built up enough sea time to be
eligible for your Captain’s test. You’ll take the same
$1700 Captain’s course that we all took and while you’re in
the class you’ll notice a bunch of people you know from the harbor
who have absolutely no business being in charge of anyone’s lives.
With any luck (not really luck, if you fail the test you’re a dumbass
and shouldn’t be on a boat anyway) you’ll pass the test and
are now a genuine, certified, and official 100-Ton Master charter boat
Captain. All you have to do is trick someone into hiring you to
operate one of their boats. This shouldn’t be that hard if
you’ve performed admirably during the last 4 years. Your days
of pulling up the anchor and cleaning up after the sea sick passenger
are over. Well almost over, you now have the job of hiring training
and firing a completely new set of bone-heads that will try your patience
daily. Crew members here are notorious for not showing up on time,
not showing up, showing up on time on the wrong day, showing up hung-over
and incapacitated (ok so this one I’m guilty of too!), and a host
of other quirks that come with $8/hour jobs. But you will be the
Captain! And it may sound gay, (I’m not worried though, none
of the other guys in this harbor have computers) but nothing beats being
called Captain
So I now flash forward to today, as I’m
charging across the blue water at 20 knots. I have a smile on my
face and a sunburn on my back (I’ve been away too long). My
crew is busy talking to the 2 underage girls in bikinis on the port side
while their father talks to me about the size of the boobs attached the
wife of the honeymoon couple riding the pontoons on the starboard side.
I laugh to myself as I think about how it all got started. I don’t
think I could ever stay away from this island for too long.
Erik
The Airport (Part Deux)
by: Traveller Erik
Now after reading last month’s newsletter,
a couple of you asked me if I had been having a bad week. Well I
said last month that I was going to stop my observatory commentary on
the human being and write a newsletter about what the Anchor was started
for; Lahaina life, stories, and news you’ll find more addictive
than crack. But I really haven’t spent a lot of time in Lahaina
this last month so for the time I’ll write what I know. And
of course, today’s topic is… the airport.
Now
I know I mentioned the airport in the last news letter and damn, I didn’t
want to write another story about it. But as a veteran traveler,
I have to give a few more tips to those who don’t fly every weekend.
For
starters, every airport is different. For example, if you’re
flying out of Madison Wisconsin, your line / bullshit will be considerably
different than if you fly out of LAX (Los Angeles to the airportly challenged).
If you fly out of an out of the way airport in a place like BFE (Bum Fu$%
Egypt), your lines will be smaller and so will your stress level.
(On a side note: It always amazes me that they put all the facilities
on the other side of the check in. If you’re going to need
a bar, it’ll be while you’re standing in those lines.
San Francisco has bars before the security. Maybe they could have
cocktail waitresses walk through the hour long security line.)
So I get off of my 36$ + tip, Evel Knievel shuttle van of death ride that
I took to even get to the airport and I merge into mainstream America;
Old guys with their old wives, fat people, LA dolls, parents with their
unruly kids (Erik’s note: kids in need of a good beatin’),
terrorists, no-english-speaking Korean tourists, smelly hippies, and the
all-to-helpful people who work there. I’ll give you today’s
observations for example…
I walk
into the terminal to be greeted by half of the Los Angeles police department.
All I hear as I walk in is “Guy with a yellow shirt…
harrumph…) Well thank Christ I’m wearing the wrong color.
That banana gang… Now in my opinion, if you have more than 2 police
officers looking for someone, you would at least want to catch someone
worth looking for. So I of course ignored the whole scene and stepped
into line. I was lucky enough to step right in front of the scene
as it unfolded. A dangerous criminal trying to get on the plane
you may ask? An alqeda operative with a sinister plot? Satan
himself, fighting off those damned dirty apes? No. Even worse.
An old man whose wife wouldn’t give him the tickets he needed to
check in his luggage. Well she can’t hear shit and he has
no tact (aka he can’t hear shit either) so they decide to scream
at the top of their lungs; “(him) Give me the ticket! (her)
Why do you need the ticket? Last time we… (him) Give me the goddamned
tickets!!! (her) Well you don’t have to get that tone with me and…
(Erik’s note: meanwhile people are trying to check themselves in)
(him) Give me the tickets before I kill you in front of all these people!!!
So now what are we left with? 3 police cars and a pissed off 88
year old man who just wants to go to Hawaii and be miserable in peace
for two weeks. Now I’m not saying what OJ did
was alright, just that I understand (Chris Rock joke - not mine). This
is all before I even get to the ticket counter!
So I get to the ticket counter about 2 hours
before the plane leaves. Almost all of the seats are taken.
I’m thinking, “What the hell time did you people wake up this
morning?” I got up at 5:30 and I thought I was early.
But who cares. I check in my guitar and I’m off to phase three…
security.
Why
is it that the Kahului airport in Maui has more metal detectors than Los
Angeles International? As I pull up to the girl who checks that
your boarding pass matches the words on your license, there’s a
mother of a couple of 12 year olds who’s screaming because she wants
to accompany her kids to the gate. Now I’m not sure about
you, but that hasn’t been possible since before the first gulf war.
I was about to get in line when someone taps me on the shoulder and says
“the line starts outside buddy.” Well it started
outside alright. Outside of LA County. The line was
seriously about 1⁄4 mile long before you actually get inside. Jesus
Christ, blow me up already! I can’t imagine those terrorist
bastards waiting in line that long.
An hour later I get to the security check point.
It’s always the same scene. Women walking through
the metal detectors wearing 13 pounds of stainless steel jewelry, guys
who don’t understand that their watches and change are made out
of metal, and that one guy who’s surprised to find out that you
can’t bring a big-ass wooden carved stick onto the plane.
(They wouldn’t let me take a plastic wiffle-ball bat through security
when I was 17 back in 1989 let alone today!) God, those people kill
me! I think I’ve written as much as I can write about this topic
because I’ll start screaming otherwise.
I get to the airport two hours early and
I reach my gate at final boarding. Well since it’s now final
boarding, I have time for a couple of drinks at the bar. (Last week I
was the last person on the plane at 15 minutes to boarding and we still
waited for a half hour.) So I get on this plane a bit late
but still way too early. It turns out that the security line made
half the people on the flight late. As I get to my seat, of course
someone else is already sitting in it. My ticket says 39c, his ticket
say 39c. I couldn’t give a shit at this time, I’m about
to sit on someone’s lap for this flight. This old cranky flight
attendant tells me to wait while she finds me another seat. It took a
half hour to move me about a foot and a half to row 38. As I finally
sit down I notice the flight attendant give the lady in font of me in
the exit row an extension to her seatbelt. For those people that
aren’t completely obese (fat bastards to the lay person), they make
seatbelt extensions you can plug in to fit around your fat ass if you
don’t fit in the seat destined for a normal human being. Here’s
the problem I have… It’s the exit row. You must
have the ability to help the crew and other passengers escape from the
plane in case of an emergency. Like tons-of-fun up there is
going to pull my ass out of this plane if it goes down. If you can’t
touch your toes, and if you’ll have a heart attack in a 1/8 mile
sprint, you probably shouldn’t be sitting in the exit row in charge
of other people’s safety. And it doesn’t matter that
we won’t survive the landing anyway. Sometimes I think that
if I was in that row maybe I’d just shut the door behind me and…
Sorry,
but it’s more of the same for this month. I hope you’re
all having a good laugh from my weekend. Right now I’m waiting
to land, wondering what’s going to happen next, trying to figure
out where the next story is coming from. Aloha and I’ll see
you next time!
Erik
Do the Hula and get Leid...
by: Pirate Girl
Yes, it’s already been quite a summer…and after enough “Luau
Themed”parties, people coming to Hawaii on vacation, going to Luaus,
and coffee house specials on the mainland:” Wear a Hawaiian shirt
on Fridays and your second cup of coffee is free!” as well as my
own exposure to Hula dancing as well as my most recent Self interpretation
of it, I thought I’d give us all a little insight into this lovely
dance and how it came to be.
As
the story goes, before Hawaiians could read and write, the main form of
_expression was Hula. For most people, the word Hula conjures up visions
of plastic figurines swishing their hips on dashboards and hot wahines
in grass skirts shakin’ it just the same. But as any kumu hula (hula
teacher) will promptly educate you, hula is a respected danceform in Hawaii,
which purpose is to tell a story, usually about the gods, chiefs, people,
land and history of Hawaii. It transcends more than just movements. This
is the way that people learned history. (Now why don’t they do that
on the mainland? Wouldn’t we rather have learned our history from
a dancing chick than from those heavy ass history books? Don’t get
me wrong, I love history, but the only use I got out of those books back
then were as step stools so I could reach the items on the top cupboard
in the kitchen. ) Well, in HULA, “the body’s purpose
is to make it more interesting to watch.” Duh.
The
syllable “HU” means “to rise.” And the syllable
“LA” means “sun.” Hula may be translated as “Rising
Sun” or “Rising Fire.” There are several Hula
styles, the first of over 14 different Hula styles is said to be the HULA
HA’A that was danced around the altar in the temples of the native
Hawaiians, the Kahunas, during worship (Pula.)
The origins
of Hula are shrouded in legend. Some sources will tell you that the very
beginnings of Hula can be traced back to the legendary volcano goddess,
PELE. In the beginning, Hula was mostly related to religious practices.
These accompanied by the PAHU (shark skin drum) were the most sacred,
dedicated to the gods. Sometime after (You can tell I’m a very accurate
historian) the missionaries had their hand in the matter, hula practitioners
merged Hawaiian elements of poetry, chanted vocal performance dance movements,
and costumes to create a new form, the HULA KU’I, (Ku’I means
to combine old and new.) Interest in the older chant-accompanied
Hula waned in the early 20th century. Hollywood and tourism had a lot
to do with the introduction of English-language lyrics, less allusive
pictorial gestures, sex appeal was added by emphasized hip movements,
(and losing some clothes, showin’ some skin!) Removing the
Hula from its former religious context. Thank God! Or should
I say, ...Thank the gods! ….Pele –goddess of the volcano;
Kamooalii –the god of steam; (he works part-time in the sauna) Keuakepo
–the god of rain and fire; Hiiakawawahilani- the cloud holder;
Keoahikamakaua- the child of war; Laamaomao- god of the winds; Hinakuluiau-
goddess or rain; Kuula- god of fishermen; Ukanipo- the shark god
of Hawaii; Moaalii – the shark god of Molokai and Oahu;
Apukoahai- the shark god of Kuai; Haulili- god of speech; Koleamoku-
god of the art of healing; Lie- goddess of the mountains; Kiha- goddess
of Maui; and my favorite, Lakakane- god of the Hula.
(If you are a god and I did not mention your name, please forgive me and
know that I thank you, too.)
Nowdays, contemporary dancers divide hula into HULA KAHIKO or ancient
Hula, made up of older chant accompanied dances, and HULA ‘AUANA
or modern Hula made up of newer song accompanied dances, a lot even in
English. Hula cannot be performed without MELE, or poetry, The MELE
would be the records of cultural information ranging from sacred MELE
PULE (prayers) and MELE INOA (name chants, mostly for chiefs) to MELE
HO’OIPOIPO (love songs) and MELE ‘AINA (songs praising the
land) so, the type of MELE used is one way of classifying the dances.
So it comes to mind that in the modern art of HULA DRUNK’EE, (Drunken
Hula) The MELE would be describing a bar full of happy people drinking,
laughing, dancing and clapping eagerly at the hilarity of the musician’s
portrayal of the story.
The
success of the Hula depends on the HAKU MELE, the music, and then the
exponent of the Hula, the KUMU HULA (the dancer/teacher) will do the choreography
to impart the understanding of the music so the student can….express
it in movement. Got it? Well, as far as most of you are concerned,
show up, get into the music, drink, put on your grass skirt, and let it
all hang out…express yourself!
Don’t just LEI around….HULA!
Pirate Girl.
Captain Deep actually gave me a
column for this issue but we're having problems transferring it from MAC
to PC. It reads like Chinese every time we try. It'll be here
soon!
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