Thank you for flying, Aloha

With the sudden announcement of Aloha Airlines’ bankruptcy at the end of March, Hawaii lost its oldest airline (61 years) and Aloha’s employees lost their jobs (1,900 and counting). Not to make light of this event, but all the news coverage got me thinking about my own fictitious airline that I based on Aloha: Paradise Air.

When Grandma and Grandpa took us kids to Hawaii in the early 80s, we used to play a game whereby each of us would stake out a corner of our hotel room and set up shop. Todd, Andy, Jenny, and myself had each created a “business” that we’d operate to barter with the others for goods and services. Kid-o-nomics. (I think somebody had a carnival, which was fairly ambitious.)

My great idea was to provide transportation to and from all corners of the room on a fleet of paper airplanes I christened Paradise Air. I still happen to have one these planes (number 22, the “Mighy Mo”!), and here she is. I guess part of me always wanted to be a pilot.

Ray Rayner: that’s all folks!

This week I’ve turned my attention back to First Forty, a project that’s been on ice since last September. I picked up right where I’d left off, with my short encapsulation on the day’s events from February 22, 1978: namely, that Ray Rayner had revealed the winner of the jelly belly count and… well, that’s about it.

Now, I haven’t thought about Ray in years, but he was an important figure in my life during the 5th and 6th (and possibly 7th) grades, more than I knew at the time. I’d like to take a minute here to remember him.

Seeing Ray’s name again prompted me to do a little sleuthing around the Web, and it wasn’t long before I turned up all sorts of good stuff.

After we moved back to Chicago (Warrenville) in the fall of 1977, I spent most weekday mornings from 7 – 8 in front of the tube with Ray Rayner and Friends on WGN. (I imagine this went on for about two years — at which time I entered junior high and had to leave the house earlier to catch the bus.) Come to think of it now, I was usually up before 7 because I remember watching Orion Samuelson (The Big “O”!) deliver the daily farm report: a mix of agricultural news, weather, the price of pork belly futures and all that jazz. This is what Midwestern kids (used to) grow up with.

For me, Ray was the undisputed king of morning television. (I know now that he’d done a lot of television work in Chicago prior to my time, but Ray Rayner and Friends is how I first came to know him.) Donning a funky jumpsuit — the orange one with the tree-branch appliqués being my favorite — covered in “to do” notes in the pre-Post It era, Ray would wing his way through an hour of classic cartoons; news, weather, traffic, and sports; visits with Dr. Lester Fisher from the Lincoln Park Zoo; disastrous attempts to reproduce the featured arts-and-crafts project; friendly chat sessions with Cuddly Duddley (an over-sized spaniel puppet); and tense “guest appearances” by Chelveston the duck (“Chelvy”), whom would often terrorize Ray, snapping at and chasing him around the studio. Good stuff.

The (aforementioned) jelly-bean count was a contest Ray held annually. He’d fill a jar with jelly beans and have viewers try to guess the amount, all entries to be sent to the station by post-card. One year I brought a scientific approach to the task: I found a jar of approximate size and counted the number of jelly beans required to make a single “layer”; then, multiplying the number of layers I estimated it would take to reach the top of the jar, I arrived at my answer. I don’t think I was even close. So much for science.

(One interesting association I have with Ray is watching his show with nobody else around. Surely this could not have been the case, as other people in the house would have been up and moving about between the hours of 7 and 8. It may be that Dad was already out the door by 7 while Mom tended to sleep in. [I don't recall seeing her most mornings — which was fine, since I loved getting up early and taking care of my own breakfast and lunch, and having the house to myself.] Todd, I think, usually stayed upstairs after he’d got up. I don’t remember him being there with me in front of the television with a bowl of cereal, and I don’t recall ever talking to Todd about Ray. In fact, I don’t think I spoke to anybody about him. It may be that I didn’t want to share Ray. He was like a favorite uncle who never talked down to you, and you got the feeling that there wasn’t anything he’d rather do than slowly welcome in the day together.)

Although there aren’t many video clips of Ray on the Net (copyright being the main obstacle — which has also prevented any DVDs of Ray from being released) I hit the jackpot when I came across FuzzyMemories.tv, a site dedicated to “Classic Chicago Television”. Their “Screening Room” section holds a number of clips from Ray Rayner and Friends, including the last episode that ever aired. I never saw that one — don’t even remember when I stopped watching Ray or hearing that his show was going off the air. So, finding these clips was a real treat. When Yumi went out to dinner with her girlfriends the other night I cozied up to the computer with a glass of wine and teleported back to 1981 (sans the wine), and found myself plunked down on the floor in front of our living room TV.

It’s amazing how the slightest trigger can tap into memories and sensations the brain has long-since filed away and forgotten. I mean, it’s all there. I’m really starting to believe that with the right prompt it should be possible to call-up nearly anything you’ve experienced and registered. I’m finding this especially true with my journals. Stuff I’ve had no need to recall comes back with amazing clarity after reading a few sentences which, in turn, lay a path to where those memories have been stored. But I digress. What I want to say is that hearing Ray’s voice again brings me right back to that place and time, and the warm tingles work their way up my spine to the base of my skull, caressing the back of my head. Watching Ray takes me to my safe place, my bubble.

Even so, it was a little uncomfortable watching some of the clips from Ray’s last show. It’s obvious that he’s not entirely comfortable himself — trying to keep it together but at times letting the heightened emotional impact of the event bleed through. It always irks me that the shows which often get released or otherwise memorialized are the “final” or “20th-anniversary” specials etc., when nothing is as it should be. Most of the time all you really want to see is a run-0f-the-mill, everyday episode. Those are the ones you remember. Thank god there are a few other clips of Ray Rayner and Friends on Fuzzy Memories from the late 70s, when nothing momentous was coming down the pike (and from the time when I would have been watching).

Observations from the here-and-now (and a few other things I’d forgot):

Pacing. Talk about s-l-o-w! Wow. How quickly we forget how our viewing sensibilities have been drastically reconfigured in only a few decades. These days I often find myself watching Turner Classics when I want to relax if only because of the pacing. Remember when cuts between scenes lasted longer than a few seconds? Watching these old clips now of Ray’s show, with it’s lack of background music and gratuitous graphic overlays, is a breath of fresh air.

Budget. Holy cow, Ray Rayner and Friends looks like many public access shows did on cable in the late 80s. And this was WGN — the country’s first “super station”. But you know what? We never cared.

Intelligence. I’d forgot how Ray never “dumbed down” his show, much in the same way that Rocky & Bullwinkle never shied away from biting wit and cutting sarcasm. Ray talked to you like one of his buddies or members the studio crew (whom he collectively referred to as “Chauncey”). The man was funny. Plus, he’d do things like pull gems from the songbook of pop and jazz standards and proceed to murder them on-air, accompanied off-camera by Don Orlando on the Wurlitzer. I love it.

Ray Rayner and Friends also included news, traffic, weather, and sports. In hindsight, I suppose the producers threw these in to add a little “parent appeal”, but why shouldn’t kids like to be clued in as to what was going on, as well? Mom and Dad watched the evening news; I got mine in the morning. (Ray’s traffic updates were always read over the same stock footage of cars stuck in traffic. Classic.) I’d also forgot how Ray’s chalkboard had all the latest college and professional sports scores off to one side. As Merri Dee would read the news and weather I’d try and figure out what teams all the different abbreviations stood for.

And Ray also delighted in trivia, asking questions (primarily to his crew, pulled from a book he kept on hand entitled Super Trivia) that no kid would rightly know the answers to, but you always learned something new and never felt belittled in the process. Take Ray’s last show, for instance. Here are a few of the questions he threw out as part of his “quiz” (c’mon Dad, I know you can do this):

1. What was the real name of The Saint?

Which band or band leader is each of the following singers associated with?

2. Mildred Bailey

3. Rosemary Clooney

4. Dorothy Collins

5. Bing Crosby

6. Doris Day

7. Mike Douglas

8. Bob Eberly

9. Art Carney (yes, he was a vocalist at one time)

10. Fred Astaire

(I didn’t get any of the answers, even now. Wrong generation. But you really need to watch the video clip to see how Ray’s enthusiasm for the material sucks you right in, no matter how obscure. It’s also interesting to note how Ray seems the most relaxed during that final show while reading his trivia questions — it provides a distraction even as the set is being struck around him.)

One last note: when I see and hear Frazier Thomas again I immediately think of my Aunt Jean. There’s just something so “Chicago” about them both

It’s obvious to me now that so much of what Ray did on his show was for himself: all the inside jokes, cultural references, and skylarking with the crew. But you could tell that he was really enjoying himself, and that enthusiasm came right across the airwaves to us, the audience. And rather than feel like an outsider because you didn’t “get” everything Ray said or talked about, his friendly demeanor and easy manner had the opposite effect: because he could just be himself, you felt respected. He wasn’t putting on an act just because there was a kid in the room. And I appreciated that. True, I didn’t get a lot of Ray’s humor, but I knew I would, eventually. I was just happy to be treated as an equal — even if Ray did advise me to take extra precaution on cold days and bundle up before heading off to school

From the Web I learned that Ray left Chicago and did some work in Albuquerque for a while before retiring from television. He passed away on January 21, 2004 in Fort Myers, Florida.

Thanks for everything, Ray. There’ll never be another quite like you.

(link: Fuzzy Memories “Classic Chicago Television)
(link: Ray Rayner on Wikipedia)
(link: Ray Rayner obit)
(link: Ray Rayner on tvparty.com)

(answers to quiz: 1. Simon Templar 2. Mildred Bailey – Paul Whiteman & Red Norvo 3. Rosemary Clooney – Tony Pastor 4. Dorothy Collins – Raymond Scott 5. Bing Crosby – Paul Whiteman 6. Doris Day – Les Brown & Bob Crosby 7. Mike Douglas – Kay Kyser 8. Bob Eberly – Jimmy Dorsey 9. Art Carney – Horace Heidt 10. Fred Astaire – Leo Reisman)

Gary Gygax’s last saving throw

Gary Gygax. Now there’s a name for you. And one, too, that will forever be linked to my fumbling, tentative (yet inquisitive) march towards adulthood. The co-founder of Dungeons & Dragons died on March 4th at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and I can’t let this slip by without a few reflections. (I learned of Gygax’s passing while still in London, but wanted to wait until I returned home where I had access to some buried treasure in the archives…)

Gygax, along with Dave Arneson, laid the foundation for an alternate world populated with enough nightmarish inhabitants to keep an active imagination up all night, running on a mixture of fear and utter fascination. I never ‘played’ D&D as part of a regular group — though I remember word of Brian Stolt’s prowess as a DM (dungeon master) — but the lure of Dungeons & Dragons, as a parallel-universe proving ground for reinventing and testing yourself against a panoply of mythic creatures (good and evil), was simply irresistible.

I can’t tell you how many hours I spent poring over the pages of the original Monster Manual — Gygax’s taxonomy of terror. Many of the drawings look comical now, but as an “illustrated compendium of monsters: aerial servant to zombie”, the manual served as a kind of metaphorical index to all the dark, twisted, and gor-rific creatures that lie in wait for us in the real world quest that is adolescence, searching for safe passage through to the other side. As a budding teen-ager the book was just what I needed: a modern-day Grimm’s Faerie Tales to gird my psyche for any unimaginable horror lurking around the next corner.

The Monster Manual runs the gamut from the mundane — ant, baboon, elephant, snake, what have you — to the wondrously bizarre — brain mole, beholder, floating eye, shambling mound, and, one of my personal favorites, the gelatinous cube (which somehow managed to find its way into most of our adventures). Typically used as a reference while playing the game, I just loved to peruse the Manual in search of the fantastic and grotesque. Plus, there were plenty of female creatures with boobs, too, so that was good.

As already mentioned, I didn’t regularly play D&D with a group of my peers, but Todd, Geoff, and I would occasionally whip up a game for each other (with Geoff usually presiding as DM). I never knew if we were doing it “right” or not, but it was still gripping play all the same — even in Todd’s room on a gray Saturday afternoon, substituting craggy channels in the carpeting for subterranean passageways that our die-cast figurines were determined to chart. I think that’s what I liked best about D&D: the creation and exploration of new territory. I’d spend hours mapping out vast worlds with elaborate geo-topographical features (maps, which, were not too dissimilar from Tolkien’s Middle Earth, I might add…).

But the creative impetus did not stop at map-making. In order to play, of course, you need to invent a character to embark upon the quest. Half the fun of D&D is in dreaming up new alter egos for yourself, although it should come as no surprise how transparent those characters really are when viewed (in hindsight) as projections of the perceived self. Take my two characters, for instance, Freelik (half-elf) and Gandorf (wizard). OK, the names are pretty weak, but these two are both me in one sense or another: Freelik being a representation of how I actually saw myself at the time (with a low “charisma” rating) and Gandorf a working incarnation of a more idealized self. (See that cap he’s got on? Mom had made one just like it for me years previous when I was a wizard for Halloween. The fact that it looks so ridiculously small in the sketch makes me wonder if I wasn’t imagining myself in the future: Space Wiz!) I see that both are fairly intelligent and wise, however — sign of a self-esteem not too beaten down and battered. Quest on!

Freelik’s character sheet

Gandorf’s character sheet

Put up yer dukes

All the recent fuss about this ‘ultimate fighting’ club for kids in Missouri has me thinking about what I’d do if I were a parent. I don’t think punching someone in the nose is the best way to go about solving a problem, but there are cases where it’s warranted. Why, if Sister Superior Mary Benedict hadn’t taught Eddie Breen how to box, Tommy Smith would have continued to bully him and they never would have become best pals, right?

Truth be told, I’ve never been in a fight in my life. And I’ve always wondered about that. Sure, Todd and I got into some pretty good scraps when we were younger, but never with the intention of producing serious bodily injury to each other. I can’t help sometimes but think that I missed out on a rite of passage — it’s not as though I never found myself in a situation where blind rage and flailing fists would have produced a more satisfactory (albeit short-lived) outcome than shrinking away in humiliation, my usual tactic for self-preservation.

And it’s not like I never had the tools to deliver the goods, either. During my sophomore year in high school I studied Tae Kwan-do under Jim Langlas, one of the English teachers at Wheaton-Warrenville High School (now Wheaton-Warrenville South). I learned how to focus all forward energy into explosive punches, deflect oncoming blows, and deliver round-house kicks to lay out any challenger. This was powerful stuff for a skinny 14-year old, and I admit to entertaining fantasies of taking down some jerk-off with a single shot the solar plexis. (What kid hasn’t wanted to bust a kung-fu stance after being pushed to the ground — a warning to his aggressor that he’d just made a very grave error in judgment?) Yes, that would have been sweet. But of course it never happened.

Dr. Langlas taught us the physical skills we needed to defend ourselves but the core value of his training derived from a newfound sense inner strength: knowledge that bred confidence, yet came with responsibility. Think of it as swearing to use your power for good, not evil. And while there is something to be said for this, the fact I was never provoked into unleashing a lightning display of martial arts ass-kickery boils down more to the plain fact that I was just too scared (realistic?) rather than any verisimilitude of keeping my awesome destructiveness at bay because I was the “better man”. I knew I never stood a chance.

In the end I didn’t stick with Tae Kwon-do past my first green stripe. That summer Wheaton-Warrenville was moth-balled and the entire school was divvied up between Wheaton(s) Central and North. I became a Central Tiger and Mr. Langlas a North Falcon. (Boo! Hiss!) I suppose I could have continued my training at the center he ran in West Chicago, but I was never very comfortable with the practice, patterns, rank tests (I suffered from extreme performance anxiety) and all that, though I can see how the structure and personal discipline of it all would appeal to a lot of kids. All I did was go back to sparring with Todd in Ninja Protectors!

Which brings me back to ‘ultimate’ fighting. Now I’m no expert, but it’d be hard to sell me on the idea of sending your kid into a fighting pit with a kill-or-be-killed mentality. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they wear protective gear and whatnot, but what is the message being handed down from parent to child? That by wailing away as hard as you can — with intent to pummel your opponent — you may stand a chance of ‘winning’ and not being called a loser? How can this possibly translate to anything productive in later life? What can we learn about working and living together with other people by beating the shit out of them, because that’s all we know how to do? There’s standing up for yourself and there’s outright cowardly aggression.

To be fair, our parents gave us Socker Boppers one year for Christmas and Todd and I promptly proceeded to sock each other silly, but there was a key difference: while going at it, we were simultaneously laughing our heads off, socking and bopping like a couple of cartoon characters with those over-sized air pillows on our fists (remember how sweaty your hands would get inside?). It wasn’t quite the same as being tossed into a cock-fighting ring with Dad cheering you on from the sidelines.

I can only see this as parental fear and insecurity manifesting itself in yet another perverted childhood arena. To the beauty pageant moms we now add the ultimate fighting dads. I mean, come on. If your kid needs to blow off some steam he or she can lay into a punching bag or a pillow if need be. (Sports, anyone? Hello…?) At least with the martial arts, kids develop a sense of respect for themselves and others and learn that avoiding conflict in the first place is often where the battle is won. Even Eddie Breen fought solely on the grounds of self-defense, and only to the minimum extent that still allowed him to extend an olive branch to Tommy and gain his respect. Wiping the playground with him would only have destroyed Tommy’s reputation and created a monster, a life-long enemy. Gee, I feel as though I’m on the verge of making a deeper connection to something beyond childhood scrapping…

(Jim Langlas’ bio on his new web page. Good to see that he got his PhD but continued to teach in Wheaton public school system all the way up until last year. Come to think of it, Mr. Langlas wasn’t the only PhD teaching high school in Wheaton. I got one hell of an education growing up, which says a lot about the ability of school districts to attract and retain quality teachers.)

(Earlier web site with nice photo of Mr. Langlas — though I can’t believe he still looks that young! But you never know…)

Aloha, Aunty Genoa and Uncle Ray

This week Hawai’i lost two musical giants and beloved kupuna: Aunty Genoa Keawe (Kay-ah-vey) and Uncle Ray Kane (Kah-nay). Quite a blow. Yumi, Chie, and I were lucky enough to see Aunty Genoa sing and play in 2005 at the Honolulu Festival — though she continued to perform long after despite failing health. (Even in her mid-80s, Aunty could hold her trademark falsetto longer than singers a quarter of her age! Check out her signature song “Alika” to see what I mean.) She was quite a performer, with a smile that could make anybody feel good inside. I wasn’t familiar with Aunty Genoa until after moving to Hawai’i but was always glad to see and hear her, whether in concert or on the television. It’s just really sad knowing she’s not with us anymore.

Ray and I, however, go back a bit further. I first became aware of Ray Kane in 1995 when James Treat got hold of and showed the documentary Ki Ho’alu: That’s Slack Key Guitar to our Native American Studies class. I was immediately smitten by Ray’s charm and warmth, and shortly thereafter went out and purchased his CD Punahele. (Dancing Cat Records, a major promoter of slack key music, is based in Santa Cruz.)

The film was only available as a 16mm print at that time so the nearest I could come to it was a “how to” slack key guitar video that Ray had out. (I wish I had it with me now, but the tape is at Dad’s house with my other stuff.) I still remember when the package arrived: everything was hand-written, even a note tucked inside thanking me for the purchase and wishing me warmest aloha. And though I didn’t get very far with the actual guitar playing, I watched that tape many times just to hear Uncle Ray “talk story”. He reminded me so much of my grandfather and I just liked the sound of his voice in the room.

Being that Santa Cruz is a regular stopover on the Hawaiian music circuit, I had an opportunity to see Ray at UC Santa Cruz during a performance of slack key masters that included Keola Beamer, Led Kaapana, and George Kahumoku, Jr. It’s amazing that Ray was even able to travel back then due to lingering health problems, so I feel honored to have seen him perform live. What a guy, though. Do you know he used to trade fish he’d caught as a kid for guitar lessons? They don’t make them like that anymore, that’s for sure.

Aunty Genoa and Uncle Ray, aloha and mahalo nui loa to you both.

(Lee Cataluna on Aunty Genoa)
(Aunty Genoa Keawe’s Wikipedia page — I contributed the photo )
(Aunty Genoa obit — with photos, video and audio clips)
(Ray Kane obit)
(Ray Kane bio on Dancing Cat Records’ site)
(Ki Ho’alu: That’s Slack Key Guitar)

Ninja Protectors!

Hey, I’m throwing in the copyright infringement flag… Anybody listening? I didn’t think so, but hear me out all the same.

The other day I was reading that “Rain” (Korean pop phenom… whatever) is going to be starring in an upcoming film entitled Ninja Assassin. Well I’m here to assert that this film is little more than a thinly veiled re-make of an earlier cult classic — the definitive work of the genre! Check the record, buddy: Ninja Protectors! was shot 25 years ago and has just been taken out of the vault for remastering and re-release as a special, “silver anniversary” collector edition. See for yourself:

My people will be calling.

(larger version on Google Video)

Dabbling in tabs

I’ve really been enjoying having my guitar back (the Tokai that Todd mailed me recently). It’s also been fun looking up guitar tabs on the Web — mainly for intro licks that get me to sit down and practice for a few minutes. Man, gone are the days (for the most part) of plunking down big bucks for pricey sheet music. I still have a whole boxful at Dad’s house — but only those titles that made it past the culling: the others I flogged years ago at Logo’s Books in Santa Cruz to scrounge up some cash.

(Trivia: first sheet music I ever purchased was U2’s Joshua Tree; bought at Crow’s Nest music in Naperville, July 1989. I remember coming home and trying to work out a D chord on the back porch of our house. It seemed unlikely I’d ever train my fingers to automatically configure themselves in that position and I wondered how in the hell anyone could simultaneously sing and concentrate on finger placement. It was one of the more deflating moments in my life with music.)

Anyway, some of the easy licks I’ve “de-coded” are the opening chords/intros to the Doobie Bros’ “Long Train Runnin’” and “Rockin’ Down the Highway”, INXS’ “New Sensation”, “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath, and, the crown jewel so far, Matt “Guitar” Murphy’s intro to “Sweet Home Chicago” from The Blues Brothers. (I have to say, though, that when I try to replicate what Matt’s doing in the film it doesn’t sound right at all, but I like the fact that I’ll have to work at it a bit more.) Just having fun, that’s all.

What’s surprising is that most of these riffs are fairly straightforward, which is a bit anticlimactic. I mean, it still takes a lot of practice to get them down well, but the notation is not rocket science by any means. I guess it’s just weird in some way to be able to “get inside” or crack musical referents that have a strong personal association. Don’t get wrong: it’s great — and way cool — but also a touch disillusioning.

I remember a story Lyle Larson once told when I was taking his courses on Twain and Hemingway at SMC. He was relating the time someone showed him how to play the basic melody of Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata on the piano. For years he’d held that piece in such high esteem that it crushed him to learn how just about anyone could pick it up in a few minutes. Ever since, he’s heard the song with somewhat jaded ears, having lost some of the reverence and awe he held before, which is sad, really. Maybe some things are better left a mystery. Either that or I’ll just go back to Steely Dan, which is always a challenge…

Pack your grip / takin’ you on a trip!

For the past couple of weeks I haven’t been able to stop listening to Heatwave’s “The Groove Line” (extended version). It’s a kick-ass jam, plain and simple. I “re-discovered” the song while listening to one of Marie’s Phat Trax compilation CDs and haven’t been able to get it out of my head since. (Not a bad thing, by the way.)

At first I couldn’t figure out why the song resonated so strongly, then I got the reference: in the finale episode of Freaks & Geeks, “Groove Line” is spinning on the turntable when it’s Nick’s turn in the dance contest. (Remember I’d watched the entire series over winter break.) This thread of the storyline works particularly well, I think, as Nick, rejected by his father and ex-girlfriend, turns his back on rock ‘n roll and finds release and acceptance in the discotheque (previously anathema to his group of close friends). Though it’s obvious Nick is in denial, big time, there’s a redemptive quality to the act of surrendering to something once despised, allowing oneself a certain vulnerability in exchange for the bliss of forgiveness.

That’s a bit over the top, I know. But Nick’s dance scene in the club (which cuts to the Dungeons & Dragons game in progress at Sam’s house) has a very fin de siècle feel to it, tying right in to the finale’s overall “end-of-an-era” tone: time to let go of past labels, conceptions, and associations; new days and possibilities lie before us. I guess that’s what I get when I listen to “Groove Line”. The song just radiates optimism.

Leave your worries behind…

Good-bye P-House

On Sunday, February 17, Birmingham’s grand dame —the Parliament House hotel — was demolished to make way for the future. Opening its doors for the first time during the strife of mid-60’s “Bombingham” Alabama, the Parliament House represented new hope and became the hip hang-out spot. Anybody who was anybody passing through town stayed at the P-House, myself included.

My connection to the place can be traced directly to Case, who worked there for a time as night auditor while attending UAB in the early ’90s. Because of the hotel’s toll-free 800 line, Case and I spent many a late-night hour on the phone together. So yeah, I have a bit of a soft spot for the old gal.

(Case, what the hell is going on here? First they sink the Deyo and now the P-House exists only on Google Earth’s outdated satellite photos. Talk about erasing your past…)

(History of the hotel)
(Parliament House demolition photos)
(local news story)
(implosion video)
(Birmingham library digital collection)
(photo of Casey working at the P-House)

The Police come to Honolulu

Concert ticket (plus surcharges): $114
Concert t-shirt: $35
Beer: $7 x ?
Chance to see The Police in concert for the first (and most likely last) time in my life?: a hell of a lot!

Last Saturday Adam and I went to The Police concert here in Honolulu. I almost didn’t go because of the absurd price of tickets, but we don’t get many big name acts out here so you take what you can get; and besides, it’s The Police! I never saw them back in their heyday and I simply couldn’t justify not seeing them. Sting said the last time they played the Blaisdell was back in 1981. (They toured here in ‘84 in support of Synchronicity, but I’ll bet they played Aloha Stadium for that one.) Plus, Honolulu is the final stop for this reunion tour that’s been on the road since last May.

(On a side note: Adam and I were both trying to remember the last big-time concert we’d each been to. The nearest I can remember is perhaps the H.O.R.D.E. Festival at the Shoreline Amphitheater in ‘97 or ‘98? I remember seeing Ben Folds Five, the highlight for me.)

The boys have all grown older (which was true of the crowd, as well) and the songs were a bit mellower, but their musicianship was still tight as ever. Plus, the Blaisdell Center only seats about 10,000, so there really wasn’t a bad seat in the house. Adam and I sat through the first half but spent much of the second hour on our feet, circling around the mid-level walkway. The cool thing there is we were able to walk right behind the stage, with the band maybe 20 yards away. (Can you imagine getting to check out Stewart Copeland’s drumming from that proximity? Hello!…) The security detail wasn’t down for loitering so we had to maintain a slow, measured shuffle, making at least 4 or 5 circumnavigations in the process.

Here’s the set list:

Message in a Bottle
Synchronicity II
Walking On The Moon
Voices Inside My Head
When The World Is Running Down
Don’t Stand So Close To Me
Driven To Tears
Hole In My Life
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
Wrapped Around Your Finger
De Do Do Do De Da Da Da
Invisible Sun
Can’t Stand Losing You
Roxanne
King Of Pain
So Lonely
Every Breath You Take
Next To You

Of note:

Fiction Plane (the opening act, featuring Sting’s son), were pretty good. The guy sounds just like his father, though I don’t know how much he’s trying to work that angle. Another Julian Lennon? He probably hates that criticism.

Ann, I was thinking of you often during the night. You and The Police will always go hand-in-hand in my mind (even though I developed my own relationship with their music years later).

And yes, during “Walking on the Moon” I sang as much of the lyrics to “Bussing in the Lounge” as I could remember. (John, I would have tipped a beer in your honor but I got a little ahead of myself when moving to let my neighbor pass by, accidentally knocking over the reserve I had stashed under my seat. I was thinking of you all the same.)

None of the t-shirts featured images of the band members today.

Though recording devices of any type were strictly prohibited, I’ll bet half the audience at any given time were staring at their cell phones instead of the stage. (While a good proportion of the remainder took in the jumbotron rather than squinted to see Sting…) For the time being, there are still quite a few videos posted on YouTube from the show that we saw. Just do a search for police concert honolulu.

(Honolulu Advertiser concert review)

(KameraKozo’s photos from the concert)