My history with Hawaii began in 1972 when my mom and dad took us kids to the Big Island. We flew into Hilo and drove to Kona and stayed for about a week. I don’t remember a whole lot other than snorkeling in my “Vote” shirt that my mom made for me. The pattern had the word “vote” all across it. I remember buying a “Keep on Surfin’” sticker with the “Keep on Truckin” guys holding surfboards. And what exactly was the “Keep on Truckin” thing supposed to signify? Keep driving trucks? Keep on going as a 1970s self help kind of thing? Keep being cool because you walk with your feet way out in front of the rest of your body? Feckin’ weird. Anyway, that was a fun trip.
The next Hawaii trip was in 1977 at the end of my 7th grade year. My dad took us kids along with his second wife and her kids, Eric and Tammy. I had an orchestra concert planned for that week and the original plan was for me to do the concert and then dad and I would fly out a couple days after everyone else. However, I chose to go with everyone else and miss the concert. I am surprised that Mr. Granger didn’t dock me a grade for that. Were it my kid I probably would have made him/her do the concert, especially since it included “March to the Scaffold” from Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique . But at the time I was happy with my decision. On the way back on the plane Eric and I mixed our dinner leftovers together on a plate and put a sign that said “Continental Chef’s Surprise.” Our cute stewardess was (I thought) mock upset and made some comment that I forget. Another stewardess said “Don’t worry about her, she’s a witch!” Wow, well, we weren’t sure where to go with that.
We went the next year at the same time and I missed a test in physical science for which I did get docked. I thought it was unfair but my mom said to think of it from the teacher’s perspective: A kid gets to go to Hawaii and misses a test while the other students who may not be so fortunate are there finishing the class. Fair enough. Eric (stepbrother) and I did some cool Boogie Boarding at Turtle Bay on the north shore of Oahu. We also rented a big ol’ log surfboard in Waikiki and rode it tandem. Seriously fun. The hotel we stayed at in Kuilima had a totally hot girl working as a lifeguard at the pool. I think I “fantasized” about her every night. The snack bar also made really good turkey sandwiches. So on the flight back we had the same stewardess we had the year before (the Continental Chef’s Surprise”) and I stupidly reminded her of our hijinks from the year before. Well, she gave me all kinds of grief for the rest of the flight. She didn’t bring me my dinner; she pretended to spill a tray of drinks on me. She finally brought my dinner but said they were short and it was actually her dinner that I ate. It was without the dessert…coconut ice cream. I said to Eric, “You helped make the Chef’s Surprise how come you aren’t getting hassled?” He said, “Because I didn’t remind her of it (implied…’you idiot!’)”. True enough. Anyway, towards the end of the flight she brought me a sundae from the first class meal. It was not one of my shining moments. I still thought she was hot, though. Definite cougar potential. Of course for a 13 year-old an 18 year-old would be definite cougar potential, but she was probably close to 40.
The next trip was after high-school graduation. Dad gave me a ticket and some dough and along with the $$ I got from my mom and grandparents, Rob and I went to Waikiki for 10 days. My mom also got me one of the first Casio keyboards. I still have it, pretty sweet, or “BOSS” as was my initial reaction. So, since I was on a discounted ticket (dad was a pilot) I had trouble getting a flight as they were all overbooked. Rob went ahead and his grandpa stayed with me in the airport until I got on a flight. He kept talking up the gate folk with lines like, “Yep, his friend got on a flight earlier today and is waiting for him at the Honolulu Airport… we’ve been here since then.” “This young man and his friend are celebrating graduation with this trip; his friend caught an earlier flight and is waiting for him at in Honolulu.” It finally worked on a Western Airlines guy who took pity on me and gave me the last first class seat. Grandpa shook my hand and I went on board. Thanks Skip!
That was a great trip. We didn’t leave Waikiki, but the drinking age was 18 ( I had just turned, tho’ Rob was still 17) so we had much beer. Then the daughter of a sorority friend of my mom’s came with her boyfriend and took us to a comedy show (Andy Bumatai, very funny) and then to a topless bar (with just the boyfriend) called The Lollipop. Well, after that introduction we spent every following evening there drinking beer and looking at tits. They did table dances (though those weren’t topless) and we put our toe in the water with a blond who danced for us to “I Love Rock n’ Roll”, as it turned out she was a big Joan Jett fan. Thereafter we got table dances from all the girls until we each found a favorite. For Rob it was this chick in a rabbit skin bikini who would look you right in the eye while doing an incredibly sexy dance. Rob was totally knocked out by her and followed her from stage to stage to watch her. Mine was this hot local girl. She initially came up to me and asked if I wanted a table dance, I declined at first. Then Rob said to me, “Dude, she’s really hot and has a totally ‘tease’ face’”. He was right so I hunted her down and asked for a table dance. I had her dance for me every night for the rest of the trip. I even got a free one my final night. Rob was so smitten with his girl (Sorry, I realize this whole narrative couldn’t be much more sexist than it is. I’m just reporting it as I remember it) that he wrote her a note proclaiming his love and slipped it under the door of the club on the morning we left. Apparently he received a nice letter in return. Gawd, we spent a lot of money in that place. 1982 dollars it was $3 for a table dance, but we pretty much gave them $5 each time plus all the beer.
When we got back dad asked, “So did you take a bus and check out the rest of the island?” Nope. “Did you go to the Polynesian Cultural Center, or the Sea Park?” Nope. “What the heck did you do?” I don’t remember if I actually told the truth at the time. Not that he would have had a major problem with it, but it was pool time and video games during the day (and checking out the Swedish chicks at our hotel) and Lollipop at night. We had fun!
The summer of 1984, Rob and Eric took off to Hawaii, Rob came home after a few months but Eric ended up staying. For the rest of the year I was studying at Long Beach State and trying to form a reggae band with Rob. We wrote some pretty cool songs together but had trouble finding other musicians to play with us. We actually had Chris B. our friend and a really good drummer interested but finding a bass player was turning out to be impossible. We put ads in the Recycler and got a couple responses: One was this guy Glen who we thought was a perfect fit and was a good player, but turned out to be a total flake. The other was this dude from Compton. He was a super nice guy, but the ad said “willing to experiment” when we wanted it to say “must be willing to experiment.” That’s a different thing. So this dude had some ideas about doing like nursery rhymes or something like that, and also some kind of rap on Revelation. He really didn’t know much about reggae and seemed mystified by the bass lines we played for him. So that didn’t work out either. Then Rob had the idea to go to Hawaii and try to form a band there. It sounded plausible; I mean it is an island culture like Jamaica so there must be musicians wanting to play reggae! Well, not really. As it turns out Hawaii was rather reactionary in its musical taste. This is best exemplified by noting the number of requests I got from students while I was teaching there asking me to teach them America songs or Uriah Heep songs…there were a lot! So we never really found anyone to play with. However, we did work together and wrote some songs, and as it was the first time I had to live on my own, pay bills, buy food, etc…it was a valuable experience. And we had some great times, including my one experience with total transcendence, probably Nirvana:
We initially stayed at this semi-seedy hotel: The Honolulu Prince. Eric and Rob lived there before so we invaded Eric who was at the time enjoying solitude in the studio apartment. Yep, we ended up with three of us in one room. I slept on the floor. Fortunately, we all had different hours, at least at first so it wasn’t quite as bad as it might seem to an outsider. Nevertheless, the situation couldn’t last forever, so we eventually moved to a two bedroom apartment.
Rob and Eric took me to the Rose and Crown Pub my first night there and introduced me to Guinness Stout. The first glass was difficult, but thereafter I was hooked. Literally, It got to the point where we would crave it and couldn’t wait to get off work and indulge…and if we had Fig Newtons to go along with it…Valhalla! (I already used Nirvana in a sentence, and when one is discussing beer, Valhalla seems more appropriate)
I sold my 1976 Mustang II before leaving so I had about $1000.00 when I got to Hawaii, enough to last a while…remember it was 1985, but I didn’t want to wait too long before finding a job. Eric had been working two jobs, nights at the Shorebird buffet/bar and early mornings at Perry’s Smorgasbord. Apparently he had slept in hungover and missed work at Perry’s enough times to where they told him “If it happens one more time don’t even bother coming in.” Well, it happened one more time just before I arrived. Rob had just gotten a job as a busboy at like $3.50 an hour. I applied for Eric’s old position…a “float”...the position involved keeping plates, silverware, soda etc all stocked…and it paid $4.50! I had never made that much before.
It started at 6:00 AM…and what a deep evil black mood I was in every morning. Getting up that early in freakin’ Hawaii to go schlep crappy food to tourists sucked! My direct supervisor was this effeminate guy name Norm, nothing wrong with effeminism, I enjoy doing a bit of drag myself, but imagine an effeminate twenty-something who apparently loves working at a shitty place like Perry’s! He was totally gung-ho and I at 21 just couldn’t handle that. And the upper management guys were total dicks. One whose name I forget would come in sometimes and find things to complain about like the plates being stacked too high (they weren’t, Norm told me how high to go and I could tell he thought this guy was kind of a jerk…gotta give that to ol’ Norm).
But the hugest prick was Dave who was, I don’t know…one of the owners or the head-head manager. The first time he walked in the sweet, older Hawaiian coffee server lady said “I’m going to hide in the lobby, that guy is an a-hole” Then I walked in the kitchen (where I once saw a guy breaking up lettuce heads on the floor for the salads) to get some orange juice for the float area and Dave yelled “Hey what the hell are you doing?!” Before I could answer he yelled at Norm, “What’s that table boy (hey, I have a name you nad!) doing with the orange juice!” Norm answered, “He’s not a table-boy, he’s a float!” And Dave said “Well that’s not his job!” It totally was my job but he had to save face. I saw one of these guys outside of work just walking down Kapahulu and in the context of the real world he looked like what he was, just a petty little man.
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