Willy K in concert

saturday night at the waikiki bandstand, willy k. and kaukahi, a local band, provided music for the prince kuhio moonlight concert. i have to say that was probably one of the highlights of the year (thus far) for me. he was fabulous! his friends, one from mexico, the other from israel, accompanied him, also on guitars. the music was outstanding. must have been a thousand people sitting there, in the dark, enjoying the music. the tourists seemed to like it. but the locals loved it--we could hear them screaming and cheering somewhere behind and to the sides of us. wish i had gotten a clear picture of them, but all i got was fuzzy blobs, which is what you get :-)

maria (who i was sitting next to) and i commiserated on the crazy lifestyle we live--obviously too much work and not enough sitting around listening to and enjoying music. i reflected on my youthful days of hanging out in bars and clubs and, basically, having a "no thinking" life. my sister worked in club pantheon, downtown, kind of a sleazy joint, as i recall. i think she could drink any guy under the table. but it was funny and fun, nonetheless. pre-kids, of course. notice i didn't write pre-marriage, just pre-kids. back then not many women i knew were out partying with their husbands or boyfriends. most of the males were home baby-sitting. my bad. my fun, too. i remember writing around with a bunch of drunk people, mostly women, not thinking at all about the possibility of being killed by someone who could black out behind the wheel. but as i mentioned it was not a time in my life when i was particularly conscious.

the concert started around 6 pm, immediately following the prince kuhio parade in waikiki. i was supposed to be watching the parking lot but ran off just when the parade cars and marchers started to arrive. and i forgot to return! my desire to 'capture' the parade via images overcame my sense of responsibility to the group. that's another way of saying that i ran away from working the lot and worked the road, instead. but i got some good shots. all of the photos are on the aohcc.org website, if folks wanna go look. it has occurred to me that next year at this time some of the folks i've digitally captured will no longer be here. some of those who were here last year are not here this year. ua pau, ua hala lakou--they have departed, and we are saddened because of it. but they were captured in my camera and they still live via images here and there and everywhere.

so yesterday was a long day, but the concert made up for all of it. afterwards, we went with maria to zippy's to eat ice cream and sandwiches. while we were there, i noticed a couple of guys sitting on a table across from us. two young local guys. one of them had a fabulous tattoo on his arm. i kept staring at his tattoo and i think he noticed, as he kept looking over at our table. eventually i just loudly commented to him how striking it was. when you ask about people's tattoos, something i notice about all of us with tattoos, they immediately want to share everything about their tattoo. then they want to show you all the rest. so this guy whipped off his shirt (in the restaurant) and showed us the other tattoo on his shoulder and talked about the significance of the different designs. then the other guy pulled up his pants leg and showed us his tattoo and talked about its significance. then (of course), i whipped off my olelo jacket and showed him the circles on my upper arms and described them as mo`o tails, one on each upper arm, with two mo`o on my back looking at each other. i had thought, of course, about whipping off my own shirt to showoff my mo`o, but thought better of it. didn't want james to have a heart attack, or maybe give me a couple of cracks :-) just kidding, of course. anyhow, we got into a long discussion about tattoos, and finally we went back to eating and to letting them eat. local people are crazy that way. the guy's tattoo on his right arm was from elbow to wrist. it was much like a glove, or maybe gauntlet, and looked somewhat like armor. it only took four hours or so to do. it goes around his whole arm, front and back. anyhow, i left the restaurant convinced i needed to have something like it. then i regretted not getting a photo, so i ran back in, like a crazy person, and asked to take photos. a couple of them are posted. i'm sure they thought i was crazy, but at my age, i don't really care.