Saturday leftovers

it's early sunday morning and i'm supposed to be calling poka's radio show to comment on the "big meeting" held at nuuanu valley park last sunday, but i'm too lazy. besides, i haven't put the notes together yet. only couple weeks left of school. i think we'll meet again in june, anyway, so there's lots of time.

saturday, after the sativa encounter, i dropped james off again (at the people's fund) and went to pick up nyrell in waikiki and took her to jarrett middle school for olelo's "kahea". there weren't too many of us, but enough producers were in attendance to be able to give feedback on olelo's new marketing plan calling for inspirational programming (of which there is an abundance) to be spill over on NATV, channel 53. in a sense, the inspirational programs are using up all their space and the proposal is to put them in "our" space. the presenter, olelo staff, gave a little powerpoint presentation which i didn't like, primarily because he gave as reasons for the change surveys that point to the desire of the general olelo-viewing public to watch "entertainment" and "light" viewing during primetime hours, 6-11 pm. i turned into an academic, for a moment, and asked him what surveys? what was he citing? he said he had been in advertising in hawaii for many years and was confident the survey figures from surveys done on the continent were similar to here. while he may have been correct in applying those figures to hawaii, i didn't agree. i believe, as did many of the producers present, that the reason people watch olelo is because mainstream television IS entertainment and light fare, and the only thing with any substance going on is on olelo. so that was the first thing that pissed me off. and the audience (us guys), which had been pretty quiet until then, became not only animated but really kinda noisy! it was a great discussion. some of the olelo staff got a little nervous when a couple guys began raising their voices and got into it with each other, but hey, we were all adults! anyhow, the little bit of tension worked itself out and that made for an interesting and spirited meeting! what could have been a presentation met with dead silence actually turned into some folks freely expressing their feelings and being heard and acknowledged by olelo admin. i thought it was great. NOT listening could have translated into an escalation and possible punch in the face, but that didn't happen.

the photos above are of 1) nyrell, rob kinslow, and jim brewer; 2) some of the folks having lunch at the jarrett school cafeteria (evern and crew always see that there's ono food available for these meetings), and 3) meredith's kids (a couple of cuties!). i think she's teaching them to ham it up before the cameras! but good on meredith for setting up this talk story session. i think it worked out well. palolo was the first. no telling what will happen at the other olelo meetings, but hopefully they'll adjust the next one based on this one. olelo's cfo got yelled out, but to his credit he took it all in and they worked things out (i think). i see growth!