December 27, 2012
It’s always in-the-back-of-my-mind and it’s the excuse I give to people who can’t believe that I’ve never been to Hawaii: that if I visited this paradise I would never leave…I’d have a shack under a palm tree – kinda like that Corona commercial; I’d get up when I pleased and smoke a joint or two; drink coconut milk and eat bananas all day; and, all-the-while, grow a true, island-styled wine belly. If I was in the mood for fish or some type of seafood in the evening – I bet I could catch what I needed by throwing a line out and then baking that fresh fish in wet fronds on some embers in the sand. Evenings would be wine-laced under starry skies, where I would practice my melodica (after I learn circular breathing), and, write verse. Who knows – perhaps some music-minded folks might stop by and we could stumble upon some music magic as we perform for those aforementioned stars…
Damn!
Now I will be visiting Hawaii for the first time – but I don’t think I can get that full monty I just described, just yet: I am not positioned to drift into that hedonistic vision. I still owe “the man”; and, have-a-few-more-years of indentured servitude to pay off various bills that are not disappearing in my semi-retirement (where are those little elves?). That’s why the University of Hawaii must become my new hammock!
So I will need to work full-time again; but everyone says full-time in Hawaii is more like Indian Time on the mainland. To-a-person: friends and acquaintances have asked me what has taken me so long to get my buttocks there?!
There are many answers to that question – and I have addressed most of them elsewhere – but now, with my 30th year So Cal anniversary coming up, I can only say that the living continues to be “too busy” here; and, becomes more absurd by-the-day (if I accidentally see one more ‘helpful Honda’ commercial — I could very well puke my guts!). I have become so jaundiced by the Hollyweird stamp on all things So Cal that I have even grown bored of the cute talking heads who used to perk me up so much. Christ, KCAL 9 now sports a male anchor whose plasticked face scares the bejeebers out of me (and no, I’m not trying to be mean to him!).
I quit watching “Saturday Night Live” back in the early 80s because the commercials were already as thick as mosquitoes on a hot mid-west night! And now those mosquito-like absurdities become progressively more difficult to dodge: even during my sports programming…if I were an ice hockey fan it might be different…at least I have European soccer (American soccer is still a few years away from being watchable) – but I know that this media virus is infecting me, making me sick…another Coors Light commercial could push me over the edge…
Whoops! Talk about getting pushed off a cliff, I almost forgot the politics operative in my current place of work. I’m hoping there is no politicking in Hawaii. There shouldn’t be, because there’s nowhere to hide: Five-O always gets the bad guy!
Time to go where the climate suits my clothes…gotta get off White Man’s time before it gives me a cancer…