Precious stories! Robert Cazimero, Kumu Hula and Hawaiian music legend, conjures up the Hawaiian Renaissance, the camaraderie behind the glory days of live Hawaiian music in Waikīkī, Sunshine Crater Festivals, his Halau Na Kamalei o Lililehua, and May Days at the Shell in this casual talk story. Robert Cazimero is currently the focus of Ke Kilo Lani, in Gallery ’Iolani at Windward Community College. 

The exhibition presents photos and memorabilia showing Robert’s evolution in Hula and influence during the Hawaiian Renaissance of the 1970’s onward. In their development as artists, the Brothers Cazimero mirrored and helped shape contemporary Hawaiian music and culture. 

In a recent gallery talk, Robert Uluwehionapuaikawēkiuokalani Cazimero was thoughtful, he didn't take the role of sage or prophet as he well could! Robert's vibrant energy makes one so thankful to be on this journey of discovery with him. I think you’ll enjoy this interview we did for Hawai’i Public Radio in 2021. It’s a balm to spend time and wala’ao with this son of Hawai'i. 

Check out 6 minute and 23 minute versions with music on the HPR site:

https://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/tags/robert-cazimero

The Ke Kilo Lani exhibition continues at Gallery 'Iolani, WCC through May 15, 2026. 

Enjoy docent-led tours by members of Halau Na Kamalei o Lililehua on May 9, 2026, 1-4pm.

Aloha kakou! 

For elegance, utility, and design perfection, today, we’re honoring the coconut palm. The Niu, or coconut palm, Cocos nucifera L., is our beloved Hawaiian coconut! 

Stately beacons, especially at the seashore. 

The niu’s slender ringed trunk ascends to a crown of fronds, some up to 9 feet long. Coconuts form at the base of the fronds, and every part of the plant is used, it’s one  of the ten most useful plant species in the world.

Here, Jessie Mikasobe Keali’inohomoku talks about the delicious phases of the nut meats! Among a lot of other things, including efforts to educate and propagate Niu culture. 

Mahalo to Jesse, as well as Indrajit Gunasekara – Uluniu Project Founder, and Dr. Manu Aluli Meyer – Kūlana o Kapolei, Chancellorʻs Office and ʻAha Niu Director.

Find out more about the Niu ohana here ⁠https://www.puuhonua-society.org/niu-now⁠

808-725-0907 

[email protected]

IG at Niu.Now 

Mahalo to contributing musicians. Music programming and listing: Kit Ebersbach at Pacific Music Productions

Hope the new year opens like a coconut for you! 

Here are a few notes I made about the coconut meat:

ʻōʻio, the unripe, green nut with jelly-like flesh

haohao, as in “ka wai o ka niu haohao,” the delicious water in the maturing nut, with soft, white flesh 

ʻili kole, the half-ripe nut, with chewy meat, eaten raw with salt and poi

oʻo, a mature nut, but not brown, ripe, good for milk and cream

maloʻo, brown mature nut, with dry husk, water still inside, best stage for planting

ho’oiho, the spongy pulp in sprouting nuts; choice food (lolo)

ōkaʻa, the dry, brown, old nut with no water and meat

‘āka’a, separated from shell so as to make a rattling

sound; oil is extracted at this stage

This program is, uncharacteristically, about me. After two shows working with Honoluluʻs unsheltered community, I made some paintings now at Bās Bookshop in Honolulu through 11/26/2023.

Wednesday 11/15, Erin Yuasa and I will be there at 5:30 to talk about work, and making. She’ll demo the handsome lei she makes from repurposed t-shirts. Please do come by. I feel like making the whole night about how we in Hawai’i can contribute to a unified world.🌺

And because of this show, my UH Manoa grad school studio mate, Florence Matsuoka, got the idea to interview me. Argh!

Plus, to make it an episode in my Fresh Pacific podcast.

See her twisting her long mustache…all part of a diabolical scheme! Florence, I find out has ascended to become General Manager at Hawaiian Graphics, the venerable and indispensable art supply store on Beretania. They’re mobilizing their facebook page, hoping to be a link for artists around the state. Hear about that, and reminiscences of Helen Gilbert and Prithwish Neogy in the new Fresh Pacific podcast.

“We’re the last generation that has a chance to solve the climate crisis.” Hear a Hawaiian view of where we are and how to proceed.

Kamanamaikalani Beamer applies a Hawaiian perspective to our future on this planet, incorporating environmentalism, economic justice, and indigenous knowledge. Author, thought leader, professor in the Hawaiʻinuiakea School of Hawaiian Knowledge and with the Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa, Beamer introduced me to the idea of "circular economies" in 2019. Itʻs one of those "duh" concepts that we seem to have forgotten. In this conversation he presents the concept of Degrowth, an expanding movement, especially in Europe. Kamana talks about how solving the climate crisis connects to reforming our economic system. The idea of not pursuing growth at all cost seems anti-capitalist. Yes, every part of the natural world is calling for profound and immediate change.

This episode closes with a song by U’ilani Tanigawa-Lum, U’ilaniʻs song celebrates the taro farmers of Waioli on Kaua’i, who organized to bring their crops and their lifestyle into the 21st century.

Itʻs from Huliamahi Volume I, a recording of contemporary songs celebrating the challenges and legal victories that preserve cherished land parcels and life ways. The entire album satisfies on so many levels. Proceeds from the recording benefit the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation.

http://www.kahulileolea.org/huli257mahi-vol-1.html

Aloha kakou! In this episode we are remembering a Hawaiian leader, Dr. Noa Emmett Aluli. A family physician and servant-leader, he shares valuable lessons about how resistance bears fruit and progress can be made. Among other things, Aluli was co-founder of a movement demanding that the Navy stop using a Hawaiian island for target practice. 

Right now, Oʻahu is ramping up efforts to protect its drinking water from contamination by the Navy. (Toxic foam spill reported 12/6/22, UHWO guide ) It happens that challenging the U.S. military has been successful in Hawaiʻi. 

How did the bombing of Kahoʻolawe stop? Was it logic? Not really--- it took an amazing confluence of forces. Professor Davianna McGregor of the Protect Kahoʻolawe Ohana explains.

Also, it was a heartbreaking loss that shook Hawaiʻi, Aluli recounts as much as is known about what really happened to George Helm and Kimo Mitchell in those rough seas off Kahoʻolawe.  Importantly, Aluli and McGregor chart the spiritual and cultural foundation for Aloha ʻAina. Their colleague and friend, photographer Franco Salmoiraghi, begins the discussion with frank talk about landscape and the nautical introduction he got to Kahoʻolawe. Mahalo to Native Books/Arts and Letters and the Puʻuhonua Society for creating the occasion for this interview. Mahalo to Hawaiʻi Public Radio, where segments of this interview first aired.

#kahoolawe #protectkahoolaweohana #shutdownredhill #kukiaiwai #oahuwaterprotectors #maunakea #wearemaunakea #alohaaina #hawaii #servantleaders #hawaiianhistory #kakou 

 🌱Trying Plant medicine🌿 FRESH PACIFIC podcast looks at the possibilities of psychedelic therapies in Hawaiʻi.

“I have certainly seen depression rise, suicide thinking go up, Iʻve had some of my long term substance abuse patients that had been sober, alcoholics, for a long time have relapsed. Iʻve been dealing with a lot of increased demand for psychiatric services. My colleagues around Honolulu report the same thing,” says Hawai’i psychiatrist, Dr. Thomas Cook. “And thereʻs an uptick in child issues too, a lot of increased stress among children because of all the change weʻve seen.” 

Addressing stress, depression, anxiety, and other issues must be tailored to each situation, each person. In some cases, Dr. Cook advocates the clinical use of psychedelics to treat some mental illnesses. He says depressed people, people caught in repetitive, hamster-wheel types of patterns can benefit. In 2019, the FDA called psilocybin "breakthrough therapy" for treating depression. 

In November 2021, the New York Times reported on U.S. veterans lobbying for psychedelic therapy options. The Veterans Administration has launched at least 5 studies on the effectiveness of psilocybin to treat PTSD. 

“The point of psychedelics is the altered mental state and the learning from the experience that comes with that.” Psychedelics get people off drugs they’ve been taking for years, and Dr. Cook explains how that works.

He also explains who might be against that. Guess who? Then, first hand experiences of transformation from a woman with brain cancer, and a Vietnam veteran who took mushrooms on Maui. Psychedelic therapies and recreation are already happening from Hanalei to Hawi.

There are a couple of entertaining articles in the New Yorker, one, from 2016 describes an ayahuasca boom in the U.S. Another article, printed in 2022 describes how one advocate of ingesting secretions from the back of a toad for psychedelic rebirth, "smoking toad," appears to have gone off the rails.

Michael Pollanʻs 2018 book, How to Change Your Mind, lifted the curtain on a re-examination of psychoactive drugs and their effects for a new generation. He does for organic psychedelics what he did for eating plants in 2006, with The Omnivoreʻs Dilemma.

It’s not for everybody.

Ashley Lukens is founder of the Clarity Project, advocating for clinical use of psychedelics. A brain cancer survivor, she attributes her wellness to therapies including ayahuasca and psilocybin. Meditation, mindfulness, psychoanalysis are all pathways as well, she says, but “I would argue there are a lot of people that do not attain the clarity that psychedelics provide you through meditation and psychoanalysis because there is a firmly entrenched mental block. Psychedelics have shown, time and time again to help you overcome that barrier.”

As for music in this episode, my deepest thanks to Kit Ebersbach and to Dae Han, both of whom deserve closer listening on their own!

Music List

Kit Ebersbach: Faux Lyre and Lull. Find his work on popular platforms and at Aloha Got Soul.

Dae Han. In a Dream.

Henry Kapono Kaʻaihue is a giant in Hawaiʻi, his music was on the leading edge of the Hawaiian Renaissance of the 1970ʻs. He opened the door for contemporary local music in the 1970's. With partner, Cecilio Rodrigues, C&K provided the soundtrack for an era. The music still conjures good times in Hawaiʻi for generations of people. I am not licensed to play the music on this podcast, but here’s a link to a broadcast of this interview on Hawai’i Public Radio. I was able to incorporate some music in that version so it’s fun! Not full songs though, due to time constraints. Mahalo, HPR!

It was easy connecting through his wife and partner, Lezlee. Theyʻve got twins, teenagers now at Punahou. Such a pleasure to look at the work. In the C&K discography, Henry’s songs were Friends, Song for Someone, Sunflower, oh heavens, they just let it be beautiful. Highway in the Sun, so many.

Henry’s all about forward momentum. His website, Henry’s House is a fountain of positivity. He has an artist-to-artist program starting this fall. In this interview, Henry recalls how the Hawaiʻi diaspora saved a gig in Palo Alto, and how that led to their Columbia contract. Frank Zappa figures in a great story about how C&K first broke in Honolulu. Over the pandemic, Henry released an acoustic version of his Dylanesque rocker, One Man.

One Man 2020 shows that all Henry’s positivity is a choice. Because in 2022, our eyes are open, we see cruelty, we see suffering, and we see the grind that makes us so unhappy with ourselves and each other. I worry about the pressure on people who choose to live in Hawaiʻi.

We have a lot in common, just committing to live here. Henry’s music is a heartful connector. Dive into the C&K discography for a fun Aloha Friday happy hour, my friends, or dust off that black vinyl. These really are the good times together.

Hawaiʻi Public Radio Aloha Friday Conversation with Henry Kapono of C&K, Kirk Thompson of Kalapana, and Starr Kalahiki of the Liliʻuokalani Project

Welcome to a different reality! Hear Kahu Roddy Kawailualani Kawehi Akau of Moanalua in a free flowing interview about Kapūkakī, Red Hill, and the surrounding Moanalua ahupuaʻa. He throws off ideas and cultural references like sparks as he explains the cultural and spiritual significance of the area.

A few days ago officials found fuel chemicals in a monitoring well outside the Navy’s Kapūkakī/Red Hill fuel storage facility. The Honolulu Board of Water Supply says civilian drinking water system is still safe, but data released by the Sierra Club shows the storage facility has leaked more than 188,000 gallons of chemicals into its surroundings since 1947.

In March this year, the Navy reversed itself and agreed that the facility is dangerous. The Navy submitted a plan to remove the fuel by the end of 2024. Hawaiʻiʻs Health Department has rejected that plan as too vague. A new plan must be submitted by September 7, 2022.

Meanwhile, Oʻahu's largest freshwater source, the Hālawa Shaft, has been shut down, along with two others. Residents have been asked to cut water use by ten percent, and concerns about ongoing contamination fuel nightmare scenarios.

So grateful for the opportunity to share this rare conversation with Kahu Roddy Akau. We first met in 2015. That year, he wrote a widely circulated editorial stating the significance of Kapūkakī, Red Hill. He warned of the danger to Oʻahu's water supply, and requested that the Navy move the storage facility.

UHWO compilation of resources about Oʻahuʻs water crisis:

https://guides.westoahu.hawaii.edu/c.php?g=977248&p=7079960

More about beautiful Moanalua Valley, purchased by the state and the Trust for Public Land in 2008

https://www.tpl.org/our-work/moanalua-valley

Aloha mai kakou! Contemporary Honolulu is such a vibrant mess! In this episode, you'll meet a musician who blends cultures and influences in a way that really gets at it. Multi-instrumentalist Ted de Oliveira is a performer, composer and music producer under the name: FRNT BZNZZ.

Ted's dad is legendary percussionist Carlos de Oliveira---who once bested 499 others to be crowned the champion Pandeiro, or tambourine, player in Brazil. You can imagine the competition.

Ted's mom is singer, ethnomusicologist, Sandy Tsukiyama, the host of Brazilian Experience, one of Hawaiʻi Public Radio's most popular programs.

Here, Ted describes his particular confluence of cultures, and takes music making apart, to how itʻs done collaboratively by guys with synthesizers. Fun! Ted hasn't scrimped on living, and he brings in aspects of culture so easily. Heʻs a communicator who has thought about things. And the music is great.

Hear the entire Festivao de Azeitona, Festival of Olives, recording

https://frntbznzz.bandcamp.com/album/festival-de-azeitona-olive-festival

Finding FRNT BZNZZ music online has gotten a lot harder in the last year, or is it just me? Glad I purchased all my downloads.

This is two good tracks and a Soundcloud interview

https://soundcloud.com/alohagotsoul/sets/ags-7009-frnt-bznzz

An example of the Aloha Got Soul releases

https://alohagotsoul.bandcamp.com/track/separation-anxiety-2  

#hawaii #music #honolulu #freshpacific #party 

Epic sunsets, sparkly surf, thatʻs summertime! Waikīkī stories this week on FRESH PACIFIC. Sit back and enjoy surf historian John Clark describing Waikīkī in terms of its water flow and its people. He describes the pivotal Ala Wai dredging, then the hotels starting in the 1900ʻs. The beach boys! WWII, then movie stars and statehood. Throughout, the amazing lacy surf breaks that attracted aliʻi (royalty) of old, and continue to distinguish Oʻahuʻs South shore today.

John adds Kapiʻolani Park history and the competitive swimming culture of the 1920ʻs onward. Olympic swimming champion, Duke Kahanamoku, who practiced in Honolulu Harbor and at Waikiki beach, was a bridge between Hawaiʻi and the rest of the world.

ʻWhen he actually got into swimming pools, he was into fresh water and walls where you could make a turn and push off, so his times got even better." John describes one of Dukeʻs unforgettable rides, one that people are still trying to match.

I have to gaze skyward in thanks when John points out that Kapiʻolani Park could very well be a mish mash of hotels right to the foot of Diamond Head if King Kalākaua had not set that glorious acreage aside, a tribute to his wife, Queen Kapiʻolani.

Music this week is from Steve and Teresa. Their distinctive sound has never been duplicated. Or surpassed. Their first release, Caching a Wave, was recorded in one 3-hour session in 1981, just the two of them. Itʻs a killah. Iʻve bought and given away three copies of the vinyl re-release since it came out at Aloha Got Soul. So happy to play a few cuts for you with this week.

John is equally engaging on camera, you may enjoy this Hawaiʻi Department of Education video that features John on the topic of Waikiki surf breaks.

https://uhalumni.org/manoa/story/historian-firefighter-writer-says-place-names-capture-history

I never forget the amazing book from UH Press called Waikīkī, A History of Forgetting and Remembering by Andrea Feeser and Gaye Chan. I love this book for helping me sort out my emotions about Waikīkī.

Because everything they say about it being totally magic? Itʻs true despite everything weʻve done.

Feeser and Chan help me see tension inherent in the concept of "vacation mode"-- a state of entitlement with no responsibility. How can? I see us now trying to get tourists to care. And itʻs deeper than that.

Feeser and Chan contend that the logic of colonialism and capitalism is what makes us desire this exploitative idea of the "good life."

And for people who have saved 20 years for this very special vacation in Hawaiʻi, what you seek really is here!

And weʻre looking for ways to share it with you.

#Waikiki #Surf #Hawaii #Surfing