Kupa'aina at Ala Moana -- October 9, 2004

First off, no one can open a show like Mr. Chang. It's loud. It's fast. It streams through the air like black but molten lava, or like the Goddess Pele surfing Tennis Courts on a larger day. (Hell, I recognized the word "kupa'aina," but aside from that, he could have been saying, "GREAT GOD LONO, BLESS THIS F*CKING SHOPPING MALL!" for all I know.) It's f*cking unignorable, and this is an ~excellent~ thing. It also helps that Mr. Chang weighs 300 and used to be a part-time bouncer.

The way cool thing about Kupa'aina is their simultaneous sense of cohesion and spontaneity. Their music is comfortable and makes you feel good, in a reggae but local way, somehow retro--if not ancient--yet very vital, and it's full of little offhand improvisations that wind through the air like tuberose without messing up the integrity of the underlying lei. Similar kinds of stuff go on in The Vines' songs, but they were in the studio for months, while these guys just do it onstage. The sound has a slumbering tropical nocturnal mystery that inspired interest and comment even in the check-out line of Borders Express, two stores away from the venue.

I was puzzled initially by the t-shirts, cuz they kind of reminded me of the suit-clad part of the '60s British Invasion, (although The Hives have revived this in such a killer, dramatic manner, and the marketing strategy of yellow "Kupa'aina" shimmering on black 100% cotton before the eyes of all the audience was obvious), but then I began to see it as a subsumation of the individual in a collective cause, certainly a socially worthwhile message. I'm not sure the band needs this, though, as their sound is as cohesive as glue, and the imaginative flights of fancy of their individual members are the quality that makes them relevant to a far wider audience than those with a Hawaiian sovereignty chip on their shoulder-- Asking them why they write about what they do is kind of like asking Eminem why he writes about Halie, since she's not your kid.

THANK YOU, LONO

The first 15'-20' northwest winter swell is arriving today on the North Shore. YES!

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

This is a totally captivating movie. (For peeps not into the genre, it's a Japanese anime film, the sequel to the very highly acclaimed original Ghost in the Shell made back in the '90s.) I watched it twice, once on Friday, when it opened, and once on Monday. It's so incredibly--wonderful--to watch a movie that quotes Descartes and the more obscure tales of Jakob Grimm and pays overt homage to Hans Bellmer. A local reviewer described this movie as "talky," and the Friday night patrons were rather quiet throughout, but the Monday crowd laughed perpetually and clearly dug the great wit and fab dialogue.

First off, the animation is staggeringly gorgeous, of a quality to bring tears to your eyes. In keeping with its predecessor, this movie is about cyborgs and humans and the nature of consciousness and life. It proposes to extend the concept of life to the apparently unconscious, a thought that will captivate anyone who has ever loved a doll, stuffed animal, or action figure. Sure, the theory of human projection can be easily subsumed within this idea, but the movie goes beyond that to suggest that the inanimate lead lives of their own, simply unperceived by humans, who lack the ability to communicate with the inanimate, just as we don't sing bird songs. The first time I saw this movie, I found myself agreeing with the local reviewer that the plot got lost a little bit in the middle--I remember thinking, "You know, at some point you've got to stop masturbating in front of the mirror and achieve a f*cking conclusion"--but the second time I truly felt that the movie's greatest strength is that it doesn't really achieve a conclusion-- It kind of reaches one, but essentially it leaves you with lots of ideas to think about regarding the essence of existence. Yeah, this could get rather funny, like, Does ink really enjoy being made into animated films? Does every pizza box I discard scream when I throw it in the trash? But it's such a trippy idea portrayed in such an engaging way that you'll continue to think about it and be amused by it for long afterward. This film grows on you with each repeated go-around, much like Some Girls by the Rolling Stones, as it is so rich and has so much to look at and listen to. It leaves you with an almost hallucenogenic feeling that everything around you is alive.

The one quibble I thought I had with the film is the statement that dolls and gods and animals are perfect in essence, while humans are not. Anyone who has grown up in a real forest or jungle knows that animals have considerable free will to exercise their judgment and make decisions, and thus, upon occasion, make mistakes. According to the Greek poets, the same is true of gods, and there is nothing in logic rendering dolls invulnerable to this argument. But the whole beauty of admiring dolls and gods and animals is that they are not human, and the message that it's good to get away occasionally from a species-specific narcissism is far more enriching than it is self-destructive.

Ants Gnawed My Foot, and I'm In Pain

Was bitten by tiny ants at the bus stop on Friday night. I wear slippers--local term for cheap black rubber thongs, standard Hawaiian footwear--and apparently trod on a snack the ants were devouring in the grass. My left foot, on fire, streamed with minuscule brown b*stards, jaws slavering. Ray Bradbury never created a more horrifying formic scene. This kind of set the tone for my weekend-- By Saturday morning, the top of my foot, the side of my foot, and two toes had erupted in blisters. By Sunday, the middle toe REALLY had a blister and itched like hell. Today, all of it has kind of calmed down, but I still brought hydrogen peroxide to work. What fun. Dave Matthews should be shot. (Author of song "Ants Marching.")

On a bright note, I went to the local restaurant Bali Indonesia (corner of Kapiolani & McCully) on Saturday night. They serve an all-you-can eat authentic Javanese buffet for $7.95. Twas delicious. And the service was very subtle and intelligent, kind of like a kris handle before the blade imbeds itself in your back. Will go again, and highly recommend it to others when in Honolulu.