Hello, winter. You’re pretty much my favorite time of year here.
I’m not going to lie, APEC was rough. Even after looking through all the road closures and following the multiple (and often redundant) APEC traffic Twitter accounts for rolling traffic updates, I found myself among the hundreds getting stuck more than once.
After many in the nightlife got to know the un-knowable Vane Russo and Nathan Nutter, they were taken from us, creating a void in both personal-style icons and late night where-to options when The Edition shut down. This past weekend the nightclub at The ModernHonolulu quietly opened its doors in preparation for the December 1st Grand Opening.
It was probably a blur, but if any of you had a chance to go inside thirtyninehotel these past few weeks, something might have felt different. The walls on the entire Ewa side are completely black.
Hype. I love that word.
Oh, Kakaako. It’s already happening I can feel it.
In a money-is-the-bottom-line world, the distractions needed to restore calm are almost always art or music for me. Investing the time needed to soak up culture comes and goes, but I can always appreciate the “in your face” approach some artists have taken to create discussion or force awareness and basically pull my head out of the foggy day-to-day.
The countdown to Hawaii International Film Festival has started! It’s in merely weeks!
I don’t try to deny it when someone says I hardly ever get out of Chinatown. They’re right.
Some of you might remember Kevin Koga. One of the earlier DJs at the Wave and Hula’s when they were both pretty much rocking the face off this island, he was also one of the many musicians that needed to get the hell out of here and see what the rest of the world was all about.
“Mark! Mark!
“I saw the whole thing,” I was telling the HPD officer in Fort Street Mall as a bloody villain was being put into an ambulance right behind us. I had spent the entire day in a holding pattern to tell the story and yes, I definitely saw the whole thing.
Welcome back to school, people in school. I would give you the spiel about how I barely notice what month it is save for you guys, but I’m pretty sure you’re sick of hearing that.
You know me, I love the Internet. I’m a serious lurker and don’t really try to hide it.
Sometimes when I’m out I want to grab random strangers that don’t look like they are having fun and shake them yelling “Cheer up! What did you even come out for!?!” Me?
“Pls stop hitting me up for Incubus tix & vip support the homies. Everyone says support local buy local then wants free tix #hypocrites” twittered @Flashee last week as people who waited until the last minute began to grow frantic in the hours leading up to the [still not sold out] show.
I’ll never forget the time this amazingly decked out underage girl told me she wasn’t hip to women that use their sexuality to promote themselves. It floored me, mainly because she was pretty young to make such a mature observation, but also because I was seeing a lot of it around me and figured that’s sometimes what it takes to get what you want.
Okay, I promise I’m not going to talk (too much) about LoveFest. Too many people go on and on (and on and on) about the thing.
Wow where do I start. So that’s what it’s like to go out on a weekend.
DJ Soundcheck / One night Kalani Wilhelm and I were going back and forth on Twitter. Taunting each other about our columns and what we were writing about.
Estria, WaterWrites / Oh, Estria. He’s only got half a million followers on Twitter.
Marcus Luttrell, First Friday / Last week I picked up Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 in the SFO airport after learning my flight was delayed. Nothing passes the time better than a good book.
Chicago, Interisland Terminal / So I’m in Chicago right now. There are billboards and public transportation and those plastic barriers in the taxi cabs.
Tyler Uehara, SALTKitchen & Tasting Bar / I was so mad at Tyler Uehara when he broke the news that he was leaving us at Better Brands. He was one of my favorites and my first and only office crush here.
There was a time when Mark Chittom still lived here and I would corner him every chance I got to talk about the Weekly. “What did you write about when you had nothing to write about?” He had the greatest stories, telling me how far out in left field he would get once he started making the awkward transition from writing about nightlife to doing his own parties.
Given the city’s crumbling infrastructure and rail controversy, it’s hard to believe anyone would want to be the next mayor of Honolulu. But a few do want the job, including the incumbent, Mayor Peter Carlisle, the former Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney who won a 2010 special election to fill the remainder of Mufi Hannemann’s term.
I’d never been to a Honolulu City Council meeting until a few weeks ago. Features, not politics, was my beat.
Victoria Holt Takamine is a kumu hula, a cultural activist and a teacher and has an impeccable pedigree to back up all these titles. Born of an alii family whose kuleana was in Moanalua, she graduated as a hula teacher under the legendary Auntie Maiki Aiu Lake and taught hundreds of students in her own halau (Pua Alii ‘Ilima) and at the University of Hawaii.
On April 25, a state judge dismissed trespassing charges against a Kauai man after finding that he had been exercising traditional native Hawaiian rights hunting wild pigs on private land. Kui Palama, 28, was arrested on Jan.
The city plans to dish out $3.5 million from its Affordable Housing Fund and either purchase or renovate a structure to provide transitional housing for Honolulu’s special needs homeless population. “Our community has invested considerable effort and resources in addressing homelessness,” Mayor Peter Carlisle said in a statement, “but there remains a population whose disabilities or chronic conditions make it difficult for them to participate in traditional shelter programs.” Carlisle is referring to those homeless with mental illnesses, addictions and physical disabilities.
Makaweli Poi faces an uncertain future after its owner, a corporate subsidiary of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) ordered the West Kauai mill to suspend operations May 23. Mona Bernardino, chief operating officer of the corporation, Hiipoi LLC, says the move to shut down Makaweli Poi was prompted mainly by financial concerns.
A resolution adopted by the City Council will solidify an agreement between the City and County of Honolulu and the University of Hawaii Water Resources Research Center (UH-WRRC) to conduct an analysis of impacts from ocean sewer outfalls on the marine environments off of Oahu. The city will pay UH-WRRC as much as $2.5 million for biological and sediment studies in portions between now and June 30, 2017 .
Along with the deep, verdant growth of spring sprouts an unyielding desire to spend more time in the open air. That’s why it should come as no surprise that National Bike Month falls in the sun-drenched time of May.
Of the many letters you publish against rail, how many offer an alternative that won’t send us into further economic demise? Billions of gallons of oil are imported for us from every oil-producing nation on this planet so that we can buy billions of gallons of gasoline.
TheBus is taking a back seat to rail. At the May 3 Downtown Neighborhood Board meeting, an audience member asked city Transportation Director Wayne Yoshioka when we could expect the bus route cancellations and changes to be reversed.
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