Satan's Luau

THE OMEN (1976)

Ok, for those parents that have kids ... please realize how gaddam irresponsible it is to let your child see a rated R movie at the age of 6 ... well, the first movie I saw on HBO at my sitter's house mind you ... again choice of child care is key ...ha

The Omen ... a story about the AntiChrist as a kid (oh btw he tries to kill everyone in the movie, nice kid)... scared the doodoo out of me ... it didnt help that I was going to a hellfire and brimstone Baptist elementary school where they would scare us by saying we were going to hell if we didn't get saved ... fire and pain FOREVER ... I couldn't write my name yet but I feared hell like a MOFO... we were ONLY fikun 6 years old!!!! ... I've never gone to the principal more than I did in my life than I did during elementary school ... and I've never looked back in terms of horror movies ... my first, still one of my faves --- horror movies for life

(ed.note: OMEN III, yes 3 for you non-Romans, Sam Neill (late of Jurassic Park) plays the most compelling AntiChrist EVERRRR ... in many ways the best movie of the four movie trilogy ... yeah there's some strange Douglas Adams counting going on here ... the devil is in the details? nah)

Leo Sayer - You Make Me Feel Like Dancing

This is my first song that I really liked that I heard on K59 .... ironies abound ... I was in second grade at the time ... I was trying to be cool with the other kids at my sitters that we rode around in a Green Chevelle packed to the gills with kids ... I thought it was Michael Jackson ... I was corrected ... I don't think I've been wrong very often since in music trivia ... I don't like to be wrong, and I like to be hella obscure ... it all started in a Chevelle after school with a half slurped down small mixed coke-strawberry icee from Tsumoto store ... this is the song that started the love for music ... I look on eBay constantly for Leo Sayer memorabilia .... funny, I guess he don't mean that much to others as he did to me

Santa Esmeralda - You're My Everything


(ed.note: Sheesh, whose pimp hand is strong? What is this, TOO SHORT?)

Kenny Nolan - I Like Dreaming

Finger Five - Ring-a-ling song (title?)

Now my parents, relatives and sitters insist that I was a personable kid who impersonated Elvis playing his wooden uke and singing Hound Dog ... funny, I don't remember that ... AT ALL ... NOT IN THE LEAST ... SHUT UP, STOP LAUGHING! .... sheesh

I do recall learning the theme songs to Kikaida and Kamen Rider ... and the first single I owned my mom bought for me when she went on a shopping trip to Hakubundo ... actually it seems I loved to impersonate Saijo Hideki ... now, Mr. Hideki still brings tours to Hawaii of middle aged women yearly ... ok so I don't remember any of his songs other than the fact he was sued for copying YMCA, yes that YMCA ... but I remember this Japanese pop song by this boy group that went BING DING DING DING DINGALING ... something like that, probably annoyed the fook out of my parents, but me and my cousins dug it... and I would play the 45 over and over on my Checkers and Pogo phonograph ... sh--. don't even get me started on why I don't have that piece of history with me ... but I do have a strange picture of me holding a one piece Kikaida doll and a Kikaida birthday cake (and it wasn't even my birthday, it was my cousins) --- the 70s were a weird time ... and birthday cakes for all!

Other than that, I think of Skyslides, rollerskating at the place which is now City Mill Waipahu (SKATE WORLD!!!!) sounds impressive, don't it??? Well, it was cool and it had AIR HOCKEY ... and that new sensation ... SPACE INVADERS ... eek

Oh yeah, so "I Like Dreamin" and "You're My Everything" ... all I can remember is that these songs and Ronnie Milsap's "It Was Almost Like A Song" were these amazing ballads that I really dug as a kid ... my aunt insists I cried when I first heard "It Was Almost Like A Song" because I was a sensitive kid ... perhaps I lost this memory when I was playing jump on an old Michelin tire (my hatred for the French is deeprooted ...ha) and fell down and cracked my head and blacked out for 2 days (still have the groove scar on my head --- even at age 6 --- METALL!!!)

QUEEN, KISS, the STEELERS, the YANKEES, the Punter QB
I guess I was a little metal badass as a kid ... I remember that I had asthma and hives so I would see an allergist at Pearl City Medical ... so one day I go in wearing this KISS 4 faces shirt ... you know, the Solo Albums 4-faces ... oh fark lemme show you

Ok, you got it now??? but a T-shirt instead... ok so my allergist is this young punk doctor that goes ... YOU LIKE KISS? ... I saw them in Japan ... they were loud and dangerous ... they would break guitars and throw them into the crowd ... I kept telling that story to everyone who would listen to me ... I told it at school one time, yeah the fascist school --- went to the principal's office... yeah KISS is cool, they break guitars and play so loud ... in retrospect, now that I know what KISS was about, what the hell was my mom thinking when she bought me that shirt at the Ritz department store ...

nebulous
SYLLABICATION: neb�u�lous
PRONUNCIATION: AUDIO: nby-ls KEY
ADJECTIVE: 1. Cloudy, misty, or hazy.
2. Lacking definite form or limits; vague: nebulous assurances of future cooperation.
3. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a nebula.
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English, from Latin nebulsus, from nebula, cloud. See nebh- in Appendix I.
OTHER FORMS: nebu�lous�ly —ADVERB
nebu�lous�ness —NOUN

(ed.note: from American Heritage Dictionary)

Oh and by the way, I remember being too damn smart for my own good ... we had this Japanese guy sell us our World Book Encyclopedias ... and he was like oh this is good for building vocabulary for your child ... so he was listing these words off and I was defining them for him ... I got stumped at the college level words -- but needless to say, he was stunned that he couldn't stump me until NEBULOUS ... now, what 7 year old knows the meaning to that ... I have never forgotten that word ... I say it every year in a sentence, open a bottle of champagne and shed a tear ... the message here is, don't f--k with kids if you're a encyc salesmen ... they may know more than even you

Ok, so I wasn't the most exciting kid ... I learned the word FROCK from the dictionary of my parent's wonderful World Book investment ... 800 bucks ... sheesh, just buy me the Death Star playset with the movable gunmount, what are you guys thinking?!?!?!?!

I got in trouble AGAIN at school ... there was this black girl named Barbie ... and she would wear these faux pearl necklaces ... well, we had a history me and her ... we would call each other names everyday ... so everyday, who gets sent to the principal's office ... me, that's who ... I remember one time, she got sent too ... she was BAWLING ... and I was just teasing her good for you, good for you ... see we got PADDLED ... how archaic, evil, and primitive!!! oh shutup i suppose the teacher is wrong when you go to parent-teacher's conferences ... f--k timeouts, every so often give your kids lickins if they deserve it --- they'll thank you for it

.... anyways, back to FROCK ... I said that's a nice FROCK ... and guess who got FROCKED? .... me, the teacher didn't believe I said frock so off I went to get paddled again ... my parents later didn't believe I said FROCK either ... they never even heard of that word ... they knew f--k perfectly ok, but frock ... who are you kidding kid ... sheesh, its bad when your parents have limited vocabulary of F-words ...oh by the way, FROCK means dress not necklace in case my context was ambiguous

So anyways, Queen ... We are the Champions, my friends ... and we'll keep on fighting til the end .... my absolute favorite song of ALL TIME ... it was funny because we'd play Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers in the playground at my school ... and after one team won the game, they would sing the song ... then everyone would sing whether they won or not ... I suppose other kids rallied around YMCA a few years later, funny but that's not even remotely as cool as "We are the Champions" ... and my love and respect for this band stays with me til today --- I can listen to Queen at anytime, anyplace, anywhere ... best ever, RIP Freddy, you're the king

Its funny because before I had a rooting interest in sports ... I really liked trading cards ... actually I think I liked the plaster powder gum that came with it ... maybe that's why I'm sterile now ... ha

(ed.note: in that pink football shape, it says P-Qb ... pink, oh how appropo...ha)

This kid named Darren always wanted to be the quarterback when we played football ... like you played football good at age 7 ... right! ... ok so he had the most cards, this kid had all the Star Wars cards, including that cool Stormtrooper card ...

(ed.note: in a moment of weakness, I thought about stealing it ... ha)

He had all these football cards, but he liked Danny White the best ... yes, Danny White, the punter and backup QB for the Dallas Cowboys (He wasn't even Roger Staubach for chrissake) ... so we're kids right? ... we fugen don't know anything so all of a sudden everyone wants to be Punter-QB ... needless to say, that was a very foolish and embarassing moment in my life ... I wanted to be punter-QB too .. heck we even convinced the 2nd graders that punter-QBs were cool ... everyone in the school under 8 was the punter-QB, all because of Darren and his damn TOPPS football cards

Which brings us to the eternal love for the Black and Gold ... as a kid at school no one knew what the score was but everyone wanted to be the team that won the Superbowl ... in 1977 that was the Dallas Cowboys ... I don't think there has been a generation of boys before or since that is as Hardcore Cowboys fans than the men around my age ... you know some, I know you do ... I refer to it as chronic DaCosta-McKee-Sano-itis ... fill in your friend's last names too for fun ... whee!!

(ed.note: Roy kicking.... did he make it... my guess is probably NOT)

So I hadn't decided yet which team I liked, but I had a book report due ... so silly me, I go to the library ... and even stupidder me I'm looking for a Cowboys book to do a book report on ... didn't find one ... but I did find this book on Gerela's gorillas ... ok, Hawaii sports trivia buffs ... Roy Gerela was a kicker for Kalani High School in the 70s ... he would go on and kick for the Pittsburgh Steelers ...badly I might add ... ironically it was at the Waipahu library I would grow my love of sports, I read books about Lew Alcindor (you know, Kareem) and Wilt Chamberlain ... is it any wonder I came to root for the Lakers ... and boy did they suck at that time, I went through three seasons of mediocre basketball until that certain kid from Michigan State (Magic Johnson) came and with the hick from French Lick (Larry Bird) ... revolutionized the game ... in fact I remember watching that national title game between the Spartans and Indiana State, in fact I remember the Kenny Loggins song "This is it", the theme song of the tourney highlights

(ed.note: Unseld and the baby hook ... old school too damn SWEEET)

I recall that the first NBA team I loved to root for was the Washington Bullets with Wes Unseld and Elvin Hayes ... and those hella dreadful red-white-and-blue uniforms ... and how they would go up against the Sonics with Jack Sikma, Downtown Freddy Brown and the hated Spurs with that guy who can FINGERROLL "the Iceman" George Gervin (man, was he a scorer ... UNSTOPPABLE)... can I admit I ordered a Jordan retro red-white-and-blue one that he wore last week on retro night for the Wiz ... hey I like Mike ... and I still kinda pull for them Bullets ... and on the street, I gotta keep my kala-koa strong ...ha

Ok, so I'm at my cousin the dentist's graduation party in 1978, this kid asks me so what team do you like ... I didn't know ... but I wanted to be cool, so I said proudly .. DALLAS COWBOYS ... he goes DALLAS?!?!?!? they're junk, you should be a fan of the PITTSBURGH STEELERS, they're super good ... needless to say that kid lives up the street from me and drives a Snap-On Tools truck nowadays ... but I believed him, he was older (so smarter than me, right?) ... and guess what ... Steelers won BACK TO BACK Super Bowls!!! ... I was sold .... needless to say, they haven't won a single stinken SB since (that's January 1980 for sports historians), perhaps its my bandwagon bachi ... but if you're gonna bandwagon once in life, do it when you're 7 years old

And let me caveat the last story for you, don't listen to all older kids, some are just plain dumb ... I remember we used to play street baseball with a tennis ball and rubber slippers for the bases ... and this one kid Terry could slam the hell out of the ball ... he would hit it off the neighbors' carports and then we would have to sneak into their yards to go get the ball ...anyways, so I asked him, what his favorite team was ... and he goes Dodgers ... so that year I watched the World Series at my grandma's house in Waialua .... where I would also watch Six Million Dollar Man, Bionic Woman, and Kikaida, talk about boring Sundays at Grandma's house ... it got so bad that my parents had to bribe me with Dairy Queen ... you don't want to go grandma's house --- ok, no Dairy Queen then .... and I was totally into Strawberry sundaes and fascinated by the curly-q tops of the DQ soft serve ... now as SheDev can attest to ... I hate anything strawberry nowadays related to ice cream ... now all of you know why ... try eating it every Sunday for years ... same gooey strawberry topping ... ick, what was I thinking

But I digress .... so I'm watching the Yankees and Dodgers play ... actually it was the game where Reggie hits 3 out on 3 pitches ... I'm like young, but I'm not stupid ... the Dodgers suck, the Yankees rule ... case closed, Terry could play baseball but he didn't know a winner ... now for all of you that hate the Yankees ... let me say that from 1979-1995 the Yankees didn't even make the playoffs, so when they win fall classics nowadays I just enjoy it because I remember the LEAN years where I was a fan ... but the Yankees weren't winning squat ... don't get me started on the Blueshirts (they go 40 years until winning a Stanley Cup in 1994 ... now what??? 40 more before they do it again?!?!?!?)

(ed.note: hoo boy, haven't seen this cover since...hmmm)

KTEL's Superstars (1977)
My first LP .... Sounds totally lame, don't it ... I have it somewhere ... without the cardboard sleeve ... which I taped up with masking tape when spinning your folders on your middle finger was all the rage ... you did it too, so don't make like you didn't! ... makes me think that we didn't have much as kids to have fun with, I guess I'm getting old because I just said that.

Anyways, KTEL, you'd see these commercials on TV that had scrolling song titles, song snippets and cool trippy graphics in the background ... ok, but to buy them ... can you believe they sold them at TIMES in front of the lettuce section ...70s what a great time that was, huh? ....not mom can I have candy, ummm mom can I have the KTEL album ... silly but true ... I remember some of the songs on it: "Save it for a rainy day" - Stephen Bishop; "Looks like we made it" - Barry Manilow ... but I found a hella cool find on it --- CALLING DR. LOVE by KISS .... I don't know how many times I played that song on good ol Checkers and Pogo phonograph ... but it still is my favorite KISS song of all time ... I think I also liked Monster Mash at this time for some reason as well ... KTEL strikes again!!!

FIRST CASSETTES: Journey - Frontiers and Van Halen - Diver Down

I think I'm spending way too long writing this ... but I'm really having fun seeing how much memory I have after all my alcohol consumption in life ... ha

Journey was big in Hawaii when we were growing up ... FIVE SOLD OUT shows for the Frontiers Tour ... only to be matched by Bon Jovi's Slippery Tour (which I never went to, but people seem to think I did and I'm lying ... once and for all, I DIDN'T FKN GO, OK!?!?!?!) ... I remember listening to songs from ESCAPE when rollerskating ... "Don't Stop Believin' " and "Open Arms" ... and I first heard "Stone in Love" coming from a senior's car--- wow, what's that? sounds like Journey... junk car, but killer stereo, some things in Hawaii never change...ha

At this point, Journey equals HUGE both in Hawaii and nationwide ... Casey Kasem went on TV at about this time and counted down his TOP 10 on TV late Saturday afternoons ... right after Ron Popeil's latest pocket fisherman or something ... MTV was playing this song called SEPARATE WAYS that sounded just enormous ... I mean, arena rock, hard rock, hard music --- the love affair began back then... It began with that simple synthesizer doodle ... then the wall of guitar ... Some day love will find you ... Break those chains that bind you ... Absolutely sonic and wonderful

I remember I asked my cousin to buy me a jersey from the shows (first week of September 1983, for you Blaisdell rock show historians) ... what was it about the 80s and these rock jerseys ... dude, we looked fricken retarded wearing em but we wore them so proudly ... so my cousin got me the Frontiers Tour jersey, the blue man on the front with the record forehead ... yep, yep ... and I wore that thing until it was thinner than the ricepaper test on the 70s drama Kung Fu --- another grandma's house classic on TV ... I think I saw all the Kung Fu eps first run at grandma's house

Ok, so they opened a record store in Waipahu where the Arbys and Jack in the Box are nowadays ... and surprise, surprise, it didn't do well ... so when they closed down at the clearance sale I bought Frontiers ... in a few days I would catch the bus to Pearlridge go to the record store at the NEW Phase 2 ... damn old, that's me .... ride the monorail ... go to the record store and buy DIVER DOWN ... the new Phase 2, sheesh ... ha

Against the entire body of work, Diver Down is one of the weaker of the Van Halen albums ... but after seeing the Oh Pretty Woman video on MTV which is one of the most unique vids of all time, see it if you can ... I needed to have that cassette ... the record store guy was like: Van Halen, you're pretty cool kid huh, I like them too ... and he showed me this poster of them performing at a packed LA Coliseum (its the insert photo of the album now that I think back)... so I bought that too ... my first rock poster ... I guess I wasn't really into rock posters that much ... I bought a Black Sabbath poster with Dio in it soon after... the next poster I would buy was an Apolonia Kotero poster (she was in a negligee) ... the girl from Purple Rain the movie ... so rock posters didn't go over well once the hormones kicked in ... ha

HOW RIDING THE BUS CREATED A MONSTER
Ok, so I'm your typical middle class Japanese kid ... dad worked at Pearl Harbor, mom at a bank ... we ain't rich at all ... so when I started to go to private school in Ewa Beach and then later in town ... my dad is like, well you better learn how to catch bus ... so basically from the time I was 11, I've been waking up at ungodly hours in the morning ... I blame that for me not reaching my genetic potential of six feet tall

My mom goes, my doctor when he examined you when you were 3 months old thought you would be six feet tall easy ... well I have the big feet ... the growth was stunted from not enough sleep ... thanks ... see how you become to appreciate your parents and their wisdom later in life ... it will SHRINK you sometimes

Anyways, on these long bus trips into town, I would bring my handy dandy walkman ... I dunno, but damn, they ripped us off back in the day ... I think my first Walkman was almost 4 bills ... yeah to play a cassette, not even in Dolby

The record clerk guy hooked me with this album that had some really awesome art ... Iron Maiden's Piece of Mind ... this ghoul with a shaved head that looked like he had a lobotomy in a padded cell ... yeah, that's the band for me just from the art ... I listened to that cassette for two years straight I swear ... wore it out

Actually I remember when me and my best friend went to go see Return of the Jedi on the first day in Hawaii ... we missed the first show, we waited in line for 3 1/2 hours.... well sh--, another thing is for some reason, Consolidated brought it to Hawaii SIX FKN WEEKS after it opened on the mainland ... I distinctly remember this one teenager smoking cool kid with long hair and a 8000 pound boombox ... he had all these stickers on it ... Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motorhead ... he had the Another Perfect Day cassette ... the red and blue vicious swirl art for that Motorhead album ... I was like damn who's that ... damn they sound cool ... well actually we had to listen to it, he was blasting it ... he saw me staring at him and bobbing my head ... he was like: you like heavy metal? ... and I was like yeah, I totally dig Iron Maiden ... then he played Number of the Beast ... and we were instant friends ... Run to the Hills ... Run for your Life ... see what happens when you ride the bus here to there to everywhere

My The BUS favorites: LUAU-the Metal Years
Iron Maiden - Piece of Mind/Powerslave/Seventh Son
Metallica - Ride the Lightning
Slayer - Show No Mercy
Savatage - Power of the Night
Scorpions - Love at First Sting
Van Halen - all the DLR years cassettes (my fave band at the time)
Journey - Frontiers and Captured
Judas Priest - Defenders of the Faith
Police - Synchronicity
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - Greatest Messages
Beat Street Soundtrack

FIRST CONCERT: February 25, 1984
Stevie Ray Vaughn & Double Trouble
Bryan Adams
The Police

(ed.note: image is clickable if you want to see more detail)

I have been privileged to see a lot of the bands and performers whose music filled my formative years ... at Aloha Stadium - The Eagles (1995) and the Rolling Stones (1989 in LA with Guns N Roses and Living Colour; 1998) ... at the Blaisdell: Journey (1987, 2002); Van Halen (1995, 1998); Metallica (1989, 1993, 1999); Ozzy (1996); Depeche Mode (1994) .... in LA: Iron Maiden (1990); Judas Priest (1990- Painkiller TOUR ... METALLL!!! Fkn LOUDEST show I've been to in my life BAR NONE); Megadeth (1990); Madonna (1991); and a whole slew of metal bands - many many Crue shows, including the flying drumkit tour, Anthrax, LA Guns, Alice in Chains, Bullet Boys, Ozzy, AC/DC, Testament, and virtually every other band you could name that was prominent in hard rock or metal ... it was LA after all

But the show that started it all was an afternoon into night show with those three acts above ... I didn't know who SRV was until that day ... and the performance he gave that day made me a lifetime fan ... I went out to get Texas Flood soon after that, and have all his work in my collection ... Bryan Adams very hungry only had one album out .... anyone remember Cuts Like a Knife? .... he was a great performer as well, or so I thought at the time ... Canada has since apologized profusely about him ... ha

But the Police ... what a wonderful enigmatic band ... I remember catching the bus to the show ... sheesh was there anywhere The BUS didn't take me? ... I remember getting these souvenir tickets ours were BLUE ... but there were RED and YELLOW ones too, much like the theme of the Synchronicity album art

Words really cannot describe my love for this band and their music ... I think that at a certain time they were clear cut my favorite band ... I remember zipping around in my cousin's MG with the top down listening to Billy Joel's Glass Houses .. and Zenyatta Mondatta by the Police ... de doo doo doo de da da da ... is all I want to say to you

Well I saw the Atlanta show on Showtime and it was fantastic ... couldn't wait for the Honolulu Show ... it was a general admission show, but we sat in the blue under the shade because it started in the mid afternoon and typical Honolulu winter sunburn weather ... but the show was so fantastic ... I mean the energy of this band, the tightness of the music, the vocals, the everything

Little did I know that after our show there was an Alaska show, and the band broke up ... actually since I just saw them on VH1 for the Hall of Fame, they played a grand total of 2 times since I saw them last 19 years ago... amazing how time and egos can keep a good thing down

Final Thoughts, finally
In retrospect, I've really had a good life with really humorous experiences and just more blessings than I should have ... I feel such gratitude towards my lifelong friends and of course my parents ... but one thing remains constant along with their support ....

The music, all the music that has been a soundtrack to my life ... from "Fade to Black" to "Borderline" to "The Boy with the Thorn in His side" ...

In the words of Steel Pulse - Earth Crisis (1983)
Life, Life without music
I can't go on

Same here ... from the Luau, thanks for reading today ... You certainly had better things to do than read this --- so thanks for your time

1:52AM
Do I ever sleep? ha.