WAIKIKI- I Love You

I have been to Hawaii, well Honolulu , more than 7 times, I’m just not sure how many more. In the 90’s I spent time here marlin fishing, vacationing and just pure relaxing. Waikiki became my preferred place of rest.

But then something happened, like “LIFE” and I moved even further around the globe making Hawaii not the easiest of destinations for me to get to.

The magic of this place has never been lost upon me though and I have for years told friends that rather than going to Thailand they should venture to this island paradise of the South Pacific…for it has nicer beaches, clearer water, more English and a better family ambience and definitely less seedier characters.

Yesterday after a delay of fifteen years I returned to Waikiki.

I have stated before that in the chronology of one’s life there are date markers. Usually stamped upon our brains by tragedy, it is those afterall that usually leave the biggest impact and are remembered anyway. You know the kind of dates…where were you as 9/11 unfolded, where were you when MJ passed , Challenger disaster , Lady Di etc etc.

My life is full of them. My mother; a literal encyclopedia of them.

But all too often good and great times are rarely as impactful and remembered. A pity really as if you struggle there are some that you can remember, few so clear .

My return to Waikiki was different. It will be remembered for ever. It was one of those events you could just feel was a memory in the making. Perfect day, perfect company, perfect food, perfect beverages and an atmosphere of fun….it helped too that we chose prime real estate and parked ourselves their from lunch through dinner.

As the photos prove, our real estate was a viewing paradise and an imbibers dream. Waikiki has never been forgotten by my mind and now it sits firmly within my heart. I shall return, for longer vacations and partake of the sun, perfect white sand and crystal clear surf , the pools and long beaches and the ambience of this little stretch of heaven.

Perhaps next time I go for lunch though I’ll remember not to drink too much Sangria in the sun, especially 7 hours of it.

PERFECT NIGHTS

The dreaded Sangria in the sun....cant wait to have more!!

Waikiki…

"I LOVE YOU"  

 

Perfection at every angle

History Lesson

If there is any doubt that we never learn from our mistakes, then I am living proof.

That is, I have lived so long already that I have seen all the mistakes of our parents and grandparents come back and be perpetrated by our own generation.

What is our problem, even way back in 400 BC, Euripides stated, “Who so neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead for the future.”

Over 2000 years later I think we have much to learn indeed.

I remember the stock market melt downs of the 80’s , the 90’s and what did we learn? Seems very little! Greed lead us down the same track yet again within the  new millennium. It just keeps coming!

When I was young I remember the Australian dollar being equal with the US dollar. It took twenty years for my parents investments to get back to being worth something. Now the US Dollar and the Australian are past parity again. I’m resolute to hang onto everything I have for twenty years more, if I have learnt one thing at least it is that everything that does go up, will not stay there for ever, if it doesn’t, I pity my children.

On top of things we seem destined never to learn, there is a growing list of things that have just stayed the same. And I mean have not changed one ounce despite all the technology , all the smarts we think we have?

Man never returned to the moon if indeed he got their the first time! (before you bark, show me proof!) and man never did get to Mars- wat of the childhood fantasy novels of our youth!!

Of things more Earth bound, we learnt in the 70’s and 80’s of millions, dying of hunger, poor medical, poor sanitation, lack of water.

The borders have changed, the names not the same, but it is still there. What has changed is that we now have billionaires, but what has not changed is the numbers of those living in absolute destitution. If it has , it’s only gotten worse.

What about things closer to home. Technology and our airports. They are all much bigger than ten, twenty or thirty years ago. Many more of us travel these days and corporations running them have made massive profits. Yet we are still required to line up like cattle and to catch a bus to the airplanes.  We have spent billions building newer more modern airports, yet planes still don’t fit and their still is not enough  space for them all.

In the 70’s we thought of the Jetsons  animated cartoons as being futuristic. Yet forty years later compared to them, we still seem to dwell Earth bound like the Flintstones.

My other said of things like this, “The more things change, the more things stay the same.”

I never got that for about 35 years, but it’s becoming quite clear now.

We are moving so fast down the road to technological advancement that we seem to be missing things, quite glaringly obvious things in our quest to slap ourselves on the back and be proud of the few things we are achieving.

I guess it was that ignorance, arrogance and stupidity that lead to General Motors going bankrupt. Continually coming up with new cars, just failing to ensure that enough people where actually buying the old ones. Some things seemed to get missed along the highways of advancement, I guess.

History is our greatest teacher. We should stop for a while and learn from her. An article in a newspaper recently stated that many school children know everything about modern celebrities yet 65% or some ridiculous figure thought that Buzz Lightyear was the first man to step foot on the moon.

If it wasn’t true it would be funny.

I grew up as part of the age that questioned everything, even we conspiracy theorists are glad that Buzz Aldrin seems to finally be getting his time in the limelight.

We as a generation, think we are so smart, yet we are not teaching our children properly about the past. We don’t have to live in it, or dwell upon it,  but we should learn from it, so that we stop repeating past mistakes, learn from our mistakes and move forward as a race.

Otherwise we are bound to end up like the Egyptian, the Mayans,  Aztecs, the Romans, people who built great empires and then disappeared forever.

If we don’t start to learn then the words of W. Edwards Deming (1900 - 1993) will hold our future, “Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival.”

Music Is What Feelings Sound Like

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

~Berthold Auerbach (1812-1882)

I’ve often wondered at the correlation between our lives and music. Music is not just entertainment value, it truly transcends our souls and the music we love, (it differs to us all) can elevate our lives, calm us, transport us to happiness or nirvana or chill us out when we need it the most.

For decades music to me was on the same level as books. Unnecessary!!

At school, pre-teens, music classes literally scared me to death.

I took trumpet lessons because the other music classes where taken by a behemoth of a man called Mr. Scott. A somewhat famous piano playing aged hulk of a man, who strode the halls of our educational establishment with ferocity. He taught all instruments available to the under budgeted music department not with pride, but with anger. He grumbled, he growled and he scared the majority of us all.

He carried a large piece of dowel which he stated to parents was to keep us in time with the music. We knew it was just to keep us in line with his temperament.

An artist on the piano himself, he taught our generation the flute recorder. No wonder he was angry. One of the most worthless instruments available on earth I think.

I can’t name one famous recorder blower to save myself.

Music in those days had to be purchased on vinyl records. LP’s and singles, cassettes weren’t even popular yet. But it made no difference, my parents would not cover the cost and I was living in a world where 20 cents was monthly allowance. An LP would have taken me 40 years to afford at that rate.

Perhaps it’s this fear of expense that makes music memorable, even at $1.29 a song its not cheap stuff.

The first piece of music that sticks in my memory was not until 1990. Sinead O’Connor’s  “Nothing compares to you”, was haunting and set a rhythm for the remainder of my life.

Music it would seem, has become a mile marker in my life. It designates the stops and starts, the accidents, the good times and the bad.

When I fall for a song , I fall hard. A bit like my relationships.

I’ll play the song incessantly. Some times on the stereo by my bed. Mostly on my iPod, until eventually the magic of the tune wears out.

Somehow, as I look back now, my life has its own soundtrack. If my life should be made into a movie, I can tell you know the songs that will feature.

My iPod is full of memories. Sindead O’Connor sang her song at the end of a four year relationship I had in Brisbane and reminds me of when my house was robbed. Gino Vanelli and his “Wild Horses” was a happy time of my life when I too was taking riding lessons,,”The Verve”, “Cyndi Lauper” and  Enya all joined me for great phases of my career and right now “David Guetta”(feat Makeba) and his “If We Ever”, lyrics, just understand my love predicament (written about below) so well, that I can have tears welling in my eyes on the way to work, just listening to it.

I've been fragile for a long time

A big old hole inside my heart

And I was searching through the valley

Stumbled on love in the dark

Was afraid to try, but afraid to never know

What it feels like to be loved.

I’m actually not one for lyrics even. Ask me about most of my favorite songs and its not the words that connect with me so much as the beat or the fluidity of the music. Words confuse me and my ears aren’t fast enough to understand rap. I prefer to get lost in Mike Oldfields’ “Tubular Bells” or Pachelbels’ Canon (Canon in D major)   by Johann Sebastian Bach or  Ennio  Moriccone‘s soundtrack of “The Mission”, all for the freedom it gives my soul, rather than work hard at trying to listen to words.

Good music fills our ears with joy, great music sets our souls free among the clouds.

I believe, as some one else stated, ,” Music is what feelings sound like”.

In the right mood I can be set free by a good tune. It as if  I am  sitting in business Class seat on Gulf Air and sinking back into its depth on take off. I’ve taught myself to pass out with the G-forces, and I love the feeling. It comes second only to drugs being pumped up your arm by an anethitist in hospital. That complete release.

We need that in this world.

Music is valuable to us. I don’t feel bad about paying $1.29 for a song on iTunes. It’s the cheapest form of stimulant around and perfectly legal.

I just wish they could take a list of songs that filled your life with memories and burn a disc for us and send it to us on our birthday as the soundtrack to our lives.

So of the correlation of music and our lives, I really do believe that “music is what feelings sound like”.

Some days good feelings, bad feelings, chillout , lounge of heavy metal. We need it all. Some days we can handle everything, other days we can not. We are some times irritated by music or the type of it, just as we are with feelings.

I am in tune with my emotions and feelings,  I love hard and all encompassing and understand that which makes me tick, because my heart is filled with love for all, then that is what gives my life a tendency toward the music I enjoy.

Some people would like it and me, some people could not stand the music that is my life. 

But that’s the beauty of music. 

It is to each of us, as individual as we are to the world.

The soundtrack to my life is as unique as me.

And thankfully my iPod is filled full of it.