Shows
fresh pacificGlimmers and Wala’ao with FlorenceThis 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...2023-11-131h 01fresh pacificPacific Perspectives on Climate Rescue with Kamanamaikalani Beamer“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 conversat...2023-10-291h 02fresh pacificLessons from Kahoʻolawe with Noa Emmett Aluli, Davianna McGregor and Franco SalmoiraghiAloha 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...2022-12-0745 minfresh pacificPlant Medicine: Can psychedelic therapy enrich lives? 🌱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.”
2022-09-1139 minfresh pacificHenry Kapono Kaʻaihue: C&K Soundtrack for a magic timeHenry 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...2022-08-2724 minfresh pacificKahu Roddy Akau: Indigenous insights around Kapūkakī/Red Hill and MoanaluaWelcome 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 lea...2022-08-131h 13fresh pacificTed de Oliveira: FRNT BZNZZ is all about contemporary HonoluluAloha 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.
2022-07-301h 08fresh pacificWaikīkī surf breaks and stories with John Kukealani ClarkEpic 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 ch...2022-07-1644 min
fresh pacificStreet Poet Royce: Chinatown stories you've never heard before"There is no Can't, only How." Royce has been living on the streets in Chinatown for 22 years. She lives in a wheelchair now, youʻll hear how she got there. Sheʻs always brightly dressed, smiling, with flowers in her hair. We were first introduced by a wound care specialist who was treating Royce's recurring leg sores. Last evening, we met just off Hotel Street, sitting on the stone wall above Waolani Stream. Behind Royce, the sun was setting gold into Honolulu Harbor and two men lounged on the curving bridge where King Street crosses the stream. Royce was in...2022-06-1147 minfresh pacificKatsu Goto: The lynching Hawaiʻi would rather forgetLynching in Hawaiʻi--it's true, and few people even know it happened. Itʻs part of the weighty legacy we carry from plantation days in the islands. Thanks for sitting in on this episode with a lot of angles.
1889 seems so long ago, but this recent visit with Patsy Iwasaki reminds me that the famines, migrations, and worker exploitation we see around the world today happened before. Here.
University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo professor Patsy Iwasaki has been studying Katsu Gotoʻs little known lynching for over 30 years. Weʻll head to Honokaʻa to mee...2022-05-2827 minfresh pacificHawaiʻiʻs Golden Era of Music: 1940ʻs-ʻ60ʻsFirsthand account right here! Honoluluʻs Chinatown was hopping with great players at Two Jacks, the Swing Club, and Brown Derby, where Louis Armstrong performed. In this interview, drummer Harold Chang talks about how military bands changed the scene, and how Hawaiian swing evolved. Pua Almeida, Richard Kauhi, Sonny Kamaka, Martin Denny, Chang played with the greats as part of Hawaiʻiʻs pumping music scene after WWII.
Harold Chang is primarily known for his role in the Arthur Lyman Group. Their first album, Taboo, made the Billboard national Top Ten in 1959. They recorded dozens of albums and...2022-05-1452 minfresh pacificHula 2.0: Hula in the 21st CenturyStill buzzinʻ about the 59th Merrie Monarch Hula Competition in Hilo! Truth is, especially since the Covid pandemic, Hula masters in Hawaiʻi are looking to the future. In this episode of fresh pacific, we see the stirrings of a movement. Meet Maui Kumu Hula Hōkūlani Holt, former Director of Hawaiian programs at Maui Community College, first Cultural Programs Director at Maui Arts and Cultural Center, she started Hula Halau Pa'u o Hi'iaka in 1976. Aunty Hōkū is joined by Cody Pueo Pata, an educator and cultural practitioner from Pukalani. He is Kumu Hula of Ka Malama Mahila...2022-05-0441 minfresh pacificTropical Fish Colors are the New BlackPost-pandemic, or just ʻcuz, toqa designs blow your eyes out with color and make you feel great. Aiala Rickard and Isabel Sicat source deadstock fabric in the Philippines. Thatʻs perfectly good fabric that is no longer produced, so every season has a finite amount of raw material. Toqa shirts, hats, blouses, bags, wraps, dresses, etc. feel great to wear. To cut waste, everything is made to order in the Philippines. Toqa recently held a Panel, Pop-up and Party at the very conducive Kaimana Hotel (apparently under enlightened management.) In this episode, youʻre dropping into toqaʻs installation at F...2022-04-2726 minfresh pacificMaori means Human: Richard BellHeading south from Honolulu today to Australia---like most places, a land still reckoning with its history.
In 1972, four aboriginal Australian men set up umbrellas outside the old Parliament House in Canberra. They called it the Aboriginal Tent Embassy because they felt treated like aliens in their own homeland and were demanding land rights. That protest mushroomed, footage was viewed in 86 countries, it is the longest running continuous protest for indigenous land rights in the world. 50 years this year.
In 2013, artist Richard E. Bell created a traveling "Aboriginal Embassy." Every time it goes up around the...2022-04-2327 minfresh pacificHawaiʻi 💕 Puerto Rico: Beatriz Santiago MunozAloha mai kakou! This podcast series is kicking off with four artists featured in the Hawaiʻi Triennial 2022, "Pacific Century: E Hoʻomau no Moananuiakea." HT22 continues through May 8, 2022 at seven venues in Honolulu, so weʻve got to get cooking!
Today, we meet featured artist, Beatriz Santiago Munoz, who lives and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She exhibits her art internationally. The works are primarily video and installations, dealing with place, politics, history, memory. Munoz works inside and through issues that Honolulu and San Juan have in common, including gentrification, militarization, changing communities, and wealth dis...2022-04-2027 minfresh pacificSensuality is Pacific: Haunani Kay Trask & Kainani KahaunaeleHaunani Kay Trask (1949-2021) was a Hawaiian leader, an intellectual, an organizer, and a poet. She is a featured artist in the Hawaiʻi Triennial 2022 at the Honolulu Museum of Art through May 8, 2022. In that collaboration, Trask provides commentary for Ed Greevyʻs explosive photographs of wrenching land, access, and identity struggles in Hawaiʻi through the 1970ʻs.
With the publication of her book, From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaiʻi, 1993, Trask stoked a conceptual evolution for Hawaiians and non-Hawaiians alike. Known for unstinting candor, we hear an example, Trask was also a published poet...2022-04-1614 min
Zócalo Public SquareWill Pidgin Survive the 21st Century?Eh braddah, howzit? Did you hear that a pidgin word—hammajang—made the Oxford English Dictionary? Wait, you missed it? No worry, beef curry. Pidgin remains one of the strongest and most distinctive elements of culture in Hawai‘i, used in everyday conversation and local advertising. What does the popularity of pidgin say about the history, culture, and class structure of Hawai‘i? How has contemporary immigration changed the ways in which it’s used? And what explains its persistence in a nation and a world where so many other local dialects have died? Former Hawai‘i Governor John D. Waiheʻe III...2019-05-211h 01
Bishop Museum PodcastsLei Ni’ihau: Forbidden Island TreasuresHPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports on an exhibition of exquisite Ni’ihau shell lei on view now at the Bishop Museum.2014-01-2303 min