Leslie Wilcox Blogs

Yoo-hoo, Loretta...It's Bette Midler!

     Loretta Ables Sayre, starring on Broadway as Bloody Mary in the classic musical "South Pacific," sent friends back in Hawaii an email that started out:

     "Guess who knocked on my dressing room door last night?"

      It turned out to be another fabulous singer/actor with Hawaii roots, Bette Midler.

      "We both graduated from Radford High School and we talked pidgin like two titas!" Loretta wrote.

       Bette, as you recall, created The Divine Miss M persona and she once said about it: "People always love a broad, someone with a sense of humor, someone with a fairly wicked tongue, someone who can belt out a song, someone who takes no guff."

        That's exactly the kind of character Loretta is playing on Broadway.

        Loretta is on leave as "the voice" of PBS Hawaii.

        Bette was born in Honolulu, to a housepainter and a housewife/seamstress. The family was one of the few whites in a Halawa housing area populated by Hawaiians, Japanese, Chinese, Samoans and Filipinos. The Midlers were also the only Jewish family. Bette has told friends that she felt like "an outsider" and that's one reason she was so fond of playing make-believe and chose a career in drama. Her school buddies remember her as "happy all the time." Bette dropped out of the UH Manoa after a few semesters and struck out for opportunities--and high-profile success--on the Mainland.

      Hawaii residents have long followed her singing and acting career, and if they didn't do this before, they certainly do so now--embrace her as "one of our own."

      The two stars and professional "broads" from Hawaii, Bette and Loretta, had fun comparing stories at the Lincoln Center in New York City.

      I wonder who else will come knocking at Loretta's dressing room door!

"Number 3 Son" Remembers Nona Beamer

      Neil J. Kaho'okele Hannahs, PBS Hawaii's Board Chair, was a kid from the rural town of Ma'ili on Oahu's leeward coast, when he got to know the late cultural educator and treasure, Nona Beamer.

    He shares the story in a remembrance written for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs' current issue of Ka Wai Ola.

    The story goes back to when Aunty Nona was teaching at the Kamehameha Schools in Kapalama. Neil and her sons Keola and Kapono Beamer were students and friends at Kamehameha.

    Neil writes, "It was a long commute (from Ma'ili) with a 5 a.m. start in the days before H-1. Extra-curricular activities often left me looking for a place to sleep in town. By then, Aunty Nona had moved with the boys into faculty housing on the grounds of Bishop Museum. They graciously took me in. Their apartment became my second home, and Aunty Nona affectionately dubbed me #3 son. We became and continue to be family."

      Years later, Neil's daughter Lihau would have an opportunity to oli (chant) for Aunty Nona. Aunty gave Lihau feedback in an encouraging note employing a bit of shorthand a la today's text messagers.

      "Dear Lihau--how pleased I was 2 hear your fine chant. Your voice is very good--clear & pleasant. I hope U will keep up w/your chanting. You have a talent for it. Don't rush yourself--breathe deeply and sustain your tones," Aunty Nona wrote.

        Here's my favorite part: "Think about the meaning of your words & your heart will overflow in your voice."

        She continued, "This will give you great understanding & your voice will reflect your love. Much love 2 U dear & 2 the family. Come C me anytime!"

        Aunty passed away April 10 at age 84. Neil gives a wonderful account of her accomplishments and what she has meant to Hawaii. You can find it at oha.org/kawaiola in the He Ho'omana'o section.

        We certainly wish we could C Aunty anytime.

Spring Wen' Sprung

     My husband Jeff majored in English. He's an excellent writer. In fact, 14 years ago, he asked me out on a lunch date by sending me a perfect handwritten note--setting just the right tone, casual yet caring, interested but not presumptuous. We had sushi, hit it off, and got married a couple of years later. I still have the note.

      Over the years, I've seen Jeff call upon his English degree to write business proposals, speeches, sympathy cards, short stories, and more. He reads a lot. Our kids laugh because he'll sometimes use--without affectation--a five-dollar word, when they were expecting a common one.

       After all these years, none of us was expecting what he scribbled on the back of some junk mail when he came in from mowing our yard in Waialua:

                           First cut all da grass

                           Den come plenny birds

                           Eat da bugs it's spring now, no? 

         Jeff had cast aside writing in standard English for pidgin! Well, why not? In Hawaii, pidgin easily conveys thoughts that standard English makes cumbersome.

        

Weigh in with Your Vote on PBS Funding

     Parade Magazine's poll of the week asks whether federal funding should continue to go to the non-commercial Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). If you have an opinion, follow this link to Parade.com and speak your mind with your keyboard!

http://tinyurl.com/684ytw

       If Hawaii had to start from scratch, without federal funding, to build a public television station, costs might be prohibitive. But here we are, up and running with a full line-up of fine local and national adult and children's programs and educational outreach services. PBS Hawaii was launched by community-minded citizens supporting the vision of broadcasting for the public good. Hawaii citizens continue to support us heavily with contributions. In a world of media conglomeration, we're a locally owned and operated non-profit with an authentic voice. 

       Federal funding through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is also very important to us, making possible our ongoing transition to the digital age. One out of every six dollars in our budget comes from federal funding.

      We're convinced PBS gives an excellent return on public investment. For less than $1.35 per person a year, public broadcasting (including radio) provides everyone in this country with top-quality programming and educational services for children and adults.

       Trust is not easily earned, and the American public has placed trust in the PBS. This year, for the fifth year in a row, Americans declared PBS to be the most trustworthy institution in the country. The international research company Roper Public Affairs & Media found that Americans rank public television well ahead of the courts of law, commercial broadcast television networks, newspaper publishers, the federal government, cable television networks and Congress.

       OK, no secret how I'm casting my vote. I agree with Eric Boehlert, senior fellow at Media Matters, a non-profit media watchdog group: "PBS is a success story for the government, ranking up there with the national parks." We're also a success story for others who believe in us and extend support: viewer donors, producers, private foundations, corporations.

Robert Cazimero on PBS' INDEPENDENT LENS

    Tuesday May 6 at 7:30pm, I'll have the second half of my conversation with singer Robert Cazimero on our weekly PBS Hawaii program, LONG STORY SHORT.

     Then, on Thursday, May 8, at 8:30pm, Robert goes national, as the respected PBS national program INDEPENDENT LENS presents a moving documentary.

     Funded by Pacific Islanders in Communications (PIC), the film focuses on Robert's all-male hula school, Halau Na Kamalei, as it doggedly and joyfully prepares for the "Superbowl of Hula," the Merrie Monarch Festival in Hilo.

      Watch the program, and you may get caught up in the dynamics of achieving a perfect, unified, culturally authentic performance from modern, regular guys who are also committed to busy careers and personal lives.

     Most hula halau teach both men and women. But Robert's own mentor and kumu hula (hula teacher), the late Maiki Aiu Lake, urged him to specialize in teaching men.

     She warned him that men wouldn't pay to be taught hula, as women do--so it wouldn't be an easy venture. (She was right.)

     The documentary shows the brotherhood bonds in  Halau Na Kamalei and explores Western stereotypes about gender and sexuality in hula. In ancient times, men learned hula as well as the arts of fighting and war.

      Robert told me he felt uncomfortable giving the documentary team open access to himself and the halau, but he felt his kumu Maiki would want him to do it.

     Come to think of it, we're not accustomed to knowing who Robert really is, only about what he's doing as a public figure. We see him in the media, pitching a concert or a worthy cause. But he's doing promotion, not introspection.

     On LONG STORY SHORT, Robert speaks frankly about about what it takes to get into the halau, why he expelled his beloved brother  and business partner Roland, the advice he received from Don Ho about "our people," how he feels about his voice, and why he sings every song as if it's his last.

      PBS Hawaii will play an encore of LONG STORY SHORT with Robert, after Thursday evening's INDEPENDENT LENS presentation.

Being Vulnerable and Strong in Hawaii

     On a beautiful day on Oahu's North Shore, merchants are cringing. They're seeing less traffic and less spending, and they're bracing for a rough economic year.

     A businessman and neighbor knows I work for a non-profit organization. "Good luck to you and to me," he said. "I'm not used to saying 'no' to good causes. I even had to turn away the local Little League team. I've been turning down all requests for charitable contributions for months because I just don't know how bad (the economy's) going to get."

      Up and down the main road of storefronts in Haleiwa, there's head-shaking about current rice limits and the high price of gas. There are comparisons to the financial drought after 9/11, and to the 1970s oil embargo that caused shipping delays and left us with gas rationing and a toilet paper shortage.

      I thought back to a long. chatty letter I received during the oil embargo from a college friend on the Mainland. "Cheer up," she wrote. "I'm giving you more than moral support. After you read this, divvy it up among our pals." The letter was written entirely on toilet paper.

      Unless you have a source who can supply you with a whole lot more than toilet paper, it's tough to get over and around hard times. You just have to GO THROUGH the economic cycle and hang on or re-tool, keeping your eyes open for opportunities.

      Right now, our geographic isolation and dependence on factors outside Hawaii is underscoring our vulnerability. But living on remote islands, there's great strength in knowing that we have each other.

      I hope most Hawaii residents' philosophy stays the same in good and bad economic times: Do everything you can to take care of yourself and your family, and try to help your neighbors.

Filmmaker Castillos: "Not Your Typical Leader"

     Last night, the documentary "Remember the Boys" aired on this public television station. It's the story of the 50 "Hawaii boys" assigned to the U.S. Army's 1st Filipino Infantry Regiment during World War 2.

      The film is one of local girl Stephanie Castillos' nine documentaries. Among others: 1992's Emmy-winning "Simple Courage," looking back at Hawaii's handling of the leprosy epidemic that began in 1865 and exploring whether we learned anything in dealing with the "modern-day leprosy" of AIDS.

      Stephanie's own story is also a powerful one. We know her work well here at PBS Hawaii. We know her fascination with ideas and images and story-telling, we know her quiet determination and ability to raise funds and do whatever is necessary to see a project through.

      She was a newspaper reporter, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin's Maui bureau chief, who felt trapped in what others considered an influential and interesting job.

      "I felt a huge gulf, a huge canyon between my job on Maui and my true calling. How was I ever going to get to my passion?" she says.

       She'd never made a film--but she believed filmmaking is what she was meant to do.

      "My mom was taking me to the movies when I was still holding my baby bottle. She never read books to me and my sisters--the movies were our story-telling landscapes," she said.

        "And so my ideas take the shape of movies, they come to me as waking dreams, as thoughts that spring from my mind and my heart, cinematic messages that must find their way to the canvas called movies and to the listeners called audiences," she shared with a gathering of women.

         Stephanie broke out of daily deadlines and used her journalism training, good instincts and networking to make her way into the filmmaking world.          

         She's enjoyed critical success but hasn't gotten wealthy making films. Not in the sense of money, anyway. She's held a series of different jobs, as she pursues her calling.

        "As a filmmaker, I'm not your traditional leader. I am not running a big corporation, managing hundreds, the head of a state. I lead with ideas and thoughts and visions that I hope will reach millions of minds and hearts. I am a storyteller."

         Stephanie's Honolulu-based production company is 'Olena Productions. She's one of the people I count on in Hawaii to shine a light where I never looked--and show me something that challenges me and enriches me.

Passing Jim Leahey's Trust Test

      I've known sports commentator Jim Leahey for more than 30 years, back to when we both worked in Bob Sevey's KGMB Newsroom. He's smart, knowledgeable, generous, opinionated, volatile, dedicated, funny, maddening.

      Despite his sharp edges and my wish to avoid getting lacerated, we've always gotten along well. I like him very much and respect his considerable talent. But more than a year ago, when I took the job of President and CEO at PBS Hawaii, where Jim co-hosts the weekly program LEAHEY & LEAHEY with his son Kanoa, I wondered whether there'd be a climate change in our relationship, from warm to Arctic.

      Why? Because of Jim's self-styled "Rules of Broadcasting": 1)Always be yourself. 2) Tell the truth. (So far, so good--but look what's next: 3) Never trust broadcast management.

       I've heard of Jim's loud, impassioned arguments with TV station officials at more than one of our local affiliates. I've personally heard him pronounce some of them idiots.

       Of course, Jim is a journalist at heart, and good journalists question and resist authority. Most, in their challenges, aren't as bold, as gifted with extravagant adjectives and as masterful with sarcasm. He's a man of conviction and he can be an angry man.

      So yesterday, before the taping of the week's LEAHEY & LEAHEY show, I asked Jim whether he trusts me and PBS Hawaii management.

      He seemed surprised. Of course, he said.

      "Because this is a different kind of TV station," he told me. "This is for the public, for the community. This is a good place."

       Whew.

       I gotta say, it means something to pass Jim Leahey's trust test.

       Jim loves the concept of public television, using a section of public airwaves for the enlightenment of people. He loves having a show at a locally owned and operated TV station. And he loves that the station is committed to using the Hawaiian value of pono (fairness, balance, what's right) to make decisions.

        Managers here hold ourselves to high standards, and we know that we don't always measure up. At least we can count on Jim to be our early-warning system (as in heat-seeking missile!) if he senses something amiss.

        Still, I'm always mindful of that quote from an unknown author: "It takes years to build up trust, and only seconds to destroy it."

        So, this public TV station tries relentlessly to keep the trust we hope we've earned.

Documentaries Forged in High Heat and Deep Cold

    If you're watching PBS Hawaii's nightly broadcasts of the CARRIER series(9 to 11 p.m. through tomorrow night, Thursday, May 1), you see big drops of sweat rolling down sailors' faces as they are interviewed aboard the USS Nimitz. On the flight deck and below decks as well, it's not unusual to have temperatures of 120 degrees and higher in the Persian Gulf.

    The high heat isn't only a human inconvenience and health threat. It's a challenge to the electronics used in recording video and sound for the documentary.

    Would the video equipment hold up under the scorching sun? The video crew fussed and worried for much of six months, the length of the deployment in 2005. To the relief of the CARRIER documentary team, the high-definition gear performed without major incident.

    The CARRIER folks can swap climate-challenge stories with a crew assigned to a Discovery Channel documentary in Alaska. Temperatures along the annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race fell to 18-below.  In addition, the field equipment had to go in and out of small planes and snow mobiles from Nome to Anchorage--and bumps and scrapes were inevitable. However, on this project too, the video and audio equipment held up well.

     Hot or cold, the equipment worked. It's a reflection of both the quality and resilience of the technology and the skill and hardiness of the professionals taking on the natural elements.

Storytelling in Honolulu

    We love stories here at PBS Hawaii. And as the name of our weekly program LONG STORY SHORT indicates, we don't think they need be extended to be effective.

     Neither do Manoa author Gavan Daws and Honolulu publisher Bennett Hymer, who've come out with the book HONOLULU STORIES, featuring two centuries of writing in this city.

    Here are a few short but complete stories from the many written voices in this fat, rich book:

     From educator Richard Hamasaki:

     Tourist drowns

      In perfect waves

      From Canadian-born former Honolulu resident W.J. Illerbrun:

      Bus from Manoa

      Always the same hair and dress

    Japanese tutus

     And from a boy named Mark who submitted this essay at Makaha Elementary School in 1981:

      My mother lives in Las Vegas my father lives in Hawaii. I am my father's son and my sister is icky. Our family has small noses and soft faces. If you ask me one day I will soar like an eagle to visit my mother.

       Other stories are told with more words but not necessarily with more feeling or authenticity!