Leslie Wilcox Blogs

"...You Look Like One Lau Lau"

An instant classic proverb in Hawaii: Too much kau kau going make you look like one lau lau.

Perfect reminder during this season of food excess! I saw it on a refrigerator magnet by PIDGIN Products of Maui, sold at Maile Meyer's Na Mea Books and Beautiful Things.

Other local-style expressions captured on these magnets:

...Too many square meals going make you look round.

The early boy gets the poi.

Eh, nuff all ready.

And the one I have on my fridge:

No go too fast, try stop and smell the limu.

Oh Oh. Mother-Daughter Role Reversal

I used to be the one telling my youngest daughter how to do things and how the world works. Now I'm getting used to her showing me the ropes.

Over the holidays, she's going to teach me to SCUBA dive. Descending into the deep off Waikiki, Waianae, and Haleiwa, I'll have to trust her as much as she trusted me when I delivered her many years ago to the confusing world of school, with strange symbols on the blackboard, and a couple of classmates who liked to gang up on her and fight for no reason.

Kai's a new Dive Master. But it's not just SCUBA. My daughter nonchalantly, without checking any written instructions, set up my Wii to bring in Netflix; she created all kinds computer shortcuts for me; she made quick work of fixing an overhead light that hadn't worked in years; she drops dry, droll comments that lighten and brighten my outlook. She does it all and explains without making a big deal of anything, and I find myself admiring how easily and organically she does things. She didn't inherit any of this from me.

At first it felt really odd, learning from my "kid." Now I just feel fortunate and proud.

I always used to tell her it's important to truly listen. That's just what I'm doing...

Movie Treasures on PBS Hawaii...

Here's hoping that these busy days preparing for the holidays will soon turn into free time! We have just the ticket for you.

A movie ticket of sorts! Find out the backstory of some cinematic treasures that reflect the American experience. Coming up on INDEPENDENT LENS (Thurs., Dec. 29, 10:00 pm), a documentary titled These Amazing Shadows looks at films like Casablanca, Blazing Saddles and West Side Story, singled out as significant by the Library of Congress. This program includes interviews with directors Christopher Nolan, John Lasseter, Rob Reiner, John Singleton, Barbara Kopple and John Waters as well as members of the National Film Preservation Board.

Lessons learned in the disastrous March 11 tsunami that struck Japan are the subject of special programming by NHK World. You'll see some amazing images and hear of devastating scenarios in which lives hung in the balance of citizens' personal choices.

The first NHK WORLD SPECIAL (Mon., Dec. 26, 11:00 pm) is Mega Tsunami: Hidden Perils, sharing real-time images, eyewitness reports and expert analysis to provide an overall picture of that fateful day. The program also looks for preventive measures that could offset future tsunamis.

The next evening, NHK WORLD SPECIAL: The Line Between Life and Death (Tue., Dec. 27, 11:00 pm) goes to the town of Yuriage, where the tsunami claimed 800 of 4,500 residents. Why did some neighbors die and some survive?

The newest edition of HIKI NŌ (Thurs., Dec. 29, 7:30 pm) covers an historic change in a longtime all-boys school in Kalihi. Young correspondents from Damien Memorial report on going co-ed. It's just one of the stories you'll see in the next episode, hosted by students from Nanakuli High and Intermediate School in West Oahu.

Meanwhile, Waimea High students on Kauai capture a community's feelings and memories surrounding an old sugar mill that is facing demolition. Other schools reporting on their school communities in the upcoming week: Hawaii Academy of Arts & Science Public Charter School on Hawaii Island; Kamehameha Schools Maui; and Campbell High School, Mid-Pacific Institute and Waipahu Intermediate School on Oahu.

This HIKI NŌ newscast encores Saturday, Dec. 31 at 12:30 pm and Sunday, Jan. 1 at 3:00 pm. You may also view this newscast and past episodes on our website, www.pbshawaii.org/hikino

Here are more highlights of the holiday week ahead on PBS Hawaii:

The music of celebrated 20th-century composers Leonard Bernstein and George Gershwin takes us into the New Year with a LIVE FROM LINCOLN CENTER special (Sat. Dec. 31, 8:00 pm). Music Director Alan Gilbert (pictured right) conducts The New York Philharmonic's Bernstein and Gershwin program, featuring Bernstein's overture from Candide and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

A Grammy award-winning band leads the 10-second countdown to 2012 in Coldplay New Year's Eve: An Austin City Limits Special (Sat. Dec. 31, 11:00 pm), featuring mega-hits and songs from their newest LP, Mylo Xyloto.

 

 

Encore pick of the week:

Author Michael Pollan explores our relationship with the plant world in The Botany of Desire (Tue. Dec. 27, 8:00 pm). The program looks at four plant species - the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the potato - and shows us how each evolved to satisfy human cravings.

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We Admit It. We Cried.

What a day it was in our borrowed TV studio yesterday! We were enthralled at old Hawaiian wisdom, shared by a man in his 40s, applied to today's polarized politics. And we shed tears, repeatedly, in hearing of the extreme deprivation and pain that marked the childhood of another man, who became a distinguished educator in our community.

We were taping two Long Story Short shows, conversations with:

--Enterprise Honolulu CEO Pono Shim, raised by political strategists and visionaries Alvin and Marion Heen Shim in a comfortable home in Honolulu

--And with Mid-Pacific Institute President Joe Rice, who grew up in a station wagon and tents in farms up and down several Western states.

Pono shared amazing stories passed on to him by wise elders including the late Pilahi Paki, known as a Hawaiian keeper of secrets. These stories amount to parables.  Old knowledge that we've forgotten but which works for today's issues. These stories don't tell you what to think, they make you think. You find yourself having an epiphany and your world shifts. 

Joe spoke openly and matter-of-factly about his deeply troubling childhood as the oldest kid in a large family of migrant farm workers traveling routinely between lower California and Canada to pick crops. The family was routinely hungry, living  in poverty, and he and his siblings were exposed to alcoholism and physical, verbal and sexual abuse.  After a bloody tangle with his stepfather, Joe ran away from home at 17 and worked multiple jobs to put himself through college. He wouldn't borrow money or do anything that reminded him of his stepfather. Education was the gateway to his current life as a caring husband and father, and the leader (16 years now) of a respected private school in Honolulu.

As Joe spoke, tears welled up in his eyes. Mine too. Other members of our crew blinked back tears or cried openly. Staffer Terrence Quinsaat crawled on the floor, out of sight of the camera, to make sure that Joe had enough tissues. Tissues were in use, all around. In fact, we need to buy more. Joe's is a story of perseverance, resilience, survival, achievement.

I think you'll want to see these Long Story Short shows for broadcast in the new year. We'll let you know the air dates when the schedule is set.

Soot Doesn't Mix with People, Electronics

    We're discovering more damage in the wake of the Nov. 18 building fire at PBS Hawaii.  Some of our computers holding valuable data, including upcoming television programming, are kaput.  Specialty contractors had been carefully cleaning soot residue from our electronics, and whether it's the effects of the residue or the invasive process, some devices just don't come back to life. There's also fire residue in our air conditioning ducts. Right now, our staff is sweltering because the AC is turned off while techs clean out the AC  passages. Turns out longterm exposure can cause damage to both humans and machines, so the soot's gotta go. Air conditioning will be back in service Monday.

    Our large television studio likely will be out of commission for a couple more months. An air-conditioning feature above the false-ceiling soundproofing which burned needs to be rebuilt and perhaps re-designed, so that adds to our time line.

    We learned this week that the power supply for our audio board has failed. A  temporary set-up allows in-house productions  to go on as scheduled.

    There are  other fire-aftermath effects we're still dealing with as well--but the good news is, we're on the air and looking just fine. And more good news: our insurance company is working closely with us to pay for the costs of cleaning, repair and replacement. 

Fire Restoration Update

Here are members of the Hawaii Fire Fighters Association, who staffed our pledge program phone bank days after their colleagues from different fire stations extinguished a major fire at PBS Hawaii.  That's Captain Terry Seelig in the palaka shirt, next to pledge host Stacy Loe.  Alongside Stacy, I'm in the gold, next to our programming chief Roberta Wong Murray.  Thanks, everyone, for your community service! Including a special mahalo to fire fighter Ben Cazimero Jr., who is not pictured, for organizing the group and to association leader Bobby Lee.

I'm writing this in a building full of the whir of industrial fans. There's no airconditioning because contractors are cleaning fire residue from our airconditioning ducts. Work crews are dismantling our damaged television studio  to prep it for reconstruction and a team has been cleaning sensitive electronics in our Master Control Room. Besides losing the use of our TV studio in the accidental fire last Nov. 18, we lost the ability to retrieve some of the programs we were going to air this month. So Roberta's programming department is busy replacing shows. For example, my granddaughter Anuhea is going to  have to miss the scheduled presentation of "Curious George: A Very Monkey Christmas." Now it'll be "Prima Princesa Presents The Nutcracker." Our staff is working to select shows in a similar vein, as replacements.  The great news is that we've had few interruptions in service--we're on the air!

 

 

Tomorrow--Lee Cataluna on "Long Story Short"

 

Lee Cataluna, above, has added "novelist," to her list of expressive roles. We already know her as a newspaper columnist, newscaster, playwright, and comedy writer.

I'll continue my conversation with Lee tomorrow night (Tues., Dec. 13, 7:30 pm) on PBS Hawaii's Long Story Short. In this episode, she explains why she chose to write her first novel from the point of view of a man--a hapless ex-con trying to pull his life together from his sister's living room. The book, which is dark and funny at the same time, is Three Years on Doreen's Sofa. Lee wrote it in pidgin, which is a spoken langugage. She writes pidgin in a way that makes it easy to read as well.

Before we started talking, she wasn't sure how much she was going to share of her personal life. But she did choose to speak publicly for the first time about losing a child and her own brush with death.

Lee, recognized for her ongoing commentary on local culture in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, has moved to California, where her husband, Jim Kelly, works as a newspaper editor. (He was a casualty of the shutdown of The Honolulu Advertiser.) She has returned periodically to Hawaii--to teach summer classes at private Island School on Kauai, for example. I caught up with her on a Honolulu visit to debut her novel here. She says she is fiercely homesick, but at this time she must be an economic refugee.

Tonight--Fire Fighters on our Phone Bank

    TONIGHT (Tues., Dec. 6, 2011, 7:30 pm), PBS Hawaii airs a new anthology show featuring stories and words of wisdom by five late great Hawaii residents: Hawaiian cultural expert Aunty Nona Beamer; the first woman of native Hawaiian ancestry to earn a Ph.D in science, Dr. Isabella Aiona Abbott; federal judge Samuel P. King; Hawaii State Chief Justice William S. Richardson; and the dean of Hawaii news anchors, Bob Sevey. I feel so honored to have had these conversations with them. The program is Long Story Short with Leslie Wilcox: The Legacy Series.

      And  here to staff our phone bank are members of the Hawaii Fire Fighters Association. Last month, fire fighters saved our TV studio cameras from an accidental fire that crippled the studio and threatened our electronics with soot damage. Fire fighters contained and extinguished the blaze. Now they're  helping us in another way!

       Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalist Stacy Loe and our Programming chief Roberta Wong Murray will host our live pledge presentation, from a small, borrowed UH television studio that we're using while our studio is being restored.

       Join us for this special broadcast tonight. We also invite you to contribute online at:   www.pbshawaii.org/donate

You Light Up Our Life!

Our phone bank lit up last evening with phone calls from viewers making contributions to PBS Hawaii!

Taking viewers' calls were members of our PBS Hawaii Board of Directors, above. Board Member Jimmy Borges, one of Hawaii's premier vocalists,  in the snazzy red velvet jacket above, co-hosted the evening with me (that's me to his left, above). Our featured show was GREAT PERFORMANCES featuring Andrea Bocelli, Celine Dion, Tony Bennett and others in Central Park. Great concert!

Way to go, Hawaii! We're grateful for everyone who made donations, especially after last month's fire that has us operating out of a smaller borrowed television studio for the time being. We received a lot of encouragement and well wishes from callers throughout the state. 

Board members pictured above, from left to right, are: Darren Kimura, Marissa Sandblom of Kauai, Joan Husted, Dr. Keiki-Pua Dancil of Maui County, Jean Kiyabu,  Board Chair Robbie Alm, Gayle Harimoto, Jimmy Borges, me, and Jason Fujimoto of Hawaii Island.

If you haven't donated and would like to,  remember your contributions are tax-deductible and we're approaching the end of the year...  www.pbshawaii.org/donate

 

 

Tonight--Andrea Bocelli and Our Board of Directors!

 Tonight, see who governs Hawaii's only public television station, as PBS Hawaii's Board of Directors staffs our phone bank at a pledge event. It'll be TV worth watching, as we present GREAT PERFORMANCES Andrea Bocelli Live in Central Park (Sun., Dec. 4, 2011,7:00 pm). Bocelli, the world-renowned tenor, is accompanied by the New York Philharmonic and the program offers guest performances by Celine Dion, Tony Bennett, Chris Botti and David Foster. Sopranos Ana María Martínez and Pretty Yende, violinist Nicola Benedetti, bass baritone Bryn Terfel and flutist Andrea Griminelli are also part of the spectacular evening, which was filmed on Central Park's Great Lawn. PBS Hawaii Board Member Jimmy Borges, a premier jazz vocalist, co-hosts this pledge event with me. Join us!

And Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2011, at 7:30 pm,  another pledge event, with the Hawaii Fire Fighters Association on the phone bank. We're grateful to fire fighters for putting out a major fire at our building last month, and here they are, helping us again!

We've been so honored to hear such amazing stories from guests on LONG STORY SHORT that we are presenting a new series to share their words of wisdom once more. The Legacy Series honors five thought leaders who have since passed on, leaving legacies that continue to impact Hawaii. This pledge-of-support program features the late ethnobotanist Dr. Isabella Aiona Abbott, Hawaiian cultural expert Aunty Nona Beamer, Federal Judge Samuel P. King, former State Chief Justice William S. Richardson and local TV news legend Bob Sevey. This presentation will be hosted by former broadcast journalist Stacy Loe, who's an Emmy Award-winner and the recipient of the prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award. 

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