On Tuesday, October 14, I just happened to be driving at 6:40 pm. I turned on the radio and suddenly the sounds of pidgin filled my car. I thought, "Who is this?" followed by "Wait – it’s Tuesday night! It HAS to be Aloha Shorts!" The person reading was Aito Simpson Steele, reading oldies but…
Aloha Shorts
Be on the radio!
Ten o’clock on an already hot Saturday morning, only the start of what’s going to be a hot hot hot summer in Hawaii. Lots of parking at City Hall, but it has also been the month of the vog, so the two balanced each other out. The air was saturated with heat and sun and…
Around one hundred people came to UH’s Campus Center Ballroom to hear stories from from issue 91. I suspect many of them came for Gerry Lopez, the surfer pictured on 91’s cover: before the reading, people waited patiently in a long line to get his autograph. He and Carlos Andrade presented their memories about Pakala…
On Tuesday, March 11th, at 7:00 P.M., I was at the Manoa Valley Theatre, marveling at the size of the crowd. Bamboo Ridge’s 30th anniversary "roast and toast" was about to start, and I had never seen so many people at a Bamboo-Ridge-only event. Every nametag seemed familiar; either I instantly recognized the person or…
It’s film festival time and Wayne Wang has two new films based on short stories by Yiyun Li from A Thousand Years of Good Prayers. Two independently financed films in one year is quite amazing…story is that he came in under budget after the first one so he just kept on going. Bamboo Ridge has…
from my notes at the most recent Bamboo Ridge meeting: Keep March 11th, 2008 open. Just in case. I’m not sure why the term "Mango Season" came up (I was getting confused by member benefits debate), but it made me remember the TON of mangoes my family’s tree produced this past September and wondering if…
Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving talk, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal…
One of those combinations you thought was impossible. Not at bambooridge.com! Last Thursday I saw Los Lonely Boys at Aloha Tower. I believe it was the Advertiser (TGIF?) that said they were great live, so I went in with very high expectations and was still blown away. Near the end, the guitarist Jojo played drums…