Book Him, Danno! Is There life After Luau?
The Cruising Godfather: Declassified Files
Book Him, Danno!
Is There Life After Luau?
Lahaina, Maui. Paradise with a cash register. A comic field report about tourist traps, mainland guilt, expensive aloha shirts, and the people who made the whole operation worth it.
The Lahaina visitor industry took a chance on an unknown kid from Los Angeles and ran him through the meat grinder. I came out the other side an Aloha graduate.
No monster waves until winter, but I did see Steve and Danno in Maui, complete with four-year varsity letters, Portuguese last names, and healed acne scars, handing out speeding tickets. Bad cops. No donuts. Hawaii Five-O.
Is there life after luau? This was an OOM, out-of-money, experience.
One of the best things to experience on a South Pacific vacation is spending all your cash on things you do not need to impress people you do not know. It ranks among Hawaii's top activities, and Lahaina is no miraculous exception. Paying too much for objects that arrive with a side of Polynesian paradise is truly underrated.
I displayed my skill: no regard for the unwritten rule of the place, which seemed to be take their money and run. I was a volunteer, salt-of-the-earth rainbow lover with a large supply of energy drinks, ready to dance the hula and be volunTOLD by mainland guilt, Pearl Harbor, Captain Cook, or whatever else was required to support the local economy.
Why is there no pine in pineapple? I do not know. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn and saved a ton on car insurance by switching to Geico. Lahaina. Even a caveman can do it.
Code Phrase
"I'm gonna make him an offer..."
The usual overpriced, franchised suspects had been Hawaiianized: Hard Rock Cafe, ABC Stores, Starbucks, Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, and Cheeseburger in Paradise. Through rose-coloured Maui Jims, the surf and sun created the perfect brain dump. I entered the default mode of island wear.
I became one of those tourists. Locals looked on with variations of "Howzit?" and "Sup, brah?" I wore the loud, expensive aloha shirt I had charged two days earlier at Hilo Hattie. It was tuition for becoming an Aloha graduate, an expensive bowl of stupid that became the afterlife when the credit-card bill arrived.
Merchants pushed visitors through the meat grinder of souvenir turn-and-burn shops, selling wampum and beaded shells assembled far from paradise. The rage subsided. There is no place on earth quite like Hawaii.
The Real Return
Fantabulous People
The best things in Hawaiian life are not things. They are people. I met a creamy blend of the fantastic and fabulous, beyond belief and beyond expectation: Lisa, Cheryl, Lauren and Chris, Nadine and Sherry, Martin, Javier, Rick, Matt, Zac, Keith, Kyle, Paul H-Tuna, Paul L and Johanna, David S., and others.
Front Street smelled like fractional real estate and timeshares in full bloom. It screamed tourist trap, yet this ocean-front street was the street on Maui's west coast. The sales pitch was temporary. The people became the permanent part.
Don Ho, ambassador of Aloha, was missing. Israel Kamakawiwoole's "n Dis Life" became the soundtrack instead. "Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" was the anti-elevator music of the day.
Evidence Locker
Archive Images
Recovered Transmission
Israel Kamakawiwoole
From the Book Shelf
How This Story Maps to the Larger Work
Who Wants to Be a Time Millionaire?
Chapter: Hawaii Lessons
Time lesson: Money buys objects. Attention turns encounters into memory.
Equation: Time + Attention = Life.
MAHA: Make America Happy Again
Chapter connection: Consumerism, Enoughness, Relationships.
Lesson: Want less. Notice more. Experience more. The purchase fades; the people remain.
Living an Asymmetrical Life
Chapter: Hawaii Years.
Hero's Journey stage: Foreign Land.
Equation: Experience + Reflection = Wisdom.