Questions Answered

1) What time is it there?
It's 5:18AM on Monday August 29th, give or take, depending upon Daylight Savings. Kidding, we're 6 hours behind you on the East Coast. So if it's noon in NYC, its 6AM here.

2) Whats the weather like?
It rains every night, finishes by about 8AM, then its 85 all day. But it's not too hot, because there's a very pleasant humidity in the air. Not the North East humidity that makes you feel like you're covered in latex, but a cooling, healthy humidity. It also sets us up for the best sunsets I've ever seen:

3) What's with the roosters?
Apparently, a big hurricane in 1992 hit Kaua'i directly, and it broke open a ton of chicken coops. They escaped, eventually became wild, and with no natural predator, they flourished. Some say that they may have come from cock-fighting roosters, which is why they are so resilient in the wild. Like this guy, who I assume is Little Yerry's cousin:

4) How is it going?
Awesome. Pretty, pretty awesome.

5) Have you learned to surf yet?
No. It's kind of expensive actually. Still debating if it's going to happen, since I'll most likely not even be able to get up.

6) Have you had poi yet?
No! We can't find it on any menu. It's crazy. I might have to buy a bag of it from the grocery store and make it myself.

7) What's in a Mai Tai?
It varies. But usually: light rum, a dark rum floater, orange curaçao, pineapple/orange/guava juice, and a pineapple/maraschino cherry garnish. Sun and sand are optional.

8) How are the scripts coming?
What are you, my editor? Lay off; they're coming along fine, ok?

9) How's Blondie doing at work?
She's killing it. I get to listen to her yell at people every morning on conference calls. Don't mess with her installations.

10) When are you coming back?
Never. And by that I mean next Tuesday.

is that a tan? no, i guess not. but it's close

Week 2 - Now With More Mai Tais!

Well gosh darnit, I sure hope you had a great weekend. Blondie and I did indeed. We went Kayaking along the Wailua River, which was gorgeous. They filmed some scenes from Jurassic Park there. We swam under a waterfall too; something I can honestly say I've never done before:

watch out for the raptors

We also had some real-ass Hawaiian Pizza Pie. It was scrumtralescent:

And speaking of pineapple, we've had a ton of Mai Tais lately. We had so many on Sunday night, that Monday was kind of a wash. I call it an Island Hangover. We were up, it was gorgeous, Blondie worked and I did some errands, but we were both zombies in the sun. We napped twice and didn't do much but eat. So I apologize for this Monday blog post being yours on Tuesday. It's hard to lift your fingers when you're staring at a beautiful landscape with a cloudy mind and have nothing to do but relax.

We've begun try one at every place we visit, and rate them. We're not quite done with our findings, but here is how, in graph form, it's generally going:
We'll have a full report later, depending upon how drunk we get.

More than Ukulele Music Around Here

I'm writing this on Thursday, but it's already Friday for you. Consider this a Time Capsule of Pop. Happy Weekend.

I've got some new music, as promised, to rock your weekend. Most of you probably know Brendan Benson as the other singer in The Raconteurs. But you may not know that he is an accomplished pop-rock songwriter and musician in his own right. And it makes sense when you look at a band like the Racs, where the songs mix bluesy, heavy guitar engine (Jack White) with very tight pop melodies and rhythms (Benson). The best examples of this fusion are "Intimate Secretary" from their first record, or "Many Shades of Black" from their second.

hey, that's my hat!

But enough about them, this is about Brendan's new solo record My Old, Familiar Friend. It's an 11 song tour-de-pop, full of melodious vocal lines, slickly blended verses and choruses, easy lyrics, and tightly written chord progressions. Think of it as a really catchy mixtape of The Who, Joe Jackson, and ELO covers. Brendan stands out on this record with "Garbage Day" (very 70's pop rock) "Gonowhere" (a bit of McCartney), and "Eyes On The Horizon" (Elvis Costello-esque).

And if you can, grab his previous LP, 2005's The Alternative To Love. The title track remains my personal favorite across all his various groups.

Then who's having sex with the hen??

A few videos for your Thursday morning/afternoon.

First, I woke up to Dr. Noisewater this morning:

we're getting dangerously close to a rooster-only blog.

Secondly, starting as an offhand comment during an epic GChat, The Stame "uncovered" this timeless gem from the comedy vault:

And a final thought: Blondie and I have limited TV choices here at night (local Hawaiian TV is unintentionally hilarious, but that's a whole other post), so we're working our way through Hulu, Netflix Watch Instantly, and her DVD collection on my laptop. Last night, we took in the cinematic tour-de-force known as "Cocktail." My God it's awful. But did Elisabeth Shue ever looked hotter than in that movie? BTTF and Leaving Las Vegas pale in comparison. That waterfall scene is one for the books:

And why the hell are our two favorite shows out there right now, Top Chef and Mad Men, not on Hulu/any official websites? I'm resorting to these Nordic Bootleg sites to watch, and it makes me feel like a pirate (and not the good kind). To help my sanity, feel free to send/email any movies/shows you have ripped for iTunes. I can only watch so much Intergalactic Commander Cruise before weeping.

I Did It

I bought a cheap little ukulele. I didn't think I'd be able to play it with my giant hands, but its surprisingly comfortable. Here's a quick video of me playing "Something" by The Beatles on it this morning:

not bad for the first time, though i'm sure someone will comment on my stupid hat.

Otherwise, I've been checking out the beaches, tooling around in the 'Stang, and taking photos. Hoping to get some of my B&W developed today, and switch to color permanently. This place is just too colorful to stay in B&W. NYC looks good in monochrome; Hawaii deserves the full Kodachrome 800 spectrum.

On the food front, Blondie and I have been out to sushi twice, and it is out of this world. We've been to two places in Hanalei, Bouchon's and Dolphin, and sat at the sushi bar both times. What's odd is that we've only had non-Japanese sushi chefs so far. That's the first we've ever encountered such an occurrence. And they were great; we let them make for us whatever they thought we'd like the most: quite a delicious decision. Most importantly to me, we tried "uni" for the first time. What exactly is uni? Well, it's raw sea urchin (removed from that spiny body of course), and it's really fuckin' good. I've been seeing it on Food Network and Top Chef for so long, we had to try it. And the best part about Hawaii sushi? It's considerably cheaper, and fresher, than it's NYC counterpart. So they've got that going for them. Which is nice.