MY SENTIMENTS ... EXACTLY

TO THE ANONYMOUS COMMENTER

Welcome and aloha to OBAMALAND, winning intern:

YIXIN YAN from Queens, New York.

Would the person who left the Comment on September 16, 2008 at 3:18 PM please contact rj@hawaii.rr.com. I would like to include your thoughts in the OBAMALAND book. I will not run anonymous, non-attributed material. I'm sure you can understand.  It's a book about one Punahou keiki o 'ka aina, assembled by another Punahou keiki o 'ka aina from 20 years before. 

I try not to tabulate Comments. Grabbing the message is what counts, not keeping score. Buried in the book, I blog when time permits, and when there is something to be said. Your Comment says it all, but it comes from yet another pair of eyes, much mana and like everything about this project, the most intense cross-media rip I've attempted. Therefore, it should include text from a Comment to a blog entry about OBAMA'aina.

WHODAGUY HAWAII.COM IS ON FULL TIME

Now Streaming Non-Stop: The Best of WhodaguyHawaii.com 2007

  We designed this site to be more HEARD than SEEN. 

Hele on to REAL Hawaiian music, streaming live from our 

living room studio in the Ko'olau Mountains, in Kane'ohe, O'ahu, Hawai'i.

TIME (OUT) FOR SOME FOOTBALL

Took some time OFF.  After a 19-hours stretch working on my next book, OBAMALAND, I watched the Tivo'd Monday Night Football game, Dallas-Philadelphia.

The book is the most intense project I've ever attempted. Only the NFL can pull me away. I am absorbed in the final stretch. Putting the book to bed. Ah, the Church of the NFL teaches that there is always hope, and prayer, and flickering. a light, to keep the faith.

Veteran hard core pro football fans put loyalties aside when a masterpiece breaks out. Particularly when one's favorite team's finishes Week One as the only of 32 teams to go without a touchdown. They finally score one in Week Two. Two next week? Three the week after that! By Week Five the Rams might score 28 points in a game. Two games went beyond our wildest fantasies. 

The Denver-San Diego game turned on as bad a Zebra Fuckup as I've ever seen. Not called by a really good referee, it saw the home team turn an inexcusable penalty call into one of the great ballsy play calls of all time. Only twice before in league history (which began in 1920) has a team won a NFL game on a two-point conversion. Mike Shanahan did. And after reading the fine book, SIX SECONDS OF PANIC, in which little Stefan Fatsis attempts to learn the game as no journalist has. He tries for two seasons, looking for a team that will allow him to try out as a place kicker. He was one in high school. The Broncos casually give him a shot.

Our image of their head coach, Mike Shannan deepens and changes. He took a chance on Fatsis. The outcome could have blown up in his face. It didn't. SIX SECONDS OF PANIC became a best-selling, future classic sports book.

Can you believe that it was just 18 days ago when Barack Obama rocked the same Mile High stadium, with his sell out crowd of fanatics and believers screaming over the hard fought victory. The Bronco-Charger game could be a metaphor for the Democratic Convention, which basked in the alohaglow of Hawaii's Favorite Son on August 28.  What happend on that same Invesco Field outshone all the NFL games that followed a fortnight later. And Obama is the VIP of America's biggest political game. Bigger than Brett Favre. Or any rock, or move, or any sports star. He has replaced Muhammed Ali as the most famous person on the planet.

It was of the best Monday Night Football games I've ever seen. And I've been watching them since Season One.  Last night's sphincter-shredding Eagle loss to the Cowbays (in spite of action comic hero play by its heroes Donovan McNabb and Brian Westbrook) made Dallas owner Jerry Jones as happy as if he'd ben elected Emperor of Football.

I'd almost ride in a plane to have seen the Divisional Rematch, in Philly. It is the last game of the season, in the Final Week. And what of the world champs, the New York Giants? Yesterday's game resulted in their top passer, runner and receiver leading the NFL stats for the day. How often does that happen? When a team plays against something as bad as the 2008 St. Louis Rams they always look great. And ESPN's pronouncement that the NFC East, "is the toughest conference in any sport" is impossible to deny at this early part of the season.

Except for watching three pro football games, I'm full time into our man from Oahu, which is OBAMALAND, Barack Obama, to win his race after the Cowboys and Eagles go at it again. His ends on November 4th, date of the 2009 US Presidential Election. I am in full Colonel Parker-Vince Lombardi mode. We're putting everything into our book about Obama's first 18 years. He was born here in Honolulu and, except for a short time in Africa, he grew up here. A member of the Punahou class of 1979, he left later that year for college. 

But do you know the rest of the story? Of his roots here in the 'aina, the 50th State? Win or lose, you will learn an audacious story from our little island in the middle of the

Pacific, OBAMALAND.  We're aiming to release the book two weeks before the election. So bye bye blog. Hello manuscript.

What a 12 months its been. And the next Super Bowl winner and our new President are still unknown. Everyone has some sort of opinion about everything. But, with my crashing deadline, I have only one thing on my mind.  Focus. Finish. On time.  We've been getting ready since the start of summer. Let's kick off with a winning effort. OBAMALAND will illuminate the many things proven when Obama closes strong -- and wins it all.

PAU HANA OBAMA

First day off  in weeks. Time to bag off.  Sebring (thank you, Art Astor!) rolling Kailua. Talk story. Score, new friends. PAU HANA! PARTY TIME! Having a good time. Wish you were here? Hey, it's better than you know.  If you ever get to come, give it up and go with real Hawaii. 

Online now: Best Whodaguy Shows Of 2007.  

Wherever you are :::  Click and hear our home state,  Hawaii.  

Turning 5o Years Old Next Year.

The Planet's Only Hawaiian

NO TOURIST ZONE 

Tune in, turn on, nudge your speaker, or better, earphones.  

Until you can  touch this precious place in the middle of the Mighty Pacific 

CLICK IT.

Komo mai!

       H A W A I I  L O C A L  B O Y S 

Pau Hana, Imua Obama

 The  Lilipuna Guava 

 Greg "The Picker"Martin (Kailua)

Ron "Time Out" Jacobs (Waikiki) 

Mark "The Surge" Yasuda (Kailua)

"Please, Lord,"

I pray each day: 

""If I can't be Jesus, 

Can I play quarterback?"

OBAMA TO A "T"

This is the Crew Only shirt, made up for those collaborating with me on my latest book, OBAMALAND. It is the story of another fellow who was born in Honolulu and attended Punahou School.  As fate would have it, young Barry was in high school during the four years I returned home to Hawaii and did mornings on KKUA Radio.  That's where WHODAGUY was born.

Copyright 2009 OBAMALAND Inc. & Trade Publishing Co. Honolulu, HI

I am an old person putting in ridiculously long hours to finish the book on deadline, which is roaring up. It is being published worldwide by Trade Publishing Company, which, believe it or not, is located in Kalihi...between Democrat and Republican Streets.

More info about book and other items we are developing will be posted on this blog, as time permits.  There's been a tremendous amount of support for OBAMALAND, from my old and new friends: Among them, Photographers, Archivists, Writers, Map Makers, Poets, Painters, Wood Block Makers, Researchers, Friends & Relatives of Sen. Obama, the Folks at Trade Publishing and so many more.  Needless to say, we are all so very proud of our Number One Native Son.

IMUA OBAMA 2008!

HAWAII SEVEN-ONE

Thanks to everyone for the good cheer on another birthday. No  time to blog. Working on next book, OBAMALAND USA about fellow islander, Punahou kid (1979) and former KKUA listener, BARACK OBAMA, the next Prez of the USA.  That's me yesterday in front of the Kailua Beach house where he hung out three weeks ago.  Soaked up some Hawaiian sun, surfed and sucked up da strawberry shave ice. This son of Oahu, the first African-American to be nominated by a major political party is a Democrat. Hawaii LOVES da guy, no ka oe!  

Joaquin Siopack photo. 

Copyright 2008, OBAMALAND Inc. & Trade Publishing Company, Honolulu, HI.