JULIAN KEONE - HAWAIIAN

Julian Matthew 

Kaonohiulaokalani Hakoekoekalani 

Napuaikahikinaakalaikumukahi 

Keonehaliiokalaninuikalani 

Kamehamehakanaiaupuniohawaii 

 

Julian was a classmate of my KKUA newsperson Keala Kai (Judy Mugford), Kamehameha class of 1969. While we did the wake-up radio show, Julian was starting his day as a tour bus driver. I learned we had much in common after we "met" one morning when he phoned the radio station and asked, "You get one Lihue Butterfly?"  Was he asking about a rock group?  Was he pushing pakalolo?  Or was this character a collector of rare insects?  As it turned out, Julian proved to be more interesting than a combination of all three.  

I had met my first member of the Hawaii Antique Bottle Collectors Club, established in 1972.  Julian became its president within three years. His innocent phone call sucked me in to a 20-year circus of mud, glass, wheeling, dealing, digging, hustling, trading, cataloging and other activities. I was a full-on, compulsive, anal-retentive, maniacal, Virgo collector of old Hawaiian pop bottles.  I joined the club and attended my first meeting at Suzanna Wesley center in Kalihi.  

The diversity of my fellow lunatics was amazing.  They were detectives, waiters, executives, housewives, students, heavy equipment operators , ambulance drivers and the future chief of the Honolulu Fire Department, Attilio (John) Leonardi, at the time, stationed in Kahuku.  Aother leader of this gang was a hippie with long stringy blonde hair, who always clutched a thin volume entitled "Hawaiian Bottles of Long Ago" by Rex Elliot.  This man was Steve Gould, a Punahou graduate, who grew up in a house alongside the Waialae Golf Course.  When he was a kid, they built the Kahala Hilton across the fairway from his home. Inquisitive young Gould spent his spare time digging around in the muck and mulch where later would stand Hawaii's most elegant resort hotel.  The detritus of the construction site became the first jewels in Gould's antique Hawaiian bottle collecction.

Within weeks the Beatles, Beachboys and Byrds were pushed aside by my association with Keone, Gould, Leonardi and the other collectors who prowled Oahu in the wee hours searching the residue of the foundations of what is now modern downtown Honolulu.  I realized no one person could collect everything. Matson engineer Grant O'Donnell specialized in nothing but milk bottles.  Other collectors focused on multi-colored opium bottles from the Far East. Some folks pursued either gin, whiskey or apathocary bottles.  Within months, all my weekend non-football viewing time was spent roaring around Oahu in a T-Bird provided by Honolulu Ford. Julian was co-pilot and chief  bottle watcher.  Our assistant was teenage Raphael Sanders, Jr. His younger trainee was Jeremy "The Crab" Gardiner.  

It didn't stop there.  Julian, always the Hawaiian, kept pushing me--Imua!--towards Primo Beer containers and Coke bottles distributed only in the Territory of Hawaii.  In time I learned more about these things than anyone should ever have to know about anything.  But I was hooked. The bedroom walls of my Diamond Head manse were stacked with rows of antique Hawaiian soda bottles.  And I was reaching for my roots.  I would lay in bed, focus on a glittering 19th Century bottle, imagine what route it took to get here, through whose hands it passed, what lips it had touched, what flavor it contained and whether it caused gas.

The continuing obsession with my all-consuming hobby only become more detailed and ridiculously entangled. Once hiking into a jungle Valley on Maui in search of a rumored treasure, my guide, Cosmio Propellor, and I were almost washed away in a flash flood.  But by 1995 the world largest assemblage of antique Hawaiian soda bottles had been in storage for years. Keeping hundreds of glass bottles both visible and safe is much tougher than maintaining a stamp or coin collection. And my interest had waned.  My daughter's tuition at Northwestern University loomed.  A deal was done.  The accumulated empty pop bottles were redeemed for her freshman and sophomore years' tuition, plus room and board.  

Yesterday I saw Julian for the first time in 17 years.  We hugged, talked story, relived the good old days, recalled the other crazy characters who shared our lolo bottle addiction and laughed a lot. Time has taken its toll on both our bodies. We have not held up as well as the bottles. But the bond, oh yes, the bond remains as strong as ever, never to be shattered.

"IN MUD WE MUST"

MICHAEL, MICHI & GREG: ON DA TEAM

So I built it and they have come. This WHODAGUY HAWAII thing has attracted all manner of talented people. Some are folks I've know for decades. Others, usually much younger than I, appear daily. I'm just the front man. Here are some folks who make it all happen:

My go-to voice talent since the 1960s is the gallant and groovy Michael W. Gwynne (right). He can do it all. Man, if a white dude can pull off doing a show on a black-oriented radio station in Oakland, as Mike once did, yeah, I say that's versatility. Mike is the son of a big band man. He was born with the deep, magnificent  instrument of his own "pipes," as we in the trade call a good voice. From disc jocking to acting, Mike bounced around both coasts until he landed at KPOI, just after I left, in 1964. He is a drummer so he was invited to star in the Drum-A-Thon, which broke a Guinness record before anyone knew what that was. 

Our courses converged in L.A. when my buddies and I formed Watermark. Making AMERICAN TOP 40 was more of the same for me. Doing records was something new and fun. Michael Gwynne was co-narrator of the "cult classic" A CHILD'S GARDEN OF GRASS album. I was in San Diego in 1972, launching a new format on KGB. To kick it off we produced the RECYLCE DOCUMENTARY, still one of my very favorite projects. (It can be heard at ReelRadio.com if one signs up.) Michael Gwynne is the narrator on that one-hour baby, which is Old School, Theater of the Mind radio at it's best. When it came time at the start of 2007 to assemble WDG, I first called Mount Kisco, NY, where Mike has lived for years. He is surrounded with country while being a quick shot to Manhattan, which he prowls like an original hepster who's been doing it for years. With a voice studio in his house and our new-fangled tech goodies, Mike and I collaborate as if we are on opposite sides of the control booth glass in a studio anywhere. The slogans and drop-ins with the smoothest, ballsiest voice heard on our shows, belongs to my buddy, Mike. Drop me a line if you'd like him to use that voice for you, as he has for major sponsors here and abroad. And check out his movie and TV credits at IMDB.com.

It is surreal when one realizes that he is indeed on a mission that can make a difference. After one year of pursuing WHODAGUY HAWAII I am convinced that's what is happening with me. With each day that passes some cosmic karma careens me into contact with another kindred spirit who gets it--and has something unique to contribute to our growing enterprise. Through the maze of musicians I've been lining up for our shows, I reconnected with the amazing Mihana. This Polynesian princess has been a front line performer for years, vocalizing and playing her upright acoustic bass. Most recently she's played with 100-year-old ukulele virtuoso Bill Tapia, on his Tour of the Century. Mihana sent over some CDs for our session next Wednesday. They were delivered by a  young lady whose been assisting Mihana and other island artists. She is Michele (Michi) Moore (above with senior citizen). 

Knowing that the first step is to get one foot in the door, Michi has been lending her good computer/online skills to performers who, although geniuses in their field, don't know an FTP from a USB to a JPG to a ISP. Michi arrived yesterday at around noon. How much did we share in common? Well it was 9:00 pm when we shut down, after covering more bases than the UH batting lineup. By then I learned that Michi is a Moanalua High School grad, worked for years at Tower Records and most recently was working at Kaneohe Marine Base until she discovered some things that went against her personal ethics. I think it was the latter that impressed me the most. Since we began WDG, people have been ragging me to put up a presence on MySpace, YouTube, etc. I have not, since the orignal game plan and priorities have been followed precisely and we ain't doin' bad. Also, I never came across someone who understands technology, psychology, pop culture, marketing and, most importantly, the mind set of those a fraction of my age who spend hours on the Internet doing wonderful things. Michi fits that bill, and more. She is the new Webmistress for WDG and is already at work. Michi takes over from my partner Kevin Gershan, who did it all from day one. No simple thing since has day job is to produce E.T., THE INSIDER, DR. PHIL and others, while bopping to NY several times a month from his Burbank home in one of Southern Califonia's nicer neighborhoods. Once Ms. Moore switches controls of the site from Toluca Lake to Aiea, she and I will begin our Community Sites, in keeping with our no ka oe standards.

On the day veteran country musician, and old friend, Ernie Cruz, came to play in our jungle studio he put together as cool a band as I'd ever heard. They'd never played together before, in that combination. But one of the reasons I worship elite musicians is how they can do such things, communicate on levels we mere civilians can't fathom, while making kickass music.

Ernie, who is the father of John, Ernie Jr., Guy, Desiree (a former Miss Hawaii) and other musical offspring, is a magnet for young talent. He brought a hot Hawaiian yodeler from the Big Island to hook up with "an old hippie" bassist who's lived in Kailua for years. Like Willie Nelson and all the greats, Ernie always knows where the hot young pickers are. Which is how Gregg Martin (right) came to play amped ukulele on that memorable day. 

Well, I've heard as many uke players as Larry King has interviewed people, and Gregg blew up my mind. Anyone can play lead, be it good, bad or indifferent. It takes an artist to find the pukas and filigree the textures of a tight band. This former St. Louis school all-state football player met Ernie Cruz on the Big Island, doing his regular gig, being a plumber. And we all know that they always work and make good bucks. Greg has just moved back to Oahu two weeks before he stumbled into our scene. Now there's a buzz about this uke player in a town where everyone plays an ukulele to one degree or another. Greg will be playing on Ernie's next record, will be here with Mihana on Wednesday (reflecting his local roots) and will be in Millicent Cummings' band when she kicks off her ALTAR NATIVE album in Honolulu at Ward's Rafters on June 28.

If anyone is having more fun spreading the music and culture of Hawaii from his or her house, then I am thrilled for that person. Meanwhile, this is happening so fast and so fine that all I do is just go for the ride. I so hope that you, too, are digging it, wherever you may be. Me ke aloha pumehana.

ALOHA, TIM RUSSERT

Timing, tenacity and technology made Tim Russert the most popular political journalist of the past two decades. And certainly the most influential, ever, because of TV. It has been 16 hours since the NBC Bureau Chief and host of MEET THE PRESS collapsed while taping a show.  The newsman has become the news. I  can't think of a thing to say that has not been said.

One could easily say, "He's going to be a tough act to follow." But Russert was not an act. This regular guy from Buffalo became the nexus between U. S. politics and television. The most important of all presidential elections will be missing something. Only as years pass will it be possible to judge the man's impact. Tim Russert's death at 58 is a devastating loss to the Global Village. He invented and defined what he did in front of our eyes, as he did it.

The first "24 hour news cycle'" since Russert died is not yet pau--yet somehow everything is different. Sundays will neve be the same.

SANDY BALLS

Kailua Beach, Oahu. June 11, 2008

Wardrobe: Mr. Hewitt of Saint Louis

CRUSIN' WITH MIKE ROYER

For a guy born in Waikiki in Territorial days, I have been blessed to know and collaborate with so many talented people along the way. One of them is legendary artist Mike Royer. The art director on most projects for Watermark, our new company, was Paul Gruwell. In 1970 he created the original AMERICAN TOP 40 logo. At the same time I conceived the CRUISIN' albums series. All of that came to me in one flash, sitting in our second story offices above an autograph gallery on La Cienega Blvd. I imagined what the records would sound like, how the liner notes would read and, most importantly, the overall cover concept. The idea was to follow a pair of young kids, Peg and Eddie, along with the series', beginning in 1955, (I named the couple after some folks who watched out for me in my terroristic late teens in Honolulu. Peggy Ryan was a former star movie dancer who had married local columnist, Eddie Sherman. They lived down by Kaneohe Bay, a few miles from here).  Each cover of the 12-inch vinyl albums would be a frame in a comic strip. Each frame a year, populated with suitable props. A 1957 Edsel would be parked in the background, evocative of that year. The 1960 cover showed the young couple at a drive-inn theater, with PSYCHO as the main feature.  But, the idea would only be as good as the person drawing it.

Gruwell knew of a young Canadian who had moved to Hollywood in 1965, He was Mike Royer (above). At the time he was assisting the man who did TARZAN and other popular comic books. One amazing thing about L.A., I learned at KHJ, was that the world's greatest talent was to be found there. If you had a budget. We did. Gruwell made a deal with Royer then he and I began work on a storyboard that would take Peg and Eddie from pre-teens to post-hippies. I began work with Ellen Pelissero, a Maui girl I found working at KHJ. She was a researcher for the HISTORY OF ROCK & ROLL and one of the folks who moved with me from Boss Radio. Ellen and I spent months researching what deejays from which cities we could line up without all manner of conflicts. Tom Bonetti of GRT Records, our partner in the deal, would handle song and performer clearances. And I headed to places like Dallas to search for radio jingles dating back to the Forties. These were to be our first Increase Records, no Mickey Mouse deal would they be.

I was 33, four years older than Royer. After years of doing radio, which was "invisible," my idea was in his hands. One day Gruwell burst in with Royer's sketches of each cover. My idea of a giant seven foot comic strip (if the LPs were laid on the floor) would actually happen. The hundreds of hours of drudgery evaporated. I knew that, when Royer letter our dialog, inked in the cool illustrations and splashed them with comic book color, the package would be a knockout. I was re-motivated. Finally it was time to hit the road. The plan was to visit one city a day to record the deejay's voice tracks. Bill Hergonson, ace of the razor blade, and I, would add all the songs and production later. I sat squashed in a small studio in Akron, Ohio, with Russ "The Weird Beard" Knight and tried to take him back to Dallas, and KLIF in 196?, when he ruled the airwaves. I recorded Dr. Don Rose at Philadelphia station as he did time signals and traffic reports from his earlier days in Atlanta. People who heard it thought we were nuts. Then it was back to L.A. and long nights in the studio. Hundreds of bits and pieces of quarter-inch tape hung on the walls. These were pre-digital times, children. Often we felt we were detectives, searching for clues: Which bit of tape held what precious gem?

When the masters were finally finished they were sent off to the record plant. I couldn't wait to see, touch and hear the results. I was in New York when the first discs were done. They arrived at my hotel. I spread them out on the floor. Didn't have a phonograph but I got high just staring at them. 

I wanted to learn every step of the recording process. On the road with veteran promo man, Dick Lapalm, we hit every city represented in the series. We visited record stores, distributors and radio stations. The deed had been done. These great jocks and their shows were frozen in time, Or at least in vinyl. Now, through June 29, my original audio demo is running on

ReelRadio (see link). I just looked at the comments left

there and discovered that Mike Royer is now a legend in

the field of commercial art. He did the animation for TV's

SPIDERMAN. In 1979 he joined Disney. Among the many projects there he created WINNIE THE POOH products. His list of credits is amazing. In 2001 he moved to Oregon, where he continues at the drawing board. After CRUISN' I began work on AMERICAN TOP 40 and then we built a larger studio in a farm house to record music. That's how I met our carpenter, a struggling actor named Harrison Ford. But that's another story, for another blog.

IRON MAN, ZOHA & OHTA-SAN, JR.

When I moved to Kaneohe in 1997 there were no theaters here. There were some on the next town over, Kailua. They are down to one. Here we now have two multiplexes. I was at Windward Mall yesterday on a mission to have some custom T-shirts made up. During the wait I decided to check on the current flicks that seemed cool. IRON MAN is just terrific, special effects-wise and features a middle-age Howard Hughes type hero played by Robert Downey, Jr. Jon Favreau, known for comedy, makes the comic book character hip. And Jeff Bridges plays a high-tech character different from his usual roles. It begins in Afghanistan, "current" and all that. One must suspend belief and go with in these movies. I hang out with USMC enlisted men at the base down below to watch NFL games. Once friends, you just might get the real story, not the CNN version. One Marine, just back from Afghanistan, told me that at the start of the war if they took a Humvee around a corner at more than 15 mph, the thing flopped on its side. But IRON MAN is no flop, and worth seeing.

 

I had to wait for the shirts to be imprinted and returned to the theater with a bag of li hing mui to see Adam Sandler's latest. I think it's his best to date. Not too many who know Yiddish humor in this area code, but this tale is LOL funny no matter where you're from. For this, belief must not just be suspended, but put in orbit. The plot of YOU DON'T MESS WITH ZOHAN is strangely patriotic. The comedy is juicy and off the hook. But this movie is also downright sweet. Ono.

Since I got back into the local music scene I've been surprised by the number of next-generation artists making it on their own. One of them is Herb Ohta, Jr. He must be tired of hearing that he's the son of legendary Ohta-san. His dad is arguably the greatest living ukulele master. Young Mr. Ohta took time out from giving lessons to stop by and play. The day was perfectly still, with even some jungle birds providing atmosphere. Herb's amazing live playing was mixed amidst some of his CD's. Check out his website to the right. And listen to what ten fingers and four strings can do. If you've got an Ohta motor.

McDIARMID & MOUZIS CELEBRATE 60

I was 17 when I met Don McDiarmid, Jr. Honolulu promotion man for Capitol Records, he brought us a singer for the Roosevelt High School pep rally I was producing. Soon after, I dropped out of school and was a DJ. Don was the hippest cat around. When we started KPOI, he was first to give us a chance. Over the years, as head of Hula Records, a firm begun by his dad, Don has been involved in every phase of the local music scene. He has many Hokus (the local Garmmy) and a Lifetime Achievement award to show for his success, But Don's value goes way beyond trophies. He hauled a tape recorder out to Kaneohe to record an unknown singer named Don Ho back in the 60s. He bought and saved HAWAII CALLS, the legendary show that originated "From the Beach at Waikiki" for 40 years, And he's been on my side for over 50 years, Most recently he was the first to support my current project. I received the entire Hula Records catalog when Don made it happen. I visited with him in his Kailua home in April and recorded his memories of his years in the music industry. He was as fast and as funny as ever. The result is a virtual History of Hawaiian music. It is in our archives, persevered for the future.

It seems impossible that it was less than ten years later when I met Bill Mouzis. It was 1965 when I arrived in L.A. and was hired as program director of KHJ, a once mighty station that had slipped miserably to the bottom of the ratings barrel. At our first meeting, Bill and I hit it off. Creatively, there was totally no "age difference" between us. He immediately got behind the rock music we'd feature on Boss Radio. As shop steward, Bill convinced KHJ's engineers to give a cocky, young crew of deejays a chance. In those days, in the big towns, the board operators ran all the controls, spun the actual records. They could make a jock sound great, or horrid. Bill was the editor for virtually everything we produced during my watch, 1965-69. Among them were the landmark 48-hour HISTORY OF ROCK AND ROLL. Bill went on to work at major AM and FM stations in L.A. before he retired . He bought a Cadillac, learned to use a computer and email and spent his times with friends and family.

These two men have so much in common. Quite amazing: Both are 86 and veterans of the U. S. Navy and patriots to the bone. Each has a son that's followed him in their profession and won awards.  Don and Bill are rabid writers of Letters to the Editor. Passionate in their political opinions, on that score they are worlds apart. Mouzis was joined by friends at a 60th wedding celebration in L.A. last week. Don does the same tomorrow night in Honolulu. He also has a Cadillac, which he still drives vigorously. 

But of greater importance than anything I imagine, they have the most important treasure a man can have: A loving wife who has stood behind him through all the times, good and bad, high and low. Alva McDiarmid raised a family and been on hand for most every major musical event in Hawaii. She was a musician who actually got Don into the field. Nancy Mouzis held down the fort at home when Bill was on call at hours, which comes with his job. She became the Godmother to the irascible deejays who would show up at the Mouzis home in various degrees of sobriety and often hurl themselves in their pool.

So congratulations to this pair of young lovers who have given everyone they've touched so much knowledge and joy. Imagine, they were married in  1948. Were you even born then?