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RJS
Ha`aha`a
1635 Posts |
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
 Posted - 11/20/2003 : 2:06:27 PM
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Wonderful article becuase he is wonderful and it is mostly his quotes. He really has had a very rough patch the last 5 or so years. When Sarah and Kitty and I talked to him once, he made a real distinction between his traditional arts of hula and chant and what he called "The Keali`i Thing" and he said he was looking forward to the day when the latter didn't have to be.
We wish him the best and hope that there is nothing more to plague him.
...Reid |
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marzullo
`Olu`olu
USA
923 Posts |
Posted - 11/20/2003 : 3:28:34 PM
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quote:
When Sarah and Kitty and I talked to him once, he made a real distinction between his traditional arts of hula and chant and what he called "The Keali`i Thing" and he said he was looking forward to the day when the latter didn't have to be.
This seems like a Hawaiian ideal - Kanahele seems to be going in a similar direction. That must have been a lot of fun meeting him.
keith
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Sarah
`Olu`olu
571 Posts |
Posted - 11/21/2003 : 3:56:51 PM
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Aloha e Keith,
Yes, it was a lot of fun. He was very warm and delightfully funny. It was a privilege to meet him, and Kitty was very kind to introduce us.
Keali'i also graciously took the time to speak some Hawaiian with me. He speaks really fast, as you might imagine, but I got most of it, and he was patient and encouraging with me.
He joked about how his Hawaiian vocabulary, due to learning chant material, included some rather old words, and when he'd actually use them, his sisters would rib him about sounding "soooo anti-quated!!" (gotta say that with the pidgin lilt!) :-)
aloha,
Sarah
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RJS
Ha`aha`a
1635 Posts |
Posted - 11/21/2003 : 5:04:14 PM
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Not to sound like Andy Rooney, but when Reichel complains that they are looking forward to the day when hecan just be himself, well it feel a little disingenuous to me. Reichel did not sign with Sony or other mega-recording co that forced him into a pidgeon hole. He is completely in control of what he chooses to produce. If he chooses to record or perform in a manner that will attract more people, generate more sales and make more money than any other style, that is his choice. (Personally, I love the music he is producing.) However, he can choose differently at any time. --- Not that that is done too often, but -- Cat Stevens decided to get off the mill at the peak of his popularity and went off to join a monastery -- Maria Muldouer (sp?) choose not to pursue the pop road after "Midnight At the Oasis" - -- in more recent times, Eva Cassidy (whom Reichel seems to admire) choose not to let a recording label pidgeon hole her. Every choice costs something and yields some benefit. I get tired of hearing people who make choices, enjoy those benefits, then chafe at paying the price.
Raymond
San Jose |
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AuntyD
Aloha
24 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2003 : 03:58:26 AM
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Thank you for posting the Maui News URL. I was too late in getting to the article directly, but was able to get it via Google's cached article:
Go here: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=jon+woodhouse+reichel
Then scroll down to: The Maui News: MAUI BEAT: KEALI'I REICHEL - - Maui News
Then hit the Cache link.
This is an excellent article; I hope the rest of you can access it. Bravo to Jon Woodhouse. His article provides well-expressed insights that allow further enrichment and enjoyment of Keali`i's music, especially as we near the eve of the release of the absolutely wonderful Ke'alaokamaile, due out December 5. It helped me to further appreciate where that depth of feeling of his music come from. In his case, a profound love and devotion for `ohana (past, present and future), his stable force (his grandmother), a place (Paia) and time, and a way of life.
I do not perceive the disingenousness that you do, Andy Rooney, I mean, Raymond. You wrote: "I get tired of hearing people who make choices, enjoy those benefits, then chafe at paying the price."
Instead, I empathize completely with Keali`i. I am no celebrity, but I also work in the public arena. I am actually a mouse of a person. I am most myself when I am out of that arena: Quiet. Reclusive. Private. Reflective. Loving my time alone. Being by myself or with a small,intimate circle. I too was a latchkey kid, raised by my grandmother who thoroughly adored me, who gave me acres of personal space and gobs of time that was blissfully spent in my own little world.
Nevertheless, I love people in general. I love serving them. I believe in my people-involving work. I also have come to appreciate my heritage and my homeland's culture, and I am devoted to sharing them with others and doing my little part in perpetuating them. So I too have a public "persona" that is not my natural bent. I choose to "subject" myself to playing an extroverted role that often feels alien to me, often feeling very much like Heinlein's stranger in a strange land.
Like K, I choose to make those forays out of my "box," and the benefits are considerable. It feels GREAT to meaningfully help others. I can't do that if I stayed holed up in my box. The pokes, prods, and intrusions do wear me down, and I do often miss that cozy, nurturing box and yearn for that simpler, non-threatening abode.
And yes, as Keali`i mentioned, some of his listeners find his music to be therapeutic. I am one of those listeners. When I listen to his music, I am back in my safe box and in touch with my inner self. In his music, I sense perhaps a parallel reality; here's another human being on a similar life's journey with its mishmash of conflicting emotions. I identify. I feel less alone. I am comforted. I get balanced. Sounds pretty therapeutic to me.
Not able to be our own therapists, we look outward to the arts, be it visual and/or musical to soothe our souls. It's all about emotion and making sense of them, or at least trying to... Music, especially as sung with Keali`i's emotional depth, helps me to see and be aware of life's paradoxes. His songs and his singing magnifies the emotions and allows me to get in touch with them. The metaphors in his Hawaiian music allow for introspection. Kinda like Rorschach inkblots.
I, for one, am grateful that Keali`i has made the choices that allowed his work to reach my ears and alter my perceptions of the world in positive ways. I feel he deserves every benefit -- intrinsic or extrinsic -- derived from stepping out of his box. And if there comes a time, he feels like the price is steep and he wants to retreat into his box (likely, a garden), well, I shall be happy for what he has shared with me to date and will not begrudge him one iota. Although at first it might feel like a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, I'll respect and support his choice.
Life is short, make it sweet. And sometimes home, sweet home is a little comfy box with one's loved one, worlds away from this crazy, over-stimulating one.
Well, it's past midnight. Pardon the intropection. This thread and the article made for `ono food for thought. Thanks for listening.
Me ke Aloha,
Aunty D http://hawaiianlanguage.com |
"Aloha is...":
http://www.geocities.com/moekeale2020/alohalesson.htm |
Edited by - AuntyD on 11/22/2003 04:00:38 AM |
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2003 : 2:46:32 PM
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Raymond,
I understand about choices and making them and understanding the price one pays for the choice. I did that - became a technocrat to make more money and hated almost every second of it. But, in order to survive in later life, I needed the future security it provided (and it was *not* lots, believe me- just enough to keep me in the Middle Class; Sarah and I did not make enough $ last year to have to pay any CT State Income tax). I bitched about it all the time, just as I would bitch about starving if I hadn't made the choice I did.
Now, don't think K is living in the lap of luxury - he is on the edge of the Middle Class, too. As he implied in the article, there are *lots* of unexpected medical expenses, as well. And, I think he is expecting lots more.
I don't know *any* performer in HI who doesn't have to scrape for money. Also, he doesn't really bitch, he simply mentions his feelings. Why can't he, when faced with Hobson's Choice? For lots of people, there is no good alternative, just a bad compromise. He, like I was, is simply looking forward to the day when the choice is more favorable.
...Reid |
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RJS
Ha`aha`a
1635 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2003 : 8:22:18 PM
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I would like to clarify my point, 'cause maybe I didn't communicate my intent correctly.
- First of all, I very much appreciate Keali'i's work. His music does indeed have a healing quality - his CD's were among the few that helped me get through a very difficult time when my father was in intensive care and finally died because a doctor gave him a medication to which he was allergic (and was listed on the cover of his chart as an allergy) -- still unresolved issues - but that month of being in the hospital next to mom and dad and doing the inner work to sit there with an open heart and mind -- well, at night that music helped keep me going - (I wrote that experience and sent it to the three artists whose music I used.)
- Secondly, I don't know how much Keali'i is making. Honestly I don't care. I would like him to be well compensated but I doubt it is the case. The point of my statement wasn't about Keali'i's income.
- In addition, if Keali'i, or any of a dozen or so other Hawaiian musicians needed help for medical expenses and there was a benefit, I would have no problem with kokua. I think these people give us much much more than the cost of a CD/ticket. Personally, I'm enough of a Platonist (a nicer way of saying socialist)that I believe people should be supported to live in a way that allows them to practice their art with a reasonable amount of comfort and a sense of security -- but that ain't gonna happen either.
- My point is simply that I get tired of people grousing about the cost of choices they make. Bottom line - life is hard no matter what you choose to do -- if you are lucky enough to do what you can tolerate for a living, you are already ahead of 90% or so of the people on this planet. Heck - I spend most of my days doing stuff that isn't my first choice so that I can pay the mortgage, save some for retirement and buy CD's. (My guitar even cost less than $600 used - and I'm not complaining 'cause it sounds beautiful to me.) ) I've also spent my life working with people who weren't sure where their next week's food was gonna come from. Compared with them, I am so freaking blessed!!
Maybe it's my stuff. I certainly don't know Keali'i personally. Maybe it's just that I live in California where everybody expects everything they ever wanted with no price tag at all, and I'm getting tired of the narcissistic crap out here. I honestly don't know. What I am reasonably sure about, however, is that as long as we are alive in human bodies, everything comes with a price - if nothing else, the inability to have/do conflicting desires. That's life. If Keali'i wants something else, he can make that choice. I would never, ever even think of telling my clients that I get tired of sitting with people talking about their problems, or that I get bored trying to help someone find housing instead of taking on some interesting psychological problem. I choose me role with them, and I have to take responsibility for my choice, not dump it on my clients. I personally don't want to hear that he (or any other person in a "major or minor celebrity, , has trouble with a persona that he is choosing to project. In fact, I would rather see the energy spent trying to figure out how he (or others) can find a more creative integration of the two. Sorry if that sounds harsh - it isn't meant to be offensive. But it is probably a minority opinion.
Raymond
San Jose
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Edited by - RJS on 11/22/2003 8:42:03 PM |
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Pauline Leland
`Olu`olu
USA
783 Posts |
Posted - 11/23/2003 : 12:03:40 AM
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Raymond,
I totally agree with the generalities you make. Life is about choices and no one can have it all; some doors slam shut when you open others. I don't know, but you may have to hear a lot of whining about the doors that shut in your job. Maybe you just hit your absolute limit on that kind of complaint.
The controversy about the interview made me eager to read it, but I was too late the other day. Many thanks to Aunty D for finding a source. I read it, and now I'm confused. I missed the part where he is complaining about choices; maybe I'm so used to reading it that it's become invisible. Or is there background info that I don't know about? Unless you meant this, '"I would love to just disappear and grow my own food," he assures. "I could leave it all behind, but I like being comfortable."' where he seems to have come to terms with his choices.
Or am I looking at a different interview?
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Puna
Lokahi
USA
227 Posts |
Posted - 11/24/2003 : 2:35:53 PM
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I'm not even sure if it is related to money or choices. The "Keali'i Thing" is most likely a current/flow that is outside of him, but he is caught up in. Once his first CD came out, everyone expects the second release to be more of the same. This happens to artists...WE (the audience) pigeonhole them, they don't usually do it to themselves. Look how much grief Keola got on this BB when Mohala Hou didn't conform to the expectations of "Keola Beamer Slack Key".
It takes a great deal of mana to move against or even across the current of the flow. Raymond, the people you named mostly left the flow (but not music). I suspect that Keali'i would like the freedom to do a performance that is all ho'okahiko, and not have people shouting out requests from their favorite CDs. But, he also does not want to turn his back on the music he has already released. He would just prefer that people understand that there is more to him then the glimpses we have seen.
And, I'm not so sure he was complaining. Perhaps it was a wistful comment, a recognition of the way things are. |
Puna |
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RJS
Ha`aha`a
1635 Posts |
Posted - 11/24/2003 : 10:44:53 PM
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I appreciate all the thought time and effort which has gone into the past responses. I'm not trying to continue this thread, just want you to know that I have read and am thinking about your responses.
Mahalo nui
Raymond
San Jose |
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