Here Today,Gone to-Maui
The Time Machine / Hawaii / 2007–2008
Here Today, Gone to Maui
Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out — a hundred-dollar SAAB, a Honolulu engine fire, and the Island Style operating system known as Da Kine.
The Time Machine
Reflecting on the year 2007 in Hawaii, when the law of attraction was in play, about three years ago to date...
“There are some days when I think I’m going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.”
The route was simple only in hindsight: tune in to the signal, turn on to the possibility, and drop out of the life that had already stopped fitting. Here today. Gone to Maui. Then onward to Oahu with no address waiting.
“I made my way from Maui to Oahu with no address waiting. A Marine deploying to Iraq sold me his car for a hundred dollars — he said ‘give me $100,’ and I did, and I still consider it the best-leveraged transaction of my life. The car became shelter. Oahu became a blank page.”
A hundred-dollar car capped the downside. Hawaii opened the upside.
Honolulu Duct Tape Sighting!
God made the world, but it’s held together with duct tape.
I was stuck in afternoon traffic at Aloha Towers, when the engine cut out on my SAAB 900.
I pulled over, as the Japanese tourists enjoying their surf and sun “brain dump” looked on in awe as Adolfus, The Beast started smoking. Would there be life after luau for these temporary colonists, Team Abunai! That’s what they were screaming — “Danger” in Nihongo.
I opened the hood. The battery was on fire, and the cables were melting! This was not on the packaged tour — but Inspector Travelers were about to get an even bigger show when I pulled out the ultimate power tool and made Aloha graduates of them all. Let me splane...
The Honolulu Fire and Police came on the scene instantly, complete with 4-year varsity letters, Portuguese last names and healed acne scars. Spot on, guys! I was expecting Steve and Danno, but due to the current Writers Guild strike, they couldn’t make the trip.
It was a Code Marshmallow. The fire burnt itself out. That didn’t stop the tow truck from hooking me up. I waved him off. I told him I would do it like John Cruz sings, “Island Style” — Da Kine, Hawaiian slang for “whotsis,” “thingummebob,” or “watchamacallit.”
The Hamburger Helper for Mainland Haole Scum
Auto meat-grinder chop shops don’t like Da Kine solutions, unless of course they are billing you for them. I did not, however, give in to the urge of paying too much for things that come with a side of Polynesian paradise.
Er, let me do the math: tow charges, plus mileage to Haleiwa’s North Shore, parking fees, throw in Uncle and Auntie doing the repair. Sure, I could drink, fight, laugh and love with the best, even get a tribal tattoo, but pay “Ohana” family prices? Never.
I found it easier to speak and do the math in Hawaiian because I only know about four words. One of them is Da Kine — the all-purpose DIY solution.
Props to HPD, who said the land yacht had to be towed, unsafe at any speed. I had other plans — a can of whoop ass, the essential tool for everything life throws at you: duct tape. After all, this is no ordinary motor vehicle. It’s a SAAB.
There are now 1,002 things to do with — er, is it duct or duck? — tape. Oh, you know, the 100-MPH adhesive.
Move over Victoria’s Secret instant “boob jobs” and post-LASIK eye protection. Here comes the Emergency Budget SAAB Engine Fire Repair Kit! Apparently, I am not the first SNAG — Sensitive New Age Guy — to get Stuck in Traffic.
Here’s to you, Sweden, maker of the safest cars on the planet, and the Ministry of Duct Tape and High Voltage, the Duct Tape Evangelists, and the crews at Henkel Consumer Adhesives and Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co. — 3M — who make the stuff for wallet-bearing Americans like us who lack the patience, skill and dough to fix stuff right.
The wider Oahu story
Déjà Blue: 20 Years of Magical Thinking.
The larger Hawaii-years chapter.
Charting new horizons from seafarers to the next chapter.
Kings Point, USMMA and the mariner credential that opened the next horizon.
The Hawaii production years.
Teaching by the numbers.