I live in a grimy corner of Oahu in between Kaihi-Palama an Downtown, just NW of Downtown and Chinatown, in a kinna boarding-house with four self-absorbed wretched men who freak out lest you use a spoon of theirs, bellow about their less-than-important job problems at 3 AM, with wild cats killing the song birds and filling the yard outside my window with the stink of ammonia, roosters crowing at all hours, a little dog that barks way too much, and a homeless tent down on the block.
And, I might doing some of my best photography so far. Maybe it's the landscapes, but my portraiture is better... I even took some good wedding stuff a la minute the other day.
It has been a culture shock coming here from Amsterdam, where in a whole year, I never saw a single homeless person - here, they camp in tents on the strips of lawn between the sidewalk and street, en mass. I miss Holland's tolerance for diverse opinions, polder: negotiating politics till resolved; healthcare: €119 Euros a month for great gold level US healthcare.
I liked Amsterdam - it was clean, smelled nice, the people cooperate extensively as a culture. The water is very clean, you can't buy bleach, the public transport and streets are well-maintained, flowered, safe, and highly organized, socialism works well, health insurance is fantastic. But I was a stranger in a strange land; my old friends had left; it was cold and rainy and lonely and Dutch sentence structure was seriously annoying the eff out of me: I needed to pass a Dutch test in the next 12 months and I was running out of money, in spite of the help of a cool German friend for whom I am running a website.
I made a list a few years ago about pros and cons, ranking places I wanted to live in. I had fond memories of Big Island, Hawaii, and it came in second, after the Netherlands. I hadn't counted on all the cat-rooster-homeless stuff, but there you are. At this point, I can live anywhere I want. Where would you go, if you could live anywhere you wanted, and were chasing 55 years? And high blood pressure, with Luke Perry dying (seriously?!).
Oahu is a different beast from Big Island. It is very strip-mally, a suburban city, with a heavy military presence, with the occasional F-15 or F-16 or FA-18 heading almost straight up with a roar from the airfield. I have met many vets, some contractors, some long-serving some not, and it has left a deep impression on me. Some people who have retired to Thailand. Some wonderful drunks, some fantastic bartenders, many locals.
There's a great bar, the Irish Rose, which has a tricycle-racing benefit on Sundays for Childhood Cancer, and is a community.
I am looking for a basic job as a barista or Home Depot or Whole Foods guy, but facing the over-qualification/ageism blues. It is amazingly hard to downshift career gears.
It is also expensive here - less expensive than SF - just as expensive as NY or Amsterdam. Tickets to George Clinton at the Hawaii Blue Note are $110. It is not a common touring spot, but there are good bar bands: Stephen Inglis, Dinosaurus X, Dux Deluxe, and Elephant. I particularly like Stephen Ingles. He recently did an album with David Gans, Fragile Thunder, not to be confused with another band of the same name. Otherwise, not a common stop for much music that I like.
I have modest goals, one thing I've taken from the solid middle-class preference of the Dutch, which include having a place where I can have one or two guests, perhaps a jeep, healthcare (decent here with a job of 20+ hours).
We'll see how long I can last on the adventure, playing for my life.
