Pimp Ruth's Ride, National Mobility Awareness Month Style

This Thursday you can pay it forward with a digital vote for local hero and flower farmer Robert (Bobalou) Benavides and Maui-born artist Hallelujah Duncan. National Mobility Awareness month is celebrated this May with a giveaway of three Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles to a caregiver, veteran or person with a disability that is dealing with or overcoming mobility challenges. Their nine-year old daughter Ruth is the only Hawaii entry! She is diagnosed with developmental delay, and going mobile can make all the difference in the family dynamic and her growth. All you have to do is vote online! It’s the easiest pay it forward gesture you’ll be asked to do all month. Go to facebook.com/RuthsRide to get the link or just vote here: http://www.nmeda.com/mobility-awareness-month/heroes/hawaii/kula/573/ruth-robert-benavides

Here’s the announcement:

National Mobility Awareness Month is a proclaimed month that is celebrated throughout the month of May. The purpose is to educate the public that people with disabilities constitute the 2nd largest minority group in the United States. Over 18 million people in the U.S. and Canada have mobility issues. Six million of those are veterans.

Ruth is the daughter of Mana’o Radio volunteer DJ and protea flower farmer, Robert (Bobalou) Benavides and Maui born artist Hallelujah Duncan. Ruth was diagnosed with developmental delay, has spent time in Kapiolani Medical Center and is seen by Shriners yearly. She is nine and attends Kula Elementary school where she has a group of children who sign up to play with her at recess. It has become apparent to her team that loading her and her wheelchair separately is hard on their bodies especially as she continues to grow. Ruth’s Laughter and Smile are contagious and she brightens the world where ever she is. She enjoys therapeutic horsemanship, live local music and playing in our beautiful ocean.

Ruth’s mom made a Facebook page to rally community support to get Ruth her own Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle. And through the page, Ruth’s Ride we found out about a nation wide contest called NATIONAL MOBILITY AWARENESS Local Hero Contest: We are over 4000 votes as of Monday 4.25.2012. And they are giving away 8 vehicles. Ruth is the only person from Hawaii in this contest.

Arts & Entertainment Feature

BarryFest 2011

Sunday (May 22), 12pm doors / 12:30pm show, Events Lawn, MACC, $20 advance/$26 day of show (+ applicable fees)

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Featuring SLAM with David Choy (12:30pm), Barry Flanagan (2:15pm), and Mana’o Radio Air Force Band (3:30pm; with Vince Esquire, Bob Jones, Gail Swanson, Dr. Nat, Randall Rospond and more)

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“Mana’o is a Hawaiian word which means thought, idea, opinion, theory, meaning, mind; to think, suppose, meditate, deem, consider. It is one of many non-English words used frequently in Hawai’i, often in the phrase sharing mana’o, or the exchange of thoughts, feelings, and expertise,” – manaoradio.com

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Memories—especially about loved ones lost—are like precious orbs, floating in our mind’s eye like bubbles that boast kaleidoscope colors different from every angle.

Through music and more, the late Barry Shannon touched countless Maui lives, bequeathing many such prismatic remembrances; and his legacy—particularly through Mana’o Radio—will continue to create and inspire.

But because I did not have the privilege of knowing Shannon personally—and have only recently had the chance to get to know his widow, the famed Kathy Collins—I don’t feel entitled to posthumously retell anything about a man who meant so much to so many.

That said, and with Shannon being the well-known Maui personality he was, I do feel some sense of having known him. As most know, nearly a decade ago, he and Collins co-founded the isle’s beloved Mana’o Radio (KEAO-LP 91.5 FM)–a noncommercial, entirely community-supported, low-power FM station that’s mission is “to inform, educate, and entertain the Maui community with radio broadcasts of multicultural and community-related programming.”

So even if you’re like me, and did not know Shannon himself, Mana’o has undoubtedly been a part of your Valley Isle life. This Sunday, the isle will celebrate Shannon’s memory with the fifth annual BarryFest, Mana’o Radio’s major fundraising event that (as coincidence would have it) celebrates both Shannon’s life, and the anniversary of the legacy he left behind.

And so this week, over an early morning breakfast of fried egg sandwiches (with crispy bacon) at Wailuku’s Tasty Crust, Collins was kind enough to share with me a little sacred anamnesis of her husband. As with any story, I’m grateful to be privy to such insight. And as with any story, I may not get it all exactly right—and I certainly cannot get it all—but of my peek at those precious memories, these are the colors I glimpsed.

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Here in Hawaii, Mother Nature’s topical benevolence masks the striking image of springtime renewal. Still, seasonal significance is not lost on us islanders, and Spring heralds the happiest, most hopeful crest of rejuvenating cycles.

“I like to say ‘re-birthday’ because it’s easier,” Kathy Collins says, of the anniversary of her late husband Barry Shannon’s passing. And coincidental timing notwithstanding, the couple’s story is wrapped in springtime re-vivication.

It was April 7, 2007 when Barry Shannon died–the day before Easter Sunday, and just weeks before he and his wife, Kathy Collins, were to host a huge fifth “Birthday Bash” fundraiser for Mana’o Radio; the delightfully eccentric, community-driven, low-power FM station that was the fruition of their lifelong dreams.

“I guess because we’d both been in radio since our teens, [for each of us] it had been a dream of ours to have our own station eventually,” says Collins.

In 1984, Shannon and Collins first met and began collaborating on KHEI KVIB (now a part of the KAOI Radio Group), management having paired them as on-air co-hosts because of their complimentary talents and longtime experience in radio.

“We became really good friends through this experience,” says Collins, her iconic rasp patient and wistful. “We had a lot in common… and spent a lot of time off the air together. About a year later, we began courting.” Collins says the word “courting” with a demure bounce and bat of her long lashes that is at once both giddily girlish and womanly wise.

“We spent hours and hours late at night writing and recording parody commercials and news,” she says. “We’d record every show and comb through it, picking out the best ten seconds and compiling it. We used to have so much fun together doing that.”

At the time, their mutual dream of owning their own radio station still seemed like a pipe dream, and their more immediate goal was to “make it big on the Mainland” with their radio show. So the couple moved to California’s Bay Area “with no job, no money, no family.” It was an experience that Collins calls “challenging”—especially because she had to temporarily leave behind her then eight-year-old son from a previous marriage.

“We were so disappointed when (the Mainland) didn’t receive us the way we’d hoped,” Collins laughs, opening her arms in a way that seems to self-mock both dreamers’ warranted naivete and the ever-unknowable whims of circumstance.

It was, after all, a time of great flux for the country at large—on the rebound of deep recession in the early ’80s.

The couple returned feeling defeated but with renewed vigor for their commitment to their Maui community, and resumed various posts in local radio.

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“Barry used to like to go to the (Haleakala) crater. It was like church for him,” says Collins. “He would go in for a week, get a cabin if he could, and camp. Oh, he loved it.”

While Collins cites how she and Shannon shared many similarities, she notes their key differences, too. While the crater may be Shannon’s church, Collins tells me with a wink, “if I have any time off, I prefer room service.”

And when I ask her what her church is, she says it’s probably dancing (she does tap and jazz several times a week with Judy Ridolfino, i.e. “Judy’s Gang”). Ironically, though Shannon was a Maui music stalwart, Collins says he did not like to dance; and in their time together danced but once, at Collins’s son’s wedding.

“Once, he finally talked me into going with him—and I’d never been inside the crater before,” Collins recalls. “It was Easter weekend… but the thing that was significant was that when we came out after five days, when we went home, there was a message on my machine that we’d been let go (from Pacific Radio Group).”

Though loosing their jobs, Collins says, “was nothing personal,” she says it was this experience that spurred Shannon to take a real look at their dream of opening their own radio station. What was once an impossibility now seemed more viable, as the FCC’s ’78 freeze on issuing licenses to rstations that operate with 100 watts or fewer appeared to be on the eve of reversal.

“At that point, he became obsessed with following the low power FM initiative; constantly monitoring the FCC sites, the news, trade publications,” says Collins. “He knew that if this FM thing ever happened would be the only way we would get our own radio station.”

Collins indicates that a lot of his early fire was in the spirit of anti-corporate anger. Indeed, low-power FM has been called by some as “the antidote to the modern radio industry.”

But in the years that followed The Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act of 2000—and Mana’o Radio’s birth—Collins says the community camaraderie Shannon then experienced softened him the beautiful reality their realized dream had created. Suddenly, it was not just their dream, but everyone’s. “It really did change him,” she says.

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“On his first ‘re-birthday’,” Collins says she packed four Tupperware containers with some of Shannon’s ashes, and took them to four, carefully chosen spots on the island—one sentimental locale for each cardinal direction. Smiling, as if with the taste of a kiss fresh off the lips, Collins says, “and I brought Hershey’s chocolate bars, with almond, smoked oysters with Ritz crackers, and a special trail mix that Barry would blend himself from Down to Earth.”

At each place, she says she would sit, meditate, cry, and snack on what was their favorite shared treats. And at each place she says she saw a spiritual sign.

Her first stop was in the North, at Sprecklesville, “among the sand dunes where we were married, and where we’d lived for seven years.” There, she saw a bright cardinal hopping amidst low branches and on stumps. But try as she did to photograph this flame-feathered friend, it was always just out of frame. She gave up, got back into her car, and just as she was about to leave the cardinal came fluttering back to rap its beak on her car window. Again, she tried to photograph it to no avail, and off it flew into the Paia morning.

“It was like it was teasing me!” Collins giggles, adding, “And if you knew Barry, you’d know he hated having his picture taken. So I knew, ‘Oh, that’s Barry.’”

Next, she drove East, to Shannon’s church, the crater; where on a still and cloudless day Collins says she watched a shimmering brume rise up from the crater floor, envelop her and disappear. And in the South, where she spread his ashes at Makena Landing, a very nearby honu (the first she says she’d seen in the wild) crested above the waves to look at her before dipping back into the blue.

As the day wound down, Collins says her final destination was Kahakuloa in the West. “It was getting dark, so I didn’t make it far… And it was windy. Now, this was my fourth Tupperware–and I’m not stupid–so I stood facing the wind, held up the container and let go.” Just then, she says the wind changed direction for just a moment. “Oh, I had Barry’s ashes all on my face and in my mouth! It was like he was saying, ‘OK, drama queen. Time to go home.’”

Collins says one day, she’d like to take some of his ashes to the Bay Area where they’d lived together, and where he’d also spent a lot of time in his early adulthood. “Little by little,” she says, “I’m letting him go.”

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Like Collins, while we all have to let our loved ones lost go–little by little, in different places and ways—we never have to relinquish our heart’s cherished memories. And the new memories we can collaboratively create—particularly in honor of those memories—only add to the vibrancy with which we choose to recall them.

Over half of Mana’o Radio’s volunteers are working musicians—many of whom will be performing at this year’s BarryFest—and who all share a passion for music over the air. Join them as they share their mana’o and celebrate their love for a valuable community mouthpiece, and the life of the man who helped make it possible.

Friday (July 2), 5:30 – 8pm (street closed at 6pm), Market St., Wailuku, Free

There’s a panging sensation at the back of my eyeballs, whenever I must suppress my misty pride for Wailuku’s Market Street. Sure it’s home to MauiTime, but it’s the composite of our cooler-than-cool neighbors that make this place so gosh-darned special.

Daytime strolls may best capture the street’s sunny charm, but for one night a month—when the sun dips low and traffic is stopped—Market Street proves why it’s the best host for full-effect First Friday fare. July’s festivities celebrate a special second-birthday for purveyors of HI-style hip, Maui Thing. Their Summer Line will make its grand debut down the catwalk, while Kathy Collins hosts and Willie K performs (6:30 – 8pm). If you missed last year’s baby luau bash, you missed out. That fashion show may well have been the best ever, on the island—and this year, they’re bound to outdo themselves (as seems to be Maui Thing’s way). Mana’o Radio will do a live broadcast from the show, and 15percent of sales at MauiThing will benefit the local station… Recently reincarnated, Wailuku Coffee Company (formerly Café Marc Aurel), celebrates their rebirth with grand (re-)opening festivities (thank goodness). There, Sheryl Renee & The Hand Jive Trio will perform (8pm), as a benefit for the Arts Education for Children Group. Too, check out Gene and Shea Argel at Café O’Lei, the Pam Petersen Band at Banyan Tree Park, a cash-prize poetry slam at Gallerie Ha, and ‘awa bar at Native Intelligence. Event Info: 808-878-1888, Booth Info: 808-249-9710, 1stFridayWailuku@gmail.com

GET THE DA KINE CALENDAR LISTING HERE!

Saturday (June 5), The Rainbow House, Ka’anapali, 5-10pm, $100 suggested donation

Ugh…“swank.” Overused, it’s fast becoming antiquated in my personal dictionary (its roots do go back nearly two centuries). Everything is swanky this, swanky that—so much so that things with real swagger garner a little less (insert onomatopoeia of choice) when the word is applied. So while still in search of a replacement term, I’ll stress that when we at MauiTime say “swank,” we mean it; and plans for the Plantation Jazz benefit for the Arts Education for Children Group (AECG) promise nothing but. The organization, “dedicated to improving the quality of education in our schools by restoring music programs,” scored with crackerjack community-organizer Matt Lane orchestrating Saturday’s event. To be held on the grounds of the multi-million dollar Rainbow House at Ka’anapali Coffee Farms, the event will feature the 17-piece big band The 1 O’clock Jazz Band from Montana State University, plus steel guitar master Henry Allen and other musical guests. Peruse art installations, informational booths, and play “Family Feud” with GameShow Fanatics. From the beverages and pupus by Chef Casey Piquet and Kona Red Coffee Fruit, to the panoramic views from the saline infinity pool, attendees will do good for our keiki and feel, well, swanky. 808-357-0920 / m_lane@hotmail.com

SPONSORSHIP PROVIDED BY: Ka’anapali Coffee Farms, Mana’o Radio and AECG

Wanna know just how bad-ass this Rainbow House venue is? I had a look at the spec-sheet (it’s for sale). Seeing as I don’t think the event lets you go inside, this may be as close as you get. Here’s the verbatim scoops:

Situated on 5.13 acres. / Approximately 3,600 sq ft of living space and 2,400 sq ft of lanais overlooking breathtaking panoramic views. / 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms. / One-story open floor plan perfect for island-style indoor/outdoor living. / Dramatic 18 foot vaulted cedar ceiling in the Great Room. / African mahogany, Jatoba (Brazilian cherry), granite and travertine finishes throughout house. / Master bedroom retreat with private lanais, wet bar and en suite bathroom with whirlpool tub and walk-in shower. / Gourmet custom kitchen. / State-of-the-art Media Room and home security system. / Furnished with an eclectic collection of pieces that enhance the plantation-inspired architecture. / Energy efficient solar photovoltaic system. / Saline infinity pool with spa and outdoor shower.

Drooling? Dreaming? See more at: http://www.kaanapalicoffeefarms.com/farms/rainbow_house.html

Early bird donors, revel in your awesomeness HERE.

Taste Education will showcase food booths and a farmers Market, as well as Keiki Zone by MauiThing and a Wellness Tent where everyone can learn about healthy eating, composting, and agriculture.  Take a Hawaiian Language lesson from KPOA Radio Morning Mana’o Hos Luana Kawa’a, while being entertained by Maui’s Morning Goddess Alaka’i Paleka and Na Hoku Hanohano award-winner Weldon Kekauoha.

But Wait… That’s not all. There will be an Easter Egg Hunt for Keiki at 12 (under 5 years) and at 12:45 PM (6-10 years old).  Kids can also learn to plant gardens, make reusable bag art, participate in various games and (for an extra fee) horseback rides operated by Thompson Ranch and Maui Tropical Plantation Tram Tour.

The festival opens at 9 am and goes on until 4 pm. Admission and Parking are free.

Tickets for Taste Education can be bought HERE.  In advance – $25 for adults, $10 for keiki.  At the festival – $30 for adults, $15 for keiki.

Participating chefs/restaurants in Taste Education include: Mark Ellman of Mala’s Ocean Tavern Lahaina, Corey Waite of Mala Wailea, Ryan Urig of The Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua, Joey Macadangdang of Royʻs Kahana, Scott McGill of Hula Grill in Kāʻanapali, Todd Carlos of Dukeʻs Beach House Maui,  Jennifer Nguyen of A Saigon Cafe, Jennah Haugaard of Flatbread Company, Ryan Luckey of Pineapple Grill at Kapalua Resort, Neil Murphy of Merrimanʻs Kapalua, Justin Pardo of Market Fresh Bistro, Ben Marquez of Maui Culinary Academy, David Paul of David Paul’s Island Grill, Ivan Pahk of Sansei Restaurant & Seafood Bar Kapalua & Kihei and Chef Tyler Conarroe of Whole Foods Market.

The farmer/rancher and chef presentation schedule is:

MUSIC LINE UP INCLUDES:

Amy Hanaiali‘i & her band, John Cruz, Vince Esquire Band, Erin Smith & the Throwdowns, Mana‘o Radio Orchestra with Jimi Lee from Austin TX, Soul Concepts, Haiku Hillbillys, Dr. Nat & Rio Ritmo, Mojo Gumbo, Jazz Café Regulators, Gail Swanson, Hula Honeys, DLV Trio (Dorothy, Les, Vince), Eddie Tanaka & Friends