BOOM!!! Ka Nani

My friends called me to help them shoot a video we'd been talking about for daze. It was a few years ago I guess 'cause my friend Man Eater Shoes" (whose Mercedes she's dancing on) don't live here no more. Nor does DJ Joulz (of downtown not so long ago) who ran one camera and probbly done the editing.

The rest of the girls I still see around, but they come & go quite often too. Most of 'em's IONA Contemporary Dance Theatre alums! I'm too coocoo for butoh, so luckily they have their other performance troupes (Giinko Marischino vs House of Chandelier), or else I wouldn't be able to hang out backstage and get naked with all of 'em. Last time I had the privelege was during a special engagement our house mother Cocoa Chandelier presented to some Chinese dignitaries. They've been in Honolulu for the past few months collaborating with UH, in an exciting production of "The White Snake", a Jingju Chinese Opera, currently running right now at Kennedy Theatre)

Now back to our story: I don't know who the location scout was, but we took that road toward Kakaako Park, then turned right at that school with the kalo sculpture. A couple blocks upp we found a spot in front of a fence where the sidewalk ended. It was to be the perfect backdrop for these drop-dead gorgeous gorgons: a chain link fence shielding mountains of dirt, amongst trees & tractors framing a landscape of various shapes of skyscraperie.
We parked legally, then all the girls dumped their costume & make-upp bags on the sidewalk for each other to scrounge & scavenge through, to find the perfect accoutrement that might be missing from the ensembles they showed upp in. Had it been a bunch a boys in ballgowns, there'd've been a furious fluorescent flurry of accessories & attitude. This was more like a scene out of RuPaul's Fag Hag Race, where instead of competing, these real ladies were cooperating, completing & complimenting each others looks! The vaginal advantage!
Once the girls got fully regaled, Joulz & this karate dancer guy + me spread out parallel to 3 POV coordinates of our makeshift set. The sun was going down behind us, so we had to get back kinda far and zoom in to lose our shadows from the viewfinders. Then the girls all climbed into or on top of Malia's vintage Mercedes, while Joulz yelled ACTION! kinda anxiously, for we feared losing light.

The ladies of Mercedes 8 did their thing! Laughing at themselves inside, they self-mockingly put on a serious face and proceeded lip-syncing the silly novelty song, the classic "Cars That Go Boom" by L'Trimm.



Evidenced by their extraordinary rendition, these girls don't fool around when they fool around! From the staging of each verse, to the cheesey amateurish choreography (albeit impressive bgirl-ing), me and the other cameradudes had to fight back boners & belly laughs, to keep our jaws from dropping altogether! There's a serpentine line between camp & cutting edge, and I'm not sure if these girls were leaping over or limbo-ing under it!

I barely remember doing more than one take though, while these professional prankstresses danced & pranced proudly. Cars -& even TheBus- passed patiently, more worried about missing a moment, than getting in our way. We slowly figured out there was a homeless shelter back there, by the crowd of families, lonely loners, hobos, and stinky hotties that gathered to watch in shock & awe. I felt foxy & famous by proxy!
Right when the song was over, as if by nature & without skipping an off-beat, things broke out into a photo shoot! All glammed upp? Why not ham it upp for their extemperaneous temporary fan club?!? Acting oblivious, but obviously attracted to and by their observers, these exhibitionistic flashy sistas struck poses & turned out tacky tableaus, all just to give themselves & those who happened to be gifted by their presence, another good show!
It didn't take long for Joulz to edit and post the finished video. It's flawless in its imperfections! From the grainy picture quality, to the not-so-special effects, together they make the video look dated & antiquated, as if it was modern & current at the time of the song's release! Right away, BOOM! Ka Nani! our video was tagged for copyright infringement! (they were J) I bet they just erased the audio. Hmm...I wonder how it'd work with any other song? Anyways, now, a few years later, it's somehow resurfaced, and so I hope you enjoy it while it lasts.
The ridiculous brilliance of the players in & all over the scenes, make me proud to say that although the part I played that day was peripheral, I witnessed & captured the genius & rapture of my retarded friends.

Click here for more photos from that day, as well the night they performed the same song from the car, parked downstairs at Ong King, leading upp into the club!