Boots Lupinui

But it's funny.

When we finally recorded that song for the documentary, we're standing in the boonies in this ancient part of Kohala.

And we're in front of this old cabin, and we're surrounded by native plants and trees, and there's a stream running right here.

We're dressed in period clothing and playing instruments that would have been available at the time the song was written.

And we're playing this old slash new song, and it could have been World War II era Hawaii.

And yet, right in front of me, there's a cameraman with a gimbal and a giant camera

And over here there's a sound guy with a bank of digital whatever they are.

And I've got a wireless digital monitor in my ear.

It's like 1940 colliding with 2019.

But we got it done.

We got it done.

And then, nothing.

For months, nothing.

Nobody gave me any songs.

I asked everybody I knew to ask everybody they knew and nothing.

And I'm thinking, these grant deliverable deadlines, they're gonna come and all that money's gonna have to be paid back and I don't even know what kind of limbs I'm gonna have to sell to make that happen.

But it's not so magical now.

But I started this and a small group of people stood up with me and I knew in my bones that there is magic here.

So I just had to keep trying.

So I did, and a week before the film crew was to come up and shoot for the one and only time, my bass player tells me, I know a lady who has a song, but she's not going to give it to you.