Part II: Travis is still the man.
“So you ready for your first luau?” Travis asks.
Ready is an understatement. I was born for this. There are very few things I do well, but eating is one of them. And Travis has already given me a preview of the menu: “oh you know,” he says offhandedly, “pulled pork, fried chicken, BBQ beef, mahi mahi, coconut cake…”
Travis, you had me at pulled pork.
From the window of his father’s car, he eyes the sky critically. There are dark clouds moving over the island, hardly ideal weather for an outdoor luau. This is immaterial to me. If the sky were raining volcano ash, I would still sit there eating fried deliciousness and you would find my charred ashen remains intact and ready for a Pompeii-style exhibit. You know the one, where people’s bodies were found in various poses, asleep, crouching, huddling. I would be the one with the engorged stomach and one hand with a fistful of meat going for her mouth.
Travis’s Dad drives out to Pearl City, where Travis lives, and we are joined by Travis’s little sister, Sarah and her visiting from the mainland friend, Deshie, but not before Travis’s mom decks me out in a fragrant lei. I feel like family already. Sarah and Deshie are 18, this is what we literally geeks like to call foreshadowing. In case you’ve missed it, they’re underage. This will come into play later in the story.
Travis, who Sarah calls “Trav” drives us up a highway and into an industrial park. I am convinced that Travis is either a. lost or b. a serial killer about to finish us off. He chatters on about gasoline refineries. Something something nothing to do with pork, so I’m not really listening, but looking out the window, the sky is cloudy, but it looks like we may not be eating waterlogged pig at least. Which I would still be okay with.
Eventually, we pull into a beautiful spot, hard to imagine only minutes before we were in an industrial park, right by the crashing waves and a gently setting sun behind clouds. “Welcome to Germaine’s.” Travis grins.
Again, because Travis is the man, he’s already explained some of the finer points of the luau. By finer points, I mean, how to get more alcoholic froofy drinks. Admission gets you dinner and three drinks at the bar, but, if you buy a souvenir Germaine’s glass (8 dollars at the giftshop, folks), it’s like you’re getting twice as much. Guess where I headed first. Souvenir glass? Check.
We stake out eating spots, it’s family style, so we find a nice table with some people from California. At some point, the stage lights come on and a well-fed woman in a red mumu, our lovely hostess, invites us to go watch the traditional removal of the pig from the underground oven. We all mosey over to where the oven is and two burly Hawaiian men clad in (not making this up as you’ll see from the pictures) orange sarongs, like the sarongs that women wear to the beach when they’re feeling all thunder-thightastic, appear with conch shells. They blow on these. I can’t stop staring at the heftier of the two men. His sarong is cinched awfully snug. Two words: love handles. Clearly, someone hasn’t just been removing the pig from the underground oven. Snark snark snark.
Then the fire guy, also in a girlie sarong, comes barreling out to light the torches around the circle. Of course, they won’t stay lit because it’s quite windy by the ocean. (Random disgression time: This reminds me of being a camp counselor and a torchbearer. For Indian Pageant, we would soak these enormous torches and hope to light the four torches without igniting ourselves or the campers. It was good fun, huge risk management issue of course. And maybe one year, my best friend Jane and I overdid the torches for Indian Pageant, and maybe we almost lost Julie B. to the torches one there. I dunno how she kept her eyebrows. But man oh man, did it look cool and getting loopy of kerosene wasn’t so bad either). Anyway, torch man tries to do his thing, gives up, heads off to sulk in his girly man sarong off stage.
Now the announcer explains that the two men have a hard job removing the pig from its underground oven. To demonstrate this, these two laborers reach down, open the lid, shake a fisherman’s net full of world’s most delicious smelling pork. Very hard work. Then one of them reaches down and pulls the pig head out and puts that on top of the pile. Still, I’m not seeing the labor here. You should see my mom stuff a turkey, everyone, including the turkey, are breaking a sweat by the end of it. Anyway, then the men lift up net swinging it little to show its heft, a little piece of pork falls to the sand. I am dismayed at this (this pork could have found a happier home in my stomach, thank you very much) and am markedly less impressed with these two. The announcer invites us back to our seats to get ready for some entertainment. Travis and I hang back. Travis has a new camera and wants some beach shots of the ocean, so imagine my snarky pleasure, when after everyone else has left, a little golf cart appears to truck the pork off. The dudes aren’t even gonna carry it over to the serving table. I point this out to Travis and we have a good laugh and make sarong jokes. Snark snark snark.
Entertainment happens, this involves smoking hot wahines (ladies) in hula attire, green skirts, yellow tops, and bare-chested ripped men. This is fine by me, but it’s tough to concentrate on the hip shaking and the cultural story telling accentuated by chiseled abs because I haven’t eaten since 11. I can smell smoked meat in the air. And I’m two drinks down. Travis assures me there will be more opportunities for cultural enhancement later after food has been consumed. Whew.
Eventually, we get to the buffet table and I pretty much heap anything that is fried, meat-based, or coconut covered onto my plate. I am proud to say that Sarah and Deshie took as much or more than I did back to the table. Alas, one member of our party did eat fairly daintily. Not that I’m calling you out, Travis.
Deshie tries poi (pictured purple goop in cup). Poi is a Hawaiian delicacy. Poi is Hawaiian for “tastes like school paste.” I’ve already done my poi tasting. Travis advises that dumping sugar in it makes it taste bearable. It doesn’t. Then it tastes like sugar covered school paste. Trust me, skip the poi, double up on the coconut cake.
Food is beyond description. I’ll try anyway: It tastes like the best Christmas morning I’ve ever had. It tastes like the time the Red Sox won the World Series in my lifetime. It tastes like there’s a party in my mouth and everyone is invited.
After I clean my plate, go back for seconds, and then for four more slices of cake, I get another lava flow, delicious alcoholic fruity drink. The bartender cards me. Sigh. Sigh. Sigh. I get back to table and Sarah is giggling. “Aren’t you like, old?” She asks this having seen the whole thing. How to answer this, I wonder? I think throwing poi on her is out of the question. She is Travis’s little sister. To add insult to injury, Deshie returns to the table shortly thereafter with her own lava flow. An alcoholic one. “Didn’t they card you?” Sarah asked wide-eyed. “Nope,” Deshie says proudly. Triumphant giggling ensues. (see picture, Deshie on the left, Sarah on the right. Would you serve liquor to either of these two and think it was legal to do so?) Great, the 18 year old can get a drink, but little old cobweb-covered, one foot in the grave Snarky can’t get no respect.
The lights go down and the real Hawaiian entertainment starts. I’m better able to concentrate now on the cultural aspect. The dances get progressively more intricate. A line of hula girls appear with poi balls which they whip around themselves like little round ninchucks. Then the fire dancer dude comes out and even though it’s windy, he goes nuts, twirling the fire around until my mouth just hangs open for a good three minutes during his entire act and encore. What could top the fire dancer, one might wonder? Here I’ll help you. Up until this point, the hula dancing has been more chastely animated and less suggestive. Well, that all goes out the window as the music goes slinky and the men start clearing their throats in the audience as one particularly attractive hula girl, lit in only blue light, begins to undulate to the music. She’s facing away from us, bare backed. I know that all of us: bloated snarky blogger, conservative Midwestern bible reader with two children present, greasy ponytail man from Vegas with fake pleather vest, are all thinking the same thing: Is she topless? (And for most of us in the audience, in particular the teenage kid with acne in front of me is thinking, please god, please let her be topless).
Beautiful hula girl turns around. A collective breath exhales sharply.
Of course she isn’t topless, you pervs. This is a family show. She’s wearing red sequined pasties. Pasties, man’s gift and curse. Pasties, the controversial compromise to nudie dancing reached by no less an authority than the Supreme Court.
Well-fed red mumu lady closes down the show. I will refrain from all jokes about things not being over until the fat lady sings. But hey, that’s what happened, okay? Just telling it like it is.
Being responsible, we make Sarah drive us back to Travis’s place where his mom promises to take me sightseeing the next day with Sarah and Deshie. I’m my glorious food coma state I agree, thinking that this is just one of those polite things you say to guests but never act upon, and besides, I have just one thought right now: how quickly can I get into a pair of elastic waist pants?
First luau. Total success made possible again by Travis. Apart from being a total lightweight at the buffet table, Travis turns in another stellar performance as tour guide, gentleman, man of leisure, luau extraordinaire. Still kinda a big deal.
Next up. Kinda a big deal – Part III: Travis’s mom is kinda the man too.
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