Hawai'i, The Great Uniter.

I got a little gossip about fall of 2008... The Blue Man Group is going to do a tour of Germany, Austria, and Denmark. How do I know? Last night, at the show, the promoter for the above listed shows was in attendance. And how did I meet him? Interesting story really...

For those of you who know, and those of you who don't, at the end of the show, I've had some say in the "walk out" music that is played while the audience walks out. I've gotten the sound guy to play a song by the Makaha Sons of Ni'ihau. With a name like that, it's gotta be Hawai'ian music.

While the music was playing, the promoter guy (who's name was very German, like Hans, I think it was Merrick actually) came up to the sound guy and me and asked point blank, "Who's from Hawai'i?" I raised my hand, "Oh! I love Hawai'i! Where are you from?"

"Kane'ohe, on O'ahu," I replied.

"I have a house in Kula!" He proudly proclaimed before going into a long story in a thick German accent about how he used to live near the "Barbecue Boys", but wanted a house in the mountains so he built one in Kula. We talked about the Kula Lodge and how his house is two minutes straight up from the Lodge. "I knew, I saw my flag," he finished with a wink and a smile. (I have a small Hawai'i desk flag that I put up at my console).

During my break in Los Angeles, our production manager took a quick of the Big Island, looking for places he and his family might settle down. He too, loves Hawai'i.

Hawai'i is the great uniter. The melting pot in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. A German, and Greek (our production manager is Greek in heritage) and a local boy like me, all love the islands. Not to mention a Hungarian (my wife). We could all sit and "talk story" for hours about the place we love to hang out.

It sort of reminds me of how the islands first became united. A little bit of Hawai'ian history for you today. Each of the separate islands were kingdoms, each with it's own separate ruler or rulers. Some islands were big enough like the Big Island, where there were a couple of different rulers. Kamehameha I (that's a Roman numeral one, even if it looks like the letter "I"), was the first to king to conquer all the islands.

He started on his home island, the Big Island. He took his warriors to the next kingdom over and vanquished that king. As a trophy to himself, he took the throne of the conquered king and stored it on the upper level of his thatched roof home.

He then proceeded to conquer the other king on the Big Island before heading out to sea with his warriors and conquering the other islands. All the while, taking his trophy thrones and storing them. He had finally conquered most of the islands, with the island of Kaua'i being the last one.This was a challenge for him. Between Kaua'i and O'ahu is the widest oceanic channel, as you can see in the map above. Kamehameha tried twice to get his canoe driven warriors across the channel, both times being thrown back by bad weather and dangerous surf.

The kings of Kaua'i and Ni'ihau (a smaller island next to Kaua'i) both recognized the eminent danger that lay before them and chose to surrender to Kamehameha in order to keep their people safe and their armies intact. The willfully turned over their thrones to recognize Kamehameha to be the first ruler of all the major Hawai'ian islands.

Kamehameha returned to the Big Island and invited all the conquered kings and their courts to a ceremony and luau to be held at his place to honor is new kingship. It was a large party with many people whooping it up and having a good time in the thatched roof house of the new King of Hawai'i.

Then, something tragic happened, with all the partying going on and the hula dancers dancing in rhythm, the house began to sway and buckle under the weight of all the captured thrones upstairs. And without warning, the house collapsed killing everyone inside, including King Kamehameha.

Tragic.

What's the moral of the story?

"People in grass houses should stow no thrones."

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