Memories are created everyday in a blink of an eye. Some last, some don't but being able to see what goes on in each other's lives without delay has become so mainstream that I wonder if memories are even needed. Camera phones are always ready and everyone has some sort of recordable device: camcorder, digital camera, Blackberry etc.

I remember in da hana-bata days taking pictures with a bulky (compared to now) 35mm camera and those with zoom were the "lucky" ones. Camcorders sat on your shoulder recording on VHS tapes and "mini or slim" anything wasn't even a concept.

I guess that's why it's amazes me how much our elders have in what seems like a 100TB (terabyte - dat's choke memory btw) brain storage. Their stories leave you to imagine what it was like as they retell - and relive - the moment so vividly. Recently at an, ahem, "coaches meeting", I only just realized that there was almost three generations of coaches sharing our mo'olelo (stories) and mana'o (knowledge).

No Blackberry's were busted out downloading video or pics from a website to show, just memories being retold as if we were in a 'Lost' flashback (those who watch the series know what I'm talking about, those who don't - auwe. Gotta support local ventures).

Nowadays, all the media we have access to is not for memory making - it's for publicity and who got the most recent "craziest" video. Pictures no longer are sent to Longs to get developed, we just Photoshop the jpeg and email it in a matter of a few keystrokes.

While I'm not dissing technology - I'm actually a tech hoard myself - but not everything needs to be broadcasted on myspace or youtube. Our keiki's imagination and memories are being substituted for memory cards and hard drives.

Wassap Wit Dat?

I bet you uku-bucks that every single one of you reading this blog has said, at least once, "oh yeah, I get that vid/pic at home. I'll email it to you" instead of taking the time to share and relive that exact moment in time, not needing to look at that vid/pic to remember - although it is needed sometimes to stir up some.

I'll admit that technology is making it easier to keep memories but then what do we keep for ourselves? Will the lost art of sharing mo'olelo fade away? Will we lose another precious "old school" moment?

Or should we just record how we used to wala'au and replay it back on DVD?

SHOUT OUT: A friend had found this video link on youtube out of the blue and boy was I shocked! I didn't even know someone recorded this yet alone "put it out there". Just some background, I was a member of a jazz ensemble that was world renown...ok, recognized nationally...ok, ok, we were popular locally. We were called the Killer Force TM and had t-shirts and everything! In fact I still got mine...even though it looks like a baby tee now. We were only a high school band and not to toot our horn, but we rocked! We traveled a lot and played choke gigs and the "old gang" was recruited back to perform a hana hou after two years removed from high school to celebrate the Killer Force's very last performance joining the old with the new. We played our trademark song called "Good News" and sorry the video is very very old (one of the few guys that had a camcorder) and the vid doesn't do the song justice - need to be there live fo' da vibe. The ending was the best part...hee hee Can you guess which one I am?