Josh86 and I have been running Unity Crayons for several years now and we’ve had a lot of volunteers come and go. One of the main complaints we’ve had from volunteers is that the kids coming to the shows don’t appreciate the work we do. Well, perhaps that may be true for some, but recently we got an email showed us that for some kids in the scene, it was worth it.
Varun Savara
Creative Non Fiction
Week 3
Coffee Talk
I grew up on Oahu, and about half of my life was spent living in Honolulu, Hawaii. Hawaii is a lot more than just sunshine and palm trees, if people do not make the right choices, it is very easy to see a lot of your peers become meth heads, or addicted to ecstasy. Or to have many friends who just never leave; people who don’t have a sense of direction. I found my sense of direction in a place I never expected to find it.
It was small, at the doorstep of city limits. As you enter onto Wailae Avenue from the freeway, you leave the residential areas of town centers, residential housing areas, and enter a road littered with small local restaurants with some of the best food in the city (at a low price), apartments, and coffee shops.
It was an escape. A place to get away. Coffee talk was not a coffee shop at night, on a Saturdays. It was a popular music venue for independent bands to play music, primarily punk and ska but sometimes there would be a hip hop set. Inside the venue, you could see the coffee tables shoved into a little storage closet, tons of coffee supplies, and a small teller at the door who took your 5 bucks and stamps your hand, generally a common friend who didn’t get paid but got to watch the shows for free.
From inside the venue you can hear cries and shouts, power chords and drum pedal kicks. You hear the manager saying “Hey stay off the counter!” through the windows and open door you can see a mosh pit, and worried passer bys look at all the young kids (they are worried because they assume that all of these kids are from broken homes and bound to be failures, they also assume that all punk rockers are grimy. As they walk by in there dress pants and dress shirts. And if the show goers, don’t stay out of there way they would call the police because we were “blocking the sidewalk” dressed in jackets covered in patches and studs, the smell of marijuana, cigarettes sweat and alcohol fills the air. Along with a cloud of cigarette smoke that always hangs over the venue, dark and grey. Kids are coughing; I remember I am pretty sure I had my first cigarette there. And then I had a pack of cigarettes, smoking at the age of about 16 or so maybe younger. But we knew the risks we were taking, and we just didn’t care.
And I was one of those kids in that jacket, with a few patches and a chain hanging off my wallet. I was that guy who a few years later would have an eye brow ring, and pierced ears. I was that same guy who would stand outside and say, “Man what is the world coming to when I can’t go to the airport without getting searched because of my appearance?” and someone would say back “It’s the fucking government man, they really think they can do whatever they want. We really don’t control this country”. Such simple truths, but such large issues in our community.
The shows were put on by a nonprofit organization known as Unity Crayons. They were a nonprofit organization that formed in 2003, and is currently not as active as they used to be. But they did have very good run for a few years from 2003 to about 2008; putting on local all age shows for performing artists and other artists. Basically all my high school years were spent in a sweaty moshpit of teenage angst; memories fly through my mind like a bird flies from place to place. The goal of the week was to make it coffee talk to see my favorite bands. I have a strange feeling of thankfulness and respect for the event organizers that I didn’t realize I had until I left the Island of Oahu. My home and the place that my heart resides. I will never forget, seeing bands like Piss Poor Excuse with the sounds of a funky style influenced bass rhythm. Or the rock a billy band The Hell Caminos, and there songs about the rock and roll lifestyle, bands like the 86 list and Black Square who are still performing today and are still politically active.
This place shaped my life. It made me who I am today; I am sociology major because of what I learned in the 808 punk scene, away from my Hindu Family and away from my Christian High School. A place where these things didn’t matter. No one looked at me the way I get looked at in the airports, we would talk about race as a issue and the political atmosphere that was around us, trying to bring about a sense of change in our own community.
The best thing about punk shows was the way that we analyzed the institutions, a lot of the bands sung about George W. Bush and how he used God as the reason that homosexuals can’t marry, that caused a big stink in the punk scene to say the least. We all did believe and still do believe, people should be treated as equals regardless of anything.
We in Hawaii are in a place of multicultural history and that was evident in the shows at coffee talk, Native Americans, south east Indians, Japanese and Chinese and Korean kids as well as mix raced kids would attend and also play in the bands. Race was a huge non issue in the scene; racism and sexism and homophobia were not and still are not tolerated.
I know this because on one occasion; when someone tried to jump me due to my racial background; which is Indian, from India and mistook me for being middle eastern, the whole show moved outside and stood up for me because; racism is not something that we took lightly. Even at other punk shows at bigger venues, if someone said a racial slur, they would be given hell by all the attendees. Even some of the songs are anti racist in there lyrics. As well as anti homophobic.
It is the first place I really encountered many homosexuals in one place, and obviously they were just people and we all knew that, it really was a diverse group.
After years of a good time in Hawaii and going to shows, basically the year I graduated the whole thing shutdown, the venue I use to go to is no longer there, unity crayons is nowhere close to as active as they used to be but the memories, photographs and videos and people and stories still exist. And ironically, 2 weeks after I return back to Ashland, there is a show at coffee talk being organized by the founder of Unity Crayons. What I would do for a teleporter machine to be able to relive my youth for just one night, all my old friends are going and it’s going to be like a big meet and greet. Because we all talk about the great old coffee talk days, I hope when I return on my next visit home, I can meet a drunk guy outside coffee talk who I haven’t seen in years and catch up. Hell since I am 21 now maybe even I will be drunk, not to say I wasn’t on occasion before; but I am excited to know that my favorite local venue maybe making a comeback. If need be I may even pay for the rent of the venue if I have the money on my next visit.
