DAY 3: "DIDN'T I SAY MORE COWBELL??"

Rich and I woke early once again and headed down to the beach on Waikiki . What an amazing sight.

Imagine yourself on the beach, the waters are turquoise, and in some parts, dark blue,..the sand is clean and fine,..In the distance, there are surfers, boogieboarders, and swimmers, to the left, you can see Diamondhead, Oahu 's extinct volcano. Wow, is all I can say,.. The beach we decided on wasn't as crowded as I thought it would be,..Not nearly as crowded as most local Long Island or NJ beaches,..and no "dead fish" smell that's so apparent here on the east coast.

Although, it was quite rocky underneath the water,..so much so I kept my mules on while I was swimming. Rich thought I was just being a "tenderfoot", but he came out of the water within about 5 minutes complaining about the rocks,.. tenderfoot, huh?

Cory later told us that the beaches on Hawaii can change like that,..for a mile, give or take, the beaches are fine sand, then for the next mile the beaches are full of rocks,..I guess you just have to be in the know,..

We baked for a while in the sun, relaxing,.. no mai tai's,..but perfectly content to people watch,..

then we reluctantly packed up to go meet Cory at Studio One to do some rehearsing for the night's show and sound check,..

The rehearsal went swimmingly, the cowbell narrative unrelenting,..laughs and good times had by all,..

D had me laughing so much my sides were hurting,..All in all we were ready for the night's performance.

Rich and I headed back to the hotel to get ourselves all prettied up, got some dinner and then headed back to the venue. This time we took the bus,..

When we arrived, we were met by my new friend, DJ Nocturna, who has been playing some tunes on her KTUH show, "A Feast of Friends"

She even brought a Lei for me. It was beautiful!

Kathryn also had a lei for me and the other performers for the night.

I love leis,..I want one for every day! that night I had 2! very cool!

I also met some young ladies who told me they came to the show specifically to see us perform. They heard some songs on the radio and decided to come down. That's so awesome,..I was on the verge of tears,..

I didn't' get to see them after the show,..whaaa

But I hope they enjoyed themselves!

I shared a bill with spoken word artist, Alix Olsen. She was absolutely awesome!

Intelligent, moving, funny,..all of the above, I was inspired!

You all should make it a point to go out and hear her. She tours all over the country,..find out when she's coming to your area and go! You won't be disappointed!

We went on around 12:30am and did an hour set,..Cory and Rich sounded great together, I was happy and inspired and we even got a standing ovation and did an encore!

Once again, I was so happy to meet so many awesome people! There were also other spoken word artists that night who did a piece or 2, most notably, Mark Bamuthi Joseph and Desdamona.

Mark blew me away with his performance! He incorporates dance in his performance and there were a few times I was a little frightened for some of the audience members in the front rows,..he's gt some serious energy!

We hung out for a while with D and some of his friends who came down to the show,..We actually didn't get out of the venue until about 3am ,..

What an amazing night,..the performers were awesome, the audience was awesome,..the sound was great,..

ahhhh

if only they could all be like that!

more to come