Who is Hawaiian Reeves?
With any luck, Hawaiian will be a tour guide (for those willing to read) through the pitfalls and pratfalls of my existence during the coming weeks and months and possibly years. He’ll be honest, critical, irritable, judgmental, self-deprecating, hopefully occasionally entertaining, and ideally anonymous. And this is how he got his name….
So my uncle (the only man I really ever call “my uncle” despite the fact that there six of them) is married to the only woman I ever call “my uncle’s wife”. This also despite the fact that there are six of them. And she is… well, she’s “special.” In a whispered sort of way. In a short bus sort of way. In a tie-dyed jumper and scrunchy-wearing sort of way. In a way that makes other people really glad she’s not part of their family, she’s special.
And she keeps it special in some pretty special ways. For example, she has never (to my knowledge) managed to read any multi-part installation in the English language outside of the Clan of the Cave Bear novels, the daily soap opera plot updates in the local newspaper, and the gossip column on the inside cover of the Parade magazine that arrives every Sunday. Her main sources of entertainment include waiting for the arrival of the latest Wal-mart circular, taking her three stair-stepped sons to Boy Scout meetings because it’s a good opportunity to hear new gossip, and testing the limits of the porn filter on the local library web connection whenever she gets the chance. I would encourage her to read more, but that sort of self-improvement would likely lead to the insanity of everyone around her. Because, you see, the woman doesn’t just move her lips when she reads — she expects anyone around her to be part of the process.
“Oh my God!” she muttered one afternoon in disbelief, jumping up from her crouched position in the middle of floor while clutching that week’s issue of the Parade. “Would you listen to this?” she half-yelled, half-demanded.
She had been unusually quiet on this particular day, not fighting with her husband, not making her children anxious with a constant update of how much time remained before she was going to make them put away a toy, and not goading my father just to keep him from falling asleep in his chair. In fact, had it not been for the sound of her heavy breathing, the sight of her do-it-yourself highlights, or the conspicuous absence of my mother’s Target sale paper, it might have almost been possible to forget that she was there at all. Until, of course, she screamed and woke my father from his short and near-sweet slumber.
Keanu Reeves’ first name is Hawaiian,” she announced with a tone of discovery typically reserved for Nobel Laureates and first-time mothers. She waited for all of us to catch up, to do the mental gymnastics required to join her on the high bar of pop-culture savvy. “His name,” she said finally with the solemnity of a Sunday night prayer, “his name is really Hawaiian Reeves.”
And no, (because people have asked) his name is not really Hawaiian Reeves. It’s Keanu, which is a Hawaiian name. But his name is definitely not Hawaiian Reeves.
It does, however, seem like an awfully good name for a blog. So there you have it and here it is. I hope you keep reading.
-Hawaiian