Living in Hawai'i

It blows the minds of a lot of people when I tell them I live in Hawai'i. I'm amazed to find otherwise worldly people who simply can't fathom anybody actually living here. As much as I'm here, that is. I still spend approximately half of each year living in a hotel room somewhere.

A lot of people save their pennies for years to come out here for a week or two. For many, a brief visit to Hawai'i is the trip of a lifetime.

But....trust me on this....there are drawbacks. Sure, we enjoy perfect weather, amazing watersports, huge mountains right next to the ocean, daily rainbows, it seems idealic. But some things about living in Hawai'i just plain suck. To wit:

1) There is essentially no medical care, essentially no (competent) police force, essentially no civil services (the roads suck, for example). I am continually amazed at how dumb and incompetent the average police officer is here. I'm continually amazed at how dumb and incompetent the county government is, the retail workers, the technical workers. Maui is a banana republic. There are landed gentry and there are people who dig ditches, but very few classes in between.

2) It takes a minimum of 5 hours to fly anywhere.

3) There are a disproportionate percentage of dumb people here, and a disproportionate number of flakes. I call the latter "crystal danglers". I call the former "dumbshits".

4) There are very few restaurants serving decent food at reasonable prices. Sure, it's easy to find a great meal if you want to drop $150 for two people at Roys, Hali'imaille General Store, or Mama's Fish House. Probably THE ONLY thing I miss about the years I lived in West Palm Beach is 50 great restaurants within 20 minutes of my house, where a great meal for two could be had for $35. Including tip.

5) Tourists must leave their brains at home when they go on vacation. They dress like idiots, they drive like idiots, they act like idiots. I see them pulled over on Old Halekala Highway when I'm driving home, taking photos of horses or cows. What's the matter, Marge, there aren't any cows back home in South Dakota?

I'm told the reason the Dumbshit-In-Chief, George Bush, was elected president (twice) is because smart people generally don't vote, and smart people generally do not realize that in between New York City and San Jose, there are 250 million people to whom dinner at Red Lobster represents a big night on the town.

The one good thing I can think of about George Bush being president is that if he wasn't, he and that vacuous Stepford Wife of his probably would be two of the dumbshits driving around Maui right now, looking for whales and swerving all over the road.