 Okay, we're back. We're alive. It's think tech remote. That's what's everything we're doing these days is remote. And this morning here on a given Monday, I'm Jay Feidell. I'm going to be talking to John Fink. John, thank you so much for joining us on the show. Jay, happy to be here. Good to be back on. Yeah, absolutely want to see more of your smile and face. This is Community Matters and we're talking about your book, your book and I'm looking at it now I'm going to show it. Think about it. Ideas and inspiration for today's Hawaii by John Fink. There it is. Just came out of copyright. But let's see what I got to get it right. Okay. Nice picture, John. Thank you. It took a lot of takes, but thank you. You know, the thing is, when I first started college, I studied speech. Nothing has done me much good because people identify me as New York all the time. But they can't identify you as New York or any place in particular you have my my my limited speech training teaches me that you have an all American dialect. You have a perfect voice for for audio video media. You know, is that you haven't noticed that do you work on that? Well, I don't know if it's perfect, but it's gotten me where I've gotten so far. So, you know, it's funny, Jay, when I when I grew up, my first nine years was on the East Coast. And when I got to Chicago, I did have a bit of an Eastern accent and a lot of the people there now this is quite a long time ago. They thought I was from England. So there was one gal that I fooled for three years by putting on a pseudo English accent because that's what they thought East Coast was was England. So it's not limited to Chicago, by the way. That's true. Anyway, so you've had you've had a wonderful career in media in Hawaii. You are in my view, you're Mr. Media. You've been in two or three TV channels and manage them. And probably the one that comes to mind at first is K5. You made it what it is today. But are you retired now or are you or are you partially retired? What's your deal right now? I'm partially retired, as you know. I mean, I've got the book, but obviously I've been doing for about six months now. I've got a weekly column on this inside front cover of midweek, which I enjoy doing. And I was going to be doing some seminars, but obviously we're not doing seminars these days. So that'll be on hold for at least another three to six months. Who knows how long. Do you know something I don't know? No, no, just stay safe, Jay. But I'm still I'm still on about 10 or 11 community boards. I'm very active with the stadium authority and big brothers, big sisters in St. Francis and the Hawaii Bowl. And, oh boy, Hawaii Council on Economic Education and the Aloha Festivals. I've got about 10 or 11 boards. So that's keeping me busy remotely these days, but keeping me busy. But I'm still I'm still looking to do more. I still want to help out in the community and get involved and then maybe one last great gig to try to make a difference and help out. God knows we're going to need it over the next couple of years. So anyway, still I'm still out there. We have to reinvent ourselves. But I want to talk about your book because it's more than a book. It's a sort of worldview or a Hawaii worldview. And it wasn't even your idea was it doing these doing these. We want to call it. Park editor hide park type statements when the mood struck you and you did all together at least the book tells us that you did like 2000 of them in a what a 20 year period and this is a collection of maybe 200 of them. And it's very interesting and I want to talk to you about how that started. It wasn't your idea they came to you right that the people running the media. Yeah, we had an ownership group that required that all of the TV stations not necessarily the general manager but in most cases it was mostly the general manager. But come on twice a week and in the news or at the end of the news give a editorial vignette something that might be either difference making or community concerns or things of interest in the community. And my thought was I had a really sharp program director guy named Dan Schmidt, and we were trying to come up with a name with it and I said look, it's our station. It's it's my viewpoint. I'm going to write every one of these which I did, and I'm proud that I never missed one in 19 years. But he came up with the idea think about it came. These were going to be philosophical soliloquies or mandates or what it's or at least topics that people could think about and I decided, rather than try to artificially take on world subjects of which I had little knowledge or could have little influence, or even people locally could do a little about I tried to as often as possible Jay, try to pick on subjects that were very germane and specific to Hawaii, and very timely and topical. And the concept was think about it but in parentheses it was and now do something about it if you can. That was kind of the philosophy and what's interesting is, they've never been compiled all together because obviously they ran for 75 to 90 seconds twice a week for 19 years on KHL and K5. And they were never meant to be back to back to back to back. So, I guess what I'm saying is the book might be best as a is a bedside table book where you read about four or five of them and then you go to sleep or, or whatever else because they're all they're done in the book chronologically we chose, I want to say it's 187 or 188 of them out of the 1975 that we cut. And they were all meant to be video so they weren't even meant to be just the written words. There's sometimes there are facial expressions that I knew I would do in these or I would show footage in the background. And of course, some translate better to the written word and some don't so that was the premise for I wrote every single one of them so if you like them. Thank you if you don't like them. Thank you. I can't blame anybody. I, I, I, I, I quote people in my editorials, but I felt it was it was my station and I felt that I wasn't going to pretend it was something else or it was somebody else's words. And while I certainly got ideas from other people and from outside sources all the time. One of the things that I found in the book today and I went through it to try to find the ones that I thought would either be the most relevant or stuff that hadn't changed in 20 years that's incredibly frustrating. I found there were certain topics that came up over and over again because as we all know, there are a lot of issues in Hawaii would simply don't get resolved they get discussed they get tabled. They get let's form a committee. Let's get a discussion going and then nothing seems to happen and a lot of those involve officialdom where of course the main goal is just to get reelected. So why do controversial things are things that might upset some of our constituent base. Let's just say we'll discuss it and we'll get to it down the road down the road for some of these has been 20 years or more now. And if you're thinking well what's he talking about. There's a litany you can go with it took 40 years to get air into our classrooms. The stairway to heaven is still not been resolved. The alternative traffic routes to Leeward O'ahu has still not been figured out. The White Team War Memorial Matatorium is still not been figured out. Some of these are 40 or 50 year old problems. And that's all in the book. Well a couple of comments about the book. You know what's interesting about the book is it sort of forces you to keep it as a bed stand read because there's no table of contents. There's no index. The only organization is chronological. So you know you said I think I'll I think I'll read one of John's pieces tonight and you just go through the book or or you pin the tail on on the op-ed piece and you find it that way. And it's it's lush. Maybe there's one that stands out to you or it affects your life but I think what might be interesting to some people is if you read one, then go back up to the top and look at the date on it. It was 2002 and you're going to go wow it's 2020 and nothing has changed on this thing. It's just the wheels the wheels move slowly if they move at all sometimes. Yeah and I noticed that you know that would be a risk in a book which spans 20 years. Some of those pieces had become less relevant over time but not many. And what you see in the book is in bold at the bottom of a number of these pieces is your update comment. You're sort of. Yeah, I decided to. I think I think I figured out it's about 60% of them. I put a footnote or a smart outlet comment on the bottom. You know, something like and still nothing has changed or I updated a couple of more required it but it really is important in reading the book and each one of them are so short. It doesn't take you more than two minutes to read one. It's putting it into context of what was going on at the time. There's obviously a comment that I made right after 9 11. You have to realize that was 19 years ago and realize the context of what people were going through. You know, some of which were going through right now with uncertainty and everything but that's appropriate for that specific place in time. And there are certain other economic things that came up and some of the specifics I just mentioned. Take a look at the dates on some of the, you know, gosh, 12 years, nothing's changed or 12 years were right back where we were or. Wow, how much things have changed in the past seven years or nine years or whatever. So it really is a book that I think is mostly for local people. And it takes a score or a 20 year to decade period of time. And as a friend of mine said, who read it and he said wow, lots of memories. And I think that's partially what this is is it'll kind of take you along where we've come or where we haven't come over the last 20 years in a number of areas. Well, I wanted I wanted you to read a couple. We have time for that. Why don't you pick one and later on when maybe we'll pick another but just to give us the flavor and and you know the general context here. Okay, this one. This one comes from September of 2015. And this one's probably appropriate for where we are right now in the world but and you can do this today if you want. I was driving over the call it's called blue sky thinking I was driving over the coal out mountain range one glorious morning recently after yet another day loose had literally cleared the air of debris and fog. The sky was a gorgeous blue and the mountains look like someone had just chiseled them with a sculptor's knife, jagged peaks interspersed with brilliant shades of green and brown amid the silvery rock. So I did the appropriate and necessary thing and cranked up some music with my windows closed tight. First my all time favorite local song homeo Kahlu by Olamana. And then I blasted the meeting by Anderson Bruford Wakeman and how the core of the group. Yes, check it out. Actually, anyway, I took the time to be in the moment of real joy and beauty and I acknowledged how lucky I am on a number of fronts. I don't know when the last time was that you actually took the time to be present when you stand in our aqua waters slowly scan the horizon while looking out at the ocean or gaze up at the mountains. I don't know if you often or ever reflect on the good things you have going for you, but we surely have the spectacular outdoor opportunities for all of us to just once in a while say, you know, it's going to be all right. Attitude can make a big difference in how you deal with things. So maybe just maybe look up and around to find your bearings when things are going off kilter. It's okay to say thank you, Hawaii day for being what you are and for allowing me to be here and witness your very essence and thank you eyes, ears, mouth and nose for giving me the sensory capability that I take for granted far too often. Sorry if this sounds a bit ethereal, corny or schmaltzy, but I thought it might be of some value to think about it. Think about it, yeah. There's one. I mean, that is totally relevant in our time, totally relevant. Except again, you can't run around outside your house, that's all. You know, when you're busy working and you've got a full life and you're going from activity or event to event and you've got kids and you've got financial obligations. It's hard sometimes to put a period on that. We always put commas and then move on to the next thing. Put a period on that, Jay, and look outside and go, wow, the mountains are beautiful. Or, wow, I can hear birds singing. I mean, it's so simple and yet, and of course, the other ultimate act for anybody who's in the midst of tension and things is some music. It is scientifically proven that nothing affects you better or quicker than music. And yeah, I'm including drugs and alcohol and a few other bad things for you. But, boy, find a song that makes you feel good or put on your favorite mixtape or whatever and just enjoy the moment and then go back to what you have to do. But it helps decompress all that kind of stuff. So this is published by Watermark, but it's on Amazon. Can I get it on Watermark? It's not available as an audiobook at this point in time. But if you get it from Watermark, not only will you get it quicker, but it helps a local company, obviously, and it's free shipping. So if you go to HawaiiBooks.net, I think is the one you can get it within four or five days. And of course, Amazon in March was not shipping anything out except essentials. So people were having to wait for stuff, but now they're starting to get back to more normal sales. So yeah, you can get it from Amazon too. So nobody is going to disagree with what you read. It's going to be inspirational. In fact, that's the tagline of the book. Ideas and inspiration for today's Hawaii. But some of the pieces you wrote were not nearly as generally acceptable. What I mean is you took pot shots at people. I don't think you, you know, you, you identified the individuals very often, although sometimes you did. And I wonder if you can say that, A, you made friends with some of those pieces and B, whether you had pushback from people because of some of the things you said in your more controversial pieces over the years, pushback from them, pushback from the community, pushback from the owners, pushback, any kind of pushback. Or did you have a full hand and nobody ever quarreled? Yeah, right. I, I would, I would call out people that I felt as a TV station for the community needed to be called out if things needed to be fixed. I wouldn't call out, you know, I wasn't trying to, the intent was never to bully or take advantage of people who couldn't help themselves in any situation. But yeah, I got feedback. I was once called into an elected official's office about what I'd written and I was explained what they were trying to do. And I said, it's been 20 years we've heard this. So stop saying it and start doing something and they promised me I won't say who and I won't say what. And they promised me something would get done. And that was two and a half years ago and nothing's been done since. So I tried to point out that one of the things that the most important thing for a politician is to be reelected or else they're unemployed. So I understand that. But oftentimes when legislative session is in play, we hear that they're going to discuss certain things and they do it. I think so their constituents can say, well, at least they tried and everything like that. When in essence, they're not going to make any kind of potentially controversial changes. And I pointed out to this politician who was still in office, by the way. I said, look, nobody ever wins an argument with 10 people, 10 to nothing. You know that nobody ever wins 100% of the vote. So if you get 60% of the vote, you've got 40% who didn't like you. It should be the same way with some of these difficult decisions. If you're going to take a leadership position, you have to make what you think is the best decision and live with it. And this person said, hey, you don't need to tell me I understand how politics work, but that's not how it can be. Because we don't have a lot of competition in Hawaii, because we have a one-party system in Hawaii, it is much easier to not take major positions for things that could be controversial or upset people. So yeah, Jay, I had nasty emails. Who the F do you think you are, as usually from anonymous people? And I would write back and tell those people, thanks for your comments. I hope you find something on here you enjoy, but we feel it's our part as a community entity to provide these forums and to say these things. And if you don't agree, I'm sorry. Hopefully you will. Most people in Hawaii are really nice, and if they would see me and recognize me in the stores or whatever, say hey, you're the guy and that type of thing. And most of them, you know, my favorite one was when they'd say this was so wonderful. They'd say, you know, I agree with you most of the time. Well, that's great. So does my wife. I mean, I wouldn't expect you to agree with me all the time, but that's very nice. And I met it. I'm glad they watched it. Occasionally, Jay, you'd find out from a person that you'd run into an organization that, hey, you know, I read what you said and I did this or I'm going to do that or something. And that's great that hopefully people acted on it because it was really about you can take control. People ask me, what's the underlying theme? And I know it says ideas and inspiration, but the underlying theme is you can make a difference. Everybody can make a difference. And it could be at home. It could be at work. It could be in their philanthropic work. It could be in church or whatever. I mean, you can make a difference even if it's on a small level. I remember when I was coaching little kids with AYSO, you hope you make a little bit of a difference. And the kid has fun and he remembers that soccer was fun and Coach John was my coach and we had a lot of fun. Okay, so you make a little difference there. But I think that's why we're all on this planet is to figure out how we can make a difference at some level. And that's the implication of think about it is do something about it. And then the frustration, of course, for the guy who writes this and reminds us that he wrote it before and nothing's changed. Is that, you know, nothing has changed. And so it's hard. It's hard to get action. And it's hard to, you know, keep being moderate and not angry when you don't see any changes. But you know, one thing that strikes me is this is increasingly important for the media in general. You know, the old in the old days was just give me the facts. Give me pure journalism. I don't want to hear your opinion. The media should be seen and not heard. Sort of thing. And it's things have changed. Things have changed. I mean, Rick Plangeard, he does it on KGMB. And which one of you came first, by the way, was it your pieces or his pieces? I don't, I don't really know. I started in 2000 and then Rick got into the company in late 2009. He began in 2010 or 2011. So I was on for a decade or so before Rick got involved. And now he's done too, because obviously he's off TV and now he's going to run for mayor. But you know, Jay, I would disagree with you on one thing. I would like to think that if I'm going to talk about pure media and information that I'm getting factual information. I don't need a bunch of opinions. If I do, then make sure you tell me its opinions. But if you're going to slant the news, if you're going to put things in a certain way that is obviously incredibly subjective or questionable, where there aren't facts involved, then call it that, but don't call it news. And I want to say, I think, I think some of the national media has done a really good job during this coronavirus. I think the local media has done a great job. And I think that when push comes to shove and when interviewed and asked, people trust local media more than they trust any other source. And I think they should continue to do so. Because as I've said on this show before, Jay, when we're dealing with people in the news gathering business, there is no such thing as fake news. It's a completely stupid term because locally, if you're doing fake news, here's what we say. You're fired. You're fired. If you're making mistakes covertly, if you're saying things incorrectly, if you know that it's not a fact, but you're saying it because you have some other objective or some other position, you're fired. You can go do that elsewhere, but you can't do it where we're trying to put out news. So I would tell you that somebody may get one warning and then they're fired. So there is no such thing as fake news. Fake news where I grew up is called a lie. And if it's a lie, you're fired. Yeah. And that takes us to the whole thing. The last piece in your book, the last one is January 2019. And you broadcast this on K5. You put it in your book. And the point is, you were making these op-ed pieces through at least a couple of years of the Trump administration. Did you cover that? Did you go after the Trump administration on questions of fake news and on questions of inappropriate attacks and confusion to the public? Well, I guess I'm doing it now by telling you that anybody uses the term fake news. If it's not vetted, if it's not true, they should be fired. If it doesn't meet with what you want it to be, that's a different story. So no, I didn't really go after the Trump administration, you know, a broadcaster from Hawaii doing that. I don't know that that would have provided any value of note. I was really more interested in things as they related to Hawaii and let people form their own opinions on what they think should be right or wrong on a national front. But I really think that when it comes to all of our leaders, I mean, I'm really a big believer in transparency knowing that certain things have to be cloaked or are confidential for security reasons. I mean, I get all of that. But this idea that whenever somebody doesn't like what somebody's saying, again, if it is factual and it is not what you say you want it to be, that doesn't change the facts. You know, daddy always taught me everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts. And I think we need to remember that when we're talking about truths of what is going on. One of the problems with this coronavirus and things that should be done or might be done or suggested that should be done is we don't really have historical precedent in a lot of these areas. And some people think it's overkill. And that's a pardon the pun when I use the word kill. But my God, if we don't get some of these things right, many, many more people are going to die. And the cost of that, some people would tell you, well, okay, but we need to get back to work. Well, death versus work, those are too heavy things to weigh against each other. And I hear people doing that now and we got to be cautious on the side of humanity. So some of these same people who would tell me they were celebrating Easter and then saying go back to work if a few people die, that's the way it goes. Wow, I'm not sure that works well with that Bible thing. So anyway. Yeah. Well, we have a question actually, John. I'll read it to you from a viewer. Question is what commentary of all these commentaries was most popular and what commentary resulted in change? Is there one or a couple of them that come to mind when you look back down the field for 20 years of writing? You know, I normally would hit a topic and then not revisit it right away. I didn't want to beat a dead horse, so to speak. There was one that drove me crazy. And it was one that, and I'm not going to say that this led to the change, but it certainly was part of the ground swell of support that came up. I met a teacher from Farrington High School who was eight and a half months pregnant. And it was August or September. And she told me I asked her when she was due. And I said, wow, it must be tough these days because it's hot. And she said she almost fainted in class the other day. And it raised my hackles up because this bit about our schools being overheated. So here's her story. She's in a classroom at Farrington. She says it is unbearably hot. So she keeps paper towels in the front of the room. And when the kids come in, they'll always grab paper towels. They will take black crate paper or whatever you call it and put it up on the windows to help get rid of the sunlight. And there's one fan. So the kids who come in first, whereas a lot of kids like to sit in the back, they go to sit up front because they can get some air. And I'm sitting there going, what hypocrisy are we here? When we talk about test scores, we can't even have air for our children to breathe. So I did a couple of editorials and I started getting some support from the leeward side and from the windward side. And a guy who was the manager of Best Buy in town, he emailed me and we got on the phone and he donated like 30 fans to Farrington High School, which was great. Because that was something that was being done and we weren't just talking about it. Of course, I had letters and notes from parents saying the air stunk when I was a kid, which was 30, 40 years ago. We know it's been horrible on the leeward side. They've recorded temperatures of 97 degrees in classrooms on certain days and stuff. So the beauty of this was that at some point down the road, 2014, maybe 2015, the governor announced that he was going to start implementing retrofitting. And of course, you had old electrical systems that had to be repaired. So they were doing some solar panels, but putting more fans and putting more air into the classrooms. And in a lot of places, not all of them yet, but a lot of places it's gotten better. And I believe the number was $100 million in retrofitting to give our kids breathable air. And wouldn't it make sense that you might do better on a test if you weren't worried about fainting? And if you could breathe and felt like you wanted to distribute? These are rooms, and I said at the editorials, that you wouldn't put an animal in. You would call the society for prevention of cruelty to animals. And yet our kids are in those day after day, August, September, October, November when it's beyond hot in some of these classrooms. So that was one that did get some response. I did one about, everybody knows about the blood bank and the need for the blood bank to be continually gone to by people to provide blood and need. There's a place called the blood cord bank where they take placentas from newborns. And most people don't realize this and the placentas get disposed. But all you got to do is tell your OBGYN, you want to save the placenta and it gets frozen and it can be used to save lives. I thought that was incredible. And I called them up so I got my information and I did the editorial on it. And I called them a couple of weeks later because I was curious and they said, yes, they had had some phone calls from people interested. So you go, wow, wouldn't it be great if that people just found out about this and now a life has been saved or a life will be saved? Because you can store the placenta, you can freeze it and use it years later. So I mean, things like that were very rewarding. And I've also had some, like I said, where I'd get a couple of emails or anonymous phone calls that were, who the hell do you think you are? Who cares what you have to say? And you know, the answer to that is, well, I hear you, you can change the channel. It's really not difficult. You know, in the old days, you had to get up and change the channel. Now you can just press your buttons. I think the media has a duty to do this. And good for you that you did it all those years. Well, let's close the show with one more of your op-ed pieces, if you don't mind. One of your favorites and see what you had to say on this one. This one was from the summer of 2016. It's called Empathy Starts Here. What's the biggest thing a kid needs to learn during the formative years? Well, talk to 10 psychologists, counselors or sociologists, and you might get 10 different opinions. Recently, I read a short blurb from one educational psychologist who very strongly suggested that empathy is the most important trait for kids to learn to help ensure their relative happiness and success years later. Dr. Michelle Borba wrote a book called Unselfie, Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All About Me World. The title alone suggests which road we seem to be going down with technology giving us easy access to instant information, a modicum of self-gratification, and an ease with which to say, look what I'm doing because we all really need to know 24-7. Borba suggests that kids today, thanks in part to technological advances, are more self-absorbed than ever with narcissism rates of 58% in college students versus 30 years ago. Anecdotal evidence suggests that cheating, bullying, and unhappiness levels are also up among our youth. One bad picture or statement online could peg you forever in theory. That's a lot tougher than the old word-of-mouth network. So maybe teaching kindness, awareness of others' needs, and volunteerism will go a long way in your Kiki's development. Maybe celebrating helping others more than Richard's practice schedules will reap the long-term desired effects. As Borba says, when was the last time you saw a bumper sticker that said, proud parent of a kind kid? And isn't that what Aloha Spirit is all about? Making a difference, being kind, humble, and aware. Now, to promote these seemingly simple values, the adults must put down their addictive devices too, of course. Think about it. So I wrote that over years ago. I don't think it's ever been more true than today. We need more empathy. We need more people listening. We need to find more common ground, because obviously there's too much of a rift that has been evolved, and that's been going on for many, many years. I remember just to complete that thought, yeah, I got to sit next to Daniel Inouye, and I don't care what you think about him, but Daniel Inouye was a long-time helper of Hawaii, and quite a wonderful man in my mind. And I said to him, what do you see in Washington, D.C.? And I understand this was probably 2010 or 11, and he said, John, I've never seen it so divisive. I've never seen it where people can't even talk across the aisles and the anonymity and the venomous repartee that goes on, because people can write nasty emails and things. You can only imagine what he must have been getting. And he just said it was horrible, and that was 10 years ago. So I just think we just need to calm down, settle down, find common ground. Maybe this is, you know, if you believe in the spiritual, maybe what we're going through right now is the wake-up call for all of us that we do need to help each other out more often and figure out ways to come together as opposed to splitting apart. Yes, we're remaking ourselves right now as we speak. That's John Fink. His book is, think about it. It's on Amazon, and it's on, what is it? Watermark. Watermark Press right here and holding. And it's got 180, 90 of his op-ed pieces. And my mathematics indicates that there's another 1,800 of them on the cutting room floor, so there's probably going to be a second edition come along here soon. And if you want to see some of his recordings, they're actually on YouTube. I went looked. And we haven't even started talking about all his stuff on sports because not only is John a Renaissance man, but he is also a sports fanatic. And he understands sports pretty much the way he understands media. Thank you so much, John. Thank you for joining us. It's been great talking to you. Always a pleasure, Jay. Look forward to the next time. Aloha.