 I'm Marcia Joyner and we are navigating the journey and today we are going back to the future. How's that? We are going to visit with my dear, dear friend and everybody knows I only talk to dear friends. Today is with Peter Oppo and Peter's latest venture is going back to the future. He has decided to redo his life in music. So hi Peter. All right. How are you, dear? Oh, just fine. Back to the future. Hey, that's the thing right, mobilized for the future. Something like that. Yeah. So Peter, we were trying to decide. I met Peter when he was at, I was working for the city and he was too, but he was at culture and arts. So the paycheck was bigger. There's no money in arts. We're talking like a true musician. You know the joke about the musician that won the lottery, right? Won $3 million. Well, now that you want all this money, what are you going to do? I'm going to just keep working until the money runs out. Oh, and how long was that? It's going to just keep playing music until the money runs out. Yes. And then how long was that? But Peter was at culture and arts. And we had just gotten the Martin Luther King holiday. And he told me he wanted to, that I, you know, we were doing an art gallery exhibit. And he said, I want you to fill up the courtyard every month for the holiday. And so that's how our relationship started. And the courtyard at Honolulu Holly courtyard at Honolulu Holly. And gosh, I don't remember how long that's been, but it's been a long time. And so Peter was a great, well, he is a musician. And what I wanted to talk about was not so much that time. This is the anniversary of the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom. And it is the same time as the Martin Luther King holiday. And somehow it always gets tucked in with MLK. And we forget about it. So I asked Peter if he would play one song, or as many as he wants to, but one from his album that I just sit and adore. And that's Hawaiian nation. So just pick one. Let me give a kind of not so much an introduction, but just a little quick context. Groping wine I long story short, I ended up at the University of Oregon, ended up in the hook band in the 60s. And did that for a number of years. We were fortunate enough to have contracts with the electorate records, all the big labels, Columbia. And we traveled the nation for years, college concerts, etc. When I left Hawaii in 1957, it was not a good time to be Hawaiian. We were nowhere close. We've been silent for years and years and years. And it was a time when most Hawaiian parents, as an example, my parents stopped speaking Hawaiian because they wanted their children to possibly become American, so to speak. I didn't know until I was 25 years old that both my folks were in Manilao. They were native speakers. I know they spoke a little bit of Hawaiian, but they never did in the house. Me, my brother, three sisters. All right. This is growing up, 40s, 50s, 60s. I leave town in 57. I don't get back to Hawaii till 75. Boy, I have things changed. 1975, I'd get off the plane. The first thing I see is a Herb County poster. The Okolea project was just getting started. Now you have to remember growing up in my time and having left when I left, I really had very little clue. I knew I was Hawaiian, of course, Hawaiian blood. I knew some of the basics of being Hawaiian, but I really was a cultural ignoramus. I knew what my folks could teach me. But then again, parents of that time were not trying to make their kids Hawaiian. They're trying to make their kids less Hawaiian so they would blend. So here's this Herb County poster after all these years, I had really no clue of what it really meant to be a cultural Hawaiian. You know, you don't have to be an ethnic Hawaiian to be a cultural Hawaiian. Here's the Herb County poster, the project's good. And I see this Okolea, sails flying in the wind, they lay huluies out, the warriors on deck. I had never seen a picture like that that depicted what Hawaiians actually looked like, and what they probably were like back then. Because up until those days, all the stuff that we had that were presenting Hawaiian and its culture were done by European artists. And their job was really simply to describe and to sketch out really quick sketches of kind of what they saw. It wasn't any kind of in-depth artwork or illustrations. So we growing up were absolutely absent because we were an oral tradition. We didn't write anything, we didn't have pictures, we didn't have drawings, we didn't have graphics. So when we grew up during my period, we had no clue what we looked like except from what we saw from Europe. So now here comes Herb County, here comes, and now all of a sudden through his drawings, et cetera, we're beginning to see ourselves as a culture. Then so happened at the same time, the politics of being Hawaiian springs up. I am completely knocked out by beginning to understand my history, the so-called the illegal overthrow of Hawaiians, et cetera, and our search for dignity, our search for restoring our self-determination and all of that. And so they were the seven days with the concon and the rebirth, I guess, is the renaissance of the Hawaiians in that, in that very period that you're talking about. And so now it's short enough. So now I come from a music background, largely folk music, a lot of songwriting in folk music back in LA and New York into this. So now I'm swept up with my Hawaiianness and trying to figure out who I am. And so I start, I'm a musician, so I started writing about it because back then there were not a song, not a lot of song being written about sovereignty, about self-determination, about any of that. Probably the closest thing that came up was, oh no, I forgot the title. Anyway, getting to the song. So this is the first song that I wrote feeling my Hawaiianness and it's called Song for Sovereignty Songs. Sing a song of sovereignty? A sovereignty song. That's the official title. Oh, okay. And when I look back today, the word sovereignty is somewhat misconstrued. When we say that Hawaiians are seeking sovereignty, we're really talking about Hawaiian seeking self-determination. In other words, we need to be able to convene ourselves, to organize ourselves, to seek out how we might be able to create a system of reconciliation with the federal government in order to ease the pain, to wipe the slate clean, and to either, I mean, there are different options in the self-determination package. One, you hear from a lot of, we have 12 Hawaiian nations today. Exactly. Organized. So you have this whole spectrum, everything from becoming like the Native American Indians, who's seceding from the union, that whole spectrum. So when I say self-determination, I'm talking about the Hawaiian's ability to organize and to determine their own future. So that's kind of what this song is about. And wow, there's a long and deductible song. That's okay. That's okay. I just absolutely love this whole CD. So Song of Sovereignty. Okay. So The Ages in an ancient melody. It's a song you should not be afraid to sing. It's a song that was written by our father's father's hand. It's the only thing our commander can understand, that the future lies. Sing a song, your song is the thing you have. Thank you so much. You are welcome. I, since you mentioned why and I, then you have one song on here. Why and I? Yeah, with the why and I song. Yeah. Yeah. You wanted me to sing? Yes, please. Well, I, you know, I can't do most of the songs because it's been so long. That CD was so long. I don't remember all the lyrics. I need the lyrics. Okay. Let's do, let's go back to the back. I'll tell you, let me tell you, my favorite, my favorite cool Song of Sovereignty song. It's a Liko Martin song. Liko Martin, for those of you who are old enough to remember him, Hawaii Aloha. Well, I was going to do a Liko Martin song. Isn't that Liko Martin, Hawaii? No. Hawaii Aloha? Yeah, I'm sorry. Yes, Hawaii Aloha. Yeah, Liko Martin was like Hawaii's Bob Dylan. Yeah. He wrote, he wrote a lot of great songs about the politics of being Hawaiian. And this one is, was pretty much of a pretty good kit, different versions of it. But Liko Martin was one of my, my great inspirations in writing about Hawaiian stuff, so. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Wonderful song. Thank you. I had forgotten. It's been so long. Yeah. Yeah, I forgot. Yeah. Now tell us, Liko, I was just looking at, at this one. Anthology. Anthology is a CD that was kind of an attempt on my part. By that time, I had five CDs out. And that represents kind of a collection of the songs that I liked the best of the five CDs. So yes, it is an anthology album. Well, which one do you like best? That or you mean versus, versus the Hawaiian nation? Or which song? Which song do you like best? Since you're going back to the future, so what do you like? I like all of it. I like all of it. What do you want to play for us? Oh, oh geez. This turned into a music video. Yes, it is. It's your music. You got the copyright. Yeah. So actually, I lied about the first song. So I would do song with, not the first song I wrote. No. Yeah. I forgot about the first song, which is on that CD. It's called which is title. You know what I mean? It's when you rise up and follow me. Actually, it became, it was somewhat of a hit. I recorded that song with Del Beasley. We did a CD together called Apollo and Beasley. And it was a song I wrote actually on the big island. And I was just starting to learn about, relearn about my Hawaiian. Anyway, it's another one of those self-determination type of songs. It's not a song that tries to remember. Instead, you're going back to the future. So what does that mean? What are you going to, from where you are today? What are you, where you're going? There's a, I'm going to try to give you the simple answer. It's more complicated. I'm 82 years old. So am I. One of the things that I'm learning about. I said I'm 82. There's no big deal. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's true. So I'm 82 years old and I've come to the conclusion as I age that if you want to stay alive, you want to stay healthy, you want to be happy. You got to reinvent yourself. You know, most of the people that you knew when you're 82 are dead. Okay. A lot of the things of the conditions of existence in the world has changed. The difference today from when you and I growing up, cell phones. So trying to adapt through age is, if you're not on it, and if you don't stay on it, and if you give up and keep talking about how much you're looking to retirement, for those of you do, when they say retirement, this is for those who mean to stop working and do nothing. That's the sure road to death, at least mental death, right? So 82, well actually when I was 81, I decided I need to shake the tree. I needed to get to start creating new circles of friends, renewing old friends who are still here, paying attention to family, and doing something with my life that has some meaning, and is something that I am passionate about. I spent 40 years, the last 40 years of my life in government service, and I loved it. And I spent much of those 40 years in doing Hawaiian, you know, as an OHA trustee, et cetera, doing Hawaiian things. I've now decided to go back to the 60s and do what was I doing then, which is playing music. So not only back to my future of playing music, but back to my future by playing the music of the 60s and the 70s, which is still relevant today. The Bob Billions of the World, Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, all these people are still popular. And some of the young kids don't even know who they are, but when they hear the music, they go, wow, grandpa, that's pretty cool. Who is that? No, they don't know. They don't know. Back to my future is about going back to where I was then, but knowing what I know now about what it takes to live and to try to be happy in relationships. And it excites me. I get up in the morning now. I'm excited about seeking new opportunities. I get excited about some of the new friendships that I do. My wife and I are trying to stay active. So that's what I mean by back to the future. It's going to be the title of my new CD. And you're recording more music. Yeah. Great. Great. And so my goodness, we are running out of time. That went fast. But what can I say? Yes. So now I have to tell my Martin Luther King story. Okay. Oh, I love the story. Yeah. Yeah, we have time for that. Yeah, let's do it. Martin Luther King story. I am, forget what year it was. I am Speaker of the House. Martin Luther King was assassinated. His wife was traveling around the country based on a congressional decision to allow states to determine whether or not they were going to, they could have a Martin Luther King day. And it was left up to each state to decide. And the condition was they had to substitute another holiday for it. So, so Loretta Scott King, his wife, with an entourage was going to every state capitol and she came to Hawaii. I'm Vice Speaker of the House. So I set up a meeting with her and the entourage and the Speaker of the House. And I'm not going to mention his name now because it doesn't make him look good, but he was a nice guy. So Speaker of the House and we have President of the Senate, all the important legislators were there and some people from the administration. So Loretta gets up and she does all her justification about why we should make honor her husband and create a holiday here for her. So beautiful presentation, just lovely. So she finishes and the room is silent and we're in the Speaker's office. So we all kind of look to him to do the opening, you know, response. So the first thing he says is, you know, Loretta, Hawaii, we don't have a lot of Negroes here. Oh, we wanted to crawl under the table. And you know, it was, you didn't mean that in any way, but she was, it wasn't very worldly in the sense you know, it didn't. No, it took us two years to go through all of that to get the holiday, but that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, listen, sweetheart, you will come back and sing some more for me, won't you? Yeah. Next time we'll set it up a little better. I'll set up my end and Hallie, take care of the thing about the delays and stuff. Well, thank you. This has been a real pleasure. And again, I want you to come back as you keep advancing the future. Because, you know, at 82, that's all we can do is the future. And I want to get in the plug, plug in for Sink Tech. I think Sink Tech is a really valuable service. I've been here four years now and I'm loving it. Yeah, it's great. Well, thank you for inviting me to be here. Thank you.