Ron and Mackey

The other day I went to have lunch with a camera operator friend in Reseda.
His name is Ron and he's I would guess in his mid-fifties,
Maybe around the same age as my dad.
I brought him a bottle of tequila I got in Mexico to thank him for steadicam-ing for me.
I drove to his house which was in a cul-de-sac.
On his walls were photos of people and places he had encountered and visited:
Thailand, India, Nepal, Snoop Dog, Phil Collins, OJ Simpson, the Great One - Wayne Gretzky.
Then he showed me his backyard. He calls it his miniature Hawai'i...
Or how he remembers Hawai'i.
Or what I imagine some backyard in Hawai'i looks like:
A swimming pool, a bar, cushions, tropical plants, sea shells...
Ron had lived there for several years in the 70s, haunting the disco bars, camera-operating now and then for some TV stations and meeting girls then taking them to Tantalus lookout.
He pointed to pictures of him on the beach.
He had long brown hair and a moustache which made him look Mexican even though he's mixed-Filipino.
He told me to listen to the music of Kalapana and that I won't come back the same person.
And that inside I will feel the Hawai'i curse of the islands.
I'm not sure what he's referring to exactly but I feel like Ron is one of those people, like my dad and like many others, that despite his easy smile, warm laughter and bright eyes, he has an irreproachable shadow inside.
Somehow Hawai'i embodies this emotional anatomy that he calls a curse.

He told me he was friends with Mackey Feary and that his story was very sad.



Yu