NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

In more than a month the 7th Guam International Film Festival will be taking place at the Guam Museum. I received word this week that my latest Chamorro language nerd collaboration with Kenneth Gofigan Kuper will screened. It's title is "I Sengsong Arkham" and follows in the vein of our previous film "Påkto: I Hinekka" in that it features us playing a game that few would ever associate with the Chamorro language or culture, in the Chamorro language. The game itself is called "Arkham Horror" and is a Dungeons and Dragons style game based on the works of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. There are several other Guam and Micronesian based short films and documentary that will also be featured. Thinking about this has put me in the mood for some Guam movies, of which there aren't many, and most of them are not very good.  The first generation of Guam films, meaning films that were made on Guam in the 1960s and 1970s, didn't feature Guam as Guam, bu

My Pacific Daily News columns from the past two weeks focused on Chamorro music and how to determine what makes a great Chamorro song. It didn't pick any favorite Chamorro song, but it was fun thinking about the issues and how one might go about it. Here are the two columns. ******************* The decades since World War II have brought a great number of changes to Chamorro culture and Chamorro life. Practices and trades once considered essential to life have disappeared or been adapted to societal and technological changes. The decline of the Chamorro language is one of the clearest ways you can perceive these changes. But there is one way in which the Chamorro language, even as it was banned in schools and not taught to children in many homes, remained alive and well, and that was in Chamorro music. During a time of rapid Americanization, where Chamorros were actively giving up and tossing away things that had once defined them proudly as Chamorro

It is almost time for Chamorro Month. I'm getting in the mood for it by stretching myself too thin with a sakman-load of projects and presentations. I've also spent the day listening to Chamorro music. Not the usual cha cha style, which has its own merits, but the more conscious Chamorro music. There are so many songs out there that for me have a far greater and deeper message than most Chamorros allows themselves to think about. Those are the songs that fill my soul and keep me going. Johnny Sablan has so many of them. The group Chamorro had half an album filled with them. J.D. Crutch has a couple. K.C. Leon Guerrero one or two. One group which isn't as well known as a group, but is comprised of many famous local musicians is Native Sun, which released the CD "New Horizons." Although most of the songs on the CD are in English it has a definite island feel to it.  The song that stuck out the most for me was "Ko Gaige Hamyo?" o

I was racking my brain recently to determine what was the first ever Chamorro song that was featured in a motion picture. Noon Sunday was the first every motion picture to be filmed primarily on Guam, prior to that some minor filming had been done on Guam for World War II and Godzilla films but nothing substantial. Noon Sunday was not set in Guam, but it was the first film to feature extensively the island of Guam. Guam was the locale for a fictional Pacific island that was being taken over by a menacing Asian power. Almost all the speaking roles went to people from off-island (from the US or the Philippines), and Chamorros ended up playing most of the "extra" roles. As a result the film didn't feature any Chamorro music. You do find documentaries and television programs, all locally produced that feature Chamorro songs of at least Chamorros singing songs. Guam's History Through Songs, made by the late Carmen Santos is a perfect example of this. For those of you u

A friend of mine Jesse is planning on creating a blog for collecting Chamorro song lyrics. I fully support her in this endeavor. Creating something like this would be a huge public service for the Chamorro community, not just on Guam, but everywhere. One of the main reasons that brings people to my blog is the presence of lyrics for some Chamorro songs here. There aren't many and they have been posted in scattered ways over the years. Everyday a Chamorro somewhere in the world searches for the lyrics to one of the most famous contemporary Chamorro songs "Apo Magi" by J.D. Crutch. As a result they tend to end up somewhere on this blog. I have some Johnny Sablan lyrics here as well. Music is the key way the Chamorro language has survived, even if it has started to die out in so many other facets of Guam life. It is something that even those don't speak the language enjoy and appreciate. It has helped keep the language as something you hear around the island. You c

When you look at the pantheon of Chamorro legends and epic stories, there is quite a bit of love there. Unfortunately much of the love is of the tragic variety. All of the various versions of I Puntan Dos Amantes or The Two Lovers all end badly with a lovers suicide taking place in Tumon. Guam's own version of Romeo and Juliet that tells us how the Atbot det Fuego got its red leaves. Even the story of the white lady in Ma'ina has versions about true love gone awry. It makes me wonder sometimes if Ancient Chamorros truly had such a dim and depressing view of love, or if the tragic effects of young love is something that comes after the Spanish and their attacks on Chamorro sexuality and culture? The Spanish accounts talk about the deep love that Chamorros of opposite sexes would have for each other. How they would put that affection into beautiful songs and poems. Once Catholicism dominates Guam and Chamorro life this changes. The love is still there, but now an incredible

In my Guam History classes this last month we read the poem below written by my pare' Julian Aguon, titled "The Mango Trees Already Know." The poem is written in the shadow of the impending military buildup to Guam, and is about how the warning signs, the possible dangers to our island and to the Chamorro people are all around us, but we seem to be incapable of doing anything to protect ourselves. Julian even discusses the death of his father to cancer, and forces an important connection between how Guam has become modernized and militarized since World War II and the alarming rates of cancer and disease. I asked my students this past week "What is it that the mango trees know, that we don't?" or "What is it that they know, that we refuse to recognize?" For me, in answering that questions, my mind quickly turns to the film The Happening, by M. Night Shamalayan. For those unfamiliar with the movie, people in the East Coast of the United States s

As I've said before on this blog, alot of people, when Googling or (now) Binging around on the internet for Chamorro stuff, they end up on my blog. The majority of those people end up on my blog looking for English translations to Chamorro songs. I have a couple translations of songs on my blog, the most popular of course is for J.D. Crutch's unforgettable, epic cover of a very forgettable BeeGee's song, "Apo Magi." But I also have translations for other famous and awesome songs such as: Hagu Inan i Langhet by Johnny Sablan Pues Adios, Esta Ki - by Tainå'an Guam, U.S.A. - K.C. Leon Guerrero Guinaifen Manglo - J.D. Crutch An Gumupu Si Paluma - Tainå'an yan Johnny Sablan Puti Tai Nobiu - Flora Baza Quan I always give warnings with my translations because sometimes parts of the song aren't exactly clear to me. The audio is bad or I mis-hear the words and so I end up translating it incorrectly. This has happened a few times and usually someone emails t

I am a geek and I am a geek about a lot of different things, comics, movies, manga, anime, video games. But the biggest thing that I am a geek about is Chamorro stuff. I love using the Chamorro language, writing in it, singing in it. I love learning all I can about Chamorro things, reading about them, writing about them. So I am un gof dongkalu na geek Chamoru. But as a big fat Chamorro geek, I often find myself frustrated. Although there are plenty of young Chamorros out there that I can speak to about my geek loves, there is practically no one out there who I can speak to about these things in the Chamorro language. I can speak to my grand parents and plenty of older relatives in Chamorro about some things. For instance I can talk to them about the things they regularly discuss, such as the war (World War II), their childhoods, family stuff, or even The Young and the Restless. But if I want to have a discussion about which is the best Star Trek movie, or which English voice actor do