NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

During the pandemic lockdown on Guam, I was feeling at various points, like so many, stressed and anxious about the world and what was happening and what might happen. I was fortunate to still have a job during the lockdown, and because of technology like zoom and social media, I could still keep up my community work, by teaching classes in the Chamoru language and also history. I also was able to keep up with Fanachu! the podcast for Independent Guåhan. Because of so many people sheltering at home, our audience grew exponentially. One thing that I found myself doing more, like most people with a certain level of privilege and comfort, was watching more things online, on laptops and on my phones. Movie theaters were closed, but Netflix and Youtube were always open, so long as I had data on my phone and wifi in the home. As most people were locked down, sheltering in place, only encouraged to go out and explore for essential tasks or errands, things in general started to shift to becomi

“Chamorro: The Movie” by Michael Lujan Bevacqua The Guam Daily Post September 16, 2015 How many people remember the movie “Max Havoc: Curse of the Dragon?” It was directed by cult film-master Albert Pyun and starred Richard “Shaft” Roundtree, David “Kung Fu” Carradine and Carmen “just in one scene” Electra. It was shot in Guam in 2004 lauded locally as “Hollywood coming to Guam!” The filmmakers promised to help create a new film industry on the island and tempted local leaders with the idea that “if we film it, they will come” or once the world sees “Max Havoc” on the big screen, people will be lining up to film their movies on Guam. Local businesses and GovGuam threw money and support at the film, eager to expedite the Hollywood celluloid rush that was on the horizon. This was all soon proved to be ludicrous. The film made no money and was never even screened in a theater. It eventually became the object of a huge lawsuit between GovGuam and the filmmakers. I’ve long

“The Talented Island of Guam” by Michael Lujan Bevacqua July 31, 2014 The Marianas Variety If you didn’t get a chance to watch “Talent Town,” the latest film from the filmmaking duo The Muña Brothers this past month, you really missed out. The film was an engaging and exciting take on the state of art and creativity in Guam today and a call for both artists and their audience here to take things to the next level in terms of representing Guam. Full disclosure, I am one of the people featured in the film and so I do have some positive bias towards it. The Muña Brothers are known for their work on “Shiro’s Head,” which is considered to be the first Chamorro/ Guam-movie. Other movies were filmed on Guam before “Shiro’s Head,” but this was the first one that took the island’s identity, especially its Chamorro heritage seriously. Whereas other films such as “Noon Sunday” and “Kaiju-ta no Kessen Gojira no Musuko” just used Guam as just a backdrop and bas

Guam is truly fortunate to have its own international film festival. It is even more fortunate that it has been able to enjoy this festival for three years in a row now. But it is the most fortunate of all, and I don’t think we realize it enough, that we have people here who are willing to take on the task of organizing the festival and making it a reality for the community. The 3 rd Guam International Film Festival, titled “Beyond the See” took place last week. All in all, the festival offered over 45 films from across the world and took place over 6 nights at the Agana Shopping Center. The trailer for the film festival invoked the word “passion.” The more films I watched and the more I interacted with both audience members and filmmakers, the more I could feel this passion. Filmmaking, especially in this small-scale, grassroots form is a very delicate and personal art. For many filmmakers, it is something they want to do, hope they can do, but struggle to find ways to su

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

“The First of Many” Michael Lujan Bevacqua The Marianas Variety 10/5/11 It is natural in life to be enamored with the aura or the prestige of being “first.”To be the first of something, the first to do something ensures that amidst the seemingly endless throngs of humanity, you may always be guaranteed some significance. Your name may appear in almanacs or encyclopedias. You might become trivia for crossword clues. You and your legacy may be something that nerds use to outdo each other in terms of random knowledge accumulation. To be the first means that when you are remembered people will use active, yet often times cliché metaphors to describe you; you are a trailblazer, pathfinder, boundary buster, glass ceiling shatterer and a history maker. The excitement around the “first” of something can sometimes be peculiar, especially for those receiving the title. Even if it is your name that is written down, it is truly the world that should get the credit. Too often you being “the

This was originally posted on the website Guamology which was run by the Muna Brothers, Don and Kel, but closed down recently after a two year run. I was a writer for the website, sometimes posting every week or so, sometimes once a month. It was a very fun and very informative website and I was happy to help build it since it started in 2008. I cut and pasted a few of the posts that I didn't have records of because they were on my old laptop which was stolen last year. I decided to share one of my painting posts below: ************************* Welcome to another installment of the Joy of Painting! Where I take pictures and write up the progress of a painting that I am making, to go beyond the surface of an artwork, and get into the evolution, the beauty, the struggle of making it. This week’s segment is dedicated to Sarah , who requested that I try out watercolor this time around. The joy in this post’s title is in quotes because watercolor isn’t always a joy for me. Its

Gi i ma’pos na simåna, manegga’ yu’ dokumentario gi telebishon put i lina’la’ (yan I filosofian) Si Miyamoto Musashi, un hagas matai na guerrerun Samurai giya Hapon. Esta dies años mangguife yu’ na para bai hu fanuge’ kamek pat estoria put un tiempo annai I guerrerun Samurai yan Chamorro dumåña’ yan kumontra i sindålun Españot gi duranten i 16th century. Annai hu egga’ Shiro’s Head gi i ma’posña na sakkan, pine’lo-ku na ma sakke’ este na idea-hu, lao sahnge i fina’tinas-ñiha. Gi i kachidon-ñiha i mañelon Muña, i taotao Chapones ma sagåyi Guahan, ya ma hokse i Chamorro siha. Para Guahu, sa’ gof ya-hu i estorian i Samurai, ga’o-ku na umafa’maolek i Chamorro yan i Samurai, ya gi i fine’nina na i Españot ma kesagåyi Guahan, i dos ma difende i isla, ya ma na’suha i Españot. Puede ha’ un diha bai hu na’magåhet este na guinife-hu. Lao annai hu egga’ ayu na mubi put Musashi, gi duranten na ma “chronicle” i bidå-ña siha, ma na’entalo sinangan-ña siha ginnen i tinige’-ña, The Book of Five R

I’ve had this blog No Rest for the Awake – Minagahet Chamorro since 2004, and one of the coolest obsessive technological gadgets that you can use nowadays, is that you can track (in some way) just about everyone who visits your website. You can see where they are surfing from, see what link or what search brought them to you. Although I am still several thousand light years away from Leo Babauta’s Zen Habit’s web traffic levels, I still get a decent amount of hits, a couple hundred per day. And because of all these cool new programs, I can divide up those hundreds of hits into several different groups. The largest group per day are people looking for raw scans of Naruto comics or images of Naruto characters such as Hatake Kakashi or Hoshigaki Kisame . The second largest group are people googling “Guam” and “sex” and are directed to an article I reposted on my blog from the PDN titled “ Guam: Sex Capital?” The third largest are people who want to know how to say “I Love You in Cham